Partnerships for HE in FE: the library perspective

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

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

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.

Umbrella 2009 remembered

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