Focus on ISG Sections:  The East Anglian Section
Janet Hughes, Hon. Secretary, ISG East Anglia

The East Anglian section of the ISG has been active since its formation in 1978. In those days it was known as the East Anglian Reference, Special and Information Section (RSIS) of the Library Association only becoming the ISG in 1986. Like the name change the emphasis on information has become increasingly apparent in what has transpired to be the information age.

The continuity of the group has been maintained into the 21st century (disputably now the knowledge age) due to the strong commitment of the committee members over the years. The current committee still continue to give their time freely and enthusiastically ensuring a full programme every year. Looking through past annual reports the only bad patch was in 1986 when a visit had to be cancelled, and a training workshop was called off the following year. This is not to say that everything always goes smoothly now - we have our moments - for example when a venue had to be changed at the last minute or a stand-in speaker located at short notice. Whatever the problems, we are proud to maintain a high standard of events and regularly offer a minimum of two meetings per year in the spring and autumn, as well as either basic or advanced reference workshops every other year. We hold our AGM each year with our spring meeting.

Our geographical area covers the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. It also includes one unitary authority - Peterborough City Council. Other cities in our patch include Cambridge and Norwich, which saw the devastating fire in August 1994 that completely destroyed the central library. Fortunately construction is well under way for Norwich's new library due to open in Spring of 2001. East Anglia is a relatively prosperous region with a good percentage of high-tech companies as well as service industries, and a high level of research and educational establishments. Our members come from a wide range of information services covering the usual mix of public, academic and special libraries. They come in all shapes and sizes too - from the one man band to the corporate knowledge centre. We do our best to reflect our community profile in our committee membership. At present we consist of four public, three commercial, two academic, two government and one independent library sector members.

The principal aim of our group has always been to bring together and represent those working in reference and information services in all library and information units across our region. We also aim to provide accessible and affordable training courses and to cover the hottest topics at our spring and autumn meetings. We are always on the look out for interesting venues and speakers.

Committee activity, achievements, problems

The committee meets approximately three times per year primarily to organise meetings and training courses. We also discuss issues that require feedback at national level. We use feedback forms from our meetings and training courses to evaluate how we can improve upon our performance at future events. We also consider suggestions that are put forward as topics for future meetings. However, our main source of inspiration tends to come from the professional press, which we scan for topical issues and interesting speakers. This combined with our own contacts usually makes a good starting point for any future event and everything else takes off from there.

We have developed two new committee roles over the last two years. The first is that of Meetings Secretary, an offshoot of the original Secretary's role, which was deemed to have become far too much for one person. The Meetings Secretary liaises with all the speakers, after initial contact by various members of the committee, to pull the final programme together and send out the publicity. She also ensures that the venue is booked, the correct equipment is on hand, and lunches arrive when they are supposed to (a thoroughly nail-biting exercise, but one that ensures the smooth running of our events). The Meetings Secretary also keeps a file of good venues and speakers (as well as some to avoid) so that we can refer back to them, if appropriate, at other times. The second new development has been the production of our own section web site, and we have a committee member who is responsible for keeping this up to date with information about our meetings and training courses.

Over the years we have found that The Easterner has been the best publication for promoting our events. This is the newsletter of a unique body of library professionals - the East Anglian Librarians Consultative Committee (ELIPP) which is an umbrella organisation with representatives from each of the individual LA groups in the region. The newsletter is therefore an ideal tool for targeting information professionals within our patch. This together with direct mailings to members is how we target our audiences and canvass for feedback. We also have a representative from our committee who attends the ELIPP meetings; this ensures that there is effective communication between our group and those within the region.

One of the biggest problems we have faced in recent times is the increasing pressure that committee members face from within their own organisations. Finding the time to attend meetings and committing to additional workloads is always difficult, and never more so than at the present time. However, we have found some acceptable solutions to some of these problems. The creation of the Meetings Secretary is one example. Other examples have been the decision to share the attendance at ELIPP meetings between committee members, and a committee 'post share' by two librarians from Norfolk County Council, which works well.

We have always felt that the information provided by the speakers at our meetings could appeal to a wider audience and that a written record of the proceedings would be a useful way of informing those unable to attend in person. Our committee has had a degree of success with the production of three publications on behalf of the ISG. Each is based on a particular meeting. Three titles have appeared so far:

                Future roles: information quality not quantity, 1998

                The virtual library, 1995

                Customer care in information services, 1992

Events and training

We pride ourselves on running lively and stimulating meetings. We are always interested in speakers with innovative ideas or radical points of view. As a result turnout to our meetings tends to be good - often up to 40 delegates depending on the capacity of the venue. We charge for all our meetings, which gives us the funds to pay expenses for speakers from all over the UK and allows more flexibility. We also occasionally plan meetings jointly with the ELIPP. Here are just a few of the positive comments we have received about our past meetings: 'interesting, helpful, stimulating', ' I am fired with enthusiasm', 'very relevant, very timely'. Not all comments are positive of course, for example: 'not enough handouts' and 'concentration on concepts rather than implementation'. Such comments have made us encourage our speakers to produce handouts where possible, and to focus on getting the balance between theoretical and practical aspects just right. Our experience has shown us that full day meetings are the most successful. We frequently have up to eight speakers in one day giving delegates real value for money and plenty of ideas to take back to their own information services. We have covered a wide range of topics over the years. These are the titles of the meetings for the last three years:

                Information 2000: use your e-sources intelligently (Spring 2000)

                Knowledge management: what it really means (Autumn 1999)

                Offering excellence in the real world  (Spring 1999)

                Life long learning; impact on libraries and librarians (Autumn 1998)

                Future roles: information quality not quantity (Spring 1998)

                Electronic publishing and document delivery (Autumn 1997)

Our training courses help library personnel come to grips with aspects of reference or enquiry work that they feel they need to understand in greater depth. Increasingly this has meant information available from electronic sources including the Internet. Tricky areas such as business or European information, official publications, and community information have proved very popular. We tend to use a workshop style with a range of trainers and rotating sessions that add variety and interest to the sessions. In the past we have attracted most attendees from the public sector via the county training officers. However, with the recent influx of government money for specific training in new technology from successful DCMS/Wolfson bids we are having to rethink our strategy and are looking to target commercial information units this year.

Outlook

We have come a long way since 1978 when communications were via telex or post and our meetings covered topics like 'Micro computers in libraries'. We are now in a truly electronic age where information is constantly expanding, and harnessing knowledge is the key. Technology is developing at break neck speed and the industry is almost as fickle as it is fast with new players emerging and disappearing in quick succession. It is an exciting yet daunting time, with major developments in our public libraries such as Norfolk's Millennium library and its single points of access initiative, the Co-East Project with Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough involved in a consortium of six library authorities with several commercial partners, ensuring greater sharing of resources and further access to e-journals and open learning programmes. It is in this climate therefore that we hope we can continue to cast some light where there is darkness and inspire optimism where there is doubt. We will certainly be learning along the way and hope that our colleagues in East Anglia will continue to join and support us. There is certainly nothing to lose and everything to gain.