Subscription Update - What's New and What's Coming
Jinfo Blog

By Catherine Dhanjal

Abstract

Find out what's new and upcoming in FreePint's Content, Community, and Consulting including our latest product reviews; and articles and webinars in the "Best Practices in Information Skills Development" series. Find out about our Community of Practice events on "Getting Information Skills onto the Strategic Agenda" and "Turning Content into Curricula". Consulting projects include working with a client on "productising" its service offerings.

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Content (Articles, Reports and Webinars)

An index report for the last Topic Series, "Making Information Visible" has been published. This is a great reference tool, which organises the content from the series by such themes as technology, user behaviour and others.

You can also get a practical overview of "What We Learned about 'Making Information Visible'" in the wrap-up webinars offered the last week of May. Learn more and register for your choice of several 20-minute sessions.

The current Topic Series, "Best Practices in Information Skills Development", has three webinars currently scheduled:

• Improving Your Connection, Communication and Collaboration with IT
• Do You Know Your Skills Objectives?
• Getting Started with Effective Distance Learning

Webinars are included in your FreePint Subscription.

Although Topic Series drive the lion's share of our research and editorial planning, we also develop research and content around other areas of interest to information managers. Our recent coverage of ebooks in the corporate market is an excellent example. 

From survey results covering nearly 200 respondents, we present details on how organisations determine the success of their ebooks deployment and what information managers think of the different approaches vendors take to licensing. A related article compares vendors by collections, licensing options and other variables.

This is the first detailed study we are aware of that looks at ebooks specifically within corporate environments. Watch for a full report to be published shortly.

And, as always, we have plenty of coverage of vendors and products:

• Full review of S&P Capital IQ
• Full review of Solcara from Thomson Reuters
• The first parts of the full review of Infomart 
• Mini review of Lexis Advance HD
• Source updates for Factiva, Nexis, and Eureka/Europresse 
• Commentary on the continuing consolidation of the media monitoring sector.

Our planned coverage includes reviews of Linex Systems, Attensa, additional mobile legal tools, FirstWord Pharma and many more. If you have a suggestion or a request for a review, please contact us.

Community

Upcoming Communities of Practice sessions take two different views on information skills, depending on the needs and awareness within your organisation.

• First, in early June, we're offering a teleconference session, "Turning Content into Curricula", a workshop-format session which will help you create more focused, practical and effective learning experiences for users. The takeaway materials can be reused with other trainers and subject-matter experts, so you can "train the trainer".

• Then, later in the month, we're facilitating discussions on what it means to get information skills on the strategic agenda in your organisation. There will be two sessions of this teleconference, the importance of which has been heightened by our current research demonstrating how little forward-looking planning most organisations undertake to make sure their staff have the skills they need to be successful in the future.

We're also starting the planning process for in-person Communities of Practice sessions in the autumn of 2015, providing opportunities for buyers and sellers of information products to work together in a safe and collaborative environment. Watch for more details.

Consulting

We're working with a new customer to support top-to-bottom reorganisation of the North American information services offering. This is exciting work that draws on our research on Sources, Technology and Value, combined with the client's expertise in "productising" its service offerings. It's an honour to be trusted with such projects.

Find out more about a FreePint Subscription, which at the Content level gives access to all FreePint articles, reports and webinars, at the Community level gives access to all FreePint Communities of Practice (as well as all FreePint Content), and at the Consulting level adds a credit for up to six hours of annual consulting time.

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