Running an Information Service – Everything you Need to Know

Make your information service a real success with this special problem-solving course. Covering everything from deciding who your key users are through to evaluating your results and concentrating on what really works, this is a great opportunity to step back from your day-to-day concerns and make sure your service is the best you can make it.

Step-by-step, this one-day course will take you through the basics of setting up and running an effective information service for your organisation. Participative and practical throughout, it includes exercises and feedback, with plenty of opportunity for discussion and ideas sharing.

Programme Features:

• How do you decide what services to provide?
• What information resources do you need?
• How can you exploit your information sources?
• Are you ready to deal with enquiries?
• How do you persuade people to use your service?
• Is your service legal?

Why you should attend:
Aimed at people who may be new to information work, or who may have been left to cope with running an information service on their own, this course is designed to give you lots of ideas for hitting the ground running. It will help you discover the information needs of the organisation you are serving, identify the information resources that will help meet those needs, and decide how to provide services that get your information unit noticed and valued.

• Find out what information your users want - and what they need
• Identify and choose information sources and services that will meet their needs
• Get the most out of the sources you have invested in and raise the profile of your service at the same time.
• Have the confidence to accept enquiries accurately, advise on solutions authoritatively, and refer to others if you can't find the answer
• Have ideas for publicising your service through promotion, branding and customer care
• Develop a checklist of copyright and intellectual property requirements that your service will need to comply with

Programme

09.45 : Coffee and Registration
10.00 : Introductions and welcome
10.15 : What are you hoping to get out of today - and what can you contribute?
10.45 : How do you identify your key users - and find out what they need?
11.15 : Coffee
11.30 : What kinds of information does your organisation need?
12.00 : Your three key resources: money, time, intellect
12.15 : How do you identify suitable sources - and what delivery medium should you use?
13.00 : Lunch
13.45 : How can you exploit your sources to provide useful information services?
14.15 : Are you ready to deal with enquiries?
14.45 : Is your service legal?
15.15 : Tea
15.30 : How do you persuade people to keep using your service?
16.00 : How do you evaluate your success?
16.15 : Final discussion and questions
16.30 : CloseCoffee and Registration
10.00 : Introductions and welcome
10.15 : What are you hoping to get out of today - and what can you contribute?
10.45 : How do you identify your key users - and find out what they need?
11.15 : Coffee
11.30 : What kinds of information does your organisation need?
12.00 : Your three key resources: money, time, intellect
12.15 : How do you identify suitable sources - and what delivery medium should you use?
13.00 : Lunch
13.45: : How can you exploit your sources to provide useful information services?
14.15 : Are you ready to deal with enquiries?
14.45 : Is your service legal?
15.15 : Tea
15.30 : How do you persuade people to keep using your service?
16.00 : How do you evaluate your success?
16.15 : Final discussion and questions
16.30 : Close

Companion Courses:
Basic Cataloguing and Indexing
Enquiry Handling - find an answer every time