Web 2.0 / Cloud Computing events

Ahead of our final e-Delphi study on technology issues I thought I would highlight two events I’ve recently attended.

Get inside the cloud of information – private data in public places organised by TfPL, London attracted around 50 people from the public and private sectors and focused on what the cloud means not what it is. John Sheridan, Head of e-Services at The National Archives delivered the keynote covering their Power of Information taskforce work and the semantic web, highlighting the concept of ‘linked data’. The economics of using the cloud were examined and a range of people provided case studies of the early adoption of the technology, driven by the need to recover from a disaster to coping with a failing email service, to the need for more efficient and effective collaboration. The strength of cloud computing for collaboration featured strongly; the information management approach, interestingly, seemed to be based on the ‘keep everything’ premise. Speakers had few concerns about entrusting organisational data to cloud service providers such as Google assured by the contracts they had signed and statements about the location of their data (in Europe). An excellent interactive session provided the opportunity to exchange views on the potential uses of cloud services and delegates’ preferences and the breaks allowed further networking opportunities. Another excellent, timely event from TfPL who shared that they had adopted the cloud (Google Docs) to organise it. Full programme at http://www.tfpl.com/thought_leadership/cloudcomputing.cfm Listen to a brief review of the event in the next episode of our new Records Management Today podcast series (www.northumbria.ac.uk/records_management_today).

Archives 2.0: Shifting dialogues between archivist and users hosted by CRESC, Manchester attracted a small audience of archivists and academics. Speakers included researchers from CRESC, information professionals from a range of organisations from small archives collections to larger national collections and academics. Together they covered a very wide range of topics. For example, the use of GIS to understand movement of people in Manchester; the use of a blog and twitter in Deseronto Archives, Canada and its positive impact on extending the collection; the organisational approach to the use of Web 2.0 technologies taken by the National Library of Wales and the British Library’s approach to developing a strategy for improving access to its collections for social scientists and engaging them in the process; Web 2.0’s democratisation of archival practice (resonance here with records management practice) and a real-time recording of Brian Kelly’s presentation on a risk and opportunities framework for Archives 2.0, now on his blog http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/archives2.0-2009/ Fuller details of the event are available at http://www.cresc.ac.uk/events/archiveseries/Conference.html



Julie McLeod