Course Write-up: Gathering feedback

Hello! It's been a while since I've written up any courses I've been on, in part because I am very lucky that I work in a place where we share what we learned on courses at our weekly staff meetings so I haven't felt the need to try to reflect or assimilate in writing. But it's always beneficial to write these things down for my own sake as well as sharing them more broadly, so I thought I'd try to make more of a habit of it, at least when I feel it would be useful to do so for my own practice. I'm working on a some other work-based and professional development habits, which I hope to talk a bit more about in an upcoming post. Meanwhile, here's a write up from a course I went on this week.

Sally Stafford's recent session on gathering evaluation and feedback was one I've been looking forward to for a while. As someone who teaches a fair amount, I often rely on the course leaders to pass on feedback from their students about what I might improve, and we are still working on developing strategies for consistently getting evaluations from the training sessions we give. While I really enjoyed this course, it was a bit of a stretch to think of ways of incorporating it into my own practice as there was a heavy bent toward feedback on exhibitions and outreach events rather than training sessions. Even so, it certainly got me thinking about creative ways of framing questions and assessing learning outcomes.

The first point Sally made was that when people think about feedback, they're often only thinking about gathering opinions after the fact. However, effective projects look for feedback throughout, from the initial development phase. By doing this you can ensure that you are delivering content that people really want, in a way they want. Teaching sessions have this built in, in that the process is inherently iterative: ideally, your training gets better each time you do it based on the feedback you've had before, and there is no "final" product to get feedback on. However, it is useful to think about impact in the same way museums do. What have people taken away from my session? What was the impact on their practice? Impact is a fiendishly difficult thing to measure, but various sectors are under increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable impact to justify funding, staff and other resources. This is not to say that everything needs to be reduced to a number, say "72% of participants said this training was Very Useful". I'm always more inspired by individual comments, like, "I learned a lot, thank you!" or "I never knew librarians knew so much about this stuff!" But in large volumes that becomes more and more difficult to parse and if you are involved in a project that requires you to justify funding, you may be dealing with people who find the numbers much more compelling than a few glowing remarks when presented in a report.

GLOs and designing questions

Central to Sally's process were the Generic Learning Outcomes, a framework used by the MLA to assess learning in non-classroom contexts. While much of the discussion around the GLOs focused on the context of exhibitions or outreach to school groups, I found the framework to be a useful prompt to think about what questions one could ask to gather feedback about different facets of learning.

• Knowledge and understanding: While this is fairly straightforward, asking bluntly "How much/what did you learn?" is not necessarily going to give you brilliant feedback. Any parent who has asked their kid what they learned in school today will be familiar with the non-commital shrug followed by that slippery syllable, "Stuff". The group talked about potentially asking for one thing that stuck out, one fact for example. Since I often do follow-up sessions or series of classes, I could always ask at the beginning of a class for one thing they learned in the previous session for example.
• Skills: This is a tricky one to get verbal feedback on, but could be tested through doing an activity before and then after the session. An approach that Sally used for our session was a target, where we rated our confidence with evaluation before and after the session using sticky dots placed correspondingly on the target. I think confidence is a good operative word when asking people to self-report on their skills. 
• Attitudes and values: Another tricky one to ask about, as Lucy was tactfully explaining, as it has to do with subjects that people are sensitive about. Sally offered the example of, "Are you a bigot?" as a potentially insensitive way of gathering feedback about this aspect. :) My content is often very value-laden. I talk pretty openly about my mistrust of metrics as a good indicator of the quality of an article, about the flaws in the peer review process and advocate passionately for Open Access publishing. Rather than gathering this in the form of feedback after the fact, I usually seek to have a discussion during the session where people are invited to share their points of view.
• Enjoyment, inspiration and creativity: While I don't think I'll collect finger paintings from my students, it's worth thinking of creative ways people could respond, especially if they have felt inspired by something in a session. I refer to this facet later as the 'Ah-hah' moment and discuss it in more detail.
• Activity, behaviour and progression: Once again I do often have the opportunity to find out what people learned from a previous class and I think I could take greater advantage of that to see if behaviour has changed in response to something I've taught. I usually ask if anyone has been using a particular tool or technique and ask for feedback but perhaps I could do this in a more structured way.

Creative feedback methods

I'm obviously still mulling over how to ask for feedback and how to record it, but the session was certainly not short of ideas. Many of them would suit a UX context better as they're fairly involved, e.g. focus groups, behavioural mapping, observation, interviews etc. Some suit different audiences better than others, for instance role-playing or drawing would be great for kids but I somehow doubt I could get a room full of stressed MPhils to see the value of such tasks (as much as I believe that creative endeavours are good for stress levels). There are some ideas I'm tempted to use, however. For shorter sessions on a particular tool or skill, I'd love to adapt the target method to show the change in confidence levels. For series of sessions I'd like to build feedback into subsequent sessions and help people reflect on how their practice of academic research is developing. It's definitely gotten some gears turning in my brain regarding how I could gather feedback beyond my usual post-its at the end asking for one thing they've learned and one thing they'd improve.

Ethics and accessibility

I wanted to raise a couple of issues that didn't come up during the course. First, gathering data from people I think it's essential to speak to someone in your institution that knows about research ethics. They may say that no further approval is needed, but the moment you start gathering artifacts or quotes from people, start observing their behaviour or start intruding on their time it's important to think about the ethical considerations.

• Is participation voluntary?
• Have you informed people that they're being watched?
• Have you informed them of how you will use their data and do you have a plan to follow through with that?
• Who will have access to the feedback they give you?

Unless told otherwise, people have a reasonable expectation of anonymity when taking part in studies. It doesn't have to be a signed consent form in every instance and can be very light-touch. For example, I plan on adding a quick verbal disclaimer when I'm asking for feedback that it's anonymous and any feedback they give us will be used to make our training programs better. There is a blurry line between user experience research and feedback and I would think that it would be good to err on the side of caution and consult with someone who can give guidance on what you need to tell participants and how to keep the data in a safe and anonymous way.

Similarly, it's important to think about comfort levels. One method discussed for use with teaching sessions was task-based feedback, for example acting exercises to gather feedback during a session. It was mentioned that adults were likely to be self-conscious about this, but that it would be engaging for children. I agree but I think it's important to be aware that if this is built into the curriculum of a particular course or training session it may not be accessible for people on the autistic spectrum or other social differences. By way of making course content equally accessible to all, I would be interested in finding a way for students to opt in rather than making it a requirement, or seek other ways in which you could gather similar feedback.

Accessibility sprung to mind again when we looked at feedback methods using red, green and amber coloured pieces of card to let the instructor know how confident or engaged participants felt. Again, alternatives that are accessible to colourblind participants would be useful to prepare ahead of time. These are just a few examples - there are many ways to build accessibility into your feedback process if you take the time to consider who is being excluded by the method you have chosen.

Ah-hah moment

I think my favourite concept from the course (and my own 'Ah-hah' moment) was the idea of focusing feedback on what inspired someone, one idea they'll take away from the session or one lightbulb that lit up during the session. Even if a student in one of my sessions paid me pretty much no attention but they had an 'Ah-hah' moment regarding their own work while sitting there, I feel like at least I provided them the space to get that inspiration and I'd love to know about it.

For kids visiting an exhibition, they may not grasp your thesis but they will certainly remember the taxidermy pigeons because they're surprising. Or they might remember that, like Charles Darwin, they always keep a journal too and like drawing the animals they see. Similarly, my students may not remember everything I tell them about Data Management, but I hope they remember the story about the guy who lost 6 months of work when his laptop containing his PhD and the backup disk, both in his rucksack, were stolen in a pub. Or when looking at conference posters for design tips, maybe a student will finally figure out what methodology she'll use for her own dissertation (this literally happened in my class yesterday). I don't really mind if she took on board less of what I taught as long as she left my class excited about something to do with her work.

I think beyond tips for improving the actual content or timing of the sessions this will be the focus of generating feedback. It provides students the chance to reflect on what they're excited about, which will reinforce whatever inspiration they've had, and it gives me a window into what material students are resonating with. On a personal development level, I've just started a weekly reflection/accountability thing where I write about what went well vs. not so well, which includes noting down my own 'Ah-hah' moments. It's really helpful to try to capture what's inspiring you from the courses you're taking or the books you're reading as it makes it easier to remember and therefore implement any changes that you might think of as a result (especially if, like me, you're consuming so many great articles and podcasts that often times great ideas are driven out and forgotten, no matter how inspiring they were).

So, to try to synthesise a write up in which I concluded pretty much nothing, it was a good session and it's definitely got me thinking. These concepts might go on the back-burner for a bit but I can have a look at this post later on when I'm developing courses to see if it prompts any more 'Ah-hah' moments. 

Here's what you missed

Well, nearly a year of increasing momentum has culminated in a month of HUGE change for me. So seeing as I'm gradually adjusting to the breathless pace of my life at the moment it's probably time to - er - stop and take a breath, right? I still believe that one of the most important times to slow down and reflect is when you feel like you don't have the time to do so. So here I go, putting my reflective hat on...

Err, not exactly what I had in mind. Source: Martin Thomas on Flickr.

Well, the headline, really, is that in November I left my job of 4 years at Trinity College Library to start a job at the Department of Engineering Library (probably abbreviated to CUED library from now until forever) as the Assistant Research Support Librarian. I've been asked how it's going a lot and it's hard to come up with anything more insightful at the moment than "WOW is it different!" That seems to encapsulate the majority of my impressions so far. Granted, many of them are more nuanced than that but I'm pretty sure the people asking me aren't asking for a point-by-point run down of the job description. But to provide a general summary, it's a role for a qualified librarian, so a big step up in that respect. Then add to the general differences between College and Departmental libraries a big difference in size of team, in culture and so on, it's quite a change. Fortunately it's a change that suits my personality and interests very well!

Source: Nicholas Raymond on Flickr.

Part of my inability to form many impressions, however, is that the library is actually currently being refurbished. We are supposedly getting it back this week, but the fact remains that at least the first month of my job has been in a hugely transitional phase for the entire organisation. On the plus side, not being in the library has meant the library has been embedded in the department in a very interesting way. We're currently in the new Dyson Centre for Engineering Design, complete with students walking through with robotic vehicles they're building, and a suite of 3D printers!

Have you seen the Dyson Centre's new 3D printers yet? They're right next to the temporary library, so come say hi! pic.twitter.com/VyX7lt8HGe

— CUED Library (@CUEDLibrary) November 30, 2015

My job is primarily to support the researchers, PhDs and academics, but has also involved taking on Inter Library Loans, design work, some aspects of the online publishing of the research output of the department, getting involved with more Future Lib projects and getting to grips with our unfortunately patchy access to the British Standards. Another aspect has been lots of professional development. It means I've been rushing around to various courses, conferences and meetings which it would take too long to summarise. I hope to be able to use this blog more often to reflect on some of the things I'm working on and write up courses I go on, but we'll see what time allows.

So, goodbye Trinity! It has been a great place to work and I contributed to some projects I'm really proud of there (indeed, my final Labours of the Month blog post just went up today!), but I am also very thrilled to be taking on new challenges in an area that I have always had an interest in with CUED's brilliant team!

Goodbye, Yellow Brick Wren... Hello CUED Library! Source: David Gruar.

Library Inductions: Who, What, Where, When, How?

Do you know what an unconference is? Because I didn't until I went to LibCAMp, a Cambridge-based unconference on 21 July. So don't feel bad. (I still have to remind myself about the lower-case 'p'.)

I'm sure others will blog about the event, the various participant-led discussions, and of course there are always various Storify summaries to get a sense of the big picture. I specifically wanted to write my thoughts on the session I attended on library inductions, though, not because it was the most important talk of the day (the discussion led by two members of staff from the SPS library of what we as Cambridge Librarians can do to ensure services and resources are available to disabled students was - I hope - a major turning point on this important issue), but because inductions are part of what I do and for a couple years now I've been wondering how I can make them better. For this reason I thought it would be good to try to reflect and collect my thoughts on the session and maybe generate some ideas that would be doable.

Invaluable to get student engagement/co-operation with your inductions - how best to manage this? #camlibcamp

— Diana Sprints (@Selenographics) July 21, 2015

Library induction tours are the first chance we get to talk to students about the library. We generally do four tours in the first week of term that last half an hour each, and attendance is entirely optional. Usually we'll get one group of around 25-30 and the rest have around 3-8 students. I've been following the format I learned from longer-serving members of staff, whereby we show them around, show the catalogue, explain borrowing, fines, rules for use and so on. The obvious problems with this are a) it's not very engaging - we try to ask questions, tailor the tour a little bit to the subjects people are reading etc. but not very much - and b) the first week of term for first years is a time of information overload, so I'm not sure how much information is actually sinking in from those sessions. Furthermore, the uptake is not great so come Lent Term there are a lot of people who still don't really know some basic things about how to use the library.

The pitch for the LibCAMp session was to share ideas on how to make inductions more engaging, so I was very keen to attend and hear what people might suggest.

Deep in discussion about library inductions at #camlibcamp pic.twitter.com/TAupPoIwxn

— Claire Sewell (@ces43) July 21, 2015

Innovative forms of induction other libraries use include scavenger hunts, peer-led inductions, video/Vine inductions and hands-on sessions. Games were also mentioned as a possibility and in addition to SPRI's scavenger hunt, murder mystery style games were mentioned as something that other libraries around the world are doing. One of my favourite tips was to tell students that everything on the induction tour was something that a professor hadn't known, thus making it clear that it's normal not to have everything figured out and hopefully reducing the fear of asking "dumb" questions.

I was very pleased when the discussion moved toward User Experience (UX) and ongoing support. Many people agreed that inductions should not be thought of as a one-off session, but that we continue to communicate induction information through leaflets, signage, one-to-one troubleshooting sessions and so on.

Library inductions are not seen as most important to students. They shouldn't be one session, it's a continuing learning process #camlibcamp

— Rachel Claire Walker (@phys_librarian) July 21, 2015

In many ways the librarians present felt a tension between wanting the library to speak for itself - so that users could come in and accomplish their goals without ever needing intervention from library staff - and the desire to tell users what we think they should know. The problem is that we don't know what the gaps in knowledge are. Has everyone on the tour used a catalogue before? Have they already been told about search strategies? It's hard to know who will be bored by this basic information and who will be hearing it for the first time.

But the information overload of the first week – a factor over which we have very little control – may be a more critical factor in how students respond and how much they remember from the induction. That’s why it’s important to have induction information available at the point of need as well, or at least in a format that students can come back to when needed (like a postcard in their Freshers packs or a series of YouTube videos). The library should ideally be easy to navigate and the design should be unobtrusively helpful at the right points, meaning that inductions are not necessary in order to interpret the service.

I have been thinking about other kinds of induction that we might do and when we might do them. By the beginning of Lent Term, for instance, students will have gotten over the initial information overload and will have had personal experiences with library services. This seems like it would be a good opportunity to add some tips and tricks that will help students navigate the information landscape at Cambridge. I've been developing just such a course, adapted from Emma Coonan's "Here Be Dragons" presentation into a (hopefully) engaging look at "How to make the most of Cambridge Libraries". I would ask participants what barriers they've encountered using library services and tailor the session to address those issues, or if they don't highlight any issues then I can simply talk about tips and tricks to make better use of the library system at Cambridge. The problem with this approach is that one confusing, frustrating or otherwise negative experience in a library during Michaelmas Term may be enough to turn a library user into a non-user for the rest of their time at Cambridge.

For this reason I think it’s still important to have the initial contact of the induction tour and for students to have a positive impression of the library at this stage. I want to tell them: If you take only one thing away from the induction tour, I hope it’s that we’re here to help you do the best you can. We can then try to make the library experience easier through good design, through helpful staff and through ongoing training opportunities that emphasise what the library can do for users, "induction" will be an ongoing process of mutual development.

So I'm looking at a three-facet approach to inductions: the tour (Fresher's week), ongoing information/library literacy training and good design of library services and informational material. But how to make that initial tour inviting and engaging? Part of it is just being a friendly face, but I must admit I'm really tempted by the idea of a game or other hands on activity. But because we never know how many will be in a tour, I think it's likely we'd have to have people sign up if we tried to "gameify" the induction tours. It's something I'll definitely have to think about. At the end of the day, though, if students leave the induction tour feeling like the library staff are on their side and that it's not a scary place I will consider it a job well done.

What creative ideas have you heard for library inductions? Do you think they're useful or do you think the design of the library should tell users everything they need to know?

Work/Life Balance

By woodleywonderworks on Flickr

As far as first world, middle class problems go, few are as prevalent and perennial as the problem of balancing one's career with the rest of one's life. The thing is, dividing the problem into two parts - work, and then everything else outside of work - is a tremendous oversimplification. I don't know anyone's life who can be divided so cleanly. Even if you take kids out of the equation (which I have), you still have friends and family, fitness, mental/physical health, cooking, keeping your home and garden under control and maybe even altering it in fairly major ways, hobbies you love, classes you take, travel, decompression time by yourself... the list could go on and on.

Work is not so easily segregated into a single category either when you add to the day-to-day activities things like committees, special projects, long-term goals, professional development, relationships and networking etc. There are certainly times when I feel incredibly motivated to join everything, participate in everything, take on everything, and there are others when I am perfectly content to not have any challenges greater than a trolley of books to be labeled and a stack of archives to reshelve. So how does one cultivate all these disparate facets without burning out?

I used to think that achieving work/life balance involved stumbling upon the magic ratio where one's time was divided up into all the various hobbies, interests, social engagements and professional development activities and that was it. Once you'd settled on The Timetable you were good to go and the reason I hadn't achieved a balance yet was because I needed how to figure out how to divide all the hours of the day. But life doesn't work like that. Plans fall through or crop up unexpectedly, and, more importantly, I don't work like that. I used to think that balance was something I would have to impose upon myself because I'm the sort of person who dives passionately into one thing to the exclusion of others for a while, only to reemerge with a new passion a few weeks or months later.

The revelation for me has been accepting that balance is not a fixed ratio but a point that is constantly shifting beneath me in response to external circumstances and where my own energy and passion is guiding me. 

Balance means keeping some things ticking over with minimal effort/energy expended while I pursue my latest passion, but also recognising that whatever it is, no matter how passionate I am about it at the moment, it isn't the be-all-and-end-all thing I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life to. It's taken me over 30 years to recognise that pattern and understand how to make it work in my favour rather than feeling like it's a fatal flaw that will stop me from ever achieving balance.

Lately I've been working on riding the ebbs and flows of energy and making them work for me. Here's a brief run-down of the different facets that make up work/life balance for me and how I'm learning to maintain them without letting them take over:

Making - Although I'm not very artistically talented in any specific way, creative expression has always been very important to me, whether it's writing, photography, drawing, crafting, dancing, singing or curating (this includes things like putting together Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists). Sometimes I have absolute bucket-loads of creative energy and all I want to do is make stuff. This makes me seek out creative projects at work and/or at home. It's worth knowing that I can happily ride the wave of this creative energy for a while and accomplish a lot in a short space of time but that it will burn out pretty quickly, so I should be careful that I don't start so many things that I can't finish any of them before I dry up. Luckily, this sort of mood comes along pretty regularly so I can pick things up again at a later date when my creative energy is bubbling over again.

Moving - It's taken me a very long time to realise that I derive a huge amount of energy and happiness from being fit and active. As the sort of kid who loathed P.E. and organised sports, it was surprising to get to university and realise that I LOVE working out, I LOVE a physical challenge and I LOVE having a lot of movement in my life. I can turn sloth-like very easily, however, so to keep balance it's important for me to have physical activity be part of a routine. Roller Derby was great for this because even if I didn't feel like going to practice I would still go because it was an obligation. Then I'd invariably have a good time and feel better for it. Without the structure of Roller Derby, I kind of lost motivation for about 6 months, but I now have a personal trainer and I'm getting back into a regular schedule of exercise and feeling a lot better for it. It's good to know how important that discipline and routine of exercise is to my overall well-being so now I will try to keep that in mind as something that should be a part of my life at all times.

Learning - This includes reading, practicing something new, problem-solving, doing something unexpected, basically just introducing something novel into my life. Like "making", this is something that I can do at work by attending classes, developing my skills or just trying to do something in a different way. Sometimes I have a lot of energy to do this, while other times I really don't feel like I can take any more on because I'm getting overwhelmed and can't focus on anything. Once again it's about using the energy while I have it but not taking on too much because I know it won't last indefinitely.

Friends/Family - This one doesn't need too much explanation. If I don't have time to see friends and family, I start to feel super guilty and overwhelmed. Everyone needs time for relationships outside of work and this tends to need to be the most flexible aspect because it depends on when other people are available or need you to be in their lives. In my mind time with friends and family is never time wasted. It's the priority, even if it's not a constant.

For me the most difficult part of trying to strike a balance is accepting that I will not always have the same level of energy for particular activities - that it's a moving, shifting quantity and that my balancing point will differ from week to week or even moment to moment. When I have a lot of energy for a particular activity I find it very difficult to accept that it will change. At the time it feels like I can take on anything and everything and I have almost unlimited enthusiasm for a particular thing. Often it feels like a "Eureka" moment and it seems like I've finally discovered my calling in life as I practically fall in love with whatever the latest thing is. But this has happened so often in my life that I know now to be prepared for the bubble to burst, for reality to set in, and for my enthusiasm to wane as quickly as it arrived. It's not that I have no interest in it anymore, but I just have less energy and passion for it. I've never stopped being interested in astronomy, for example, but I stopped wanting to be an astronaut when I was about 15.

I don't think these things have been a waste of time simply because I didn't go on to "do" anything with them. It's nice to be able to contribute to conversations about astronomy, say, or at least know enough to ask questions of people who know it better than I do. Same with music, history, art and any of the other things I've been passionate about in my life. It's the newness, the learning, the dwelling in beginner's mind that makes it worthwhile. If I'm shaking myself out of routine and getting excited about stuff, it doesn't matter what that stuff is or whether I "do" something with it. At least I've kept things fresh and exciting. Maybe I'll never be a master of any one trade, but at least I'll have had an interesting life and taken advantage of my natural magpie-like tendencies to find my own individual work/life balance.

While you're pursuing your passions it's important to learn how to budget your finite mental energy by making as many other things automatic as possible. That keeps all the facets of your life ticking over at a base rate so that you're not abandoning your friends to do your hobbies, for example, or letting your physical exercise collapse completely when you're diving into a big project at work. The video below is a really good explanation of this idea. I highly recommend it!

So that's what I'm working on at the moment. I can feel myself shifting out of a very work-focused period into a time when I have a lot of physical energy, so I might need to consolidate my projects at work, maybe delegate a few things to my co-workers to keep the momentum going and use this opportunity to reflect on what I've done in the last month or so and what I can do better next time the career energy ramps up again. It might seem a little chaotic from the outside but I'm learning that this really works for me, so I guess I'll run with it!

Tomorrow's Library Leaders

Yesterday I went on probably my favourite Librarians in Training course yet - a day-long workshop on leadership in libraries led by Jo Alcock and Andy Priestner. Since it lasted all day a summary of the course would be absolutely massive, so instead I will reflect on what the course made me think about. It certainly provided a lot of food for thought and I left with a head full of notions which will probably take me a while to put into any sort of coherent form.

The course structure ticked all the boxes in terms of learning styles and there were plenty of activities to keep the momentum up over the whole day.

Masking tape-a-go-go pic.twitter.com/88wJ0eBOZd

— Andy Priestner (@andytraining) June 18, 2015

The activities were nice and varied, some involving large group team work and some one-on-one communication. The workshop was less about specific leadership skills, however, and more an exploration of what leadership is, what types of leaders there are and so on. I felt like it could have tied back more strongly to our own leadership styles as I left wishing I could have had some feedback on what kind of leader I am. However, we were given a good tool for finding out through peer coaching, so I might give that a go in my workplace.

The only other thing I personally would have preferred would be a few more breaks to reflect throughout the day, as there was so much to think about that it got a little overwhelming for me. But I appreciated that they needed to keep everyone's energy up and I'm probably unusual in getting a lot of energy out of reflective writing. The whole day was rather self-reflective anyway, even if it wasn't in the form of quiet writing. It felt a little bit like a day of doing those online personality quizzes that tell you which of the Power Rangers is your spirit animal (only way more insightful).

I was surprised to learn a few things about myself, like how I'm more willing to give up happy memories than traumatic but transformation ones because they taught me important things about myself, that the goals of "making stuff" and "making people happy" are a non-negotiable part of my life and that in the Authentic Leadership model there are lots of values I'm drawn to but when it came down to it I chose Aesthetics. This was described as: "A need for self-expression and an interest in the quality, look, feel and sound of things. A close attention to and concern for the appearance and impact of their work." I chose this over Altruism, which I would have said was a more core value to me. But in terms of the triggers of what I've been working on lately it makes a lot of sense. I think I work at altruism and am more conscious of trying to be a good person, but creative expression is the thing I do without thinking - the thing that is so fundamental to me that it doesn't feel like work. That's not to say I'm particularly talented at creative expression, but it does fuel me and give me a lot of energy. These were really valuable insights that I will definitely keep in mind as I continue to try to figure out what kind of leader I am.

In terms of trying to figure out what kind of leader I am, the course didn't help me arrive at any conclusions. I even began to question whether I actually wanted to be a leader. But ultimately I think questioning this kind of thing is quite healthy. This is a transcript of the reflective writing I did directly after the course:

Why is the concept of "leadership" important to me? Why do I want to be perceived as a leader? I have this odd juxtaposition of wanting to excel, to be involved, to feel accomplished, and also to shy away from attention and praise. And yet "leadership" exerts a kind of fascination for me. I'm not really sure what kind of leader I hope I would be. If I am a leader already then I might be a transformational one. The problem of burn-out and the need to be able to handle criticism better resonated very strongly with me. Certainly I think I've been involved in a cultural change at work, but who is actually following me? No one? Everyone? Is it important to know who considers me a leader or who my "team" is? I guess I do need some recognition - or at least validation - if I feel this uncomfortable thinking of myself as a leader without external acknowledgment.

It's like when I was asked in a job interview how I thought my colleagues would describe me - I didn't know and the fact that I didn't know kind of frightened me. I am really uncomfortable with the idea of other people having opinions about me. But my god am I going to have to get over that if I want to be a leader. It's all about whether or not people feel motivated by you, supported by you, or intimidated by you. You have to be okay with people having opinions about you that are beyond your knowledge or control. You have to be okay with people not liking things that you do. So it begs the question, do I even want to be a leader and if so, why?

I have to say that I do. I think I have a lot of creativity and vision, but more than that I really enjoy working with the ideas of others. I care about others and about my work. I think I have a lot of energy and ideas to contribute and I'm not afraid of putting myself out there. Beyond that, I certainly have weaknesses and traits that might be considered problematic for a traditional leader: emotional immaturity, over-sensitivity, self-doubt, etc. But I can work on those, get out of my comfort zone and be self-reflective enough to learn from my mistakes.

Thanks very much for a really engaging and thought-provoking course, Jo and Andy!

ARLG: Communicating with our users.

Yesterday marked my first CILIP event as I attended the course "Communicating with our Users" as a delegate. The speakers were Angela Cutts and Emma-Jane Batchelor (Faculty of Education), Cambridge, Jane Helgesen (UEA), and Libby Tilley filling in for a poorly Georgina Cronin (from the English Faculty Library and the Cambridge Judge Business School libraries respectively), while the delegates represented a range of libraries from places like Norwich, Cambridge, Nottingham, Hertfordshire and Hull.

As a thoughtful and caring group of librarians, the delegates had little trouble answering the prompt, "Why communicate?" Reasons cited included understanding our users, building relationships, breaking down barriers and being able to better tailor our services. Of course there are ways in which communication benefits us in terms of marketing library services, busting myths about who we are and what we do and even simply informing people that we exist. But communication is very much a two-way street with benefits for everyone if it is done effectively.

Done poorly, communication is effort down the drain. Photo by Lucy Welch.

A quick exercise listing ways in which libraries can engage in real-time vs. any-time communication revealed the vast number of ways we try to communicate with users, but equally (if not more) significant are the ways in which we unconsciously communicate. We were asked to put ourselves in our users' shoes and imagine what is communicated to our users unconsciously when they step inside our libraries. Those libraries with grand atriums devoid of books and comforts might look imposing, institutional, or more like a hotel than a library. My library is much smaller but on walking in there are no clear directional signs and staff are practically hidden behind a ridiculously tall desk that my shorter colleagues struggle to even see over the top of. I have always felt that this physical barrier forms part of a larger psychological barrier between us and our students that keeps us from communicating.

The issue of formality vs. informality was discussed quite a bit and forms another unconscious method of communication. Whether you address users in emails with "Hi, ______" or "Dear _______", whether you wear jeans and trainers to work or have a business-like dress code or wear sparkly lanyards, whether your Tweets sound funny and human or like they were generated by a computer, these things can set the tone for communication and are very dependent on the user base at your library. Emma and Angela work with many professional teachers and as such they feel more formal communication is needed, whereas Libby is on first name, "Hi, ______" terms with her predominantly undergraduate student base. And while Emma and Angela have developed the implict dress code of "dress like a teacher", Andy Priestner and his staff at the CJBS library "embrace the informal" and dress in the same sort of jeans, trainers and other comfortable clothes that their users wear. It may seem of little significance but clothing, tone and other subtle ways in which we portray ourselves communicate huge amounts. It's not only what we say but how we say it that either breaks down or puts up barriers.

The only time I wear jeans to work is on Saturdays.

This gave me a lot of food for thought. In my four years in my current job I have only ever worn jeans to work on Saturdays (as in the photo above). I'm not overly formal, given that the orange converse, my Doc Martens with a hole in the toe and my brogues, which are in an advanced state of decay, have all made regular appearances at work. But I had always wanted to be recognizable as a professional, both because I look close enough in age to the students to often be mistaken for a student rather than a professional librarian and because I felt that if I dressed formally it would help communicate to students that librarians had more to offer than just stamping books. Also, it would not feel entirely right to supervise visiting readers at the Wren Desk wearing shorts and a t-shirt while many of them wear shirts and ties for the occasion. However, I will have to give serious thought to the discussions we had yesterday and the article I posted above. As Andy said, "Clothes don’t make you professional." Would it help break down the barriers between staff and students if I wore jeans to work during the week? Do the trousers, shirts and blazers instill a sense of confidence in students that I am a responsible adult who is capable of helping them? I don't know. As all of the speakers said, communication should be tailored to the user group based on understanding and in those terms I'm only just getting to know who our users are.

The main thing is to be strategic about communication. We brainstormed words that apply to communication for each letter of the SMART objectives acronym and it turns out that librarians are rather good at coming up with synonyms:

@ARLGEastern Your SMART objectives for library communication. Thanks for all your ideas #arlgcomms pic.twitter.com/5GGITcrXkw

— Angela Cutts (@AngelEdLib) May 8, 2015

Putting thought into all of these aspects and tailoring them to your users will maximize the impact of communication meaning that your time is being well spent. Angela and Emma went on to look at specific examples of how they used multiple channels to communicate on a single aspect of the service. Their fun, engaging efforts were carefully timed, tailored to their users and were very eye-catching, but they always had a purpose behind them. Their "Will you be my borrower?" display for Valentine's Day, for example, generated crowd-sourced book recommendations. While they had fun making art-and-crafty DIY displays, the thought behind their outreach was methodical and I was impressed and inspired by how interconnected their displays, social media output and in-house events were. There was always a reason or a catch behind all the fun. It was always communicating something about the library's services but doing the double duty of helping users see the library staff as approachable and human.

I won't go into the excellent and exemplary case study presented by Jane Helgesen about communication with users during a project to redesign a space in the library. Suffice it to say that it provided me with many ideas about how we might approach a major redesign of the library if it ever comes to that. The main point I want to bring up from her talk was the importance of staff buy-in for effective communication. Faced with the difficult task of getting students excited about the library re-development (rather than irritated by the disruption to their studies), Jane ensured that everyone on the library's staff were well informed so they could give consistent, on-message information to students. Staff needed to be "clear and confident about what was going on," and their enthusiasm for the project could then spread to the library users. This was achieved through regular meetings, emails, and a shared folder that was regularly updated to keep staff in the loop and feeling empowered. It was a great example of how good communication is a holistic way of approaching libraries, not just a marketing tool to be exploited.

Communication is about understanding, give and take and being serious about not taking yourself too seriously.

You can get some different perspectives on what was discussed from the excellent live Tweeters by reading through #arlgcomms on Twitter. It was a great day, topped off with a tour of the Dawson Books warehouse, where Lucy and I, bedecked in hi-viz vests, came over all geeky about conveyor belts, industrial scale book shelves and a very satisfying machine that folds cardboard boxes. Thanks to the ARLG and the organizers of this event for a really nice day!

Lucy and I take a hi-viz selfie in the Dawson Books warehouse.