WHISD: Welsh Higher Education Information Services Staff Development Group
WHISD was formed in 1998 under the auspices of WHELF and HEWIT (Higher Education Wales Information Technology forum). Its aim is to act as an informal coordinating group to create and oversee opportunities for joint staff development activities for library, information services and computing staff in all Welsh HE institutions
Membership consists of one or two members from each Higher Education establishment in Wales. This is usually the person who has overriding responsibility for staff development and training within the Library or Information Services Department of that institute. Where there are two representatives from an institution it is expected that they will between them be able to represent both library and IT interests.
The group meets three times a year and each representative takes turns at hosting the meetings.
For additional information please contact:
Coordinator: Shelley Upton, email smu@aber.ac.uk
Objectives of the group
1. Provide opportunities for joint staff development activities for colleagues in Library and Information Services. These should include
- Visits to other establishments
- Talks from external trainers and lecturers from specialist groups
- Exchange of experience
- Organising the annual Gregynog Colloquium2. Communicate ideas and work with other relevant bodies on training activities and staff development .
3. Sharing and/or jointly producing staff development materials.
4. Maintaining awareness of new developments, sharing information, and networking.
5. Identifying gaps and strengths in existing staff development in member institutions.
6. Collaborating where appropriate over developing project bids.
WHISD Representatives
To find a list of contacts, please click here
Gregynog Colloquium 2009
Every year HEWIT and WHELF organise a residential colloquium at Gregynog for IT and library staff to discuss recent developments and to exchange experiences. Last year it was organised by Aberystwyth University and was held on 8th - 12th June.
Please visit the Colloquium website at: http://www.gregynog.ac.uk/HEWIT for the programme and presentations.
All of the Gregynog Repository Stream presentations are now available to view via the Aberystwyth institutional repository CADAIR. A post linking to each individual presentation is now available via the WRN blog at: http://welshrepositorynetwork.blogspot.com/2009/06/gregynog-2009-presentations-now.html
Gregynog Colloquium 2008
The 2008 event ran from 2 -6 June, and presentations are available on the Gregynog website at: http://ww2.newi.ac.uk/gregynog2008/. A regular feature of the Colloquium is an opportunity for new (and not-so-new) professionals to give a presentation based on their own experience. It is always a good conference session, and this year was no exception. Speakers presented "From pizza to 'professional' in 3 easy steps" and "Breathe in everyone!" as well as "Meeting user needs in academic and public libraries" and "Set your library free with RFID". You can find all these presentations online together with those on themes such as online services for Wales, library partnerships, marketing, collaborative purchasing of e-books and information literacy at the issue desk. During the Colloquium repository administrators from across Wales gathered for a repository themed event.
This was the second year that the Repositories Support Project (RSP) has run a repositories strand and once more it proved a useful forum for the exchange of ideas and inspiration. The day kicked off with a series of four case studies of repository developments from across Wales: Helen Thomas described her single parenting approach to successfully bringing up the UWIC repository, while Paul Jeorrett of North East Wales Institute (NEWI) followed by outlining the decision to purchase the Digital Commons software for their repository solution. Next, Talat Chaudhri gave a presentation highlighting recent developments with CADAIR, the institutional repository for Aberystwyth University, including information about how ongoing investigations are contemplating how the institution might tie the repository in to a current research management system for the university. Finally, Douglas Houston of the University of Glamorgan gave an update on their repository project including the recent launch of their live system. All the case study presentations are available online via CADAIR.
The material on this page was last revised on 12 March 2010
The page is maintained by Sue Mace on behalf of WHISD
