Content and Community picks for December
Jinfo Blog

By Catherine Dhanjal

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Jinfo's head of content and community, Catherine Dhanjal, highlights a must-read article, report, webinar and Community session from December.

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I hope you are all feeling rested and reinvigorated after the holiday season and looking forward to 2018!

One of the most enjoyable parts of my role as head of content and community at Jinfo is looking back over the month and getting a new wave of excitement about what we've made available to our Subscribers. This blog post gives me an opportunity to share that excitement, as well as to pick out some items you may have missed. 

Our Content and Community are driven by our research, customer comments and queries, as well as insights from attendance at conferences and events.

• Article: Billions of dollars are spent every year by pharmaceutical companies on their R&D efforts but those budgets are reaching stagnation. So I'm always interested to see how the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry is using emerging technologies and tools to become more efficient and to uncover new insights.
  
  In "New developments for pharma in AI and data analytics", Jeanette Eldridge looks at how the sector is adopting machine-learning and analytics through in-house development, through partnerships with acknowledged tech experts such as IBM as well as with newer market entrants like BenevolentAI, founded in 2013. 

• Report: At least once a quarter we undertake a fresh new research project and we've just published "Jinfo survey - data analytics needs and concerns 2017". This analyses the work undertaken in November and December and identifies challenges at the heart of many information centres' plans for 2018, such as skill gaps, why information centres aren't always brought into analytics projects, and how information professionals are grappling with the emerging data licensing landscape.
  
  Report author and Jinfo's director of research, Robin Neidorf, comments, "The introduction of the need to license datasets has created a new level of difficulty, not to mention unpredictable costs."

• Webinar: Our regular programme of webinars offers superb at-your-desk, at-your-convenience learning and an alternative way to absorb information or get up to speed on an issue. These 60-minute sessions are available live or to view post-session at your leisure. 
  
  The December session "Current awareness in 2020" concentrated on the steps needed to design future service offerings and the priorities participants had for improving their current service, from enhancing self-service options to gaining more control over sources. We also presented four models and explained the pros and cons and how they might suit participants' own organisations.
  
  
• Community session: Our live, confidential, facilitated Community sessions tackle topics from strategic planning to enhancing departmental skills. See our upcoming sessions here. 
  
  In December one of the sessions tackled "Current awareness platforms - is it time to make the leap?", with the opportunity for in-depth debate on the pros and cons of various platforms from Factiva to InfoDesk, and the factors to consider when making a decision. If you're not yet a Community subscriber and would like the opportunity to attend, do contact me for a taster invitation. 

Next steps:

• Keep an eye on our "What's new" section to see the most recent articles, reports and blogs in one dashboard, together with upcoming webinar and Community session listings

• Get a sense of what other readers find of interest by checking out the trending articles and blog items

• Share what's upcoming with our monthly "Forthcoming in Jinfo" PDF - great for physical noticeboards or adding to your intranet

• Find out more about what a Subscription offers you.

If you have a suggestion, do contact me, your thoughts are always welcome.

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