I haven't had a chance to keep up with the blog in the past few weeks as we've had quite a lot on at the library - several school visits, international group visits, prepping for Xmas closure & a lot more (on top of our standard tasks & responsibilities).
One of the things I've been working on is trying to develop our webpage for our Trade Literature Collection, I'm also working on a Trade Literature Guide which will eventually be sent out to various special interest groups & will be uploaded onto the website, but at the moment I am focusing on the webpage itself. I've attached a draft of the webpage text for anyone whose interested (I've left the images out as it would be too big a file).
Also as part of my LGBT voluntary activities we've begun launching new events & community groups - the first being a reading group based on the Green Carnation Award Shortlist (the first drop-in/sign-up meeting is tonight, 7pm at the Mailcoach in Swindon - Yikes!). Any advice on how to handle it very gratefully received. I was thinking of having a Christmas themed quiz as an ice breaker or is that completely naff?
Also, did the certificates for the 23 Things course ever get sent out, if so could you please re-send mine as it was never received. Thanks.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Thing 22 - volunteering
I have taken on several voluntary roles over the past 10-11 years, sometimes to get a feel for certain roles but mostly as a way of developing my skills & expanding my professional knowledge. My voluntary roles have included acting as Student Mentor at university, acting as founder/advocate for the LGBT Community project & becoming a strategic driver for the NMSI Diversity Panel Entrypoints Taskforce.
I've also worked on fundraising projects for charities such as the RNIB, Swindon Foggys & others.
I think that volunteering as a professional activity has a lot of benefits at any point of your career. It can help you build up a database of professional & transferable skills which can help you to expand your CV, get a library position, network & build up your professional knowledge. In addition to professional support volunteering can also help you to build confidence & social skills. Volunteering can also offer opportunities for building a professional portfolio & gaining experience in public speaking, as well as research & publication opportunities.
My initial voluntary positions were based on gaining work experience while at university & gaining transferrable skills to keep my CV current & marketable. As a student I was also able to use volunteer roles to test out specific career areas without tying yourself fully into that career path. In my case, during my undergraduate degree I was considering opportunities for working in libraries or as a teacher. Both these roles would involve utilising transferrable skills like customer services, as well as specific skills like public speaking & teaching. As a result I took on the role of Student Mentor. This gave me the opportunity to practice negotiation & liaison, communication & organisation skills. This mentoring role was a good basis for me to build on & use to market myself in the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) market.
Once I became more involved in libraries as a profession through my ILM Master of Research, & particularly after getting my job at SMLA, I began looking into more specific ways of volunteering. In particular I was looking for volunteer roles that would benefit the library service as well as my professional development because I believe that although taking the volunteer service to extremes could be detrimental to the library service as a whole (resulting in loss of qualified staff or cuts in services because by definition volunteers won't be there every day 9-5 & all year round), having a balanced volunteer service that supports existing & qualified staff & is able to relieve some of the pressure on them will allow libraries to focus their time & attention on areas of the service that can only be developed by someone with the proper qualifications, & who is available on a regular daily basis. Suggesting that a volunteer can take on any & all aspects of the librarians role does de-value our profession, & is frankly ridiculous, for one thing most volunteers working in their own paid positions so that they wouldn't be able to cover the service & keep it open in the same way actual employees can but with the best will in the world they wouldn't be able to keep it to the same standards either. I am not knocking volunteers AT ALL - they are absolutely brilliant & we couldn't do without them being their to support us & they can bring a wide range of transferrable skills from their other jobs to the service, but unless their other jobs is in some other library service they wouldn't have the necessary professional skills to follow through in all areas (such as cataloguing) or being able to take on the role of the strategic planner without the serviuce investing in a lot of training for them (with no guarantees about how long they'll be in the service for, how committed they are to developing themselves as librarians or anything else).
I was given the opportunity to volunteer within the NMSI organisation by our professional development & recruitment teams &, as a result of looking at how volunteers could support the library profession & the need for volunteers with service specific skills, I decided to become involved with volunteering for several NMSI strategic panels including acting as a SMEG (Science Museum Executive Group) Observer & then later taking on the role of strategic driver for the NMSI Diversity Panel Entrypoints Taskforce (EPT). These roles gave me the opportunity to learn more about strategy & leadership in the library service while acting as an advocate for different elements of the library audience & stakeholders groups, & contributing to how national policy is set, interpreted & implemented. As part of the EPT role in particular I had the opportunity to feedback to our library service, & hopefully to the wider ILM community, by creating service packs & policies to be circulated thoughout all the NMSI arms.
I also wanted to find the opportunity to have a more direct affect on national policy & procedures for public libraries, whether it involved shaping how they are implemented at a local level or how they are designed at a national level, so I began looking into opportunities in the wider ILM community & looking at what skills or experience I could bring to them. At this point I had already begun volunteering with the local LGBT Community project campaign - the aim of which is to create an 'alternative scene' & offer support to the LGBT community. As part of this community role I made contact with the local council through the LGBT Coalition & the Disability Coalition (later joined together as part of the Single Equality Coalition) & was put in contact with one of the strategic managers for the local libraries who was trying to improve LGBT services in the library. I felt this was something that would enable me to join together the three strands of my professional skills, community skills, & optimising my role as a volunteer to gain the most benefit from it. Being involved in the LGBT in Libraries project not only benefits the local public libraries, it also benefits our LGBT Community project as a whole & allows us to have some say in policy & procedures relating to our services, on the personal side it also allows me to develop a new range of professional skills which in turn helps me to improve the services of our individual library organisation.
Recently I've also had the opportunity to look at volunteering from a new angle as part of my paid employment, I have been given the role of Volunteer Supervisor for our trade literature volunteers (who are worth their weight in gold for all the work they've done on the project so far). Part of my role involved liasing with the NMSI volunteer team to actually generate the role descriptions for the trade lit. volunteers, which is where I found out that the organisation has policies in place to protect the volunteers, the service & the paid employees by maintaining the balance bewteen voluntary roles & paid roles. For instance, a volunteers role description is not allowed to include tasks that should be covered by the job description of a paid employee, & which they could reasonably be expected to carry out. on their own. So in our case we are allowed to include indexing/listing the trade lit. in our volunteer roles because there are a few hundred boxes holding several thousand unsorted pieces of trade lit. & there is no way they could expect an paid employee to work their way through that (unles they had been taken on solely for that purpose & were not involved in any other tasks or projects). On the other hand, as project leader it's part of my job description to do the strategic planning for the project so I wouldn't be able to ask the volunteers to do any of the research, or any of the development or marketing tasks. I think this may be the best model of volunteering vs. employment roles, it allows for support from both sides but makes sure the roles are clearly defined so that the volunteers don't have to worry they're being overburdened or given something to do outside their skillset, & the employees don't feel as if their roles are being taken over.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has any experience of different formats for volunteering/employee programmes & how they worked out, or if there's any suggestions for other places to find volunteer experiences beyond asking your university office, your local council or your employer's HR/training departments.
I've also worked on fundraising projects for charities such as the RNIB, Swindon Foggys & others.
I think that volunteering as a professional activity has a lot of benefits at any point of your career. It can help you build up a database of professional & transferable skills which can help you to expand your CV, get a library position, network & build up your professional knowledge. In addition to professional support volunteering can also help you to build confidence & social skills. Volunteering can also offer opportunities for building a professional portfolio & gaining experience in public speaking, as well as research & publication opportunities.
My initial voluntary positions were based on gaining work experience while at university & gaining transferrable skills to keep my CV current & marketable. As a student I was also able to use volunteer roles to test out specific career areas without tying yourself fully into that career path. In my case, during my undergraduate degree I was considering opportunities for working in libraries or as a teacher. Both these roles would involve utilising transferrable skills like customer services, as well as specific skills like public speaking & teaching. As a result I took on the role of Student Mentor. This gave me the opportunity to practice negotiation & liaison, communication & organisation skills. This mentoring role was a good basis for me to build on & use to market myself in the TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) market.
Once I became more involved in libraries as a profession through my ILM Master of Research, & particularly after getting my job at SMLA, I began looking into more specific ways of volunteering. In particular I was looking for volunteer roles that would benefit the library service as well as my professional development because I believe that although taking the volunteer service to extremes could be detrimental to the library service as a whole (resulting in loss of qualified staff or cuts in services because by definition volunteers won't be there every day 9-5 & all year round), having a balanced volunteer service that supports existing & qualified staff & is able to relieve some of the pressure on them will allow libraries to focus their time & attention on areas of the service that can only be developed by someone with the proper qualifications, & who is available on a regular daily basis. Suggesting that a volunteer can take on any & all aspects of the librarians role does de-value our profession, & is frankly ridiculous, for one thing most volunteers working in their own paid positions so that they wouldn't be able to cover the service & keep it open in the same way actual employees can but with the best will in the world they wouldn't be able to keep it to the same standards either. I am not knocking volunteers AT ALL - they are absolutely brilliant & we couldn't do without them being their to support us & they can bring a wide range of transferrable skills from their other jobs to the service, but unless their other jobs is in some other library service they wouldn't have the necessary professional skills to follow through in all areas (such as cataloguing) or being able to take on the role of the strategic planner without the serviuce investing in a lot of training for them (with no guarantees about how long they'll be in the service for, how committed they are to developing themselves as librarians or anything else).
I was given the opportunity to volunteer within the NMSI organisation by our professional development & recruitment teams &, as a result of looking at how volunteers could support the library profession & the need for volunteers with service specific skills, I decided to become involved with volunteering for several NMSI strategic panels including acting as a SMEG (Science Museum Executive Group) Observer & then later taking on the role of strategic driver for the NMSI Diversity Panel Entrypoints Taskforce (EPT). These roles gave me the opportunity to learn more about strategy & leadership in the library service while acting as an advocate for different elements of the library audience & stakeholders groups, & contributing to how national policy is set, interpreted & implemented. As part of the EPT role in particular I had the opportunity to feedback to our library service, & hopefully to the wider ILM community, by creating service packs & policies to be circulated thoughout all the NMSI arms.
I also wanted to find the opportunity to have a more direct affect on national policy & procedures for public libraries, whether it involved shaping how they are implemented at a local level or how they are designed at a national level, so I began looking into opportunities in the wider ILM community & looking at what skills or experience I could bring to them. At this point I had already begun volunteering with the local LGBT Community project campaign - the aim of which is to create an 'alternative scene' & offer support to the LGBT community. As part of this community role I made contact with the local council through the LGBT Coalition & the Disability Coalition (later joined together as part of the Single Equality Coalition) & was put in contact with one of the strategic managers for the local libraries who was trying to improve LGBT services in the library. I felt this was something that would enable me to join together the three strands of my professional skills, community skills, & optimising my role as a volunteer to gain the most benefit from it. Being involved in the LGBT in Libraries project not only benefits the local public libraries, it also benefits our LGBT Community project as a whole & allows us to have some say in policy & procedures relating to our services, on the personal side it also allows me to develop a new range of professional skills which in turn helps me to improve the services of our individual library organisation.
Recently I've also had the opportunity to look at volunteering from a new angle as part of my paid employment, I have been given the role of Volunteer Supervisor for our trade literature volunteers (who are worth their weight in gold for all the work they've done on the project so far). Part of my role involved liasing with the NMSI volunteer team to actually generate the role descriptions for the trade lit. volunteers, which is where I found out that the organisation has policies in place to protect the volunteers, the service & the paid employees by maintaining the balance bewteen voluntary roles & paid roles. For instance, a volunteers role description is not allowed to include tasks that should be covered by the job description of a paid employee, & which they could reasonably be expected to carry out. on their own. So in our case we are allowed to include indexing/listing the trade lit. in our volunteer roles because there are a few hundred boxes holding several thousand unsorted pieces of trade lit. & there is no way they could expect an paid employee to work their way through that (unles they had been taken on solely for that purpose & were not involved in any other tasks or projects). On the other hand, as project leader it's part of my job description to do the strategic planning for the project so I wouldn't be able to ask the volunteers to do any of the research, or any of the development or marketing tasks. I think this may be the best model of volunteering vs. employment roles, it allows for support from both sides but makes sure the roles are clearly defined so that the volunteers don't have to worry they're being overburdened or given something to do outside their skillset, & the employees don't feel as if their roles are being taken over.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has any experience of different formats for volunteering/employee programmes & how they worked out, or if there's any suggestions for other places to find volunteer experiences beyond asking your university office, your local council or your employer's HR/training departments.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Thing 21: Self-promotion
CVs, interviews & other self-promotion opportunities scare me a lot. I'm never sure how much info to give or how to answer certain questions. I can usually reel off the stuff about qualifications & professional skills fairly easily because the proof is all there in the certificates & job history. But when it comes to answering questions like 'where do you see yourself in 5 years time' I can have a problem, I want to promote myself but I don't want to come across as too cocky, & I obviously want to say something that reflects the job requirements as well. Luckily I don't think I'll be doing the job search rounds any time soon (fingers crossed) but I am looking at ways of becoming more involved in professional groups & getting research published so I think this Things exercise should be very useful, so here goes.
I think question 1 is all about the importance of adding value & turning a negative into a positive, which is a big part of promoting yourself especially when it comes to application forms & interviews. During our ILM course they taught us an exercise for job applications where you write down a strength/weakness statement then add a statement to it that either adds value or turns a - into a +, sometimes it can be difficult to stretch out a statement but I think it's the difficult ones that help to prepare you for the unexpected interview questions. I mean if you can re-package a love of sci-fi books or heavy metal music into a valuable asset I think you can pretty much promote anything or anyone.
LIKES (adding value):
I like reading = I have a wide knowledge base covering a range of subjects.
I like quilting = I'm focused on details as well as being creative.
I like strategic planning & writing reports = I am forward thinking & able to see the bigger picture, while at the same time able to act as part of a team.
I like indexing = I'm organised & able to carry out basic library tasks as well as strategic functions.
I like enquiries research = I'm customer focused & have experience in different forms of library research.
I like writing fiction & poetry = I'm creative & have skills that would be useful in marketing & pitching projects.
I like fndraising for Swindon Foggys & socialising = I'm committed to advocacy & inclusion, as well as being able to connect with people with different needs & backgrounds.
I like attending conferences = I'm committed to my continued professional development, & to building a professional support & liaison network.
I like sci-fi & fantasy/crime/horror books, movies, TV = I have an open mind & am able to connect with information in a variety of forms.
I like listening to music - anything from heavy metal to Joan Baez = My interests are varied & give me the opportunity to form connections with a wide range of people.
I like cooking = I can be methodical & creative at the same time, & work to strict deadlines.
I like researching organising trade lit. = I'm interested in collection development, & in how non-standard collections can be utilised.
I like working on the diversity panel = I like acting as an advovate for social inclusion, & working to ensure our service meets the needs of all its stakeholders & audiences.
I like volunteering on the LGBT Community project = I'm capable of thinking outside the box & I'm interested in how the library service can serve & support the wider community.
I like developing collections = I can look at things from different points of view to meet the needs of various audiences, as well as ensuring compliance with strategic aims.
I like blogging = I'm capable of utilising a wide range of technologies & social networking services in a variety of roles including marketing & collection development.
DISLIKES (+ to -):
I don't like physio = It has helped me to be more patient & learn more about control.
I don't like dealing with/getting through large crowds = It has helped me to develop skills in negotiation, socialisation & self confidence.
I hate call centre work = It helped me to develop my customer service & organisation skills, as well as liaison & financial reporting skills.
I don't like trying to pitch ideas to people/groups/councils who are obviously not interested = It has helped to boost my confidence levels, develop my marketing & negotiation skills, as well as developing inter-personal & networking skills.
I don't like being labelled & assumptions being made about me because of the labels = It has helped me to understand more about social inclusion & to view things from different viewpoints.
I don't like writing job applications/bursary applications = They have helped me develop my self-promotion skills & find new ways of assessing my personal & professional development.
I hate trying to convince my PC to do even the most basic tasks = It has helped me to develop my knowledge of IT & think outside the box to find new ways of accomplishing tasks.
I was very satisfied with the outcome of the LGBT in Libraries project. We were succesful in creating the collection, & launching it as a platform for future development. I've also been responsible for a series of projects & tasks at work , inc. overseeing the trade lit. move & creating a development plan for the collection. As a result of these projects I have continued to develop my professional & networking skills. In particular I have further developed my strategic planning skills, collection development skills & ability to understand issues of social inclusion.
The trade lit. project has involved generating, recruiting & supervising volunteer roles. In addition to standard collection tasks I have had to develop a deeper understanding of cataloguing & indexing, as well as utilising the internet & networking opportunities to market the collection.
I have a wide range of experiences that I can feed into a CV & job application including customer service roles, mentoring & teaching roles, research skills & much more. The problem I have is deciding what is valid experience for individual applications so I have developed a skills charting matrix to help me make these decisions. One side of the matrix will list the skills set out in the job description/person specification & the other lists all the skills I have. I then use the columns-rows to enter specific experiences that match both the matrices. From this I can then highlight which aspects I need to focus on in my CV & application.
I think question 1 is all about the importance of adding value & turning a negative into a positive, which is a big part of promoting yourself especially when it comes to application forms & interviews. During our ILM course they taught us an exercise for job applications where you write down a strength/weakness statement then add a statement to it that either adds value or turns a - into a +, sometimes it can be difficult to stretch out a statement but I think it's the difficult ones that help to prepare you for the unexpected interview questions. I mean if you can re-package a love of sci-fi books or heavy metal music into a valuable asset I think you can pretty much promote anything or anyone.
LIKES (adding value):
I like reading = I have a wide knowledge base covering a range of subjects.
I like quilting = I'm focused on details as well as being creative.
I like strategic planning & writing reports = I am forward thinking & able to see the bigger picture, while at the same time able to act as part of a team.
I like indexing = I'm organised & able to carry out basic library tasks as well as strategic functions.
I like enquiries research = I'm customer focused & have experience in different forms of library research.
I like writing fiction & poetry = I'm creative & have skills that would be useful in marketing & pitching projects.
I like fndraising for Swindon Foggys & socialising = I'm committed to advocacy & inclusion, as well as being able to connect with people with different needs & backgrounds.
I like attending conferences = I'm committed to my continued professional development, & to building a professional support & liaison network.
I like sci-fi & fantasy/crime/horror books, movies, TV = I have an open mind & am able to connect with information in a variety of forms.
I like listening to music - anything from heavy metal to Joan Baez = My interests are varied & give me the opportunity to form connections with a wide range of people.
I like cooking = I can be methodical & creative at the same time, & work to strict deadlines.
I like researching organising trade lit. = I'm interested in collection development, & in how non-standard collections can be utilised.
I like working on the diversity panel = I like acting as an advovate for social inclusion, & working to ensure our service meets the needs of all its stakeholders & audiences.
I like volunteering on the LGBT Community project = I'm capable of thinking outside the box & I'm interested in how the library service can serve & support the wider community.
I like developing collections = I can look at things from different points of view to meet the needs of various audiences, as well as ensuring compliance with strategic aims.
I like blogging = I'm capable of utilising a wide range of technologies & social networking services in a variety of roles including marketing & collection development.
DISLIKES (+ to -):
I don't like physio = It has helped me to be more patient & learn more about control.
I don't like dealing with/getting through large crowds = It has helped me to develop skills in negotiation, socialisation & self confidence.
I hate call centre work = It helped me to develop my customer service & organisation skills, as well as liaison & financial reporting skills.
I don't like trying to pitch ideas to people/groups/councils who are obviously not interested = It has helped to boost my confidence levels, develop my marketing & negotiation skills, as well as developing inter-personal & networking skills.
I don't like being labelled & assumptions being made about me because of the labels = It has helped me to understand more about social inclusion & to view things from different viewpoints.
I don't like writing job applications/bursary applications = They have helped me develop my self-promotion skills & find new ways of assessing my personal & professional development.
I hate trying to convince my PC to do even the most basic tasks = It has helped me to develop my knowledge of IT & think outside the box to find new ways of accomplishing tasks.
I was very satisfied with the outcome of the LGBT in Libraries project. We were succesful in creating the collection, & launching it as a platform for future development. I've also been responsible for a series of projects & tasks at work , inc. overseeing the trade lit. move & creating a development plan for the collection. As a result of these projects I have continued to develop my professional & networking skills. In particular I have further developed my strategic planning skills, collection development skills & ability to understand issues of social inclusion.
The trade lit. project has involved generating, recruiting & supervising volunteer roles. In addition to standard collection tasks I have had to develop a deeper understanding of cataloguing & indexing, as well as utilising the internet & networking opportunities to market the collection.
I have a wide range of experiences that I can feed into a CV & job application including customer service roles, mentoring & teaching roles, research skills & much more. The problem I have is deciding what is valid experience for individual applications so I have developed a skills charting matrix to help me make these decisions. One side of the matrix will list the skills set out in the job description/person specification & the other lists all the skills I have. I then use the columns-rows to enter specific experiences that match both the matrices. From this I can then highlight which aspects I need to focus on in my CV & application.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Thing 20 - careers
I've just been looking over some of the links on the Library Roots page & it struck me that there seem to be a lot of us librarians who went through a period of not knowing what exactly we wanted to do, & doing lots of other jobs before ending up almost as an accidental librarian or as Jennie puts it in her Dumpling in a Hanky blog 'it all started off a bit randomly'. All of which just adds more proof to my theory that many librarians are born with some kind of underlying almost genetic predisposition to be a librarian & will end up finding their way into the profession somehow, everything in between is just a valuable information & experience gathering exercise allowing us to develop transferrable skills to support our new roles in libraries or archives. My main piece of advice for people starting out in their careers or thinking about becoming a librarian is that you shouldn't be afraid to take on other jobs in the meantime or worry that all the experience on your CV absolutely has to be library related or it's going to be harrder to get a job in the field. As long as the experience proves your commitment to basic principles such as customer service & you have had at least some experience in a library-related field, either paid or voluntarily & you can demonstrate you have the skills they are looking for like customer service, organisation, etc then you WILL find a job somewhere in the field. Just don't permanently shut any doors along the way.
Thing 18 - JING & Turtles
I started looking at these a few weeks back but as was said in the blog-guide they take up a lot of time so I haven't really done much with them yet. I'm hoping to figure out a way of using them as part of the trade lit. tutorials for volunteers, & possibly even creating a series of captured "instructions" for trade literature users as well to run online alongside a set of reader guides explaining what's in the collection & how it can be used by different audience groups, but that's something that will have to wait until further into the TLC project when I've got a bit more free time. I would also have to discuss it with our IT department first to see if they would allow us to download the necessary software.
As practice I thought I would to try & use Jing to create a film explaining about how to use email functions, etc so in theory I would be able to avoid banging my head on the desk in frustration when I have to explain for the billionth time how to minimise (not close) the window or where the email address goes. I got about halfway through before I realised even if it came out ok it would still be a 'chicken & Egg' excercise in futility - if they need to be walked step by step through even a basic function like writing an email, they probably won't be able to download/set up the necessary software to allow them to follow the film, so you would have to write a film explaining how to do that, & then one explaining how to access that film, & on & on (William James was wrong, it really is 'Turtles all the way down! - sorry old American Lit. joke). Whe nI get the film finished I will probably test it out on family members before even thinking of inflicting it on the public or on our volunteers to get some feedback on just how far down the instructions need to go, at what point do we assume a certain level of pre-knowledge.
I've also had a quick look at the podcasting software available but I don't think it's anything we can use at this stage, as our various projects move on particularly once we get things like the INTL (International Network of Trade Lit.) up & running it might be something we would want to revisit as a way of sharing information between the various organisations, giving people the opportunity to speak on their specialist subject & most importantly creating a connected or group atmosphere despite their being hundreds or thousands of miles between the members.
As practice I thought I would to try & use Jing to create a film explaining about how to use email functions, etc so in theory I would be able to avoid banging my head on the desk in frustration when I have to explain for the billionth time how to minimise (not close) the window or where the email address goes. I got about halfway through before I realised even if it came out ok it would still be a 'chicken & Egg' excercise in futility - if they need to be walked step by step through even a basic function like writing an email, they probably won't be able to download/set up the necessary software to allow them to follow the film, so you would have to write a film explaining how to do that, & then one explaining how to access that film, & on & on (William James was wrong, it really is 'Turtles all the way down! - sorry old American Lit. joke). Whe nI get the film finished I will probably test it out on family members before even thinking of inflicting it on the public or on our volunteers to get some feedback on just how far down the instructions need to go, at what point do we assume a certain level of pre-knowledge.
I've also had a quick look at the podcasting software available but I don't think it's anything we can use at this stage, as our various projects move on particularly once we get things like the INTL (International Network of Trade Lit.) up & running it might be something we would want to revisit as a way of sharing information between the various organisations, giving people the opportunity to speak on their specialist subject & most importantly creating a connected or group atmosphere despite their being hundreds or thousands of miles between the members.
Thing 17: LGBT in Libraries or Adding Value to a Collection in Credit Crunch Britain
Example of a basic Prezi presentation
View Adding Value to a Collection in Credit Crunch Britain by CJ Crennell on Prezi.com or click the link below:
http://prezi.com/yya-pppznt2p/adding-value-to-a-collection-in-credit-crunch-britain/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=shareprezi&utm_medium=email
View Adding Value to a Collection in Credit Crunch Britain by CJ Crennell on Prezi.com or click the link below:
http://prezi.com/yya-pppznt2p/adding-value-to-a-collection-in-credit-crunch-britain/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=shareprezi&utm_medium=email
Thing 17: Trade Literature: A Tool For All
I've been trying to use Prezi for a couple of presentations, 1 a very brief presentation on the benefits of LGBT in Libraries & the other one trying to condensed a collection level description into a very short period of time. I think as far as animation goes & being able to move around the screen definitely beats ppt but I do wish when you resize a box or shape or something everything else would automatically retain their proportions & resize themselves. The only other issues I have are a slight technical glitch with downloading the presentations to work on offline but that's not to big of a deal, & the speed which the finished presentation 'swoops' across the screen (I could see someone suffering from seasickness watching it, but I'm sure that with a bit more investigation I'll find a way to tweak the speed). Next time we're putting together a presentation for the library I'm definitely going to recommend using Prezi I just wish it had been around while I was at uni. Being able to expand my 'slides' to whatever size I wanted would have made it a lot easier to fit the right images & text in at the right size for people to read them.
View Trade Literature: A Tool For All by CJ Crennell on Prezi.com or click the link below:
http://prezi.com/tpza9z4rrh1q/trade-literature-a-tool-for-all/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=shareprezi&utm_medium=email
One of the areas I'm considering using it in is to create a series of tutorials to show trade lit. volunteers what's happening & what they'll be doing at each stage of the project. So I will be spending the next few months looking at developing my Prezi skills to accomplish this. I'm also planning on taking part in some more group visits, talks & library forums as part of my PDP, & now that I have more time because I have (touch wood) finished my Portfolio (just the spell check & page numbers to go) so I'm hoping I'll get to use it a lot more in 'practice' situations. If anyone has any feedback on how they've found using it on talks outside their own service, where they've had to access it from a machine that doesn't have Prezi on it, I'd be interested in any tips for avoiding glitches - particularly after my last big presentation bombed completely due to Powerpoint going nuts.
View Trade Literature: A Tool For All by CJ Crennell on Prezi.com or click the link below:
http://prezi.com/tpza9z4rrh1q/trade-literature-a-tool-for-all/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=shareprezi&utm_medium=email
One of the areas I'm considering using it in is to create a series of tutorials to show trade lit. volunteers what's happening & what they'll be doing at each stage of the project. So I will be spending the next few months looking at developing my Prezi skills to accomplish this. I'm also planning on taking part in some more group visits, talks & library forums as part of my PDP, & now that I have more time because I have (touch wood) finished my Portfolio (just the spell check & page numbers to go) so I'm hoping I'll get to use it a lot more in 'practice' situations. If anyone has any feedback on how they've found using it on talks outside their own service, where they've had to access it from a machine that doesn't have Prezi on it, I'd be interested in any tips for avoiding glitches - particularly after my last big presentation bombed completely due to Powerpoint going nuts.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Thing 16 - Advocacy & Publishing
Recently I've been working as an advocate for the LGBT community, particularly as represented in our public libraries. A small group of us have started building a project to create an 'alternative scene' for the LGBT community & we have been successful in convincing the local libraries of the importance of the library role in this type of project. The aim of the project is to make the LGBT scene more inclusive in itself as well as making public services more socially inclusive as a whole, to create cultural & community partnerships, to raise awareness of the Community's issues & needs within the "straight" community. Public libraries are therefore a vital element of this project, & it is just as important to the libraries to be involved. The public library is supposed to be one of our social & community hubs that can act as a base point or link for everyone, particularly those belonging to disenrachised or minority groups, through to a wide range of communities or information without bias or prejudice. It is also just as important for libraries, particluarly in the current climate of cuts, to be able to maintain their social inclusion infrastructure & enable themselves to build relationships with different audiences & generations.
Which is why we thought a library project might be the best place to start as it would offer us the chance to make contact with a wider audience as well as having the opportunity to take the project in a number of different directions.
So at the beginning of the library stage of the project we conducted a survey of the LGBT services & stock available - sadly I could've counted on 1 hand the number of gay/trans books/DVDs availble & as for lesbian literature (zero). Our first job therefore was to lobby the library to raise awareness of the lack of support & representation of the LGBT community & get them on-board to begin building our community project. So far we have created a whole new LGBT collection, inc. books & DVDs for all elements of the community, which was launched last Thursday with a film screening & drop-in session. As part of the project, & as a result of my being able to develop my blogging skills through this course, I was given the opportunity to be responsible for some of the marketing, including creating an LGBT in Libraries blog (http://lgbtinlibraries.blogspot.com/ ). Now that the collection is up & running the library part of the project will, hopefully, continue to develop to include new services such as LGBT reading groups that will not only bring more people into the library but will also (fingers crossed) bring more people to join the LGBT Community Project. Greater public support is going to be a big issue for the next stage of the project as it will involve working in partnership with the whole LGBT community to find out what they want in an alternative scene, as well as lobbying the local Single Equality Coalition & various council departments to help us begin to set it up & keep it running (gulp!). If there's anyone out there who has had any experience of convincing local councils to support community projects, any advice on how to persuade them to at least hear us out & hopefully come on-board gratefully received. Thanks.
Which is why we thought a library project might be the best place to start as it would offer us the chance to make contact with a wider audience as well as having the opportunity to take the project in a number of different directions.
So at the beginning of the library stage of the project we conducted a survey of the LGBT services & stock available - sadly I could've counted on 1 hand the number of gay/trans books/DVDs availble & as for lesbian literature (zero). Our first job therefore was to lobby the library to raise awareness of the lack of support & representation of the LGBT community & get them on-board to begin building our community project. So far we have created a whole new LGBT collection, inc. books & DVDs for all elements of the community, which was launched last Thursday with a film screening & drop-in session. As part of the project, & as a result of my being able to develop my blogging skills through this course, I was given the opportunity to be responsible for some of the marketing, including creating an LGBT in Libraries blog (http://lgbtinlibraries.blogspot.com/ ). Now that the collection is up & running the library part of the project will, hopefully, continue to develop to include new services such as LGBT reading groups that will not only bring more people into the library but will also (fingers crossed) bring more people to join the LGBT Community Project. Greater public support is going to be a big issue for the next stage of the project as it will involve working in partnership with the whole LGBT community to find out what they want in an alternative scene, as well as lobbying the local Single Equality Coalition & various council departments to help us begin to set it up & keep it running (gulp!). If there's anyone out there who has had any experience of convincing local councils to support community projects, any advice on how to persuade them to at least hear us out & hopefully come on-board gratefully received. Thanks.
Thing 13 - Google docs, Wikis & Dropbox
thingthing1CPI think the Dropbox is one I might suggest to our organisation - we're always having a problem with file sharing between people on different sites, often documents are too big to be sent by email, or they arrive & take ages to open. We do have a swap area on our hard drive, but more often than not the person who needs to have access to a shared document hasn't been given access permissions to the specific swap folders/documents so they have to go through the hassle of contacting IT to get them to change the settings, etc. The Dropbox could cut down on a lot of this & make joint projects a lot easier to oversee.
On the other hand, I'm not too sure about the wiki idea, probably partly because of wikipedia's complete open door editor policy - anyone can write change/update an entry even if their info is wrong & there's no real provenance for the "facts" on their, you just have to take things on trust & trust that people won't access your entries & write something completely horrific. As a result even without looking into the course links in too much detail I've kind of decided it's probably not for me. But I'm willing to have an open mind enough to at least look at the info on the CPD23 page & see if wiki's are possibly more secure & useful than I think.
mSuggestions for your Thing 13 blog postYou could write about your first impressions of any or all of these tools, or you could explore their potential uses within your library. If you are already using one or more of them, you could write about the kinds of projects for which they have been useful. If you wish, you could also compare and contrast the value of each of these different tools and consider how they could be used to further your own professional development.
Don’t forget to visit other CPD23 blogs and share your insights with other CPD23 participants!
On the other hand, I'm not too sure about the wiki idea, probably partly because of wikipedia's complete open door editor policy - anyone can write change/update an entry even if their info is wrong & there's no real provenance for the "facts" on their, you just have to take things on trust & trust that people won't access your entries & write something completely horrific. As a result even without looking into the course links in too much detail I've kind of decided it's probably not for me. But I'm willing to have an open mind enough to at least look at the info on the CPD23 page & see if wiki's are possibly more secure & useful than I think.
mSuggestions for your Thing 13 blog postYou could write about your first impressions of any or all of these tools, or you could explore their potential uses within your library. If you are already using one or more of them, you could write about the kinds of projects for which they have been useful. If you wish, you could also compare and contrast the value of each of these different tools and consider how they could be used to further your own professional development.
Don’t forget to visit other CPD23 blogs and share your insights with other CPD23 participants!
Friday, 7 October 2011
Thing 15 - Events - attending, speaking, & organising
I've had some experience of public speaking mostly at university or in my previous role as a TEFL teacher (I think teaching is the most terrifying form of public speaking - standing up in a classroom full of teenagers, most of whom would rather be off doing something else especially in summer school!). Mostly though I've made presentations to other students either as part of assessed coursework projects or as part of student projects like Student Mentoring. For instance, while studying in America I had to summarise & present a series of ACLU law reviews to our American Civil Liberties class on a regular basis. I've also given assessed presentations on topics ranging from 'Native American schooling in the C18th & its cultural effect' to 'Thematic analysis in LIS research methods'. The discussion caused be the latter presentation was particularly helpful when it came time to create the research methods for my dissertation & arrange research events, including focus groups & market research surveys. Despite these scary, but ultimate good, experiences of speaking at & organising events I haven't had a lot of experience of actual 'professional' public speaking apart from a few talks given at forums such as the Oxford TeachMeet or the LGBT in Libraries launch which went off yesterday without a hitch, & with lots of interest. I have been involved in arranging various group visits at our library & talking to them about our collections & services but I am trying to gain more experience of arranging or speaking at professional events, in order to continue to expand my skills in advocacy & professional networking. As part of this I have been applying to attend various conferences & other events through bursary/grant applications, which not only give the opportunity to attend the conference but usually offer the opportunity to have an article published or give a talk about your conference experience. For instance, I applied for the recent CILIP Aspire Award as well as the last 2 SLA-ECCA conference awards, but so far I haven't had much luck. I am putting together a list of conferences, such as next year's Umbrella conference, & various workshops to investigate ways of finding support to attend them or saving up for them. I'm particularly interested in these areas:
Trade Literature
Marketing
Web Writing
Digitisation projects
Advocacy
National Policy
Diversity, Disability & LGBT
If anyone hears of any events in these areas please let me know so that I can investigate the possibility of attending.
One of the main issues I have found relating to attending events as a Swindonian or even setting them up is the affect of geography (we don't quite fall into any of the geographical categories of West, East, South or Central). Most professional events that are already in place are either in London or Bristol, or even further afield, & you have to factor in at least a couple of hours travel time. When it comes to setting up our own events the issue is finding like minded people, who are willing to travel all the way to Swindon. For instance, we launched our LGBT in Libraries project yesterday & in the run up we were trying to circulate information & invites to as wide a community group as possible - particularly as opportunities for networking with the LGBT Community in Swindon are slim, there is one club & one pub & that is about it, just one of the many reasons we've been trying to get groups like LGBT in Libraries off the ground. As part of the marketing we tried making contact with 'local'-ish community groups that are already in existence & while they were all happy to pass on details to their members on the day of the launch we were pretty much limited to interest from Swindon librarians & Swindon community members. Although the wider professional/social community might support a project in principle it can be incredibly difficult to actually get them to actually physically support it by attending events outside of their own geographical community. One of the areas we're currently looking at is linking our local events into national events/campaigns, such as the Green Carnation book award, not just to raise our profile but to hopefully forge links with other community groups across the country. As a result we will be looking at the possibility of setting up a new LGBT reading group in our local libraries to make use of our brand new collection. We're also looking at other ways we can get our local council or local equality coalition involved in supporting us to provide other community groups & services but there's a long way to go before we're anywhere close to arranging anything in that area.
As well as the LGBT community group work I'm also interested in looking at setting up a professional library network in Swindon & the surrounding area. I'm not sure what format it would take, whether it would just be a regular social meeting in a cafe or pub (perhaps even getting involved in regular events - pub quizzes, film nights, or anything else in the Swindon area) or a more structured series of events where we could invite guest speakers, or some combination of the two. At the moment I'm trying to find out whether there is anyone in the area who would be interested in anything like this but I've hit a bit of a brick wall in that as there is no existing networking group or local professional newsletter for the Swindon area it is very difficult to make information available or get feedback with colleagues from other sectors. I'm trying to figure out a way of getting the information out to more people on a local level, obviously I will at some point be making contact with CILIP's newsletter as a possible way of sending out information but there's no guarantees that all librarians in Swindon are members so I would like to find a way to make contact at the local level. Any advice at all on how to set up a local group, particularly making 1st contact with people would be very gratefully received.
For my part, the main piece of advice I would give to anyone who is planning on speaking at or organising an event may seem an obvious one given the topic - you must practise COMMUNICATING, with your team leader, line manager, colleagues, stakeholders & audience & anyone else you can think of. You can write the best speech of your life but if you've fall down when it comes to communicate with your audience & marketing your event nobody will be there to hear it. It's also very important that you don't assume that just because you wrote it or organised it it is automatically brilliant & doesn't need to be changed at all there is ALWAYS room for feedback & improvement.
The other thing that is helped by practising communicating, or even just proactising your presentation in front of your colleagues & getting their feedback, is your sense of self-confidence & your belief in the project which will be a massive boost when it comes time to actually get up & start talking particularly if you're trying to get other professionals to sign up to your project.
Trade Literature
Marketing
Web Writing
Digitisation projects
Advocacy
National Policy
Diversity, Disability & LGBT
If anyone hears of any events in these areas please let me know so that I can investigate the possibility of attending.
One of the main issues I have found relating to attending events as a Swindonian or even setting them up is the affect of geography (we don't quite fall into any of the geographical categories of West, East, South or Central). Most professional events that are already in place are either in London or Bristol, or even further afield, & you have to factor in at least a couple of hours travel time. When it comes to setting up our own events the issue is finding like minded people, who are willing to travel all the way to Swindon. For instance, we launched our LGBT in Libraries project yesterday & in the run up we were trying to circulate information & invites to as wide a community group as possible - particularly as opportunities for networking with the LGBT Community in Swindon are slim, there is one club & one pub & that is about it, just one of the many reasons we've been trying to get groups like LGBT in Libraries off the ground. As part of the marketing we tried making contact with 'local'-ish community groups that are already in existence & while they were all happy to pass on details to their members on the day of the launch we were pretty much limited to interest from Swindon librarians & Swindon community members. Although the wider professional/social community might support a project in principle it can be incredibly difficult to actually get them to actually physically support it by attending events outside of their own geographical community. One of the areas we're currently looking at is linking our local events into national events/campaigns, such as the Green Carnation book award, not just to raise our profile but to hopefully forge links with other community groups across the country. As a result we will be looking at the possibility of setting up a new LGBT reading group in our local libraries to make use of our brand new collection. We're also looking at other ways we can get our local council or local equality coalition involved in supporting us to provide other community groups & services but there's a long way to go before we're anywhere close to arranging anything in that area.
As well as the LGBT community group work I'm also interested in looking at setting up a professional library network in Swindon & the surrounding area. I'm not sure what format it would take, whether it would just be a regular social meeting in a cafe or pub (perhaps even getting involved in regular events - pub quizzes, film nights, or anything else in the Swindon area) or a more structured series of events where we could invite guest speakers, or some combination of the two. At the moment I'm trying to find out whether there is anyone in the area who would be interested in anything like this but I've hit a bit of a brick wall in that as there is no existing networking group or local professional newsletter for the Swindon area it is very difficult to make information available or get feedback with colleagues from other sectors. I'm trying to figure out a way of getting the information out to more people on a local level, obviously I will at some point be making contact with CILIP's newsletter as a possible way of sending out information but there's no guarantees that all librarians in Swindon are members so I would like to find a way to make contact at the local level. Any advice at all on how to set up a local group, particularly making 1st contact with people would be very gratefully received.
For my part, the main piece of advice I would give to anyone who is planning on speaking at or organising an event may seem an obvious one given the topic - you must practise COMMUNICATING, with your team leader, line manager, colleagues, stakeholders & audience & anyone else you can think of. You can write the best speech of your life but if you've fall down when it comes to communicate with your audience & marketing your event nobody will be there to hear it. It's also very important that you don't assume that just because you wrote it or organised it it is automatically brilliant & doesn't need to be changed at all there is ALWAYS room for feedback & improvement.
The other thing that is helped by practising communicating, or even just proactising your presentation in front of your colleagues & getting their feedback, is your sense of self-confidence & your belief in the project which will be a massive boost when it comes time to actually get up & start talking particularly if you're trying to get other professionals to sign up to your project.
Thing 14b - Mendeley
I had a bit of a problem getting either of these set up - kiosk software strikes again. I managed to download Mendeley to my home computer but as a lot of the research I'm doing is work-based I haven't been able to use it as much as I want. I think it is going to be a big help to me when it comes to organising my evidence, appendices & bibliography for my Chartership portfolio & also for future projects.
One of the things I like most about it is the "one-stop-shop" aspect - if I find an article or something online I can make notes on it straight away (& be able to access them later from a different computer WITHOUT cluttering up my email or trying not to lose fiddly little usb sticks), I can download the article itself, plus find the correct citation & other information without have to dig around even more.
I'm hoping that this tool will help me to create a more professional portfolio & to be able to illustrate the breadth of my professional knowledge on a wider scale. I'm also hoping that as I become more involved in specific research projects at work or as part of my studies it will help me to remain organised & better manage my time so that I can work more effectively & share my findings with my colleagues & the wider LIS audience.
In terms of actually directly supporting our library users however, I will be limited by the fact that it cannot be accessed on any of our work computers because of the Kiosk software settings. I can, however, use it as an illustrative example for students/academics who may need help in organising their research, referencing their work or sharing findings. I can also point them in the direction of other similar online tools & research management software. Our users tend to be split between the very academic & obscure research projects (Masters/PhD research/Professors/etc) & the general public working on specific research tasks, usually family history related - for many of the latter this can often be their first real 'research' project & the former may have experience of researching their very specific field but will need help in finding their way around the more general research options & tools available. I think that Mendeley would be a great way of signposting the research path for both groups.
One of the things I like most about it is the "one-stop-shop" aspect - if I find an article or something online I can make notes on it straight away (& be able to access them later from a different computer WITHOUT cluttering up my email or trying not to lose fiddly little usb sticks), I can download the article itself, plus find the correct citation & other information without have to dig around even more.
I'm hoping that this tool will help me to create a more professional portfolio & to be able to illustrate the breadth of my professional knowledge on a wider scale. I'm also hoping that as I become more involved in specific research projects at work or as part of my studies it will help me to remain organised & better manage my time so that I can work more effectively & share my findings with my colleagues & the wider LIS audience.
In terms of actually directly supporting our library users however, I will be limited by the fact that it cannot be accessed on any of our work computers because of the Kiosk software settings. I can, however, use it as an illustrative example for students/academics who may need help in organising their research, referencing their work or sharing findings. I can also point them in the direction of other similar online tools & research management software. Our users tend to be split between the very academic & obscure research projects (Masters/PhD research/Professors/etc) & the general public working on specific research tasks, usually family history related - for many of the latter this can often be their first real 'research' project & the former may have experience of researching their very specific field but will need help in finding their way around the more general research options & tools available. I think that Mendeley would be a great way of signposting the research path for both groups.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Thing 12 - social networking a blessing or a curse?
I've been using SWOT analysis to consider the question of social networking as a benefit or disadvantage in professional development & to consider new ways of utilising these online tools to maximimise their benefit. One of the main advantages that I've highlighted is that it is a remote system of development - anyone can join from anywhere without being restricted by geography, as a result it opens up even more opportunities for developing networks & professional knowledge. Unfortunately it's main advantage can also be it's main disadvantage as the fact that they're remote access online tools can mean that you're unable to continue to develop professional relationships into the 'human' world. However, I think the advantages & opportunities for social networking as a development tool far outweigh the advantages. For instance, if it wasn't for CPD23 I probably wouldn't have been able to make contact with such a wide range of specialist & public libraries or been able to get advice & support on such a wide range of topics. It has also meant that I've had the advantage of seeing topics & issues from wide range of different vantage points which has helped me to better understand the LIS professional knowledge base, as well as looking at operational & strategic tools from outside the LIS service as having the potential to support our projects & developments. Having a set CPD23 course to follow has also helped to foster a sense of community in other ways, for instance, ensuring that I remain in contact with the network & am keeping up to date with what's happening in different parts of the community as it can be all too easy to become wrapped up in your own specific projects & daily tasks, & to keep putting off the 'social' side of your professional development. With CPD23, on the other hand, there's a series of weekly/bi-weekly goals to achieve which reminds you that networking is just as important to your professional development as any formal training course & gives you the impetus to keep up with it.
Monday, 5 September 2011
Professional reading
I've been flicking through various blogs & RSS feeds to see what everyone is up to & I'm feeling really bad that I'm not managing to fit in as much professional reading as everyone else. Obviously I read the CILIP updates & a couple of the archive/library organisations newsletters (our library has memberships with most of them so they get passed around at work), & I read articles/guidelines/policies associated with my specific tasks or with Chartership, & of course blogs. But I keep meaning to read all sorts of books on libraries, diversity, etc, etc - in fact I have a large list of "must read thar when I get the chance" books & articles but then I never seem to find time to get around to them. How does everyone else manage it? Is there a secret trick to reading while writing a report, answering an enquiry, cataloguing a collection, making dinner, & having something resembling a social life, or is it possible to read in your sleep?
Also does anyone have any books (preferrably short ones) they can suggest for me to add to the list - particularly anything relating to writing for the web, finding a mentor, trade literature collections, diversity in the library/archives, unions & library/archive services or leadership & management in libraries/archives.
Also does anyone have any books (preferrably short ones) they can suggest for me to add to the list - particularly anything relating to writing for the web, finding a mentor, trade literature collections, diversity in the library/archives, unions & library/archive services or leadership & management in libraries/archives.
Thing 11 - Mentoring
Finding a mentor can be a difficult & scary experience at times but it is well worth the effort. Not only do mentors provide practical support & advice but they can also be a useful tool when it comes to networking or act as a sounding board for ideas & issues. I've had some experience with mentors, particularly as part of my Chartership process & university dissertations. The main thing I've found when choosing mentors is that wherever possible you should choose one who not only is in the same field (libraries) but who has some specific knowledge of the area you work in or project your creating. For instance, I work in a special library, focused on science, engineering, technology & medicine so when I wad looking for a mentor I wanted to find someone in the same kind of field, luckily I found someone on the CILIP Chartership list who was based at Oxford University's Radcliffe Library. It made things a lot easier as he already understood a lot of the issues I was facing not just in general library terms, but also the specifics of dealing with rare books & of dealing with science based enquiries & handling/conservation of scientific material. The Chartership mentor register made it a lot easier & less scary to find someone & pluck up the courage to ask them to be my mentor, for a start it was guaranteed that they were willing to be a mentor or they wouldn't be on the list. You also have a lot of information on the list about their specific interests which makes it easier to decide whether they would be interested in your project. Choosing a mentor on your own, however, is not always so simple. You don't have a handy guide to hand to tell you what their interests are or whether they are even interested in mentoring. I've had to go through the process 3 times looking for dissertation supervisors with varying degrees of success. The first time I was researching Native American culture as part of my BA but I didn't really know how to choose a mentor, plus I was a bit scared of asking & getting turned down. As a result although my supervisor was as helpful as he could be his specific area of knowledge didn't cover my topic. Next time round I was more organised I made a list of the topics I was covering for my MRes & specific areas I might need support in then began googling relevant lecturers to find one who matched my criteria - most lecturers have some kind of internet profile that lists their research interests & involvement in organisations & groups. Tat worked out a lot better but I still have a slight problem with confidence when it comes to asking complete strangers for support. I'm currently looking for a professional mentor for informal support/advice on professional development, training opportunities, etc but I'm not sure how to go about asking someone who hasn't indicated an interest in mentoring (through CILIP registration or other), if anyone has any tips on how to make an approach & sell yourself as a mentee I'd be very grateful. Some of the areas if training I'm particularly interested in are writing for marketing/web content & mentiring/supervisor training. I had some very basic mentor training at university when I was a Student Mentor but now I would like to try & build on it. Partly in response to my role as operational volunteer supervisor & my involvement in our Diversity Panel, but also because I would be interested in acting as a Chartership mentor in the future.
CJ Crennell
CJ Crennell
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Chartership portfolio advice
I've almost finished my Chartership portfolio. Just the bibliography, appendix & glossary to do. Unfortunately I've been struck by a case of word blindness & can't decide what needs to go in the gloss. Are we supposed to pretend the assessors (& any other readers) know absolutely nothing about libraries & list & explain every single acronym, library term & basically everything, or can we get away with just listing those terms that are specific to our individual situation?
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Thing 10 - 10 Steps to Growing A Librarian
[Tip 1 - Get very lucky!]
A lot of people can point to a single event or instance as the reason for their career choice, or they can say they became interested in a career path after they studied it at school/college/university. This isn't the case when you are born (or is it cursed?) with the librarian gene. My first idea of librarian as a possible career didn't come from my studies at uni or college, or even school, it didn't even stem from the first time I ever visited a library & took out a book I truly believe that I was born with the idea already in my head. It was probably passed to me by osmosis from my mother (a librarian & museum's officer) & my father (a teacher).
[Tip 2 - Try everything!]
Of course I didn't realise this until many years later, in fact I spent a lot of my childhood convinced I was going to be a ballerina, a journalist, a novelist & a marine biologist (then on the weekends I would travel the world & become a rock star). But as a result of this early, & I'm sure completely unintentional, indoctrination whenever I was given the choice of subjects to study or work experience or other skill development exercises I would always find myself being drawn towards choices that would make a suitable basis for libraianship, for instance, between the ages of 5-11 I was enrolled in ballet classes & would spend one night a week in a community hall learning to dance - after class instead of going home I would go & visit our local museum or library & spend an hour or two there, eventually the ballet lessons stopped but I kept visiting the museums & libraries. By the time I had to choose my GCSE options in year 9 this trend towards academic & historical subjects was quite deeply ingrained, & obvious in all of my career guidance tests & discussions. But I was still convinced I was going to go into some other field such as politics, anthropology or journalism, which is why at A Level I took Politics, General Studies, English Language, & Psychology, & only completed one year of a history A Level (that & the fact that our history lecturer disappeared about a third of the way through the year & so we were completely unprepared for our mock exams let alone moving up to the 2nd yr).
[Tip 3 - You don't always have to be specific!]
After college I was still unsure about what I really wanted to do so I decided to complete a BA in American Studies, a degree which covers a wide range of disciplines including History, Politics, Literature, Philosophy, Cultural Studies & Anthropology, as well as offering the opportunity to study abroad. Obviously if you are 100% sure of what field you want to work in, particularly in relation to Science/Medicine/Law, it would be a good idea to get a more subject specific degree, but if like me you are still trying to keep your options open & would like to gain experience in a range of fields, this type of multi-disciplinary degree is a very good idea. Even if you are a 100% sure that you want to go into a field like librarianship it can still be useful to have an undergraduate degree in as wide a subject as possible as it helps you to develop your ability to transfer skills & broadens your knowledge on a wide range of subjects (always good for a librarian), & these days it's not absolutely necessary to have an undergrad in libraries. You may however want to sign up to a postgrad library course or graduate traineeship afterwards as this not only shows your commitment to the field, but also helps to guide your professional development & should help your career to progress from assitant librarian to manager of library services or other strategic role.
[Tip 4 - Any experience is good experience!]
Which is why I eventually got an MRes in Information & Library Management from University of the West of England, but not before I had completed my American Studies postgrad course & toyed with the idea of becoming a teacher - I even worked for a while as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher. This meant that I started my actual career a couple of years late rather than straight after graduating. At the time I used to panic about this because I was surrounded by people who all seemed to know exactly what they were doing with their lives & people who kept telling me to make a decision, but looking back I can see that it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that I would end up in the library field but I am really glad I had a couple of years to try out some other jobs & learn more about what my choices were before making the final "decision". For instance, I learnt that despite managing to spend approximately 10 years working a variety of part-time/full-time roles in a number of different call centres to pay my way through university, I don't really have the temprament to work in such a high turn over customer service environment. I loathed working in telesales, & tele-debt collections for a utility company was the worst, but it did teach me a lot about customer service which I have since been able to tone down & adapt to other jobs with less intense but not less important customer service targets.
[Tip 5 - Work experience!]
During this decision time, & prior to doing my MRes, I did decided to get a short term post in the information field, as I wanted to make absolutely sure it was the career I wanted before committing the money & resources to going back to uni so I spent about 8 months working at the National Monuments Record Centre (English Heritage) before starting my course. This role allowed me to tone down the customer service skills from previous roles & balance them with the need for other skills & abilities, such as indexing/cataloguing, digitisation skills & much more & as a result I deceided to go ahead with my MRes course in Information & Library Management.
[Tip 6 - Research!]
While studying for my masters I became particularly interested in how minorities are represented & serviced by the library service, I even completed my dissertation on the topic of disabled access in public libraries. As a result I have spent the past three years working in a role that would allow me not only to complete standard library tasks but also to expand my knowledge & skills into the advocacy, strategy & leadership fields through opportunities such as my involvement in the Diversity Panel & Entrypoints Taskforce.
[Tip 7 - Don't give up!]
The first hurdle was finding, applying for & actually getting any library job. I started out with a fixed idea of the type of library I wanted to work in & the type of role I wanted to start out in but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to get a job that specific. One of the first things I did was to re-assess my CV & look for ways that I could tailor it towards specific library fields. 'Tailoring' doesn't mean lying or inventing or even exaggerating, it just means making sure relevant elements of your CV are specifically highlighted. For instance, the customer service jobs I've had are useful in illustrating that I have transferrable customer service skills but for a position as a librarian I wouldn't need an indepth analysis of them on my CV, my role as archive assistant at the NMRC on the other hand is an area that I felt I needed to re-write to better showcase by library skills. I then sent my CV out on spec to several libraries but I also signed up with LISJobNet & several other general job agencies. I received a lot of rejections at first & at times considered giving up & staying in the customer service sector, but then I began asking for feedback from the rejections which helped me to understand how I could change my applications & CV. The feedback also showed me that I had already done a lot of work to develop the skills needed in the library field at the time through my other roles it was just a question of finding new ways to showcase them in my applications. Eventually I was lucky enough to get a position in the library field that actually met some of my own pre-conceived ideas about what kind of role I wanted:
I began my current role as library & archive assistant in 2008 & in the past 3 yrs I have learnt more about the importance of 'non-librarian' skills & how far the librarians role extends than ever before. My own role has expanded from basic tasks of reader enquiries, basic cataloguing tasks, re-shelving, etc to include a wide range of marketing, research & strategic planning tasks. Since joining the SMLA I have supported museum exhibitions, created marketing materials for a variety of audiences, created a range of strategic project plans, supervised volunteers & conducted research into a number of fields including minorities, human resources, education resources & stakeholder analysis. As a result of these opportunities I've had for role diversification I'm even more glad now than ever before that I took the opporunity to work in a range of roles while at university & took on a multi-disciplinary approach to my own education.
[Tip 9 - Raise your Profile]
Now that I have settled into my role & have taken on opportunities for research & leadership within the organisation I am looking for ways of raising my professional profile, partly in relation to my Chartership application but also to open new avenues for networking & continued professional development. Unfortunately raising my profile hasn't been as easy as I first thought. In certain areas - creating online profiles, blogs, etc - it has been relatively easy to create a professional profile for myself (especially with courses like the 23 Things for Professional Development) as all that is required is the commitment & time to do it. But in other areas such as getting yourself published, attending conferences, etc it has been a lot more difficult. As a result my tip would be to network within your organisation, find yourself a mentor/line manager & get their support in making a case for attending conferences, professional visits & training sessions as part of your PPDP they may also be able to support you in finding ways of getting your own research published.
[Tip 10 - It's never too early!]
As soon as I began working at the SMLA I created a 'CPD file' where I kept copies of any documents I'd created or projects I'd been involved in or anything else that might eventually be of use for my CPD projects such as the Chartership portfolio. As I went along I would add bits & pieces to the file & would then sort through the file at the end of each month, this made it easier to eventually put together my portfolio evidence. It also meant I had already taken the time to reflect on & analyse different projects & documents, which was enormously helpful when it came to writing the reflective passages for the portfolio such as the Evaluative Statement. I also began looking for other ways of collecting evidence & developing my skills & I'm currently volunteering for two different projects (1 in-house & 1 external) which will help me to develop new skills, make new networking partnerships & raise my profile as well as helping me to continue to learn more about the Information & Library Management Field in relation to my specific interests. Both the projects I'm volunteering with involve specific areas of research that I'm interested in including minortiy representation in the library services & stock, & management & strategic techniques for advocacy & policy planning. Without these volunteering opportunities it could be quite a long time before I'm able to develop my paid role enough to be able to gain this kind of work experience. I would say that if any opportunities come along it's always a good idea to put your hand up, or at least find out more about them.
I'm hoping to continue to use these steps as guides to my continued professional development, which I hope will eventually lead to my taking on a more managerial/strategic role within the library field such as operational or strategic manager for a library. However, I still have a long way to go to achieve this & am constantly looking for opportunities to develop my skills, in partuicular I'm looking for opportunities in advocacy, policy setting & people management/supervision. Any hints, tips or advice in these areas very gratefully received.
A lot of people can point to a single event or instance as the reason for their career choice, or they can say they became interested in a career path after they studied it at school/college/university. This isn't the case when you are born (or is it cursed?) with the librarian gene. My first idea of librarian as a possible career didn't come from my studies at uni or college, or even school, it didn't even stem from the first time I ever visited a library & took out a book I truly believe that I was born with the idea already in my head. It was probably passed to me by osmosis from my mother (a librarian & museum's officer) & my father (a teacher).
[Tip 2 - Try everything!]
Of course I didn't realise this until many years later, in fact I spent a lot of my childhood convinced I was going to be a ballerina, a journalist, a novelist & a marine biologist (then on the weekends I would travel the world & become a rock star). But as a result of this early, & I'm sure completely unintentional, indoctrination whenever I was given the choice of subjects to study or work experience or other skill development exercises I would always find myself being drawn towards choices that would make a suitable basis for libraianship, for instance, between the ages of 5-11 I was enrolled in ballet classes & would spend one night a week in a community hall learning to dance - after class instead of going home I would go & visit our local museum or library & spend an hour or two there, eventually the ballet lessons stopped but I kept visiting the museums & libraries. By the time I had to choose my GCSE options in year 9 this trend towards academic & historical subjects was quite deeply ingrained, & obvious in all of my career guidance tests & discussions. But I was still convinced I was going to go into some other field such as politics, anthropology or journalism, which is why at A Level I took Politics, General Studies, English Language, & Psychology, & only completed one year of a history A Level (that & the fact that our history lecturer disappeared about a third of the way through the year & so we were completely unprepared for our mock exams let alone moving up to the 2nd yr).
[Tip 3 - You don't always have to be specific!]
After college I was still unsure about what I really wanted to do so I decided to complete a BA in American Studies, a degree which covers a wide range of disciplines including History, Politics, Literature, Philosophy, Cultural Studies & Anthropology, as well as offering the opportunity to study abroad. Obviously if you are 100% sure of what field you want to work in, particularly in relation to Science/Medicine/Law, it would be a good idea to get a more subject specific degree, but if like me you are still trying to keep your options open & would like to gain experience in a range of fields, this type of multi-disciplinary degree is a very good idea. Even if you are a 100% sure that you want to go into a field like librarianship it can still be useful to have an undergraduate degree in as wide a subject as possible as it helps you to develop your ability to transfer skills & broadens your knowledge on a wide range of subjects (always good for a librarian), & these days it's not absolutely necessary to have an undergrad in libraries. You may however want to sign up to a postgrad library course or graduate traineeship afterwards as this not only shows your commitment to the field, but also helps to guide your professional development & should help your career to progress from assitant librarian to manager of library services or other strategic role.
[Tip 4 - Any experience is good experience!]
Which is why I eventually got an MRes in Information & Library Management from University of the West of England, but not before I had completed my American Studies postgrad course & toyed with the idea of becoming a teacher - I even worked for a while as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teacher. This meant that I started my actual career a couple of years late rather than straight after graduating. At the time I used to panic about this because I was surrounded by people who all seemed to know exactly what they were doing with their lives & people who kept telling me to make a decision, but looking back I can see that it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that I would end up in the library field but I am really glad I had a couple of years to try out some other jobs & learn more about what my choices were before making the final "decision". For instance, I learnt that despite managing to spend approximately 10 years working a variety of part-time/full-time roles in a number of different call centres to pay my way through university, I don't really have the temprament to work in such a high turn over customer service environment. I loathed working in telesales, & tele-debt collections for a utility company was the worst, but it did teach me a lot about customer service which I have since been able to tone down & adapt to other jobs with less intense but not less important customer service targets.
[Tip 5 - Work experience!]
During this decision time, & prior to doing my MRes, I did decided to get a short term post in the information field, as I wanted to make absolutely sure it was the career I wanted before committing the money & resources to going back to uni so I spent about 8 months working at the National Monuments Record Centre (English Heritage) before starting my course. This role allowed me to tone down the customer service skills from previous roles & balance them with the need for other skills & abilities, such as indexing/cataloguing, digitisation skills & much more & as a result I deceided to go ahead with my MRes course in Information & Library Management.
[Tip 6 - Research!]
While studying for my masters I became particularly interested in how minorities are represented & serviced by the library service, I even completed my dissertation on the topic of disabled access in public libraries. As a result I have spent the past three years working in a role that would allow me not only to complete standard library tasks but also to expand my knowledge & skills into the advocacy, strategy & leadership fields through opportunities such as my involvement in the Diversity Panel & Entrypoints Taskforce.
[Tip 7 - Don't give up!]
The first hurdle was finding, applying for & actually getting any library job. I started out with a fixed idea of the type of library I wanted to work in & the type of role I wanted to start out in but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to get a job that specific. One of the first things I did was to re-assess my CV & look for ways that I could tailor it towards specific library fields. 'Tailoring' doesn't mean lying or inventing or even exaggerating, it just means making sure relevant elements of your CV are specifically highlighted. For instance, the customer service jobs I've had are useful in illustrating that I have transferrable customer service skills but for a position as a librarian I wouldn't need an indepth analysis of them on my CV, my role as archive assistant at the NMRC on the other hand is an area that I felt I needed to re-write to better showcase by library skills. I then sent my CV out on spec to several libraries but I also signed up with LISJobNet & several other general job agencies. I received a lot of rejections at first & at times considered giving up & staying in the customer service sector, but then I began asking for feedback from the rejections which helped me to understand how I could change my applications & CV. The feedback also showed me that I had already done a lot of work to develop the skills needed in the library field at the time through my other roles it was just a question of finding new ways to showcase them in my applications. Eventually I was lucky enough to get a position in the library field that actually met some of my own pre-conceived ideas about what kind of role I wanted:
- A role in a specialist library
- A role working with special collections/archives as well as books
- A role that would allow me to work in a variety of locations
- A role that would allow me to gain experience beyond the basic library skills, e.g. marketing, strategic planning
- A role that would offer opportunities for further LIS research
- Preferrably within travelling distance of my current home
I began my current role as library & archive assistant in 2008 & in the past 3 yrs I have learnt more about the importance of 'non-librarian' skills & how far the librarians role extends than ever before. My own role has expanded from basic tasks of reader enquiries, basic cataloguing tasks, re-shelving, etc to include a wide range of marketing, research & strategic planning tasks. Since joining the SMLA I have supported museum exhibitions, created marketing materials for a variety of audiences, created a range of strategic project plans, supervised volunteers & conducted research into a number of fields including minorities, human resources, education resources & stakeholder analysis. As a result of these opportunities I've had for role diversification I'm even more glad now than ever before that I took the opporunity to work in a range of roles while at university & took on a multi-disciplinary approach to my own education.
[Tip 9 - Raise your Profile]
Now that I have settled into my role & have taken on opportunities for research & leadership within the organisation I am looking for ways of raising my professional profile, partly in relation to my Chartership application but also to open new avenues for networking & continued professional development. Unfortunately raising my profile hasn't been as easy as I first thought. In certain areas - creating online profiles, blogs, etc - it has been relatively easy to create a professional profile for myself (especially with courses like the 23 Things for Professional Development) as all that is required is the commitment & time to do it. But in other areas such as getting yourself published, attending conferences, etc it has been a lot more difficult. As a result my tip would be to network within your organisation, find yourself a mentor/line manager & get their support in making a case for attending conferences, professional visits & training sessions as part of your PPDP they may also be able to support you in finding ways of getting your own research published.
[Tip 10 - It's never too early!]
As soon as I began working at the SMLA I created a 'CPD file' where I kept copies of any documents I'd created or projects I'd been involved in or anything else that might eventually be of use for my CPD projects such as the Chartership portfolio. As I went along I would add bits & pieces to the file & would then sort through the file at the end of each month, this made it easier to eventually put together my portfolio evidence. It also meant I had already taken the time to reflect on & analyse different projects & documents, which was enormously helpful when it came to writing the reflective passages for the portfolio such as the Evaluative Statement. I also began looking for other ways of collecting evidence & developing my skills & I'm currently volunteering for two different projects (1 in-house & 1 external) which will help me to develop new skills, make new networking partnerships & raise my profile as well as helping me to continue to learn more about the Information & Library Management Field in relation to my specific interests. Both the projects I'm volunteering with involve specific areas of research that I'm interested in including minortiy representation in the library services & stock, & management & strategic techniques for advocacy & policy planning. Without these volunteering opportunities it could be quite a long time before I'm able to develop my paid role enough to be able to gain this kind of work experience. I would say that if any opportunities come along it's always a good idea to put your hand up, or at least find out more about them.
I'm hoping to continue to use these steps as guides to my continued professional development, which I hope will eventually lead to my taking on a more managerial/strategic role within the library field such as operational or strategic manager for a library. However, I still have a long way to go to achieve this & am constantly looking for opportunities to develop my skills, in partuicular I'm looking for opportunities in advocacy, policy setting & people management/supervision. Any hints, tips or advice in these areas very gratefully received.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Things 8 & 9 - Is the world being overrun by computers?
I tend to use windows calendar as it is already compatible & synced with my work-Outlook calendars & my email, etc. Also I can access it from any of my devices, including my work PC, unlike the google calendar. We have Kiosk filtering/security software on our PCs at work which block a lot of sites that most servers would consider 'normal'. Unfortunately the software has a completely unpredictable filter with a mind of its own which means that we can use Google Search, I can log into my blogs using Google & a lot more besides but we can't connect with Google calendar or Google mail. Why the distinction, or how to get round it, no-one knows, & Windows is just as bad - I can sync with my windows calendar but I can't access my hotmail account. I usually end up spending at least part of my time each day madly flicking through the different parts of my different accounts transferring things from to another to try & get emails sent & calendars updated, & wondering why they can't invent a single software access point that would do it all & really could be accessed anywhere(when I'm particularly stressed, & feeling cynical, I usually decided that it's because they would only be able to sell us one lot of software & wouldn't be able to flog us all sorts of security & compatibility patches over & over again to make all our hardware/software work with every other bit of our hardware/software). So I probably won't be using the Google calendar for anything that needs to be shared or synced but then I had the idea that it might be good to have a second seperate calendar for my personal diary dates that I don't want to share - Dr's appointments, family birthdays, etc - which I could access at home or on my personal smart phone. In theory this sounded like a good idea but when it came to putting it in practice I found that while I could quite easily access the calendar from my home PC if I tried using my smart phone it would block me as not having the correct software to run it - I have no idea why & if anyone can give me some idea of how to fix the issue you would probably save my sanity (or at least prevent me from chucking the whole lot out of a 2nd story window!). Thought for the day: Why do so-called 'labour saving gadgets' take up more time than doing it the old way?
I haven't had much chance to use Evernote yet but I think it is going to be more useful than Google calendar, particularly as I will soon be undertaking some research into how different libraries & archives have used their websites to market their collections - particularly any that have trade literature &/or digital/virtual collections. Being able to annotate the websites as I'm looking at them rather than constantly flicking through different documents to save information & observations should make life easier (fingers crossed). I'll let you know how I get on.
I haven't had much chance to use Evernote yet but I think it is going to be more useful than Google calendar, particularly as I will soon be undertaking some research into how different libraries & archives have used their websites to market their collections - particularly any that have trade literature &/or digital/virtual collections. Being able to annotate the websites as I'm looking at them rather than constantly flicking through different documents to save information & observations should make life easier (fingers crossed). I'll let you know how I get on.
Thing 6 & 7 - online & face-to-face networks
Over the last few years I have joined a lot of different professional/networking organisations & groups. Partly to help with my continued professional development but also to be able to widen the breadth of my professional knowledge & offer opportunities for me to act as an advocate for the profession & feed my own experiences into national standards & benchmarks.
I am trying to make use of the face-to-face (f2f) features, such as conferences, networking evenings/lunches & professional debate sessions. However, there aren't a lot of local events everything is a minimum of an hrs travel away. Even 'social' evenings can be difficult to attend as my nearest ones are usually London or Bristol & its difficult to finish work, travel down there, attend the event, travel back & find time for anything else that needs doing - like eating. I'm trying to get a social event running in my local area - Swindon - but I'm not sure where to start, has anyone had any experience of this?
Currently I'm very heavily reliant on online newtworks but while they allow me to find a lot of material & to some extent network with other professionals I don't seem to be able to find anything that is trully interactive, i.e. the Special Libraries Association has web courses available to members online but they are built into (& therefore reliant on attendance at) various face-to-face conferences which isn't always practical. A lot of online resources I've come across appear to use fairly 'passive' interactions as well such as Tweeting. I think that although they're very useful in sharing information & beginning to build networks there's not really 'a next step' to move it on to, it's great acquiring lots of knowledge but there has to be a reason for it or something to help direct you to ways of using it.
I've also been conducting exercise to evaluate my memberships in several social & professional organisations/groups in order to assess their benefits em & how I can better use them to continue my professional development.
I won't bore you with all the specifics of this exercise - except to list the groups I'm already a member of, & to ask if anyone knows of any other groups I could join to help me continue to develop my professional skills in the areas of advocacy, strategic planning, management, diversity planning, etc (or any way I could make better use of my existing groups to achieve this).
I am trying to make use of the face-to-face (f2f) features, such as conferences, networking evenings/lunches & professional debate sessions. However, there aren't a lot of local events everything is a minimum of an hrs travel away. Even 'social' evenings can be difficult to attend as my nearest ones are usually London or Bristol & its difficult to finish work, travel down there, attend the event, travel back & find time for anything else that needs doing - like eating. I'm trying to get a social event running in my local area - Swindon - but I'm not sure where to start, has anyone had any experience of this?
Currently I'm very heavily reliant on online newtworks but while they allow me to find a lot of material & to some extent network with other professionals I don't seem to be able to find anything that is trully interactive, i.e. the Special Libraries Association has web courses available to members online but they are built into (& therefore reliant on attendance at) various face-to-face conferences which isn't always practical. A lot of online resources I've come across appear to use fairly 'passive' interactions as well such as Tweeting. I think that although they're very useful in sharing information & beginning to build networks there's not really 'a next step' to move it on to, it's great acquiring lots of knowledge but there has to be a reason for it or something to help direct you to ways of using it.
I've also been conducting exercise to evaluate my memberships in several social & professional organisations/groups in order to assess their benefits em & how I can better use them to continue my professional development.
I won't bore you with all the specifics of this exercise - except to list the groups I'm already a member of, & to ask if anyone knows of any other groups I could join to help me continue to develop my professional skills in the areas of advocacy, strategic planning, management, diversity planning, etc (or any way I could make better use of my existing groups to achieve this).
- CILIP - several groups including CDG; LIRG; PLG; C&IG; RB&SCG
- Special Libraies Association, European Chapter - Education Division; Leadership & Management Division
- Our library also has a shared organisation membership with IFLA, ARA, CILIP, LMLAG, Public Libraries Assoc., & several local heritage forums
- I am also a member of the Oxford University Library Services Chartership Group, as well as their TeachMeet group
- I am a member of our local LGBT community project & the public libraries LGBT in Libraries working group
- I am a member of the NMSI Diversity Panel at work, including being a driver/liaison for the Entrypoints taskforce
- I have online profiles on Facebook, Linkedln, UWE Alumni Association, Twitter, Blogger, as well as being registered on LIS-REG, the CPD23 forum & the CPD25 training forum
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Thing 5 - Do blogs need closets?
I have been working on setting up a blog for the local LGBT community, particularly for the LGBT in Libraries project. One of the many questions I've been condidering is how to provide a public open-to-all service while protecting the privacy of members of the LGBT community (whether Out or Closeted). I have also been looking into how these ideas of privacy & access would effect other elements of the blog.
Plan: Setting up an LGBT in Libraries blog & advertising
Target: to set up & advertise a blog for the Swindon Public Libraries LGBT in Libraries project
1. What is the purpose of the blog?
To promote the LGBT in Libraries project & encourage community engagement
2. Who are the audience?
Stakeholders fall into a 3-tier pattern, including [1] the local LGBT community, [2] the public library community (users & staff), [3] the general public
3. What issues are there for design - template, logos, gadgets, etc?
Diversity awareness e.g. Disability access including visual impairment will affect colour choice, font size, template clarity. I need to create a template that is eyecatching but uses a clear & contrasting colour scheme.
4. What content?
The blog needs to include a brief explanation of the project. Because of the nature of tne group Iit also needs to have a content warning with the option for the 'author' to remove/block content which is too explicit. Also because the project has to be open to all with the option of remaining 'anonymous' (it's purpose is not to out people but give a forum for them to shape the LGBT community) there's the danger of abusive posts from outside the community. I therefore need to give people the ability to report abuse. I also need to include interactive extras or gadgets e.g. library feedback polls. We are also looking into building a history archive for LGBG in the local area.
5. Where & how to advertise?
Leaflets/posters in libraries
Stalls/leaflets at Swindon Single Equality Coalition events
Leaflets, etc at local LGBT clubs, pubs, grps e.g. the Mailcoach & the Pink Rooms
6. Link to other sites/blogs?
Because of the involvement of local council services/libraries any links/logos/pictures hosted on the blog will probably need to be checked & confirmed by the library team first as the blog will essentially be acting as a representative of the library service. They will probably include versions of the LGBT logo/rainbow flag & links to local LGBT/Pridd groups, as well as links to the library catalogue.
Review:
After setting up & advertising the basic blog structure through the libraries stall at a Single Equalities Coalution event I've reached the conclusion that while it is important to advertise through the libraries to gain feedback for the library project, we also need to send out our own advertising to the LGBT community. Without our own advertising not only could the LGBT community risk not being properly represented in promotional materials but the libraries advertising can be very narrow in its focus. For instance the blog is a partnership between the LGBT community & the libraries to promote LGBT & libraries & community work, including trying to set up a gay-straight alliance alongside the library project. I created a leaflet that advertised it as such & made use of LGBT icons/logos to accomplish this but because there was little time to discuss it with the libraries team after it had been submitted they decided to re-design it inline with their design principles. This meant that the final leaflet included no LGBG logos & no mention of any of the potential community work beyond the library project.
Do:
[1] Re-design the leaflet to be sent out on behalf of the LGBT community to various groups & events
[2] Upgrade the blog to include links/icons/logos/pictures
[3] Choose relevant gadgets to add, including more interactive options
[4] Collect & collate feedback from blog
[5] Collect blog statistics to benchmark, review usage, analyse feedback & feed into project
Plan: Setting up an LGBT in Libraries blog & advertising
Target: to set up & advertise a blog for the Swindon Public Libraries LGBT in Libraries project
1. What is the purpose of the blog?
To promote the LGBT in Libraries project & encourage community engagement
2. Who are the audience?
Stakeholders fall into a 3-tier pattern, including [1] the local LGBT community, [2] the public library community (users & staff), [3] the general public
3. What issues are there for design - template, logos, gadgets, etc?
Diversity awareness e.g. Disability access including visual impairment will affect colour choice, font size, template clarity. I need to create a template that is eyecatching but uses a clear & contrasting colour scheme.
4. What content?
The blog needs to include a brief explanation of the project. Because of the nature of tne group Iit also needs to have a content warning with the option for the 'author' to remove/block content which is too explicit. Also because the project has to be open to all with the option of remaining 'anonymous' (it's purpose is not to out people but give a forum for them to shape the LGBT community) there's the danger of abusive posts from outside the community. I therefore need to give people the ability to report abuse. I also need to include interactive extras or gadgets e.g. library feedback polls. We are also looking into building a history archive for LGBG in the local area.
5. Where & how to advertise?
Leaflets/posters in libraries
Stalls/leaflets at Swindon Single Equality Coalition events
Leaflets, etc at local LGBT clubs, pubs, grps e.g. the Mailcoach & the Pink Rooms
6. Link to other sites/blogs?
Because of the involvement of local council services/libraries any links/logos/pictures hosted on the blog will probably need to be checked & confirmed by the library team first as the blog will essentially be acting as a representative of the library service. They will probably include versions of the LGBT logo/rainbow flag & links to local LGBT/Pridd groups, as well as links to the library catalogue.
Review:
After setting up & advertising the basic blog structure through the libraries stall at a Single Equalities Coalution event I've reached the conclusion that while it is important to advertise through the libraries to gain feedback for the library project, we also need to send out our own advertising to the LGBT community. Without our own advertising not only could the LGBT community risk not being properly represented in promotional materials but the libraries advertising can be very narrow in its focus. For instance the blog is a partnership between the LGBT community & the libraries to promote LGBT & libraries & community work, including trying to set up a gay-straight alliance alongside the library project. I created a leaflet that advertised it as such & made use of LGBT icons/logos to accomplish this but because there was little time to discuss it with the libraries team after it had been submitted they decided to re-design it inline with their design principles. This meant that the final leaflet included no LGBG logos & no mention of any of the potential community work beyond the library project.
Do:
[1] Re-design the leaflet to be sent out on behalf of the LGBT community to various groups & events
[2] Upgrade the blog to include links/icons/logos/pictures
[3] Choose relevant gadgets to add, including more interactive options
[4] Collect & collate feedback from blog
[5] Collect blog statistics to benchmark, review usage, analyse feedback & feed into project
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Thing 4: Online profile
I have been busy looking at twitter accounts, rss feeders & pushnotes.
After assessing the level of involvement - time, patience, etc - each
needs I've decided to stick with just the blog & the rss feeders for
the moment. I do have a twitter account - @CJSciFi - but frankly I'm
not sure if Ihave the time or patience to keep updating it as often as
it seems to need updating (based on other twitter sites I've looked
at) but I will try my best when I can. I'm not brilliantly technically
minded so if anyone knows any updating shortcuts or a way of updating
twitter from my blog so it can do it all in one place at one time that
would be brilliant.
I have had a brief look at pushnote & set up an account but haven't
been able to use it yet as it only works on full pc/laptop & not on
smart phones - I spend a lot of my online time on the move between
places, so I'm not sure how useful it will end up being. Worse still
it means yet anotjoher email/password/username to remember. I know
these days things like Windows 7 (which I haven't loaded yet because
it means messing around taking EVERYTHING off my hard drive onto disk
then putting it all back on) & the Cloud are suposed to make life
easier, but why can't someone invent some kind of platform where you
log in with just ONE username & password & your automatically logged
in to your work email, home email, twitter & everything else. I did
attend a talk recently at the Oxford TeachMeet, entitled 'Your
password sucks', which suggested a way of reducing the amount of
password info you need to remember which I may give a try. Basically
you choose a sentence (e.g. Favourite song lyric) & use the first
letter of eachword as your master password (sittin' on the dock of the
bay wasting time = sotdotbwt). This remains tge same for all your
passwords, you just add a new 4 digit suffix for each one. This means,
in theory, all you have to remember is the master password as you can
keep a list of the suffixes written doen or on your phone without
worrying that someone could use them to access your bank or email or
whatever. Has anyone tried anything like this, if so is it as easy as
it sounds?
--
Sent from my mobile device
After assessing the level of involvement - time, patience, etc - each
needs I've decided to stick with just the blog & the rss feeders for
the moment. I do have a twitter account - @CJSciFi - but frankly I'm
not sure if Ihave the time or patience to keep updating it as often as
it seems to need updating (based on other twitter sites I've looked
at) but I will try my best when I can. I'm not brilliantly technically
minded so if anyone knows any updating shortcuts or a way of updating
twitter from my blog so it can do it all in one place at one time that
would be brilliant.
I have had a brief look at pushnote & set up an account but haven't
been able to use it yet as it only works on full pc/laptop & not on
smart phones - I spend a lot of my online time on the move between
places, so I'm not sure how useful it will end up being. Worse still
it means yet anotjoher email/password/username to remember. I know
these days things like Windows 7 (which I haven't loaded yet because
it means messing around taking EVERYTHING off my hard drive onto disk
then putting it all back on) & the Cloud are suposed to make life
easier, but why can't someone invent some kind of platform where you
log in with just ONE username & password & your automatically logged
in to your work email, home email, twitter & everything else. I did
attend a talk recently at the Oxford TeachMeet, entitled 'Your
password sucks', which suggested a way of reducing the amount of
password info you need to remember which I may give a try. Basically
you choose a sentence (e.g. Favourite song lyric) & use the first
letter of eachword as your master password (sittin' on the dock of the
bay wasting time = sotdotbwt). This remains tge same for all your
passwords, you just add a new 4 digit suffix for each one. This means,
in theory, all you have to remember is the master password as you can
keep a list of the suffixes written doen or on your phone without
worrying that someone could use them to access your bank or email or
whatever. Has anyone tried anything like this, if so is it as easy as
it sounds?
--
Sent from my mobile device
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Trust your own instincts
I did my presentation today, it did not go as well as I wanted. I allowed someone, well-meaning, to convince me to 'jazz up' my powerpoint presentation with lots of animation & automatic slide changing - I usually just use the mouse click option. Unfortunately the projector cut out just a few slides in & when it came back all my carefully planned slide timings were shot & the slides were completely out of sync with my presentation which completely threw me. As a result I missed out half the presentation & probably looked like a complete idiot. Lesson for the day: while it's good to find new ways of doing things & making things look professional only do it if you're sure your comfortable with it (& if you can find the off switch for the automated slides in 5 secs or less).
CJ Crennell
CJ Crennell
Friday, 8 July 2011
Time management
How do people find time to keep up with blogs, twitter, etc I keep meaning to post something but it always seems to end up as 'I'll do it after I finish this' or 'I'll just do that first' & before I know it several hours have passed & I still haven't managed to update anything.
Well here's a very quick update on the past week:
The presentation for the Oxford University Club is coming along nicely - topic: Adding value to collections: Trade Literature as a research tool'.
The LGBT in Libraries meetings went very well & things are moving towards a launch of the collection in Sept/Oct time. In the meantime I will be putting together blogs & other online activities to advertise it & guage support.
I'm still trying to figure out ways of building more 'obvious' advocacy roles into my profile, so if anyone knows of any campaigns/projects that may be looking for volunteers please let me know, particularly if they involve: equality & diversity; disability or LGBT rights; digital access & assistive issues; social inclusion or the library as a community space. Thanks.
I'm also determined to get my portfolio finished by the end of this month (I said that last month as well, but this time I really really mean it - honest!)
Well here's a very quick update on the past week:
The presentation for the Oxford University Club is coming along nicely - topic: Adding value to collections: Trade Literature as a research tool'.
The LGBT in Libraries meetings went very well & things are moving towards a launch of the collection in Sept/Oct time. In the meantime I will be putting together blogs & other online activities to advertise it & guage support.
I'm still trying to figure out ways of building more 'obvious' advocacy roles into my profile, so if anyone knows of any campaigns/projects that may be looking for volunteers please let me know, particularly if they involve: equality & diversity; disability or LGBT rights; digital access & assistive issues; social inclusion or the library as a community space. Thanks.
I'm also determined to get my portfolio finished by the end of this month (I said that last month as well, but this time I really really mean it - honest!)
Saturday, 2 July 2011
The Google game
I'm still trying to find an appropriate photo but I just did that
thing where you google your own name. I got really excited for a
second thinking there was someone else with my name in the same town,
turns out I'm on the electoral roll twice. One of the things I noticed
that was missing from my profile was an obvious involvement in
advocacy, policy setting, etc. It's not that I'm not involved in
various projects or acting as an 'advocate', it's just that what I'm
doing isn't 'registering' in professional publications. The result
being a catch-22 where I apply for roles in advocacy groups or
conference grants & don't get them because I don't show an awareness
or involvement in national advocacy & policies, but if I don't get the
role how am I supposed to show my involvement or become more involved
in future campaigns. I'll have to have a very long hard think about it
& see if I can figure out a way round it. Meanwhile I'm quite busy
over the next couple of weeks. I'm giving a presentation at Oxford
University club on the 12th on the topic of 'Adding value to
collections' & next week there's all sorts happening with our local
libraries 'LGBT in Libraries' project so fingers-crossed that will be
moving on fairly quickly.
--
Sent from my mobile device
thing where you google your own name. I got really excited for a
second thinking there was someone else with my name in the same town,
turns out I'm on the electoral roll twice. One of the things I noticed
that was missing from my profile was an obvious involvement in
advocacy, policy setting, etc. It's not that I'm not involved in
various projects or acting as an 'advocate', it's just that what I'm
doing isn't 'registering' in professional publications. The result
being a catch-22 where I apply for roles in advocacy groups or
conference grants & don't get them because I don't show an awareness
or involvement in national advocacy & policies, but if I don't get the
role how am I supposed to show my involvement or become more involved
in future campaigns. I'll have to have a very long hard think about it
& see if I can figure out a way round it. Meanwhile I'm quite busy
over the next couple of weeks. I'm giving a presentation at Oxford
University club on the 12th on the topic of 'Adding value to
collections' & next week there's all sorts happening with our local
libraries 'LGBT in Libraries' project so fingers-crossed that will be
moving on fairly quickly.
--
Sent from my mobile device
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Thing 3
I'm using my blog site for both professional & personal blogs - which I've distinguished by using different templates/colours but I now need to choose a picture for my profile (temporarily using a pretty landscape shot). I want my profile to look professional but also 'personal' & friendly. Does anyone have any advice on whether it's best to go for some super formal photo (e.g. graduation photo) or where you draw the line on informality?
The best laid plans....
I had planned on writing a blog post about my professional visit to the Imperial War Museum, & how what I found out could help both my professional & personal research. Unfortunately thanks to the lightning storms yesterday I had a hellish train journey & never made it past slough. And it got me wondering what is the worst situation anyone has put themselves through in the name of professional development?
Monday, 20 June 2011
Thing 2
I've started looking through some of the other blogs on here & have even commented on a few & already I know this is going to be a great resource for networking - I've just 'bumped into' a few old friends from library school & found some potential new professional contacts who are interested in some of the same areas of research as me including 'the fate of the physical library in a technological world' (Ha! They'll never get rid of us no matter how many new gadgets or gizmos they create we'll always find a way to turn them to our advantage). I'll keep digging through the blogs as the course goes on but if anyone knows of any blogs relating to my other areas of research - trade literature collections in libraries; professional writing & methods of LIS research - could you point me in the right direction. Thanks.
Welcome to the blog
I joined the 23 Things course because I wanted to expand my professional knowledge & learn more about how to make use of the available technology for things like marketing, networking & a lot more. Although I completed my masters in information & library management & have since spent 3 years actually working in a library & archive & have taken on a lot of new professional skills there are some areas that are still largely theory in my experience, such as blogging & ways of making full use of the interent. I'm hoping that this course will help me to learn more about what's available & how I can use it in my own professional development or to benefit my library.
Step one will obviously be to have a closer look at the options for designing a blog & give this a more professional appearance.
I'm also hoping that my involvement in this course will help to illustrate my level of professional commitment & give me the opportunity to begin 'publishing' on a professional forum. Publishing professionally is one of the areas of professional development that I'm having a problem with - it seems to be something of a chicken & egg situation, every time I send in papers or articles for consideration or apply for inclusion in conferences (either as a delegate or a speaker) a lot of the responses seem to give the impression that while interesting my articles don't have the right kind of .... professional profile or something, because I haven't been published. Leaving the question of how do you raise your professional profile in order to get published if no-one will publish you. So I am really hoping that this course gives me the opportunity to begin to raise my profile & hopefully find new forums for publishing as part of my continued professional development.
Step one will obviously be to have a closer look at the options for designing a blog & give this a more professional appearance.
I'm also hoping that my involvement in this course will help to illustrate my level of professional commitment & give me the opportunity to begin 'publishing' on a professional forum. Publishing professionally is one of the areas of professional development that I'm having a problem with - it seems to be something of a chicken & egg situation, every time I send in papers or articles for consideration or apply for inclusion in conferences (either as a delegate or a speaker) a lot of the responses seem to give the impression that while interesting my articles don't have the right kind of .... professional profile or something, because I haven't been published. Leaving the question of how do you raise your professional profile in order to get published if no-one will publish you. So I am really hoping that this course gives me the opportunity to begin to raise my profile & hopefully find new forums for publishing as part of my continued professional development.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)