The UK electronic information Group is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 15 (1-2) 2018 of our online journal eLucidate. PDF and HTML versions available here:

https://tinyurl.com/ycrrzlv3

or go to: http://www.ukeig.org.uk

and choose 'eLucidate' from the Group Pages drop down menu.

A vote of thanks to the expert contributors who have made this special double issue so thought-provoking and informative. Many of the articles celebrate the ongoing success of UKeiG's continuing professional development programme and highlight our upcoming courses for the remainder of 2018.

Karen Blakeman laments the dumbing down of the search functionality of Google. Are its days as a research tool over? She identifies the “useless and irrelevant” pursuit of revenue generating mobile personalisation options as the culprit and rally cries that now is the time to consider alternative search tools. 

Andrew Cox reflects on the growing importance of data in the work of academic librarians and information professionals. He articulates a “data role spectrum” that embraces familiar skills sets like information/data literacy, training, collection management and metadata, but throws many unfamiliar competencies into the mix: data curation, integrity, analysis and visualisation.  Data management offers huge opportunities to extend and enhance the skills and knowledge academic librarians have had for years. New wine in old bottles perhaps.

David Ball builds on this theme with an exposition of the emergence of Open Science and Open Data. Notably he emphasises that this developing paradigm goes way beyond STEM subjects and impacts on social science, arts and humanities. Research data can be qualitative and well as quantitative and embrace statistics, digital images, archives, sound recordings and survey data, for example. He provides an extensive overview of Open Science and Open Data, their rationale and potential. This article is a taster of his successful UKeiG CPD course – “Open Access, Open Data, Open Science: Anatomy of a disruptive technology” - which we hope to repeat early next year. 

Martin White emphasises the relevance of academic research on the success of enterprise search projects. “Academic research may not provide definitive answers to very difficult issues but it can provide a vendor-independent framework for discussion and inspiration.” He emphasises valuable research that has significant implications for enterprise search success, introducing us to concepts like “information scent” along the way. If you have responsibility for search management in your organisation, Martin’s article is a must read. 

Marlize Palmer O.B.E, UKeiG’s Information Manager of the Year (2016) and James Dawes-Hughes explore the role a Library Management System can play in the archiving and preservation of tweets. Twitter has a huge role to play in research, linking information from a variety of sources including emails and Word documents.

We also have our regular online resources update and an insight into the rationale behind Internet Librarian International’s upcoming twentieth birthday conference.

This issue concludes with a celebration of our prestigious Strix Award as we prepare for the 2018 Annual Memorial Lecture in London on Friday 23 November 2018. We hope to see you there. Until then, enjoy this issue and please give us your feedback and join us in discussions on our Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.   

An archive of previous issues of eLucidate is available on the UKeiG website. We endeavour to feature contributions from experts in the field, keeping members up to date with developments and innovations in the digital information industry, considering the impact on information professionals and consumers of e-information. Core topics for consideration include: digital literacy, effective information retrieval and search technologies, intranets, social media, open access, e-publishing and e-industry research and development. UKeiG encourages the submission of articles and reports about any of the topics covered by the journal, and contributions and suggestions for content can be emailed to: [log in to unmask]

*********************************************************************************************
 UKeiG is a Special Interest Group of CILIP: the library and information association
 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE. Registered Charity No. 313014
 *********************************************************************************************