Don't Ask Me To Censor Myself - It Makes Me Grumpy

It's a couple of days now since I got a comment on my work blog asking if I could put "UK ONLY" in the title of all of my posts. My first reaction to this was bemusement but the more I thought about it the more angry it made me. In effect, the commenter was asking me to censor my own content. To restrict the group of people who are able to gain value from the content I post. I hope that I've thought about it enough now to put together a rational post rather than a rant but I apologise if I do end up venting spleen!

The Boring Bit

First, a bit of background. My work blog is very specific. It's a summary of every book and journal that I buy for the library. The entries are tagged with subject, format, and location tags as well as some unique tags that allow me to feed the entries back to the library web page. At first, I was dubious that the blog would get any hits but it did start to get readers. Soon, folks started to comment on the books and putting links to allow readers to request books and journal articles from the blog entries has led to a steady flow of requests - which at the end of the day is what it's all about.

The company that I work for is large. In excess of 300,000 people around the globe. My library serves the UK but, due to licensing for e-resources and practical considerations for hard copy, we can only supply info to the UK. In light of this, the request to restrict blog entries to the UK may seem reasonable. Or does it? Why did it irk me so? And why will I not be putting off people who can't borrow my resources from reading about them?

Let Consumers Decide What is Useful

Well, even if people aren't able to access my resources it can still be helpful for them to know about them. The blog has had many comments from people all over the world who have asked for more information about how to access the resources. In some cases I've been able to put them in touch with local libraries. In others cases they've bought copies from Amazon. Whilst the aim of the blog is to increase local use of resources putting it on a global forum allows others to reuse and benefit from the information.

Unfettered User-Generated Content Is What It's All About

In a broader sense I think it's important for Web 2.0 content producers not to second guess who might derive value from that content. User generated content, for me, is what Web 2.0 is all about. In a sense, there's no such thing as bad content because what Web 2.0 gives us as consumers of information is the ability to select the information that's relevant to us and ignore the rest. It's up to the content users rather than the content producers to censor the information. If content producers start to censor or restrict access to their information the amount of information in the system is restricted and Web 2.0 starts to fall over. By all means use tagging to target your user group and help users to filter out your info if they don't need it, but don't put people off of reading your content.

I can see that to anyone used to a traditional way of working asking someone to restrict their readership geographically may seem reasonable but it seems that Web 2.0 has changed the game - allowing content producers to benefit users that were previously out of reach and consumers fine control over the information that they are exposed to. I, for one, will not be censoring my own content.

RT @DarthVader "Come to the dark side - we have cake"

Just how, you might ask, is the statement above of any use to an information professional? And you'd have a point. Personally, it made me laugh, so that is good in itself but I can see that to justify using Twitter in the work place a lot of folks will need more business justification than just getting a chuckle every now and then.

I've been using Twitter for a couple of weeks now and it's made quite an impression on me. This post is an attempt to clarify how I've found it so far and work out some of the pro's and con's as I see them.

Email, instant messaging, phone, visitors blog comments - why on earth would I want another distraction from my "job"?

So, how did I come to Twitter? Well, I'm finding that if you using one Web2.0 application tends to expose you to others. In my case I've been blogging about new resources inside the firewall at work for about 2 years now. Inevitably, I was exposed to other blogs and some I now read regularly (as well as browsing recently published posts every now and then). I feel I've received far, far more useful information than I've published but that's one of the benefits of Web2.0. When you get a group of active users adding content there is soon going to be a massive store of information that everyone has the potential to benefit from. Recently I've seen quite an increase in the number of blog posts about our internal version of Twitter, to the point where I decided to check it out, again as a means to publicise new library resources. Initially, I just wanted to scope out the scene so I posted a "hello world" and sat back to observe the etiquette and norms. Alot of the chat was very technical but every now and then someone would post a question that I was able to answer. This felt kind of good. One of my favourite bits about being a librarian is answering questions. Wheras my initial interest was about promoting new books through microblogging I soon found that it had the potential to be another channel for users to communicate with the library. To answer the question above: put simply, the distractions are my job.

Joining Twitter outside the firewall was sort of serendipitous. I'd posted a comment on librarything and one of the responses (from @jmgold) led to my first dipping my toe into Twitter. I still maintain that he'll be contacted by my lawyers re: the rehabilitation costs.

Effect on connecting with new users, good. Effect on workflow, stress levels and time management, v. bad!

This might just be me but I've found that opening any new channel of communication is very stressful and disruptive. I won't lie, the last couple of weeks have not been my most productive. BUT, I have stuck with it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I went through exactly the same when I first tried Second Life at work, and when I first started blogging. With the blog, I've found that as you get more experienced with the medium you work out how to manage it. With Twitter there is a very strong compulsion to check for new messages every five minutes. This kind of wears off after a while and learning to manage who you follow and getting a good sidebar viewer helps alot. I've even found that posting a sentence about what I'm doing every now and then helps me to focus on the task. My second reason for sticking with it is that I have proof that it is generating new library users. At first it was hard to guage the effectiveness in promoting new resources until the other day, literally seconds after tweeting about a new ebook I got an IM requesting an ebooks login. They said they love the book tweets and often follow the links to the library blog. 1 new user seems like a small payoff but I've been in this game just long enough to know that if 1 library user contacts you, there are probably another 10 who are accessing your resources without making themselves known. Sure enough, when I checked ebook usage today, it's well above average. If you manage it correctly the overhead is low. Posting a 140 character message takes what? A minute?

Who cares what you had for breakfast?

Talking to users and other librarians, I've heard quite a few objections to using Twitter. One is the shear amount of rubbish information on there. And to be fair, this is true. However, the point is that it is very easy to filter the information. At work, the user base is low enough to follow comment on the tool. Outside the firewall, you don't really want noise from a population equivalent to a medium to large country. Particularly, if you are using it in a professional capacity, you soon learn to only follow Twitterers who give good value. Everyone posts the odd whimsical post but most of the Twitterers that I continue to follow also post useful links, provoke discussion or raise awareness of important issues (or just have a different take on things). As a solo librarian, I have to say one of the main benefits of Twitter is that I now feel just that little bit more connected to my profession.

Social Media - the clue is in the name!

Another, criticism that I've heard is that it's hard to get the right kind of people following your Twitters. This can happen - for example, I seem to have collected a moderate following of spammers and life coaches!?! I think there are some ways to minimise this though. Firstly, get over the concept of using the Internet as a broadcast medium. The social web is just that - "social". Think quiet chat down the pub rather than standing on a soapbox with a megaphone. In practical terms I think this means following the sort of people that you want to follow you. If you complain about getting the wrong "types" of followers but make no attempt to connect with your library users (or potential users) then I think you're kind of missing the point. If you find it hard to justify spending work time "friending" people on the net just think of it as customer research. The penny pinchers love terms like "customer research" and who knows, you might learn something new about your users!

The second thing is to tweet. If you tweet about your field (i.e. library stuff) you will find relevant followers. More accurately, they will find you as one of the techniques for finding people to follow is to search entries for keywords. If your tweets contain relevant keywords and hashtags then people interested in the #library will find you. I guess relating to this, use your existing network. People who already follow you are likely to have contacts who would also be interested in following you.

To summarise in 140 characters or less...

Well, to be honest I can't, but here (as briefly as I can) are my pro's and con's:

I love Twitter because of...
Reaching new library users;
Finding out more about library users interests/ needs;
Professional awareness/ networking;
Useful sources of information, links, etc.;
Promoting resources

Twitter sometimes does my head in because...

Checking in with it can become addictive;
It's another channel of communication to "learn";
The spammers and life-coaches are sometimes annoying

Can you think of any other pro's and con's? I'd love to hear them if you can.

p.s. I rarely eat breakfast as I'm not a morning person :-)

Celebrity Deathmatch Social Bookmarking vs Wiki for Useful Links Pages

I'm hoping that putting this down in a blog entry will save me a bit of time in the long run. I'm working on the library web pages. The last page I need to produce content for is the Useful Links page. These are always a bit of a nightmare as the links inevitably go bad after a while and so they need a lot of maintenance. Also, it's really hard to build a comprehensive list - there are bound to be useful links that get missed off. Which is where Web 2.0 comes in. People expect to see a page of useful links on the library web page but wouldn't it be great to allow users to add their own links! Truly user generated content.

My first instinct was to create a wiki that folks could edit to add links or even maintain broken links if they came across them. I threw this idea onto our corporate version of Twitter and the suggestion came back to use our social bookmarking tool. So what are the pro's and con's of using one over the other. Here's a few off the top of my head.

How easy is it to set up?

I think social bookmarking wins on ease of setting up. The corporate tool available to me provides an rss feed (so it should be easy to adapt a bit of php to aggregate the bookmarks onto the library page) and there's also a firefox plugin for adding bookmarks and tagging them. Very simple. Setting up a wiki and setting user access and creating an interface for adding links will be a bit more time consuming (although maybe because I don't have any experience with the wiki engine). 1-0 to social bookmarking.

How easy is it to maintain?

I think the overhead here will be checking and fixing broken links and checking that content is appropriate. For both solutions the links will be rendered in straight html so should be able to be run through an automated checker. Checking for innapropriate links is a subjective thing so the process will be the same for both. I call a draw on this point.

How easy is it for users to add content?

The process for users to add a link using social bookmarking would just be to bookmark it in the tool with a predefined tag. My feeling is that alot of folks are happy with this concept already and, let's face it, it's not rocket science - should be able to provide instruction in a couple of lines. Editing a wiki may be a bit more difficult. I could make it easier by providing a form to edit the wiki (and this would help to ensure that the links and descriptions are in a standard format) but that'll add extra overhead to the implementation. The social bookmarking tool is also better integrated with other systems. Users could add links to the library page while adding them to thier own collection of bookmarks just by adding the library tag. 2-0 to social bookmarking.

How secure is it?

Both tools are inside the firewall and should therefore be secure. Score tied.

How much control will the library have over the content?

I think the wiki just about edges it on this one. With a wiki I can maintain the power to remove inappropriate links. Possibly a bit more flexible as well as it would be easy to allow users to make new categories for links (although I can always invite suggestions for categories (or tags) with the social bookmarking. Using tags to add content runs the risk that links people are not intending to go on the library page could end up there (unless the library tags are suitably obscure) BUT this is not necessarily a bad thing. I guess the risk of unintentional links is offset by serendipitous links that weren't intended for the library page but are useful anyway. Overall, the wiki wins this round but it's importance is debatable. 2-1

How much control will the library need?

Ha! Interesting question. I'm not sure that my library really does need the level of control offered by a wiki. I can see that the social bookmarking method would be prone to people maliciously tagging inappropriate sites BUT this is a corporate library. I like to think that the library users are mature and responsible. If not, it's still possible to see, who's tagged what - so if the worst came to the worst I could have a word with a malicious tagger and hopefully resolve any issues. I can see that this method probably wouldn't work in an academic or public library where there are different priorities for policing and protecting library users with regards to inappropriate content. I'd like to trust my users to tag me useful content - if they don't, well, chalk it up to experience.

Performance?

This is again specific to my setting. My gut feeling is that both tools have performance issues as they are still prototypes really. Social bookmarking edges this one because it should be possible for me to cache the rss feeds from the social bookmarking tool on my web server. That way, even if the tool goes down I'll have a cached version available. Using cached feeds will also be a more pleasant experience for the user as the page load should be pretty fast rather than waiting for the page to go and fetch the feed on every request. Page load times are a factor for the wiki tool as well as I have heard complaints that it can be slow. Overall I'll have more control over the performance of the social bookmarking method whereas if the wiki servers are being slow or go down then the page is scuppered. 3-1 to social bookmarking.

We have a winner. 3-1 to Social Bookmarking

So, it looks like we have a winner! It stikes me that these score is very specific to me, to my experience (or lack of it), and my setting. For others, who maybe need more control over content or have more experience with wikis, or access to a stable wiki engine it could have gone a very different way. Are there any other factors that need to be taken into account? Do you disagree on any of my arguments? Do you have experience of either of these methods? It'd be great to hear if you do.

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.

Classification doom and gloom

The more I look at this objective the more I rue the day I wrote it. Initially, I thought that it would just involve splitting up some of the larger groups into sub-groups to facilitate browsing but the more I look at the classification (and I think more importantly the more I understand about the subject) the more I realise that there are some fundamental errors with the system. The first is the choice of system - it's based on a "book data" classification which must have been published in the late 80's/ early 90's. It hasn't worn so well in my opinion as computing has moved in ways that could have never been predicted back then. As subjects have come and gone the classification has become fragmented in some areas (for example web development is now the best part of a bay away from web design).
I have the benefit of hindsight but it occurs to me that this classification never had the legs for the long haul. It names specific products for example. Some of which have long gone and are now taking up valuable space in the classification even though there are no books of the shelf. Maybe it's my science background coming back to haunt me but I think I'd prefer it if the classification moved from general to specific in a more graduated way - for example a number for Computing - Applications - Databases and then use the decimal part for specific products. Same for Computing - Programming - Programming Language Type (e.g. Scripting Languages) - Specific Language. This poses a number of questions:

1) Can it be done?
2) How can it be done with the least negative impact on users?
3) Should it be done? Would time be better spent on other things?

The first two are fairly easy to answer. Yes, of course it can be done. The current numbering system could be adapted fairly easily to move in a better way from general to specific so that similar topics are grouped together and are not fragmented. It's also possible to have groups specific enough so that they are not too big to browse using the current numbering BUT re-classifying on the scale that's needed will mean significant moving of stock. How to minimise the impact? I think it would be essential to do as much of the work without moving stock as possible - re-writing the classification, mapping stock to new numbers, and producing the new numbers can all be done without touching the stock. What would be needed then is to pick a really quiet time to reclassify the library - it would have to be Christmas. Then it would be a case of working through the catalogue shelf by shelf and re-stickering the books, editing the catalogue and putting messages on stock that's out to change the stickers on return.

Should it be done? Don't know. It's clear that some reclassification is needed but can I justify a complete reclassification?

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.

James Brown 'vs the Good Library Guide

...what the f*ck is going on with the good library guide? More importantly why does it bug me so much? Is it the advertising? Is it the commercial bias? Is it the warped view of what libraries are supposed to do or the strange world view in general that really bugs the hell out of me?

I think this kind of opinion actually damages the public libraries. They've got enough to deal with without bookseller's sticking their oar in. As far as I can make out (and I must admit I've not spent a great deal of time thinking this one through) the concept or model of public libraries that the web site is trying to promote is the same as in Tim Coates' report. Basically, one of libraries primarily as places of reading hardcopy books. The idea is that there hasn't actually been a decline in book reading (despite the fact that people now spend more time on the phone, computers, watching tv, shopping etc, etc.) - the only reason (again as far as I can make out) that people borrow less books from libraries now is that they aren't run like bookshops. The prescribed course of action is to stop major capital projects and spend the money on books (which libraries get from, um, bookshops...er!). The latest post that I saw was having a bash at Brighton library because of a perceived lack of stock after the new building (financed by pfi) opened. What I find damaging is that this viewpoint is blinkered to the fact that people find information in different ways now. Books still have a place in all of our hearts but we have to get over this book fetishism and accept that the world has moved on and libraries, if they are to survive, must move with it.

The Brighton connection is how I got onto this. This post was supposed to be a bit about a recent day out and some pics of street art - with a bit about the library thrown in. My perception of the stock was that it was very good. I guess it's hard for me to qualify this as I never went in the old Brighton Library BUT any library that can pull off putting traditional resources (like a complete set of DNB and a complete set of County Histories) alongside dedicated computing suites, conference rooms, cafe, and art installations is pretty cool in my book. The place was buzzing when we visited. Downstairs was full of people just chilling, browsing, etc. (it was kind of cool that the artist who installed the current exhibition was being interviewed by a student over a cuppa inside the installation itself - a life sized Carribean chattel house). Upstairs was chock full of people studying. Ok, so I don't agree with what is effectively selling a publicly owned building to private finance and then renting it back from them but this is the harsh reality in which public libraries exist. And really, to be honest the stock was ok. It's a big space to fill but I was impressed at how they'd kept old music stock (and the way the music was presented). I think it's easy to bash newly re-opened libraries for having no books but really it's inevitable. Over time libraries accumulate detritus. A big project (like Brighton) is an excuse to weed out all the dead wood so, yes, compaired to the old library I'm sure there are less books but I'm also willing to bet that the quality of the remaining stock is better. Libraries do need to spend more money on new books but they also have many other priorities and what Coates fails to acknowledge is the brilliant job that libraries do in making the best of what they have got.

I'd like to see just one positive story posted on the good library guide without some kind of political points scoring or "we told you so" spin attached. Prime example - why not mention the brilliant visitor and new borrower figures that Winchester has got since it reopened? Because it's easier to slag-off libraries for spending money on buildings rather than books. Interestingly there is a story about Hampshire libraries on the good library guide - about £350,000 being spent on bookstock. Even this is tinged with negativity. I find this weird and illogical. It was acknowledged that Hampshire's bookfund could not be cut any further during the recent culling of librarians. At the end of the day (for right or wrong) Hampshire chose bookfund over professional librarians - which is exactly what Coates recommended when he published his doorstop report. I'd have thought he'd be happy that he got his way but it seems that even this is not a cause for celebration.



Anyway, to take a dose of my own medicine, I'll end on a positive note. Thank-you, good library guide, for turning what was meant to be a nice post about a James Brown mural into a library rant. Here for your viewing pleasure is the godfather of soul. Get up, get on up.

Note to self: I really must get out more =)

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...