Keeping up CPD when you've not had a decent night's sleep in years and have caring responsibilities

This is a post for all those who are unable to take part in conference season, for whatever reason. For those returning to work thinking 'how am I going to cope/prove I can do the job'. For those trying to balance work and caring responsibilities.

A major part of any professional role is to engage in continual professional development. It keeps skills, knowledge and behaviour up to date and to a standard, which is usually set by a professional body. For example:

• Part of the requirements for gaining a fellowship of the HEA are "successful engagement with continuing professional development in relation to teaching, learning, assessment and, where appropriate, related academic or professional practices".
• In librarianship, chartership is expected to be gained and revalidated continually.
• In coaching, a coach is expected to engage in coaching supervision.

Pre children: I went to conferences. I sat on committees. I organised conferences. I organised training and development for special interest groups. I trained and developed others in my spare time. I took part in Twitter chats. I sometimes got up at 4am on a Saturday (what was I thinking?!) to traipse across the country to attend 'unconferences'. I wrote articles. I blogged on my own blog and wrote guest blog posts. I read widely and deeply and wrote book reviews. I delivered guest lectures. I attended guest lectures. I networked. I was enthusiastic... and tired.

Presenting

I then had two children and changed jobs. I am still enthusiastic, and now even more tired.

We have been through some lovely ups and quite horrific downs with the children. But, good quality sleep, settling down with a good book, and networking till the wee small hours are all distant memories and unlikely to happen again for a while

Which brings me, finally, to my point. Is it still possible to engage in CPD when even a Twitterchat will most likely be interrupted by wailing and crying (sometimes from the children)?

This is how I sort of make it work.

Post children:

• I am much more strategic in my approach to what is necessary - so fewer things but better quality
• I still read professional books but much more slowly (I have book chapters marked out in my bullet journal that I am going to read that week)
• I still read journal articles (I use JournalTocs to keep me up to date with what's happening)
• I am growing a Twitter network of people in my slightly altered field which helps me to keep up to date and raise my own profile
• I read the Wakelets of the evening Twitterchats 
• I have started blogging again to aid my reflection and help others who wish to develop
• I talk to my colleagues rather than just put my head down and get my work done
• I attend lunch-time events where possible
• I have engaged in workplace training, including finally becoming a qualified Performance Coach

It's not glamorous and I miss dressing up for conference dinners (see below) but this is what it is - and it's more environmentally friendly! There's probably more I could be doing but for now this is enough. Whatever you're doing is enough.

How do you make it work?

A festive UKSG Forum #UKSGforum15

Christmas trees and glittery chandeliers in the Grand Connaught Rooms provided a festive welcome to attendees of the UKSG Forum on Wednesday 18th November. I’d arrived early and managed to get a sneak peek of Covent Garden in before and while I managed to take a picture of the HUGE mistletoe balls and Christmas tree completely forgot to take any of the actual forum – oops! I’m blaming it on still being exhausted as my tiny person still sees sleep as an optional extra. 

 

This was my first event since becoming a mum and my first time at a UKSG event. The former meaning that I could not hang around for the usual drinks and networking after the event, which was a real shame, but also meant I had to try to pack in as much as I could in the time I had.  

 

 

The UKSG Forum is put on by a group of people who work within the scholarly and information community and is designed to be a networking event rather than a conference. All the sessions were very short, i.e. ten minutes or so long which, while it didn’t leave much time for detail, did cut out a lot of the unnecessary waffling which can happen in conference lectures. This also meant I was able to take some key messages away from the majority of the presenters: 

 

Don’t make things harder than they need to be.

 

One theme which linked the talks was to focus on making things easier for our users. I don’t think any of us go out of our way to make things difficult for them but sometimes we forget that we are used to how things work. We might have forgotten that it’s actually quite complicated, especially for a beginner. A few ways to do this included getting rid of captcha authentication (there was an audible hiss from the audience at the mention of this!), reducing the amount of choices open to users and making the language user friendly by using first person language e.g. ‘I want to see’ ‘show me’ etc. Additionally, stop using the word ‘submit’ due to its aggressive overtones! The audience were asked to consider how we can ensure students feel comfortable using our resources with no risk to themselves through either wasting time or by embarrassment when it doesn’t work out for them. I’m not sure many of have cracked this one yet. 

 

Don’t just listen, observe. 

A second theme that emerged from the sessions I attended was that, in addition to asking students or customers what they wanted, it would be wise to observe the students. David Sommer’s presentation on user interfaces, Andy Priestner’s talk on ethnography in libraries and Ken Chad’s lecture all raised this as something any organisation who wishes to understand their users should do. Examples of how this could be done ranged from analysing statistics and using user behaviour software, such as Crazy Egg, or actually getting out and about to observe and record students going about their daily business. Doing this will reduce the risk of librarians relying on assumptions and help them to piece together the bigger picture. 

 

Watch out for the culture clash. 

The third thread running through the talks was a reminder to acknowledge that times have changed since we were entering university for the first time. This may seem obvious; however. it can be easy to forget just how quickly time and technology move on - even the youngest attendee at UKSG will have left college several years ago. Students, we were told, are  now are used to information being in bite-size chunks at school and get a sudden sharp shock when they arrive at university and are faced with huge reading lists and several simultaneous deadlines. We sometimes don't truly understand what our students want and need even if we think we know what is best for them and the best way to do this is to start trying to get to know them and understand their day-to-day life. A small scale example of doing this is through the use of empathy maps. On a much larger scale is the absolutely amazing SpaceFinder project at Cambridge. 

 

Ultimately, it was lovely to get out and about again, learn something new, and meet up with some familiar faces. Thanks UKSG for organising it.

 

Slides from the day are all on the UGSG website

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside...

Sat by the beach in Brighton: the sun glistens on the calm gentle waves of the sea; families walk past eating their ice creams; a pensioner relays his memories of the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher and her party at the Grand Hotel bombing; and a lone man uses ski poles to navigate his way across the pebble beach.

It was 23rd June and I was in a very warm Brighton to facilitate a workshop [presentation here] at my first ARLG conference and had managed to breathe in a little of the sea air to prepare myself before it started. I was glad I did! The three days I spent there were full of sunshine, cups of tea, way too many Star Trek references (I realise I may be in a minority thinking this), lots of sharing of ideas and great opportunities to meet other academic librarians.

The start of the conference

Jon Purcell, Librarian at Durham University, opened up the conference by asking how many of the audience had had new responsibilities and tasks thrust upon them – almost everyone had, himself included. He examined why libraries have expanded their remit beyond their core activities and came to the conclusion that it is because they can be trusted to get the job done. He emphasised that being relevant and having visual proof of the impact made is essential for survival.

One thing he said which resonated with me was that if you are going to take on new tasks and new responsibilities then in order to fulfill those duties effectively something has to be dropped. Working out what these things are can help clarify priorities as well as maintain stress levels, which can easily rise when trying to do more with the same resources. He had a really good photo, which unfortunately I didn't take a picture of, which showed predicted trends in librarianship with green post-its indicating what needs to be done more of and pink for what needs to be done less.

Another keynote I particularly liked was by Madeleine Lefebvre from Ryerson University in Toronto in which she talked us through the design of the new building. It is going to change significantly and each level is designed around a theme of nature. Many of the members of the audience tweeted that they’d be on the beach floor – I think you’d find me either on the garden or on the forest floor. It would be great to see how it actually works in practice, especially as much of it was open plan and Toronto gets very cold, so I hope she does a follow up talk at some point [hint hint, ARLG!].

Learning from my experience at the LILAC conference, I found writing a list of takeaway points to be quite useful so here are my main ones:

• Some of the main successes people spoke about came about through collaboration, whether that be on a small scale such as collaboration across a library service e.g. the international project at Bradford or a much larger scale e.g. collaboration between a university, the council and the archives at the Keep
• Don’t treat information literacy skills as generic; try as much as you can to link them with skills they need in their profession. This worked a treat with Journalism students at Dublin University where the skills needed are almost identical. I’m going to be looking after journalism students soon so want to utilise this quite a bit
• Drawing road maps of the (assignment/dissertation/study) journey ahead is surprisingly effective. As a person who is quite happy working with bullet-points and lists I found the workshop by Kaye Towlson and Carol Keddie from DeMontfort University certainly took me out of my comfort zone but it gave me a very clear structure and plan to work with – something I will consider in some of the Getting Started sessions I provide 
• Credo has written an info lit course with materials – including a humorous but quite cringe-inducing video featuring Stu Dent versus big baddie Bias
• It’s quite possible to (almost, and despite not being very ‘games-minded’) create an information literacy game on the topic of getting started with literature reviews within 45 minutes, featuring counters, teams, competition, and cooperation – I also got chance to relive my love of Play-Doh!
  

  

  Plans for the game

While it was a bit of a shock to the system to be in halls (although much nicer than any places I stayed when I was a student – no silver fish or fizzing light bulbs to inch my way around) I got a lot out of my time at ARLG. Like LILAC, it was a great opportunity to meet other subject librarians -  many of whom aren't on Twitter. Additionally, it contained very practical tips related to my everyday job as opposed to the softer skills that have been the focus of other conferences I have previously attended.  While both have their place I do appreciate something I can try out within a short period of time.

Ultimately, it was worthwhile attending and I'd like to thank the ARLG Committee for putting together a very informative and well organised conference.

The marvellous medieval Perfect Information Conference

It was a Tuesday evening in early May and I found myself at Coombe Abbey, as you do, being led down a dark corridor by a silent hooded monk. Candles flickered, casting eerie shadows across the tall imposing doors and thick walls. Sumptuous tapestries and velvet curtains muffled the sound of heels clattering across the stone floors as we were led towards our seats to be entertained and fed. The occasional 'huzzah' rang out as soup, chicken legs and salad were passed down the long wooden communal tables. Mead flowed freely. A couple, rather incongruously, practised their ballroom dancing as the rest of us tried to work out how to eat our medieval banquet minus cutlery.

Coombe Abbey

An interesting venue is just one of the selling points the Perfect Information conference is known for. It also has a reputation for a combination of friendly people and an interesting programme. So, I was thrilled to find out I had won the PI and SLA Europe award to attend and to deliver a workshop about a project I have been involved in at my place of work.

The conference consisted of about 100 people so was much smaller than conferences I had attended in the past. As a result of this it felt much more intimate and I found it easier to talk to and get to know people. To complement this, the conference was very interactive; there were plenty of activities to do, small workshops to attend and online software to ask questions and answer polls with.

While I was the only academic librarian there, I found all of the sessions I attended relevant as they focused on various types of communication skills, continuous improvement, leadership, big data - all very transferable and applicable skills and topics. Each one led to much debate and discussion.

I was informed in one session of how people are moving away from using major search engines like Google to more specific sites such as BBC Good Food and TripAdvisor, leading to a more personalised service and responsive design, and inevitably to services like Everything.Me which promise to deliver information "at the right place and at the right time".

In another, I learned about Neuro-Linguistic Programming and how aligning yourself with (but not mimicking) the person you are with can help create rapport and trust. I also became acquainted in a subsequent lecture with some more Japanese improvement terms (mura and muri)  to add to my collection - I'm a fan of Kaizen -  which relate to processes and how they can continually be enhanced.

This last lecture tied in quite nicely with my workshop, especially the sections on capturing the voice of the customer, continual improvements and communicating value. My workshop, delivered twice, focused on the work that my institution, Brunel University Library, has done so far in trying to achieve the Customer Service Excellence Standard and many of these themes overlapped. I was rather nervous to start off with but both groups really engaged and it led to many interesting conversations both during and after the workshop.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Perfect Information conference: it was a beautiful venue, contained a good mix of informative sessions and I met some lovely people there. I would like to thank those who gave me this opportunity and I would definitely recommend this conference to others.

#LILAC14 : You don't have to be an old woman to wear purple.

I was surrounded by people in lilac; lilac t-shirts, lilac dresses, lilac shirts. All sporting a lilac-coloured conference bag. Normally, I would think "Wow - that's a lot of people wearing purple!" and it would remind me of the Jenny Joseph poem, but this wasn't a normal occasion;  indeed, I was attending my first LILAC conference and attendees were dressed accordingly!

I had heard from several people I respect that this was the UK conference to attend so I was very much looking forward to it. In addition, it was a chance to catch up with people and put a few more faces to Twitter names. It being in Sheffield also meant I could tie it in with a quick visit to family in nearby Barnsley, which was an added bonus.

My old library in Barnsley. Now closed and waiting to be demolished.

I was expecting the conference to have a very narrow focus, e.g. on the minutiae of information literacy teaching,  the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy and on encouraging students to become critical researchers. While there was plenty of this, many of the presentations, especially the keynotes, had a much wider angle, for example, with SLA President, Kate Arnold,  we heard about the Financial Times report on the future career of the information professional.

The BBC's  Bill Thomas, too, emphasised the need for librarians to understand the systems we use. His reasoning being that we lose our civic freedoms by not engaging with them and can't promote a free, liberal society without being able to challenge how they are being used. These were big topics to digest.

I try to go to as many conferences as time and bursaries will allow and I mainly go along for the following:

• To learn new things
• To confirm knowledge that I already have
• To meet interesting people

I don't generally go for the swag but must admit the LILAC notebooks were lovely.

So, at LILAC I learned:

• How to create and edit Wikipedia
• That reflection is a form of coaching for the self
• That reflection in action (very similar to mindfulness, in my opinion) is considered more effective than reflection on action
• That librarians and information professionals should have a global plan to use information skills to maintain democracy and push against the influx of information overload
• That presenters can't get enough of wordles

At LILAC, I confirmed:

• That trying to attend every single session possible is sometimes counterproductive. I found doing this to be really quite exhausting. I still haven't quite established the balance between fear of missing out and giving my brain space to process
• That students spend too much time worrying about the style of their referencing rather than the whys and the wherefores - this is definitely something that we could spend more time addressing in my own workplace
• That students often use the same few sources they have been recommended by their lecturers 
• That both staff and students struggle with keeping up to date - they can feel overwhelmed by the choices available. We currently provide this information in our workshops and on our website and it's certainly worth reviewing whether this format is still appropriate 
• That we don't always know what skills people have. This came out in session run by Jess Haigh where she talked about how putting together an online murder mystery in the library was a chance for people to use under-utilised skills. Doing so also helped to bring creativity into the workspace, helped staff enjoy their job again and encouraged students to try resources they hadn't used before. It sounded fun.

One of the best pieces of advice came from Nancy Graham while she sat at the conference's closing panel. She recommended sharing what we had learned via practical tips rather than sending a report round to colleagues. Reports can sometimes be unwieldy and less likely to lead to any changes whereas as tips are straightforward and can be much easier to implement.

So in the spirit of this, in addition to what I mention above, some of the most practical tips I took away were:

• Keep a diary of teaching reflections - what went well, what didn't etc
• When teaching referencing, focus much more on the why rather than the how
• Focus on helping students get started with research (Dr Alison Head's Project Information Literacy identified this as the most difficult part for students)
• Have an identifiable brand for Library programmes. One example of this was the Steps to Success scheme at Edge Hill,  which I liked the sound of. It encapsulates a variety of subjects, including the Digital Tattoo workshops - a title which I am very tempted to pinch, erm... borrow and give credit for obviously

In conclusion...
I thoroughly enjoyed what was a friendly, informative and motivating couple of days. I've only ever organised half-day conferences and they are exhausting so my sincere thanks to the Information Literacy Group for putting together such a well-organised event and doing a fantastic job. I would definitely recommend the conference to anyone interested in information literacy - there are usually plenty of bursaries advertised in the run up to the conference, especially for less represented sectors such as Further Education and Health so do keep an eye out.

From the road less travelled to the information super highway...

On 31st January, I made my way to the British Library to attend the free conference, From the road less travelled to the information super highway: information literacy in the 21st Century, organised jointly by the M25  and the CILIP Information Literacy Group. The conference had sold out within two hours so I was feeling lucky to have received a place and was expecting good things. All the topics on the day, as you’d expect, focused on information literacy, and ranged from the broad and theoretical, e.g. Emma Coonan’s and Jane Secker’s impassioned lecture on ANCIL to the very specific and practical, e.g. games in libraries.

The conference opened with a look at the Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition. I hadn’t heard of this before and it seemed that neither had many people in the room. We found out that it is a HEFCE funded project and is an informal network of librarians, pedagogists, career experts and similar whose aim is to take information literacy out of the higher education library and into the workplace. They do this by investigating the gap between higher education and employment by speaking to careers advisers, unions, organisations etc.

Obama announced October to be
 National Information Literacy Month in 2009.
 Found on FlickrCC.net

Their remit for 2014 is to help staff formulate and develop courses and to discover how information literacy skills can increase students’ employability. Since the rise in tuition fees, I have found students to be increasingly nervous about finding employment after university and becoming much more vocal about the costs of their courses so this seems like a sensible step to take. Part of their plans also involve increasing their international outreach; the US National Forum on Information Literacy was provided as a positive example of a group who have successfully put information literacy on the government agenda leading to President Obama implementing an information literacy month.

A project I found interesting due to the impact it had at University as well as Library level was Project DigitISE: Digital information skills for employability, which was undertaken at University of Westminster. This was a JISC funded exercise which studied the links between student attitudes towards digital literacy and employability. The team distributed surveys, held workshops and focus groups for both students and academic staff, and developed definitions, all of which culminated in a one day student conference entitled Get the Digital Edge. Promoted as a way of improving employability, students were encouraged to choose six topics covering areas such as using social media for job searching, researching companies for job interviews and social media and reputation , to name  a few. As a result of this project, the university is now reviewing its digital literacy strategy and more digital edge days are being planned.

Another session I particularly liked was one on games in information literacy sessions; this was led by Adam Edwards and Vanessa Hill from University of Middlesex. They explained how they had faced the usual problems library staff face in that information literacy wasn’t integrated into modules and that the sessions they held were far too general in their nature. In an effort to resolve this library staff embarked on getting more qualifications, e.g. teaching fellowships, postgraduate certificates in Higher Education etc. They felt this gave them the skills and confidence to feel they were on an equal footing with academic staff and able to implement more innovative teaching methods. While not everyone can do this due to time and money constraints the gaming suggestions felt achievable, easy to implement, and affordable, i.e. no large grants needed.

Sonic and Tails - found on FlickrCC.net

Apart from a brief foray into Sonic the Hedgehog when I was much, much younger, games have never really been my thing (perhaps because my brother always had to be Sonic, which meant I had to be Tails). So even though I have taken part in several workshops on games in information literacy teaching I have yet to try them out. Adam and Vanessa encouraged us to play some of the games they use with students which covered areas like thinking about resources, keywords, searching, and evaluating (these are all free open educational resources and can be found at Jorum. They gave us a couple of rules to think about when including games:

• Games should be no more than 10 minutes in length
• Games should meet a specific need
• They should have a clear objective
• There shouldn’t be a need for any instruction

While these may seem fairly obvious rules it does help to have these in mind so that games are not just being shoehorned into a workshop. One of my reservations about games was that students might find it patronising, however, more ‘grown-up’ options could be included like marking reference lists out of 10 to get them to think about the types of resources being used and showing students the marking schedule to see how the lesson fits the criteria and provide proof that the skills they are learning will improve their marks.

I generally find conferences quite motivating and this was no exception. It had a well thought out range of sessions and because there weren't any options to choose from I didn't feel like I was missing out! Not only has it helped to maintain enthusiasm in my teaching, it was
a welcome reminder of the useful materials which are already available for library and information professionals to freely use, which when you are short on time or ideas can be a very beneficial resource.

Using yoga and mindfulness to improve student employability.

I like doing yoga. I don't do it nearly enough and when I do practise it I find it calms my mind, stretches out my tight limbs and lowers my stressed shoulders. So I was thrilled to find out I had won tickets to the Om Yoga Show last September.

The conference was a mix of practical sessions, suppliers selling their wares, and lectures. A lecture I found particularly interesting was led by an organisation called Teenyoga which, as its name suggests, was about yoga for teenagers. TeenYoga works with the Institute of Psychological Sciences at Leeds University to develop programmes for schools based on mindfulness and yoga. 

Teenagers, we were told, are increasingly stressed; they worry about money, death of loved ones, and body issues. The UK is no longer bottom of Unicef's list of developed countries for children's well-being but is still only 16th. Obesity levels have has doubled and alcohol levels among teenagers are high. Yoga can appeal as there is an emphasis on safety and it is seen as an easier form of exercise to take part in. Importantly, it isn't competitive. It also contains an element of risk which children need as part of growing up and testing boundaries.

Found on Flickrcc.net

I spent several years in Further Education libraries and even though I am now in Higher Education, students still seem to be dealing with the same issues of stress, anxiety and anger. At a few of the institutions I've worked in the Library has been deemed a 'safe place' for students to go even when they have no work to do, presumably because the Library is staffed, is generally warm, and students are treated fairly as the CILIP Ethics Principles states all users should be.

Librarians spend a lot of time teaching students how to be critical, how to analyse and how to search effectively. I'm not suggesting we all add yoga and mindfulness classes to our skill-sets too but I found it interesting to hear how taking part in them improved students decision-making skills, increased their self-esteem, and developed their emotional resilience. These skills and attributes are necessary in the workplace and employability is currently very high on the agenda in the education sector. If organisations like the Ministry of Defence can see the benefits of it for their staff then perhaps it's not the strangest idea.

Conference Write-up - Open Access Futures in the Humanities and Social Sciences #HSSOA

Open Access Futures in the Humanities and Social Sciences was a conference that truly embraced the power of social media. Every presenter had their Twitter handle clearly displayed on slides. Tweets were displayed on the screen next to the speakers. Even Google hangouts played a part as people became involved in multiple strands of conversation.

I attended this event on 24th October 2013 because I currently look after the Social Sciences within my institution and have learned from my experience with them that they tend to like to do things differently. Also, it was a conference mainly attended by academics, as opposed to librarians, and I thought it might be prudent to check that we are correct in our thoughts about what academics issues are.

Found on Flickrr,net

Looking back at my notes from the day, the main issues seemed to be:

Plagiarism
Some audience members were concerned that plagiarism would increase if work was openly available. It was remarked that students do attribute correctly in essays (so library staff are getting something right!) but often mix their own words with academics - students need to write for themselves and in their own voice. Both Brian Hole and Professor Charlotte Waelde on the panel at the time responded that plagiarism depends on the ability to hide so open access will help prevent plagiarism as it is easier to detect. This made sense to me yet it remains a sensitive topic as academics consider their livelihoods to be at stake and wish to ensure rules like those set by the Berne Convention remain in place.

Visibility
There was a lot of emphasis on the publishing of books and chapters as social scientists and humanities scholars still rely on these for much of their research output. The general impression I received was that while open access can increase the visibility of monographs, the logistics for these still need some thought as they can be both costly and awkward to manage. It will be interesting to see if they remain viable in the future.

Visibility for new staff was also raised as a key issue for which open access could be a solution, e.g. easily accessible urls can help with job applications, however, publishing in traditional high profile journals is often what it is expected of academics to build up a reputation.

Cost
There was much heated discussion about the cost of open access; it is not free as some might think but comes with a hefty price tag. Libraries have to pay costs to publishers whenever they choose to publish an open access article and this can sometimes run into thousands. While a few are in receipt of RCUK funding to reduce the burden, my own included, libraries just can't afford to keep doing this, especially as quite often they are paying twice - once for the article to be published and again for the subscription.


While this is only a brief snapshot of the conference (more information can be gleaned from the Storify created by the organisers) I left feeling that no-one really had the answers yet and that there is much more to discuss and discover. There are some innovative projects created by forward-thinking enthusiastic people, for example, new ways of publishing and collaborative projects like the Mark Twain Project Online , but these seem to remain few and far between.

Surviving in the Google age? From the Gurteen Knowledge Cafe.

Straight after the Internet Librarian International conference, I headed over to my first ever Gurteen Knowledge Cafe at the British Library's Business and  IP Centre. For anyone not familiar with them, the Cafes start off with small groups talking to each other to discuss a topic; attendees then move around the tables to carry on the conversation until finally everyone sits in one large circle to finish the conversation.

David Gurteen told us he used this technique around the world and finds it successful because it takes away pressure and hierarchy. I could see how this sort of format would work well with people who generally don't like being in large groups. By the time you are in the large circle intimate and intense chats with small groups of individuals have already been had - perfect for introverts. The overall themes which stuck out for me were almost identical to the ones at the conference, presumably because some of the attendees had been heavily involved in organising it and also because they are real areas librarians and information professionals should be focusing on.

The topic

The topic up for discussion and introduced by Neil Infield was "What steps to do libraries and information services need to take to survive in the Google age?". We were asked to discuss the skills librarians were perceived to have before Google and those in the present day and to then discuss the slide below:

Relationship building

Relationship building as a strength was repeated regularly both in the small and in the large groups and, indeed, is exactly what the Business and IP Centre had decided to do too ensure its relevancy. Users there are considered to be clients rather than readers. With budget cuts and more information available online it was generally agreed that building trust and being the 'go-to' people in the institution was the way forward. This approach would save the time of the reader as they wouldn't waste it trying out tools which didn't work effectively or spend it looking for information which could be better found elsewhere.

Relationship building is a key part of my job which is why the word liaison is included in my job title. I make an effort to be visible and approachable in my subject areas and have become involved in delivering workshops on how to use social media in teaching and in research for new academic staff. These sessions weren't officially part of my remit, however, they've helped initiate lots of conversations which then helps me move onto the conversations I want and need to have, for example, regarding reading lists and budgets.


Strategic planning

Strategic planning is essential for all workers - if you don't know why you are doing something then how are going to convince anyone else? Alongside the themes of  building relationships and  establishing trust, this too cropped up during the evening. There was a lot of discussion about choosing small things and doing them really well and generating income instead of consuming and being seen as an overhead. There were discussions about business alignment and using the language of the institution which is something I would have previously presumed most places were doing already. I did like the idea of using the word 'solve' rather than the word 'help' to describe what staff do as it's a subtle and, I think, quite effective shift. As long as you do 'solve', of course.

Final conclusions

What I found most interesting from this event was the repeated emphasis on the themes I had just encountered in the ILI conference, especially that of building trust and creating and maintaining relationships  as I've always considered this to be an important part of my work.  I liked the format of the Knowledge Cafe as I prefer working in small groups and it did mean that despite there being a lot of people in attendance when we came to be one large group it didn't feel overwhelming. You know the type where everyone's trying to say their piece and not listening to each other. Although there are always going to be some elements of that happening there seemed to be less in this case.

Sharing, building & being present at Internet Librarian International

The Internet Librarian International conference is a place to share practical ideas and approaches to issues in the library and information sector. It is a place where people are not afraid to stand up and say "I did this and it didn't work". It was the first time I had attended this conference as its cost is far beyond my means and having been lucky enough to take an SLA Europe colleague's place who couldn't make it I was determined to get the most out of it.

After the keynote sessions, the conference was split into themed 'streams' which were jam-packed with speakers with most of them getting about 20 minutes each including time for questions. This meant it was very fast-paced and lots of notes were written and tweets tweeted, until I started running out of battery that is. I'm not going to go through every single session I attended at the two-day conference but just pick out some of the highlights and overall themes.

Relationship building

Relationship building cropped up as a theme time and time again throughout the conference. It started with the keynote on the first day by Peter Morville, President of Semantic Studios and author of a number of information architecture titles. Amongst many other topics, he spoke about Moocs, the Khan Academy, flipped classrooms and iPads in Ethiopia all being perceived as magic bullets yet aren't because the relationships between educationalists and technologists don't exist. He believes librarians can be the links that bring these two disparate groups together.

Ben Showers, Programme Manager at  JISC, also spoke about Moocs but in the context of them being a wake-up call to librarians to seriously consider how they engage with users online. He stressed the urgent need to better understand the behaviours and motivations of our users. In another session Paula Evans and Heather Lincoln, business librarians from Imperial College London, spoke of how maintaining relationships with course administrators meant they had 100% of module reading lists - something of a perennial problem for academic librarians.  Dr. Starr Hoffman, an academic librarian, emphasised that research is now even more of a conversation than it ever was  - the old style of academic conversing via academic conferences and print moving towards blogs and open access.

Relationship building and creating conversations, in my opinion, is becoming increasingly important for the library profession. This is generally what we are good at yet too often I see cliques and silos being created within departments and sectors. Although this is common when people feel threatened it doesn't help in the long term. Creating, strengthening and maintaining relationships between library staff, institutional staff, and users is crucial for identifying needs, putting us in a strong position to provide impact, and to remain relevant. The more relevant you are to the institution the more valuable you will be.

Phil Bradley taking part in a 'Search Slam' with Marydee Ojala (not pictured). I got lots of new tips for teaching students here.

Thinking strategically

Over the two days there was a lot of emphasis placed on behaving strategically, aligning your library's objectives to those of your institution, and paying careful attention to why things are done rather than just what is done. Karin Westerberg, in her session on change in academia, referred to using SWOT analyses and Gartner's hype cycles to decide which technologies to focus on. Dr. Staff Hoffman suggested analysing the institution's strategic plan to work out where librarians can offer support and build on what is already offered. She also emphasised the importance of being selective - focusing on strengths and not trying to do everything.

Ken Chad told us to start with our institution's strategic plans and look at what needed to be done, breaking problems users face into categories rather than the users themselves, e.g. undergraduates, postgraduates etc. Meanwhile, Elisabet Brynge, Ulla Solsmo and Ulf Holke from three separate Swedish public libraries spoke about using virtual conference technology in their book groups followed by Willie Miller and William Orme from IUPUI who outlined how they had used YouTube video games to educate users about library resources - both sets of speakers emphasising the need to focus on outcomes and to have a clear understanding of why projects are being undertaken.

It can be easy to forget why you do what you do sometimes, especially if you have been doing the same job for a long time. Sometimes a lovely comment from a student can bring it to the forefront of your brain, other times it can be attending a conference like this one. Creating annual reports, filling in Matrix forms and ticking boxes off the Customer Service Excellence Standard can all seem frustrating and tiresome but they often provide us with the opportunity to take a step back and really focus on the overall strategic objectives.


Being present

When I say being present I mean this in two different ways. The first way is being visible to others. Peter Morville advocated being where your users are, providing resources at the point of need, having a single search box and locating this in as many places as possible. Where I work we have Summon, a single search box, and we integrate this into our online library guides, some VLE courses and, of course, the Library homepage. We don't have the statistics yet to find out where users are searching most so it may be quite interesting to see the results.

Aase Andreasen from Politiken and Andy Tattersall and Claire Beecroft from the University of Sheffield discussed getting out there and being physically present. What resonated with me most though was Joe Tree, Blipfoto founder's keynote speech on how his creation helps people be present in their minds. His main argument was that while people thoughtlessly post thousands of pictures they are less present than those who were new to photography and who carefully annotated their memories. As a fan of yoga and using mindfulness in life and in the workplace I was very pleased with the connections this made between the various aspects of my life.

Final conclusions

I really enjoyed this conference and got a lot out if it and there are still lots of hints and tips and links I hope to follow up in the future. While I find constantly being 'on' during conferences - networking, chatting to vendors etc exhausting, I generally leave feeling motivated and pleased that I'm still doing the day job and this was no exception. I'll leave you with one of my first tweets from the conference.