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!

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