Just had an email from the RDN – Resource Discovery Network – a name which means what it says. It’s a network by which you can discover resources. That isn’t good enough, though. Oh, no. They are going to change the name. So here’s the reasoning behind it:
The RDN has taken specialist advice and, with the approval of the JISC and the RDN Board of Management, has decided to relaunch the service with a new name. The RDN will become Intute and the Hubs will take the name of their new subject group. Whilst Intute is not an existing word or acronym we hope it will develop its own set of associations matching the service’s vision.
Humbul and Artifact will join together, led by Oxford in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan, to become Intute: Arts and Humanities.
As if the examples of Accenture, Consignia and the rest weren’t warning enough…
Intute indeed… by Dr Rob Spence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
I agree. It will be very sad and if not short-sighted to get rid of SOSIG, HUMBUL, EEVL and replace them with something that sounds like a ‘buy one get one free’ marketing word.
Can we start a petition?
John
We could start a petition, but it looks very much like a fait accompli to me..
At least it isn’t an acronym – far too many around.
There are lots of interpetations of what “discovery services” are – it also sounds like they are going beyond being just an interent catalogue, so are looking at a wider brand. Intute probobly doesn’t scan as well to native English speakers but names like consignia actually play well abroad. Its similar to the many adverts on TV at the moment that appear to be set in a generically neutral country with no obvious indications of there locationother than being a basic consumer the rant!
I found this in Information World Review: http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2152203/critics-round-rdn-rebranding)
Thanks Rebecca – glad to see I’m not alone in feeling that this is a stupid idea.
Rebecca here again. Intute seems to be a live service now. I haven’t had a chance to look at it properly but maybe it’s not so bad after all?
Rebecca here again. Intute seems to be a live service now (http://www.intute.ac.uk/). I haven’t had a chance to look at it properly but maybe it’s not so bad after all?