The blog of www.chuukaku.com

Library Day in the Life -- Day 3+ -- 27/01/10 - 29/01/10

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:09:00 +0000

Decided to merge my last three days of Day in the Life together, as I did too much miscellaneous stuff, and not enough sitting down and writing. Consider this edited highlights!

Wednesday morning I spent looking for some new DVDs providing training in team building, meetings, and other workplace communication skills. Unfortunately the only materials I could source which seemed good enough to keep student attention were the ones we already owned (but on DVD rather than video). Too expensive to justify buying twice, so I'm still looking, if anyone has any ideas!

After that, an induction session. It was arranged as part of an induction programme for a small course, but only the library session was on Wednesday. Isolate library sessions never seem to encourage students to attend. Terrible turnout: a few arrived on time and a few late, making eight out of an expected twenty. I wasn't presenting, but did lead the tour, and felt a bit better about making the effort to organise the session when the students who did come were interested and asked lots of questions.

Most of the rest of the day week involved wrapping up activities, as this was my penultimate full-time week in the post. Wednesday concluded with my late night in which I created (by request from the head of my section) a list of keywords for induction demonstrations (such as databases) for the different departments I cover. There's some general subject-specific keywords, some comparative ones to show the difference keyword choices make, and a classic article to use in citation searches for each of the four departments. Sourcing and trialling these took me most of my late night shift, bar ten minutes which I spent editing margins so the crib sheet fitted onto a single handy sheet of paper!

Thursday and Friday morning (I work only the morning on Fridays to compensate for the late night) involved summary activities which more or less ran into each other. There were a couple of highlights. On Thursday afternoon we had an interesting session on the government's new Customer Service Excellence standard, which we're working towards, identifying measures we could use to demonstrate our excellence.

The best part of the week for me, though, was the announcement that I've made the Project Board for the Big Conversation: a discussion that CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in the UK) is running to determine its future. I'm really pleased and got lots of nice comments on Twitter from people who were happy to have a New Professional on the board. I've got project experience from my PhD and other academic activities, plus a billion opinions on research methods, so I'm hoping to be valuable in choosing a strategy for the project. The first meeting kicks off in February. Definitely a memorable week for me!

Picture: Sign at the new Nottingham Contemporary art gallery. I caught the end of the David Hockney exhibition on my week off this month.

Library Day in the Life -- Day 2 -- 26/01/10

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:38:00 +0000

Tuesday, and I started the morning by working on my module spreadsheet: my somewhat haphazard knowledge management project. I don't have access to any centralised information about the modules I support, so every time I get a little bit of information - module details, leaders, student numbers etc. - I squirrel it away in my spreadsheet. I'd gathered from a departmental meeting that a lot of the module codes for Human Resource Management were changing this year, so I asked for a list of the changes from the HRM module admin to update my info. I'm hoping to compare this information to our reading list stock before I leave to get some idea of which need updating and which we can drop off the system.

After that, I started updating the library 'How To' sheets on Internet searching. It's something I've been asked to look at before I go. At the moment my major dilemma is how much to expand them. It's tempting to put in lots of information, but I actually think their current simplicity is a strength, so I'm mainly concentrating on updating them for currency.

As well as the work I plan to do, there's always a little bit of work which travels over to my desk when I'm not there, in the form of notes or mysterious items. I went for a hot chocolate after being thoroughly chilled by some unnecessary air conditioning, and returned to discover a textbook and a copy of the Radio Times TV listing magazine on my desk. While I was deciding whether or not to withdraw and / or replace the first textbook (missing some index pages) by looking at usage and considering its currency, a second textbook arrived. Luckily the second book was hardly used, badly damaged and had a second copy, making at least one easy decision. Once the books were sentenced I read through the Radio Times, sadly finding no business-related TV for the week to record, and headed up to the Information Desk for my shift.

I was on the Information Desk for an hour. It's always hard to tell when we'll be busy, and so it's not too unusual that the first 15 minutes were deserted, and the next 45 frantic. I pointed one student towards books on dissertation / research project writing and gave some literature searching hints and tips, including explaining peer review. I found a spelling mistake on a reading list which was stopping one student finding a book on the catalogue, and tried to help another find some photographs of insects as a reference for drawing. As so often happens, as soon as I got back to my desk I thought of better places to look, but hopefully I did enough, and at least I'll remember next time! Then lunch.

After lunch I was 'on call' for the Research Training Programme for PhD students we hold in our lecture theatre. There's a morning looking into the process of literature searching, current awareness etc. and then the students get a practical session on Endnote (the reference management software) in the afternoon. This wouldn't always happen, but there's a bit of library flu going round, and so we were short of staff with Endnote knowledge to support the session. However, if I'm around during this bit of the session I do pop down occasionally as I used Endnote to manage my references for my PhD, and so I've got lots of practical hints and tips on use. I went down to answer some general questions, including those of one repeat customer who'd picked up importing references to Endnote at the last session, and now wanted me to demonstrate a bit of Cite While You Write (using Endnote in conjunction with Microsoft Word).

I then went back up to the office (answering one more Endnote query remotely!) and did a little more office work. I finally crossed off one of the 'to-do' items I've had on my list for a while. Since I arrived we've been setting up a new database, and one with relatively unusual requirements and demands. I'd asked for some information from other librarians on a mailing list on how they ran the database, and needed to collate their responses to feed back to the list. I went through their mostly unstructured responses and categorised them, to make it clear which strategies other libraries had used and finished just in time to re-check my emails and go home.

Photo: Note the cunning tie-in via the use of the word 'squirrel' in the first paragraph. The bird seeds at home have been subject to attack by this furry critter.

Library Day in the Life -- Day 1 -- 25/01/10

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:31:00 +0000

I am participating for the first time in the Library Day in the Life project in which library workers all around the world blog or otherwise record their working days for a week. Check out the Library Day in the Life wiki for further details. For those new to the blog I am currently working as an academic librarian, supporting Business and Accounting, in the UK.

I've been away from the library for six working days with my MA Librarianship graduation and a week's annual leave. I'm approaching the end of my contract as academic liaison librarian for business at De Montfort University so was using up the annual leave I had left. I came back from holiday to have a familiar panic that I was supposed to be on the help desk first thing (I always have Friday afternoons off, and often miss the rota coming round) but didn't have any shifts today. I seem to be getting better at avoiding a last minute dash!

On the train in the morning I was occupied with reading my notes for the presentation I was giving at lunchtime. This was on my MA dissertation project, and consisted of talks I'd given to a visiting group from UCR Wales in the Information Commons at the University of Sheffield (on which my dissertation focused) and at the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE) Annual Conference. I'd presented both parts (the findings and theory) separately before, so once at work I just produced my handouts and then started wading through my accrued email from the previous week.

I'd reduced my emails to one page by the time I had to head to the Academic and Professional Development Unit, where I was presenting. The two talks seemed to gel together quite well, and I was pleased to get some practice presenting. I'm going to be giving regular lectures in my new job starting in February (as part-time academic liaison librarian for science at Leicester University). The questions after the talk were really interesting, and we had a great discussion about how students can be encouraged to use learning spaces in new ways. Plus, free sandwiches.

After a quick break for a walk I went to see Nathan (the normal business librarian, who is seconded into another post) deliver a lecture I'd written for him on library resources as part of a module on Professional Skills for Accountants. The talk seemed to go well - I liked the way he fleshed out my slides with lots of live searches as examples - but some students at the back talked all the way through, which was a shame. Last week I went to a staff-student committee in which students complained about other students talking in lectures (I heard some students shh-ing in this lecture too), and it's making me consider whether to address this kind of behaviour more actively: it's nerve-wracking, but I can see the benefits.

In the afternoon I caught up with a few more tasks. There are some which never seem to end, and two of my old faithful eternal projects (setting up a complex database, and a book I'm ordering through non-standard channels) came back to haunt me. I'm pleased to say that I made a bit of progress with both before hometime... maybe they'll be finished before my contract ends!

Picture taken in Lincoln in October 2009, on the way to a comedy festival. Moving into librarianship seems to have given me an uncontrollable desire to photograph things with the word 'library' on them.

Response to a blog post by Bob McKee, CILIP Chief Executive

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:11:00 +0000

I'm not easily angered, but was infuriated by a recent blog post from CILIP's Chief Executive, Bob McKee. The offending part of the post was a throwaway comment, towards the top, in which he referred to those voters who turned up and carried a proposal for an increase in membership fees through as 'wonderful'. It doesn't seem outrageous to read into this that those members of CILIP who voted against the proposal, and who were, for a range of reasons, unable to attend the meeting in person, were less than wonderful. I've reposted my comment on his blog below for your consideration.

Dear Bob

When I saw the results of the proposal for an increase in CILIP fees had gone through I was surprised by its approval. However, as CILIP is run by the democratic method I accepted that the views of the voting members had been represented. To be honest, I would expect the Chief Executive of CILIP to attempt to disguise his or her own views on such a vote, and to focus on the importance of the vote representing the members. I therefore saw your comment above about the 'not wonderful' proxy voters as not only personally insulting, but rather inappropriate.

I submitted a proxy vote against the increase in fees, and encouraged my colleagues to do the same. I had a good reason for doing so. I have recently graduated from a librarianship course. A large number of students on this course saw CILIP as a looming overexpensive drain on their resources. I strongly believe that charging higher and higher prices to account for a failure to recruit these new professionals is just going to drive them further away. I believe that raising fees does more harm to the long-term earning potential (and relevance) of CILIP than good.

The information profession is not my first calling, and I came to it with a strong belief in the importance and power of professional bodies. Therefore I will not be leaving CILIP in protest. I think working from inside CILIP is a better way to change it than leaving. My believe in working within an organisation for change is why I voted by proxy, despite being unable to attend the meeting. However, I sympathise strongly with those who are leaving, and think your (doubtless intended to be) throwaway comment above is only going to further alienate the disenfranchised.

I hope you will forgive me for also posting this comment on my blog. I also have little time, and hope to get extra value out of this content by reusing it.

Regards,
Katie Fraser

I'd be interested to hear any comments, especially from new professionals on the way they see CILIP and its value to their own careers. Who knows, Bob McKee may even be interested in your thoughts.

Google Wave: exploring new technology

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:30:00 +0000

Well, as I'm in my first professional post I'm starting the process of chartership with CILIP. I've stumped up my £50 to register, and now have 6 months to compose and submit my chartership plan. It's still not fully formed as yet, but one of my aims will be to maintain my knowledge and awareness of new technologies (something which I try to do anyway, but it's nice to acknowledge and record). One such technology is no doubt Google Wave, and as my invitation arrived a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd record my first thoughts.

First up, who thought Google Wave was a social networking tool? Well, me, for one, but it turns out I was wrong. When you've added someone to your list of contacts they're not prompted to add you. It's more like an email system with a contacts list. In fact, if you watch any of Google's explanations of 'what Wave is' then you'll find they're pretty keen to tell you it's like email too. It took me a while to work out what Google meant here, but I think what they mean is it's like a step forward from Gmail... I haven't been able to see the links between Wave and Outlook without going via Gmail myself.

There's various information out there on the web. Most people I've spoken to have been directed towards and immediately put off the 120 minute launch video. Like me, you may be relieved to discover there's an 8 minute Google Wave video that isn't directed towards developers. This is a pretty good overview of what Google would like Wave to do, but it isn't yet a guide to what it does. Currently, for me, it's been a bunch of email conversations in which I discuss what on earth Wave is, and one big public collaboratively edited conversation in which even librarians are struggling to organise themselves into alphabetical order while everything goes slowly.

So, do I like it? Well, currently that's an emphatic 'no', but if you'd asked me about Twitter when I first signed up I might have said the same thing. I think, and this isn't the most original thought on Wave I've had, that it lacks critical mass. If Google really are developing something to replace email then it needs to be available to everyone. What's the point in trying to arrange a barbeque through Wave if only two people I know have invites? Furthermore, half the functions Google would like it to have they're kind of waiting for someone to develop (that's what the 120 minute video's about). It's interesting to see what it does currently, but I think I'm going to have to withhold judgement until the critical mass of people and apps is reached. If it ever is.

Note: tenuous photographic connection: Google Wave / sea. Taken on holiday at Gower this year.

My Library Routes / Roots

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Some excellent library bloggers have recently set up a project in which our kind blog both our routes into librarianship, and our roots in librarianship, and this is my contribution. I'll leap straight in, but do check out the other fascinating entries at the Library Routes Wiki. My route into librarianship has been a meandering one, starting with an MSc in Occupational Psychology (the psychology of work and organisations). My roots in librarianship, which we'll come to later, started a long time before that.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do after my undergrad, but after a year of trying the world of work decided I'd return and study an area of my degree I'd particularly enjoyed, Occupational Psychology. My MSc dissertation focused on a centre in Sheffield offering work-related IT courses and I became interested in learning and technology. Looking for work afterwards, I discovered that the University of Nottingham were offering studentships at their new Learning Sciences Research Institute, so I applied. My topic ended up being homework: specifically I focused on how technologies could be embedded in the home, given family's views on privacy, their interactions around homework technologies, and various other criteria. However, as I worked on my PhD I developed an interest in how the theories I was studying applied to my student / research role. How I and those around me used technologies to learn and search for information became a larger and larger interest.

With my PhD it would have been quite easy to move within fields to study this academically, but I was reluctant to continue an academic career path. I don't know when I suddenly realised that librarianship contained people-focused and applied roles which encompassed many of my interests, but I do remember increasingly thinking about librarianship as a career. However, given previous multiple changes in direction, I wanted to try a spell in libraries to decide if they were right for me, so I applied for and got a part-time maternity cover job in the George Green Library at the University of Nottingham while I was writing up my PhD thesis.

The job at George Green gave me a broad experience of libraries, as I worked half of my shift alongside a librarian or library assistant, and got to hear all about their work, and was in sole charge of the service for the second half of the night. I liked the job. I could have applied for library school at this stage, but instead I decided to take the opportunity to get a broader background in librarianship, and applied for a number of graduate trainee posts. It was as I started the traineeship that I looked around for others who had blogged their experiences as trainees, and, unable to find anything, started this blog. The rest of the story is quite well documented here: from my traineeship to my MA and then my current academic librarian job supporting students and researchers at De Montfort, just like I wanted to do as a student and researcher. And my Occupational Psychology degree, the starting point of it all, helped me get a job as a subject librarian in Business.

Nice story, isn't it? However, one of the theories I learnt in my MSc Occupational Psychology is that the 'career' as we understand it, can be seen as just a story, reflecting back on how we got to where we are, and editing out all the awkward bits that don't fit. For those about to start on a librarianship career, I think it's important to mention some of these roots, which weren't part of my route, to show that we're not all perfect, inevitable fits for a librarianship career, that stops and starts are involved.

For example, I did a week's work experience in a public library as a 16 year old and in my National Record of Achievement it says "I am not sure I would like to continue to work in this field when I am older". When I finished my undergraduate degree I was a day too late to apply for a graduate trainee post in the university library. And I also have a traditional 'I was a bookish child' story to tell, but was nearly put off librarianship because I was worried it was more about the quiet anti-social child I had been, than the more extroverted lover of knowledge I've become. It's fascinating to look back on our routes and our roots, but I've learnt not to be too defined by what I've done. Who know where I'll end up next?

First few weeks as Assistant Librarian at DMU

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:33:00 +0000

So, I've been at De Montfort for three weeks now. That means i) I'm getting a better idea of the scope and main tasks of my job and ii) I'm actually having to start doing them. No more sitting around watching Health and Safety videos for me: or at least, not until I do the formal corporate induction in November.

My impression of the job so far is positive. My colleagues have all been friendly and helpful in getting me settled in, and the training programme has mostly consisted of shadowing other people in tasks and being walked through procedures, which suits me quite well. I tend to pick up things quite quickly but also generate and need to ask lots of questions, so prefer this approach to receiving teaching materials without much context.

I'm enjoying making decisions for myself, as well. This week a lecturer emailed me to ask for extra copies of two textbooks. One we already had 14 copies, the other we only had 4. Previous usage stats suggested that 14 copies was sufficient and this was about right for the course size so I decided to email the lecturer back and say I coudn't really justify many more copies of the 14 copy text, but if the 4 copy text was a core text could happily get some more of this. The lecturer emailed back to say this was a good point, and that, as the 4 copy text was a lot more up-to-date, made sense to just increase stock of this one. It wasn't much, but I was pleased that it was the first piece of liaison I'd done where I'd not just said 'okay' and done something, but looked into something and found a better course of action. Liaison success!

Next week all the students start to come back. I'm looking forward to not being the person who knows the least on campus, and have learnt the location of all the library toilets: plus which ones have Dyson Airblade handdryers! That's all I'll get asked for the first week, right?

Note: The photo pictures the still-in-progress new Business and Law Building, where the staff who I support will eventually all be based. I love that the finish is the same as the Information Commons at Sheffield: architectural continuity!

Information Commons dissertation presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:22:00 +0000

This was my first week at work at De Montfort: it's been enjoyable, but as I'm still finding my feet, I'll wait before blogging it. Instead I'm going to talk about an event I attended during the week. I presented the findings of my dissertation at a couple of events in CILASS, alongside my supervisor, and CILASS director, Professor Philippa Levy: one on Wednesday 9th to a group from UC&R Wales and one on Thursday 10th as part of the SRHE Student Experience Network. I'll talk about the SRHE event as I was able to stay the whole day and see the other sessions.

The day started with a talk from Kath O'Donovan, Associate Director of Library Services at Sheffield. She talked a little bit about the background to the IC project - a lot of which was familiar from my interviews with staff - and gave a good introduction to the IC.

Kath was followed by a presentation by Krishan Mistry about his IC-related video IC Girls. It's worth following the link to see this playful take on the IC. I must admit, I have always found the video / song lacking on the feminist front, but it was interesting to hear about how the idea for the video had developed: Krishan's explained that the lyrics of of the song were intended to mock one womanising friend's tales of the IC, which made me a little more comfortable with it. There's all sorts of interesting discussions about viral marketing and student ownership of university spaces triggered by this video, and it was interesting that Krishan had been accused of developing it in partnership with the University - he assured us that he had been avoiding staff during the filming!

Next, Phil and I presented the findings of my dissertation, and I took everyone on a tour of the building 'through students' eyes': specifically focusing on how individual areas in the IC can be meaningful to individual students. I had 30 minutes, but overcompensated for touring 40 researchers / librarians around the building, and only took 15, so we had time for some interesting discussion afterwards.

After lunch, Matthew Cheeseman, the convenor of the event, talked about his Folklore PhD looking at students in Higher Education. He talked about how the nighttime economy - the economy of bars, clubs and alcohol in which mainstream students participate - fitted with the idea of a 24 hour library. I have enjoyed his work a lot, and would recommend checking out his 2008 paper - The impact of a 24 hour library on the student experience at Sheffield.

Finally, IC Manager Alex Hunt wrapped up the event with some tips on managing a facility like the IC. One of my favourite facts from her is that cleaning a 24 hour library is more like cleaning an international airport than cleaning a library - it's never shut, and you're always having to clean around the people!

It was a good event, and I particularly enjoyed the range of perspectives from the speakers - from Kath's focus on the development of the building, to Krishan's personal student experience, to my relatively study-focused findings on how students used the building, to Matthew's understanding of the IC as a social phenomenon, through to Alex's experiences of running it. The event really emphasised to me the different views of the Information Commons (and libraries in general) we have, and how much we can learn from stopping and thinking about these facilities from the perspectives of other stakeholders and users. A big thanks to Matthew for organising the event!

Note: Photographs are views of the IC from one of the higher floors, and of the CILASS space within the IC.

Next steps

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:43:00 +0000

I can't quite believe that the course is over! I completed my dissertation and handed it in at the end of last week. I'm happy with it (although I've spotted a few things I'd change in retrospect: bound to happen) and looking forward to finding out the final results. My work on the Information Commons is complete, but I'm heading back to the IC at least two more times to give a couple of presentations on my study next week, for a CILIP UC&R Wales visit and an SRHE seminar.

On top of that, next week I'm starting my new job! It's a temporary post at De Montfort University, and I'm going to be an assistant librarian, working with the Business School. I have an MSc in Occupational Psychology, which is the study of business from a psychological perspective, which should give me a good start in the topic. I'm looking forward to starting, although a little nervous! This week has been a semi-break between course and job, although I've been tying up some loose ends and preparing for the presentations next week, so it's not all been holiday.

Obtaining my first professional post has made me reflect on this blog a little. I'm really happy I've kept it going throughout my graduate traineeship and my library course to my first job. I started the blog because I couldn't find any which documented that journey, and I hope it proves useful to people about to start librarian training. At the very least it's entertaining to me to look back at what I've been doing for the last two years, and a great record of all the things I've done. I'd recommend the process to anyone else too!

Note: Photograph is a view from the Information Commons, with the infamous comfy seating.

The dissertation process

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:18:00 +0000

When I first started my dissertation I actually meant to blog about the process more, but it turned out to be quite hard to find an angle to come at this from. I'd imagined blogging findings as they emerged, but particularly with qualitative analysis of data there's not many moments of revelation to be had: the analysis evolves over time.

There were two stages to the research, and three stages to the analysis. In stage one, interviews with staff involved in the Information Commons (IC) development were analysed using the Theory of Change approach to uncover the drivers, resources, activities, desirable outcomes and anticipated impact of the project - these are the five tubs of quotes visible in the photographs. In stage two, a thematic analysis of the student interviews looked at how students used the IC. Stage three, which I'm still finishing, involves looking at the desirable outcomes of the project related to student usage of the IC and the student experience, and asking if i) if there's evidence for them in the student interviews and ii) if they seem to have occurred because of the activities identified by staff.

In stage three everything's starting to come together quite nicely. I think the first two stages of the analysis are quite information-rich, but the process of evaluation draws them together quite well and should help me structure the key findings in the discussion and conclusion quite nicely.

At the moment I'm finishing off the literature review (currently bringing together the literature on information commons in general) and then I'm back into the analysis again. My supervisor is back from holiday on Monday, and we've arranged a meeting, so I hope to have a reasonable draft of the whole thing to show her by then. Compared to my PhD thesis this has all been a bit of a whirlwind: I've been reasonably ambitious with the scope of this project, and there's not much time at all to think and reflect. However, I'm happy so far with what I've produced and hopefully will be able to knock it into shape before submission.

Libraries and the student experience

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:59:00 +0000

The SRHE (Society for Research into Higher Education) Student Experience Network is running an event at the Information Commons (IC) on September 10th entitled 24/7: The Life of University 24-hour Libraries.

I'm coordinating two sessions at the event. The first is a formal presentation, alongside my dissertation supervisor, Professor Philippa Levy, talking about my dissertation on the IC. The second is a tour of the library "through students' eyes" replicating and commenting on some of the tours students gave me of the IC in my research. This will provide an introduction to the IC for those who haven't seen it before, alongside actual student experiences of the IC: which ties in quite nicely with the focus of the network!

Places are free, although they're limited and I'm not sure what the rate of uptake is so far. You can find out more, and register for a place, by contacting Matthew Cheeseman on m.cheeseman@shef.ac.uk. Matthew is the coordinator of the event, and has produced some fascinating ethnographic work on the IC from his position as a folklorist, which has been really valuable in my own ethnographic approach to learning about students' use of the building.

Note: photo is an old one from my visit to Sheffield as a prospective student. I need to take some more photos of the place now I'm studying it!

Graduation and LILAC Conference Report

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:32:00 +0000

Just a couple of pieces of news to share. The first is rather self-evident, given the photograph accompanying this entry: I graduated from my PhD! It was a lovely day. I have decided I like the floppy PhD graduation hats much better than mortarboards, they are so much easier to keep on your head. My parents visited and took me for a fancy meal to celebrate. It's rather strange to be officially receiving my doctorate as I write up my dissertation for the MA, and I'm sure I've confused lots of people "You're graduating from a PhD? I thought you were doing an MA?!". Still, I think this slight career path adjustment been the right choice for me.

The other news is that the conference report myself and the other sponsored students at LILAC put together has been published in the Journal of Information Literacy. The report centres around the key themes of the conference, and you can see my handiwork under the 'Supporting Research' theme, one of my favourite topics. The report also features a photo of me in party frock. I'm obviously having a photogenic month!

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, librarians gotta charter?

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:23:00 +0000

There was an interesting conversation happening on Twitter this week about whether or not to charter. I understand completely that many people feel rather disenfranchised from CILIP, and don't feel like they get their money's worth from the organisation. Chartership, similarly, is an aid to professional development, but not the only way to expand ones knowledge and self-awareness (and I'm sure there are some who (whisper it) cannot be bothered... although I've never met any self-proclaimed non-bother-ers).

My background is in psychology, and there a completely different conversation is happening: whether the unchartered should even be allowed to call themselves psychologists. It is understandable that people are more worried about ensuring a certain level of training from someone playing with their minds than someone fetching them a book. As Joeyanne Libraryanne pointed out the equivalent conversation in librarianship is whether a qualification is needed at all. However, isn't the whole point of calling us a profession to point out that librarians do more than just fetch books? I really hope we do, as I get bored of fetching books quite quickly.

For me, CILIP membership and chartership is a complete no-brainer. I have been indoctrinated somewhere along the line to believe that professional organisations are a good thing and CILIP does seem to have given back to me for everything I've put in. I'm a CILIP blogger, which has given me incentive to keep on blogging, I've been sponsored to attend the Mashed Library Conference via CILIP, and I'm a member of the CDG Yorkshire and Humberside committee where I've helped organise events which gave me experience and information. I even read the Gazette and Update on the train. Oh yes, I'm one of those.

For me, the process of chartership is the unimportant part of the equation. I've not gone through it, and the stories I've heard indicate that it may not be the most well-developed programme in the world. But idealistically, the idea of chartership is important to me. If librarians really are a profession - if there's some benefit to shared training and continuing professional development - then we need to have a chartership process to reflect and validate our professional activities. My thinly veiled opinion is that there is a benefit. Now, how do we make that benefit more evident, CILIP?

Note: photograph shows view across the lake, University Park, University of Nottingham.

Mashed Library: Unconference Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:17:00 +0000

As well as commenting on the more formal learning I took from Mash Oop North, explored in my blog posts on the opening sessions I also wanted to take time to comment more generally on the unconference.

I was funded to attend Mashed Library by CILIP Yorkshire and Humberside - I'm writing a report for their newsletter in 'payment' and because I was travelling from Nottingham rather than Sheffield, where I study, they generously offered to put me up in a hotel before the event to allow me to avoid a super-early start.

I'm really glad I got to go to the event early as the Monday night getting-to-know-you meal and drinks were invaluable in finding my feet and getting to know some delegates beforehand. I commented on my previous posts that Twitter was useful in following ideas being generated and discussed elsewhere in the event itself, but the pre-show was great in that I got to meet up with people who I knew from Twitter beforehand. It was great to put people to IDs / pictures of faces, and I found a few more interesting people to follow as well. I've always tended to arrive at events like this on the day, and I think I might actually arrive early wherever possible in the future, as it really helped me settle in.

The conference was brilliantly organised: not only were we asked to indicate our own experience and interests beforehand, but we also got to vote on pizza toppings for the lunch, and influence which of the opening sessions ran parallel to each other. I missed the Yahoo! Pipes session, as it ran opposite one my choices, but fellow-Twitterer @spiky7 and I had a play with it in the afternoon and created an exciting tool for stalking conference organiser Dave Pattern. Unfortunately we had to edit out his #mashlib09 tweets as they overwhelmed the timeline!

If you're interested in learning more about Mashed Library then it's well worth visiting the Mash Oop North blog, where there should be further updates on the event. Next year's event will take place in Birmingham, entitled Middle Mash, and I'd recommend attending if you can find a place - this year's sold out with speed!

Note: the picture shows the Ikea rat on display at the Rat and Ratchet, which we called into on Monday night. I have the exact same toy rat, so he made me feel right at home.

Mashed Library: Opening Sessions II

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:06:00 +0000

The second session I attended at Mash Oop North was by Brendan Dawes who "does things with data" as he described it, creating playful and interactive visualisations. The major message, for me, in his talk, was how much more creative we could be with the way we represent data in libraries. The OPAC tends to be quite serious and workmanlike, and, sure, usability is important. But what about encouraging playful and creative exploration of information? Maybe libraries need to learn a lesson from Donald Norman's Emotional Design where he realised that his focus on usability in his earlier works could divert attention from the kind of design which we fall in love with. There's a more obvious place for playfulness in public than academic libraries, but a more ludic approach might be a good way to engage students and encourage them to explore library services in the early stages of their university careers.

The final formal session of the day was perhaps the most practically useful for me, a whistlestop tour through applications by Mike Ellis. He particularly focused on applications which could be used to 'scrape' data from webpages which aren't formally set up for data sharing through RSS feeds or APIs. I must admit to getting a little lost in this session, joined by a few others in the Twitter chat, but Mike came to the rescue by putting all the information down in a blog post on scraping, scripting and hacking which I'll definitely be revisiting.

The nice thing about being at a techie conference was that lots of people were using Twitter, and so I got to experience bits and pieces of the other talks by following along on the #mashlib09 hashtag on my borrowed-for-the-day iPod Touch. More on Twitter to follow in my other thoughts on the conference.

Note: photo features obligatory white-blood-cell-in-transit-to-conference shot. The white blood cell team did quite well at fending off conference lurgy.

Mashed Library: Opening Sessions I

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:37:00 +0000

This week I attended the Mashed Libraries event Mash Oop North. This is an unconference (informal conference) event looking at the use of mash-ups in libraries. I've put together a few posts on the day, and in the first two I'm concentrating on the opening sessions, as these were the most information-rich parts of the event.

My first opening session was Dave Pattern and Iman Moradi talking about "Making data work harder". The simplest way to sum Dave's section up was that it was about libraries doing an Amazon - harnessing library usage data to enhance the user experience. There were lots of great examples of how this could enhance user activities. I was also provoked to wonder whether there were opportunities for libraries to go beyond some of these more commercial models of data to create more library-specific data usage. Free provision of resources which adds a whole new angle to features like book suggestion, and there's some aspects of library usage – such as renewals and repeat borrowing of books – which don't feature in the commercial sphere.

Dave's thoughts were followed by a section from Iman about design in libraries. I had a brief chat with Iman later in the day about ethnography in libraries, and his comments about how libraries might capture information about using the library from students before they leave – almost a form of student-focused knowledge management – were thought-provoking. It resonated with some of the intentions of my dissertation, although my work is focused on harnessing that knowledge for institutional rather than community learning.

Note: Picture shows the deluge Mashed Library was treated to at lunchtime. The misty effect in the background is genuinely caused by sheer weight of water.

Staff interviews and other dissertation activity

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:03:00 +0000

This week I have been conducting interviews with staff at the university, in order to construct a Theory of Change for the Information Commons project. In simple terms, this is a model of the expected outcomes for the project, and the steps that were taken by those involved to achieve those outcomes. The model will be compared with my student data to see which outcomes I have found evidence for, and where inconsistencies lie.

The Information Commons is a beautiful building, if relentlessly modern. I've posted pictures of the outside before, but here's one of the interior, which I used as a probe in the student interviews. I might go round and take some pictures myself soon, as empty out-of-term building means no consent forms. The varying levels of use of the IC have impacted on my project in several ways. I had to conduct my student interviews during my coursework period, as exams were approaching, and getting students to give me a tour of the IC would have been unworkable at its peak use. Still, it put me ahead of the game, which I'm not complaining about that now.

When I first started this project I was more focused on the student part of my project than the staff aspect, but over the last week I've really loved doing the staff interviews and finding out about how the IC was put together. I was astonished to find out that it was in planning back in 1998 when I first came to the university as an undergraduate! My favourite bit is seeing how staff use some of the ideas and interests I've had in the MA in their jobs at senior levels. The opportunity to get involved in projects like the IC is something I'd love, and it's made me even more enthusiastic about a career in academic libraries. I just need to find a job now!

Note: Photo was taken by Flickr user paolomargari and used here under Creative Commons licence.

Dissertation, essay news and obligatory health update

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:42:00 +0000

The dissertation is well underway! Spent this week putting together an interview schedule for the interviews I'm hoping to arrange with staff at the university. I'm using an approach called the Theory of Change to look at the creation of the Information Commons, so was pleased to get some valuable feedback from my supervisor on how to structure the interviews to get the right data. Unlike the ethnographic interviews, an approach I used during my PhD, Theory of Change is completely new to me, so it's the bit I'm most nervous about doing!

I also got some good feedback on one of my essays: one looking at Virtual Research Environments and the role of the library. I don't know yet what mark I've got for it, but my head of department contacted me to say she'd really like what I'd written, to ask if she could pass it on to some potentially interested people, and to discuss the possibility of writing it up for publication. Will have to see what comes of this, but it's great feedback, and a great opportunity. We've got a meeting next week to discuss publication ideas. It's this kind of attitude I really like at Sheffield, they seem to be very proactive. In addition, this week I've got a job interview on Wednesday. Should be interesting stuff, will wait and see what happens.

Final good news: my vision problems have been inspected by an ophthalmologist, and apparently the visual distortions I've been having are very likely due to my very dry eyes. I'm awaiting a prescription for some better drops, and in the meantime taking the ones I've got whenever I like. I was pleased to hear that the ophthalmologist was related to a librarian so knew all about the importance of text to our profession! My digestive problems are still ongoing: nothing conclusive learnt from my elimination diet so far, watch this space!

Today's picture comes from Nottingham University campus: I live right nearby and went for a walk to get some library-related shots recently. I always liked the fact there's a whole road named after the library. It sounds like all the libraries should be along this one road, but in fact it's only the original Hallward Library.

Dissertation time

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Right, coursework is all handed in and there's just the dissertation left to go in my MA. Still having a few health problems: I've managed to get on top of most things, but my vision is still proving a bit problem. I'm back at the computer having turned my brightness settings down low, but paper is proving a bit of a problem, so I'm trying to do what I can when I can (while getting various referrals to try and sort out my vision).

The most manageable task at the moment seems to be transcribing the interviews I've got so far (I'm a touch typist, and I transcribed a lot during my PhD etc. so I'm a fairly dab hand at churning this out). I would have preferred to type these up as I recorded them, so I was fresh from the interview, but was involved in about seven layers of coursework at the time. I typed up my first interview today, and it was quite interesting to go back over it and see the kinds of themes that came up.

Just as a reminder, I'm looking at the use of space in Sheffield University's Information Commons with the student interviews, and the next stage of my research will be to interview staff and find out about their expectations for the IC, and how they compare with actual use. I need to do a bit of reading before the staff interviews, though, so holding on to see if I can sort out my eyes first!

The student data is really interesting, though. There seem to be lots of layers to the decision making processes of students when deciding which space to use: study preferences, aesthetic preferences, habit, social behaviour, territoriality etc. Should be fascinating stuff to unpick these a bit further and see how they interact / combine in different individuals.

Note: Image taken at LILAC 2009. I like the fact that the signs told Welsh speakers to use the door to escape in case of fire, but didn't tell them how to open the thing. Of course, maybe the Welsh are just naturally good at opening doors.

Update on conferences, work and course

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:51:00 +0000

This blog's been a little bit quiet recently as I've not been feeling too good: for some reason one of my symptoms has been weird vision when looking at screens (I can see them but my eyes are a bit weirded out by long exposure) hence the lack of updates!

Lots has been going on, however. The best news is that I've received a funded place at Mashed Libraries 2009. This is one of those fancy unconference things looking at mash-ups within the library field. I'm really excited about attending. I don't have much experience in any kind of library technologies: the shot on the right shows the nearest I got to library tech in my last job, a new computer to access our old-fashioned LMS. However my enthusiasm for social networking, my love of playing with random software and the bits of my PhD involving representing and supporting homework through lots of different technologies should be pretty relevant.

On top of this I've been recruited to work on an HEA funded synthesis of research alongside members of CILASS, the University of Sheffield's centre for Inquiry Based Learning over the summer. Should be interesting and a way of keeping up my research skills and giving me something other than my dissertation to think about over the next few months.

Other than those exciting pieces of news, the most thrilling thing in my life has been the gradual erosion of my coursework deadlines. At the time of writing I've only got two more pieces I need to get done, and hopefully things will keep ticking along. In fact, I've got some editing awaiting as I speak, so off I go!

CILIP 2.0: the aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:12:00 +0000

Well, I had an excellent time following #cilip2 on Twitter today (see my previous post for details). It's rather disorienting participating in a physically located session remotely through the medium of 140 character micro blogs, but it worked quite well, with the Twitterers in the room primarily communicating with the goal of explaining to us remote participants. In fact, it was much easier to understand what was happening than tracking a conference on Twitter usually is, as the posts were designed for an outside audience: you can check them out on this summary of the #cilip2 conversation. The major difficulty in following the session was the multiple conversations going on amongst those of us tweeting remotely!

The main point that I took away from the session was the idea, covered by both Phil Bradley and Brian Kelly, that CILIP needs to become more open to experimentation, and less afraid of failure. Having a static website with tightly controlled arenas for interaction is symbolic of the need to control communication and present a formal front, whereas Web 2.0 offers CILIP the opportunity to experiment, and learn from its members in an engaged and flexible manner. A good lesson for any organisation to learn, regardless of technology. I hope this translates into some plans for action on CILIP's part, or at least features heavily in their new communication strategy.

Aside from being part of a fascinating event I also picked up a few new skills participating. The suggestion that there might be Skype (although technical problems meant there wasn't) inspired me into having a play with Skype, which I haven't used before, but which seemed fairly straightforward. I also used a widget to feed relevant tweets into a page on this site so I can share the event easily with others, and I'm sure I'll use that system again. I may not have made the progress on my coursework I would have liked, but I think I achieved a lot today.

Beginner's guide to the CILIP 2.0 Session

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:50:00 +0000

Today is the CILIP Open Council Session discussing how CILIP can use Web2.o to "engage better with the LIS community". Twitter is buzzing with discussion of the best way to follow the session and I've already been added to the Twitter lists of a handful of librarians I've encountered through the #cilip2 tag which is being used to label posts relating to the event (and added some too!). Some Twitterers will be commenting live from the event, and others of us are just waiting to see what happens!

If you're not a user of Twitter, it's still perfectly possible to follow along the discussion. I've put up a widget at http://www.chuukaku.com/monitter.html which updates automatically and provides an easy way to follow the conversation without having to use any Twitter-related applications - should be relatively easy to share as well. Alternatively, you'll be able to access an archive of Twitter posts on Twitter Search (this prompts you to update when new Tweets come in) or can use the Monitter or Twitterfall web applications which update in real time, although you'll have to manually add the #cilip2 tag yourself (my webpage's widget is provided by Monitter).

UKeiG prize highlights inconsistencies in conference places for students

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:54:00 +0000

I was initially pleased to see that UKeiG were offering a student place at their annual conference, and then disappointed to see that I wasn't eligible as the place is only available to those who are "not in receipt of another award, bursary or scholarship". As my MA is AHRC funded this puts me out of the picture. My funding (unlike AHRC research degree awards) has no provision for career development within it, so I don't think it is arguable that it should include conference attendance. I therefore assume that the UKeiG just feels that all opportunities should be spread evenly between Information Studies students. I don't think this is an untenable position; however, I do think it highlights inconsistencies in the way student places on conferences are distributed.

Aside from my funding I've attended both the Research Libraries UK and LILAC conferences on student places this year, and I've applied for and failed to get other opportunities. I certainly intend to be proactive and enthusiastic, although the wording of the UKeiG email did, I'll admit, make me wonder whether applying for all these opportunities looks greedy. I'd understand if UKeiG's criteria were shared across the sector. However, there are noticeable differences between the conferences to which I've applied: LILAC, for example, allows any student registered for any library qualification to apply. I know that these are separate organisations, and standards don't really apply, but I wondered what people thought was the 'fair' way to do things. Should students be restricted to only one set of funding over a year? Should opportunities be determined by merit alone? Please do comment and let me know what you think.

Busy times

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:40:00 +0000

Despite it being the Easter 'holidays' I've been pretty busy since I got back from LILAC. Every module I have picked this semester has had two pieces of coursework associated with it - usually one individual piece and one groupwork piece, although they vary in type. At five modules this semester that's around ten pieces of coursework, and they start needing returning from the Monday after Easter (next week) with four pieces of coursework due on May 22nd.

I have to admit, I'm dying for a proper break, and haven't got as much done as I'd (perhaps overoptimistically) hoped over Easter. I still have make a start on my final ideas for my dissertation, make changes to one piece of groupwork and finish putting together a website, and I was hoping to finish off my report on virtual research environments too. Of these I'm most enjoying the VRE report: despite my frustration at the fact that everyone seems to call them different things, it's great to study something that's right up my street, and technologies to support research pulls together two of my favourite topics. As I've picked the modules this semester myself, my personal interest is keeping me going. It's not that far until June, right?

Photo shows tiny giant white blood cells out on a jaunt to LILAC 2009 with me in the Welsh countryside. They failed to stop me picking up further librarian lurgy, sadly.

LILAC Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Katie) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:31:00 +0000

At the start of last week I went to LILAC, the Librarian's Information Literacy Conference, for which I was lucky enough to win a student award. The growth of information literacy in academic libraries particularly drew me in, plus two of the key themes of the conference were emerging technologies and supporting research, which reflect my interests quite well. Overall, LILAC was a great mix of research and practitioner accounts, particularly in the HE sector, so was ideal for me to get a good understanding of best practice.

One of the most interesting themes of the conference for me was the idea of doing information literacy without saying information literacy. I think that generally people outside the information professions don't really know what the 'information' in 'information professions' means. Whether we within the information professions agree with what it means is another blogpost entirely! More than one speaker (such as Jonathan Westaway and Moira Bent) mentioned needing students to acquire habits rather than skills, expressing that it's not really the ability to spot the seven pillars that counts, but making effective use of information so automatic that it might not even be articulated. Keynote Melissa Highton suggested that maybe digital literacy might be a more inspirational phrase for non-librarians, and in the final session of the conference Claire Packham from the British Library mentioned that the major factor in increasing attendance at the Information Literacy sessions in their new reader education programmes was stopping calling it information literacy.

On the other hand, if we're not saying information literacy we hide the message that certain key skills transfer across contexts. Perhaps the solution is to make the information professions synonymous with information literacy practices in the minds of the public so they automatically see new contexts of information use as under our remit. I think librarianship suffers from the idea that librarians are experts on the resources under the library's roof (physical or digital). An awareness that we are experts on doing information literacy even if we aren't saying information literacy requires us to focus on our practices rather than our products. Therefore the importance of the information professions acting as advocates and implementers of information literacy practices is what I'll be taking away from LILAC.

Photograph of the Cardiff University dragon reading the LILAC 2009 Conference Pack taken by Katie Fraser.