PTEG Mentor Training

Easter weekend and the weather scuppered camping plans, so I'm bored! Time to catch up on my much neglected blog.

On 21st March I attended mentor training to register as a mentor for the CILIP Framework of Qualifications. The course I attended was at UWE, Bristol (Frenchay Campus) but you can find local courses on the CILIP training pages.

We didn't get to do any "wax-on, wax-off" but on the whole I found it a really useful day :-) The training included plenty of activities as well as some background information from the facilitators. The morning looked at defining mentoring, considering different learning styles, essential skills for mentoring and mentoring styles... the afternoon session was more about explaining the CILIP mentoring scheme e.g. processes for setting up a mentoring agreement.

I found the morning exercises around core skills like active listening, questioning, and giving feedback really useful - and I think it's also helpful to think in terms of these three skills. I'd certainly like to develop my questioning and feedback skills and I think these are at the core of mentoring. Rather than suggesting solutions it's about asking questions and suggesting points of view that enable the mentee to get to solutions. This is really difficult - if you think you can see the answer to a problem (as a mentor) it's really hard not to just jump in and blurt it out. Getting the mentee to the solution can be time consuming - and doesn't always get you to the answer you expected - but the mentee should be the one coming up with the solutions and learning from whether they worked or not.

In particular, chartership candidates are reaching a level of professionalism where they are moving from roles where you are given tasks to complete (e.g. as a library assistant or in an operational role) to being given more strategic objectives (e.g. in a 1st professional role) where the expectation is that you'll be working in a much more independent way, and may need to influence or motivate others into action. That's really the difference for me. Nobody knows all the answers straight away, but though talking through challenges and barriers (especially with people with a very different perspective) the mentee can come to their own solution.

There was a bit on learning styles and mentoring styles (based on Honey and Mumford and Clutterbuck respectively). I think what's interesting here is that you may go through different learning styles at different times or for different tasks. Also, regarding mentoring styles, it may be necessary to go through a number of different styles in the course of a mentoring relationship but I guess the aim is to move from directive to non-directive styles to get to independent learning.

The stuff in the afternoon on the actual processes was also useful and the handouts were really good and something I'm sure I'll be referring back to often!

I'd recommend this course to anyone considering mentoring for CILIP or also possibly for anyone interested in taking on mentoring roles within their work situation.

And in the end...

...the love you take is equal to the love you make. Is it? I hope so. The portfolio is printed in triplicate and waiting to get bound and posted next week along with the mentor completion form, so now's a good time to reflect on the process (the blog's kind of fallen by the wayside while I've bene writting the portfolio but, if any future candidates should stumble across this I'd really recommend using a blog to build relective evidence).

So, the theme of this entry, what I'm reflecting on now, is what a GREAT PROFESSION I'm entering (yes you heard me folks - this is about positivity!). I've been very fortunate to have had two amazing mentors. Both have spent time to review documents, have meetings etc. Both have given me great advice (not only about the chartership process but also about the professional issues that I've encountered over the past year) and encouragement. Most importantly, both have pushed me, originally to set meaningful objectives in the PPDP and more recently to see them through.

I guess what I'm really wondering is why? I've been thinking just how lucky I am to be in a profession where (very busy) people are prepared to give a bit of their time and experience to mentor somebody just starting out. I guess this goes beyond the whole chartership thing. While I was taking my MSc. folks always took the time to ask how I was getting on, helped with research and help me getting hold of literature. In the workplace, people have always been ready to share their experience. In my current role for example, the former incumbent happens to work in the same place in a different role. She took time to show me the ropes and still takes time to go for coffee every now and then. Sound things out and generally keep me (as a solo librarian) sane.

I hear a lot of critisism. Both of the profession in general and CILIP in particular. Some of this is starting to grate a bit now. I think my attitude to CILIP has changed over the past year. I felt a bit squeezed out of the public sector having qualified just as a (particularly nasty) restructure hit. At the time I wondered why CILIP didn't do more and weren't more vocal. Now I realise that is probably beyond their remit. They are a professional body not a trade union. What was sad at the time was the tactics that management used to divide professional and para-professional staff. With this division, the effectiveness of collective action was severely hampered and the hatchet fell on the professional side of the workforce. Was that CILIP's fault? On reflection probably not. The failure was primarily with senior management but also (despite my leftist leanings) I have to criticise the union for not protecting it's members against the divisive tactics of senior mangement and unifying the workforce (the are called Unison after all).

The other criticism I hear of CILIP is the cost-benefit thing. How many times have you heard winges about the cost of membership and "what do you get for it?". Well, I'm here to say, there is loads out there if you make the effort to find it. Here in Hampshire there are tons of events and they are often free (or if not they are very cheap). At Ridgemount Street there's stuff going on weekly. If you're prepared to make the effort there are SO MANY ways that CILIP can help you to develop within your profession.

So, is it all sunshine and roses? No, of course not. This is a difficult time but it's important to remember that it's a difficult time for EVERYONE. I honestly feel that in a profession full of people who just LOVE TO HELP others, we are better prepared than many to make it through the hard times.

What's my hope for the future? Well, pass or fail, my hope is that I can give back to the profession (by that I mean library people) as much as it has given me. If we can all Come Together then I've a feeling that the future is very bright. There's a bit from Bob Dylan's autobiography which as always stuck with me. It's about his grandma saying something like.
"Everyone you know is struggling. Try to be nice". Most of the library staff I know live that every day.

I fought the law and the law won

I've been thinking alot about the law lately. Learning about copyright law was not really on the PDPP but it's become an issue, not only with the objective to improve access to the journals collection but also because I seem to be doing more and more document supply. I've never really understood copyright in libraries before. I was aware that I had to get declaration forms signed and the limits on copying but never really understood the "why".

Things are a bit different working for a corporate library than in the public sector because of the nature of requests for document supply. In a public library, the chances are that most users are requesting documents for non-commercial research or private study. Copyright declaration forms are signed as a formality so that libraries can prove in law that they have supplied non-copyright cleared articles in good faith. If the user then uses the information in a commercial way then the responsibility is theirs because the library have a record to show that they stated the document was for private use only. In a corporate library, you have to assume that most of the articles are being supplied for commercial purposes. Luckily, the British Library (my main document supplier) make it really easy to pay copyright. Anything I get from the British Library, I get copyright cleared as you have to assume that the information will be used in a commercial way. Ok, so somebody could be using it for private study but what if they then go on to use that intellectual capital in a product that gets patented? It's just easier to get everything cleared. In a way, this makes life really easy. If you've paid the copyright, just keep a record of the request and the user no need for getting copyright declaration forms signed as the copyright's been paid.

But what about copying from journals that the library takes or document supply from more local sources? I think working in a corporate library makes supplying copies from your own stock a bit more complicated. In a public library it is permissible to copy from your own stock within the limits of fair dealing and library privilege as long as you obtain a copyright declaration from the user. In a corporate library you have to assume that the use is going to be commercial - so you need a mechanism to pay copyright. This basically means that you need a copyright licensing agreement. These are dished out by the CLA and are normally negotiated by the company lawyers. The chances are most big companies don't consult their librarians when negotiating an agreement and they tend to be based on numbers of employees or types of job roles. It's then up to the CLA to share the wealth (the revenue from the fee for the License) with the publishers.

I have to say that I don't like this system. It works fine for organisations as a whole but libraries have specialised copying requirements that may fall outside of their company's CLA. If this is the case then the library has to refuse to copy on the grounds that they would be breaking the law. Users often find this hard to understand and may think that librarians are being unnecessarily over-cautious (or even wilfully obstructive). It would be great if there were a kind of pay-per-copy option available. In the States, some vendors are setting themselves up in this way as brokers between publishers, licensing agencies and information providers and using technology to make direct payments to publishers as items are copied. This is kind of getting there but it cuts library collections out of the loop - these vendors have access to huge collections and basically supply copyright cleared copy's (as well as putting their profit on top). What would be great, is if there was a mechanism for libraries to copy from their own collections but also pay copyright fees (outside of their company's CLA's). That way it would be possible to supply outside of "approved" lists, and, with modern technology this sort of system shouldn't be beyond the CLA.

So what have I learned from all of this? Well, where copyright is concerned I've learned that it's good to talk. For example, supplying British Standards from the local public library service should be a real no-no but talking to the user, it turned out that their use was for a private project and not for commercial gain. The user was really happy that I could supply the documents (after getting a signed declaration!) and (as there was no cost to the library) it was quite satisfying to be able to use my knowledge of local resources to help somebody out. Another example of talking was to a lawyer who uses the library. This was a kind of informal chat about whether my idea of blogging journal t.o.c.'s would be legal. His advice was to seek official guidance from the specialist who deals with the CLA. As it turned out this was really good advice as the service as I had envisaged it would have infringed copyright. Not all bad though as the copyright lawyer was able to explain the limits of the CLA so that the service can be adapted to be comply with it. The most important thing that I have learnt is that corporate librarians can't work with the same norms of copyright as public librarians. It's always best to check with your legal people before developing anything as basically, if you're a corporate librarian, you are going to be governed by your CLA (fair dealing and library privilage are concepts that apply only to non commercial or private research). As CLA's are negotiated on an individual basis you need to talk to someone who knows the nature of yours.

I guess this also represents a change of attitude. I've always been really pro-freedom of information but, thinking about it, copyright is there to protect the intellectual property of authors, artists, etc from theft. It's right that company's using intellectual property should recompense the owner, although I'm not sure I'd apply this to personal use (for example copying music). Despite the title I still can't bring myself to agree with the music industry's extreme definition of pirating or the way that they fight their corner...

Ambient Findability : What we find changes who we become (book review)

This is a cross-posting of my review on librarything...

This is the book that has most influenced my thinking about my profession. Probably ever. I've sort of been coming to see books as boundary objects - as objects that connect people or concepts (like on this site) - for a while now and think that libraries need to make much more of the social networking power of books. This book gave me some vocabulary for these concepts but (although it's written by a librarian and I read it as a librarian) this is much more than a library book. It basically explains a number of concepts that are all converging to create a situation where objects (like books), people, anything, will be ambiently findable. The findability will be built in. A number of concepts are explained. Ubiquitous computing (the techie side of things); the long-tail (the economic forces that will drive these developments); spimes (objects that have precise history, that can be precisely tracked in time and space); and boundary objects (objects that sit on the boundary between two concepts). I'll be following up on some of the books referenced in this later to try and get a better understanding but I think this is the one that really pulls everything together. The author has a really good view of where these concepts are coming together and what the implications are. Brilliant.

Building Your Portfolio : The CILIP Guide by Margaret Watson

This is a cross-posting of my review on librarything...

I thought this was a really well thought out and useful book (for anyone building a CILIP portfolio under the current regulations). One thing that struck me was the range of backgrounds (and career paths) of the contributors. The book's well written and easy to read but I think the best thing about it is the way that it is organised. Each chapter tackles a different aspect of building a portfolio and examples are given for Certification, Chartership and Fellowship. Because the chapters all follow the same format, it's really easy to filter out the bits that aren't relevant to your programme and just focus on the bits you need. I read it in an evening and I'm not a quick reader. Another reason this book is useful is that it outlines the assessment criteria really well and also emphasises the reflective style that the assessors are looking for. From the training I've attended recently I'd say that these are the two key aspects. Demonstrate development in the criteria areas in a reflective way and I'd say you'll be ticking most of the boxes. There's also some useful tools outlined - most importantly, the evidence vs assessment criteria matrix looks like a really good way of ensuring that all of the boxes are ticked. The book is quite pricey (as are all Facet titles) but this one is also good quality. If you can borrow a copy from the library then do so. I made notes and copied a small section (within copyright limits!) and feel I've got most of the info out of the book. On the whole it's really good practical advice and the examples are just there to furnish this. If you read one book on the CILIP chartership process make it this one.

Infinity and Beyond

Ok - so the event was really called Chartership and Beyond but this way it's more fun. This was one of the CILIP run courses that are sort of mandatory if you want to charter. Overall I think it would have been more useful if I'd attended one sooner. There was an exercise on writting objectives and having an overview of the entire process before writting the objectives would have been useful. As it stands though I don't think any of my objectives are too unreasonable and one of the great things that I learnt is they are not set in stone. The course was pretty well organised. The venue is fairly easy to get to (it was interesting to see CILIP headquarters. It's just 5 mins from Goodge Street tube so I certainly won't write it off for other courses). The instructions sent out before the course were good and everything ran to time.

What was useful?

• Well there was further explanation of the assessment criteria. This has been a really strong theme on both of the courses that I have attended. If I take one thing from them it's that I need to complete "The Matrix" before I do my evaluative statement and write up (guess what the picture's going to be for that post!).
• Again reflective/ evaluative practice was emphasised. Submitting descriptive portfolios is consistently cited as the number one reason for failure.
  
• The event was sort of useful for networking but I felt it could have been better - more on that later...
• Some good examples of evaluative writting were given in the handout. I need to dig that out before I do my write up.

What was not so useful?

• The learning style (like the other course that I attended) was again very passive. I would have liked more activities.
  
• I think folks would have been more inclined to network if there had been a group activity or icebreaker early on. If this would have happened before the coffee break then I think making conversation in the break would have been easier. As it was the break was fine but I think maybe it was a missed opportunity as far as more lasting/ support type networking went.
• Timing. As mentioned above I should have attended earlier in the process but that's nobody's fault but my own.
  

Positives from this were the speakers - who were all very good. One guy (who was sharing his experience of having recently chartered) really exceeded my expectations. I thought that section would be too individual and personal to be of use to anyone else but he actually shared some really pragmatic and useful advice and, perhaps more importantly, helped to put the process in perspective for some of the more intense members of the group. Overall, having attended this one I think the Reflective Writing course was a bit surplus to requirements. It was adequately explained in this course that the statement has to be reflective rather than descriptive and it's also well explained in the book I recently read (stay tuned for a rave review!). If folks don't grasp it after that then is another course going to help them? It's nice that CILIP has identified this common point of failure but this is a professional standard so I'm of the mind that there's perhaps only so much hand-holding that they should do. Maybe these sort of opinions will come back to bite me!

In summary, if I had to attend a course (and I did) it'd be this one.

Doing less to do more with journals

Ok, I give up. After a month of fully indexing the table of contents of all of the journals that the library takes I have come to the conclusion that it can be done. Sort of. It takes too much time to index every single journal but I think indexing about half of the titles will be achievable. The trick is to find the right vehicle for publishing the tables of contents. I'm pretty sure that blogging these would be ideal as it will constantly generate new potential users and provide an easy publishing platform... but, it's also becoming clear that many of the blog visitors aren't in my user group. The key is to use the easy publishing offered by the blog but also feed it back to the library front page to ensure that it's getting out to the right people. This is going to take a fair bit of development time so I've made the decision to stop doing any journal indexing and spend the time developing the new platform. The current system doesn't generate any requests so it will be interesting to see if anyone complains when I stop indexing (and hence the title doing less to do more).

The experience of indexing everything was interesting. It took probably 1-2 hours a day -too long (especially during heavy book cataloguing times) but it did have some side benefits. I've found my current awareness and general subject knowledge (which helps nicely with another of my objectives!) was much improved by retyping toc's. It also forced me to be focused in order to get all of the work in. Really tiring after a few weeks - not sure I could keep that up for ever but it would be good on a limited basis. The next step is to develop the publishing platform and web site then select a few titles to trial. If I find that it works I might be able to get some other librarian's on board so that we can share the indexing workload.

How To Use Web 2.0 In Your Library (book review)

This is a cross-posting from my review on librarything...

This one was ok but not really what I was expecting. The book's starts off with a definition of Web 2.0 (including the ubiquitous Tim O'Reilly definition) and then goes on to introduce different forms of social software. Each chapter is well furnished with links and examples and the book's well laid out but somehow it didn't quite hit the spot for me. I think I would have preferred less in the way of links and examples and more along the lines of how, conceptually you can use these tools in the library. Maybe more assessment of potential benefits to users etc. There was also very little mention of the ethics of librarianship - something that I think is really important if libraries are going to enter this space. I guess I didn't really take any idea on what web 2.0 is from this book - that it's alot more than just blogging or uploading photos. The concept of extreme trust was mentioned in the first chapter but aside from that there was very little focus on the social phenomena that define web 2.0. Ok for sparking ideas but think carefully about implementing the ideas. Is Web 2.0 consistent with your libraries data protection policies and your duty of care to your users? That's not to say don't do Web 2.0 - it's great - just think about the issues involved as well as the techie side.

Journal Usage Measurement - Why Bother?

I found today's picture on a Google image search for "Why Bother" and it stuck. But what's it got to do with today's post? Nothing, that's what. And for that matter why the negative title? Surely measuring journals usage is a good thing to do? Well, no. I've always found it to be a bit pointless and especially so in my current role. There are three ways that I know of to conduct a journals usage survey. Measuring citations is fairly accurate and widely used in academic libraries (there's a good article on the background and use of this method at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2007/may07/eigenfactor.cfm). Unfortunately, the users of my library (and most libraries outside of academia) don't write many research papers so measuring citations is out. I'm not convinced that this (on it's own at least) is a good measure even in Uni Libraries. From my own experience as a student I read stuff that added to my background knowledge but wasn't directly related to an assignment or worthy of a credit in a bibliography.

The second method is to withdraw journals and count the number of requests for them. This is the method that was used when I worked in public libraries. IMHO this method is not only innacurate (as most people can't be bothered to ask for a journal if it's not there) it also disrupts (what in my view) is the prime directive for libraries: connecting people with information. If you take journals away (even for the purpose of measuring their use) you are damaging the quality of the user experience. Why would I want to annoy the people who use my library for the sake of an innacurate measure? Good librarianship is about increasing access, not reducing it (or withdrawing it).

The third method is a kind of voluntary indication of usage - asking users to tick a sheet to say that they have read the journal. This method is better but still prone to inaccuracy. How many people forget to tick? Even worse is when someone ensures that their particular read is kept by adding extra ticks - it doesn't take a genius to work this one out now does it? Other variations of this are more qualitative, interviewing readers or sending out written surveys but they basically all boil down to asking the readers which journals they use - which is fundamentally prone to measurement bias.

Dispite the flipant title I do believe that journal usage surveys are an essential part of collection management. So, because of the measurement biases of the explicit methods described above I've decided to resort to unobtrusive methods. Does this mean I'll be spending my days hiding behind the journals shelving with a pair of binoculars doing a kind of warped Bill Odie impersonation? Tempting. If only I had the time. Luckily, the wonders of modern technology are available and I borrowed some RFID kit today which I'm hoping will allow me to count the number of times a journal is picked up from the shelf. I still need to work out sampling and get the technology working but fingers crossed! Even if it doesn't work it should be good fun trying.

*Note to self: If you think that journals usage surveys are fun then you really need to get out more...

Revised PPDP

Ok - the PDPP is basically revised. Just need to compare it to an edition at work as I think there might be two versions hanging around... To avoid this happening in the future I've posted on Google base here: PPDP.

It's basically the same document but I made the web development objective a bit less specific - I'm still not convinced a formal user survey is the way to go on this one as I don't think I'll get much response and there's a paradox involved. The reason I'm redeveloping the website is to get more information to people's desktops and to give me a tool to promote resources that people don't know about. If they don't know about the resources how can they have an opinion on how they should be promoted in the website?

The other main change is in the Archiving objective - made less formal so that rather than reading I'll be doing research (or having a chat with my new found tame archivist!).

Handover meeting

My last mentor meeting was a bit of a hand over as my current mentor is finishing work soon to go on maternity leave. It was great that she took me on as a mentee at such a busy time and I really appreciate it - considering that she didn't know me before we started the process, I think it shows a real dedication to developing the profession.

The handover meeting went well. It was quite reflective as it seemed like a good point to review where we've got to and what we have to do moving forwards. Basically, more forms (for someone who hates filling in forms I seem to attract them like iron filings to a magnet). I think my fear of forms (or any sort of admin) combined with a tendency to put off anything I don't like might be one of my biggest weaknesses so I'm going to make a big effort to tackle this and get myself organised...

I find blogging is a really good way to brainstorm and using a to-do tag helps me to take action rather than just record ideas - once the actions are complete the to-do tag can be removed...

Here's my list for the transfer process:

1) Send role profile, organisational chart and any other info about my setting to my new mentor.
2) Review my PDPP(PDDP? - ah, who cares!) and send it to my new mentor to sign and return.
3) Bundle the revised PDPP with the mentoring agreement and the completion form from my old mentor and whap it off to CILIP with a covering note.
4) Confirm that it has been received and understood at CILIP HQ (this last point is very important!).

Other actions that arose are to sort out a CDG course actually, why not do that now...

...ok, job's a good'n - there's a course in London on 13.05 so hopefully I'll get a place...

Archiving Objective

A couple of years ago the idea of creating an archive would have bored me to tears but my brief stint at Fareham Reference Library exposed me to some seriously good librarians who showed me the value of keeping materials that isn't available in any other way and providing access to it. There is a considerable body of stuff at work that needs to be properly archived so essentially this objective is about:

a) Learning how to catalogue and preserve archive material.
b) Reviewing current archiving procedures to take into account the space available and the limitations of the LMS.
c) Bringing the current archive into line with the new policies. Easy huh!

To tackle a) I'll be on the look out for some local courses but unfortunately the amount of time that I can spend on this is limited. This is a working computing research library and in terms of business justification my priority is always going to have to be on the current stock.

As far as b) goes - there are a number of problems with the current system. As I see it these are:

1) The library was running out of space to store older material; 2) Archived materials (anything relating directly to the company) were shelved and catalogued in the same collection as relegated lending stock. This meant that every time the store was weeded it was necessarily to re-identify archived items. There was a danger of archive material being disposed of by accident and also the work was replicated every year. 3) Archived material was not physically identified. This meant that when archived material was returned after being loaned it often ended up being shelved back with the general lending stock. 4) Consistency. As none of the archiving procedures were documented there is a danger that as library staffing changes the collection will be treated in different ways.

Now all I have to do is fix these problems!

The Angle of Reflection is Equal to the Angle of Incidence

One of those phrases that have stuck with me from physics lessons - I guess some of it must have sunk in. Also, it comes in handy when playing pool. The course on reflective practice last week was not so focused on reflective practice as I thought it would be but it was quite useful in other ways.

Actually the content on reflective practice was very minimal. I need to try and dig out some notes from a course I did years ago that had a brilliant section on keeping reflective journals. What I really liked about it was the learning style - very active. Whilst the content was quite useful last Tuesday it was a very passive way to learn. I think my uni days showed me that I'm not suited to a lecture style of learning. There was one activity, but I personally could have used a bit more explaination (although to be fair I was a bit frazzled - busy week last week). I'll definitely revisit the handout which had some tools on reflective writing that I need to practice. There was also a book which I got for someone at work recently which looks good so I'll have to look that one out.

One of the key messages from the training was that the evaluative statement needs to be written in a positive style - I like the idea of that but I think I'll have to work on that angle of my writing. So, with this in mind, here are the good things that I took from the course...

1) Good to hear from somebody who actually reviews chartership portfolios to get first hand knowledge of what they are looking for.
2) Good to chat to an old acquaintance and meet a new one. Also, it's always good to see that others are in the same boat.
3) It made me reflect on training and learning styles, which is something I haven't done for a while. I think I actually miss delivering training, hmmmm...
4) It has made me think about the way that I write.

Maybe for my next posts I'll work on some of the tools provided.

Web Development - I HAVE THE POWER!

I'm really impressed with our Intranet Developer. A while ago I put in a request to re-develop the library pages. There's a number of reasons that this needs doing (which I'll go into elsewhere). What's really cool about the solution I've been offered (and unique - I've not experienced this anywhere else) is that I now have complete ownership of the site's development. Rather than the traditional IT support method of doing a really detailed requirements specification then taking ownership of developing the solution, my friendly developer initiated an initial meeting, where we discussed roughly what I wanted the website to do. After this he has set up a host for the site and, in a follow up meeting showed me how I can edit the site to do my own development (he even provided an example that does something similar and advised me on the software I need to use to develop and edit the site).

The reason this is cool is that:

a) In terms of human resource, I own the site - if I don't get exactly what I want then I've only myself to blame.
b) In terms of the technology, the solution provided to me is ideal - I'm no longer hamstrung by the old hosting platform (which was a bitch to edit).

Now all I have to do is find the time to do the development...

Web2.0 Evangelism

Never really thought of myself as an evangelist before but it seems my stint on the library conference call the other day has got at least two of the other libraries to start blogging new books (and at least a couple more are going to start blogging after they get legal advice on copyright). What's really cool is that the economics of marketing social software works in a completely different way. In traditional marketing I'd have been reluctant to encourage other similar ideas into the same forum because we'd then all be competing for the attention of the consumers. With blogging the opposite is true. I've already had hits from pages other librarians have posted - because of the social nature of the site (i.e. similar posts are linked together) - the more librarians I get posting, the more hits I'll get from their posts. Collaborating not competing.

Now, where's the Vanish? Must get the ketchup out of my white suit...

Partnership Working

Met with someone from the local public library service today re: promoting reading for leisure in the workplace. It looks like we'll be able to get some RaW swaps and pub lib stock into some of the team rooms at work. I was really impressed on how laid back it is. There's no need to issue the books to people and there's no problem if they don;t all come back. Which is cool. It means I have to do very little (which is nice), the people on site get some good reading matter, and the public library achieve a bit of their reading promotion aims. Win win win. Just have to get management approval - which may take time - but looks very positive.

We also spoke about reading groups and I got some really useful advice. I'm thinking now that have a genre specific group might put folks off so I'll keep it general for now. What was really useful was finding out about book chains - if people can't commit to joining a group there are other options! All in all a useful meeting...

Web2.0 Backlash?

This was going to be a really positive post about having new books on their way and getting over this New Years malaise that's marked the start of 2008 but I just saw a couple of articles in the Gazette that I find really dissapointing. So I'm going to vent spleen on that instead! The first is on the front page and is titled "Social networking 'not for libraries'" and is about an OCLC report. The report surveyed 6000 members of the public in 6 developed countries and 400 "randomly selected US library directors" (does anyone else think this is a slightly odd sample?). Apparently, 60% did not see a role for libraries in developing social networks.

I've got a few problems with this:

a) The way people are socialising and interacting with each other (and organisations) is changing. Naturally, the public do not see a role for libraries in this trend but how many of the public really understand what libraries do? I don't mean to be patronising but the article cites a 15 year old who thinks that libraries are there to borrow books and occasionally use computers. I see libraries in a slightly different way - basically as places facilitating relationships between people and the information that they need. If libraries don't keep up with the latest ways in which people relate to each other (and information) then they will be dead in the water.

b) How many of the public realise that one of the biggest roles of libraries is in forming and maintaining strong communities. Social networking is all about this. Even if it is not the role of libraries to build social sites (and I would argue strongly that it is!) they should at least be participating in them. Sharing, collaboration and communication are common factors that link social networking and libraries at a fundamental level - common goals if you like.

c) ...and this is my biggest beef. How has this article and the related article on page 3 titled "Are these sites just hype?" (both of which are strongly negative towards the opportunities that social networking sites offer) made their way into the Gazette? Surely it is up to Cilip to provide balanced opinion to it's members. Yes there are negative aspects to social networking and pitfalls that librarians need to be aware of, but to suggest that a) they are a fad and the bubble will burst soon; and b) that libraries have no role in social networking is (IMHO) dangerous (although perhaps indicative of the attitudes that have got libraries and librarianship into the pickle that they are currently in).

I seem to remember these sort of arguments about the Internet in the 90's (ask anyone who works in a public library how busy they are when the Internet goes down).

Cilip Gazette - the next time you print a negative article, how about balancing it with an alternative viewpoint? If I want one sided tabloid journalism I can buy The Sun.

Rant over. Stay tuned for happy, happy, joy, joy.

Brainstorm Interlude

This is a brainstorm really. I've managed to lumber myself with doing a presentation on a conference call on the benefits of blogging. I've been having random thoughts on this for a while and now it's time to start to organise these. Bit of background. I've been doing a new books blog for 4 or 5 months now and have changed my opinion of web2.0 from reserved skepticism to avid evangelist. Here, in no particular order, are my pros and cons...

+'ves

1) It gets the message out there. The way the corporate blog works is that every time you post you go to the top of a list of recent posts on the front page. More and more people are hitting this page so if you post regularly you are going to get to a whole bunch of people who never knew you existed.

2) It makes you think about your stock - I've got the process fairly automated (basically the blog posts are cut and pasted from catalogue records with a bit of personal opinion thrown in if I feel strongly that it's a good book). However, I'm always aware that I'm selling these new books to a highly critical bunch of users. If a book doesn't cut the mustard it will be spotted and comments will be made. I've had to learn to justify the stock that I select and that's a good thing. It's reached the point now that when I'm preparing shortlists for acquisitions I often ask myself "Would I be comfortable blogging this book".

3) It's generated requests direct from the blog pages. This equals more issues and is GOOD FOR THE STATS.

4) People read the blog then walk to the library. This nearly knocked me off my chair the first time it happened. The aim of the blog (and other web2.0 stuff planned for this year) is to accept that folks are busy and can't always make it to the library. I saw blogging as one way to take new books to people's desktops... BUT there have been many occasions when people have seen a book and been driven to come over to the library and add their name to the paper waiting list (I know this because they tell me). Invariably they walk out with a different book while they are waiting for the new book to do it's time on display. This again is GOOD FOR THE STATS.

5) Social Bookmarking. My eyes have been opened to this a bit more just this week. I made a fairly idle comment speculating on ways to improve the information retrieval of user generated tags. One response was that the point of tags is not purely an information retrieval thing, it's a social thing. In and off itself. This has taken me a long time to grasp. One word of advice is to let go of librarian sensibilities - tags might not be the best for searching to find information but they rock when it comes to relating one piece of information (or person) to another. They also provide a simple way for end users to label their own information. Most of the hits (excluding direct hits from feedreaders) come from being featured on other blogs. I think this is down to meticulous tagging.

6) Even a specific blog (like one themed on new books) will raise the overall profile of the library. Pretty much any publicity is good publicity for libraries right now and if it shows that libraries are on the cutting edge of communicating information then that might help to challenge a few stereotypes.

7) Reading blogs is a good way to find out what others are interested in. In a corporate environment it helps you to find out: what people are working on, what they are interested in, what tools they are using (basically what information they need). Beware though - it's very easy to get distracted.

-'ves

1) You have to have a regular source of something to blog about. If you don't post for a while you'll still get hits (from searches on tags and people scrolling back through thier feedreaders) but you won't get nearly as many as if you're posting every day.

2) It takes time. I happen to think it's worth it but it does take time.

3) It can be addictive. Because you get feedback in the form of a count of the number of people hitting the pages and even comments from readers, it can be tempting to keep logging on to see what the response is. It takes a while to get disciplined about this. Like with email, it pays to manage your time blogging. Because you can manage a blog in relatively small chunks of time it is easy to fit around other tasks but it is also easy to get distracted (see 7 under +'ves!).

I'll edit this post as and when I think of anything else...

Journals to do list

After a bit of reading of the system manual it's starting to become clear what needs to be done.

First job is to reset the system. The report at the moment says that we have 96 journal issues that haven't been received (it also doesn't look like any of my predecessors used the claims reporting claims report has hardly ever been reset). What I have to do is to check that we have indeed claimed these 96 issues and then send the report to print (or trick it into thinking it's printed - I don't actually want reams of paper!). Sending the report to print clears it so that - next week when I come and look again there will only be issues that should have been received in this week.

Second job is to claim any issues that haven't been received and mark any really old ones as not received on the system - this will give us a clean slate, there's no way I'll have time to claim for much retrospectively but hopefully once the process is in place I should stay on top of them.

Third job is to get the predictions working right and set/ tweak the claims parameters - this'll take a couple of weeks to a month and alot more reading of the manual!

Clear as mud...

Well, just checked the suppliers site to see if they provide details of their claims policies. The result: Nada. From experience though, most of the suppliers do not guarantee to provide back issues if the publication date is more than 90 days ago. I think I should therefore get 3 claims in before the 90 days is up so from the point of view of claims parameters I'm looking at 2 weeks past due date for the first claim, 6 weeks for the second claim, and 10 weeks for the 3rd claim... I can tweak that later if it doesn't work.

On the plus side, the supplier's site mentions that they provide Tables of Contents - I can't see any sign of this on my account so I've emailed them to activate this part of my account (not the first time functionality has been missing!). Tables of Contents could be really useful when I get to the point where I'm feeding current awareness to the library webpage...