Try To Remember....

I've been putting together some new folders on the DMS for our new admin person, and it is proving to be a bit of a trial. Not so much the creation, but the permissions. I needed to lock them down to just two people but restricting the access for everyone else, but I changed the permission on the wrong group, which locked everyone out. A quick email to the DMS support people and it is now all working like a charm....

The latest SLA magazine turned up in the post today and, on first scan, there appears to be a very interesting article on KM which looks worthy of reading. Tapping into tacit knowledge is always a problem in this industry because of the employee demographic; it is an 'old man's industry' in every sense of the word and I am sure that there are similar organisations throughout the globe who are keen to wring out every bit of knowledge and know-how from soon-to-retire geologists, engineers and other senior management.

How best to do this? there's no clear solution as far as I can see. Traditionally most organisations have gone down the route of the handover operation, whereby the new person works closely with the old to try and get to know the ropes but from experience that tends to focus on routines and administration and very little on personal expertise. It comes down to trying to write everything down on paper or file and, as we all know, the memory is a very selective beast.

I remember reading about some sort of test whereby a person has to look at a number of objects on a tray and then, after two minutes' scanning, they have to write down the names of all the objects they can remember seeing. They then try this again, but after a short period of time has elapsed (20-30 minutes or so). The conclusion of this was that the number of things people remember is approximately the same for each list, but that the objects they remember differ quite markedly on each list. Thereby, the mind remembers everything but the powers of recall differ over time.

At least, I think that's what it was, but I can't quite remember....

News Of The World....

Not enough time today for a proper post; setting up new permissions on our DMS for a new set of folders, requesting new codes for some invoices that I have to submit to our financial gurus and ensuring that an important document that was entrusted to my care many months ago is still available electronically via the DMS. I am hoping to start wading through the myriad of boxes that still have to be gone through from some old files - all historical data so not urgent, but it is one of those 'visual' jobs that shows that you really are working and not just playing about on the PC....

So, in place of a more detailed update I thought I would share with you this link from Newsnow, which is a remarkable source of weird and wacky news stories - this one in particular caught my eye and just goes to show what a tough bunch we all are - or can be....

It's Just Another Day....

Trying to finish updating my Access database of articles from a weekly African E&P newsletter that I receive. Very simple in design, I can record the heading of each article, the relevant country, company and field or block name/s along with the page number and issue/date details of each edition. A bit of a labour of love, especially as new ventures have been substantially trimmed in recent months, but it does make historical searching of back issues much, much easier. Back issues are stored on the DMS should anyone need them....

I have finished the in-depth research work mentioned yesterday. Having spent a few days on it I was unable to find anything of substance other than a few random articles. I did leave a message on the Facebook Group to see if anyone else could help (having also emailed the SLA and IFEG mailing lists) - I did get a lot of useful suggestions but nothing, unfortunately, completely fitted the bill....

So, just the metadata project and the three boxes of old documents to keep me busy this afternoon then. Just another busy day in a corporate library....

The Harder I Try....

Been a bit busy over the last couple of days on some more in-depth research work. This has had the added bonus of taking me away from a lot of mundane admin stuff as well, and it always seems to be the case that the simplest queries on paper are always the hardest to get any decent information from....

The problem is that the type of information we are after is not likely to be publicly available as it involves construction and running costs that companies don't like to be too detailed when they publish their press releases. I thought we may have struck gold with a particular company that supplies a subscription database; we instructed them to carry out research for us, which just seems to be a straight pull of data into Excel, and a somewhat haphazard one at that....

I did think of trying TED, the EU Tenders database, but the information therein wasn't as detailed as I expected it to be. I have found one or two documents of interest but nothing that really captures the type of info we are after. It is really a case of methodical web searching, checking hits and modifying my search strategy accordingly, until I can find a small nugget of information that will either help to answer the question or help to refine the search query a little. This is the type of research that can be frustrating but ultimately very rewarding. And always makes me think "what did we do before the web came along?"....

And I Don't Think That I Can Take It, 'Cos It Took So Long To Bake It....

Over the weekend I was directed to this blog, which contains some absolutely remarkable and incredibly jaw-dropping examples of professional confectionery. I have added it to my Bloglines account because if ever I need some cheering up at work this may well provide some light relief....