Tom Roper's Weblog

CILIP in London: Tony Benn

CILIP in London organised the evening event, a speech by Tony Benn. He entered the lecture theatre, mug of tea in hand and wearing what I thought was an NUM tie, though I was too far away to be sure.
Introduced by Peter Beauchamp, President of Cilip in London, he gave a characteristic Benn performance. He described libraries as universities which anyone can enter without A levels, and the record of the nation's experience. He pointed out how, with rapid advances in knowledge, all six billion of us go to bed each day more ignorant than we were that morning.
He said there were only three questions worth asking: what's going on, why and what should we do about it? He described his diaries and archives, telling us how a Miners Federation of Great Britain leaflet from 1935 proved invaluable many years later. His diaries now consist of some 13 million words, spoken into a tape-recorder every night; he felt he had to do it daily so as to be accurate. Crossman, he reminded us, used to leave writing his diaries till the weekend. He felt, as do bloggers, that he should not edit retrospectively, even if he later proved to be wrong. His archives are costly to maintain, not least in the cost of storage, occupying several damp garages, and he faces the problems of changing technologies, from the early wire-recordings through tapes to CDs.
He discussed freedom of information. Governments have always wanted to control what we know, and he cited the 1491 Heresy Act as an example. which forbade lay people from reading the bible. The nationalisation, as he described it, of the Church of England by Henry VIII, which was as much about control of information as the king's marital difficulties; later Milton advanced a theoretical basis for the freedom of press and after the Restoration, Charles II started the Royal Mail to be able to read his subjects' letters. The founders of Hansard were imprisoned for reporting parliamentary debates and Google is now being told by the US government to reveal enquiries to the security services. Governments want to know all about us, but what if we want to know about them? Existing freedom of information legislation is, he said, inadequate, allowing government to make charges for providing information and to suppress information it does not want to disclose. He cited the case of Walter Wolfgang, who made the best speech at the 2005 Labour Party conference, consisting of one word, "Rubbish", who was thrown out of the conference, interviewed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and consequently can now not travel to the US.
Are there any real secrets in government, he asked? Apart from the details of the budget, personal information and details of negotiating positions, he thought probably not. The most secret document he ever saw as a minister was a centrifugal method for enriching uranium; the same week he saw this highly classified document, it was published in the New Scientist. Malice, gossip and rumour are damaging, accurate information is not. He suspected ministers do not want the public to know quite how ignorant they are, while civil servants do not wish it to be known how powerful they are. The younger generation have to live in a world where we have the power to destroy the human race, never possible before, but equally have the power to solve the world's problems, to provide free HIV drugs for Africa, to protect New Orleans from floods. to illustrate this, he quoted from a letter sent to him while he represented one of the Bristol constituencies, at the time when the Soviet Union had landed a vehicle on the moon; if the USSR could do this, asked the constituent, was there any possibility of a better bus service in Bristol? (He quoted this same example when I heard him at Tolpuddle earlier this year).

Questions from the floor:
How public libraries could comp[ete with other local government services for resources. Tony reminded us of the introduction of museum charges, and said public libraries should be defended, being universities for so many people.
What will happen to your archive when you die? Someone will take them over; and he has been talking to the British Library
Would you encourage others to keep a diary as you do? He felt that most political memoirs were worthless, citing Douglas Hurd and David Blunkett's efforts as examples. He uses his archive every day
Why do so few young people vote? He thought it was not apathy, but that people no longer feel represented but managed by politicians.
I there were greater transparency in government, would ministers be more cautious? No, he thought. Some claimed that it might undermine cabinet cohesion, but he thought rumour, gossip, malice [of which there must have been a great deal in the Wilson cabinet, and indeed in every other-TR] were worse. These battles have to be fought in every generation, there is always the possibility that the victories won by Milton and Hansard, Milton could be reversed.
What about the History Matters campaign? He felt a historical understanding to be essential, though not the history of the rich and powerful. For example the lessons of the first British imperialist adventure in Afghanistan in 1834, new Labour have the illusion that history began in 1997
He mentioned Paul Robeson's visit to SOAS, where we met, the English Revolution, and the Tolpuddle martyrs.
How can public libraries stay free in the face of threats of privatisation from the World Trade Organisation. He thought the privatisation of libraries awful: democracy is revolutionary, citing the example of Birmingham where power at the polling station developed public services, by contrast now any one with a few million can buy a city academy.
Does he read other people's diaries? No, he uses books mostly for reference and finds writing terribly slow. Authenticity doesn't always come out of a book.
Are you a member of your public library? I use it, but I'm not registered. He uses the House of Commons library and has high praise for the staff there, though he is conscious of an old tradition there, where the librarians seem to be guarding against theft. There is a high desk he likened to that at a police station.

His speech has also been described by Ruth Rikowski. Readers may care to compare her account and mine http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Tony%20and%20Caroline%20Benn

Technorati Tags: freedomofinformation, tonybenn

CILIP Member's Day: the afternoon

I've listened to a number of President's addresses over the years, delivered by presidents of CILIP (those of Maggie Haines and Debby Shorley stick in the mind as particularly fine examples) and of the precursor organisations, the Library Association and the Institute of Information Scientists; as an employee I have also heard several Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons presidents hold forth. There is a speech day atmosphere to these sorts of events, and, as with school speech days, unless a Maggie or a Debby speaks, the proceedings are usually dull. This year's presidential address, given by the current office-holder, Martin Molloy a public librarian from Derbyshire, chair of the Reading Agency and the government’s Advisory Group on Libraries, managed to be both dull and unpleasant..
Having said that he considered the important thing about CILIP to be the professional support and friendship it offers, he then made veiled and nasty attacks on other office-holders. He asserted that the role of President was undefined, (puzzling in itself, as in recent years I understand that the job has indeed been closely defined, as the presidential section of the website used to describe), that not enough people came forward to do it, that few vote in the elections, and that while the office should command respect, he implied that some presidents may use the office to advance personal careers and agenda, an extraordinary and irresponsible statement to make, and one which clashed oddly with his final statement, an appeal to support CILIP and its presidents. The rest of his speech was commonplace and uninspired.
The sourness caused by this was dispersed by the awards of fellowships, which showed the breadth of the profession, including public,m government, school, art , health and university librarians, as well as trainers, someone from the British Library and a bibliographer. Honorary awards went to Karen Blakeman, Maggie Haines, John Hobson, Sharon Markless, Karen Usher and Margaret Watson.
As for the AGM, annual general meetings provide lean pickings for the blogger. There were 107 members present, and we stumbled through a report on CILIP's work and the accounts. Edward Dudley made some points well about the way in which the current distribution of funds favours parts of the country with fewer members against the metropolis. The snappily named New Business Model Working *arty will consider this, promised Bob McKee, the Chief Executive.
Most of the AGM was taken up with finance. Nigel McCartney gave a clear account of the difficult position we find ourselves in, as the number of members declines and income from CILIP enterprises is unreliable. The £2 million deficit on the pensions fund has been resolved by mortgaging the headquarters and form now on CILIP will have three year rolling budgets and a business plan.

As described in the morning workshop, subscriptions for 2007 will move towards harmonised rates, finally achieving that in 2008. For most individuals, there will be a 3.5% increase [though in fact members on higher salaries will in fact have a reduction-TR] and the prompt payment discount will be abolished. An amendment on overseas members' rates was not put.

Technorati Tags: fellowships, martinmolloy, puppy

CILIP Members' Day: Workshop C

Today was CILIP Members' Day, marked not only by the events at SOAS and Ridgmount Street, but also by Ken Livingstone unveiling of a plaque to Bob Marley, Marley and the Wailers apparently having stayed in Ridgmount Gardens a few steps away from our profession’s HQ (not sure it's much to celebrate myself: I always thought of them as reggae-lite, and their Rastafarianism was just plain obnoxious).
I chose a morning workshop run by John Wooley and Louisa Myatt on CILIP's portfolio of products and services, and new ways of managing membership. It was, I must say, not so much of a workshop, more of presentations with not very much time for questions.
John gave a very upbeat view of CILIP enterprises, a major income source for the organisation, he claimed, made up of recruitment services, publishing, training and development, conferences and events. They have more than 35,000 customers, including growing international sales and £3.5m turnover from six businesses. He reminded us of the relaunched Gazette, Update's new special features, changes to lisjobnet.com, more training and development courses and commercial conferences.
The recruitment market is changing, and hard copy advertising revenues falling everywhere, John said. According to ABC figures 50% of recruitment advertising is now online and 12 million of us look for our next job online. Spending on online advertising is just under £1b, and is expected to exceed £2b by the end of this year.
For advertisers, a niche recruitment market is the Holy Grail and CILIP cannot afford to lose our advantage. There are new opportunities to bring in money. The new format of Gazette, designed by the Press Association Design Services cut print costs by 15%, and meets the new Royal Mail size requirements; advertisements have been moved to back, and can now be in full colour. New editorial content concentrates on recruitment and CPD, products and software, with a closer focus on CILIP activity and people and there are special features on major shows.
Lisjobnet.com [not always up to date, in my experience-TR] contains all the vacancies in the Gazette and those available through Infomatch and has around 500,000 hits a month, and 35,000 visits. They offer e-mail updates, [though mine have mysteriously stopped...and why no RSS feeds?-TR] Online only advertising would be a tenth of the price of print.
On editorial, he said that the Gazette works to a strict word count, including nothing over more than 750 words, Update, on the other hand is aimed at the whole LIS sector. They now use specialist freelance correspondents. Update is highly rated as a membership benefit, but brings in no revenue.
He said he was frequently asked why we don’t restrict access to lisjobnet.com to members, but he felt this would be counter-productive and that we should maintain open access.
Infomatch, the recruitment agency is reviewing operations and will offer an enhanced programme [does this mean they might actually put me forward for something-TR]
On the publishing front, Gazette will be offering a new Buyer's Guide while Facet publishing now have more than 200 titles, with thirty new titles every year, chief among them the New Walford and some new media titles.
Training and development have new branding and are now offering short courses outside London, in Glasgow Sheffield and Birmingham, as well as bespoke onsite training which is to be relaunched.
Are they good value for money? They are gaining market share from TFPL and Aslib and, at the CILIP members' rates are 40% cheaper than tfpl, 28% less than Aslib.
Conferences and events used to run at a loss, but now help CILIP's cash flow, as sponsorship income and delegates' fees come in first before bills have to be paid. They also have new income streams from sponsorship, commercial conferences, executive briefings, suppliers’ showcases the new lunch and learn. They have generated £50k of new business from sponsors and delegate numbers are up. He concluded by listing the results of a review of affinity benefits.
Questions covered the relationship between Update and Gazette, the possibility of holding events aimed at CEOs and other senior managers CILIP wants to influence, as well as the relationship between income generation and services
While we have a loyal membership base, said Louisa Myatt, there is a small and slowing overall decline in membership, so we need to make it easier and quicker to join, to respond to membership more promptly. Members now expect more and expect answers more quickly. A new membership database went live on. on 9 October and allows CILIP to store data on individual members interests and preferences, and to compare out information with external sources for example postcode data. Only 25% of members pay by direct debit, and the aim is to increase this proportion. For the first time there will be rolling renewal, so the membership year will run for twelve months from the date of joining, and the membership form will be simplified, There will also be reform of the subscription system, moving to a flat rate in 2008 and simpler subscriptions that more accurately reflect the cost of and value. The prompt payment discount is to be abolished, as it has proved too popular, around 14,000 members taking advantage of it and rates for affiliates and retired members will increase, in the case of the former to become harmonised with other members, in the case of the latter to reflect the true cost of serving them. There will however be a prize draw for ten free memberships.
CILIP's marketing effort has been aimed at clarifying the organisation's message and articulating the benefits of membership: access to knowledge, support for career, recognition and status, networking and community, promoting standards and excellence. These have been summed up by Grimwood Associates in the slogan, "CILIP membership, investment in your professional future". This will be adapted for the different sectors of the profession. The membership web pages will be redesigned. To promote better awareness of CILIP, some targeted campaigns are planned, including using existing members to sell the benefits of membership to others. One problem is that many potential members, particularly those in non-traditional roles, don't know we exist. There are plans to influence employers. CILIP held its first graduate open day recently, at which 100 delegates turned up out of 170 registrations. They continue to have a presence at Online, at the Library & Information Show and at Internet World. On the Saturday before Online, the Guardian will, in its Work section, carry a CILIP feature. Our awards, Carnegie and Greenaway are both approaching significant anniversaries.
Someone asked about advocacy, to which Louisa answered that advocacy and PR went together, both being essential to change
Several people there were worried about the prices of CILIP courses, especially for the unwaged. An unwaged rate is not always available or advertised, a point with which I find myself in much agreement. The reply was that everything CILIP does now has to bring in income (or be cash-positive in the jargon). John felt that the courses run by groups, which were cited as examples of cheaper offerings, were not of the same standard ads CILIP courses and that "you get what you pay for". Franchising hadn't worked, and online only training would be very expensive. Someone suggested sponsorship as a solution.
A member who was both librarian and a local authority councillor suggested that we were poor at lobbying in local government. There was enthusiasm for an online yearbook and directory of libraries, though John pointed out that there we might lose income (I pointed to the example of Health Libraries Group and the Health Library and Information Services Directory, formerly a dead-tree directory.

Technorati Tags: CILIPenterprises, marketing, membership, puppy

Online? Don't bother

I was wondering whether to squander more of the children's tuition fees fund on another conference and I thought of Online. There's a stream on the second day entitled Social software – delivering value to 21st century organisations, which looked interesting. The first speaker listed in that session is Alex Bellinger from Audacious Communications. I went to look at their blog just now and found that the most recent entry is dated 12 July. But that's bang up to date compared to their podcast, the most recent entry being dated 23 December 2005. It's hard to see quite what value will be delivered to the audience, never mind any 21st century organisations.

Technorati Tags: onlineinformation2006

Chepstow and Newbury

Phil Bradley pointed out, correctly, that the reader might gain more from my selections if I also gave their fate. So today I picked the following, none of which obliged. The closest to a win I could manage was Eagle Mountain, who came in fourth in the big race, the Racing Post Trophy, won by Peter Chapple-Hyam's 25/1 outsider Authorized; I think the heavy going may have been behind this surprise, though in the colt's only other race, on the same course, he came third on good ground.
Chepstow 155: Hasty Prince
Newbury 205: Desert Dew
Newbury 240: Alfie Flits
Newbury 315: Eagle Mountain

Technorati Tags: newbury, chepstow

Wedding anniversary

Today would have been my parent's 56th anniversary. My father died in 1997, my mother on 23 September this year.

This photograph shows them, Nancy and Tim, on their wedding day (also Trafalgar Day), at Compton church, near Winchester, 21 October 1950

Brighton Nightwalk

This sounds interesting (from the SCIP list)

"The Brighton Nightwalk is a live audio journey through the heart of the city taking you, the listener, along Brighton seafront and through the city centre at night.

Anyone who walks the night knows that streets after dark have their own unique pulse, an atmosphere missing in the light of day.
The walkers outnumber the cars, playing out their own dramas in the public arena, in varying degrees of intoxication, excitement or distress.
Sirens punctuate the cries of the crowds, while the sea provides an eternal rhythmic backdrop to the evening’s amusements.". It will be live at 11 tonight. I'm not sure if it will be available after that:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/content/articles/2006/10/11/brighton_by_night_feature.shtml

Technorati Tags: brighton, soundscape

One day in history: my diary

Here's my effort. This is the whole thing, as an unreasonable and arbitrary character limit on the site stopped me uploading the whole thing:
I am 51 years old. I live in Seaford, a small, highly parochial, south coast Sussex town, where, coincidentally, my uncle Lewis Roper was vicar many years ago. I live in a rented house on a hill near the outskirts of the town with my wife, Helen, who works as a school librarian, and my two children Will, aged 15 and Jo aged 12, who attend Seaford Head Community College, the same school where their mother works.
I slept badly last night and had to rise at 5.30 to attend the second day of a conference in London. I’ve recorded the conference proceedings and my impressions on my blog at http://tomroper.typepad.com, so I don’t propose to repeat myself here. I feel considerably constrained though by the absence of anonymity. There are personal matters and feelings that I would happily have future generations read, but which I would have some difficulty parading in public for my contemporaries.
I should also say that this diary is covered by a Creative Commons licence: reuse is permitted, indeed encouraged, provided attribution is maintained.
I don’t know why I slept so badly; my mother died a little under a month ago, so that may have something to do with it. Also, though a librarian with nearly thirty years experience, I have been unemployed for seven and a half months, which has taken its toll. Or maybe I was affected by the stimulus of the first day of the conference, of hearing ideas and theories from my professional peers, something I haven’t experienced for a long time.
The matter of unemployment may need some explanation for future readers: you may find it hard to comprehend a society that wastes the talents of its citizens. But such is the case; I had a wonderful and highly enjoyable job working in a new medical school one of several set up to increase the medical workforce. By rights my contract should have run out at the end of 2005 but they were kind enough to extend it for a couple of months. Since then I’ve been unemployed. I’m not sure where I’m going. I may change career completely.
It is a warm and windy October morning. This autumn has been very hot. But rain threatened by the weather forecasters has not come to pass, so after, in the army term, “a shit, shower and shave”, dressing in a grey suit, blue checked shirt, an agreeably loud tie and some suede brogues, and my usual breakfast of muesli, toast and honey, washed down with tea, I leave the house, the others still asleep, and walk down through Seaford to the station.
Seaford being the terminus, I have no difficulty finding a seat with a table. I am not a regular traveller on this service, and there is a certain unspoken hostility from those who catch commuter trains regularly towards casual travellers like me. The journey to Victoria station takes around an hour and a half. For all that my ancestors would not recognise many of the things I have, the mobile telephone I carry, the iPod on which I listen to music, the PowerBook G4 notebook computer on which I compose this, write my blog entries and browse RSS feeds on the course of the journey, it is one of the intriguing facts that our trains run no faster, and indeed are more cramped and uncomfortable than a hundred years ago. To emphasise this point, the train into London was delayed, first, the driver tells us in a world-weary voice on the train’s public address system, by trespassers on the live near Earlswood, then by the emergency services.
I arrive a few minutes late at Victoria and take the tube to Kensington High Street. For the 25 years, I lived in London, I travelled by tube, but I still feel the same excitement I used to feel as a small boy at a trip on the underground when I was brought up from Cambridge for the day. The memory of the bombings of 7 July 2005 is still fresh in many travellers’ minds, which adds a frisson.
The conference is in a Kensington hotel, in one of those non-descript chain hotels that could be anywhere in the world. The guests seem to be a mixture of airline crews, presumably from Heathrow, late-season tourists, the elderly, not bound by school holidays, and delegates to the conference. Pausing to buy some shoelaces from a shoe repair shop at the underground station, I arrive late, and the speaker has started but I don’t think I’d missed very much. There is wifi access in the hotel, but it’s very expensive: I grumble with another delegate and we wonder why free ubiquitous wifi is so slow in coming. The coffee is execrable, but then conference coffee usually is. Lunch is odd, but I slip out and have some better coffee in a nearby café. Towards the end of the conference, I meet someone I once worked with, very long ago, though she hasn’t changed a bit. I, I’m sure, appear very much older. There was a brief flirtation between us, though I doubt if she remembers. I do not mention it.
I head for Victoria on the tube, and have a drink in the station bar. I drink a large glass of rosé, which looks pretty and seems modish at the moment. I don’t care, it tastes nice. On the train home, I drink some more wine from the trolley.
When I arrive home I eat some cold lamb, the remains of a joint of Harris lamb I roasted at the weekend, with a baked potato. Everyone else has already eaten. In any case, we never eat together as a family: such is the fragmentation of the modern family. The children go to their rooms where they have televisions and computers. I go to bed around 10.30, after an evening of writing up conference reports.

Technorati Tags: onedayinhistory

Internet Librarian International: final keynote: Creating Communities, Interacting with Users

The final keynote was given by Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens.
Jenny observed that a word she had heard a great deal at the conference was community. But if you make a social tool available, you don't automatically have community.
How will you measure success? Possible metrics might include numbers of comments, subscribers, wiki contributors, IM questions, downloads, but there are more complex ways to measure participation.
She highlighted a number of library successes, for example
Ann Arbor District Library, whose whole library website is a blog
College of DuPage, IL: who had the story of how the library changed a student from Burma's life
Superpatron: a library user who developed an RSS feed of books he has on reserve
Princeton public library who developed a booklovers' wiki
Arizona State University whose technology plan is a wiki (but I think internal only)
Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary who use meebo me: see http://swem.wm.edu/resources/subject-guides/american-studies.cfm but why the "Swem Library does not endorse Meebo" disclaimer?
Thomas Ford Memorial Library who offer story time as podcasts
Georgia Perimeter College Decatur Campus Library who offer podcasts of what's new in the library
Bloomington PL who offer gaming
Crazy hats day at Homer Township Public Library in Flickr.
Lansing Public Library Celebrity Read: Flickr photoset
Jenny made the point that all these were free to create apart from the staff time involved, that there were now low barriers to experiment and adoption and decreased learning curves.
At the end she showed us an example of La Grange public library using Suprglu.com to create a combined picture of resources (but I can't find it)

Finally Michael Stephens spoke and here I 'm afraid my notes fail me, as he spoke with tremendous energy, and threw numbered lists at us relentlessly. He started with a cover of Newsweek who ran a story on Web 2.0 earlier this year and mentioned once more the
one day in history initiative.
How does one get get buy-in to new services? How does they best serve the library? He suggested we should read the OCLC survey of perceptions of library and information services. He cited a user of Lawrence Library in Kansas who claimed that libraries were inefficient, limited and obsolete. He suggested we should "expand the library brand", citing Starbucks who are now selling books [their books are as bad as their coffee, I should imagine-TR].
He suggested five things to consider when implementing a change: does it erect a barrier? Is it library or user-centred? Does it add more rules? Does it make more work for users? is it a damage control exercise?
He gave some frightening examples of unfriendly notices banning mobiles and games consoles.
We should go where users are; as Karen Schneider put it, "the user is not broken" Libraries need to be in myspace and YouTube
We should adopt a 2.0 philosophy, and create librarian 2.0, Collaborative services and trust: build culture of trust
He then gave five phrases to beware of: "we've always done it this way", "he or she is a roadblock", "IT won't let us", "there's no time" and "the director doesn't like technology". We must plan, dream and innovate and keep the library learning.
Plymouth State Uni Lamson library: OPAC as blog
It is now up to us, and the new wave of library school graduates will be important [his confidence in this was interesting, And I'm not sure one can be quite so sanguine about the situation i the UK; I wonder if in the US they do not have the difficulties in attracting bright young people into the profession that we have here. He referred us to the Squidoo library lens.
And here my notes run out; sorry, Michael, if I've traduced or truncated too much.

Technorati Tags: ILI2006, internetlibrarianinternational, library 2.0

Internet Librarian International: Internet Research Intricacies: Out-Googling Google: Finding what Google Misses

UKEIG and CILIP's very own Karen Blakeman, introduced by Marydee Ojala, spoke on alternatives to Google, though she offered some helpful advice on using the Beast of Mountain View, to wit to make sure that one uses the right section of Google, and to use advanced search options. Her slides can be seen here.
In her experience, that of UKEIG members and of many other searchers, Google results vary, and are frequently not reproducible: the Boolean OR operator doesn't work properly, the hits numbers seem to be fictional, the similar/related pages feature is very limited, synonym search with a tilde is unreliable and inconsistent and the link command is also flaky.
Other engines can offer different coverage, different search features, and use different algorithms for ranking.
Thumbshots.com allows one to compare search engine results and ranking, thus:
GOOGLE : tom roper
Overlapping Links: 20(20%)
Unique Links: 78
Total Links: 98

YAHOO : tom roper
Overlapping Links: 20(20%)
Unique Links: 80
Total Links: 100

Live, formerly MSN, is much more consumer oriented. It seems to be more up to date than Google, and offers link and linkdomain commands. New search features are often introduced but not always announced. It includes an RSS feeds search.
Yahoo web search, better accessed through uk.search.yahoo.com which bypasses that annoying quasi-portal of Yahoo's, is comparable with Google, indeed sometimes better. Boolean operators are supported, one can do some nesting, it seems to index more pdfs and other files than Google, and it has good link and linkdomain commands.
Alltheweb.com's live search is used by Yahoo as a test bed.
Exalead I think was Karen's favourite. It supports wild cards, internal masking, has a NEAR command, and an approximate spelling and phonetic search feature
Ask allows the searcher to refine by narrowing or expanding, though is not always consistent
Windows Live Academic search she considered better than Google Scholar, which misses for example all of Reed Elsevier's output. Live Academic allows one to format results to import into personal bibliographic software packages..
Should we use Google at all, she asked. It is sometimes better to go straight to other sources for news, company information or statistics.
For subject searches she recommended Intute (the UK Resource Discovery Network as was) which is now much easier to use and for business information alacrawiki.com. There are also general reference sources such as Wikipeida, and the old-fashioned structured databases.
For news she suggested Google News, but also Accoona, for blogs and RSS feeds Blogpulse, for audio and video Blinkx and for advertising in moving image formats Visit4info. For still images Flickr, morguefile.com and commons.wikipedia.com were all useful.

For cross-searching, clusty.com does clustering and an Italian cross-searching tool, trovando.it has some useful features.
She concluded with the searchers'' top tips:

•It's not your fault if Google doesn't work
• In Google use advanced search and be sure you're in the most appropriate section
• Experiment with cross search
• If there's odd results, go to the advanced search feature

Technorati Tags: ILI2006, internetlibrarianinternational, search