My Favourite Tipples from a Senior Research Librarian
Jinfo Blog

By Samuel Wiggins

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Sam Wiggins, a senior research librarian for a commercial law firm, embedded in their litigation and dispute resolution teams. He shares his favourite online resources ranging from Twitter chats to checking up on government business. 

Item

My role as an embedded librarian requires a large degree of specialist knowledge - keeping this up to date whilst also following wider developments in the library and information profession can be tricky. My role as SLA Europe president and as a CILIP chartership mentor certainly help to keep me aware of current trends, but I also make use of the following sites on a regular basis:

• Social Searcher: Social media can provide a wealth of information relevant to all businesses, not only to law firms, but keeping up can be tough. I frequently use Social Searcher as a quick and easy way to monitor developments on a single topic across a range of social media sites.
  
  It doesn't have some of the advanced search terms you might find on the sites themselves - and some of Social Searcher's features come with a fee - but it can still be really useful for broadbrush monitoring.

• #uklibchat: I must confess to having a vested interest in #uklibchat, as I used to volunteer to help run the site. It is a Twitter-chat based around all areas of librarianship, holding discussions roughly once a month.
  
  Over the last four years a vast wealth of knowledge has been built up on the site. Every chat is summarised, and is now accompanied by an opinion piece classed as a "feature" article. It is a superb way to keep up to date with current issues and developments within the LIS sector, and a great reminder that many issues we face on a daily basis span all areas of our profession.
  
  
• Coffitivity: Sometimes, concentrating on a particular issue can be hard. Either an environment can be eerily quiet or (more likely) just too noisy. Finding the right level of ambient noise can help concentration, and Coffitivity provides a series of high quality streams, piping coffee shop noises and light chatter to help your creativity. Great for when you need to knuckle down and focus!
  
  
• TheyWorkForYou: TheyWorkForYou is a great alternative to the www.parliament.uk site, providing an easy to use interface, a good advanced search, profiles of MPs with voting history, and an easy-to-use collection of materials relating to public bill committees.   

An article on FreePint I found particularly interesting:  

• When mentoring others, I encourage my mentees to reflect on their experiences - be that examining their own personal experiences, or summarising key takeaways from an event. Val Skelton and Sarah Huibregtse's article on "Reflecting on the FreePint Topic Series 'Best Practices in Information Skills Development'", was a great chance to see others summarising key themes from a series of posts, and drawing all the important topics to the fore for further consideration, highlighting a more formalised type of reflection.

Contribute Your "My Favourite Tipples"

Would you like to share your "My Favourite Tipples" with the FreePint audience? For contributor guidelines email catherine.dhanjal@freepint.com or visit the Publish with FreePint page.

« Blog