Practical action on Jinfo's Research Focus, from an information centre director
Jinfo Blog

By Catherine Dhanjal

Abstract

The Insights and Actions Report from the Research Focus, "Developing an information-savvy workforce through strategic alignments" is available now for all site visitors. We asked a Jinfo Subscriber how she and her team of researchers have been using the resources from the Research Focus.

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We recently interviewed the director of an information service in the research field to ask for her feedback on our Research Focus, "Developing an information-savvy workforce through strategic alignments", and what practical steps she and her team have taken as a result of it.

Jinfo: What did you find most valuable about the Research Focus?

Information centre director: It made us realise that we could potentially have a greater impact by investing in stronger relationships with stakeholders. We have developed a series of elearning modules and have had success where our existing relationships are strong. However, our organisation is very siloed so it's hard for us to be embedded in onboarding and disparate upskilling initiatives.

The Research Focus has given us new energy and ideas on how to better embed ourselves. We've already done a lot around presenting information literacy as a problem-solving exercise rather than training on specific tools, such as Nexis. We try to frame our training from an end-user's point of view.

We do have a lot of information and training for people when they first start, but knowledge can get lost because they are required to absorb so much when they first start. Now we plan to make a more concerted effort to do a 60-day follow-up to find out how they're using the tools and what additional training we could offer.

Jinfo: How did it affect your thinking?

Information centre director: The Jinfo Research Focus has the whole team energised. It's like going to a conference, it excites you and makes you want to promote more of what you do. Jinfo also helps us bring more structure to our efforts and the way we organise information services.

Jinfo: How does Jinfo help you to stay ahead of the curve on technology developments and gain other insights?

Information centre director: The product reviews save us time, help us to get up the learning curve quickly and understand a product's capabilities.

The Community sessions connect us with people in similar situations so we can have conversations and share information in the sessions themselves and also offline with people we've met at the events.

Jinfo's content is so relevant that I know even if I have just 10 minutes I can go to Jinfo and find something relevant and high quality; it's a go-to trusted source for us.

Find out more

The main lessons learned from this three-month Research Focus, plus a thematic index to all content published, are included in the report Insights and Actions from the Research Focus "Developing an information-savvy workforce through strategic alignments", visit the Research Focus page to get your copy.

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