View from the Hill

Friday Networking Breakfast time again!

A truely wintry morning saw 10 intrepid networkers gathering once again at Roast for breakfast this morning.

Eggs Benedict seemed the menu item of choice for many of the attendees, accompanied by lashings of hot coffee, toast and preserves.

The conversation was equally as interesting, revolving around the perceptions of our profession, definitions and boundaries (or lack of them) and how things have changed from times when you could take half a dozen job titles/descriptions and they would have fitted 99% of the people working in 'information'.  Today there are probably 99 different types of 'information' job, if not more!

There was also discussion about information units moving within organisations, with several having come under the wing of IT recently, and whether that was a good or bad thing.  In one instance in particular this had proven to be a good move, coupled with transparency of usage and costing statistics across the business - as being seen to command a budget of $3m somehow conferred respectability - 'oh you're a real department!'

Many delegates felt that none of the information sector associations and groups really 'fitted' with their needs - which ranged from a desire for a forum to share knowledge (such as assessment of online information sources and usage patters in a common way across organisations, instead of all 'reinventing the wheel' by coming up with separate questionnaires), to a group to give credibility or an 'aura of professionalism' to info-pros, to allow them to stand as equals to a chartered banker, a lawyer, doctor or other professional.

The recent vote on the SLA name change also generated some debate, with the consensus view being that members probably did feel favourably about a name change per se, but were not happy either with the actual name presented for the vote or with the process by which just one name had been put forward to the membership.

On leaving the restaurant, with a very full tummy as well as lots of ideas, the Market looked very festive with twinkling blue lights, garlands and stalls selling woven-twig reindeer and lots of satsumas!  SHR Networking breakfasts will be back in the New Year - in the meantime here's to a merry festive season to us all.  

Books or no Books?

The Changing Landscape of the Information Profession was the topic of an SLA Europe panel discussion session I was asked to facilitate last week.  It has been ably reviewed in different blogs and discussion lists.

One question asked the panel whether they thought there will be any future for print books.  I chose to split this into two questions and ask for a show of hands from the audience.  The first was to ask if there was a future for business books.   The majority in the audience felt not.  Then we explored thoughts on the future for leisure reading.  This time over 50% of the audience felt there was a future.  The panel was split 50/50 and to quote Sara Batts 'I suspect that at some point in the future I will own an e-book reader; but unless one is invented that survives being dropped in the bath, I will be hanging on to my paper books too.'  I concurred with her which meant the majority panel view was positive for the future of books, at least for leisure.

Today I spotted an excellent animated film for the New Zealand Book Council - of Going West by Maurice Gee - a Film for NZ Book Council, Produced by Colenso BBDO, Animated by Andersen M Studio.  I had to watch it two or three times, each time seeing more depth and something new and it just reminded me of why I love to read.  I challenge you not to be drawn in.

Off now to borrow the book at our wonderfully refurbished John Harvard Library in Borough High Street, and probably one or two more to boot. 

Trials and Tribulations of Marketing

I spent a very interesting Monday in Swindon - not that the town itself was interesting, I hasten to add, especially as I only saw the perimeter ring road system, but the group I was facilitating was on the fascinating topic of Marketing - either yourself internally to raise your reputation and increase the likelihood of gaining promotion, or your service to raise its profile with managers and increase your user base.

The day's discussions produced some challenging comments and situations:

• A corporate firm where a declining budget, consequently aging stock and resulting difficulty in responding effectively to enquiries was leading to a declining reputation for the information service - a self perpetuating downward spiral
• An FE/HE college which, under pressure from the larger university with which it had a relationship to have a professional library post, hired someone for a p/t 21 hour a week and then realised their skills could be used more widely - but not within the confines of the hours of the role
• An HE organisation where different stakeholder groups had different ideas about what 'the library' was for and how procedures worked, and which didn't communicate effectively, which led to confusing, contradictory and sometime erroneous messages being passed to students
• A government agency with a large staff disseminated across the whole of the UK, where web2.0 tools would have been ideal for communication, work collaboration and information dissemination, but where all such tools had been banned 'from on high'

Some great ideas came out of the workshop sessions with suggestions on how to tackle these and other issues:

1. Work out who your 'audience' group(s) are
2. Find out what their needs are - what are their goals?
3. Think about what services you have/could create that would meet those goals

...and only then start thinking about how to tell those groups about the services and how they could benefit from them.

Specific tips included:

• Try to get a library representative into as many management meetings, committees, etc as possible - even if you only sit and listen you will find out a great deal about what matters to your users and other departments' managers
• Hold library / knowledge centre open days - department moves and relaunches are great for this - offer tea and cakes; use the opportunity to canvass users and potential / non-users to find out what their daily issues are and suggest ways the information service could help
• Student or staff inductions were a popular way of communicating library & information services to potential users - however during someone's first week in a new role didn't seem to be the ideal time - keeping a list of new starters and contacting them a few weeks later was a popular suggestion

Marketing is so much more than 'a flashy poster' - what is your service's Value Proposition?

- Nicola Franklin

Creativity is...

a clever way to solve a problem? One definition says it is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations. I agree with the latter but the former doesn't have to happen. Let me explain... 

After a busy day in the office, thoughts of the sofa and last week's The Thick of It on iPlayer were very attractive to me, but no, I had committed to attend the CILIP Career Development Group's (CDG) workshop on Creativity. And I'm so glad I went. It was coordinated by Maria Cotera, CDG President, and Amanda Birungi, committee member, and our speakers were Miranda McKearney and Sandeep Mahal from The Reading Agency. 

In a year when resources are stretched and money is limited, how can we develop ourselves, our staff, our services & our businesses? Creative Thinking. This phrase could so easily be seen as a negative... it has connotations of "cooking the books" but it is overwhelmingly positive. Creativity is relevant in all workplaces, not just those of artistic and zany people. By being creative you don't have to "transcend traditional rules" but you can do those same every day tasks a little bit better. There's no need to think about blue skies or even outside a box, but by using a few simple tools you could quickly and easily improve services.

An interesting discussion point was how to manage creativity. How does your manager foster creativity in you? We talked about our current conditions for creativity and what we thought would be ideal. We ended the evening by doing a lift pitch - 3 minutes stuck in a lift with The Boss, what would you say? Sue, I've got some ideas!

Surely the best way is to create an environment where everyone is expected to be creative? Then you also foster recognition, which creates an inspirational environment. It's actually a happy, colourful and achievable circle. 

I could write for ages, so inspired am I, but my train is pulling into my station and I'm also fast approaching what I think is a sensible length for a blog post! So, my closing thoughts.

I think creativity is:

• passion 
• imagination 
• opportunity
• inspirational
• in all of us - yes, every single one of us is creative, if given the freedom
• a very powerful and readily available tool!

- Suzanne Wheatley

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
      And for that name which is no part of thee
      Take all myself.

The passion that a name commands lies dormant until such time as someone acts.  SLA (Special Libraries Association) have spent a considerable amount of time, effort and money to carefully research a potential new name to reflect the values of their vast collective store of talent and skill.  This comes under the classification (there I've used a library word) of Alignment.  Kate Arnold, SLA Board Europe member is one of the Alignment Ambassadors for SLA Europe.  She is keen to encourage debate on the suggested name.

The name put forward for a deciding vote is Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals (ASKPro).  The blogs are overheating, (SLA blog), the SLA Europe discussion list has woken from a slumber.  It is good to see debate and feel that passion of others.  We pray a happy ending for all who care and have put such effort in.  A thankless task.  Or Not?  Go have your say.

For never was there a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. 

- Sue Hill (and our Will!)

 

Networking across government

Last Tuesday I attended a 'Getting to know you' day organised by NGLIS (the Network of Government Library and Information Specialists) and I wanted to report on some of the opinions and experiences which the speakers shared with the group.

First off the bat a very entertaining and interesting talk by James Denmead from the MoD whose time in government libraries has provided him the opportunity to become informed on subjects many and varied (from submarines to dwindling global resources), as well as amusing anecdotes as many and as varied.

As the morning went on we also saw talks from Tony Worron and Diane Murgatroyd, both of the FCO, reporting on recent changes undergone by the information department in order to meet changing organisation demands.  These very informative talks show us all that while organisational changes can be difficult and at times emotionally charged, the new challenges created can inspire a team to develop their potential, both as a collective and as individuals.

Between these two speakers came a talk from Janet Cockayne which captured the imagination and encouraged us all to always look for a challenge and not shy away from the unknown and the scary.  Janet also reminded us to think about how new skills can be transferred from one role to another and how seemingly unrelated roads along a career path can complement each other.

After lunch the group, full of friendly and familiar faces, took part in a panel discussion about skills and competencies in the government sector. This is an interesting and tricky subject which we were guided through by Alison Raisin of BIS (whose substantial knowledge of the subject was evident), me adding my two-pence worth and facilitated by Katharine Schopflin who organised the event. What we learned from this session; CPD is important throughout your career and you must be prepared to drive it yourself as well as seeking support from your manager, the importance of a head of profession or other mentor figure in career development, and much more.

A good day and a great example of a special interest group supporting its members.

- Jeremy Clarke

Beg, borrow and steal

Calling all researchers and info pros, here is a Friday challenge for you all.

As this is the week of the Public Library Authorities Conference I have a topical question for you and the first person to post a comment to this blog post with the correct answer (and quoting your source) wins the prize at stake, in this case, a limited edition Sue Hill Recruitment mug.

Question:
On the topic of public library lending in the year 2007/2008, put the following loan categories into order of most issues (most to least):

Language, Literature and Biography

Humanities

Sport, Travel and Leisure Interests

Is anyone up for the challenge?

- Jeremy Clarke

Networking in Brighton

On Monday Emma Illingworth and Sarah Ison gave me and three other information professionals a guided tour of the Aldrich Library at the University of Brighton. Emma and Sarah are both Assistant Information Advisers at the University of Brighton.

Although the four of us work in the information profession, we are all relatively new to the library world. We also work in different sectors and roles, so it was really interesting to visit an academic library, and have the opportunity to ask questions throughout the tour. Working in recruitment I see first-hand how varied roles in the information industry can be and how varied the same type of role can be across different sectors. This is why we like to encourage people to get out and make contacts with other information professionals. I think that we can certainly gain fresh ideas from seeing how our colleagues work in other sectors.

The tour was brilliant! We completely overwhelmed Emma and Sarah with questions, and we all seemed to get a lot from the experience. I was particularly impressed by their commitment to provide great customer service to their users. They are always striving to look at ways they can work better, to improve the users' experience, and make themselves more approachable to their users. I think all of us came away from this visit with something that we can bring to our own roles.

So I would suggest to get networking, as contacts in different sectors to yourself can be a very valuable source of information!

- Lizzie Russell

A Night in the Museum

The London and South East Divisions of the Career Development Group put on a fantastic social event last night - a Night at the Museum. We were divided into groups of 4 and expected to find information about certain artefacts in the British Museum, having been given a map and some clues.

I am absolutely dreadful at these sort of tasks however, I was armed with a group of fabulous library and information professionals, who are experts at searching for information, so I was feeling very positive about our group's chances of success! We answered all our questions very quickly (with very little input from me thankfully) and our last challenge was to come up with a team name. No-one in our team could decide on one, so I made an executive decision to call ourselves "The Winners", as I was feeling very sure we would be the first team back. Sadly, it turned out that we were the fourth team back, and "the Winners" did not win anything!

What followed was a fabulous evening of networking in a nearby pub. A big thank you to the Career Development Group for organising another great event.

- Lizzie Russell

Pop up Restaurants, Pop up Museums - why not Pop up Libraries?

Why do I never have the good ideas first?

Last week I went to a pop-up bar, and have been hearing wonderful tales of pop-up restaurants.  I even contemplated having one in my house to raise funds for charity.

I belong to the Guerrilla Gardening Group who brighten up those dull bare plots on road sides, roundabouts and in Council estates with glorious flowers.  This is a cause I support with all of my heart.

Today I see that at the Musuem Association's event for emerging museum professionals(now there is another great idea) a Dragons' Den type event was won by a team whose one minute pitch entailed setting up Museums in the many vacantshops that blight our town centres.  Bringing exhibits that otherwise languish in basements straight to the eye of the public can only be a good thing. More can be read at the Museum Association website.  A brilliant idea and well done the winning team.

Now - come on Libraryland.  Let's get out there and have pop-up libraries in the vacant shop next door to our museum colleagues.  Perhaps even put the mobile library in the car park (I know some of you do already).  Sell off your excess books - raise funds.  

Friday to day so off to the pop-up cafe bar on the top the multi-story car-park in Peckham again tonight to admire the sunset while sipping a welcome Campari. Plenty of room there for some books. - Sue Hill