Librarian Chic

Reflections on the first half term

2011-11-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

It's been a hectic half term. We've done about 60 inductions. We tailor our inductions by level and subject, in terms of introducing specific online resources and the way that we communicate. For example, for an Access to HE or Foundation degree group (who are typically mature students) we wouldn't labour the LRC rules (no eating, phones, two warnings then you have to leave and all that good stuff), we'd ask them to let us know if other students were distracting them by misbehaving. Our inductions are very hands on, with students searching and using the online resources and e-books. This engages the students and helps them learn how to find the resources at a later date. I believe the hands on use of e-books at induction embedded the use of e-books and led to us being #7 in the UK for use of the JISC e-books for FE package (in the stats that came out up to March 2011, weighted by size of college). On the feedback from the inductions 97% of students found them to be very or quite useful. So now the plan is to work on the other 3%!

We've also done Information Skills sessions for the first time this year. Session 1 covers effective web searching and evaluating web sources, Session 2 covers referencing, plagiarism adn bibliographies. These were delivered mostly through Xerte e-tutorials with LRC Support Tutors introducing the session and supporting students throughout. For next year I will modify this: the Second session was too advanced for Level 2 learners while some groups felt that they had nothing to learn on web searching. They do, but the question is how do you show students that they do? In the LRC survey in June I asked students about their level of confidence around study and information skills then asked staff about student ability in these areas. The results show that student confidence grossly outstripped the staff evaluation of their ability. This is a challenge to overcome for all FE and HE institutions - how do you make someone learn something that they believe they already know?

We've had quite a few procedural changes that began in September; we installed the MyPC computer booking system, started overdue charges and stopped teachers bringing classes in without booking. This has led to a few quarrels with those who haven't understood the new system (despite thorough communication and advertising) but it appears as if people are getting the hang of it now.

Previously we sent overdue reminder letters but there was no real sanction for not returning books on time, which meant that items were taken out at the start of the year and never seen again. This was very frustrating for other people who wanted to use the items. Now we charge 5- per day per item, and the MyPC system blocks students with overdue books from logging on to computers, unless they are in a booked class. This has led to much greater circulation of resources and less complaints about unfulfilled reservations.

Noise levels are a lot better which means less staff time managing behaviour. This means happier staff and more achieved in terms of stock promotion and tightening up things on the admin side of things. Things feel a lot more managed and contained which I thank MyPC for.

Day 5 of #libday6

2011-01-30T07:49:00.000-08:00

I arrived at 8.45, having caught up on a few bits on the train.

At 9.30am Maryse and Malcolm from JISC RSC Eastern met with myself and the IT manager. They demonstrated a variety of their resources and discussed how to promote them to staff. They stayed for just over 2 and a half hours.

I then had 30 minutes to answer emails, deal with anything immediate and grab some lunch before heading over to my second meeting of the day. I had my first Freedom of Information related query so dealt with it immediately. I grabbed a sandwich to eat in the taxi.

I spent the afternoon at Cambridge Regional College with my counter-part. He had previously visited our LRC so it was my turn for a return visit. They are planning on starting to run Independent Learning Sessions as we do and are soon starting a trial. I spent quite a bit of my visit discussing how we run them, I am keen to be as supportive and helpful as I can so they can learn from what we have done. I really enjoy visiting other libraries and talking with other librarians.

Day 4 of #libday6

2011-01-30T07:33:00.000-08:00

Got into work at the usual 8.45 to deal with any problems or queries before heading over to Curriculum Team Meeting at 9am. This is my big weekly meeting with the Vice Principal Curriculum, the Faculty Directors, the Director of Student Services, the Marketing Executive and the Quality Manager.

The meeting ended at 11am, at which point it was straight onto the Issue Desk for two hours where I organised the upcoming week's bay and equipment bookings and staff rota inbetween serving customers and patrolling the LRC. As it is Holocaust Memorial Day we've been playing the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust film on our Information Screen today which has been getting some good responses.

At 1pm I went out for lunch with the Estates Manager which is a real treat as we only manage to do this about every 3 weeks. She has been a great friend to me since I started in post 6 months ago.

When I returned to the LRC I covered the counter for an hour then had a one to one with one of the LRC Support Tutors. I like to do this with each of them each week. Sometimes there isn't anything to say from either side, but I think it's important to make that time for dialogue as we spend a lot of the day rushing around. I also spent some time chasing the Reading Agency for the second time to try to order more Six Book Challenge diaries as we've run out. I left promptly at 4.30, exhausted after doing two late nights already this week as I normally only do one.

Day 3 of #libday6

2011-01-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

Came in hoping for a more tranquil day than yesterday. Spent most of the morning chasing up some laptop trolley and equipment queries, and dealing with emails and other queries. Visited HR with a few suggestions for the upcoming staff development day. The HR Manager is always really nice and helpful. Covered the issue desk and patrolled over the lunch period as we have classes in. Wednesdays are always very busy days so I spend a lot of my day out on the floor.

Our new principal joined our team meeting at 3pm which was a great chance for us to get to know her better and vice versa. We decided to hold the meeting in the way we always do - with the LRC open and one member of the team on look out for customers at the counter. There is only an hour a week that all three LRC Support Tutors are in so we have to have our meeting in that hour even though it is a busy time. Afterwards I went straight to my fortnightly one to one with my line manager, the Vice Principal Curriculum.

The college Open Evening for prospective students started at 4pm, so we spent plenty of the day tidying up and making sure we looked presentable. I stayed until 7pm for the Open Evening. As it was fairly quiet it was a good chance to catch up on ordering resources and doing a bit of cataloguing.

Day 2 #libday6

2011-01-26T01:54:00.000-08:00

What an absolutely appalling day. I had a headache by 10am.
The ALS department moved into the rooms in the back of the LRC. There are problems with keys that I am getting sorted out - the Estates Manager here is fantastic. As predicted, having an area containing 8 PCs shut off on our busiest day of the week meant that it was more or less bedlam in here so I spent most of the day on behaviour management, finding people computers and generally trying to make sure that the place is still running approximately how it should while dealing with a whole series of complaints and people getting upset about lack of resources. Also, I'm trying to reassure the LRC staff that the ALS department moving in won't be a problem, but I can understand their concerns. We have spent 6 months establishing the LRC and just as things start to settle down we've had another big change. Of course, with all of this going on everything of a mangement persuasion that I should be doing was sidelined.
On Tuesday afternoons I supervise two Independent Learning Session - one from Fashion and one from Art. Both groups worked well as usual.
Here's hoping that tomorrow will be a better day!

Day 1 of #libday6

2011-01-24T01:35:00.000-08:00

Woke at 5.30am anxious about the week ahead. As always, left the house at 7.10 to get the train. Spent the first half of my train journey catching up on emails, Twitter and Facebook. The Curriculum Manager for Fashion joins the train half way to work and we always have a good chat. The college has a minibus that collects staff and students from the station which is fantastic.

Arrived at work at 8.40, to find the LRC Support Tutors locked out of their workroom which also contains the keys to classrooms that we issue to staff. I left the caretaker breaking into the workroom, and went to have a conversation that I had been dreading which went better than expected! Tweeted and got a nice reply from @SmilyLibrarian. As my workplace's only qualified librarian and the head of the service I often feel out on a limb and isolated, so such kindnesses from the LIS community Twitterati is much appreciated!

Came back to find that staff had access to the workroom, but that the lock would need repairing. At least we can get to the kettle now. Made some tea.

Spent the morning making amendments to the week's rota, replying to emails, chasing up a few odds and ends from last week (registers, Finance, HR, filling in staff development forms for upcoming events etc), checked through last month's finance report and caught up with one of my staff who works part time that I haven't seen since Wednesday. I was on desk and patrol duty from 10-11. We have to combine these two things as we are tight on staffing. It was a busy morning lots of students; in Independent Learning Sessions, in classes that have come in with teachers and drop in students. We've had lots more students sign up for the Six Book Challenge and staff are asking me to buy another set of diaries. It's the first time that the college has run it so I'm pleased that we've had such great buy in from ESOL and Functional Skills staff. Almost all the students that have signed up are usually not LRC users which is also great as reaching out to non-users was one of my challenges for the year.

I had lunch at noon. My new year resolution was to eat at lunchtime and I've been really good at sticking to it. I went up to the canteen (which I love!) and got ratatouille quiche, chips and beans.

At 1pm I went back on the counter, dealing with the unchtime rush: helping students find books, moving along students who aren't working, resetting passwords, triage on the laptops (we can reestablish the wifi connection to save taking them up to IT). One of the Faculty Directors called in and we had a chat about problems with the timetable which puts pressure on resources and rooms. The Networks Manager called over to fix something on my computer. Apologised for smell of chips and vinegar in my office but he said he likes it. At 2pm we had the combination of a large class of Public Services students and a large class of Motor Vehicle students - two of our livelier cohorts! - so spent some time on behaviour management. Our students aren't cheeky or malicious, they are just high spirited and can get noisy. Returned to my office at about half two and phoned the British Library about some Inter Library loans. Gave a new teacher an e-books tutorial over the telephone. Ordered the new Quick Reads that are coming out for World Book Day in March. Dealt with some emails: mainly laptop and room bookings.

At 5pm the LRC Support Tutors went home and I stayed on for evening duty. I put out the reservation notices in the bays for tomorrow, and prepared for the Additional Learning Support (ALS) department moving in to three rooms that have historically been part of the library. The front of the college is being remodelled so ALS are being relocated, possibly temporarily, possibly permanently. In order to make space for this we have closed down our AV and off air recording service and lost the breakout room that was created for us in the summer 2010 refurb. To make tomorrow's move (hopefully) smooth and safe I have shut off the back of the LRC so that they can bring things in through the fire doors. To do this we will lose 8 PCs for the day, and as Tuesdays are our busiest day I suspect that we'll spend half the day stopping the student going in the 'out of bounds' area. I'm anticipating a visit from an ESOL class at 7pm who are signing up for the 6 Book Challenge, and will be out of here at 7.30pm which will get me home just after 9. Mondays are long days!

Partnerships for HE in FE: the library perspective

2011-01-10T16:50:00.000-08:00

UWE Bristol

26 November 2010

It has taken me so long to post this that I'm also going to comment on how I've acted upon the tips I got from the day.

The first Keynote Speaker Mark Stone (Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning, University of Plymouth Colleges) gave an external perspective. He asked, ‘are you a service or a cost centre?’ Libraries can be seen as a significant cost so we must be very clear about what we are offering. He advised looking at advocacy in terms of documentation and the ‘pub conversation’ set of snappy answers as to what we offer. Libraries can be seen as part of wider collection of services with IT etc - but that IT are often noisier and have better user stats. In order to fight those that we are competing with for budgets we must look at producing quality metrics, KPIs and stats to show our value.
I've produced an LRC newsletter for staff showing how the LRC's mission and purpose is unique to other departments (coloured boxes through the newsletter saying 'The LRC is...' and stating a purpose of the LRC) and solid stats (such as number of Independent Learning Sessions conducted) that show the value of the LRC.

He went on to advise that we think about how staff are teaching different levels in different ways and changing their hats, and that we look at how we manage what we offer and manage expectations. Mark also suggested that those who are working on the CPD curriculum aren’t speaking to libraries. He asked the very pertinent question: what will our library provision to HE students would look like post-£9k fees? Students will be expecting to have no extra costs on top of that in terms of books, printing, field trips.
I've been in two meetings with HE staff and am working with them to build up collections and services to support their needs.

Mark also notes that staff digital literacy is often poor, and that we need to work on this at an institutional level – not just as something for students.

Mark said that we must stick our foot in the door and not be passive – we must:
• Interfere
• Deliver value
• Seek initiatives
• Ask
• Offer
• Request information and ask awkward questions
• Lead
• Not seek permission – but assume that we are in the lead.
I’m pleased to say that I've been doing a lot of this already. We must get in there early on programme design meetings – he has seen good work on helping to design assessments also. A librarian from the University of Greenwich spoke about having a service level agreement with their partner colleges which includes that they must be on such committees – one of their partner colleges spoke up at this point as to how empowered they felt by this.

Roz Howard from Salford Uni spoke about their project on preparing students for the transition from FE to HE. She spoke about a compact agreement bridging the gap from FE to HE to help students become Independent Learners and how they have created a module for students which has been set up through ASLAN – an independent accreditation agency which counts towards UCAS points.
The module included:
• Information Literacy/Digital Skills
• Study Skills – reading and writing strategies
• Time management
• Financial management, cooking on a budget etc

This module is going to be delivered by library staff. It is being offered to Salford’s partner colleges, the students must come to Salford Uni afterwards.

The next talk was from Eleanor Johnson and Andy Henrys: West Cheshire and the University of Stafforshire: sharing good practice. They shared some interesting ideas including hosting a coffee morning to introduce teaching staff to ebrary. They run a Springboard programme which was initially post Level 3 but is now for many other students as part of developing employability. It covers: 1. Research Skills 2. Reflexive learning 3. Academic writing 4. Referencing.

In one of the breaks I had an interesting conversation with a librarian with a similar cohort to mine, we were both beginning to question whether we are doing the right thing for our Access and HE cohort. At my institute we have a fairly small cohort of Access and HE students and we work very closely with them which is great in that we get to know them, make them feel welcome (which is particularly important for those who have been out of education for some time) and it is interesting for us. I'm now wondering if we are offering too much support compared to what they will get when they go on to ARU? Are we almost doing them a disservice by being too kind and helpful?

City of Bristol’s Lee Bryant and Sue Caporn gave a fantastic talk on the research that they had done on ebook use. They used voting paddles as a way of engaging users in the talk which was so much better than just standing and reading the info out.

The last talk of the day was Collaborative Approaches between Subject Librarians and HE Tutors by Adrian Macey and Lisa Souch from Exeter College. It was very nice to see the value that academic staff take in the library – Lisa is a lecturer but came to a library conference to speak. Interesting ideas included taking new books to the staff room for a week before they are put in the LRC, attendance at HE validation meetings and attending graduation ceremony. They showed the research zone area of the library portal which was really innovative, they also had separate referencing guides for FE and HE. They also spoke of using Courselab free open source software for online tutorials which is something that I want to look into for our website redesign.

First experience giving a talk - UC&R group/University of Leicester

2010-12-17T04:11:00.000-08:00

I gave a talk at a Careers Development Day for Library Assistants at the University of Leicester on the 8th December.

Back in the summer in the weeks leading up to starting my first qualified role there was an email on the LIS list asking for thoughts on topics to be covered at a careers development day for library assistants looking to make the transition to professional roles. In a moment of bravery/madness I responded and offered to be a case study whilst pointing out that I can't necessarily claim to have successfully made the transition successfully as I wasn't yet in post! When I was asked if I would speak I was surprised, but pleased.

My talk started with mentioning my background (briefly) and pointing out that I had only recently made the transition. I then spoke about the MSc process: the importance of building a network particularly with those in other sectors, pursuing scholarship money, and what a great opportunity the dissertation is to gain other skills (interviewing etc) and to research something related to your future career.

I went on to speak about how to research roles that would interest you, and to identify gaps in your own experience, skill set or education that are preventing you from being in that role already. I suggested: cataloguing, budget management, staff management and teaching/presentation skills. Once these gaps have been identified, one can look for creative ways to gain these types of skills and experience - I described how I was given the opportunity to develop a Student Volunteer programme which gave me staff management experience and suggested looking for similar projects that benefit your organisation and service users as well as give you the opportunity to develop. I also suggested asking to join committees, steering groups etc and take extra responsibilites such as health and safety or first aid.

I then spoke about the importance of professional networking; being involved with CILIP, UC&R, blogging, tweeting, going to lectures, training courses, conferences, doing professional reading and looking at chartering. All the fun things that you don't have time to do once you get a professional role!

I went on to speak about being ambitious in applying for jobs, and giving it a go even if you don't have all the criteria on the Person Spec. I spoke about the importance of being sure you actually want the job before you apply or interview to save wasting everyone's time, and to think of your USP and reiterate it to yourself. I then spoke briefly about interviews: being honest and saying 'I would..' when asked a question where you can't speak from experience, thinking of good examples from managers that you have had and always being positive. I spoke about the types of experience that you may have at interview: tasks with groups, being with the other candidates all day and doing presentations.

Finally, I gave a few thoughts on when you do find yourself in your first professional role: working on your networks, asking for support both internally and externally, asking questions and showing interest and understanding in other departments, being the manager that got the best out of you and inspiring others.

I think the talk went fairly well. The feedback forms for the whole day were positive. I stayed for the rest of the day to join in with some of the workshop sessions which I feel was productive in terms of getting people talking rather than giving my own opinions/experiences.

On the whole it was a really good experience and I'm glad I did it. I think that having done induction sessions at the start of term I wasn't so phased by speaking to a roomful of people as I would have been a year ago.

Learning Resource Managers meeting for East of England FE colleges

2010-12-17T03:44:00.000-08:00

Held at ACER on 19 November 2010

We started by each Learning Resource Centre Manager giving a brief report on what is happening in their college. The common themes were:

restructuring/redundancies/doing more with less staff
budget freezes
increase in delivering/supervising classes
promoting e-books and e-resources
library refurbishments
safeguarding and encouraging student to wear ID cards

It was really useful and reassuring to see that my experiences are mirrored by other LRC Managers and to discuss ideas and strategies both formally as a group and in small groups during tea and lunch.

Elaine Salter from the University of Westminster gave a talk about how they have established roving. It was interesting to hear how roving combats feelings of library anxiety in students. It was also interesting to hear the process of how roving was introduced to staff and how not all staff were required to rove, as some staff are better suited to back room tasks. I'd like to see how roving works in practice. I've heard of there being two seperate teams on the floor - one roving and one behaviour managing - signified by different coloured t-shirts. Unfortunately I don't have anything like the amount of staff to achieve this.

First day of term

2010-09-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

We've been in the newly refurbished LRC for a week now. We're still ironing out little problems but we are just about there. My new part time member of staff has joined the team now which has allowed me to sort out rotas etc. Thankfully she is lovely and has lots of experience so she's been able to hit the ground running to some extent.

Last week was admin week so I had the chance to meet lots of the teaching staff as they called in to see how the refurb went. I've also been into two team meetings to promote the LRC, discuss the Independent Learning Sessions and the inductions. Speaking to a group of teachers is a bit nerve-wracking (as they are the experts at speaking to a group!) but I'm getting more comfortable with it.

The inductions have been fully planned and discussed with my team. The first sessions will be run tomorrow morning. The Independent Learning Sessions are also starting to take shape which is pleasing. They will begin running next Monday, I'm sure it'll be trial and error but the purpose and real value of them is becoming clearer which makes it easier to get teaching staff on board and to work out how to measure it.

It has all been somewhat overwhelming but exciting. I've had a lot to do but I'm making good progress and forming good relationships with other departments which is helping. That said, things can always be worse. I came in to college last Friday thinking 'my god, I've got so much to do, how will I cope?' and by lunchtime we were informed that Ofsted are coming in three weeks. So I've now got that to anticipate and prepare for.

I've been a bit negligent with Twitter and my RSS feeds while all this has been going on. I went back on today and am so impressed to see that in a week the need for action over the crisis in misrepresentation of public libraries has gone from a discussion to a campaign. I have so much respect for those who have taken the time to put together Voices for the Library. I'd love to get involved once I'm on the other side of Ofsted.

2010-08-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

This week and last I've been following the newspaper articles in defense of public libraries by Lauren Smith in the Guardian and in The Independent. And screaming inside at the amount of commenters pointing out that we don't need libraries as we have Google and that all librarians do is stamp books so surely volunteers can do that. Many of the Library Twitterati have posted succinctly replying to the comments so I shalln't waste my time engaging in this too much.

I do find it ironic that these comments have been made in the weeks of A'Level and GCSE results (and the usual 'standards are slipping' debates) and public outcry over the numbers of students unable to get university places. Public libraries are a place where you can learn for free. They are also a place that will help you with your resits, your job based learning, your job/uni applications, your gap year plans and so on. But then I guess you can do all that on Google. If you have a computer. And internet access. And the skills to find, use and evaluate web based sources. Anyway, I wasn't going to entertain this!

Rebranding

2010-08-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

As part of our refurbishment that I've spoken about over the last few weeks, we are rebranding the 'Library' into an 'LRC' with me being a 'LRC Manager' whereas my predecessor was the 'College Librarian'.
I've often felt somewhat cynical about this sort of exercise. As noted in Andy Priestner's blog this week, there is a cycle of changing from a Library to an Information Centre/Learning Resource Centre then back again, then back again again! I could see myself in 7-10 years doing a rebrand back to a library, if the HE sector is anything to go by.
On a practical level, there is plenty of work to do. All leaflets, stationery, intranet pages, policies, staff manuals, signs, posters and anything else that I've not thought of yet is being rebranded and rewritten.
In our case there is meaning behind the rebrand, as the space's purpose is changing massively. We are going to have Level 2 and 3 classes timetabled in to the LRC for much of the day, whereas previously the Library was solely a drop in space. The Library Assistants are now LRC Support Tutors and their job description is a hybrid between an LA role and a Learning Mentor with the emphasis on time with classes over traditional LA duties. We are also starting using self issue which is hoped to free up staff from being on the issue desk.
It's a good time for me to start working here during the rebrand as it means that changes can be introduced as part of an overall change which I hope will be easier for users.
I will still use both 'LRC' and 'Library' interchangeably in conversation but will only use LRC in written communication. And will always see myself as a librarian even though I am called an LRC Manager. Personally I see librarianship/information management as being the overarching profession (e.g. medicine) even though my specific role within it is as an LRC Manager (e.g. Consultant Paedeatric Surgeon).

Good progress.

2010-08-13T06:46:00.000-07:00

That seems to have been my catchphrase this week, I've said it to my LRC Support Tutor (the term we are using for Library Assistants) as we left almost every day. A lot has been sorted out but I still have to do lists long enough to need indexes!

I started the week off meeting with the Finance team to learn their systems. I felt the weight of my new budget holding responsibilities. I spent the rest of the day cataloguing, completing the policy for Independent Learning Sessions (a new initiative where each Level 2 and 3 class will have an hour week in the LRC supported by LRC staff) and creating lists of recommended websites for leaflets.

Tuesday was a dark day. I spent much of it wading through spreadsheets to try to understand my budget codes, and wading through processes and piles of paperwork. I also put in my first book order. Due to the refurb we are installed in a classroom at the moment, so not only am I learning new processes but I'm learning them outside of their natural habitat. To be honest it all got a bit much. Although, I also had a long chat with my former boss/mentor which was lovely, I still went home with the hump.

Wednesday was a new day! To start the day the LRC team were trained on the new printer/photocopier (the same model is already used elsewhere in the college). In the process of this print services reiterated their concern that the new printer won't fit in the space allocated to it in the new LRC. Worrying. Later I got a call that the mobile shelving was completed, so went along to the LRC with the H&S manager, refurb project manager and Head of Estates to have a demo and sign it off. It was the first time I'd been in the LRC since starting work here and it looks fantastic! There was a bit of squealing via the Twitter! In fact other staff saw how excited I was and the words 'sad' and 'geeks' were used. But then they haven't seen the shelves. In the afternoon my predecessor came in to answer my queries on the handover notes and other paperwork which was great and alleviated much of what was troubling me on Tuesday.

On Thursday I got IT to start the process of rebranding the libr.. sorry I mean LRC intranet pages. One of my team is working on typing up the corrections and reformatting the leaflets that need to be ready for induction and for uploading on the webpages. I spent much of the morning sorting out odds and ends that came up out of meeting with my predecessor yesterday. In the afternoon I had my official welcome from The Principal, although she has called in to visit a few times already. She's a big library advocate and has been very involved in the refurb. I then did some more work on our induction material, it's really coming together.

This morning I started by nagging IT a bit about the webpages. met with Print Services to look at the proposed printer space, and we feel confident it should fit, phew! I then met with Health and Safety to discuss risk assessments and potential problems on the horizon with the new shelving. the H&S manager said that he was surprised when he met me as he thought I'd be an older lady! This was partly a librarian stereotype and partly because of the degrees after my name. I was wearing a cardi, what more do people want? This afternoon I finally met with the head of IT who answered my questions. However he did say that there was a potential problem with the new monitors arriving, but we still *should* have them in time for the start of the new term.

As you can see it's been a pretty quiet week! I think I'm starting to get used to the commute too. Next week is our last week before the LRC is put back together so I want to get all the induction materials and leaflets finalised and the intranet pages as complete as possible. I also need to think of names for the bays in the LRC. At the moment they are down as Green 1, Green 2, Grey 1 and Grey 2. As I tweeted, I've been thinking about authors, local birds, or perhaps local well known people, can I get away with a Syd Barrett Bay?!

First week in first qualified job!

2010-08-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

After the long process of interviews and seemingly endless applications here I am in my first qualified job as the LRC manager of a regional college in Cambridgeshire.

The first week has gone well. I had a hand over session with my predecessor a few weeks before starting, so I had the chance to do (lots of prep) at home of an evening and weekend. I came in on my first day with many pages of to do lists and lists of questions that I've slowly worked my way through.

As well as grappling with the usual new job business of learning names, procedures, a new LMS (AutoLib) these are the major challenges I'm facing at the moment:

Refurbishment. We are half way through a refurbishment at the moment. I met with the project manager earlier this week and it's all looking good to get the LRC ready for the start of term. At the moment we are temporarily installed in a classroom.
Change of use of LRC within the organisation. The library has been rebranded as an LRC, the major impact of which is that from September level 2 and 3 classes will be timetabled in for one session a fortnight of independent learning supervised by LRC staff. Therefore I need to get a procedure in place to make sure things run smoothly. This also means rebranding all leaflets, webpages etc. As part of this the Library Assistants were given redundancy notices and a new role of LRC Support Tutor was created which leads me to..
New staff. I manage 3 LRC Support Tutors, 1 full time, 2 part time. Only 1 of the part timers are existing staff. In a way this is good as it means we can develop the new service together rather than having staff who are stuck in their ways. However, being told on my first day that I have to train new staff immediately when I wasn't expecting them for a month wasn't ideal. Especially when we aren't even in the LRC.
Responsibility. I haven't been a budget holder before which is a little daunting, but I have a meeting on Monday to get fully up to speed on it.
The commute. I now have a commute of 3 to 3 and a half hours a day round trip whereas my last job was 20 minutes up the road. I'm enjoying having time to get reading done and trying to see it positively. We plan to relocate soon so it's only a temporary situation.
Inductions. My predecessor had been in post since 1976, and didn't leave any induction materials as she did it off the top of her head. This leaves me creating induction materials for an LRC that I haven't worked in yet and that is currently gutted.

Plenty to keep me out of trouble then! Exciting times ahead.

Child Protection workshop

2010-07-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

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.

Higher education blueprint

2010-07-18T02:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Changing standards and the future of cataloguing in UK HE libraries

2010-07-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

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.

First Professional Role and A Good Week

2010-06-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have good news to share. After three job interviews over the last two months since returning from Australia, I have now accepted my first professional role as LRC manager at an FE college in Cambridgeshire! I will be starting in early August. I'm not sure how this will impact my Chartership as my proposed hand in date is now looking a bit ambitious, especially as I'll have a bit of a commute until we are able to move house.
The college I'm moving to is going through a major library refurb this summer, in order to put in a lot more computers. From September there will be classes in the library at all times which will be supervised and motivated by LRC staff. This will be great in terms of promoting Information Skills by stealth! The pay off is that they've decided to put all of their books into rolling stacks to make space for these computers. I'm a little concerned that this may marginalise the use of the books, so I'm going to have to work hard and get creative to promote them. They have a very well developed VLE and e-book collection which is part of the reason they are doing this.
I'm really going to miss my current workplace. I really like the students and couldn't be happier with my manager. She's been a real mentor to me and I'll definitely be keeping in touch. But unfortunately the downside of working in a small school is that there are less opportunities for progression which is why I'm moving on.

The job interviews I had were really fun actually. I've delivered classes, done presentations and roleplays, and been interviewed by a student council who wanted to know what piece of cutlery I'd be and who I would be in Stars in their Eyes! (A spoon and Edith Piaf, for those curious).
All of the interviews were whole day events, where you spend a lot of time with the other candidates. This was interesting. At best I was meeting other professionals (I ended swapped email addresses with someone I was meant to be competing with!), at worst I saw the lousy side of human nature (another candidate trying to psyche me out with 'gosh aren't you young to be here?' comments).

This week I delivered two Information Skills lessons to AS English Literature classes as part of their progression to A2. It was for the module War and the Individual which was ideal as I read a lot of history and war fiction. It went really well and I'm pretty pleased with myself as my new job will involve a lot more working with classes than my current role. However, it made me realise how much I'm really going to miss some of the teachers and the strong links I've made with departments.

Today is BTEC hand in day, and I've spent quite a bit of time one-on-one with students helping them finish their work. The amount of cut and pasting is worrying. I wish there was more uptake from the departments for Information Skills sessions during the year. I feel like what I'm doing today is just making sure that they don't get done for plagiarism rather than giving them skills.

In other good news, my colleague that I've been tutoring who is doing the same MSc that I did has passed her second semester. I'm really happy for her as I know she was worried, and I hope that my efforts have helped. I'm quite jealous of her at the moment because her dissertation is really interesting.

CILIP Professional Futures and Newsnight

2010-06-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

It's rubbish being so busy because I keep drafting blog posts and not finishing them and by the time I get back to them the 'latest debate' is a bit stale! Anyway, here's a few things that have been on my mind the last few weeks...

Last week I finally completed the CILIP Defining Our Professional Future Survey. I was a bit late doing it because I've been busy out and about defining my personal professional future (more of that soon).

What will the knowledge and information sector look like in 2020?I agree with most of what has already been blogged on the subject, specifically from Joeyanne and Bethan. I agree with Bethan's thoughts on increased convergence. As information professionals we are already converged, for example the convergence between subject specific knowledge and information skills. In my sector I am seeing more job descriptions that require not only a library qualification but also a teaching qualification, and ideally a careers guidance qualification. In terms of my professional development I look both at library organisations and education organisations (such as Institute for Learning), my professional reading reflects both of these things as does where I look at job vacancies.

On the whole I don't feel too convinced with CILIP's advocacy and representation of the profession and that really was my conclusion to the Big Conversation. The Newsnight business was concerning, especially when I read on Ned Potter's blog that CILIP were unable to send someone on to Newsnight at short notice. For me a big part of The Big Conversation, my chartership and my professional future is focussed around developing teaching and presentation skills, something that is daunting but I know that I must be able to get up and speak to a group of people. Going up against Paxman is nothing compared to putting yourself in front of a classful of disinterested 17 year olds! Anyway, I've come to the debate late so I won't say anymore but I hope that lessons have been learnt from it.

My own experiences of CILIP have been very positive. I loved Umbrella and feel quite passionate about being part of a professional body. That said, my colleague who is currently at library school is very negative about joining, as are much of her cohort. Maybe CILIP is getting a bit complacent about attracting members who are joining the profession especially as job descriptions get wider and they face steeper competition from other organisations (IFL, SLA, BCS etc).

A rather reticent reflection on my current job situation

2010-06-02T02:59:00.001-07:00

I have been encouraged by both my Chartership mentor and my manager to reflect and blog about my current job title/description situation. I am somewhat reluctant about doing this.

I completed my MSc in September 2009 and began looking for qualified jobs a few months before completing the course. The job market was pretty flat at the time. I interviewed for a Library Manager role but didn't get it as I didn't have enough experience. However, they offered me an LRC Assistant role which I accepted.

I've been extremely lucky in this role because my manager has been a mentor to me. She always looks for ways to expand my role, allows me to develop my own ideas and champions CPD. I'm so grateful for this as it's allowed me to improve my skills and to learn about effective management styles. My day to day work resembles that of an Assistant Librarian/Deputy Manager. In a lot of respects I am very happy in my role. Our students are great, the organisation as a whole is great, my manager is great, I feel appreciated and valued... thus my reticence to blog about this as I certainly don't want to seem ungrateful!

However, the cold hard fact remains that on my CV I am in effectively the same role (LRC Assistant) that I have been in since 2005. Almost a year after qualifying this is not ideal for me.

Regrading me in my current role would be difficult. Firstly the climate of cutbacks at the moment has affected our institute, secondly it would leave a top heavy team structure of Manager - Assistant Manager - LRC Assistant. Also, I'm not sure if regrading would be just to improve my own situation rather than reflect what the organisation needs which is why I'm not keen to ask for it as I don't want to be selfish!

Speaking to other librarians, some have said that it doesn't really matter what you are called rather it is what you do and that this shouldn't affect my chances of getting a professional role in the future. The fact that I am chartering at the moment also supports the fact that I am doing professional work in a para-professional role. Having completed the MSc there is certainly a pressure to find a qualified job to justify the time, sweat and expense of the course. But that said, we all see management jobs that don't require a LIS qualification anyway and wonder if this is the future?

My week

2010-05-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling a bit down the last few days. On Wednesday I had a job interview for a School Librarian position that I didn't get.
The interview itself was really interesting as it involved a student panel and running an activity with a group of Year 7 and 8 students. The aim of the activity was to get them talking about books, so I set a task of matching up a paragraph from inside a book with the synopsis on the back of the book, working in groups of 3. This worked well as it got them talking about why we have the back of book text, how representative it is of the book etc. However, I could see at 4 mins into the 15 mins time slot that they were almost finished. I thought on my feet and asked them to then decide on a book in their groups that they have all read and write a 'back of book' for it. We then fed back to the group and discussed whether it sold the book, whether it gave too much info, who else had read the book etc. I'm really pleased that the task went well, as a year ago I wouldn't have had the confidence to do it. I wouldn't describe myself as a natural in front of a class but with practise I'm getting better. On reflection, the interview was definitely a good experience and has given me the confidence to keep applying.

This week we've been short staffed so I'm still working on the Careers Books cataloguing. The Careers Advisor brought me a second crate this week that I wasn't expecting. I've been working on my Chartership PPDP this week as I wanted to submit a draft of it to my mentor by the middle of May.
I also had a big meeting about the Ghana links project with Senior Management and Teachers Without Borders, and I managed to attend our in-house British Sign Language course for the first time in a few months. We learnt countries this week, which I have studied before, so I had a strange moment of doing a Nazi salute in the workplace as we discussed the positive effects of political correctness on BSL!

Library Tourism Down Under

2010-05-08T00:40:00.001-07:00

Last month we went to Australia on holiday. As a good librarian and tourist my first port of call in each location was the major libraries.

In Melbourne we visited the State Library of Victoria reference library on Swanston Street.

The La Trobe reading room

Redmond Barry Reading Room

After Melbourne, and a day on the beach, we arrived in Canberra and visited the National Library of Australia.

The Reading Room

They had a really interesting exhibition about The Dunera Boys.

We then had a bit more beach time before we got to Sydney. Sydney's major library is the State Library of New South Wales. It was undergoing some building work while we were there so wasn't quite as impressive as I'm sure it usually is.

The Mitchell Library Reading Room is being restored at the moment which was a shame, this is the reading room that is open at current.

We were stranded in Sydney for an extra week due to the ash cloud. A few days before we flew we were told we'd be stuck for months so I was planning on seeing if I could do some volunteering at the library. Fortunately it didn't come to that.

Each of these libraries had fantastic shops that made me wish I had a greater baggage allowance. I stocked up on novels while I was there as I'm finding Australian fiction poorly represented on the London Libraries Consortium Catalogue. I like to read about a destination before and after visiting to make the holiday feeling last longer. I particularly like Tim Winton and Helen Garner.

Australia has a real reading culture, in there are book shops and libraries everywhere. For example, in Canberra we went to use a laundrette in a suburb precinct and there were 4 places to buy books out of about 40 retail units. I really miss that about England, or more specifically London. and have particularly felt the lack of bookshops since Borders closed.

Careers books cataloguing

2010-05-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

I've got quite a nice project this week: cataloguing a delivery of new books for our Careers Adviser. It's nice to have the opportunity to engage with other departments and is always good to show willing and show the LRC's worth!
In doing this I've been looking at the Connexions Resource Centre Index which our Careers Department use. It is a fairly basic system made up of symbols which are stuck on the spine of the book (we have decided not to use Dewey as the collection is fairly small). The General Information section of the index includes 11 headings such as Travel and Transport, Relationships, Health and Work and Training. The Work and Training section is broken into 23 main job families which each have their own sticker. The way that they have classified jobs into each family is quite interesting. In case you're wondering, us librarians are under 'Languages, Information and Culture'.

In other cross-department collaborations, last week I was invited to see the BTEC Business Studies students market research presentations as some students had done their projects on the LRC. It was really interesting to hear their take on things and one student in particular had some useful points. As she is one of our Student Assistants she may have had inside information but I still told her teacher how impressed I was. On the plus side, the main finding was that we need more computers, which we had already ordered.

P.S. I know it's been a while since my last post. I've not been slacking, I've been stuck in Australia due to the volcanic ash. More about that later..

Cataloguing donated Granta magazines

2010-03-26T04:24:00.000-07:00

This week we were lucky enough to receive some donated Granta magazines. Due to the value of these items we want to make them issuable like books rather than Reference only magazines.

Classifying these has been interesting as they could fit in several shelf marks. For example Issue 101 could fit under: 828 (English miscellaneous writings) or 320 (Politics) or 070 (Journalism)or at a push under 770 (Photography) as they includes photo essays, or even under Fiction, although I am loathe to put anything with factual content under Fiction.

Considering our collection and user group (and knowledge of where our heaving shelves have space!) I've decided to put most of them under 808 (Rhetoric & collections of literature), although some issues have been put into subject areas (Issue 97 is solely fiction, issue 94 is solely travel writing).

Crazy Keywords continued

2010-03-12T03:54:00.000-08:00

This week I've managed to correct 17 pages worth of crazy keywords, which I'm rather pleased with. I've been prioritising particularly messy sections rather than going through alphabetically.
Much of it is dealing with capitalisation, name conventions and rationalising (do we really need 'Geology' and 'Geology & Earth Sciences' when each only occur once?).

Here this week's top fifteen, the ones that have made me want to hit my head against something not soft:
1.Ethnic tourist attractions
2.Famous trains
3.Etc
4.explains how key skills are asessed
5.exercises on using numbers in everyday life
6.Fiction dealing with specific issues
7.Fighting back
8.facts, worksheet quiz
9.Internet links for different subjects
10. Forced entertainment
11. Future of Champagne Wines
12. Social dimension of wine
13. Sound Story (meaning 'talking book')
14. Disctionaries (on FOUR records?!?)
15. Dodgy deals

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest!

I did however have a little moment where I googled 'gases' to see if it was an artist's surname..

Reflecting on the Student Assistants Programme

2010-02-17T15:31:00.000-08:00

Back story: I am a Learning Resource Centre Assistant in a sixth form of approx 900 students in north east London, in a team of 4: my boss, myself and two part time LRC Assistants. Approx half of our students are vocational and half are doing A’ Levels. At least 50 of our students are moderately to profoundly disabled and undertake Level 1 courses and classes in life skills.

Back in October 2009 during my first few weeks in my job we had a request from a student to become a helper in the LRC. As there wasn't such a scheme in place, we sent an All Students email to see if anyone else was interested. We were contacted by several students, who left their names with staff at the Circulation Desk. At this point my manager suggested that I take the project on as it would be good management experience for me.
I emailed the students who had expressed an interest and asked them to send me a paragraph within a week about why they wanted to be student assistants. About half sent me something by the deadline. Many students don’t check their college email account, and some thought that simply by showing an interest that they could just show up whenever they fancied to work! I felt a little guilty turning people away, but I wanted to make it clear that this was a proper work experience with a proper result (a certificate after 10 hours of volunteering). I emailed the successful applicants (7 in total) a training pack that I had created which included descriptions of the tasks they would be doing and exercises. The exercises included putting shelfmarks in the correct order and reflecting on customer service issues.
The tasks I assigned for the students were: shelving, strict shelf checking in the LRC and in the Study Centres, filling printers with paper, weeding newspapers over one month old, shredding one month old signing in sheets, labelling new items, helping put up or take down displays and other tasks as they came up.
I was very aware of Data Protection in assigning tasks. Our LMS system includes tabs with borrower information such as address and date of birth as well as loan history etc so I felt it was inappropriate to have students using the circulation system, although they did shadow us doing the basics but didn't see the full borrower record. I have a tendency to err on the side of caution, much more so than the rest of my team. I felt it was prudent not to have students working behind the Circulation Desk to make a clear line between the role of an LRC assistant and a student volunteer. This is for two reasons: firstly to keep the respect of the staff and students and secondly to ensure that higher powers don’t get the impression that the library could be run partly by volunteers and that we are expendable!
Setting tasks was challenging. I wanted to ensure that the students got some relevant experience and actually did some work that was of value to us. I wanted to make sure that students were safe and felt comfortable in what they were doing. I think I erred on the side of caution too much with this, at one point a student was strict shelf checking in an unsupervised study centre that I felt was becoming a bit raucous. I stuck my head in twice to check on her and she probably thought why is this batty librarian worrying about me?! I repeatedly told the student assistants that we really appreciate their hard work and that if for any reason they felt unsafe or uncomfortable with a task to let me know. I hope that I made them feel comfortable enough to have done so if they needed to. I was also aware of the health and safety of the overall space, and ensuring that my time spent with the student assistants wasn’t detracting from the overall service. There were also individual considerations, for example one student volunteer is a really pretty girl and I noticed that boys would come in to the library when they knew she was working!
For the first two weeks the student assistant scheme took up a lot of my time as I was training each of them individually. It was a challenge for me to communicate successfully with sixth form students who have never worked in a library before. Each library I've worked in has its own local terminology (e.g. shelfmark/pressmark/classmark) but a person with experience in a library will understand broadly what is required. I learnt never to say ‘Do you understand?’ as they will say ‘Yes’, but rather to ask a question to confirm their understanding such as ‘Which book out of these two goes next on the shelf?’ I learnt how important it was to explain not only what literally had to take place (e.g. explaining the physical act of a book move) but also to explain the context and motivation behind the book move (e.g. we’ve got lots of new books around 300-330 so we’ve added a bay of shelves here and need to move the whole collection round etc). I learnt by making mistakes: at one point my lack of clarity in explaining a book move ended up costing me half an hour as I corrected the mistake. At some points in these early stages of training and supervising the students I wondered if it was worth the time: whether it would be easier just to do these tasks myself than explain them to other people to do. I also had to get over my own slight feeling of embarrassment about telling people to do things as I had little management experience.
By week five I realised that my system of writing a rota for the assistants simply wasn’t working. It was too difficult to predict what exactly would need doing. Instead I created a chart of what tasks I would like completed over the week and as each student arrived I assigned tasks and ticked them off. This way I could respond to a particular request – such as if we’d had a complaint that one study centre was particularly messy then I could prioritise it. By this stage I was also becoming aware of individual preferences and abilities and worked with that as much as possible. I juggled my lunch breaks so that I would always be available.
A problem came in around this point: one of the part time LRC Assistants started to complain about the Student Assistants. She felt that they were strict shelf checking too quickly and thus couldn’t be doing it properly but didn’t have examples of the shelves being in the wrong order. I feel unwilling to go behind each student and check the shelves: if I’m going to do that then we might as well not bother having them! I did spot checks and couldn’t find any problems. I also had a little briefing with the student assistants on their first shift back after Christmas to check they could remember how to do all the tasks and give a little refresher. My colleague also complained that she didn’t have as much to do. This was a shame and I explained to her that being released from the ‘housekeeping’ tasks allowed us more time for engaging in more challenging projects. This slight tension has remained but I feel I have reassured the staff that the students aren’t taking their jobs and frankly I don’t know what more I can do. I also advised the staff that the student assistants can help them when they are particularly busy. They are hopefully now being seen as a help not a threat! At times I had to be a little bit creative in finding tasks for the students to do, especially as they were very speedy so a pile of labelling that I would expect to take them half an hour would be done in ten minutes. This was all a learning curve for me.
Around week seven I set a schedule to recruit the next round of student assistants. Firstly I spoke to all of the current assistants to ask if they wanted to continue beyond week ten. I got a positive response from all of them, but advised them to go away and think about their work load and let me know the following week. Two came back to me saying that they weren’t going to continue but the other four will carry on which is really nice. I must be doing something right!
I recruited two more student assistants by the same method of putting up posters and sending an All Students and asking students to contact me with a paragraph detailing why they want to work in the LRC and why they think they will be good at it. I was happy to recruit a student who had expressed interest in the first round but hadn’t sent in her paragraph and a student who had worked in her previous school’s library.
Training for the second round of student assistants was much easier and didn’t take up as much of my time. I think this was due to a combination of me being more confident and experienced and the fact that one student had library experience and the other’s best friend already was a student assistant so she would have explained a lot of it already.
The student assistants from the first round are now getting more challenging tasks where possible.

Conclusion
The sum total of all of this is that the LRC has benefitted from over 60 hours of shelving, strict shelf checking etc. Our entire collection and all four of the study centre are now strict shelf checked on a weekly basis which certainly wasn’t happening before. This in theory has freed up LRC Assistants to do over 60 hours stock promotion, displays and other projects to further our role within the college. The students have benefitted from work experience which should have been engaging and will look good on their UCAS form or on job applications.
The benefits for me have been immense in terms of my communication and management skills. I hope that learning from the mistakes I’ve made with this project will make me a great manager when the time comes.
Having the students assistants programme and my management experience from it in place allowed us to take on two work experience students at the very last minute which I have already blogged on.
Next steps: find out more about how other schools/colleges do their student assistant programmes and read up on management skills.

Keyword chaos: things that make you go hmm

2010-02-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

It is half term and we don't have any students in so I am finally getting to spend some time cleaning up the keyword chaos taking place all over our catalogue.

The back story:
I work in a sixth form college in North East London. The students have a high prevalence of English as a Second Language and literacy problems. The college has existed for just seven terms and the library has under 5000 items.
The previous manager delegated all the cataloguing to the LRC assistants. During the college's short life they have had a high turnover of LRC assistants - estimates stand at around 10 different LRC assistants. The majority of these had no previous library experience. We still have an LRC assistant working here who has been here since the college opened and she can't recall having any training or being shown any guidance notes. About a month ago I found a notebook containing hand written cataloguing notes so some efforts were made to give guidance.
When I first arrived here in October I thought the problems were on the minor of inconsistencies with commas and capitalising, and unnecessary detail such as putting the title or author into the keywords. Slowly it dawned on me quite what a mess the catalogue. This was particularly resonant when we had training from the makers of the LMS and I felt embarrassed at being linked to it professionally.
My goal is that during my legacy from this role will be cleaning up the catalogue and preventing these problems in the future. I have already created and disseminated clear cataloguing training notes and put them in the staff shared drive (which I created when I realised that no such thing existed!). My manager only became aware of the depth of problems a few weeks ago and has prioritised the task of cleaning the catalogue up. She has also put a ban on paraprofessional staff cataloguing.

One of the most frustrating things is where people have followed someone elses mistake - so we had about nine Shakespearean texts all catalogued as 'Shekespeare'. Often staff have followed book publishers suggestions of keywords without questioning if it is is excessively detailed for our collection - leading to keyword such as 'Cooking With Meat and Game' in a collection with only about 40 cookery books.There are a lot of time period problems in terms of consistency of format (C1900 / 18th Century, 17C, 1600S, 1500s) and expressing accurately the item's content: '16th to 18th Centuries' is not an adequate keyword. And people creating a new keyword when an existing one would be appropriate (e.g. Business Presentation and Communications / Business Communications / Business Communication.)

Having run a report and reviewed the keywords used, the most glaring thing is that most keywords have only been used once. I'm now looking at this 112 page document and deciding where to start. My original plan was to go through from A to Z. Now I feel it would be better to focus on specific areas such as going through by each nation to cure problems such as one or two hit keyword entries for: British Army, British Artists, British Cinema, British Film, and so on by turning them into two keywords e.g. 'British' and 'Army'.

As I'm doing this I thought that I would share some of the things that make me feel like hitting my head on the wall. These are keywords that have honestly been inputted in our catalogue (they appear in this list in the format in which they were inputted):

The bizarre...

Being pursued

Being Yourself

History of Champagne

Moral Status of Animals

Contacting the Dead

The excessively detailed...bearing in mind our user group and size of collection

American History of Food

AIDS: social aspects (we only have 2 hits under AIDS at all)

18th century India

18th Century painters

African American poems

Biographies of notable atheletes

Obama's speeches

Advice on Careers & Achieving Success

Literature of Special Lesbian Interest

American Supermarkets

The vague...

Answers

Approaches

Arguments

Spelling mistakes...

Growing Ou

Shekespeare

Aging

Three different spellings of Al-Qaeda

19th c china

Ciminals

Contemorary Art

Disctionaries

Much of the problem is using one keyword entry where two are appropriate...
A Level / AS / GCSE + subject

Nation + anything you can think of!

To multiple keywords to express the same principle..

World War 2, World War II, World War Two, Second World War, 2nd World War, World War 1939-45, European History: Second World War

Half term starts in 30 minutes

2010-02-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

And I can't wait to get stuck in to a few days solid catalogue cleaning up! And I can listen to ska and drink tea while I'm doing it as the students won't be in. Lately whenever I try to work on it something else comes up and becomes a priority.
This week I went on a UC&R group visit to the Freemason's Museum and Library which was very interesting, and I went to a CILIP Chartership and Beyond event. The Chartership event was great, it has reassured me that I am ready to charter and that I will have enough experience. The following day I contacted my first potential mentor from the database who recommended I try someone else as her roster is full, so fingers crossed.
Right, I'd better start getting these students out and leave!

Library Day In The Life - Day 4 and 5

2010-02-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

Only just had time to do this between life and work and being ill....

Thursday was a bit saner. I opened the library at 8.30 and did my usual morning tasks (stats, journals etc). One of the work experience students was half an hour late so I started his day by telling him off. I then had to explain to them why the labelling they'd done yesterday needed to be redone. In fact I spent much of the day supervising and motivating them. I had created a rota for the them which I adjusted several times throughout the day. As the level of their abilities became clearer I became more able to anticipate how long tasks would take and what they would be able to do. As with the usual student assistants this is also a test of my communication skills... and my patience!

I made some headway on the keywords and on compiling a list of recommended websites for the faculties that I am responsible for academic liaison for (Humanities and Business & ICT). The keywords are going to take a lot longer than I originally thought - I had ambitiously thought I'd get them done by Easter ha!

Thursday night I went out for dinner with my friend in Soho. Looks like this was a mistake as I spent half the night being sick.

Managed to pull myself together to get into work an hour or so late on Friday and leave an hour or so early. I didn't take a lunch break because there was no way I could eat.

I didn't achieve any of the things I had intended upon achieving today but I did fulfill my job description - serving on the circ desk, supervising the space etc - and at least I was able to cover lunchbreaks. In our library we only ever have three members of staff working leaving us with at least a half hour window in the busiest time of the day where we only have one member of staff working.
Fortunately I'd already planned for the work experience students to spend the day with a member of LRC staff who was putting up a display for LGBT History month so I didn't have to supervise them.
I was also keen to go in to see a publishers rep who didn't turn up!

Library Day In The Life - Day 3

2010-01-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

What a day! On the way in to work I was thinking 'wow I've got a lot to do today' and by 9.15am it was quadrupled.

A teacher came in to see us first thing because two of her Level 1 students had a really awful experience on their work placement and she wondered if we could take them on for the next week and a half. Their placement was at a well known stationers/book vendors often found in train stations, I shalln't say the name. As I run the Student Volunteer programme I'm going to supervise them. So I spent until 10am drawing up a rota of tasks they can do up to the end of the week and printing ff the training notes and leaflets I give to the student volunteers. My entire morning was occupied with supervising them, inducting them, rotaing them etc. At about noon the teacher returned and mentioned that one of the students is dyspraxic - this obviously has a massive effect on what I can ask them to do (he also has a problem with one of his arms which minimises the amount of shelving I can ask him to do) and to be honest I feel quite annoyed that she didn't see fit to mention it at 9am.

In the midst of this we had a student setting up a powerpoint for Holocaust Memorial Day based on a trip to Auschwitz that he had made with another student. He phoned first thing suggesting I set it up for him or else he'll do it tomorrow! I was surprised by his attitude as he's one of our student assistants and usually works really hard. I advised him to come in and do it today or else it won't happen. So he came in and sorted it out.

Lunch was a working lunch at the bistro run by the catering students. It was cross-faculty meeting about maintaining connections with our link school in Ghana. My manager and I are the International Coordinators for the centre. In the course of the meeting the headmistress suggested I lead the team to push the Ghana link which I have agreed to do. Feel quite honoured that the headmistress asked me, but also aware that probably no one else wanted to do it! The food in the bistro was fantastic as ever, I had kedgeree from their special menu in honour of Burns Night.

After lunch I supervised the work experience students and made a little bit of headway on the keywords, but not very much at all disappointingly. I was grateful that I'd sorted out the lists of genre fiction yesterday as it's given them a labelling task to do. The library closes at 4pm on a Wednesday which has given me the chance to blog and catch up on yesterdays - I'll put it down as CPD!

Tonight I'm going to a talk at the Imperial War Museum with a friend.

Library Day in the Life - Day 2

2010-01-27T06:38:00.000-08:00

Arrived at work at 9am. Spent most of the morning on the Circulation Desk. Started by doing my routine tasks - statistics and journals - then moved onto keywords tidy up task (inbetween serving students, dealing with enquiries and dealing with problems with the printer). I believed I'd completed the As yesterday but hadn't. Made a list of the keywords beginning with numbers then started amending the Bs. Sorting out the entire catalogue is going to take a lot longer than I originally thought! Off the counter at 11.30 so visited study centres to drop new journals off and tidy up a bit.

Lunch at 12.

Spent most of the afternoon on the Circ Desk. Decided to spend some time working on a task for our Student Assistants. We want to label fiction books with stickers indicating their genre (romance, crime, science fiction etc) to help users choose fiction books. So have spent the afternoon playing with the flagging and advanced search functions to print off lists of books of each genre and adding keywords to items (such as adding 'Romance' to books that already have the keyword 'Love' so that the all come up as one set).

In the evening watching the film Milk, it was really good. Had an early night as we've got a lot on tomorrow.

Library Day In The Life - Day 1

2010-01-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

Ha! I've just realised that the last time I blogged was my unofficial day in the life! Still, here we are...

Arrived at 8am to open up the library for 8.30am: turning on PCs and printer, filling printer with paper, putting money in the till, restocking the stationery shop, checking for bookings in the diary and new notes in the Circ Desk Message Book.

Stayed on Circ Desk til 11.30am (apart from my tea break). As usual on a Monday morning we have an entire BTEC sports class in taking up about 13 of our 18 PCs. I collated last week's statistics and checked to see if anything had been added to the 6 Book Challenge website. I then worked on cleaning up our catalogue's keywords - the bane of my life and a situation worthy of its own post. Massive problems with the printer (again - it's absolutely constant) so spent a lot of my morning explaining that to students. Also the internet was off or patchy until 10 ish which didn't help.

At 12 had lunch in our office because I couldn't be bothered to go up to staff room. I ran into the facilities manager who reassured me that the second recycling bin that we have requested over a week ago is on its way.

Back on the desk from 1-2. Students are complaining that it is taking 20-30 mins to log onto computers. I assure them that IT are aware of the problem and that we are as frustrated as they are. Processed the day's journals.

At 2pm went into the office. I don't like working in the office, I like to be on the floor. However, our other staff PC has had it's mouse ball stolen rendering it useless and IT have taken over a week to replace it. I could log onto a student computer but with the log on problems it seems like a waste of time. Finished cleaning up the keywords beginning with A.

At 3pm I distributed the days journals to study centres and had a little tidy up. At 3.30pm I was back on the Circ desk where I worked on creating the list of keywords I will clean up tomorrow (the Bs).

Left work at 5pm. Spent the evening working on the presentation.

A Week In the Life - Friday

2009-12-04T03:55:00.000-08:00

Woke at 6.20am anxious about the missing USB and thinking through where I would look for it. Decided just to get up and go look for it. Arrived at work at 7.40am and looked everywhere logical with no joy. My manager arrived at 8.20am and together we tore the place apart looking in ridiculous places and eventually found the USB in a very odd place. I'm feeling a bit worried about poltergeists but nonetheless am so relieved that we found the thing! We've agreed that USBs aren't the way forward and I've backed up everything on it.

Left work at 8.50am (I'm on annual leave today) and confused a lot of students who saw me leaving as they were walking in!

Now time to finalise and post this week's blogs and get ready to go to Berlin!

A Week In the Life - Thursday

2009-12-04T03:36:00.001-08:00

Opened up at 8.30am. Started with my usual tasks: stats, journals.

Spent the morning on the Circ Desk, inbetween serving users I got some admin jobs done. Contacted The Reading Agency about ordering more diaries, certificates and bookmarks for the Six Book Challenge - we've got 50 places and after 4 days of registration we've got 30 participants already! Looks like my publicity campaign has worked. Sent round my weekly All Students email bulletin about the week's new journals and newspapers.

One of the English teachers sent round an All Staff and Students email about getting more contributors to the college blog. After speaking with my manager I contacted her about the LRC putting up blog entries on new stock, events, promotions and book reviews. I'm quite keen to push some of our 6 Book Challenge participants to write book reviews that we can put up, I'm also going to speak to some of our keen readers that come in - that's something to work on next week.

Today's Student Assistant came in at 1.15, I sent her to strict shelf tidy in the study centre next door. From the library I kept hearing a lot of noise coming from the study centre and popping in to check she's okay - I think she thinks I'm a bit odd! Also spent time on the desk with her shadowing me.

Sorted out next week's Student Assistant rota after checking that other LRC staff don't have any tasks to add to it, and discussed with my manager what jobs to give the assistant who'll be in tomorrow as I won't be in.

Typed up a set of Till Procedures to go in our new staff shared drive. Adapted one of the info skills powerpoints to make it specific to science for a session we are running next week. Started work on procedure/training notes on cataloguing as there is nothing in place already!

In the evening I had a meeting with the other owners at my block of flats as myself and another owner manage the flats. Stressful stuff. In the midst of it received a text from my boss, the Info Skills USB is missing. Hardly slept for worry.

A Week In the Life - Wednesday

2009-12-04T03:00:00.000-08:00

Started work at 9, did my usual tasks (stats, journals etc) while on Circ Desk then started on some admin tasks. Had a good look through my work for Friday and Monday to work out how I'm going to get everything done before I go on leave (I'm going to the Berlin Christmas Markets from Friday-Monday). Looked through the Info Skills presentations that'll we'll be doing next week to check all hyperlinks work. Rescheduled the 6 Book Challenge talk that was missed yesterday for next Tuesday. Finally got our secure LRC staff area set up in the All Staff shared drive - up until now we've been storing work on USB sticks or in our own areas. Have discovered that our IT department respond well to the promise of Fruitellas :)

Spent about 20 mins working one-to-one with a student helping him with his English coursework. This isn't strictly part of my job, but I'm happy to help if I have the time and it's a subject that I'm confident with.

At 11.15 I had a slightly belated induction meeting with the principal and a few other members of staff that started since September.

I left work at 1 and went down to the Online Information Show at Olympia. I was a bit disappointed with it this year to be honest as there was a lot of content management and hardly anything for education. Although I did have an interesting chat with British Standards so I hope they send me some info on their free resources. I also had a chat with the lady at the CILIP stand about chartering - I've been advised to send a CV of what I do in my role as there is some uncertainty whether I qualify to charter. My role doesn't require a library qualification but I undertake work that is usually done by qualified librarians so there is a slight grey area. Hopefully I'll get that done on Friday when I'm on leave.

In the evening my team had a bowling match: I won one, lost one. Not that happy with my own overall pins scores, but it was good to see my team.

A Week In the Life - Tuesday

2009-12-04T02:32:00.000-08:00

Started work at 9am. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays the other library assistant is doing the course I've just completed so I'm always happy to see her and hear what's happening.

I did my regular tasks first such as doing yesterday's stats. The post is coming really late at the moment but once it'd arrived I inputted and stamped the journals and took them round the study centres.

I spent most of the morning on the circulation desk unpicking some of the cataloguing problems. We have a situation where a lot of people have been cataloguing over the library's 2 year history - most of them unqualified library assistants with no previous experience of cataloguing and no training. Once we get our LMS update in a few weeks I can really get stuck in with some block changes but for now I'm just trying to unpick a few things. At the moment it isn't a massive problem as we have a small collection and no dedicated OPAC so the only people who search the catalogue are LRC staff, but we're hoping to change this with the Info Skills sessions and getting an OPAC PC in the new year.

Had a group of media student taking pictures in the LRC this morning without asking the manager for consent, or asking consent of the individuals they were photographing (myself included) and refused to delete images when requested. As my BA was Photographic Arts I find it really frustrating when students don't appreciate the ethics around these things. That said we have a digital native/immigrant divide between the staff and students and these students' attitude to questions of privacy and representation reflect that. I had a quiet word with the Learning Mentor for Creative Arts who took the problem back to their teacher - seemed like a more political approach that sending a pointed email to All Staff.

I went to speak to an ESOL class about the 6 Book Challenge at 11.15 but found that the class was cancelled as the teacher wasn't in, which was a shame as I'd psyched myself up!

After lunch a Student Assistant came in to do her rotaed hour so I spent some time with her, showing her the tasks that need doing and spending some time with her shadowing me on the counter. Another Student Assistant came in to make up the hour that he missed last week. These kids are so enthusiastic and efficient that they get the work done in no time at all - sometimes I have to be a bit creative finding something purposeful for them to do!
I was expecting to go to help present Info Skills class at 1.45 but that had to be cancelled. Bit disappointing but we've rescheduled for next Tuesday.

We had an informal team catch up before shutting the library early as we had a larger meeting with the learning mentors which went well.

A Week In The Life - Monday

2009-11-30T02:12:00.001-08:00

***Disclaimer: I wanted to add to the week in the life of a librarian wiki project. It was only half way through this post that I realised that it was a project that was supposed to be done in a specific week in July. I have decided to carry on with this regardless and document a typical working week in my role.***

This morning as I walked from the bus stop in the pouring rain a vicious white van man drove through a puddle and absolutely soaked me and some other ladies walking near by. Even my face was soaked *argh*. So my first task this morning was washing my fringe and face in the bathroom and reapplying my make up. Good job I always come in 15 minutes early.

I started work at 8.30 and was opening up: turning on the computers and printers, putting float in the till, etc. I wrote the day's headlines on the white board next to our newspaper rack and stamped the papers with the college stamp.

On the main circulation desk until 11, serving students and staff. During this time I completed some admin tasks. I inputted last week's stats for student use and for enquiries. Our data collection isn't ideal at the moment as we are relying on a sign in system rather than a gate count. I also did some more work on an email to my manager of suggested acquisitions based on requests for new stock, multiple copies of current stock and items that I think the users would like.

Our Six Book Challenge began today so I sent round an email to All Students reminding them to sign up and telling them about our brand new fiction items: last week I made a book display and wrote a one line synopsis of each item to include in the email to try to entice them. By 11am I'd had 4 sign up so I was quite chuffed.

At 11 I came off the desk and spent the next hour collecting items for the Psychology and Humanities Study Skills session that the manager and I are facilitating tomorrow. I selected as much variety of sources as possible: dictionaries, journals, encyclopedias, textbooks, maps etc. I then collected and processed the day's journals, put the relevant ones in the holder in the LRC and took one to the Study Centre next door.
At our college we have 5 Study Centres covering each faculty area which are staffed by Learning Mentors. The Learning Mentors work with students in the Study Centres but LRC staff are responsible for the stock that we keep in them. I am responsible for two of them (Humanities and Business & ICT) and for faculty liaison for those subjects.
At 11.15 the first of the day's Student Assistants clocked in. I chatted with her for a few minutes and showed her what needed doing - mostly strict shelf checking. She went up to the Business & ICT Study Centre to tidy it for 20 minutes as well - I try to get the Study Centres strict shelf checked by the Student Assistants as we rarely have time to do it ourselves. As ever she came with a great attitude and was happy to get on with it on her own. While the Student Assistants are in I am aware of what they're doing but don't really need to supervise them closely now as they've been with us for 4 weeks now.
At 12 I was back on the main issue desk for half an hour before going on my lunch. It's getting busy and a bit noisy now so I'm not continuing with my admin tasks until after the lunch time rush.

Lunch at 12.30. I rarely leave campus at lunch as there's not much nearby. I just sit and read in the office with my packed lunch.

After lunch I spent some time with the next Student Assistant and tidied up after the busy lunch break. I took the journals round to the Study Centres and collected newpapers and journals for the Info Skills session tomorrow. I spent much of the afternoon on the Circ desk, serving students and helping with the computers and printer/photocopier/scanner combo - a machine that requires my attention at least 5 times an hour. I also completed the new acquisitions email and sent it to my boss. I closed the library alone at 5pm.

In the evening I met the girls from my MSc for dinner. We had hoped to be celebrating/commiserating our dissertation marks and thus have our final marks for the year but it wasn't to be, we're still waiting on them. Still it was nice to catch up with everyone - especially as we were saying goodbye to Sarina who is returning to NZ at the weekend :(.

Student LRC Assistants first week

2009-11-14T01:11:00.000-08:00

What a week! Our programme of student LRC assistants has started. I'd prepared by sending them training notes including the tasks they'll be doing and exercises about how the shelves are arranged, and I made sure the rest of my team knew who is coming when and what they'll be doing.

On the whole I've been really really happy with the students that've been in this week. I was expecting seven: one was a no show, one was late so I'll see if she's late again next week. All the rest of the students came with a great attitude, happy for the opportunity and wanting to do extra hours which I might take them up on!

Writing the training notes and training the students in person was interesting. Usually working in libraries your colleagues know the terminology (strict shelf checking, shelf mark, spine label etc) even though there are local differences between libraries or sectors. In this situation I've got to consider that they are 16-19, possibly have never had a job before never mind a library job and there are ESOL factors to take into account. Interestingly, I had anticipated that the easiest task to give them would be doing a book move (very straightforward, we're just moving all our stock round because we've got a free bay) but this is the task that without fail the students have not understood! I thought it was me explaining it badly, but on Thursday my manager trained the volunteer as I was elsewhere and she said the same thing.

I've been careful to emphasise with the students that they need to be aware of health and safety (manual lifting, being aware of people using the space while they are doing tasks) and that if at any point they don't feel safe or comfortable doing a task or in the space to speak to me straight away.

So far the project has been time consuming, but I'm sure it'll pay off once the student assistants are confident with their tasks and can just come in and get on with it. On the plus side it looks like the student volunteers will be able to strict shelf tidy our entire collection each week which is fantastic, as we are so busy that we rarely get the chance to do any of it.

Next week we've got Ofsted in for 24 hours including our open evening, so that should be another exciting week! The whole college is busy putting up displays and getting the students (and staff!) on their best behaviour.

Half term

2009-10-27T03:50:00.001-07:00

As it's half term this week we're only open to students on three days - we only had one student in yesterday. I'm the only member of staff in the library because everyone else has leave or is term time only.
It's good to have the chance to get on with projects that are difficult with students in. I'm putting up some information skills displays to tie in with workshops we'll be running after half term. Yesterday's 'Evaluating websites' display looks good, but I'm having a few problems trying to make a display on bibliographies look appealing to 16-19 year olds! And I'm going to paint some shelves this afternoon (don't ask).
We're starting a student volunteer programme after half term which I'm going to be very involved with. I've written some training notes and am working on creating a certificate that they'll receive after completing 10 hours with us. I'm trying to make it seem grown up so that we'll only get serious students. I'm aware that I don't want to give students cause to believe that in a few hours of volunteering that they are able to do our jobs so I'm going to avoid letting them use the LMS. Beyond the fact that it is bad for our professional esteem/profile within the college, it could give someone higher up the idea that perhaps the library could cope with less staff and more volunteers - which is not the case. Hopefully I'll get some time later this week to do some more research and planning on this.
Also, I keep forgetting that I'm still waiting for my final MSc mark, then remembering and feeling a bit queasy! We should get them in a month..

New Job - first week went well

2009-10-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

My first week at my new job has been fantastic. It looks like a role where I can get lots of valuable professional-type experience.

My first two days were the usual whirlwind of trying to learn names and tick boxes on induction and training forms. I've already been given some interesting projects to work on. I've been cataloguing new stock, helping students with their homework and we've done a book move.

The college uses the Eclipse LMS which is a bit quirky but easy enough to use. On Eclipse there is a 'Linked' function where similar items can be linked to one another to recommend them to the user. I've been given the ongoing task of linking items - for me it's a dream project! I've been busy on the fiction section.

I've taken over the journals which is fantastic. The college has an interesting set up of having five faculty Study Centres staffed by Learning Mentors as well as the central LRC. Most of the journals are stocked in the Study Centres, so each day I'll be visiting the Study Centres to drop journals off and hopefully learn more about how they work.

I'm doing academic liaison for two of the faculties: Humanities and Business & IT. At first I was a bit disappointed not to have got Creative Arts, but it'll be great getting experience in different areas.

It's really exciting to be in a small institute and a small team where it's possible to make changes. My manager is new to the institute as well and is keen on discussing ideas and trying new things. At her request I've designed and implemented a new spreadsheet and procedure for recording student usage. We have a signing in sheet rather than having an automatic gate counter. She's really nice as well which is always good.

So far, so good! Let's hope it stays this way.

CILIP Graduate Day 1st October 2009

2009-10-06T10:41:00.000-07:00

I would really recommend the next one of these for people who are considering entering the profession, considering qualifying or possibly are in the process of qualifying. CILIP possibly could have been clearer about what type of graduate this was aimed after - first degree grad not library school grad - but nonetheless.
I attended two talks. Emma Illingsworth gave an interesting talk about the different skills required for librarianship, the different types of users in different sectors and how to market your services to those user groups. It involved lots of brainstorming and discussion in small groups.
The second talk was by Jo Alcock about promoting yourself and networking through microblogging, blogging and social networking. Again this was really interesting. At the moment I'm spending a lot of time thinking about micro/blogging and the netiquette involved. As a novice twitterer I'm always concerned about replying promptly, RTing without plagiarising, being friendly without being overfamiliar etc. I'm also wracked with e-shyness. Jo said some interesting things about branding yourself - I'm going to do some work on customising this.

Reading habits

2009-10-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

Saw this meme on Woodsiegirl’s blog and can see through the Twitter that all the cool kids are doing it, so thought I would too.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favourite reading snack?
Just endless cups of tea.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I do in pencil. Obviously only in books I own. I quite like using the tiny post-its rather than marking the page.
I used to write in books a lot when I a photography undergrad and now feel embarrassed looking through at my naive comments in the margin of Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes etc.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
I use bookmarks – usually flyers, tickets or postcards. My favourite is a Morrissey flyer that I can angle so that Moz peers over the book at me while I’m reading.

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
I usually have both on the go at once. I enjoy a good biography.

Hard copy or audiobooks?
Hard copy. I am tempted to try audiobooks for some of the classics. I’ve got a complex about the fact that I haven’t read any Dickens, Bronte etc and see this as a sign that I might be uncultured and/or thick.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
I like to read to the end of the chapter.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
I would if I was reading for academic purposes, but I wouldn’t if I was reading for pleasure.

What are you currently reading?
I’ve just finished Dorian: An Imitation by Will Self which was really good, and am starting We Are All Made of Glue by Marina Lewycka. I’m currently reading War Paint: Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry by Lindy Woodhead but am struggling a bit to get into it.

What is the last book you bought?
Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley. It was in the bargain bin at Borders. I usually get everything from the library (I juggle accounts in 4 boroughs), anything I can’t get I put on my Christmas list.

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
I read multiple books at a time. My bedside book is usually something that is hardback/too heavy to carry around. My tube/tea break reading is usually something portable. If my tube reading is something a bit dark then I have another book to read when I’m home alone!

Do you have a favourite time of day and/or place to read?
I read every night to help me go to sleep and read on the tube. I guess my favourite place to read would be by the pool on holiday, knowing that I’m not going to be interrupted and have nothing to do for a week other than read and eat!
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
I rarely read series, but I go through phases of reading everything by a particular author then moving on to another one.

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
Probably Nicci French, my favourite is Killing Me Softly. And Jodi Picoult, my favourite is The Pact.
This could be more indicative of who I recommend books to rather than my own tastes. I tend towards slightly bleaker writing (Jean Rhys, Heather Lewis, Tama Janowitz, Sylvia Plath, Suite Francais, anything about Kurt Cobain) and rarely have the opportunity to recommend this type of thing.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
I have one shelf of not-read-yet items and library books. Other than that I loosely keep non fiction within genres: art/photography books, my other half’s cookery books. Biographies mix in with fiction and both are wherever there is space on the shelves.
I’ll probably get kicked out of CILIP for admitting this, but my bookshelves at home are a complete state. This is due to the constrictions of sharing a one bed flat. I dream about moving to our next home and having my own study with custom made shelving.

Umbrella 2009 remembered

2009-09-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was lucky to have been to July's Umbrella on a sponsored place from the London chapter of the U, C and R group. The enthusiasm I came back with was phenomenal, I thought I'd reflect over the impact it has had on me.

#1 Networking
Library folk are often thought of as wallflowers, geeks, the shy (and possibly weird) bookish kid at school. No smoke without fire and all that.
Ian Snowley’s asked those who had been before to look out for the 100 first timers (it was marked on our badges) and to ask us questions and make us feel welcome, which people really did. I met some really great people that I'm enjoying keeping in touch with on the Facebook and the Twitter. My only conference regret is that I wasn't more into the Twitter at the time.
For the final session of the conference I attended a Career Development Group session ‘Top Ten New Librarians two years on’ presented by Helen Dahlke and Cheney Gardner. Their talks were very positive particularly for a nearly qualified librarian: discussing the importance of asking people for opportunities, making your own luck, getting involved with CILIP and applying for conferences and bursaries. These are messages that I have really taken away with me, and led to me going along to the CDG group summer social and getting more into the Twitter.

#2 Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm has become a dirty word for me lately. The key positive feedback I've had from my two failed job interviews this summer has been how great my enthusiasm is which makes me feel like a labrador. And paraprofessional soon-to-be ex-colleagues have told me how strange they find me due to my interest in wider library issues.
Charles Brown’s (Library Director, Charlotte and Mecklenburg county public libraries) keynote speech was all about enthusiasm and being willing to ruffle a few feathers in order to create about not just award winning services but the absolute best services. Brown described himself as someone who doesn’t just sit around and complain but rather gets off his “duff” and does something. I'm going to remember Brown's talk every time I find myself moaning not manifesting.

#3 Information Literacy
I've been really interested in the Google Generation research for some time having written an essay on it during my MSc. UCL’s Maggie Fieldhouse’s catchily titled presentation: Digital Natives: can information literacy save them from information anarchy?’ was really interesting. Particularly the debate about whether Information Literacy in universities is too late, and the barriers to getting to school age children. I'm not sure what the answer is, or if librarians alone can tackle this. But having spent the last year witnessing the frightening lack of information literacy at university level it is something I'd really love to engage with.
Another session on Information Literacy gave great practical ideas and tips for various groups. Carol Webb from Forest Hill School began the session by discussing team teaching with a subject teacher at secondary and sixth form level, the importance of ensuring that students are emotionally comfortable in order to be able to learn and considering remarketing ourselves as educators. Andy Priestner from the Judge Business School in Oxford continued on these themes describing how he gained access to classrooms, formed relationships with academic staff and built a reputation as a librarian who teaches. Priestner engaged the group with the Inspector Morse stereotype of redbrick academics, which he then dispelled. Chris Powis from the University of Northampton concluded the session. He put us in groups and asked us to make lists of how students see us, how we see students, how academics see us and how we see academics. This showed us how the biggest barrier to integration of Information skills into the curriculum is not the bureaucracy of the organisation we work in but rather it is us, and specifically the prejudices carried by us and our service users. This was one of the most stimulating sessions of the conference.

#4 Conference attire
Finally, I've learnt what to wear to a conference. The lesson learnt is that wearing anything with an embellished/statement neckline/necklace is a waste as the lanyard will overshadow it. And everyone's looking at your lanyard to establish if they know/want to know you/your institute
On the whole I was pleased that I had packed the right balance of smart/casual/professional for the days, and a cute but flesh covering dress for the evening, but I regret playing it quite so safe.

My report for the U, C and R group is available here under Past Events (scroll approx half way down): http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/ucr/divisions/london

My first post

2009-09-15T03:18:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start blogging as I am at a particular point in my career (nearly qualified librarian - handing in my MSc dissertation tomorrow, god willing) at a peculiar time (global recession, cuts in public spending). I'm hoping to keep up the momentum from my MSc, particularly the professional community aspect, by blogging.
At the moment I'm working my notice at a university library before moving to a sixth form college library. I'm excited because New Job is a fully inclusive learning environment with a sizeable proportion of disabled students: disability provision was my dissertation topic. I'm hoping it'll be a good opportunity to put some theory into practice and do some further research.