Meetings Secretary Report 2001/2002

Katharine Schopflin

I took over the position of meetings secretary from Maria Nolan at the start of the 2001/2002 membership year. Unfortunately the remaining meeting which Maria had planned, a talk at ASLIB on media library recruitment, fell through because of lack of interest on ASLIB’s part.

The first meeting of the year was in December, when Gary Price came to News International to talk about the invisible web. Gary had been going to speak at our postponed October conference and wasn’t able to make the new date in April. This alternative date coincided with his visit to the UK for Online Information 2001. Although the turnout was small, everyone who attended agreed that Gary’s talk was excellent, providing many new insights into a much-discussed subject. Gary also said that of the many presentations he gave on that trip to London, this was the one he enjoyed the most. This was particularly gratifying given that Online Information paid for his flight and hotel bill.

In February Michael Brown, founder of visual images resources consultancy MBA Associates, came to talk at Time Magazine. In an informal, discussion-style format Michael outlined the main issues concerned with digitising photographic collections. This meeting was well-attended, something we have noted in the past of picture-oriented meetings. The following meeting, in an undersized meeting room at BBC Bush House, also had a good turnout. The BBC’s New Media Archivist Cathy Smith’s laid out the problems and pitfalls she had encountered developing an archiving policy for the BBC’s web content.

Overall, it has been a satisfactory year for meetings, and I hope we can maintain the momentum of good attendance in the coming year. I would also like to present more of a mixed programme, with talks not only on technical subjects, as we’ve had this year, but on issues more personally relevant to us in our workplace. A recent attempt to revive the London-based informal social evening was not a success and I’d be most interested in hearing from members if they would like to have any more socials and what form they think they should take.

Immediate plans for the new membership year include a tour of the LSE’s Norman Foster-designed library and, in August, Francis Muzzu of Sue Hill Recruitment will talk at Time Magazine. His subject will be the prospects outside of media libraries for media librarians, including the option of working freelance. This autumn, we will present our annual open day for graduate trainees in conjunction with the Industrial and Commercial Libraries Group and a visit to the Guardian ‘Newsroom’. In October we will have a meeting in either Glasgow or Edinburgh, given by the BBC’s Scottish Parliamentary Media Manager, Anne Longmuir. We also intend to have at least one meeting next year jointly with the Special Libraries Association European Chapter.

Plans are open for 2003, and I welcome any suggestions of subjects you would like to hear covered and speakers you think might interest members.

Attendance figures:
Gary Price (News International, 5th December 2001) - 10 people
Michael Brown (Time Magazine, 7th February 2002) - 23 people
Cathy Smith (Bush House, 17th April 2002) - 25 people