JA Condie

SCOOP Survey 2018

SCOOP is canvassing members (and non-members) for thoughts on its current and future activities.

OfficialPapersUK

The Standing Committee On Official Publications (SCOOP) is canvassing its members (and non-members) to find out what they think of its current activities and what they would like to see us do in the future.

We would like to hear your views on SCOOP and get feedback on what we can do for (and with) our members so we have put together a short survey here.

We will be grateful if as many people as possible can complete it: if you have colleagues who you think might be interested in taking part in the survey, please send the link on to them.

Thanks in advance.

Steven Hartshorne

Secretary of SCOOP

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Fiona Laing

Being 18 in 2018, marine litter, and ‘fake news’ – New Official Publications 17.09.18

University of Glasgow Library

Newly published official publications from :

The European Union

General view of the Plenary chamber in Brussels – PHS Hemicycle – Plenary session week 46 2014

‘Fake news: What Think Tanks are thinking’. “This note offers links to recent commentaries and reports published by international think tanks on ‘fake news’ and broader related issues.”

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain – Legal context and implications for financial crime, money laundering and tax evasion – Study. “More and more regulators are worrying about criminals who are increasingly using cryptocurrencies for illegitimate activities like money laundering, terrorist financing and tax evasion. This paper elaborates on this phenomenon from a legal perspective, focusing on the use of cryptocurrencies for financial crime, money laundering and tax evasion. It contains policy recommendations for future EU standards.”

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Fiona Laing

The Inclusion Project: Human Rights dilemmas in the negotiation of Peace Agreements and Human Rights

The Global Justice Academy, University of Edinburgh is holding a free event to celebrate the launch of the new PA-X Peace Agreement Database on the occasion of the Association of Human Rights Conference Edinburgh.

The Inclusion Project: Peace Agreements, Inclusion and Human Rights, Professor Christine Bell, Programme Director, Political Settlement Research Programme (www.politicalsettlements.org; www.peaceagreements.org)

Booking and more details via Eventbrite

Thu 6 September 2018

17:00 – 18:00 BST

Fiona Laing

North Sea oil, e-cigarettes and humanism – New Official Publications 28.08.18

University of Glasgow Library

Newly published official publications from :

The European Union

General view of the Plenary chamber in Brussels – PHS Hemicycle – Plenary session week 46 2014

Research study into provision for recreation and leisure in areas affected by oil-related industry in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. “The discovery of oil and gas under the North Sea has proved to be the most important single event in Scotland’s post-war economic history. In such circumstances of rapid economic and social change it is clear that if the communities in the areas affected are to reap the potential benefits of oil-related developments without dislocation of their distinctive patterns of life, they must match the encouragement of industrial development with the conservation and adaptation of their social fabric.”
The Future of the European Defence Agency (EDA): In-depth analysis. “The aim of the workshop, held on 22 November 2017, was to discuss…

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sharronwilson

Downie Allison Downie book repair course

Well done to Kirstie – highly recommend the courses. DAD do a great job.

SLLG Blog

SLLG member, Kirstie Hustler of the Advocates Library, reviews one of Downie Allison Downie’s bookbinding courses which are taught on Saturdays throughout the year at their workshop in Glasgow.

This was the second course I had attended at DAD Bookbinders and I was really looking forward to it. I had given my dad a place on the course as a birthday present so it turned out to be a very enjoyable “Daddy Daughter Day” as well as a day for learning new library related skills.

dad-bookbinding Take this hammer: book repair in action

The workshop was easy to find and close to the station. There was a cup of coffee and introductions on arrival and then we got stuck in. On this particular day there were four students and two teachers (Karen and Gemma) which ensured everyone had help when they required it. The atmosphere was friendly and supportive and we…

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Fiona Laing

Animal Sentience, Bathing Water Quality, and the Sale of Student Loans – New Official Publications 13.08.18

University of Glasgow Library

Newly published official publications from :

Westminster and the UK Government

House of Lords Library: The Queen's Room (c) Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament House of Lords Library: The Queen’s Room (c) Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament

Voting age – “Under current legislation, a person must be 18 or over to vote in elections to the UK Parliament. This Note gives details of calls for a change in the law to reduce the voting age to 16 in recent years.”

Animal Sentience and Brexit – “The Government is reviewing the recognition of animal sentience and the need for UK legislation after Brexit. It has also announced it will legislate to increase the maximum sentence for animal cruelty offences.

The EU Withdrawal Act 2008 did not include provision to transfer the principle contained in Article 13 of the Lisbon Treaty recognising animals as sentient beings into UK legislation. This raised concerns amongst animal welfare campaigners as UK law, under…

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Fiona Laing

Festival of Politics 10-13 October 2018

On Wednesday 10 October, Conservative grandee Lord Heseltine will open the Festival with an “in conversation”-style event with Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh.  He will talk about his life serving in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major as well as his current political views on issues such as Brexit. The Festival will also feature best-selling author and academic Professor Mary Beard. Professor Beard will feature on day four of the Festival talking about her book Woman and Power as well as the BBC Civilisations series which she co-wrote and presented.
Booker Prize-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri, social commentator and Orwell Prize-winner Darren McGarvey aka Loki, and historian Professor Emeritus Sir Tom Devine OBE will also appear. Book you tickets now.

Fiona Laing

Scottish Government’s new website going live in Sept 2018

SG beta site

The Scottish Government plan to transition their website from Beta in September. If you have been using the Beta site to search  for publications recently you might be a little perplexed by their choice of tagging.  Under the publications tab, for example, the word publication is used in many different contexts. Items with ISBNs appear to be filed under Corporate reports,  however if you use an ISBN in the search box it comes back as item not found.

Please be aware that none of these issues will  be looked at until after the site transitions in September.

The Product Manager of gov.scot has a collated list of all  SWOP members’ comments and we look forward to working with this team to improve the functionality of the Publications section of the new site going forward.

publications

 

JA Condie

National Records of Scotland’s Web Continuity Service

At the end of last year National Records of Scotland’s blog published a short series about their new Web Continuity Service. Here’s a handy round-up of the posts:

  1. Websites as archival public records and the ‘looking glass’ into government

…government websites form an integral part of the public record. National archives, who capture, preserve and make available public records, are therefore taking steps to capture a representative record of this modern aspect of government. To do so, national archives are creating web archives…

Read the full post here

 

2.  What is web archiving? History, technology, collections

The World Wide Web was pioneered in the late 1980s to help share information more efficiently and effectively. Needless to say this new system proved to be a hit, leading to its global rollout in the early 1990s.  It didn’t take long for observers to ponder that there was probably a lot of content on the Web that would be worth saving for posterity (particularly due to its vulnerability to change), but how?

Click here to read more

 

3.  The NRS Web Archive and the NRS Web Continuity Service

The NRS Web Continuity Service went live in February 2017. Delivered as part of NRS’s Digital Preservation Programme, our service allows us to archive selected websites that fall within our statutory and strategic collecting remit, and make all archived snapshots accessible in the NRS Web Archive. After just a few months of operations, we are delighted to say that the service is fully functioning and delivering on what it set out to do.

To find out more, click here!

 

4.  Aiming for quality: selection, capture, QA and preservation of the NRS Web Archive

But what do we mean by ‘high quality web archive’? In web archiving, quality can be related to three elements:

  • Completeness – how much of captured website’s links, text, downloads etc. the crawler has been able to access and capture
  • Behaviour – how much of the navigational functionalities within the captured website snapshot have been preserved, compared to the live site
  • Appearance – how much the design, ‘look and feel’ and user experience of the website has been captured and preserved

See the full post here

 

Fiona Laing

Stalking, Blockchain, and Smoking Habits – New Official Publications 17.07.18

University of Glasgow Library

Newly published official publications from :

The Scottish Parliament and Government

Image © Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body – 2012. Licensed under the Open Scottish Parliament Licence v1.0. Image © Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body – 2012. Licensed under the Open Scottish Parliament Licence v1.0.

The Contribution of Non-UK EU Workers in the Social Care Workforce in Scotland  – “An assessment of the Contribution of EU Workers in the Social Care Workforce in Scotland which 1) provides robust estimates of the number of non-UK EU workers in specified adult social care and childcare sub-sectors (adult day care, care at home, day care of children, childminding, housing support, and nurse agencies). 2) provides insights into the specific roles and contributions of those workers from the perspective of both employers and non-UK EU workers.”

Clinical Review of the Impacts of Hepatitis C: Short Life Working Group Report. – “An independent clinical review, which assesses the impacts of chronic hepatitis C infection on the health and wellbeing of individuals

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JA Condie

House of Commons Library – 200 years

Ooh! It’s 200 hundred years since the first librarian was appointed at the House of Commons Library. Happy Birthday to them!

EDC Information Update

HCLib © UK Parliament. Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The House of Commons Library is celebrating as this year marks 200 hundred years since its first librarian was appointed.  You can find out more about the library’s history here or watch the video at the end of this blog.

One aspect of the library’s work, relevant to anyone starting to research a contemporary topic, is the production of impartial research briefings on a wide range of current issues.  While these are intended to help members of Parliament by providing them with good quality impartial background information, they are extremely useful to anyone starting to research a current issue. They can be searched by date or topic.

Some recent briefings which may be of interest include:

Brexit and European Citizenship

Brexit the exit bill

Brexit and financial services

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JA Condie

SWOP visit to GWL – June 2018

On Wednesday 13th June SWOP visited the Glasgow Women’s Library. We received plenty of tea and cake – along with a very warm welcome – at this unique museum of women’s history.

“I had no idea that the Glasgow Women’s Library had so much to offer.  Apart from the traditional lending library there is also lots of interesting artefacts in the archive collection, too many to mention and definitely worth a trip out from Glasgow City Centre for a visit.  Thanks for a great afternoon” –  Morag Higgison,  Scottish Government Library

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