January 2008

This year's January meeting was hosted by The University of East London. The morning session was themed, "The Role of Librarians in Supporting Research" and the keynote speech was delivered by Alma Swan, co-writer of the report for the RIN/CURL on researchers' use of libraries. Following her presentation, Katharina Hübschmann (Wiener Library of Contemporary History),  Julie Howell (London Metropolitan University) and  Richard Golland (Imperial War Museum) delivered presentations on the special collections at their libraries. These presentations were followed by five breakout sessions to seek input on what new services Members would like the Consortium to provide.

Key points from the Business Meeting 

• Julie Brittain, Sandy Leitch, Anne Murphy and Peter Ryan were appointed to the Steering Group.
• The London Health Libraries and M25 Consortium joint WG had been disbanded due to changes in the LHL group. The work of the joint group had been absorbed within the remit of the Collaboration & Partnership Working Group.
• Members agreed to the revision of the M25 governance documents in preparation for the application for charitable status.
• Members were updated on the progress of new initiatives; namely WAM25 and AIM25
  

Presentations and full minutes of the January 2008 meeting are available at the following link:
http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/minutes_24_january_2008_business_meeting.html

June 2008

The June meeting was hosted by Kingston University. The morning session was themed "Your Space, Our Space, Whose Space? 21st Century Students and the Challenge for Libraries". Professor Rob Macredie, Pro-Vice Chancellor Brunel University delivered the keynote speech entitled “What do you know? Improving student services”.

Mark Toole, Director of Information Services at the University of Brighton gave a presentation entitled, “Web2.0? Library 2.0? Focus on supporting the learning, teaching and research not the technology!” and Tim Green, Library IT Manager at the London School of Economics and Political Science gave a presentation entitled, “Prime Space”. Presentations were followed by a panel discussion comprising the 3 speakers.

Key points from the Business Meeting 

• Adam Edwards (Roehampton University) was elected M25 Secretary,  Caroline Lloyd (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), M25 Treasurer and Frances Norton entered her second term of office with the Steering Group.
• The SG agreed to recruit an additional member of staff to develop the members-only web services over the next two years.
• A planned review of M25 resource discovery services, in particular looking at integration of services, is expected over the next year. 
• Introduced the idea of the “Directors’ Room”, a proposed password-protected area of the M25 website.
• The launch of "Exchange", face-to-face, shared learning opportunities for Directors.

Full minutes of the June 2008 meeting are available at the following link:
http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/minutes_6_june_2008_agm.html 

Content of M25 e-bulletin Year in Review Edition 2008