Bleak House or Great Expectations? NE CILIP Mini Umbrella – November 23rd 2011

I often complain about living in the North East. Being a fair distance and an expensive train ride away from most of the interesting LIS events it’s easy to feel disconnected and as though you’re somehow missing out on all the important stuff that’s happening in the profession. Mini Umbrella (organised by NE CILIP and the Department of Information Studies at Northumbria University) is a great event – partly because it’s local and free!! – but mainly because it is an opportunity for local library and information services to showcase their initiatives and innovative approaches to service delivery. And actually this event highlighted that really important stuff is happening right here in the North East region too. Who knew?!

There were speakers from across the sector – NHS, public, HE, and FE – who are doing really innovative work to improve and develop their library services, adapting to new ways of working when faced with the challenges of the current economic situation. Two of the key messages that stood out were the need for library services to develop strong working partnerships and to manage expectations.

Partnerships

Rachel Steele from Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust spoke about a pilot project to develop to role of the clinical librarian. A clinical librarian develops strong links with medical practitioners to inform evidence based practice. They assist in keeping practitioners’ knowledge up to date by conducting literature searches and critical appraisal of health research. This role involves accompanying practitioners when they see patients so the librarian can source relevant research to inform the treatment of those patients.

Mark Freeman and Kathryn Armstrong talked about the Tyne2Seine2 project that they have been involved with for South Tyneside Libraries. This was an international reading project to introduce children to modern European languages. It involved forging strong partnerships between South Tyneside council staff, libraries, and schools and developing links with their counterparts in the twin town of Epinay-sur-Seine in France. They also worked with authors from both countries and even with colleagues from North Tyneside! This project has been very successful in developing the language skills of both English and French schoolchildren and of the adults involved. Most importantly it has demonstrated the value of libraries in reading and in education.

Sharon Reeve from Newcastle City Libraries spoke about services for visually impaired users. Development of this service has relied upon strong partnerships with a range of groups, including service users and external bodies. Newcastle City Libraries were part of the NEALIS (North East Accessible Library and Information Services) project, which was nominated for the 2011 Libraries Change Lives award. This project brought together 12 public library authorities from the North East of England to develop library and information services for people with visual impairments, working in partnership with the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People). Sharon also described the Reading Buddies scheme for providing one-to-one assistance for visually impaired library users from Duke of Edinburgh Award participants, which is another strong partnership for the library service.

Managing Expectations

Speakers from the education sector – FE and HE – highlighted the importance for academic libraries of measuring student satisfaction with and expectations of library services in order to develop and make improvements to services. Dilys Young and Christine Willoughby from Northumbria University described how the University Library uses National Student Survey (NSS) data and other feedback for targeted service development, for example improving resource provision in subject areas where NSS scores are lower, thus responding to student needs and rising expectations. Middlesbrough College learning resources service also use feedback and survey data to determine student expectations. Claire Donlan, Tracey Totty, and James Wells described how this information has highlighted that their students’ expectations of a technology enabled library service. In the current economic climate it is not always possible to spend on all the latest technology and where they have done so they have invested wisely. They also emphasised the importance of “doing more with less” (a phrase familiar to most of us these days) by making the most of existing resources and investigating the plethora of free online resources available. I will certainly be investigating some of the free online tools they mentioned. Just as soon as I finish CPD23…

In his summing up of the day, Colin Raistrick (Chair of NE CILIP) said that the day had proved that the situation is far from bleak. It’s inspiring hear about a range of innovative developments in library services especially when they’re happening in your area of the country.

CPD23: Things 10 & 11: Masters, Charterers and Mentors

I’ve blogged about my, somewhat roundabout, route into librarianship before. I’ve recently started on the next step of my career, again doing things in possibly the ‘wrong’ order; I’m working towards CILIP Chartership whilst still in a para-professional role. However, I’ve come to realise that there is no right or wrong way to go about it. I’ve worked with and met librarians who have entered the profession through a variety of routes. I can’t say what’s ‘best’, only what I’ve gained from my experience so far.

I’ve always said that I wished I’d had some experience of library work before diving in and starting the Masters and I stand by this to a certain extent. However, I don’t think that I got less value from doing the course because of this lack of experience. I was pretty much single-mindedly focused on working in academic libraries and through looking at the person specifications for more senior roles, where a postgraduate library qualification seemed to almost always be an essential requirement, I realised that, for me, the Masters was the way to go. The course was a great introduction to the profession I was about to enter. It gave me a broad understanding of the profession as well as some useful practical skills such as cataloguing and classification.

So, why Chartership? And why now? My current job has given me the opportunity to get quite a varied experience and get involved in plenty of projects, so although not a professional post it has prepared me to progress in my career. I always wanted to Charter at some point and hesitated for quite a while over whether to do it while still in a para-professional role. Although not a requirement for many posts, Chartership often appears among the desirable criteria for a lot of positions I see advertised in academic libraries so I knew it was something I would have to do at some point. And, let’s face it, as jobs become scarcer and competition for posts becomes greater, there’s no harm in having something to give you an edge. That said I’m not just doing it because it’s a hoop to jump through, or to help me to get a job. That would probably be just a little bit too cynical. The main reason I’m doing Chartership is to give me a focus for my CPD activity. For a while after finishing my Masters I lost my way professionally as it took me some time to get a permanent, full time post. I didn’t have much opportunity for professional development through work, and admittedly lost some of my motivation to seek this out for myself. I’m now back on track with my professional development and believe that Chartership will enable me to get the best out of this through the necessary formal reflection. As a professional it is important to me to continually develop my knowledge and it is this commitment to professional development that makes us more employable; Chartership is just one of the ways of demonstrating it.

My experience of Chartership so far is that, well, it’s hard! I found writing the PPDP particularly difficult as I struggled to focus the areas where I wanted to develop into achievable actions. I really recommend looking at the example portfolios to help with this. Speaking with my mentor about this was also a huge help, which brings me neatly onto the subject of mentors. Chartership has been the first experience I’ve had of formal mentoring. We’ve only had two meetings so far so I’m hardly writing from vast experience but I think for Chartership it will be important to have a mentor to seek guidance from through the process. It did feel quite formal at first, especially as I’m fairly shy and hadn’t met my mentor before, but I’m sure this will get easier as it goes along. I’m finding it’s also valuable to have senior colleagues to seek out for advice along the way; sort of like having a few informal mentors.

CPD23 – Thing 7: Face-to-face networks and professional organisations

I know it’s just semantics but the term ‘networking’ doesn’t really sit that well with me. Thinking of it in this way – networking, building a network… – instils it with a sense of formality which fills me with trepidation when it comes to meeting other professionals face to face. I’m naturally quite shy so there’s no real surprise there, though when I manage to control the nerves I can get by – though it tends to be less ‘networking’ and more just finding a few people to chat to at a conference or event. There’s definitely some cross over between my online and face-to-face networks as I tend to see people I follow on Twitter at events I attend. Although I’ve heard many people say that knowing someone online first makes it easier to break the ice when you meet in person, I find this makes it more awkward for me and I’m still not comfortable with acknowledging that I follow someone on Twitter when I meet them in person. It’s the same self-consciousness that holds me backs online and means I often don’t engage as much as others. Perhaps once I stop over-thinking things my networks – both online and face-to-face – will build more easily!

And this, in a way, brings me to consider professional organisations, specifically CILIP. Most events I’ve attended have been organised by CILIP and I’ve recently joined the committee of my local Career Development Group division so most of my face-to-face networking is because of being involved with CILIP. Of the professional organisations Bethan mentions in the CPD23 blog post for this ‘thing’, the only one I really have any knowledge of is CILIP. As I work in a traditional academic library, it seemed to be the best one for me. However, I have only rejoined fairly recently, and there are a number of reasons for this. I took advantage of the student rate whilst studying for my MA but let my membership lapse after this, partly as I couldn’t really see any benefit of remaining a member, but mainly because I simply couldn’t justify paying the membership fee. It’s been said before I’m sure but it is a bit steep, especially as even on a relatively low salary members are paying the highest rate. So why did I rejoin? Chartership, mainly. For academic library jobs this seems to be valued and is often a requirement so it is an important step for my career. Since rejoining I’ve seen other benefits of being a CILIP member and realise that investing a bit of time by joining a committee (admittedly I’m yet to get properly involved in this) is a great way to be more professionally active and engaged.