Share your voice: IRMS New Professionals Award

- entries close 31 January 2026

Dear students, apprentices and new professionals,

What are you up to between now and 31 January 2026? How about sharing your thoughts on anything to do with Information, Data or Records?

If you’ve not come across it, the Alison North New Professionals Award was set up by Alison back in 2010 to support emerging talent in our profession. 2025 marked its 15th year and the award continues to recognise and champion new voices.

Over the last fifteen years, entrants have offered everything from light‑hearted reflections to deeper insights into how we do what we do. Every applicant adds value, winner or not, helping the profession see familiar challenges in new ways.

What’s new for 2026:

We’re making submissions more flexible. Previously, you had to write an 1,000 word article.

This year you can still submit a written piece or you can record one instead (audio or video). As long as your entry covers 1,000 words’ worth of content it’ll be accepted and shared with the panel for consideration.

Why bother?

We know you’re busy studying or finding your feet in new roles. But for a little time and creativity, successful entrants will receive:

• A funded place at the IRMS Conference 2026—a brilliant opportunity for content, networking and professional contacts. (IRMS 2026 is scheduled for 17–19 May at the Celtic Manor Resort, Wales.)
• Publication of your winning entry to our 1,000+ members, and sharing across our partner networks and the wider profession.
• Plus additional support to help you settle into—and thrive in—our fabulous profession.

So, ignore the inner imposter that says you’ve nothing to say. Set aside some time over Christmas and the New Year, and share your ideas.

For inspiration, our Patron, Scott Sammons, even interviewed recent winners on his podcast to explore why they applied—and why you should too.

(See https://theiglighthouse.podbean.com/e/special-episode-irms-new-professionals-award-carys-hardy/?token=dd9fdcd3d516c13f4874d8baca1c7b64 )

How to apply:

Deadline: 31 January 2026
Format: Written (1,000 words) or recorded (audio/video) equivalent
Details & submissions: https://irms.org.uk/professional-development/awards/new-professionals-award/

What’s stopping you?

Not a new professional yourself? Please share the application page with people who’d be a great fit and encourage them to apply—every little helps.

Best wishes,

Carys Hardy (She/Her)
Communications & Marketing Officer
Information and Records Management Society Ltd (IRMS)
Email: info AT irms.org.uk 

My source and list archives at: 
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK

Call for focus group participants: the records of adopted and care-experienced people -

– additional retention guidance for
record-keepers and care professionals

Could you help update retention guidance for record-keepers and care professionals by joining a focus group in November?

Care-experienced and adopted people, archivists & records managers and social workers are invited to participate in an online focus group to shape updated and detailed improvements in retaining care-experienced and adopted people’s records in England and Wales. This has been identified as a critical need by many recent reports including IICSA.

We recently published Guidance on the Records of Adopted and Care-Experienced People (Feb 2024) which sets out best practice, to improve consistency across England and Wales. We are a participative and inclusionary project led by members of the Chief Archivists in Local Government Group (CALGG), independent consultants and academics and professionals working in the records management, data protection and access to records fields, in the charitable and local government sectors. Some of our project members are adopted or care-experienced people.

Focus groups will take place on

Weds 13 Nov 11am-12.30

Mon 18 Nov 2-3.30pm

Thurs 28 Nov 2-3.30pm.

We will meet on Zoom: you will be able to join in your web browser, no zoom account or desktop app/licence is required.

Further information

The Guidance is aimed at people responsible for creating, managing, and providing access to care and adoption records. It includes the viewpoints of care-experienced people and adopted people to give practitioners a greater understanding of their experiences, needs and the challenges they face. The Guidance highlights that all organisations should have an up-to-date policy covering all records relating to children, young people and their families, together with procedures and plans to implement the policy including up-to-date retention schedules. Retention schedules recommend how long to keep different types of records. Each record type should have a retention period based on best practice, legislation, business need or a combination of these. Schedules also include how and when the retention period is triggered, and what should happen at the end of the period: typically either confidential destruction, or being kept permanently.

A retention period of [at] least 125 years from date of birth for case files and preferably 150 years as exemplary practice is recommended in the Guidance. However it also recommends the permanent preservation of these records with an option for people to opt out in the case of their own records.

These recommendations are made because many care-experienced or adopted people reconstruct their personal histories by turning to the records created about them by social workers and care providers. Thousands of requests to view records for this purpose are made each year in England and Wales. The records – a “paper self” - have significant impacts on a care-experienced person throughout their life. However, accessing records is often difficult, both practically and emotionally, and can be traumatic and dehumanizing. Records have been kept inconsistently across the public, private, and voluntary care sectors, affecting outcomes for individuals. Across England and Wales the records of adopted and care-experienced people who are formally classified as ‘looked-after people’ should be kept for 100 and 75 years respectively, but there are no permanent preservation protections for records in law. Moreover, some care-experienced people are omitted from the requirement for records to be retained. In addition, there are now many records sitting in digital systems which do not have a proper data migration/preservation strategy.

My Source: To view the list archives go to: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK 

Information and Records Management Society [IRMS] Conference Bursaries

Dear list,

Apologies for the cross-posting. I am forwarding this on behalf of the Information and Records Management Society.

If you think you can’t afford to attend the IRMS Conference or that it’s not the place for someone like you, it could be time to think again! That’s because we’re offering FREE bursary places that will give 3 people from under-represented groups an all-inclusive ticket to IRMS24 in Brighton on 12-14 May.

But you’ll need to be quick – the deadline is less than 2 weeks away!

There are 3 categories of bursary available:

1. New Generation – open to anyone aged 30 or under at the start of the conference on 12 May 2024
2. Diversity and Inclusion – offered to an information professional or student from an ethnic minority background, or who has a disability (or both)
3. International – available to IRMS members based outside of the UK and Ireland

Each bursary provides 1 fully-funded place at the whole event, including all conference sessions, food and refreshments, evening social events, and two nights’ luxury B&B accommodation at the conference venue, the DoubleTree by Hilton Brighton Metropole hotel. Please note we are unable to cover any travel costs.

You must meet certain criteria to be eligible for a bursary. If you do, then to apply, all you have to do is tell us who you are, which bursary you are applying for and why, and how you will benefit from being at the IRMS Conference 2024 – including which speakers or topics you are most excited about! We also ask how you would share your experience at the event.

You haven’t got long - the deadline for applications is Sunday 10 March.
For full details and to apply, go to www.IRMSConference.org.uk/Bursaries.

And spread the word - we want these bursaries to be available to the widest possible audience, so please share with friends, colleagues and contacts.

Thank you, and good luck! Joe
Joe Chapman IRMS Conference Director

Best Regards,
Ren

Reynold Leming
Managing Director
reynold AT informu-solutions.com
https://www.informu-solutions.com/

My source: Records Management List - Archive
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK

125 Years: 1899-2024 Free Issues at Liverpool University Press

2024 marks the 125th anniversary of LUP’s formation and we are pleased to bring you a new selection of free to read journal issues to celebrate.

With one complete issue of each journal available to read for free, this collection captures the breadth and scope of the research that our journals publish, and the growth of LUP from its formation in 1899. We hope that you enjoy reading them.

Visit our Free Issues page to read free content Indexing and Archiving.

Issues included this year

THE INDEXER

In this issue, 39.1, Paula Clarke Bain touches on the experience of reading during a pandemic in her review of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, alongside a final article from a series on active eBook indexes. Gord Ripley and Gordon Adshead offer a tour of their online index database, Libris Canadiana, whilst Peter Rooney discusses the creation of an index for the Mueller report, a highly anticipated US government document that was published without an index. Ælfwine Mischler also explains the complexities of indexing Arabic names, and Walter Greulich continues his series about how to create embedded indexes using Word and, Pilar Wyman reports on the project updating indexing standards in the US.

Read this issue for free >

ARCHIVES

In this issue, 56.1, C.R.J Currie article discusses tenants’ copies of court rolls in England and Wales before 1400 using research in 38 repositories to analyse 176 copies of seigneurial court rolls, whilst Rory MacLellan analyses a new set of First World War diaries for the Mesopotamia campaign. Mathodi Freddie Motsamayi looks at preserving South African community archives in a context of Ubuntu alongside book reviews by Russell E. Martin, J.P. Salley, Christine Jackson, Tracey Logan, Karen Mailley-Watt, and Arike Oke.

Read this issue for free >

COMMA

In this issue, 2019.1, discusses the remarkable work of Charles Kecskeméti, head of the secretariat of the International Council on Archives (ICA) for 41 years, from 1957 to 1998, alongside Mandy Banton who explores the problems and solutions of shared archival heritage, reporting on the EGSAH panel at the Yaounde Conference. Wang Xiangnyu and Han Jiabao also undertake research on celebrity archives held by provincial archives in China, whilst Joan Boadas i Raset discusses the management of photographic heritage.

Read this issue for free >

Browse the full collection of free to read issues for 2024 >

Best wishes,
Alice Burns
alice.burns AT liverpool.ac.uk

On behalf of Liverpool University Press

My source:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=RECORDS-MANAGEMENT-UK