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This is history. Nothing is happening now. Nothing significant is going to happen, so far as public consequences are concerned.
As from around 2002 May, I passed on the job of organising the handbooks to someone else - and, as the functions of the information coordinator had never really got any further than that, he was no longer useful, and was abolished. He will maintain a spectral presence until the end of 2002, and attempt to keep the on-line handbook slightly up to date, but after that will vanish into oblivion. So far as the handbook machinery is concerned, I might keep it going because it has some interesting research possibilities, but they will not affect the department's visible manifestations. But I shall keep these pages here, because previous decisions that pages could now safely be thrown away have almost universally proved to be wrong. Regard them as fossils. |
There is surprisingly little information about how we coordinate our information. That's because, though there has been an Information Coordinator since 1997 he's been too busy ( according to him ) or too lazy ( another possible opinion ) to do a lot about it. All being well, though, more and more information about coordinating information will accrete as time goes by, and will become accessible from this point. Fortunately, it will be so boring that no one will ever look at it.
Pick one of these items, if it interests you.
Alan Creak is the information coordinator. It's his own fault; he was stupid enough to volunteer in early 1997. In justification for this strange action, he wrote a sort of apologia, which appears below ( with minor amendments which have seemed appropriate from time to time ) as a means of filling up this space with minimal effort. Why he should still be the information coordinator even though he's retired is something of a mystery, even to him. ( That sounds good, but isn't strictly true. He volunteered to carry on because he had hopes - and still does, despite a notable lack of progress - that it would fit in with some of his research. Later, perhaps. )
If you have any concerns about our system for disseminating information, or suggestions for new development, please don't hesitate to tell Alan about it.
Those are just bits and pieces. There are also the handbooks, the calendar entries, publicity material, and so on. I think we need a concerted attack on the whole question of information collection, dissemination, keeping up to date, and such other topics as might be needed. We also need reminder systems which will prod people at regular intervals to check material for which they're responsible and correct it if need be.
Not much of this has changed since I started. My main preoccupation has been with handbooks, and one or two other minor things have happened, but the grand plan is still a plan. But it's a more precise plan than it used to be, which is something.
I imagine that the job will last for ever.
The object of the exercise is to make sure that the information we offer to the world, by whatever means, is as correct as we can get it, easily accessible, up to date, and consistent.
It is not, at least in the first instance, to take over and reorganise all the various information channels we already use. People have been working on these for some time, and generally know a lot about making them work. I shall try to find out what information the people need to maintain their information services, and get it to them as promptly as possible. It might also be useful to remind people to check their responsibilities from time to time.
Having said which, it is not impossible that in the course of time it will become clear that improvements in how we offer information are possible. In such cases, should it be decided ( not by me alone, I hope ) that changes are desirable, it will be important to make sure that existing information doesn't get lost in the process.
And much, much more. All this, at the moment, is guesswork. We'll see how it all works out.
Pick one or more items from the following list :
- but seriously, now -
My intention at the moment is to address the system as a problem in rather slow real-time control. Further details will emerge.
The annual handbook exercise will go on for ever, perhaps, despite a recent threat to take it all over at university level. Its production is now much more organised than it used to be, and continues to move towards a scheme which is as automatic as I can manage.
I want to do something about the "Graduate Reading Room", but the catalogue which was once is no more. Further, since I wrote that and moved into there to live the reading room is also no more. It's supposed to come back some time, but the situation remains to be resolved.
The webmaster and I collaborated briefly on redesigning the department's web site. ( More precisely, I watched the webmaster redesign the site, and tried to insert my views where I thought it appropriate. ) My concerns were ( and still are ) two :
Pursuant to the first of these concerns, we conducted a development exercise in which we invited people's opinions as to what should be on the department's front page. This was fairly inconclusive. We also had some discussion on rational ways of arranging the information; I suggested that analysing records of requests for pages would give some information on how easy it was to find pages, but it appears that the records are confidential, which is silly. Anyway, nothing happened.
I would still like to produce a text-only site. The experience of building one page by hand for demonstration purposes makes it clear that this is not the way to do it. Some means of deriving a reasonably accurate text-only page from corresponding HTML ( or whatever ) will be necessary; the other way round sounds easier, but in view of the compulsive devotion to modernity of webmasters is certainly unrealistic. I don't know how to do that yet.
Alan Creak,
2001 May.
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