Outsourcing is the theme of Cilip in London's March meeting. Here are the
details:
Define your terms - making outsourcing work for information services
Date: Tuesday 14 March 2006
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue: The Sekforde Arms, Sekforde Street, London EC1
Speaker: Peter Griffiths, Home Office
(Map reference: http://digbig.com/3pmf)
Information service outsourcing is very fashionable. Yet the history of
service outsourcing is littered with disaster stories. The public sector
is criticised when things go wrong, but the private sector is probably no
better!
IT-based outsourcing is bedevilled by misunderstandings: purchasers fail
to state their requirements clearly and in terms that suppliers can both
understand and deliver. Add to this the complexity of information services
and you have a recipe for failure.
There has, however, been a long history of success in information
services' outsourcing. Peter will delve into the key issues, and suggest
ways in which outsourcing and externalisation can be made to work for both
libraries and other types of information service.
Peter Griffiths has long experience in government libraries, but he has
also worked for public libraries. He is the author or co-author of a
number of books and articles, including several published by Facet. His
recent title, with Sheila Pantry, Managing Outsourcing in Library and
Information Services, provides some of the background for this evening's
discussion.
Peter is a Fellow of CILIP and a former National Councillor; and he is the
current chair of CDL, the committee of heads of profession in government
libraries.
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CILIP in London evening meetings are free and open to anyone with a
professional interest in the topic. Refreshments will be available
afterwards. As space is limited, please let us know if you are coming. It
would be helpful to tell us how you found out about the event. Contact
Phillip Powell at [log in to unmask]
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