Published Friday 30 April 2010 by Hanna Miettinen

Two free workshops are taking place in May, exploring how external engagement is influencing the future roles of library, information and IT services in UK universities and colleges.

Libraries, Resources and Information Management for External Engagement takes place Tuesday 25th May, followed by Extending IT support for External Engagement on Wednesday 26th. The venue for both is the Lakeside Centre at Aston University in Birmingham.

Each workshop brings together staff from these services to discuss some of the key issues emerging from engagement with the community and businesses outside of their institutions.

The attendees will get a chance to share their experiences as well as an opportunity to find out about the practical support available to help identify, understand and further develop their own external engagement strategies and actions.

The workshops are part of a JISC-funded Business and Community Engagement (BCE) project being delivered by JISC Netskills. Project manager Chris Young believes that the workshops will also clarify some of the terminology used in different institutions. He said:

"The sheer range of engagement activity types and descriptions can make it difficult to relate them to wider initiatives which could be providing key support and funding. These workshops should help people to make those connections and more importantly, better identify support that is already taking place - but is perhaps not currently recognised."

Find out more: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/projects/2008/jisc-bce-aware/