Friday 26 September 2014

CILIP MmIT 2014

On 11 - 12 September Ben Catt from our Serials & E-Resources team attended the CILIP MmIT 2014 Conference in Sheffield. Here’s his round-up of the event.


The Edge, Sheffield by Virginia Knight (source: http://goo.gl/8cyZWC) CC BY-SA

MmIT (Multimedia Information and Technology) is a special interest group of CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) which aims to unite forward-thinking members in exploring the role of new technology in information services. The group hosts an annual conference in which a key topic is explored by speakers and delegates from a range of library and information sectors. This year the two-day event was held at The Edge, University of Sheffield, and the topic was Sound & Vision in Librarianship: Going Beyond Words and Pictures. Here are a few highlights of some of the sessions attended:
  • Penny Andrews presented the LibraryBox, a modified wireless router which can be used as a portable, inexpensive and secure digital distribution tool. Penny demonstrated how LibraryBox, funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign, can make open access materials easily available to users ‘off the grid’. Delegates were invited to connect their devices and help  themselves to a wealth of free e-books, PDFs, music and video content. Practical applications for LibraryBox include promoting open advocacy and providing reading materials in locations without web access such as hospitals and rural areas. Here is a map of currently known LibraryBox locations around the world.
image
Photo: LibraryBox by Jason Griffey, reused under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC license.
MmIT 2014 provided a valuable opportunity to share new ideas on multimedia and technology in library and information services. It was great to be offered an insight into work being done at other institutions and to chat with library professionals dedicated to making their collections more accessible and open to the public.

http://mmitblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/cropped-mmit-logo1.png
MmIT logo, used with permission.

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