Information - Library

Society information at a key stage

From George Tuckwell, *Chair, IMC

After a bicentennial year packed with new initiatives, the pace of change has slowed somewhat in 2008. Nevertheless, during 2008 many new features have been added to our website, including an improved jobs listing service and a facility for Fellows and Candidate Fellows to include CVs alongside their Fellowship Directory data, and for employers and those looking for contractors to search them. These services have been very well received so far, and we hope that this area will thrive and grow in 2009.

Development of our online publishing and library activity has focused this year on the Lyell Collection, as described elsewhere in this report. But the scheme to allow Fellows remote electronic access to journals to which the Society subscribes, trailed in last year’s Annual Report, is now underway, and during 2008 the selection of titles available under this scheme, and the number of Fellows using it, have grown. We have also started to develop the range of external online information resources listed on our website, and we are starting to develop plans to deliver new information services in collaboration with others.

Perhaps the most exciting new development on the Society’s website this year has been the launch The Rock Cycle module, an educational module aimed primarily at Key Stage 3 students (aged 11-14), and generously sponsored by StatoilHydro. This has been extremely well received by students and teachers alike (and not just by those at KS3!). The Society worked closely with the Earth Science Teachers’ Association and others in developing the content, and in reaching out to a new audience we were keen to ensure that this part of the website conveyed quite a different impression to the traditional image of the Geological Society.

The Society now routinely puts online film footage of presentations at flagship events, alongside presentation slides. You can view the archive of Shell London Lectures and University Lectures on the Society’s website, as well as material from other events such as the open meeting on radioactive waste management held in October.

Towards the end of the year, the Information Management Committee started to explore new opportunities for communication, such as professional and social networking sites, blogs and YouTube, looking at what our members are already doing in these areas, and considering ways in which the Society might provide support or deliver its own material.