Future Skills: values, networks and lifelong-learning

"I believe the children students are our future

Teach them well and let them lead the way" 

(Whitney Houston - slightly amended)

I have recently completed the Aurora course (a development programme for female leaders in higher education) and I wanted to share one of the ways I have been passing on what I have learned. To hear more about the actual course, look out for a future article in CILIP Update as well as further blog posts!

In 2016, I was asked to provide a guest lecture for students on the Masters Library and Information Course at UCL as part of their management module. At the time, I was asked to talk about marketing, promotion and engagement activities. The session went well; I highlighted the great work we had done at my workplace as part of the Customer Service Excellence Standard process and our interactions with students via social media. There was a lot of discussion afterwards.

The proposal

This year, I was asked to do the same thing. I was tempted to just say yes as it was the easiest answer – I had the slides which I could easily update with new activities our Library had been involved in and it would have been straightforward to do. However, I am no longer involved in those activities to the same degree as before and it didn’t feel right to be doing it, even though I knew it would be received quite well. The other possible option was to say no.

The programme

The Aurora programme focuses on values, strengths and the importance of sharing what you know. I pondered this as I drafted my email response to the module leader. I could say no but I could also use my strengths and talk about something authentic to me which they would find useful. I had liked listening to other people’s experiences at the events I had attended and enjoyed their enthusiasm and optimism for the future, so inspired by this I took a risk and offered my alternative.

The workshop

My workshop looked at the future skills that students on the LIS course may need. We looked at tips from others who had done the course, then proceeded to look at passions, values, networks, having a purpose and the importance and means of continually developing and learning. I shared my own personal story with a number of its ups and downs as well as a number of things I wish I’d learned much earlier in life.

The tips (some of them)

• Consider your values and your passions - how do they fit in with where you are now and where you want to be?
• Never stop learning: there are ways to find accessible material or development opportunities. Use what your workplace offers but if they can’t or won’t use what you can to find somewhere better
• There are numerous special interest groups to be involved in with roles needing varying commitment and action – a lot of the social media training I currently provide would not have occurred without my own involvement in CILIP and LIKE
• Create networks/ safety nets – it took me far too long due to a whole history of personal baggage to allow people to help me. Try not to make the same mistake!

The slides from the workshop are available below:

Future skills and conclusions from Sarah Wolfenden

Digital literacy: sharing good practice

Finding myself last Thursday (Feb 4th) inside a very sleek, clean building located right in the prime location of London's Finsbury Square, with toilets which wouldn't have been out of place in a hotel, I thought I couldn't possibly be in a university - but luckily I was, otherwise I would have been very lost! I was in the University of Liverpool, London Campus to present at the joint Information Literacy (IL) Group and the Tinder Foundation event and a very swish looking place it was indeed.

This was a free event, designed for public librarians and those in the Higher and Further education sectors to share knowledge regarding the library's increasing role in improving the digital literacy of its users. Jane Secker, opening the day's programme, explained how both the IL Group and the Tinder Foundation shared concerns over the digital literacy of the UK public in a landscape where there is increased emphasis to apply for jobs, benefits and pay bills online and yet, according to the UK Digital Inclusion Charter,  11 million people lack basic digital skills. Having spent a lot of time supporting digital literacy in colleges and universities, librarians in the academic sector are in a very good position to be able to share with those working in the public sector what works, what doesn't and can help them save both valuable time and resources.

Enthusiasm

There were three speakers in the morning and again in the afternoon, followed by themed discussions after each trio had presented. The speakers came from a variety of Universities, myself included, and spoke enthusiastically for ten minutes on topics ranging from a demonstration of Aurasma, as well as Vines, digital footprint workshops, Libguides and big data. I spoke about the social media masterclasses I had set up in my own workplace and what I had learned from them, as well as how they had also been integrated into the subject librarians' digital literacy programme. My ten minutes zoomed by but there was chance for plenty of conversation over lunch and despite the struggles public library staff are facing they seemed genuinely excited and motivated to be there and to be picking up tips they could use.

The discussion tables in the room consisted of a speaker, a facilitator who took notes and then the rest of the attendees moved round in turn. I'd thought initially that we might be discussing the presentations and how they could be utilised in a public library setting; however, we were each given a theme to consider and ours was welfare reform.

Welfare Reform

Throughout the day, public library staff from Islington, Coventry, Worcester, Lambeth, Hampshire, and Richmond libraries engaged in conversation about how Universal Credit and changes in applications for other benefits, such as Freedom Passes, were affecting their workload. Unanimously, and unsurprisingly, human resources were said to be the main issue staff faced due to an increased demand from users being directed to the Library, not always with the staff members' knowledge, and a lack of skills to deal with the advice users were asking for when filling out the paperwork. I was surprised that very few mentioned a lack of computers and having to charge for pcs because I remember quite clearly when my husband was out of work and we didn't have a computer he hated having to spend money to fill out long application forms on the public library pcs, which would invariably crash as he went to click send!

To deal with the issues, some said they recruited volunteers who signed up to a code of practice, others decided to signpost help rather than refer (and made the distinction between those two terms very clear), and others spoke to services such as the Job Centre to tell them to stop sending people to them and refrain from offering false promises that the Library staff could not possibly fulfil. One Library staff member tried to focus on the positive of more feet through the door can't be bad and adopted a 'let's show them what we have while they are here' approach.


Volunteers, ethics and a trusted brand

The majority of the public library staff there said they were using volunteers to deal with the human resource issues, and this led to a question of responsibilities and the importance of them being provided with oversight, training, and ethics guidance, especially in light of staff possibly being provided with personal information about claimants when helping them to fill out forms. Ethics was also raised as a concern with the arrival of Halifax and Barclay staff providing IT lessons in libraries and how this could potentially tarnish the reputation of a public library as a safe, neutral environment as it becomes associated with corporations and commercial advertising.

Conclusion

While I'm not sure anyone discovered a solution to relieve the turmoil public library staff are experiencing, there did seem to be a lot of hope in the room. Although I keep up to date with what is going on in public libraries and even though my family and I are regular users of several near us, it was nevertheless still enlightening to hear of front line experiences and led me to appreciate even further the effort the staff put in and the motivation they have to provide the best service they can. It felt like a really worthwhile day for me personally as I was asked quite a few questions about what we provide at Brunel University London for students and I was exceptionally pleased to think it had been useful.

I would like to thank the Information Literacy Group and Tinder Foundation for inviting me to this and I hope they continue to work together. Some huge topics were very quickly touched upon on the day and therefore in this blogpost. If you are interested in following up any of the themes mentioned, I would recommend the following links:

Lauren Smith's  list of what public library staff do
Ian Anstice's Pros and cons of commercial involvement with libraries
Ian Clark's post asking Why are Barclay's in our libraries?

Library Camp UK 2013

On Saturday 30th November 2013, I attended my 4th Library Camp Unconference and 3rd held in Birmingham. Previous write-ups are available - see 2011, 2012, and 2013 in London. For those unfamiliar with the term, an unconference is a place where perceived status is left at the door, delegates pitch for sessions on the day, and the Law of Two Feet apply. It is also free which is a big bonus as I generally have to self-fund my professional development.

This one was held at the new Library of Birmingham; I had been looking forward to seeing the new building and it didn't disappoint. The Library was full of people using it, talking about it and generally wandering around in awe of it. It had a lovely mix of the old and new: from a great glass elevator (sorry, but great, glass lift just doesn't sound right after reading Dahl!) to a wood-panelled Shakespeare archive at the top of the building. Amazing views and beautiful gardens accompanied visitors all the way to the top. There seemed to be a space available for every type of person who wanted to use it.

Library of Birmingham

Glass Elevator

Library gardens

The talks I attended covered a wide variety of topics and I took away hints and tips throughout the day; however, I noticed that some issues kept cropping up throughout many of the sessions so have grouped these together.

Clean up your language:

Using 'clean language' means thinking carefully about how words might be perceived and removing any metaphors or emotional triggers from them. I've come across this concept before in a coaching session I attended a while ago and it is a technique often used in therapy. This popped into my mind in at least two of the sessions I attended.

One such session, and very popular it was too, was one on evidence-based librarianship led by Penny Andrews. During the conversations, the importance of using language carefully was highlighted, especially when referring to research on libraries. Do we mean academic libraries, school libraries, public libraries, corporate etc? We can't assume that what works for one might work for others so it is important to be specific.

For my very first session of the day, I chose to attend a speaking and performance workshop led by Gareth Johnson. In it we spent some time 'colouring' our language by reciting nursery rhymes in overtly dramatical or angry voices. We also focused on the ebb and flow of conversation (is it too fast/too forceful etc) by breaking it down into units and trying to communicate using only these. I found practicing negotiating for a budget using only the word six to be very tricky!


Be a professional:

Librarianship, for many people, is more than just a job. When we sign up to complete the course we sign up to a code of ethics and by ensuring we are always learning and developing our skills we are showing our commitment and dedication to that profession. This was emphasised both in the group session discussing the direction of CILIP, the professional organisation's representative body, and in the evidence-based library session.

Generally, librarians try to improve the work they do by referring to best practice and shared knowledge but it was emphasised that there should be a much more systematic use of all available research in order to ensure that what is being used really works. Doing so will help to prevent the continuation of debunked theories, such as learning styles and left-right brain usage, and help maintain the professional status of librarians.

It's good to share:

I think there is a tendency when under threat to retrench and stop sharing, especially in times of restructures and general economic downturns. However, sharing, for me, was the main theme of the day. It's also been the overriding theme of a few events I've attended recently and library and information professionals are usually very good at it.  If anyone goes to a conference, reads something interesting related to their work, or hears about a great idea then it's the right thing to share this with their team and/or line manager. If this doesn't happen people could keep doing the same old thing not realising that there might be a better way.

In the evidence-based session we heard how librarians working in universities may take it for granted they have access to academic databases and have knowledge of services such as Opendoar, Educause, and the work that the Library and Information Research Group does, while those working in other areas of the sector may have little or no knowledge of these yet really want to access the research. We didn't really come to any solutions with this one apart from to remind ourselves to keep sharing with each other too.

#Libcampuk13 attendees

In conclusion...

Last year, I had decided I wouldn't attend another Library Camp. I had started to feel like they were becoming too much like the conferences they were set up to be different from. However, I was persuaded by a colleague with the offer of a road trip and when a ticket came up at the last minute I took it so, with homemade brownies in tow, we made our way to Birmingham. I didn't regret it at all. I had a lovely day out, met some great people, talked and learned about things I care about and visited an amazing looking library with its eyes firmly on the future.

LIKE 49: Raiders of the Lost Archives

It was a busy week, what with the Internet Librarian International Conference and my first Gurteen Knowledge Cafe. I wrapped it up with attendance at LIKE 49: Raiders of the Lost Archives. This was held in a different venue to the London Information and Knowledge Exchange's (LIKE) usual one and I found myself in a booth with a few people I had not met before but with whom I quickly developed a rapport, as is often the way with LIKE. The events regularly provide a mixture of old and new faces and no evening is ever the same.

Collection of old newspapers - Found on Flickrcc.net

Richard Nelsson, Information Manager at the Guardian and Gavin Fuller, Head of the Telegraph Library, introduced the audience to the way they create books out of their newspaper's archives. Both discussed the process undertaken to create the books; including the difficulties which ranged from some cuttings only being available on microfiche to trying to create a story out of them to increase the books' appeal. Richard mentioned how he gives context to the books by writing small introductions to each entry; I appreciated the dual result of adding value while simultaneously increasing and cementing knowledge of both the topic and the institution.

The two things I liked most about #LIKE49 was firstly, that it introduced me to an area of librarianship I really knew nothing about and secondly, provided a practical example of how libraries can be spaces of creation not just repositories. Adding value is always a must in whatever business you are in, from creating chutney out of apples to increasing students' grades by having a well-resourced library and teaching information literacy.

Libraries have always added value despite often being seen as an overhead rather than an income stream. But, if libraries and librarians are to move with the times, does this mean we need to change our ways? Should librarians be contributing more towards research, for example? Should we be bringing in the moolah, the cold, hard, cash or is it enough to focus on other areas of value which institutions consider important? Personally, I'm in the latter category, however, I know a number of people who disagree.

LIKE Ideas 2013 - From big data to little apps

The full title of the second LIKEIdeas conference to be held was: 'From Big Data to Little Apps; How you can access, present and deliver information in the workplace' and this is exactly what the five speakers showed us over the course of the afternoon.

The keynote speaker, Dom Pollard from Big Data Insight, announced he was going to demystify big data & explain how to apply it in the workplace. He explained that big data is about volume, variety & velocity and it has become much more accessible to smaller companies due to cloud computing. Strong emphasis was given to the benefits of collaboration which can open up many new possibilities, some examples given were:

• the pairing of Spotify and Songkick
• retailers using Met Office weather data to boost bikini sales
• the UK government potentially saving billions if it used social media data to prevent benefit fraud

Both Dom and the next speaker Michael Agar emphasised the importance of data analysis, stressing that it is important to ask the right questions, to not just do analysis for the sake of it and that data in and of itself is not useful until it has been interpreted. Michael's role was to help people visualise data and explore it in more detail through the use of infographics in order to tell a story. This led to questions from the audience about transparency as the sources are not always clear; infographics are being used quite heavily by marketers so it is becoming increasingly important to question and verify where the data originated from though this is not always easy to do.

Manny Cohen, told us what it was like to be a technological innovator, apparently this is difficult because no-one realises they need your creation! The technology is fairly simple to develop and, according to him, is generally the easy part; the most difficult aspect is changing social attitudes. This became clear when we were all asked to, in groups, consider the future of data in the next 5,10 and 15 years. There was a lot of optimism regarding technical advances and social adoption as we shared our answers, many of which were very similar focusing on better battery life, augmented reality, wearable technology and possibly revolting in 15 years away from all the technology as we realise it's taken over our lives. 

One thing which did vary massively was the time scales - there was a huge variation around the room regarding when we though the 'take-up' of these technologies might occur. And perhaps the revolt away from technology has already started as I have recently seen holidays advertised as being technology free and there seems to a proliferation of people returning to 'dumbphones'. In the future, maybe people will choose which side of the digital divide to be on. And, people will still be sharing picture of cats.

#LIKEIdeas attendees listening to Monique Ritchie's take on big data.

After we spent the break ruminating about the future of data, with a bit of networking thrown in for good measure, we returned to LIKE MIC, a panel of speakers comprising James Mullan, Monique Ritchie and Andrew Grave who in turn spoke about creating well-designed dashboards to create meaning from information within law firms, emphasising the importance of relationship building within the academic sector and ensuring academic staff are creating stable and secure places for their data, ie, not memory sticks, and finally, looking at how technology processes have changed in the last five years.

I went to this conference partly because I was helping to organise it but also because I wasn't quite sure I 'got' big data. It's a term which is used often and seemingly by everyone but which no-one seems to be able to succinctly explain. By attending the conference, I felt that actually, after all, big data is not a big deal. It's about information and people - something I am perfectly at home with.



The slides from the day can be found on the LIKE website.
The #LIKEIdeas tweets have been archived at Eventifier.

Academic and Research Libraries Group: Members' Day

Last January two CILIP Special Interest Groups, Universities, Colleges and Research (UC&R) and Colleges of Further and Higher Education (CoFHE) merged to become Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG). I'm active in the regional branch of this group (London and South East) having become a member of the CoFHE London and South East committee in 2010 and now fulfil the roles of liaison officer, blog editor and web editor.

On Wednesday 15th May, ARLG held its first ever Members' Day - I was looking forward to attending this event as even though I had been involved at a regional level I thought it would be a great opportunity to find out more about the goings on at the top.

It was held at Regents University London in the beautiful surroundings of Regent's Park and the day kicked off with an introduction from its new Vice Chancellor, Professor Aldwyn Cooper. For half an hour, he calmly but passionately enthused about the institution, about its social responsibility, ethos, diversity, its focus on employability but most of all its collegiality. Tying in the ARLG theme of partnerships and collaboration, he expressed his pride in working with people who talk to each other across their departments.

Regents University London 

Straight after was a talk from Lesley Ruthven, a special collections librarian from Goldsmiths University. She spoke about the various partnerships she and her team are involved in from school visits to creating workshops for her academic staff. She referred to 'empowering' the subject librarians to promote the resources by breaking down the collections into subject categories. She works hard to preempt as well as to respond to enquiries and is working to ensure her role becomes a 'jewel in the crown' at Goldsmiths.

Lesley's slides.

Working with subject librarians came up at the Supporting Researcher's event I attended and it makes sense - we are the ones who know our academic staff, know who is receptive and willing to be involved and know who would benefit. The theme of the day was partnerships but if we aren't even talking to each other effectively then we can't realistically expect to get very far with others.

Next up was Abi Mawhirt from Dundee College speaking about the new learning hubs recently installed. They took on a headache inducing amount of projects at one go as besides creating the hubs they also installed RFID, installed a new library management system, migrated their Blackboard virtual learning environment to Moodle all while five campuses were being reduced to two. In each hub there is a focus on academic support and learning and despite initial misgivings from academic and library staff, feedback indicates that students feel more engaged, more capable of working together and the retention rates have improved. While all this sounded great, one thing which niggled was that the Library specified they wanted to get new staff who worked well with people so they purposefully didn't stipulate a library qualification. I can empathise with this in one way as I didn't have the qualification when I started out but did have tons of customer service experience which has always proven valuable, however, I would have expected that they would encourage staff to work towards it, plus it implies that librarians aren't people focused which is completely untrue.

Abi's slides.

After lunch and the Annual General Meeting, Ann Craig from University of Worcester told us about the development and the implementation of the Hive, a privately financed initiative to create a library for both university students and council services. They combine staffing and resources and their corporate plans are very similar. I'm still not sure about the Hive - on one hand it's great for the community as they get new facilities and access to a much wider range of materials but I just can't see what the students get out of it. Having seen how private finance initiatives have meant extortionate costs for the NHS, I can't help but be concerned that education will suffer the same fate if it follows the same path.

Ann's slides.

After a short promotion for ARLG bursaries, it was time for us to give back - in small groups we came up with and fedback answers to the following questions:

• what topics would you like to be covered at the next conference?
• what do we want from ARLG?
• what should its objectives be?

I didn't catch everything that was said but there were a lot of people interested in access, including open access and disability access, and transition, including from school to further education to higher education and within higher education itself. Help with career decisions related to academic and research libraries such as chartership, teaching certificates and PhDs alongside online help, webinars, clear communication, advocacy and sustainability also featured heavily.

The whole process of merging the two special interest groups has not been without its challenges and suffered enormously at the beginning from a lack of communication, however, it does seem to be getting back on track and having a Members' Day is definitely a positive step in the right direction. It's a useful way to keep in touch, to share what we are up to and to strengthen the bonds within our sector and I sincerely hope they continue.

Supporting Researchers: how librarians can support the REF, bibliometrics and data management

On Wednesday 8th May, I left work early to help set up and attend the Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG) London and South East event entitled Supporting Researchers: how librarians can support the REF, bibliometrics and data management. 

There was a good turnout to hear the two speakers talk about their experience of supporting researchers. First up was Andria McGrath, a Research Information Specialist at King's College London. She focused on internal library partnerships and discussed the importance of  working with IT and Research management as well as academics.

Andria's slides are available so I don't want to regurgitate everything she said, however, a couple of the main points that resonated for me were:

• The relationship between the Graduate School and the Research Librarian is key. Andria mentioned that training is very important for supporting researchers but they only want to turn up to sessions on how to use referencing software. This is why it is so important that academic librarians, and especially research librarians, have a strong relationship with the Graduate School in order that researchers don't miss out on very useful and relevant workshops. This is definitely the case where I work and it was also remarked upon via Twitter that this was the same at other institutions.

• Staff development is vital. Andria mentioned that she spent a week on a Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) training course in Leiden and this helped her to fulfil her duties enormously. While not all institutions value or support continual professional development, I think it is important that we take control of what we are able to  -  engaging in what we can and then taking the time to share it with others. Not only will it help consolidate thoughts but by 'paying it back' you are helping others to learn and grow too improving the situation for us all.

The second speaker of the evening was Monique Ritchie, a colleague and Research Librarian at Brunel University. She spoke about her new post supporting researchers, the Research Data Management Project and UKRISS. Monique helpfully listed 6 key skills needed to do her role; a useful list for anyone trying to decide if this could be for them, although I felt they could easily apply to my job too. The key skills were:

• adaptability & flexibility
• ability to prioritise
• diplomacy and tact
• a sense of adventure
• ability to think strategically
• networking - externally as well as internally 

Monique's slides are also available but a couple of items she mentioned stuck with me:

• Always be ready to justify what you're doing. I've found that as budgets and time are both tighter and we are regularly expected to do more with less, justifying oneself is becoming a regular obstacle to overcome. If we always carry in the back of our minds the reasons behind what we are doing then it should make it that little bit easier to explain it to others.

• Relationship building is a key part of the role. Research librarians need to work closely with subject librarians to embed support in departments, with the schools in the university, with research institutes and with other stakeholders. In all my various roles, librarian and otherwise, building relationships not only makes getting things done a lot easier but it helps make life more enjoyable too.

Unintentionally, this event on supporting researchers raised the theme of collaboration and partnerships. This topic is very prevalent this year; it was the theme for the ARLG Members' Day and features as a theme at the CILIP Umbrella conference. It has been recognised that in a recession or global downturn people become increasingly anxious about personal identity and therefore more protective and less willing to share (you've only to look round an office when supplies are limited - people become very protective of their staplers!)  I'm hoping that as this theme keeps cropping up throughout the library, information, education and research sectors that perhaps we are bucking the trend, which is certainly an optimistic thought.

Library Camp London 2013

On Saturday 2nd March, I spent the day at an unconference called LibraryCamp. I attended the first UK Library Camp in 2011 and last year's too, however, this is the first time I have attended a regional one. I can't say there was much difference; there was just as much lovely food and it, seemed like anyway, a similar number of people.

I've always liked the collaborative and democratic ways the Library Camps are ran. Everyone brings and shares food, people offer ideas to the wikis set up beforehand and there are pitches from all library and information types to discuss relevant topics.

For more information about the range of sessions delivered and for pictures, take a look at the event wiki.

As always, it was difficult to choose which ones to go as there was such a range of interesting and potentially useful sessions. In the end the five I attended were on vision, the future, the problem of the printed book, what would the world look like if librarians ruled the world and lastly, librarianship and personality. So, slightly more whimsical than my usual fare but much more forward looking and strategic.



Scheduled session pitches

Some notes and highlights I took away with me:

How to keep vision when dealing with operations, led by Kathy Baro:

We were asked how do we keep an overarching vision in mind while doing your everyday tasks. It turns out that this is a problem quite a few face - we are so caught up in the here and now that we forget the bigger picture, and while it is great to be mindful of every situation, event or person we are dealing with it can sometimes mean the service doesn't move forward. One example given which ensured that people did stay in touch with the vision was to ensure that the strategic objectives were visible at every staff meeting. By becoming commonplace they were not shrouded in mystery which resulted everyone knowing and understanding the reasons behind their everyday tasks. I agree with Liz Jolly, whose point it was, that you should always know why you are doing something.

It was mentioned that those not involved in the physical day to day running of libraries can spend more time on the vision but aren't always able to see its impact  - this led to a discussion about the importance of bringing everyone, at all levels, into the creation of the Library's vision. It goes without saying that it needs to be aligned with the overall institution's. As we went round the group and listened to each others' experiences, it became clear that often strategic plans are just given to staff so I feel lucky that at my current institution everyone was involved in the process. One final thought, before the session came to a close, was that ideally a personal vision shouldn't conflict with a work one as this is a recipe for unhappiness and stress.

Future of librarianship, led by Simon Barron:

This was a very well organised session and wouldn't have been out of place at a regular conference. Simon even wrote an introductory blogpost explaining his ideas behind his pitch. Many ideas were covered including changing technologies, robot hybrids, digital libraries, and the future of librarianship. The idea was suggested that librarians have stress because they suffer from information overload; emails and smartphones are leading to reduced memory and librarians are losing control as they are very susceptible to this. Due to the large numbers we were split into groups and ours pondered information overload and digital information - there was some dissent over the aforementioned suggestion as one Stella Wisdom remarked that using apps had improved her memory. This led to discussion on weeding and print versus digital book and how discovery tools are solving but also causing problems for users. There were a lot of themes to cover in a very short period of time and I'm not sure we did any of them justice, however, there was a unanimous agreement that people, not robots, were needed to help people sift through the information and teach people how to make good judgements. Well, we would say that wouldn't we?!

Collection management - stewardship of collections, led by David Clover:

I attended this because I thought it would be focused on weeding, something that I have a little difficulty persuading a couple of my subject departments to consider. However, it was mainly focused on reserves which I don't really know much about - it was interesting nonetheless and I was intrigued to find out more about salt mines and military bunkers being used for storage and how despite them being very good for storage they are incredibly costly if anything needs to be retrieved. Universities regularly weed to keep the collections fresh and alive but there is always the danger of throwing out something important that isn't available anywhere else at all. To ensure the sustainability and availability of monographs there needs to be a shared service between Higher Education and and public libraries there doing for monographs what the UK Research Reserve does for journals. One final comment from the group, Stella Wisdom again (!)  suggested that if libraries were to become privatised there would be a central cooperative created straightaway...

If librarians take over the world, led by Anna Brynolf:

I attended this as it sounded like fun. The idea behind it was that as librarians are very liberal and open minded and they would have rather left leaning ethics and policies if they ran the world. So, if they did:

• there would be more freedom of information
• there would be free access to medical trial data
• everyone would have broadband
• copyright law would not exist - though there would still be authors' rights
• a more feminised culture would ensue as the profession is approximately 74% women
• there would be plenty of public space to break down barriers
• universities as they stand wouldn't exist because there would be lifelong learning via the internet instead
• there would be fewer criminals as literacy levels would be much higher

A proper manifesto wasn't created, however, some interesting ideas were discussed and the legal and business librarians looked increasingly worried! I was concerned that by being in power, librarians would no longer be able just to focus on working for the public good and their emphasis would shift from altruism to wanting to stay in power. As I recently discovered in a lecture on the psychology of leadership this regularly happens as soon as someone is given a position of authority - absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Librarianship and personality, led by Rosie Hare and Andrew Preater:

Having accidentally found myself reading a lot about personality, psychology and leadership recently I figured that this session would fit in quite nicely with this theme. While it is good to be reflective, I sometimes think librarians spend a lot of time thinking and talking about this topic and was curious to find out why they wish to classify themselves. I tend to have a bit of everything when it comes to personality types or traits so I never feel like I fit neatly into a box, however, I don't feel the need go out of the way to do lots of 'crazy' things to prove this point.  We started the session stood up in a line with introverts (energy is depleted when with others) at one end and extroverts (who get their energy from others) at the other. As an ambivert (see what i mean?!) I stood in the middle.

We then split into groups and our group was tasked with looking at what personality traits a librarian should ideally have. We discussed how due to the sheer enormity of roles available for librarians to do it was actualy a good profession for all types as there's something for everyone. I raised the point that whatever role you do, whether it be digitising or teaching, empathy is a key trait to have as you always need to think about the experience of the user. For those who would like to know more about this topic Andrew Preater has written a fantastic summary of the session and the reasons behind it.



One difference I have noticed is how much slicker the sessions are becoming; when I led a session at the first Library Camp we all just had a big discussion about the topic in question which was HE in FE but now people are planning things out much more thoroughly. This does mean more content is covered and it is recorded effectively, however, I do hope it doesn't scare away people who haven't pitched a session before.

Collaborative research - living the DREaM

 On Monday 9^th July, I attended the Library and Information Science Developing Research Excellence and Methods (LIS DREaM) Conference at the British Library. I had been kindly sponsored to attend by the CILIP Special Interest Group: Library and Information Research Group (LIRG).

Edinburgh Napier University was awarded £45,000 grant funding in 2010 from the AHRC to support the DREaM project. The purpose of the grant was to develop a formal UK-wide network of Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers in 2011/12. Several events were held since its creation bringing together researchers to share their strength and weaknesses, and share good practice.

Hazel Hall introduced the event by giving everyone an overview of the project and where it had got to. From the evidence she supplied it seems to have met its main objectives which were to improve access to LIS research and to improve its impact on services. She went on to express her hope that the DREaM legacy of collaborating and communicating across the sector would continue and the following speakers built on her address.

The first keynote speaker of the day was Professor Carol Tenopir from the University of Tennessee. Carol emphasised how the world economic situation was creating challenges and opportunities for libraries, not just problems, and that it was a good time to promote the increase of research and its value. She is currently working on the LIBvalue project of which the ultimate outcome will be that there will be tried and tested methods of proving impact of libraries on their institutions so that others can use or enhance them. This should be ready by next year. Carol explained all the different types of value which could be measured from purchase exchange value to explicit and implied value, warning of the need to measure the right one or face the consequences of it not providing the results needed. She also highlighted the need to use a range of measurements to provide a greater depth of understanding and tailor the results to match the institutions mission and values, for example, there’s no point spending time looking at the affect of the library on the grants process if the university isn’t research intensive. Cater too for senior managements own peccadilloes, for example , show economists statistics such as academics spend on average three months reading – 67% of which is from the library (despite many academics claiming they don’t use the library) and show social scientists what a successful graduate looks like in terms of how much reading and accessing of resources they do. The final message from Carol was to work out where your value is – whether it is the buildings, the space, the collections or the librarians and brand this effectively.

See Carol’s slides and videos for more details.

Next we had One Minute Madness which was very much like a Teachmeet for anyone that’s ever been to one, expect that in this case candidates only got one minute (hence the name)to showcase their project rather than five. There were twenty speakers in twenty minutes and some were timed brilliantly, others not so much so they got the foghorn treatment. I generally like this kind of thing as it really cuts out the waffle and introduces you to an idea – you can always then chase this up if you’re particularly interested. Some highlights for me were; Allan Parsons talking about transforming the role of the academic liaison librarians, Jennifer Hopkins talking about improving relationships via teaching, Peter Cruickshank talking about online reputations and Sue Reynolds telling us about social media, open access and research. One Minute Madness videos

After lunch, Dr Louise Cooke from Loughborough University spoke of the social network analysis she had completed based on the DReaM members – she found that they had all strengthened their ties and that they all had several connections whereas previously they had only had one or two and were vulnerable to being kept out of the loop. She told us that on the basis of her analysis of the network cadre academic librarians performed very well. She finished by emphasising the importance of using social media to create networks.

The panel discussion which followed consisted of four participants in the project who used the opportunity to consider what the next step. Members of the audience were encouraged to participate. The theme of lifelong libraries ran through the session with the suggestion that the sectors should not be put in boxes and should all be engaged in research. It was also recommended that projects should help bridge the gap between researchers and practioners and that this should be key to all events.

The second keynote, and final session of the day, was delivered by Dr Ben Goldacre . He spoke about medical journals only publishing positive trials and not negative ones therefore skewing the view of medicines, often to the detriment of patients’ health. We often only hear about positive library stories and research is rarely disseminated, however, in medicine this can have fatal consequences.

My photos didn’t come out very well so here are some others taken by event amplifier Kirsty Pitkin.

In my past role, I was involved in a fair bit of research via all aspects of the annual questionnaire, focus groups, mystery shoppers and information skills feedback. In my current job I haven't had the opportunity yet but having attended this session I at least now know my first port of call if I do.

My first month as an Academic Librarian

I've been in my job just over a month now and here is a list of things I have been doing:

• Meeting the team
• Learning how to use Coutts Oasis and ordering books
• Reviewing book lists on Talis Aspire
• Watching webinars to try to understand Talis Aspire
• Meeting my school's academic staff and administrative team and making lots of plans for the next academic year
• Trying to fulfil those plans for the academic year
• Helping lots of PHD students with enquiries
• Meeting the school's library reps and trying to persuade them to rethink the length of their reading lists
• Frantically trying to review potential journal and book archives due to a sudden influx of cash and not wanting to buy the wrong things.
• Trying to learn about what my students are studying and what they and the staff need
• Learning about the Research Excellence Framework
• Learning about the institutional repository and a bit about open access
• Providing information skills sessions on literature searching for Masters students
• Providing information skills sessions on database usage for international students
• Being involved in an open day
• Finding my way round the campus
• Attending a Sociology and Communication social
• Attending Equality and Diversity training
• Trying to learn about raw data and the databases which provide it - Bloomberg, Reuters 3000, Datastream etc so I can help students.
• Being joint lead on a project reviewing the above databases (with the other joint lead about to go on maternity leave)
• Learning about Summon - a tool which is supposed to search all the resources
• Training on Blackboard Learn (every institution I have worked for has upgraded or migrated to a new virtual learnign environment. At my last place I was training people how to use Moodle 2.0, here I will be adding content to the new and shiny version of Blackboard (when I persuade the staff to let me)
• Being involved in two social media projects 
• Learning how to find things in the Library of Congress System having always been familiar with Dewey.
• Planning September's induction of the new students

There are other things which I can't remember and there is still a lot to learn and a lot to do, however, despite the exhausting commute (which I hope to shorten soon) I am enjoying the challenges. I was also named as a LISNetwork Rising Star, which gave me a real boost of confidence and for which I'm very thankful. It is a steep learning curve but those are often the best.

Round up of the Library Day in the Life Project

The project.

A couple of weeks ago I took part in the Library Day in the Life Project. To take part, librarians record a working week either via a blog, Twitter, Flickr or any other social networking means. I had initially decided to use both my Twitter account and my blog, however, I found that I couldn't keep up with recording everything by Twitter so just used my blog instead.

I enjoyed reading other people's accounts - I read a wide range for three things:

• to find out what others did and whether I could learn from it in my role at work
• to discover whether they had a career I'd like for myself
• curiousity (occasionally known as nosiness)

In particular I liked Katy Stoddard's blog. Her job sounded interesting and exciting but I do wonder if these types of jobs will continue as I have never seen one advertised, plus this CILIP article on trends states library schools recommend not going down that route. I also enjoyed reading Don't call me miss as I enjoy the writing style and because I recognise many of her scenarios and Jo Alcock's blog mainly because I think the job must help you get a good overview of the profession, plus she gets to work from home occasionally!

What I discovered about my own working life.

I spend a lot of time explaining how things work! From the self-issue machine to electronic resources to the catalogue to general behaviour - all these featured quite heavily in my week, despite it being mid February and students have been using the service since September. Either they've just started taking their work seriously or somehow we are not getting our messages across - a bit of both I think.

Part of my job as a senior member of the team is to help develop the service, however, I've discovered that this element is beginning to deteriorate. This is mainly because, like everyone else, we are spread too thin. Seeing a breakdown of what I do just emphasised this point. Also having spent the week finding staplers and explaining how to use the self-issue machine meant I found it quite difficult to fully engage when I needed to, for example, the Matrix training where directors were present, as my brain went into slight meltdown. Don't get me wrong, I like helping students and I think that everyone  should spend some time helping them, even if you're a manager, as you can see what students really need and not what you think they need. However, I think some quiet time is crucial in order to think clearly and properly and not just skim over tasks and fire fight.

I'm also concerned that we are becoming less professional as we are just trying to deal with every day as it comes. Luckily I get a lot of professional development outside of work by being part of ARLG LASEC, being a member of professional bodies like CILIP and SLA, by reading extensively, by attending LIKE, by writing book reviews and by applying for opportunities where I find them, e.g. applying to attend the ECCA Conference. However,  it is becoming increasingly difficult to apply this work and from reading the Chartership tweets it seems many others are in the same boat.

Where do we go from here?

For now, continue looking for opportunities to take up but be realistic about what I can actually fit in- easier said than done as I don't like missing out, however, the reason for this is that if I am spread too thin I will just be too tired to be of use in my workplace or outside of it.

Try to arrange training as part of ARLG LASEC which is appropriate for and appeals to people in similar positions to myself.

Raise my concerns with my line manager and put forward ways round the problems, for example, using tools like our group discussion Sharepoint lists more effectively or wikis so we can still collaborate and sound out ideas without having to meet up- it may be that nothing can be done but at least I've tried.

And lastly, remember to take part in the project next year!

Library Day in the Life - Day 5

This blog post is part of Library Day in the Life

Friday was so packed I've only just got round to writing this post the day after.

Arrived at work at 8.30am and checked my emails and Google Reader. I was then straight out on the Enquiry Desk at 8.45 till 10am. In this session I put out our enquiry statistics forms, helped a few people with problems accessing the computers, then tracked down an item that a teacher wants us to buy for her class. The problem with the latter is that it is for a Higher Education group so they also have access to their University resources as well as the college ones. When  purchasing any items not only do we have to consider the amount of students, how long it will be used for and how much it costs but also whether the University has copies and how often those ones are borrowed. It can be a tricky decision and one I imagine will get tougher as higher education students expectations change in line with the fee increases.

Between 10am and 4pm I was in a Matrix meeting.  Our college is going through the reaccreditation process in April so we have to get ready for it. Matrix is a national standard developed by the former DfES and receiving it proves that the institution provides effective information, advice and guidance to those who need it and can provide proof of its impact on those who received it. We started by looking at the learner's  journey through college, including just before they started and just after they have left to establish when they needed information, advide and guidance, in what form and who should be responsible for delivering it. I was very surprised to find out that not all colleges have an information, advice and guidance team but was not surprised when told that these colleges had a real problem with retention. Now that Connexions (a young adult support and advice service) is no longer in action it seems that young people rarely get unbiased and personally tailored advice and I think this is a real shame and a bit of a worry too.

Next we were all required to take flip cameras and film areas in the college where good and bad impressions or infomation was being given. There were several bad, including out of date signage and leaflet racks entitled information but with nothing in them. When we adjourned to our meeting room to share our findings I was surprised to see pictures of the HE Centre. However, they were being used as examples of good practice so I was quite pleased by that!

Our next tasks are to really think about how we measure every aspect of what we do, for example, higher than usual usage on its own doesn't show that those extra people were well served so it has to be broken down further. We also need to think about what we do and how we know it works as well as how we then promote it. In the Learning Resource Centre we're pretty good about all this stuff but it would be a useful exercise to get it all written down.  These are the bits I really enjoy about my job - the service development and really feeling that what everybody does makes a difference to a student's experience.

After it was over I was back in the Higher Educuation Centre for an hour where I did a little bit of preparation via email for the Beauty Awards being held in the HE Centre next Monday night. Events are quite often held in the Higher Education Centre as it is a lovely venue , however, it means I have to prepare the rooms, ensure there are no double bookings and keep everybody happy who want the rooms but can't always have them - the latter two items can be incredibly tricky! Just before I packed up the centre for the day I had a quick chat with the person responsible for organising the Student Voice. He is currently preparing for the National Student Survey so I offered to put promotional material around the centre and encourage student to use our computers to fill it in.

This week is as representative as it can be. Enquiries can often be the same thing over and over again or can be something completely off the wall. If I had completed this project any week between September and December it would have been full of inductions, information literacy workshops and Moodle training.

So that's it - a week in the life of a librarian in a college of further and higher education. I will most likely do one more post to sum up what doing this has meant for me and then start trawling my way through everybody elses. I wonder how many base their career of choice on what they have read in this project...

Library Day in the Life - Day 4

This blog post is part of Library Day in the Life

Okay today is a normal day with nothing untoward happening.

8:30am

• Arrive at work and check Google Reader, emails and make a notice on the LIKE LinkedIn page to say that I will be attending their next event.
• Skim read email news from Times Higher Education
• Checked Twitter - one tweet mentioned a Guardian Higher Education chat taking place on Friday focusing on the evolving role of Higher Education librarian. Made a note to catch up with  this after the event as I won't be able to take part at the time. I also passed this info onto a colleague who I thought might be interested.

9am
Continued working my way through tape recordings of the recent student focus group and made notes for the writeup of it I am doing.

10am
Roaming session started. In this I;

• asked a rather noisy group to either focus on their studies or choose a more appropriate environment
• asked a student to take her mobile outside as she was distracting the student next to her
• sold a biro
• asked the previous noisy group to make there decision quickly as they were disturbing others
• booked people onto the pairwork PCs
• helped at least 3 people with the self-issue machine
• tracked down a stapler
• unsuspend a student as they had paid their fines and brought back their very overdue books
• helped several people print their work
• took a phone call from a student who needed to renew her books a screaming baby was making itself heard too!

11am
On the enquiry desk where there were not too many enquiries so I created a map of the PCs in the Higher Education Centre so people could find the ones they wanted more easily. They have the choice of group work laptops or individual/pair work computers.

11:30am
Half an hour at my desk so tried to continue a little more with the focus group material.

12:00
Lunchtime - grab a quick sandwich, read a chapter from South from Granada by Gerald Brenan (to prepare me for moving to the Alpajarras!) Favourited some HEinFE tweets to catch up with later and looked at the ECCA Conference application details as I'm considering applying for a bursary.

1pm
Roaming again.

2.15 - 4pm In Senior team meeting. Reported back on my Writing for Publication course I attended on Tuesday morning. We have new web safety books in so I am going to go through them and see if I can add anything else to my Xertes on Moodle, our virtual learning environment. I need to put some resources into our Access to HE Moodle courses as a follow up to some inductions delivered recently. I also need to get preparations underway for the annual Learning Resource Centre survey.  This all needs to be done for next week.

4pm - 5pm

Back in the Higher Education Centre for the last hour. Start by tidying it up and then asking a very noisy girl to lower her voice as she was distracting others around her - her friends offered to help her with this. I then added the jobs I need to do from the meeting to my Outlook to-do list so I don't forget anything, checked the range of students we had during the day and then closed up.

Tomorrow I am in 6(!) hours of Matrix training - nothing to do with the film! In the other two hours I will be in the HE Centre and trying to frantically catch up with all the jobs I couldn't do becuase I was roaming.

Library Day in the Life - Day 3

This blog post is part of Library Day in the Life

Today I am going to breakdown what I do a little bit more rather than going into the whys and wherefores so much.

Today I started work at 11.30am as I will be staying to cover the evening shift, which ends at 7.30. So that gave me the chance to catch up on a few things including Twitter, Committee emails and a bit of clothes-making (latter was non- library related!). I did intend to do some codeacademy work but couldn't face it.

11:30 - I was straight on the enquiry desk. In this session;

• I calmed down some boisterous students
• checked our blog for any issues I needed to be aware of - there were two: the enquiry desk pc had problems and details of how to let students borrow from our glass-fronted Charles Dickens display.
• I checked my emails; I had received my booking details form the JISC e-safety event I am attending next week and I also needed to arrange a booking of our HE Centre for the mayor's annual curry and quiz night.
• My computer then packed up so I then spent another 5 minutes logging into another

12:00 - Roaming time. We always have someone timetabled to roam the main Learning Resources as it helps maintain a studious atmosphere and it is often much easier to spot students who need help. In this session;

• I moved some people around who were struggling to motivate themselves to work - several times
• I asked a student to remove his hat - we have a no hats and hoods policy at my workplace
• I very nicely asked three people who were using the pair work area to lose one of their number
• I helped a student scan and then photocopy some work
• I helped someone write a formal letter to the Dept of Work and Pensions

12:30 -Back at my desk for a little bit - have to make the most of these moments!

• On my desk is a copy of Information Outlook, which I receive due to being a member of the Special Libraries Association. I will try to read this at home in the next few days.
• I tweeted from the Learning Resource Twitter account, advertising our 'talking wall' for National Libraries Day. Students are encouraged to take slips and write about which resources they love. So far we have five slips filled in, unfortunately all by staff.
• I  answered a few more emails, one regarding the sound system for the curry and quiz night - sounds like it's going to be fun.
• I started listening to recordings of the focus group activities we had asked students to participate in so I can write the findings up.
• I checked our computer booking system, Netloan, to check which courses the students in the HE Centre were currently on. This helps to ensure we are getting a mix of Higher Education students in and not missing any groups and also checks that they are all, in fact, Higher Education students. We occasionally get interlopers.

2:30 - On the Help Desk this time. This is where more basic enquiries are dealt with such as helping print, photocopy etc. In this time I had helped people log on to their PCs, took some fines from overdue books, united someone with their usb stick and helped a student print.

3:00 - I was supposed to be roaming again but it was fairly quiet so I mixed it up with being on the enquiry desk. It can intimidate people if it looks like you are hovering around. Between 3pm and 4pm, I helped a few people with catalogue searches, more printing related queries and chatted to a lady studying the PTTLS qualification (I did this last year so was able to discuss it) and recommended her a book for it. I was quite pleased to receive an email from a teacher of International students that he had reminded his students how helpful we were and to ask for help.

Between 4pm and 5pm I had a break where I wrote most of this post and checked my Twitter account.

5:00 - 7:30 - Back on the enquiry desk where I:

•  Helped two people print
• Showed a person how to use the self-issue machine and reminded her about access to her University resources
• Spoke to three very hyperactive girls and encouraged them to calm down and work
• Answered a Moodle enquiry from a member of academic staff
• Showed a few more people how to use the self-issue machine and collected some fines
• Answered an email from a student doing her Library Master's dissertation in e-safety and gave her my list of links.
• Tried to get something started for National Science and Engineering Week in March, as we have lots of students studying Science and Engineering degrees.
• Helped three people who hadn't used the self-issue machine properly - I'm detecting a trend here...
• Had a look through the SLA ECCA Conference material
• Cleared up the Learning Resource Centre, returned loads of books from the drop box, sent everybody home and then I went home too.

  

Library Day in the Life - Day 2

This blog post is part of Library Day in the Life

Usually on a Tuesday I spend the majority of my time single-staffing the HE Centre; keeping the place running smoothly and the students and academic staff happy. This usually involves helping them with everything from help with referencing to how to print a document double-sided.

However, today was a little bit different. At 8am I was on my way to an event jointly run by CILIP in London and Library and Information Research Group (LIRG) called Writing for Publication. I have been telling myself I would write for a while now and haven't gotten round to it. I also believe that it is important for librarians and researchers to share good practice so others can benefit by not having to cover the same ground and also to learn from what has been discovered and/or written about. I am not going to cover this in too much detail here as I intend to write up the event properly quite soon -  suffice to say it has given me motivation and some useful tips which I hope to put into practice shortly.

When I returned to work after the course  I had a few brief minutes to catch up on my emails before going straight into a meeting with my line manager and  a colleague to discuss the student focus group we had recently organised. This had been put together with the intention of getting feedback from the students regarding their resource priorities and study habits. The outcomes of this will heavily inform the way we spend our budget. The focus group went well but now we have the task of extracting useful information from the recordings as well as writing up the minutes from the discussions and group activities we had set and, most importantly, setting action points.

After the meeting, I went to the HE Centre; checked everything had been okay in my absence, tidied it up as a lot of students had just left then put up the new February display materials ready for tomorrow.