The digital age and the changing profession

How has the digital age, and in particular the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web impacted on the jobs of information professionals, and what new skills sets have we needed to acquire as a consequence? These were two of the questions asked by the Information Management School of London Metropolitan University at their most recent Employers’ Forum

Artificial intelligence and professional roles

2017 promises to be the year that artificial intelligence (AI) moves out of film and fiction and into the workplace. While automation has become commonplace in retail and services, from the ubiquitous uptake of automatic tills to the growing influence intelligent service agents, anxiety about the impact of AI on professional roles has been gradually increasing in popular discourse. Writing in the Guardian in December 2016 theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned that “the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining” (Hawking, 2016). A report in the Telegraph has warned that “many middle-class professionals will be outsourced to machines within the next few decades” (Knapton, 2016). Automation - once the preserve of manufacturing - is threating to overtake the professional and managerial classes. Anxieties about the impact of AI on professional jobs are not new. Half a century ago the father of modern computing Alan Turing predicted “great opposition from the intellectuals who were afraid of being put out of a job” and added that “once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers (1951: 475). At some stage, Turing argued, “we should have expect the machines to take control” (1951: 475). Although we are not yet at that stage, it seems inevitable that AI will have a significant impact on professional jobs over the next few decades, and may even perhaps threaten the very existence of numerous professional fields. This coming social and economic transformation has become known as the fourth industrial revolution; following on from the ages of steam, electricity, and information technology, the age of automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence is almost upon us. But what is artificial intelligence, in what kinds of areas is it currently being exploited, and what is coming in the near future? This special edition of Out-of-the-Box explores the emerging area of Artificial Intelligence, automation and machine learning in business and professional contexts. It will review the current state of play of intelligent systems, how they are making their way into commercial contexts

Twenty-nine years of the BIR annual survey, part 2: changing information work

This paper is the second part of a review of the Business Information Review Annual Survey, which has been published annually since 1991. The paper explores changes to the professional context for information work revealed by the surveys over the course of its publication. It uses a combination of content and thematic analysis to develop key themes, which are discussed by reference to the original surveys: the decline of public library business services; changing budgets; globalisation of business information; offshoring and outsourcing of information work; rising up the value chain; changing skills in information work; reliability and accuracy of information; and rising up the value chain. The paper aims to summarise and consolidate longitudinal trends revealed by the survey, act as a guide to the rich data contained within the surveys themselves, and provide a testament to the wealth of professional experience captured in the BIR Annual Surveys. Its findings relate to the changes in the nature of professional practice and the pressures on professional practice over the past thirty years

The analogue library in the digital world. Professional education and the changing face of librarianship

Artiklen undersøger forskningsbibliotekernes aktuelle udfordringer i perspektivet af de senere års udvikling i forskningspublicering og informationssøgning. Artiklen hævder, at biblioteksprofessionen står over for en række alvorlige udfordringer. Traditionelt har biblioteker spillet en central rolle i facilitering og supportering af forskningsprocessen ved at stille information til rådighed og gøre denne tilgængelig. I de seneste to årtier er denne rolle i stigende grad blevet undermineret af udviklingen i forskningspublicering, informationssøgning og genfinding. I takt med at informationsprocessens “indhold” er flyttet til digitale platforme, er biblioteket ikke længere det tyngdepunkt, hvorom forskningsprocessen bevæger sig. Artiklen argumenterer for, at der er brug for at gentænke, hvordan biblioteksprofessionen kan tilføre informationssamlinger yderligere værdi gennem professionelle aktiviteter, der har betydning for forskningsprocessen og fremtidens institutioner. Artiklen hævder, at der er brug for, at biblioteksprofessionen engagerer sig kritisk i de grundlæggende debatter og tendenser, der informerer forskningsaktiviteter. En måde at tilvejebringe dette kritiske engagement kan være via en ny generation af biblioteks- og informationsfaglige kvalifikationer og kompetencer

Feminism in Cornwall

(Accepted - forthcoming)Bilingual (Cornish/English) book chapter - Overview of the role of feminism in Cornish nationalis

Increasing the efficiency of a solar oven

The objective of this experiment was to design, build and evaluate a solar oven that was both economically viable and thermally efficient. In addition to the economic objective, I sought to determine the best reflector angle for the solar cooker, by measuring the following parameters: cooking power, efficiency, and effectiveness. Halogen lamps were used to simulate natural  unlight, as the outdoor condition was too variable in the UK to guarantee continued sunlight for 120 minutes in a controlled fashion. The most effective reflector angle i.e. the reflector angle with the greatest ability to convert the solar insolation into thermal energy is the 60°C. However, the data shows that the 70°C reflector angle produces the highest temperature consistently. Over the series of different methods for evaluating the best reflector and angle, it would seem that a 70°C angle is consistently highest in most of the test. With a reflector angle of 70°C, by 120 minutes, the solar oven was able t

Information security

This issue of Business Information Review takes a focused look at Information Security, and the role of information professionals in securing information systems and processes. Information security is not simply a matter of IT security; it also encompasses legal compliance, governance, and workflow issues. Nevertheless a series of high profile cyber-attacks in recent years have bought the question of information security to greater public attention, and thrown light on our growing dependency on digital technologies. Privacy, data protection, and the misuse of data are now driving the political agenda around information security in some sectors. How did this come to be and why has information security risen up the political and commercial agenda