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.

Birds in the Wren

The Caladrius, a mythical bird, heals a sick king. From Trin. Ms. R.14.9

Bird Iconography in a 13th Century English Bestiary

Here's my latest blog post over at the Trinity College Library blog. The text was originally written for an exhibition my colleague and I put together over two years ago, entitled "Birds in the Wren" (ha ha), looking at bird iconography, symbolism and representation from medieval manuscripts to Darwin's finches, to Owl in Winnie the Pooh.

Penumbra shadowing experience at the English Faculty Library

I was lucky enough to do a job shadowing afternoon at the English Faculty Library with Libby Tilley and Helen Murphy on Thursday the 8th of May. The shadowing experience was focused on user education, at my request, and so primarily involved sitting in on a training session entitled “Quickstart for Part 1 dissertations: processes and resources”. This built on a session held in Lent term on building bibliographies using Zotero, so knowledge of this was useful as a prerequisite, though they did cover it again for those who did not attend. The rest of my time at EFL was spent at Issue Desk and in conversation with Helen and Nora, a work experience employee about libraries in Cambridge, the differences in our libraries etc.

The training session

The EFL has a small but very nice IT training suite on site, and this was where the training session was held. There are laptops at each station and the person at the lectern is able to switch from projecting their screen to any of the laptop screens. The laptops can be locked away beneath the surface of the desk when the room is not in use.

The session was a quick overview of the process of planning and writing a dissertation, targeted at first year English students. Its purpose was to allay fears and also introduce students to some of the resources available, particularly those provided by the library. It was based on a hand-out that divided dissertation writing into 5 steps or sections, and each section had a “hook” or useful tidbit that I think students will find memorable when it comes time to start writing. Everything covered was on the hand-out and the services or resources provided by the library are highlighted in a different colour so that students know what the EFL provides. Furthermore, students were asked which section they thought they needed more help on. Responses were a little timid, I think possibly because no one had thought that far ahead yet, so all of the sections were covered.

SECTION 1: Choosing a topic

First, Libby emphasized that in the dissertation the library could help, but that students’ directors of studies/supervisors are gods as far as the dissertation is concerned. However, she pointed out that the first port of call for English students is the “Guidance on dissertations” on the faculty intranet. She recommended reading it over the holidays, since it’s quite comprehensive, and noted that in October there will be an additional and more comprehensive guide to referencing. The second resource she pointed to was a folder of past dissertation topics, which is available to use in the library and can be borrowed from the Issue Desk.

SECTION 2: Planning for effective working

Post-it note exercise - Everyone was handed a post-it note and asked to write one effective working habit they have. A couple of brave volunteers said theirs out loud, but the rest were collected and will be collated and passed on as advice to next year’s first years, so that they are getting advice from their peers rather than tutors, librarians etc.

Libby recommended starting early in case there are niche, hard-to-get resources, but emphasised that the library could get these resources for them if they were given enough warning. Additionally, the library is able to help by performing a literature search. They provide postcards that students fill in with their names and dissertation topics and hand in to the library if they are stuck, if they don’t know where to start, etc. This doesn’t take much staff time but sounds like a really big help to the students. The theory behind having a postcard rather than just giving out an email address is that there is a physical reminder of the service, and because you just fill in the back of the card advertising it and drop it back at the library, it’s a pretty user-friendly way of going about it.

Next, they did a refresher on Zotero, a free piece of referencing software that lives in your browser and recognizes bibliographical information, saves it, and automatically generates bib. references in your chosen format. The final useful advice on planning that was handed on had to do with time management and managing due dates from different libraries through the libraries@cambridge iCal app. (We could easily link to this from the web page and point it out to students who tend to get late fees.)

SECTIONS 3 and 4: Primary Reading and Secondary Reading

Most people indicated that they felt pretty confident with these aspects of dissertation research, but it was interesting to note that most of them had only one or two ports of call and did not cast their nets wider. Also they didn’t know the drawbacks of the databases they used (namely JSTOR and its out of date information, and the fact that many people assume that just because it’s from JSTOR it’s “solid”, so they don’t have to think critically about it). Of the sources listed on the handout, people seemed not to have heard of a few of them, and hadn’t used most of them.

They were given a chance to play around in some of the databases using a topic chosen from a list. This let people get more familiar with things like Project MUSE and LION, which have complementary coverage to what JSTOR provides. They also pointed out the UL’s uncatalogued book search function, which allows you to search for books by ISBN, request they’re moved to the front of the queue, and then have them put on hold for you. Because most people said they felt comfortable in this area, they did not cover every idea listed, but the handout would provide further guidance if people wanted it when it came to doing their literature searches, and it seemed like most people picked up on something new they could use.

SECTION 5: Writing and referencing

Libby once again emphasised the importance of the DoS/supervisor in this process, but pointed out some additional resources and tips, such as Transkills for English and Scrivener.

Overall impressions:

The teaching session worked really well. It never seemed to lag and it wasn’t too overwhelming. I think each section had a memorable hook that students will have come away with, and it was very nicely broken up with activities. I think it’s especially useful giving people the time and encouragement to try at least one new database on their own rather than doing a demo on a projector screen and mandating what they try. The EFL website is also really sensibly laid out with resources grouped by subject and then overarching, key resources like LION, Zetoc, Project Gutenburg, etc. down the side (grouped by primary and secondary resources). The single handout means that students weren’t sent away with loads to read so I think that was a really manageable amount of information overall, and the main starting point, the “Guidelines for Dissertations”, was reiterated at the end so people were reminded where to go first.

Other things I noticed about the EFL

- Duplication of knowledge and abilities: EFL tries to make sure that there is nothing that only one person knows how to do. This makes people’s roles more diverse and ensures that if someone leaves or is on holiday things get done. - Issue Desk entails other duties when the circulation slows down: Made possible by the fact that most users come just before or after lectures so the rest of the time is fairly quiet. Duties include checking the library email and sorting messages into relevant folders, book labelling, book repairs etc. - Issuing is done with RFID tag readers and there is self-issue as well as staffed issue desk, but books issued at the staffed one are still stamped out and in, which slows the process down. - Tea@3, poetry wall, relaxed rules about bags, comfy seats etc. make it a very comfortable library to use, people seem happy to approach library staff. Issue desk is low down, makes it look approachable. (Side note: I hate our Issue Desk. It’s like a fortress of doom.)

What I’ve taken away from the experience

First and foremost I’d say that it’s always worth visiting other libraries. It gets you to question the way you do things, generates ideas and promotes the sharing of knowledge and resources between libraries, which can only be good for the users of those libraries.

Second, I am very interested in and impressed by the reference help that the EFL provides. Not only are there clever and user-friendly schemes like the dissertation topic postcards, but the entire culture and design of the library promotes the impression that the staff are there to support learning, not as an obstacle to it. I think TCL needs to realise that whatever our sentiments about reader services may be, we do not give off a friendly and supportive impression and that should certainly be addressed.

Third, I feel like there is the potential for us to provide support in the form of user education initiatives. They would certainly look different from those at Faculty libraries, as they would not be subject specific, but we could have closer relationships with the directors of studies, point students toward the right sources of information and target our information toward the specific assessments that students of the College are doing. I will brainstorm ways of doing this. If we don’t have space to do it in person I think that we could develop something good online.

If nothing else, I think we should focus on structuring the library to be more approachable and develop some form of reference service, especially in subjects that do not receive that kind of support from their Faculty libraries, and on working more closely with Directors of Studies in the College.

Many thanks to Libby and Helen for letting me sit in/chat with you guys about library things!

Words and 'wordless'

The folio from B.14.52 containing the word “wordless” as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is located at the bottom of the right hand page.

I just wanted to share a blog post I wrote for work. I'm pretty pleased with it.

View it here.