Thursday 29 July 2010

Child Protection workshop

I recently went to a child protection and safeguarding workshop. I work in a sixth form so up to the age of 18 students are covered by child protection legislation, we also have a large number of disabled students who when they turn 18 would be classified as vulnerable adults. We discussed a variety of issues relating to what to do if a student approaches us to disclose something or if we overhear something which concerns us.

Part of the training covered protecting ourselves as professionals. Most of it is common sense but it doesn't hurt to hear it again, especially as budget cuts increase the potential for lone working. It is important to avoid being alone with a student, and if you have to be then to keep the door open or sit in a part of the room where you are visible.

The workshop covered recommending websites to students. There was an example given of a teacher who recommended a site to a student, the student viewed it at home without the web restrictions on school computers and clicked through an advert, another click, another click and hit porn. The teacher was suspended, then reinstated but the parent went to the local paper. The teacher left the profession. I spoke to the workshop leader afterwards and explained that as librarians we recommend websites and e-resources, and we can't be help accountable for the fact that any web user is always only a few clicks from something inappropriate! She suggested that we cover ourselves by recommending websites through leaflets or letters with the college logo on them and include a disclaimer along the lines of 'The content of external sites is not the responsibility of the college. Please report any bad links to LRC staff.' We do this already, so that was reassuring. Personally I'm planning on taking the extra precaution of checking all websites at home before recommending them to students.

We also discussed the need for caution in communicating with students, avoiding ever calling, texting students or emailing them personally as messages could be misconstrued. This is pertinent for those coming from other sectors, where for example calling a user to say their reservation had arrived would be seen as fantastic customer service.

Sunday 18 July 2010

Higher education blueprint

Last week's higher education blueprint proposes higher earning graduates paying a graduate tax to replace tuition fees and fund degrees, the privitisation of some universities and allowing failing universities to fail.

The idea of paying a higher tax seems punitive and a possible barrier to social mobility. Higher earners pay higher taxes anyway. Also, it is unclear whether this system will only be for home students, I presume that international students will still pay fees as they won't necessarily be in the UK to pay the taxes, but how will it work for students who emigrate once they've completed their courses? There is already a problem of talent in fields such as science leaving the UK for better research grants and jobs. Would there be seperate taxes for undergrad, postgrad etc?

It is positive that there is talk of forgetting the New Labour target of half the country being graduates. I have spent the last 4 years working in sixth forms and universities. I have often felt uncomfortable with the drive to get students into university regardless of whether it is the right thing for them. I worry about the students who don't have GCSEs, are heavily supported throughout a BTEC and get into university. Do they access the support they need, rise to the challenge and complete their courses or do they struggle and leave with debts and a negative experience of education? Going to university is seen as the norm, and that if you can go then you should. I have had frequent discussions with a Learning Mentor colleague of mine about how pushing students to university seems to be a misinterpretation of the Every Child Matters goal of having ambition for every child. For some students an ambitious target is to get to a working level of literacy or to make positive personal choices around safe sex or gangs, and those achievements should be acknowledged as being as valuble to the individual as another student's place at Cambridge is to them.

I'm aware of my own position in discussing this. I've completed three degrees and am passionate about lifelong learning. I'm not suggesting that people should be prevented from furthering their education. I simply feel that we should make sure that people are making the right choices and have the right skills so that they are able to get the most out of it.


Anyway, enough of my recurring ideological struggle! I'll be interested to see the detail in these proposals and follow what happens next.

Saturday 17 July 2010

Changing standards and the future of cataloguing in UK HE libraries

This week I went to this event put on jointly by the University College & Research group (UC&R) and the Cataloguing & Indexing group (C&I) at CILIP Headquarters.

Firstly, the food was fantastic. CILIP have really stepped things up: parma ham, mozzerella and tomato salad, lovely. Sadly this was the only tweet I sent from the event because my mobile's IE was being lame.

The first talk was 'DDC23 Standard on the horizon' by Caroline Kent from the British Library and Chair of the DDC Editorial Policy Committee. The CILIP DDC committee is a group of volunteers who reread the editors' new DDC schedules which are published every 7 years to reflect the significant changes in the world of knowledge. With the increasing use of WebDewey this work cycle may change, as it allows for more regular updates. There is debate as to how often WebDewey should be updated, to ensure that users get regular updates without disrupting their work (for example if you half catalogued an item and returned to it the following day to find the schedule changed!) Caroline suggested that beyond DDC23 the print edition may be viewed as being in support of WebDewey, although the printed schedule will always be important as WebDewey is expensive and not all libraries who use Dewey have consistent access to computers.

Caroline spoke about the international use of Dewey (Dewey is used in 130 countries, there are 20 official translations). Translations give the opportunity to enrich areas of the schedule, for example expanding areas of local history and geography although we would be unlikely to need them in the UK (unless we were working in a very specialised collection on, say, Swedish History). An area of discussion within the translations has been archaeology and ancient history (930 and 940), as it reflects the world known to the Romans, so it doesn't include for example Poland as the Romans never went to Poland. The translations aren't identical but they do match which allows a user to find their relevant section in an unfamilar collection or a foreign land. I experienced this myself when I was visiting libraries in Australia.

I have used Dewey for years in various workplaces and really enjoy the discussions around its use and how the schedule changes. Caroline spoke about how old knowledge is removed, for example how within Home and Family Management they have recently removed children's games that no longer exist. They are always careful to use generic terms rather than trademarks which can be difficult for example around computing. A hot debate in the production of DDC23 was around changes to Table 1 from 'Kinds Of Persons' to 'Groups of People', as sociologically speaking a group is seen as self selecting.

The second talk was by Alan Danskin, the British Library's Metadata and Bibliographic Standards Coordinator and the chair of the C&I group. His talk was on 'Changing standards: from AACR2 to RDA'. RDA (Resource Description and Access) is the successor to AACR2 as of June 2010. RDA was designed for the digital world, and as such handles a variety of media and offers a less cluttered display. It handles granularity well and maps to other schemes (Dublin Core, MARC21 etc).


It was a great evening and reminded me of one of my favourite library quotes:
"Librarianship offers a better field for mental gymnastics than any other profession." (Kephart 1890).

As always, it was great to meet with other professionals and network, although I had to verbally tender my resignation from the UC&R London chapter committee as I am relocating for my new job. When I am settled I hope to get involved with special interest groups, although CoFHE might be more appropriate than UC&R, we'll see who'll have me! In the meanwhile I will continue to follow UC&R's work and to keep in touch with the colleagues I have met through it.