UK Online User Group
Quarterly Report, 31st September 1998
1.Conference
The main event this quarter was the 20th birthday Conference held at UMIST
on 14th - 16th July. The feedback from the delegates was extremely
positive and we were very pleased to have a significant number of first
time conference attenders. The student places were a great success and we
have decided that we will offer these again in 2000. The conference
sub-committee, headed by Nigel Robinson, has now begun planning for 2000.
The conference will be held at Robinson College, Cambridge on 12-14 July,
2000.
2. UKOLUG AGM and new Management Committee
Approximately thirty-five people attended the AGM which was held at SOAS
on 17th September. Mark Field, Phil Bradley and Chris Armstrong have
resigned from the UKOLUG Management Committee. Chris Armstrong, however,
has agreed to continue with Awards and Quality Issues and Phil Bradley
will continue to write the CD-ROM column for the UKOLUG newsletter. Anne
Barker, who is already writing the Online column for the newsletter, was
elected as a new committee member, as was Jeni Larkin who had been
co-opted to manage the UKOLUG Web site.
The new Management Committee members are:
Karen Blakeman - Chair, Telecomms, Rep to IIS council
Hazel Hall - Vice Chair, Hon. Secretary
Brendan Loughridge - Hon Treasurer
Jeni Larkin - UKOLUG Web Page
Anne Barker - Online Industry
Chris Armstrong - Awards, Quality Management
Jo Dobson - Marketing, Public Relations
Shona McTavish - Legal Issues
Alison McNab - LIS-UKOLUG, Search Engines, CD-ROM issues
Tracy Mulvaney - Bibliographic Software, International Liaison
Nigel Robinson - Meetings Co-Ordinator, Newsletter Production Editor
3. Dialog
Dialog continues to be a major concern for our members and following Karen
Blakeman's meeting with Ciaran Morton, we have been kept informed directly
of events by Jackie Sylvester. Although we were delighted to see that they
have decided to retain the DataStar service, we remain concerned that
major decisions regarding the support of such a service can be reversed so
quickly. The new Dial Unit pricing appears to have resulted in increased
prices for some users and we encourage members to feedback comments and
information on any problems that they may have.
4. LA/IIS talks
We have actively canvassed our members opinions on this through our
newsletter and the LIS-UKOLUG mailing list. As chair I have had responses
via e-mail and telephone. The main concerns are that membership of a new
parent body may become a necessity and that the group may lose its current
degree of independence.
5. Online 98
UKOLUG will again provide the Help Desk for the International Online
Exhibition to be held in London on 8-10 December. This year we are in a
prime location near the main entrance to the exhibition. The UKOLUG
lecture, which is free and open to all, will be given by Cynthia Hill,
Librarian at Sun Microsystems USA on Thursday 10th at 1 pm. The title of
her talk will be "Beyond Information Chaos: influencing Intranet
development".
6. Membership and Finances
Membership remains healthy with approximately 900 personal members and 130
corporate members. There has also been a significant increase in students
members. The groups finances remain healthy.
7. LIS-UKOLUG
LIS-UKOLUG currently has 629 members and is a valuable means of informing
members of events and important issues as they happen.
8. Newsletter
The UKOLUG Newsletter is going from strength to strength and was awarded
the accolade of the "Jewel in UKOLUG's crown" by Charles Oppenheim at the
UKOLUG conference.
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Karen Blakeman, UKOLUG Chair
RBA Information Services,
Tel: 0118 9472256, Fax: 0870 056 8547, Mobile: 0860 785716
E-Mail: [log in to unmask], http://www.rba.co.uk/
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