View from the Hill

Taking the plunge: ARLIS at the National Gallery pt.2

Our second guest blogger from the ARLIS Taking the Plunge event on Saturday 3rd March is Jen Smith. Jen is a student on the MSc in Electronic & Digital Library Management at the University of Sheffield.

 

On a drizzly Saturday morning, a group of working and would-be librarians gathered in The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square to test the waters at “Taking the Plunge: Art Librarianship as a Career Option”. We heard from a diverse range of people at all stages of their careers, and while everyone agreed that the job market isn't as vibrant as it could be, there's no shortage of options for (pre)professional development.

Our first speaker was Richard Daniels, Senior Archivist at the University of the Arts, London. Although he summed up his job as “looking after older stuff and getting it out for younger people”, the rest of his presentation proved to be a little more complicated than that.

Next, Natasha Held, Learning Resources Manager and Librarian at Christie's Education London shared with us the challenges and rewards of working as a nearly-solo librarian in a private institution. Held interacts with global stakeholders on a regular basis: Christie’s in both London and New York, the University of Glasgow (their accrediting body), the tutors, and—of course—the students.

Sarah Maule took us on a whirlwind tour of her career from volunteer cataloguer at Sheffield Hallam University to Library Services Manager at Ravensbourne, a London design college. In addition to a string of library jobs, a SCONUL placement, and an M.A. in LIS, Maule also used social media to keep herself up-to-date and to network. Maule cited Twitter as her most helpful career tool, and she encouraged us all to develop our online presences to make sure that our prospective employers find us interesting when they Google us.

Sarah Currant, Reader Services Librarian at the British Film Institute, also studied in Sheffield, and her path to the BFI had twists and turns of its own. Currant announced the end of the paid membership scheme for the BFI, proudly declaring, “We’re free, which is the dream of all libraries”.

From the other side of the employment table, Donald Lickley brought us a wealth of experience from Sue Hill Recruitment. He reiterated Sarah Maule’s exhortation to use social media to our advantage. Lickley also reviewed the standard rules of CV preparation (identify your skills, list your accomplishments in reverse chronological order, use bullet points, and proofread, proofread, proofread before submission!).

Joseph Ripp, Librarian at the National Portrait Gallery, rounded out the day’s structured sessions with practical advice for applications and interviews. The applicant’s work doesn’t end with securing an interview: it’s essential not only to keep yourself informed about the industry as a whole, but also to research the institution you want to work for so you can make intelligent, enthusiastic responses to their questions and demonstrate that you’re the ideal candidate.

One of the highlights of the day was Elspeth Hector’s tour of the library of the National Gallery. After letting us leaf through treasures such as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and the original card catalogue, which was constructed by cutting out pages from the first list of Sir Charles Eastlake, Hector led us to the elegantly designed slide library and told us the sad tale of its impending demise.

Budget cuts and hiring restrictions across the sector can be disheartening, but as Ripp said at the beginning of his presentation, with “a bit of luck and a lot of applications”, we’ll find the right jobs.

  (This article is also being published by ARLIS in a slightly different form.)

 - Jen Smith, University of Sheffield

Maintaining the value of professional qualifications in the midst of recession: CPD25 Development Day pt.3

Thanks to our third guest blogger, HJ McQuarrie from University of Westminster, for this thoughtful contribution on the CPD25 Development Day.

The Career Development Day for Library and Information Assistants organised by CPD25 has become a popular event, making regular appearances in the programme. Having been pipped to the post by other eager assistants last year I was very pleased when I managed to get a place.

The aim of the day was to give paraprofessionals an insight into a variety of careers, to give honest advice on getting your foot in the door, and to arm us with basic skills and ideas that will make our applications and CVs stand out.

The event had the secondary theme of ‘Current trends in Higher Education and the Future of Library Services’ to prepare us for very competitive application processes. Information workers have been hit hard in the recession. As we are often found working quietly within large organisations our work can be mistakenly seen as a ‘back room process’ just waiting to be trimmed down. Public libraries in particular have been hit hard, and academic libraries are currently undergoing a drastic makeover aimed at increasing efficiency.

For paraprofessionals, the decision to pursue professional qualification and move up the career ladder is one that must now be made in light of these changes. The job we had once hoped for may no longer exist in the form we had known it. The landscape of the information world is changing – are we prepared?

The day’s speakers came from a variety of backgrounds and had experienced qualifying and job hunting during this increasingly precarious climate. Their stories contained valuable lessons and warnings, but also great success and job satisfaction.

Our first speaker, Robert Hall, is Director of Library Services at Kings College London. Having previously worked at Southbank University he was able to describe the effect of rising tuition fees on students’ expectations of university services and how our roles are changing to reflect their changing needs and demands. Information workers in HE have been adapting their services to accommodate new learning and teaching practises - including VLE (e.g. Blackboard) and distance learning – and as our departments restructure, the librarian jobs that we have been aspiring to have changed too. Robert Hall’s lead presentation set the tone for the day perfectly by rationalising the changes.

Our second speaker, Karyn Stuckey, is a Special Collections Archivist for the architects, Foster and Partners. She gave insight to information work in the private sector, where the roles can be slightly more unusual and defined differently from the public sector. She suggested that this can be because private companies may not have a longstanding dedication to record keeping in the way that some traditionalist information workers can do! Stuckey’s work history was varied and interesting, comprised of both permanent positions in reputable archives and temporary project posts. Her story contained lessons for all of us who are faced with a tough jobs market and the possibility of temporary employment and slightly unorthodox positions.

The third speaker, Helen Williamson, had been working at the Horniman Museum since qualifying, first as a library assistant and now as the librarian. The recession hit during her studies and finding work in the museum sector became difficult. She fought a long and difficult battle to promote the library within the museum, organising educational visits and contributing material to exhibitions. She also came to compromises with practical changes in the library to save money, such as restricting public access. Williamson’s story was a fantastic example of why it is important for information workers to constantly promote the worth and relevance of our profession during a difficult economic climate.

Our final speaker was a current Information Science student, David Pearson, who spoke about his experience of balancing part-time study with full-time work. Pearson spoke in depth about the benefits of the course to his current work in SOAS library and why now feels that the qualification is a valuable one – an opinion he admits he did not have during his 10 years of paraprofessional work at SOAS.

The morning’s speakers were followed in the afternoon by a far more practical few hours with Donald Lickley from Sue Hill Recruitment. With two decades of experience working in libraries and another 10 years of HR and recruitment support for information workers he was well-equipped to speak with us about expanding our skill sets, job applications, CVs, and interviews. The afternoon was lively as attendees took on the advice from the morning’s speakers and considered the possible routes that Lickley’s advice could take them on.

The entire event was definitely a useful one to attend. Many paraprofessionals find themselves in assistant roles for years as they save money for tuition fees. Indeed there were some of us in the room that had begun to feel like it might just not be worth it. However the success of this event was in its anecdotal approach. The speakers, from their range of backgrounds and in their wonderful range of jobs, inspired many of us once again and reminded us why we wanted to become information professionals. They all proved through their stories that with ingenuity, open-mindedness, and determination, it is possible to enjoy working in the profession despite the murky economic climate.

- HJ McQuarrie

Going for a song?

I was delighted to hear (via Facebook of course, where else?) that an old friend had won an Olivier Award for his involvement in OperaUpClose's production of La Bohème.  I was also interested to see that the BBC news coverage of this focussed on the company’s ongoing discussions with Equity over their use of voluntary workers, in this case members of the chorus.

We’ve been seeing an increasing number of candidates with voluntary work highlighted on their CVs particularly, but not exclusively, those who work in the arts and cultural sector. Voluntary work and unpaid internships have long been a significant source of basic work experience for archivists and museum staff in particular, either for those just entering the profession, or for those wanting to maintain their skills between contracts.  More controversially, formal volunteering schemes are being proposed as a strategy to reduce the impact of local authority cuts on public library services.  There’s a whole range of ethical arguments there about the de-valuing of professionals, and another about the class-based assumption that those who want to work in the cultural sector must be able to support themselves.

As a professional recruiter, I obviously do not want to actively encourage unpaid work, but of course if the job market is depressed, any realistic method of increasing your employability should be considered. However, when requests for voluntary workers and unpaid interns become routine in some organizations, the boundaries between acceptable practice and exploitation can become blurred.  The Arts Council jobs site temporarily suspended adverts for internships recently due to increasing contraventions of basic employment law.

So what’s the answer? If you’re thinking about participating in voluntary work, be very clear about what you want to do and what you want to get out of it.  For employers wanting to set up voluntary worker schemes, make sure you get to know the basics of the National Minimum Wage Regulations.

-Donald

Shake Rattle and Roll

As a New Zealander who is used to earthquakes I was shocked to hear about the Christchurch earthquake. A miracle that it happened in the early hours when people were not out and about going about their business. To read that 100,000 out of 160,000 homes have suffered severe damage is sobering but as a resident who was interviewed said, "losing property is one thing, we can get over it, but losing lives is another." Thankfully, although people were injured no-one was killed.

A quick peek at the NZ Herald site and a photo and news report therein made me think of the library angle. The University of Canterbury estimate one million books have been thrown off shelves and antiquities from a valuable Greek and Roman collection to the value of many millions of dollars destroyed. I remember, as a child, being cross that I had to pick up one shelf of books that fell to the floor during a relatively minor quake, and cannot begin to visualise the logistics of trying to salvage and rehouse a million books, never mind trying to glue a valuable Greek Urn.

I'm often reminded that there is always someone somewhere else worse off and that we shouldn’t complain about our lot. However, I would not have wanted to be a librarian in Christchurch on Friday.

- Sue

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

"Oh these, these are only incidental"

The British Library have realised that they have a new collection.  They have about 300,00 rarely seen images from the early days of photography.  Apparently the collection is "incidental".  About 250 of the images will feature in a new exhibition, focusing on the social aspect of photography. 

Looks quite interesting, for an "incidental" collection.

- Katharine Liu

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

Quintessential Englishness

I'm currently reading "Adventures on the High Teas" by Stuart Maconie. He is travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of Middle England.

A particular section in the book caught my eye. I'll quote: "Like Libraries, museums in the daytime are still a great place to spot that saying English species, the unfathomable, inexplicable solo eccentric whom Larkin celebrated/bemoaned in 'Toads Revisited.'"

You do see all of life in libraries and museums. I remember once when I worked in a public library, we caught a homeless guy cooking sausages on the old cast iron radiators.

Are libraries and museums the places which define our country, in all its quintessential glory?

- Katharine Liu

When disaster strikes...

A story on the BBC website on Friday caught my eye - National Library hit by flooding. For the second time in two years, the National Library of Scotland has been flooded after a pipe burst. Thankfully there appears to be only minor damage and I'm sure this is in no small part due to the efforts of the fire crews and library staff.

I got to thinking about other libraries affected by disasters.

Reading February's edition of the Society of Archivists' journal ARC magazine, I learnt about the efforts to rebuild the Iraq National Library and Archives (INLA) after it was ransacked and looted in 2003. Dr Saad Eskander, Director of the INLA explained that 95% of the rare book collection had been lost. Since then the building has been restored, morale has been raised amongst staff and over 900 people per month now use the reading rooms. Dr Eskander is described in the article as inspiring and has reminded us of "the importance of archives and libraries in underpinning a free and fair society" and he was recently awarded Fellowship of CILIP.

Has your library been hampered by disasters, natural or man-made?

Library offers hints for Credit Crunch Christmas Lunch

I varied my usual Google news search on the word "library" by adding in "Christmas", just to be topical!

Having been wowed by Delia and her £28 Christmas lunch for 4 I was intrigued to see a much earlier version of the Credit Crunch lunch offered up by Cambridge University Library's Darwin Correspondence Project. "Mrs Charles Darwins' Recipe Book" is a new publication of a very old book, housed in Scientific Manuscripts at Cambridge, and it tells us how to broil mushrooms and make turnip cresselly (any suggestions?!) but also teaches us to be frugal and make our own snacks like cheese straws and ginger biscuits. Good skills for all. The original book is used by researchers and proceeds from the new publication will be going towards funding more research into Charles Darwin's letters.

What other credit-crunch-beating tips or Christmas hints can be found in your libraries?