information management. Taking a lead may be difficult for some, but this may be a real

opportunity to demonstrate our organisational skills and core professional skills. The

most crucial area, however, is the need to reorganise back office approaches of central

services. While libraries understand the principles, we have fewer problems, as our back

office usually is (and should be) totally focused on the customer. 

The Leeds Library website is located at: http://www.leeds.gov.uk/library/library.html

Somerset County Library Service

Somerset (pop: 492,000) is a county in the south west of England. Its largest town is

Taunton (70,000) and is predominantly a rural county spread over 300 sq miles. 

The council has approved of implementing the Electronic Government Statement and

the head of ICT is the e champion. The county librarian is the chair of the Information

Management Group (IMaG) for the council that is responsible for content and 

information management across all departments. 

The county Web manager was appointed only within the last twelve months. In

recognition of the information management role of the department and the post, the job

is located in library service management. The county website is in the process of major

change having developed within a loose control framework.

Two major external funding initiatives are currently under development:

  Invest to Save. A project worth  500,000 to establish a multi agency web portal for

Somerset providing a common point of access to services for users to all District

Councils (5), the Police Authority and the County Council. A key feature will be the

ability to update personal information for all services via a single entry.

  Pathfinder Project. This will extend the above portal to Digital TV access also using

postal codes where applicable. Services and information will be presented to citizens

by location, regardless of which authorities or agencies are involved.

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