The Business of Knowing

My library events calendar for the year has kicked off tonight with the Cilip in London Sekford Arms meeting. Helen Nicol gave a really thought-provoking talk based on some of the findings from her MEd dissertation, What can blogging contribute to the training and development of project managers?

This evening, Helen highlighted the way that the traditional library skillset can be used in Web 2.0, and particularly stressed the importance of education and information professionals working together to help their customers access knowledge.There was some interesting debate on the distinction between knowledge and information and what technology brought to these – despite her philosophical interest in knowledge, Helen’s approach in the work context is pragmatic and focused on whatever we can do to help people learn.

Having read Helen’s dissertation and followed some of the discussions on her blog around informal learning and trust,  it was really interesting to hear her speak to an informal group of librarians on these topics. It was particularly interesting to see how she used her skill as a trainer and educator to bring even the most hardened technophobes (of which there were a few at the back of the room) round by drawing them into the discussion and by consistently asserting that the technology is not the focus or the answer, but helping people to find information / learn.

The other intersting part of the evening was the discussion from NHS librarians. I think this is the first time I have been in a room so full of health librarians outside CHILL and HLG events, and it was intersting to hear the challenges they face. Largely this seems to be due to the size of the organisation – one of them said that some research had shown that on the clinical side it can take seven years for awareness of a new treatment to filter out to grass-roots clinicians, which just illustrates the massive tasks faced by the libraries, NLH and Helen’s employer, Connecting for Health, which aims to roll new technologies and ways of using them out across the service.

I was particularly struck by how similar some of the information literacy challenges are to those faced by drugs workers – lack of access to IT, or irregular / infrequent access, large digital divide, especially among those without degrees or who went through university a long time ago. One of the audience members recommended a short course run by London Met – Facilitating Information Literacy Education – which looks really interesting.

As usual, a really thought-provoking evening (with great sausages), and I’m looking forward to seeing Helen’s comments on her blog when she has a chance to write it up.

Addendum July 2008

London Clip 15 is online now, including a report of the event:

Stephen Cook. The business of knowing [Report of a talk by Helen Nicol]. London Clip 15: 2.