Hi UBC ASIST,

I’ve started an IA Meetup group. Our first meeting is January 30 on Commercial Drive, 5:30-7:30.
You can find more details here.

It would be a great place for students those wanting to learn more about information architecture. I’m an ASIST member, an information architect, and working on my MLIS (though not at UBC). I hope you’ll come join us. Bring any questions!

Theresa Putkey

Sadly, I’ll be in a Management course that evening, but I hope someone goes representing us and reports back.

We’re in the early planning stages and are looking to get some input
on what sort of events might appeal to the greater SLAIS community. We’ve got some Cool Tool Days in the works and are thinking about guest speakers and some techy group learning projects.

If you are interested in technology and information (either because you like it or feel you want to learn more), please come!

ASIS&T@UBC’s most visible function throughout the term is running our Cool Tools days in which you (yes you!) get to tell your peers about the cool digital tips tricks and tools you use. You can also come and just absorb information if you want. (Check out some notes from previous Cool Tools Days on our wiki.) We haven’t scheduled our first Cool Tools day of the term yet but we’ll be doing that at our first meeting.

That meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 12 from 12pm to 1pm in the Trail Room and we hope to see you there. Also, we’re on Twitter @asistubc where we’ll try to keep you informed as to what’s going on.

Cool Tool days are an informal means of sharing and learning about helpful tools. Some that might improve your scholastic skills and others that are just fun to know about. We also welcome new presenters with hidden gems or just new ways to use technology. You don’t have to member of ASIS&T to present or attend – everyone is welcome.

You can see the schedule on our wiki and sign up as a presenter here. Presentations are 5 or 10 minutes in length including a minute or two to ask and field questions. The wiki also contains re-caps of the previous Cool Tools days if you’re interested in learning more about what sort of content is covered.

Thanks and we hope to see you there!

• Cool tools days re-cap: We still need to put a write up on the Wiki. Discussion also turned to re-organizing the wiki to better suit our long-term needs of transferring information from one exec group to the next.
• Next cool tools day set for November 8 from 12 noon to 1PM in the Terrace Lab. We’ll serve timbits (Jamie) and coffee (Adam). We’ll also live blog the re-cap (Adam).
• Trivia Night: still need a location. Tossing around some off campus ideas. May mean that event is more of a social gathering than fundraiser if we need to slip in to an existing trivia night.
• RFID brown bag: Andrew to email David re: his contact.
• Conferences: Andrew attended part of Access 2011. He will email link with videos of presentation to ASIS&T listserv. Also, on Nov 12 there is a conference in Washington that he will send more info about. THAT Camps?
• Next meeting: Tentatively set for second week of school in January. Will email when date is closer to pin down time. Need to have it confirmed before January cohort orientation.
• End of meeting.

Sorry for the delay in posting these, and thanks for coming out!

• The 2011 Access conference in Vancouver is over but notes are still available (I really wish I hadn’t missed this one).
• THATCamp Pacific Northwest will be held at the University of Washington, Bothell campus on Saturday, November 12, 2011. This is an unconference being organized around the theme of technology and social justice.
• OpenDataBC runs Hackathon events where people get together to work on code and test stuff for Open Data projects. On December 3, they’ll be participating in International Open Data Day, which also might be interesting.

Lots of things out there to get involved with.

You might want to come if you are interested in any of the following things we’ll be discussing:

• Re-cap of the last Cool Tools Day and planning the next one in early November.
• Planning an informal lecture/discussion on RFID.
• Planning a trivia night or two with LWB.
• And other general melange of things related to ASIS&T.

The ASIS&Ters who are in Vancouver hope to see you there (and the one in Australia is looking forward to hearing about it).

UBC Science and Engineering Library and UBC IEEE Student Chapter have invited George Plosker, IEEE Client Services Manager, to present a talk on the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. The session will take place on Monday November 7th in Kaiser 2020 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Refreshments will be served.

If you are an IEEE member, a science or engineering faculty, postdoc, student, graduate student in technology, even a non-engineering student interested in technology, you know how knowledgeable research skills will contribute to your success. The University of British Columbia community has access to the IEEE Xplore, a digital library providing full text access to more than three million IEEE documents. Learn how to use IEEE Xplore in a “best practices” manner. This one hour talk and demo will cover all the latest features and insider tips when searching IEEE Xplore. See how use of IEEE resources can enhance your career. Plus, learn what IEEE Xplore can do that Google can’t!

That sounds interesting to me, and hey, free food! Check it out and maybe share what you learn at our next Cool Tools Day?

Cool Tools Day is an event we put on to share some of the neat tech tools that are useful for infopros like ourselves. Last year we talked about DropBox, bookmarking accounts, podcasts, visual search engines, visualization tools, screencasting software, and loads more.

You can sign up to present on our ASIS&T wiki-page. (It’s really informal and a good way to practice explaining technology in a short amount of time.) If you don’t want to present and are just interested in learning about tools, come on down. There will also be coffee and some sort of snacks.

IMPORTANT: You do not need to be a tech-nerd to attend or even to present at Cool Tools Day. Please come and share your knowledge.

Present: Andrew, Jamie, Adam, Kristoff, Michelle, Joy, Trevor, Jonathan, Kerry, and Alex, Heather O’Brien (faculty rep),

1. Introduction of ASIS&T and current executive (Andrew, Jamie, Justin, Adam)

2. General plan for events this year.

• Cool Tool days twice a semester
• Speakers etc.
• Trivia Night with LWOB
• Research Day in March 2012 (ASIS&T group will offer to volunteer)

3. Policies and procedures of ASIS&T@UBC chapter.

4. Explanation of open Vice-Chair role and call for nominations. Kristoff self-nominated, seconded by Andrew, and voted in unanimously.

5. Next event: Cool Tool day on October 4th in Terrace Lab from noon to 1pm. Joy will handle coffee, Michelle will get snacks, and Trevor will be around to help with set up etc.

6. Next meeting: October 26th at noon in the Trail Room.

-end of meeting-