Paul Arden writes in Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite that it’s a good idea to align yourself with those companies and organisations who hold the most kudos in your professional field. Making the tea at Google is arguably more impressive than being the Managing Director of a failing company that nobody loves. Arden is right of course. He’s right about everything.

Exactly a month ago, I co-delivered an Information Literacy workshop at the CILIPS conference in Peebles. I only spoke for fifteen minutes but it’s done my Google ranking the world of good. Thanks to this I’ve been mentioned by Slainte, Sheila Webber, Glasgow Caledonian University and all manner of news aggregators. Suddenly I am credible.

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At the very same conference I was lucky enough to catch Graham Walton‘s workshop on the advantages of contributing to professional press. (Graham is the editor of Health Information and Libraries Journal).

Graham’s thinking is that publication serves as project dissemination. A project isn’t ‘complete’ until the results of it have been communicated to the wider professional sphere; i.e. the value of your project is limited if it goes no further than your own library service.

I’m inclined to agree. Why work in isolation? When disseminating via publication, you can enjoy the prestige of doing so and help others to benefit from your work. This sort of communication is an important stage in the evolution of our discipline.

Three benefits from project dissemination:

• Spread good practice
• Save colleagues from reinventing the wheel
• Test your methodology by promoting its repetition

Of course, many library services are catching on to the importance of project dissemination. Although they may not do it on a wide scale via global publication, ‘Lessons Learned’ reports or ‘Project Closure’ documents are becoming ubiquitous. This of course makes writing an article easier. You’ve something to go on.

Three actions that need to be completed in order to convert a report into a publication:

• Identify the best outlet for this article
• Obtain permission from your library service (remember your information ethics)
• Convert from institutional lingo to that of the academic or wider professional sphere

Sold? Maybe you should also consider what makes a good article. Will your article survive once it is released into the wild?

Tips on how to make your article useful and popular:

• Be sure to give the article a clear, succinct title and use terms which the user will search for
• Give the article a clear, transparent structure
• Make obvious the ‘new idea’ that your project can bring to the world
• Be strategic and focussed
• Remember that your audience is International