Meetings Secretary Report 2004 - 2005

Katharine Schopflin

The year began in July with the AGM, featuring a tour of CILIP's information centre, followed by dinner at Pizza Paradiso on Store Street. The change from the usual format of summer party to sit-down informal dinner, chosen largely because of the lack of a suitable party venue, was popular and suited the smaller grouping attending in 2004. However, it was decided that the 2005 event should be on a larger scale.

There were two events in October 2004: the annual Graduate Trainee Day and the Guardian's Research Department demonstration of their Research intranet. The Open Day was, as ever, well-attended with an interesting range of speakers. Friends House has proven an economical, attractive and well-located venue. Many thanks for Gertrud Erbach and Geraldine McBride for their organisation. It has been decided, however, that the Open Day should be redesignated for new librarians and students, as few organisations now employ graduate trainees. The Guardian event was also well-attended, despite poor weather, and it is hoped that other organisations will demonstrate online initiatives for AUKML in the future.

Past-Chair Ian Watson spoke in November, on the advantages and disadvantages of rolling out end-user databases. A discussion followed. Later that month, AUKML members were invited to the first Christmas party of the season, run by CiG, BIALL and ICLG and held at One Whitehall. Four members attended and were impressed by the venue and glamour of the event. AUKML is a co-organiser of this year's Christmas party (a bit later in the party season) and hopes there will be a larger AUKML turnout. Our own Christmas event, a quiz with Oxford Reference Online, demonstrating their new Dictionary of National Biography, was a fun way to experience a new product and brought out the competitor in AUKML members.

2006 began with a demonstration by Matt Holland of Bournemouth University of the TV Times Archive at IPC Magazines. Digitisation remains a popular subject and it is hoped that members took away useful knowledge from the talk. In March AUKML held its conference in York. This conference was well-received and attended, thanks to the work of my collaborators, Jill Tulip and Fiona Sanson. In April, the British Film Institute kindly organised a tour of their library, one of the best and certainly best-attended visit provided for AUKML members. Finally in June, the BBC's Ant Miller and Richard Wright gave a talk on TV Archive preservation. The talk was sponsored by the BBC's research.gateway intranet site and attracted a number of non-members. Many thanks to Jessie Draper for organising sponsorship.

As my three years as Meetings Secretary ends, I would like to celebrate how far we have come. AUKML has doubled the number of events it holds each year and attendees have either increased or remained stable, against a backdrop of information unit closures. We had our first regional event two years ago and plan more regional activity this year. Attendees are from a broader range of professional practice, reflecting the changing nature of the sector. AUKML's events will always be open to anyone interested and we welcome attendees and new members from other sectors. However, we want to remain relevant to our core membership and will always organise events which are relevant to information professionals of all kinds in media organisations.

22nd July 2004 - Visit to CILIP's Information Centre, AGM and summer party.
Venue: CILIP Information Centre and Pizza Paradiso, Store Street
Attendees: 17

4th October 2004 - AUKML/ICLG Open Day for Graduate Trainees and Students.
Venue: Friends House
Attendees: 34

13th October 2004 - Guardian Research Department intranet demonstration.
Venue: Guardian Newsroom
Attendees: 27

24th November 2004 - Rolling out databases to end-users. Debate chaired by Ian Watson of the Herald and Evening Times.
Venue: IPC Magazines
Attendees: 20

14th December 2004 - Christmas quiz and demo of the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Venue: University of Westminster
Attendees: 24

26th January 2005 - Digitisation of the TV Times. Matt Holland of Bournemouth University.
Venue: IPC Magazines
Attendees: 17

15th April 2005 - Tour of British Film Institute library.
Venue: BFI
Attendees: 20

7th June 2005 - Future of Television Archiving. Ant Miller and Richard Wright of BBC Information & Archives' preservation department.
Venue: BBC Broadcast Centre
Attendees: 17