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.

UX Studies 1 - Lessons learned from the Feedback Wall (that don't have much to do with feedback)

The Feedback Wall at my library has been ongoing since mid-February and was inspired by this post on the UKAnthroLib blog. I'll admit that my secret hope when putting it together was that we would get positive feedback in among the mixture of suggestions and criticisms, the way other libraries seemed to be getting. In hindsight, I know that was a lot to ask given the relationship we currently have with our students, and our feedback so far has been entirely criticism and suggestions. While it has occasionally been a bit wounding to the ego, a lot of good has come out of the Feedback Wall and we intend to keep it going. Hopefully we'll get to the point where we do start to get positive reinforcement from students, but I certainly know now not to expect it.

Along those lines, I wanted to share a few lessons I have learned during this process that have less to do with the comments people have left and more with the process of soliciting feedback in this way and about workplace culture.

1- You can provide all the bells and whistles you want as long as you also address the most pressing needs.

I had been feeling pretty good about the Feedback Wall. In response to feedback we've received in the last three months we've brought in pens for next to the catalogue computers, sped up the acquisitions process for recommended books, purchased USB DVD drives and book rests for students to borrow, acquired ear plugs to give out to students and relaxed our drinks rules to allow students to finish hot drinks in the Issue Desk area rather than outside the library.

However, one issue keeps coming up consistently: the students want a water cooler or drinking fountain in the library. It is our most common suggestion/complaint on the feedback wall and was one of the most common comments on our user survey last year. No matter what else we were doing, this issue came up again and again and, while I sympathise very much with the student perspective, there was reluctance from higher up to do anything about it. I feel certain it will keep coming up until we do take some kind of action. It has been an excellent lesson in the fact that even if you think your institution is being reasonable (i.e. bring in your own water bottler), the users do not necessarily agree, and it is important to address those concerns.

2 - No matter how hard you work, people will still find something to critique you on. There's a balance to strike between trying to meet every single need and not bothering.

As a library assistant I work very hard to make the library a positive place for students to work. I am one of their main human points of contact with the library and as such I am very invested in making sure they have a good experience. However, I am also in the position of enforcing rules and, as the person who keeps track of the Feedback Wall, representing the views and expectations of my institution to students. This is a very difficult position to negotiate, especially when your sympathies and the policies you are enforcing do not align.

Even if you could somehow meet every need thanks to an inexhaustible budget, incredibly flexible library space and a staff entirely comprised of the sort of service-minded, bend-over-backwards librarians we wish we could be, there will always be something that someone thinks you've done wrong or could improve on. If you're in a more flawed (i.e. real) library, there are lots of somethings users will pick up on. This can become overwhelming if you let it. Or, you can take things on as you have the capacity to deal with them, one step at a time. Like I talked about in my previous post, keeping your focus on the final goal of a perfect library is unattainable and will ultimately lead you to burn out. Do what you can, when you can. If you are smart about it, you can potentially have a big impact without wearing yourself out.

3 - Learn to not take criticism of your institution personally.

Most of the feedback has been constructive or at least polite, but there have been a few that have really gotten under my skin and made me feel truly awful. The worst actually cropped up this week and was about - you guessed it - water. Not only did the student feel that we were expecting people to "drink from the sinks like dogs" but wondered how long the library was going to "ignore" the issue. This hurt, particularly because I had been trying for months to find new angles and new approaches to get management to solve this issue. Even if it was not being resolved, it was certainly not being ignored.

That was a moment when I needed to step back and put myself in the shoes of the individual who wrote the comment. From their perspective, it must have felt like we were ignoring the issue. If students see that nothing is being accomplished, they assume that means that nothing is being done. It wasn't a personal critique, just an expression of frustration at what to the students must seem like a no-brainer issue because we haven't been able to adequately justify the library's position.


I think empathy is the key to negotiating these difficult situations. If you can simultaneously empathise with both parties and truly understand their perspectives, it makes creative problem-solving and negotiation much easier. The moment you let yourself get worked up and feel personally affronted, you shut down your ability to approach the problem from different angles because now you are simply approaching it from a defensive position rather than one based on understanding.

4 - If you really believe in something, don't give up arguing for it. Keep changing your approach until you can reach a compromise.

Everyone's heard the phrase "You have to pick your battles", right? I kind of have a love/hate relationship with that phrase. It's useful in as much as it can remind you about the finite energy, finite resources or finite flexibility you have to work with, as in my previous points. But when it comes to dealing with people, this phrase makes me very frustrated. "You have to pick your battles with ________, you know?"

To my mind this just excuses the other person from having to make compromises. I'm certainly not saying I want to be adversarial over every single issue. Indeed, the most effective approaches involve seeing the issue from the other person's point of view and addressing their concerns in a creative and civil way. But I don't think that you should let "picking your battles" excuse anyone from having to engage in conversation over your difference of opinion on important issues. Nor should you let it excuse you from having a conversation that you're nervous about having. If you truly believe in something, keep trying different angles, different approaches, different solutions.

Somewhere in the depths of the UXLibs hashtag on Twitter I saw a quote from a keynote address (I'm really sorry, I don't remember which one or whose tweet it was) about approaching service design using the same rules as improvisational acting. In improv, there's the idea of "Yes, and..." This is where actors doing a scene together always build on what was said before. They never shut each other down by contradicting the inventions of their fellow actors, and they keep the scene going by expanding and elaborating on what has just been said, no matter how off-the-wall it may be. There was the idea at the UX Libs conference that this kind of environment is ideal for design because it keeps creative momentum going. Maybe some of the ideas will be impossible or undesirable in the end, but as part of the creative process it's important to run with them anyway because what sounds like a mad idea may end up being the brilliant solution you've been looking for.

If you are lucky enough to work in a "Yes, and..." environment, it's likely that you have a lot of scope to innovate. If you work in a "No, but..." environment, chances are you find it difficult to stay positive and keep coming up with new ideas. I know that I can get very emotionally exhausted by keeping my own momentum going while being told why my ideas won't work, why things won't change and so on. I'm not saying that you should ignore your own emotional well-being and plug away at things until you feel like you're going to drop, but don't let yourself get discouraged on the issues you really believe in. In that sense, you really should pick your battles - make sure you're investing emotional energy in things proportional to how important you think they are. But it's worth remembering that there are multiple approaches to every problem and it would be a shame to give up before you find one that works.

5 - Don't pay for supplies for your research out of your own pocket.

This one doesn't need much clarification. If you're doing UX research for your library, you're doing it for them. If you pay for your own supplies you'll end up feeling like an idiot later on, believe me.

Right Livelihood: Becoming a Buddhist Librarian

“Hour by hour resolve firmly to do what comes to hand with dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot." 

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Source: www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org

I've had a hectic week at work this week what with stressed out students facing their exams, dissertations due, events in the library and lots of smaller projects needing tending. Fortunately, that has propelled me back to my meditative practice, which had tailed off a bit of late. Facing stresses I have faced before with a relatively new set of skills and attitudes has prompted me to think a lot about how my exploration of Buddhism has shaped my approach to my profession over the last year.

The title of this post, "Right Livelihood", derives from one of the core tenets of Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path, in which the Buddha prescribed the way to the end of suffering. "Suffering", incidentally, is the most common translation of the Pali word dukkha, but it is not as extreme as we tend to mean it. For instance, I've also seen dukkha translated as "unsatisfactoriness". It refers to that feeling most of us have that something is missing, something could be better, or that we're falling short in some way -  a pervading dissatisfaction with the way our lives are right now that drives us to work harder, to acquire more stuff or to escape from it all. The Noble Eightfold path is a way of being in the world that works to root out the desires and aversions that drive dukkha, and it has echoes in Epicureanism, Stoicism and many other philosophical and religious practices the world over.

The Noble Eightfold Path is both less of a super-human undertaking than it looks and profoundly more difficult than it seems. It is not a set of commandments for how you must be all the time lest you face some divine retribution, nor is it something to which you can simply pay lip service. Walpola Rahula, a Sri Lankan monk and author, wrote that the facets of the Eightfold Path "are to be developed more or less simultaneously, as far as possible according to the capacity of each individual. They are all linked together and each helps the cultivation of the others." [The emphasis is mine.] Right livelihood (which can also be translated as "skilful" or "wise" livelihood), like all of the facets of the Eightfold Path, is not clearly and explicitly defined. Generally speaking it is any undertaking that does good rather than harm, which is ethical according to a Buddhist framework (in general Buddhism does not condone killing, lying, slavery or dealing in intoxicants) and which supports rather than hinders the individual's spiritual practice. However, it is up to the circumstances, the capacity and the judgment of the individual what right livelihood looks like in their own lives.

The Noble Eightfold Path. Source: beliefnet.com

Even with such a broad definition, right livelihood seems to generate anxiety in a lot of modern, especially Western Buddhists. Ted Meissner of the Secular Buddhist podcast has joked that many people seem to think the only right livelihoods available to Buddhists are along the lines of yoga teacher, monk or aquaponic kale farmer. I certainly struggled with this when I first encountered right livelihood, becoming deeply uncomfortable with the feeling that I was reinforcing a system of privilege through my own complicity. Ajahn Brahm observes, however, that, "It's not what you do but how you do it that makes all the difference."

This is the point at which the entire system of the Eightfold Path begins to work together: the "how you do it" point. What Buddhism is teaching me is greater mindfulness of the present moment, detached from old scars and prejudices picked up in the past, removed from perceptions of the future. With greater attentiveness comes greater patience and compassion. This can only be accomplished through good intention and effort. It is the quality of your work that matters, even if you are washing a dish or reshelving a book. If you are doing something with your mind wandering elsewhere, how well are you actually doing that thing? Right livelihood, then, is not connected to one's job title so much as putting one's entire self into one's work, whatever that work happens to be.

The "how you do it" also includes your relationships to other people; to your co-workers and library users. Think about a time when someone in a customer service role smiled at you or went out of their way to be helpful when you were having a bad day. That one small interaction cost them nothing but it improved your day dramatically. Think of all the people you smiled at or helped in your job today. Even if they didn't see you, even if they never know what you did, did you catalogue something in a way that will help a library user find it? Did you make sure the shelves were organised so they could retrieve it quickly? You form part of a service made up of people for the benefit of people. You facilitate the creation of knowledge, the spark of discovery and the joyous, frightening, silly, satisfying experiences of library users. Did you do it well and wisely? Did you bring compassion to your library's services? In terms of my fears that I was reinforcing privilege through my work, I think that unjust systems cannot be changed by turning our backs on them. If I bring compassion to the corner of the world I inhabit, to every person I meet and to the people I will never meet who use my library's services, I think that's all anyone is called on to do in order to make the world a better place. 

The most difficult part of mindfulness for me has been cultivating better self-awareness, including an awareness of my own flaws. It can be very uncomfortable to look at your professional and personal shortcomings, but it is ultimately an incredibly useful exercise. Not only can you learn to work through them or at least to work around them, but if you can look with compassion at the parts of yourself that you dislike the most you can certainly treat others with the same degree of compassion. Acknowledging my own egocentrism and my need for recognition was the most important step toward letting it go. Obviously it's still a work in progress but the minute I stopped shying away from it I was able to shift my perspective on my work and what I wanted to get out of it. It isn't about self-abnegation so much as the recognition that "myself" is no more than a useful construct for interacting with the world that can be let go.

"The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion.When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless." - Shunryu Suzuki

Beginner's mind, or "don't-know mind" is an important approach to life in Buddhism, especially in the various Zen traditions, that is very connected to the idea of letting go of self. Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said, "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." As librarians we often need to market ourselves as experts in particular skills and competences in order to more effectively integrate our services into the teaching activities at our institutions. But while it is important to showcase our professional expertise, it is equally important to cultivate in our own minds a sense of curiosity and openness. Kristen Mastel and Genevieve Innes, two librarians writing about Mindfulness for librarians, argue:

"The benefit of a beginner’s mind, if one can cultivate and achieve it, is that one will then look at the world with fresh eyes, and can rediscover the joy of learning something new, of finding just the right article or book, the deep satisfaction of having a question or curiosity answered, a curiosity sated--experiences which excited one and first drew him into the profession. In beginner’s mind, we understand what it is like to be in new situation, to feel uncertain, to feel vulnerable. In the beginner’s mind, one realizes how important it is to demonstrate patience and understanding with ourselves and others."

Beginner's mind, then, is important to cultivating compassion for our users as well as finding joy in our careers. It can be frightening for information professionals to embrace something like "don't-know mind", but I think that if we are to develop a partnership with library users rather than an expert/novice or gatekeeper/seeker relationship it is important that we learn how not to be experts, to learn how to not know. Our users are the true experts on their needs and goals and approaching them with an open mind ensures that we have the best chance of understanding them.

Source: http://www.buddhistelibrary.org

In a previous post, reflecting on where I am at professionally, I mentioned a shift in focus from self-oriented goals to service-oriented goals. I said that I was no longer focusing on where I wanted to be in my career but what I wanted the library to be like. While searching for other librarians' musings on right livelihood I came across a wonderful article by a recently qualified librarian that I think sums it up perfectly: 

We new librarians need not be enlightened Buddhists to learn something from these teachings about the connection between ego and burnout. We bring high ideals to our work, as we should, but are doomed to burnout if we tie our egos to achieving those goals. We are never going to teach all of our patrons to be critical about their information sources. We will never have the funding to provide all of the information sources our patrons need. We will never convince all of our leaders that information needs to be free. Certainly, we can make progress toward these goals, perhaps tremendous progress, but there will always be more new technologies to master, more information to organize, more information needs to meet. Perhaps we will be able to face this constant onslaught without burnout if our goal is service, not personal accomplishment. - Roberta M. Richards

This resonated with me very profoundly. I was heading for just such a burnout when I began engaging with Buddhism because my ego was tied to goals. I was clinging to what I thought I ought to be, what my library ought to be, and that neither of us were there was a sign of deep personal failure. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (so says Lao-tzu). There's a Zen proverb I really like that goes as follows:

A young but earnest Zen student approached his teacher and asked the Master, "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen?"
The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years."
The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast. How long then?"
Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years."
"But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student.
"Thirty years," replied the Master.
"But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student, "Each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?"
Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path." 

In all of our lives there is work that is right in front of us. It's probably not glamorous or prestigious. We may not earn any recognition or praise for it. But it's there and waiting for our attention. This also means knowing when to set your professional work aside because the work that is in front of you is the crucial work of self-care, of getting enough sleep, of spending time with your friends or hobbies. Right livelihood to me is about doing the work that is in front of you, as Marcus Aurelius said, with humanity, with compassion and with energy. That is where I have found happiness and satisfaction in my work: doing what is in my capacity to do, giving everything I have in that moment, with compassion for myself and others.

And, fortunately, the work is never finished.

I know that this is not everyone's cup of tea so I thank you for bearing with me if you've read this entire post. I hope it's given you something to think about. None of the things I have discussed is really inherently or exclusively Buddhist: they're ideas that can be explored by people of any - or no - belief system. That I am engaging with them through Buddhism is merely a reflection of my own personal resonances and proclivities, but it has been through dedicated engagement with these ideas that I am at the point I am now: both having travelled a great distance and having so much more ground to cover.

Time to reflect

Lately I've really been enjoying my work. I've been able to choose projects I'm interested in including developing a series of UX studies to get a better sense of what direction the library should be moving in, I've built a pretty decent social media presence for the library, I've worked on redesigning our webpages and I've started thinking about in-house outreach we can do to help our students engage with our historic collections.

This has come out of a situation that initially I found absolutely awful, however: one in which I got very little feedback and had very little direction from above. I've learned to not let it bother me, assuming that the lack of feedback is a good sign, and the bits of feedback I have had are all positive. It was simply not a situation I was used to and I eventually had to come to terms with the idea that the freedom to shape my own role came with a lack of direct mentoring and oversight that I've tended to rely on my whole life. It took me this long to realise, though, that there is a way I can get feedback: I can get it from myself.

So, I'm going to do a bit of reflective writing on what I'm doing and where I see it going. This is primarily an exercise for myself, but I'm sharing it because I hope it's interesting or helpful to someone else too.

User Experience (UX)

After my recent write-up of the class I took from Georgina and Meg, I've started looking at studies I can do in the library. This morning I've finished a proposal for a series of studies that will culminate in a report including recommendations about where I believe the library can improve in terms of UX.

It's become a bit of a preoccupation of mine lately, thanks to Cambridge hosting the UX Libs conference. I didn't get to go to that but I followed the conference's Twitter hashtag (#UXLibs) avidly and got involved as much as I could, including going to see the final pitches and chatting with some of those involved.

A meme based on Heidegger's phenomenological terms for users' experience of technology. Source: http://twitter.com/HogwartsUXLib/status/580280726421147648

I'm not sure where I'm going with UX other than it's a tool I find really interesting and useful and I want to have it in my toolkit. Like that thing on Batman's utility belt that has a grappling hook shaped like a bat and an unbelievably strong wire that can apparently hold the body weight of several fully-grown henchmen and at least one Boy Wonder. I want to keep reading about UX and I'm looking forward to actually doing some studies of our users. I admit I'm a little intimidated by the idea, but excited by what insights we'll gain by doing them. More on those later, I'm sure.

Outreach

Last Thursday I attended an Oxford/Cambridge College Libraries exchange. It was hosted in Oxford and I gave my first ever conference-type presentation, about my library's digitisation project and how we are promoting it through social media and other channels. I got really nice feedback from that and despite how nervous I was I think I did okay. As with any conference, though, the best part was the conversations after the presentations. I met some really nice people and had some great talks.

My favourite presentation of the day was by a couple of college librarians talking about getting students to access historical collections. I loved their ideas and they really pushed me out of my self-created digital pigeon hole. They had some great, creative ways of increasing the visibility of librarians and historical collections to members of the college and I can't wait to propose some of them to my manager.

Social Media

Probably one of my proudest achievements has been the social media presence of the library, but I am certainly not perfect at it and I am learning a lot as I go along. The more I engage in professional and academic conversations on social media, the more I learn and the more excited I get about it. I think I find this arena very comfortable, though, because of its anonymity and the lack of personal contact. I am trying to be aware of how easy it is for me to slip into a mentality that assumes social/digital media is all the outreach you need. In my own experience, face-to-face outreach is still by far the most effective.

Oddly, I've also learned a lot more about Twitter in the last couple of weeks through using a fake account. It's highlighted for me some things I do wrong or that others to right, it's helped me think about things like voice, timing and so forth more than my personal or work accounts have. It just goes to show you that you never know where you're going to pick up useful skills.

Where am I going (and why am I in this hand-basket)?

A lot of people don't realise how many different directions there are to go in librarianship. Outside of libraries many people I know assume that it's a straightforward hierarchy, the top of which is Head Librarian and that of course that's everyone's goal. The fuzzy, diaphanous nature of information science these days, though, means that these old hierarchies and traditional roles are breaking down, if they ever really existed in the first place. There are dozens of distinct library/information roles I could reel off without much thought, and probably dozens more I haven't heard of. In ten years there will probably be even more library roles that we haven't even considered yet. Still, between CPD courses, CILIP Chartership, networking etc. I've been given the distinct impression that most library folks know pretty much where they want to go and how they want to get there.

Can I really be the odd one out for not knowing what I want to be doing in ten years? Or five? Or one? Is it so important to have a set destination in mind? This time last year I would have been vehement that it does matter and that anyone who said otherwise was probably unambitious, as if that's the worst thing you can be. I don't really know what I want for me, but I know what I want for my library in the next year, or five, or ten.

I want it to be better, and if I can help make that happen, that will be awesome.

In conclusion: the state of Library Sphinx

Ultimately I think if I were to give myself feedback about all of this, I'd say that I'm doing interesting research and coming up with good ideas but where I fall down is in having the guts to implement them. Because I don't have someone telling me to do a UX study, or arrange a library literacy course, I tend to balk when it comes to actually doing it. I need to be braver and see my ideas through. The OxCam conference showed me that doing things I'm intimidated by can be a great learning experience and a lot of fun. It can also open up new opportunities and ideas that I wouldn't have encountered otherwise. 

So, Self, be brave, be open to new experiences and keep working hard to make libraries more awesome. 

Radical librarianship?

I have a lot of thoughts bumping around in my head today, prompted in part by attending some classes and meetings with really amazing, inspiring librarians, but also from reflecting on my job and my place in the vast information landscape. I'm going to try to let some of these ideas out so I'm sorry if this blog post is a bit ad hoc.

I think the place to start with is admitting that libraries, particularly higher education libraries, are part of a system that traditionally reinforces privilege at every level. Although libraries can fill a radical role in communities, that ability lies chiefly in the actions of individual users and librarians. As institutions, libraries are traditionally prescriptive; us (the librarians) telling them (the users) what's good for them and how to get it. To quote nina de jesus, "Libraries as institutions were created not only for a specific ideological purpose but for an ideology that is fundamentally oppressive in nature. As such, the failings of libraries can be re-interpreted not as libraries failing to live up to their ideals and values, but rather as symptoms and evidence of this foundational and oppressive ideology." It is important to identify privilege in order to begin to address the problems it creates in terms of barriers between potential users and information resources.

HE librarians may not be able to rectify the admissions processes and broader economic issues that mean some demographics are underrepresented in our institutions, but we can dismantle our ideas about a hierarchical information landscape in which we sit at the top, or at a choke point between users and information. Many (I would think most) librarians already think this way, but many of the institutions in which we work and the systems in place are inherently conservative and over time the radical politics are driven out of individual librarians by time or my feeling the need to work with the system in order to progress in their careers.

The thing is, institutions and systems don't change unless people make it happen, which is why it is up to us, from the Librarians-with-a-capital-L down to the library assistants like me to struggle to change systems that we think are unfair, outdated or ineffective. I operate under the idea that one should never EVER tell oneself that caring about fairness and access is above (or below) your pay grade. The most revolutionary thing librarians can do is relinquish our power and realize that it was never real. Libraries are at their best in the hands of users. That means our role is to facilitate, to listen, to empathize, to collaborate and to be imaginative more than to instruct, preserve, dictate or control. Our expertise can be deployed in handing over the maps and keys to users and ensuring they understand how to use them rather than clinging onto them and insisting that they follow us.

I've been working with librarians throughout Cambridge lately who are of the same mind, pushing against institutions and ideologies that seem intractable at times to change the face of academic libraries. It's inspiring and humbling to sit around the table with them and have a voice. This encompasses everything I'm trying to do at the moment, from making the rare books and manuscripts collection more accessible to working on creative and engaging ways to help students develop their information literacy to conducting UX studies to find out just how much we don't know about our users. I know a lot of this is old news to lots of librarians, but privilege doesn't go away as soon as you embrace a user-focused approach. We need to constantly check ourselves to make sure we are not making assumptions about our users, what they know and how they work. We especially need to question our assumptions about our role in our users' lives. I believe that the more we hold on to the role of gatekeeper, the more irrelevant we will become. Conversely, the more we empower users, the more central to their academic and social growth we will become.

Anyway, these are the things I've been contemplating lately, sitting at the desk all quiet and everything.

UX and Ethnographic Methods for Librarians

I feel extraordinarily lucky to work where I do. I have a lot of latitude, including the opportunity to really shape my own role, I have been able to usher in pretty major changes in the culture and services at my library working from the bottom of the hierarchy and I have a pretty sweet work space from which to research exhibitions, explore avenues of outreach and publicity and keep up with what's going on in other libraries.

One of the nerve centres of the UX revolution (AKA my desk)

One of the best things about working here - and in Cambridge Libraries in general - is the focus placed on the CPD (continuing professional development) of library staff. We have great opportunities to learn and grow as a community, not least of which is the Librarians in Training courses that run throughout the year. If you're working in Cambridge libraries and haven't yet taken advantage of these, you should really think about doing so. Not only can you learn a lot from courses targeted to Cambridge librarians, but it's a fantastic opportunity to meet people from other libraries who will be your allies and resources in projects you might want to take on in future. (And they're all lovely people, it goes without saying!)

I attended a course yesterday afternoon entitled "UX and Ethnographic Methods for Librarians" taught by hippest-of-the-hip Cambridge librarians Meg Westbury (Wolfson) and Georgina Cronin (Judge Business School). Both of these women are inspirational innovators who really care about providing great services to library users and it's fantastic to get an insight into how they've done what they've done at their own institutions and for the wider Cambridge library community. The class itself was pretty much a perfect mixture of instruction and activity as far as I was concerned. I think I'm not alone in having had a really good time with it.

Introducing UX and ethnography

Meg began by defining and explaining UX and ethnography. Very briefly, UX (user experience) is a term originating with Apple, who are masters of the art. It encompasses UI (user interface) and usability (a term that itself encompasses how easy a tool or service is to navigate, learn, remember etc.), but goes beyond both to look at the qualitative dimensions of experience, emotion and cognition at the point where users interact with products or services. Essentially, it puts the focus on the individual's motivations, needs and feelings. It looks at barriers to use as well, trying to determine who is missing and why. Ethnography is writing about culture, with the worthy goal of doing so from ground level instead of top-down. As much as possible the aim is to understand the shifting points of view of the individual user without imposing assumptions or putting them in a static, statistical box. You can learn more about students from an ethnographic study with four participants, Meg said, than from surveying 100 with a standardized questionnaire.

Ethnographic UX research in libraries is growing rapidly as library professionals confront the fact that not only do we not necessarily know best about how to meet our users' needs but maybe we don't even know their needs as well as we like to think. As so-called "disruptive" technologies undermine the privileged position libraries have occupied as the sole gateways to information, how can we change our relationship to the information landscape and to our users in ways that will create meaningful, inspiring opportunities for our users? Luckily, UX research can be a lot easier to implement than more traditional research. Since you're looking for qualitative data that is not exhaustive so much as a window into a single user's experience at a single point in time, study design can be more flexible and creative. Many of the methods utilize things as basic as users' own mobile phones and post-it notes and require less planning and preparation than a questionnaire.

Methods

The majority of class time was spent looking at a few of the potential methods with Georgina, including trying them out for ourselves! First off was my favorite, cognitive mapping. The task was to draw from memory a map of your working spaces. The exercise lasted 6 minutes, and we changed pens every two minutes. This highlighted what was most significant in our minds, what was lower priority and what was most peripheral. (The order was blue, red, black, in case you want to psychoanalyze me based on the drawing below, i.e. I drew the Space Marine figure on my monitor long before drawing a representation of reshelving).

My cognitive map of the places I work. Don't judge me. I have not the skills of an artist.

Normally participants would label their maps and discuss them with the researcher, but before doing that we swapped maps with someone else and tried to interpret theirs without any labels. This clever exercise showed how easy it is to misinterpret or assume you know what something means when actually you have it all wrong. It was also interesting to experience firsthand how it is slightly nerve wracking to do the drawing but really quite fun to talk about the drawing afterward.

The other main activity was looking at observation. Georgina herself learned a lot about how users move through her library simply by sitting and watching for an hour at a time on different days. She created a heat map and a list of activities performed by library users and got a better idea of how people were actually using the space. We went out into the wilds of the University Library to try it out! It's surprisingly difficult to be discrete, especially when you're an adult in a student space. A few people were asked if they worked for the UL. Not so subtle. It is interesting how much you can learn even from five minutes. On the top floor I found that no one really stayed up there to work but rather came and got their books and left, but that there was some difficulty locating items, meaning users were backtracking a lot and looking at the signage to try to work out where their book was. There were many other interesting observations from the other participants as well. I think it's a useful method, but would work better in conjunction with something that elicited user responses as well, for instance maybe I would interview a few students about what spaces they avoided in the UL and why, or ask them to do a photo diary of places they feel confused in the library.

We received handouts at the end with a list of resources to get started (which I will copy below) and an expanded list of methods (which I won't copy, but I'm sure Meg and/or Georgina would be happy to supply if you email them). I'll be hanging on to these long-term, I think, and referring to them for inspiration.

Conclusion-y type things

After a discussion about analyzing and presenting the results, the class ended with a brief discussion of ethics, which boiled down to common sense: let participants know how you're going to use their data, and don't let incentives create an imbalance of power or a sense of obligation. When in doubt, use a consent form, and let participants know that they can leave the study at any time. Also, food-based incentives are often more than enough to make participants feel appreciated for giving you their time.

One thing I would have liked to discuss in more detail is what kinds of questions lend themselves to these sorts of studies. I came away feeling like people might just pick a study that sounded fun without first designing it to address a specific gap in knowledge. I think it would be more useful to start from a particular aspect or question you wanted to investigate, as in this passage from Nancy Fried Foster et al.:

"Our first task was to identify one trenchant research question to guide the project. The question we developed was, What do students really do when they write their research papers? Between the assignment of a research paper and the finished, submitted product was a black box that largely concealed the processes undertaken by the student. We wanted to take a peek into that box to see what we could find. We felt that this question accurately reflected our ignorance of student work habits while providing a manageable focus for our information-gathering activities." - Studying Students

I like that this passage acknowledges the ignorance of the researchers. In studying social science research methodology for my librarianship course I often felt that studies commenced with researchers already having an idea about the results in their heads. It left little room for flexibility and possibly influenced interpretation, especially when studies attempted to fit qualitative experiences into quantitative data. Statistics have their place, of course, but they don't tell a story and they certainly don't put the individual at the heart of research.

I will certainly be using some of these methods to conduct studies in my own library and have already started annotating my hand-outs with potential research topics/questions.

I'm sticking notes on so I can keep the handout for longer. Yeah.

I really enjoyed this course and got a lot out of it, most importantly the confidence that this is something very achievable and useful to do. I am excited to find out what my library users need and want, and how we can more closely align our services to those real needs. Thanks, Meg and Georgina!

Resources to get started

• Nancy Fried Foster et al., Studying Students: A Second Look. Free download at http://bit.ly/1Bj5QMp
• ERIAL Project Toolkit: http://www.erialproject.org/publications/toolkit/
• Donna Lanclos, The Anthropologist in the Stacks: http://www.donnalanclos.com/
• Cennydd Bowles and James Box, Undercover User Experience Design (2010)
• Leah Buley, The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide (2013)
• Sam Ladner, Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector (2014)
• Martyn Denscombe, The Good Research Guide for Small-Scale Social Research Projects (2010)
• #UKAnthroLib blog: http://ukanthrolib.wordpress.com

Envisioning a pastoral role for college libraries

I know it's been a while since I've posted, so forgive me for launching into an explanation for that before getting to the main topic of my post. I've been doing a lot of personal (i.e. not necessarily library related) growth and reflection this year, and started another blog about these issues that I have been much better about updating. I suppose I also felt like a bit of a poseur having a library blog as a relatively low-level employee and not having done much Postgrad-Level research. I started this blog with the intention of using it for CPD and networking because as I finished my PGDip in Information and Library Management I very much wanted and, to be perfectly honest, expected to see myself climbing some kind of career ladder with a speed proportional to my enthusiasm. That did not happen and my reaction to that fact has played a large part in the aforementioned personal reflection. I am trying to let go of attachment to "success" and "accomplishment" as they are often measured in our society and trying to do what is in front of me from moment to moment to the best of my ability.

Today I wanted to write, though, about a topic I've been carrying in the back of my mind for a while. It came up in conversation with a colleague from another library yesterday, so I thought I would get some thoughts out about envisioning a role for college libraries.

There are many libraries in Cambridge, the roles of which vary immensely. Broadly speaking, the University Library is a research library with a vast collection of resources at its disposal and is in many ways the nerve centre of all of the libraries, maintaining a broad view of the extensive academic community in Cambridge and related networks beyond. Their role is breadth. The departmental and faculty libraries specialise in particular subjects and the librarians there will be knowledgable about the research environments relevant to their users. Their role is to provide depth.

College libraries are a strange mixture, positioned not exactly between the other two. Because colleges are made up of students and researchers from various departments, college libraries need to provide a breadth of material, but to a sufficient depth to be useful to first years through research fellows. As such, it is difficult to characterise college libraries, especially given the vastly different sizes, resources and cultures of each college. A colleague told me that some view college libraries as not much more than "an extra reading room", i.e. a physical space to sit and work. Given the passion of the college librarians I know and the centrality of the college to the lives of its members, it would be a shame to have such a limited impact on our users.

As such, I have thought for a long time that it would be wonderful for college libraries to occupy a pastoral role in our users' lives, and to develop strategic visions that have that as a central aim. "Pastoral" is most often associated with religious or inter-faith chaplaincy, but I don't think the phrase is inappropriate to college libraries. It evokes the kind of caring environment that takes into consideration a whole person - intellect, body, emotions, consciousness, relationships - in a supportive and non-judgmental way. It is not a didactic, hierarchical teacher/student relationship, nor is it simply service-based, never delving beyond filling book requests and making sure the printer has paper in it.

So what would pastoral care look like in college libraries? That could be the subject of months of brainstorming involving people much smarter and more creative than I am. However, I thought I'd get some ideas out there just as a starting point.

College libraries are located physically "close to home" for students. We're their "home" libraries. In many cases we're probably the first HE library they'll use. While departmental and faculty libraries can offer very targeted, subject specific information literacy interventions, why couldn't we introduce more universal ideas, like critical analysis, time management and understanding their place in the academic landscape? If this is integrated skilfully with tutorial work early in the first year, it could ease the transition into HE and set up early on the idea that the college library is there to support the skills and development of its students.

Garden International School's commitment to student welfare. Source: https://www.gardenschool.edu.my/student-environment/student-welfare-support/

I think there's also something to be said for focusing (as much as possible) on physical comfort, ease of access and social spaces in the library. My library is sadly very lacking in these attributes but I think it's something worth focusing on in the future. Could we provide places for people to relax, chat and eat food while they're taking breaks from working? Could we provide different kinds of seating arrangements, like sofas and floor cushions for people who are not comfortable working at desks? Could we stay open 24/7 since that's something users say they want? Traditionally, we have been more concerned about our physical collections than what our users want, but a library that sees its role as pastoral would do the reverse. The physical collection is important, yes, but only because there are users who give it - and us - a purpose.

Could we also be doing more for general health and wellbeing? It's not uncommon for libraries to offer information literacy instruction these days, but could we offer courses on things like sleep hygiene and stress management? Maybe we could work with Student Welfare departments in the colleges to have borrowable "de-stress kits", quiet chill out spaces and snacks available during exam term. All of these would not just be useful for students but would change our reputation from rule enforcers and book stampers to active supporters of their educational and personal development.

From "De-Stress Fest 2014" at Langara Library. Source: http://www.langara.bc.ca/library/news/articles/11212014-destress-fest.html

As the information environment becomes more complex and so-called "digital natives" are expected to arrive at Cambridge pre-loaded with all sorts of skills and literacies, it's important to remember the individuals behind those assumptions are often confused, self-conscious, frightened or overwhelmed. As a college librarian I would love to have a more hands-on role in my students' lives, creating safe spaces for them to develop research skills, knowing what's going on with their tutorials, what their schedules are like, what's stressing them out, what they're doing to relax, etc. in order to anticipate their needs. I want to have more opportunities to show compassion to library users, developing programmes and services that will not just give them what they need to grow as academics but will improve their quality of life. Should college libraries be able to do this? Is it even possible?

I don't see why not.

Academic Literacies - Part 2

Hey, look at this, I'm actually blogging! It's almost like there's a looming deadline I'm ignoring... As promised, part 2 of my brain dump after job-shadowing Emma Coonan. It ended up being more of an 'End of PG Dip' decompression post, so sorry about that!

It was an auspicious if sub-optimally-timed day when I finally introduced myself to my secret mentor, Emma Coonan (sub-optimal because she's about to leave Cambridge). Thankfully, she seemed quite pleased to have a chirpy little acolyte running around and we have since had some great conversations through email and my job shadow afternoon earlier this week. I won't go into specifics but I wanted to talk about some of the themes we've discussed, my thoughts, and some reflections on where I see my career heading as my final term of my PG Dip Information and Library Management course winds down.

Emma's job at the UL is Research Skills and Development Librarian, which is in theory my dream job. As such, we share an interest in Information Literacy (IL) as well as consternation with some of the ways in which it is taught, measured, ignored, misinterpreted, or under-valued by various parties in higher education. Information literacy is a term with fairly porous edges, but various groups have come up with useful definitions (see CILIP, SCONUL, ANCIL etc.). They all hover around the idea of IL as a range of skills and literacies necessary to succeed in an information-based world through life-long learning and the ability to successfully and ethically search for, evaluate, manage, synthesize, and present information.

I'm currently finishing up an assignment for my PG Dip course that is a literature review of the methods of 10 studies on information literacy (the choice of topic was mine), and I'm looking at studies that have taken various approaches. The most disturbing trend I've noticed is the tendency for researchers to want to qualitatively measure students' IL as a way of evaluating interventions. To quote an email I wrote:

I've been finding with the studies in my literature review that many researchers are looking for very straightforward, quantifiable ways of measuring skills they've just argued in their literature reviews are complex. Some of the assessments are so obviously missing the point of information literacy, for example a multiple choice questionnaire that asks, "If you want to search for journal articles about 'The prevalence of drug abuse in the UK', the quickest way of finding this would be to search in:..." (McKinney, Jones and Turkington, 2011) Of course the answer they're looking for, the "right" answer, is "a bibliographic database" and they make a big deal about the fact that most people said an online search engine before their IL instruction. But if you have the ability to evaluate sources, why on earth couldn't you construct a perfectly thorough search strategy based on search engines, depending on the topic? And asking the same question at the end of the module only proves that you've trained them to parrot back what you think the "right" answer is. But surely this is epistemologically misguided on the part of the researchers to say that there's a "right" and "wrong" answer in information literacy.

This attitude has given rise to things like Project SAILS, a standardized test claiming to be able to measure the complex and individual literacies associated with IL. This reminds me so much of a standardized, multiple choice test in reading I took when I was in high school. I tested at something like a 2nd grade reading level and because that was very obviously not true, they actually brought in one of the people who designed the test to talk to me, have me read a passage and interpret it. I remember it took place in a jungle and there was a sense of tension and mention of someone/something watching from the trees. When I came up with an incorrect but totally plausible answer to what the passage was about (I said I thought it might be about Guerilla warfare, having read about it a few weeks previously), the woman asked me, "Why do you think your score didn't reflect your reading ability?" I told her that I don't think you can measure reading comprehension with a multiple choice test at all. I brought to the passage my own experience, knowledge and connections, just as students bring their own strategies, preferences and interpretations to the practice of academic literacy. That is not something you can pin down with a standardized test.

The state of IL practice in this country is interesting. Relatively few universities have specific IL-based learning outcomes and policies (see Corrall, 2007), but IL encompasses many of the hidden expectations universities have of their students and researchers. And yet, if they are not taught, how are students expected to know about them, let alone practice them and receive the feedback and guidance of teaching faculty one would expect to get for any other academic topic? At the moment there is underwhelming support from universities, despite the fact that graduates who know how to solve problems, evaluate information, contribute to knowledge and present it to a high standard are in demand. It seems that in a bid to gain funding - or to not lose it - from institutions, practitioner/researchers are left with little choice but to try to demonstrate value with exactly the sort of quantitative instruments that de-values information literacy.

It is not across the board. Within higher education there are managers who support the development of IL curricula with more than just lip service, but this is very much dependent on where you are. So it seems as though I'll either have to seek out employers that already support these programmes, or be prepared to fight tooth and nail to get one established.

Reflecting on the last 18 months, I am amazed at how much I have changed. It seems the rapid transformation of the undergrad. years is not solely due to transitional issues of living away from home for the first time, but owes a lot to the intensive intellectual process of digging down into subjects about which you are passionate.. I have changed my ideas radically - or perhaps 'clarified' is a better word - and reached out to seize my burgeoning professionalism with a much clearer sense of what my ideal future in library work is.

• I want to help people. I want to help them get excited about learning, empower them to be life-long learners and to continue to learn from them.
• I want to be involved with the IL research community, to encourage good practice and perhaps contribute to the body of knowledge in this field.
• To that end, I would like to someday do a Ph.D. Maybe the topic will occur to me through work, maybe through keeping up with research in the area, but I feel I want to challenge myself to do such an in-depth research project.
• I want to write my book - the sort of book on critical thinking that I'd like to read - and I would LOVE to see that book on required reading lists for GCSE or A Levels.

So, I have more than a little ambition, but a lot of inspiration. If I do half of the things on that list I think I'll be able to feel proud of myself.

Watch this space.

Academic Literacies with LibGoddess, Part 1

Caveat: This is a brain dump post and it is very long. Read at your own risk, and also get a nice big cup of tea before you do.

On Wednesday (11/12/13 - I wrote the date on everything because it was fun) I job-shadowed Emma Coonan (LibGoddess) of the Cambridge University Library and had a fantastic time doing so! I also attended her last class ever at Cambridge, Academic Reading and Writing for first year Engineering Ph.D. students, in order to get a sense of the kind of teaching librarians do, how to engage students with information literacy material etc. I'm writing this up as a way of keeping record as well as sharing my experience if anyone else is interested. Part 1 deals with the class and Part 2 deals with my general thoughts on the job shadowing experience, the conversations I had with Emma, and where I see my career going.

The class was held in the evening and was pretty well attended. It seemed like Emma had built up a rapport with the students in her previous sessions, which was very nice to see. I acted as a participant in the class because I thought I might get more out of it that way, but tried to also make some observational notes as we went along. In general, the class was mostly lecture style with slides signposting the main topics, along with two practical activities. I enjoyed the lecturing style as it was pretty casual and spontaneous in feel but still kept to the main points. Overall I noticed that Emma made a point of normalizing difficulty and confusion by pointing to examples of her own struggles and acknowledging differences in study style. It was good to hear that although there are certain practices that are more efficient than others, the strategy and style of research is up to the individual - there is no right or wrong way to study.

Emma began with a brief discussion of context - of why it's worth learning about academic reading and writing. There is an assumption in the UK that if you are at University you know how to read and write. Or perhaps that should be written as 'Read and Write', because there are many hidden expectations in academia and in the UK these are seldom made explicit to students. Two of the students in the class had been taught academic writing, in Austria and America, and Emma invited the group to chip in if they thought 'Hang on, that's not what my supervisor told me to do.' In a way, I was really hoping this would happen because it would have made for a very interesting discussion and it would be interesting to hear how teaching faculty in STEM disciplines handle research skills, but I suppose part of my brain was expecting them to have set a less-than-optimal example, which is a stereotype the members of the class quickly made me question.

She went on to explain that, 'Reading and writing are not separate in academia' - that reading is an active process and that writing is a form of thinking. I'm definitely finding that as I become a more self-reflective learner. I am a fervent note-taker when I'm reading, as I form my own ideas about the significant themes, evidence, etc. and I'm a huge fan of reflective writing as a way of establishing what you think, making sense of an experience and getting out the ideas bouncing around in your head. That being said, I'd never made that direct a connection between reading and writing, so it was a definite light-bulb moment.

At this point, Emma asked us to split into groups and discuss what we find challenging about academic reading and writing. In my group I think I was the only native English speaker and one of 4 women in a group of 5, so that was cool! They were a little reluctant to speak so I got the ball rolling, trying to give a very generic answer, though I realized after the fact that I probably set the tone for the kinds of responses the others gave. (Incidentally, I LOVED having this conversation. It was so cool to hear about the challenges STEM students face and their strategies for dealing with them. I had a really good time getting them to open up about some of their issues and listening to their ideas.) I could write an entire blog post about each of the points the groups came up with, but I'll just do bullet points for now.

Group 1:

• Technical jargon and reading in a language that isn't your mother tongue
• Figuring out what the main points of a paper are
• Deciding which author has the most valid argument (this was stated as 'which one is right' - I'm not sure if this shows a lack of epistemological depth or if this is actually a valid question in STEM. I think that's a very philosophical crux.)
• Structuring arguments (my trying-to-be-generic contribution)
• Writing with a particular audience in mind

Group 2:

• Staying on track, not following distractions
• Concentration in reading and writing
• Understanding whether a paper is relevant when you aren't familiar with the concepts

It was interesting how different the answers were. Emma brought these together by discussing the different levels of challenges in academic reading. First, there's the physical demand of getting through the volume of reading. Then there's the question of selectivity: WHAT to read. Finally, there's the analytical stage, determining what lines of argument/methodologies are most successful, etc.

With regards to the first level, Emma noted that you are not expected to read everything, nor should you try. Instead, develop strategic reading. This involves:

• Getting to the core of a paper's argument as quickly as possible (try to get to the point where you can explain its purpose or main bullet points after 5 minutes of reading)
• Assessing its value to your work (what can you get out of this? How good is it for your needs on a scale of 'meh' to 'Awesome!'?)
• Making better notes (captures your response to the author. I'm a pro at this. I have elaborate conversations with authors in my notes.)
• Skimming! Not just for lazy people anymore! (This helps you maintain a critical distance when you read a paper for the first time so you don't fall for sexy rhetoric. It's not just a time-saver.)

In practice, you do this by first focusing on the skeleton of the text, which is often made easier by academic writing conventions, for example abstracts, headings, figures etc. All of these will give you clues as to why the paper exists and whether it will have value to you. In STEM papers, often you can see all of the relevant material just by looking at the figures/tables. Finally, reading the first sentence of each paragraph will often give you a good idea of the flow of the argument.

I was glad to see that most of these were strategies I already follow, particularly in doing my lit review assignment for Northumbria, as writing about 10 articles on a given topic involves looking at a lot more than 10 articles. However, I did kind of want to speak up and say that if something does slip through this process that ends up being irrelevant, it isn't a wast of time if you consider why it is irrelevant and why it managed to escape your filters. At worst, this helps you focus your search strategy and it may even help you focus your research question.

At this point we did a strategic reading exercise. Emma handed out copies of an academic article (some students had brought their own) and she gave us 5 minutes to practice strategic reading. At the end of the 5 minutes we were all able to say very roughly what the articles were about. I'm pretty sure all of us used different tactics. I was probably the most prolific note-taker, but that's what print-outs are for! I noticed I was still using some strategies left over from the literature search for my lit review, as right after looking at the conclusion paragraph, my eyes went to the bibliography and noted with slight derision that they only cited a paltry three sources although they presented no original data. For shame! (Just kidding.)

This brought us to academic writing, because the conventions we'd just used to read strategically are the same conventions we're expected to use in academic writing. They are effectively hand-holding techniques to bring your readers along and tell them the WHAT, WHY and HOW of your paper in the clearest terms possible (see the handout linked below). This portion seemed a lot more extemporaneous, with a lot more examples from Emma's own experience as an academic, probably because the writing process differs so wildly between individuals. She observed that academic writing and research is half Project Management, half crazy creative mess, and you need to allow yourself both. I especially need to remember to allow myself the necessity to be creative and messy when writing for myself. There was also the fairly standard advice to Ph.D. students: start writing now, don't get hung up on the end product, etc.

Finally, we were given the chance to free-write for 8 minutes. I had forgotten how terrifying/fun that is. I do reflective writing from time to time for my own benefit, but it's fun to have the pressure of not being able to stop or edit, as I'm the sort who will spend 20 minutes re-writing the same sentence before I've finished writing the paragraph.

I left the class feeling I'd had a good mixture of reinforcing things I already knew and getting inspired by new ideas. It does make me want to do a Ph.D. at some point. If I ever do, I'm going to try the technique of reading my own writing using the strategic reading method to see if I sign-post as well as I should. I suspect I don't. I also found the tip of looking at the Manchester Academic Phrase Bank for some non-copyright linking phrases to use when stuck VERY useful.

Next time: my random-ish thoughts on the shadowing experience, conversations I had with Emma and where I see my career going from here.

Emma's write-up on her class: http://researchcentral.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/academic-reading-and-writing/
'How to read 10 books (or thereabout) in an hour' handout: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/courses/Documentation/10_books_an_hour.pdf
'Academic writing survival guide' handout: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/courses/Documentation/essay_writing.pdf