Just a short post to share a great article passed on to me by a web designer friend.

William Hicks (no relation to the comedian as far as I know!), a web designer and librarian at the University of North Texas outlines how useful libraries can be, even for those who work almost entirely on the web.

He includes some great real-life examples of when a library might be able to help you with your work and why it could benefit you to visit your local academic (or public) library. Obviously, this is aimed at an American audience but I’m sure many readers of Digital Web magazine will be UK based so I hope they will realise the same applies in the UK. I particularly like his summary:

I hope I have demonstrated that libraries may be worth returning to if they don’t currently receive any of your attention. Many large institutions have nothing but their patron’s, and often society’s, best interests at heart.

We have a few regular visitors at our academic library; some who come to use our PCs, others who come to browse our collections or ask for our help with an enquiry. Some of my most interesting enquiries have been from visitors who are particularly passionate about their research area which is great.

I am often found complaining about how people don’t realise how valuable their library can be to them, but I’m such a hypocrite in two ways; firstly, I never really realised it myself until I worked in libraries and secondly, I’m not doing anything to change these ideas. I know it may be quite a big task but maybe I should be doing more small things to make people realise just how useful their local academic library can be in this age of information. Certainly got me thinking anyway, how can we promote our services and change the public opinion of libraries?

Visit mashed library

There have been a number of library related unconference recently, in the USA, Canada and Australia to my knowledge. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, an unconference is basically an informal conference with a broad theme which is driven by the delegates. I’ve always thought these events seemed like a great idea so I was very excited when Owen Stephens suggested on his blog that maybe we should have an unconference event for mashed libraries in the UK. As you can see from the number of responses he got in the comments, it seems there are quite a few people interested in such an event, and so Owen has set up a ning page to collaborate ideas and try to get things organised.

If you are interested in attending or helping organise the event, please join and pass the link to anyone else you think might be interested. You don’t need to be highly technical to be involved (I’m certainly not a coding expert!); anyone with an interest in library technologies is welcome.

I’m really excited about this so I hope there are enough people interested to make it a really useful event.

Another problem/solution based post, this one is something I’ve been thinking about for ages but haven’t been able to do anything about yet. I thought it might be useful to see if anyone out there has a solution to help with the nightmare that is reading lists? It’s one of the responsibilities which seems to be shared by almost all academic librarians. During my experience supporting different academic schools, each seems to deal with their reading lists in different ways. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a standardised procedure so that all academic staff, library staff and students knew where they stood? Is that really too much to ask?

The problem:

Firstly there’s the issue of length, which seems to vary massively. Some academic schools limit the number of texts recommended on each module. It seems relatively common for this figure to be around 8-10 books. Some schools however don’t seem to have a limit and I have checked the odd reading list with, and this is no exaggeration, 11 pages of recommended texts (yes, 11 pages - for one module!). I’m presuming the students aren’t expected to consult each one of these books but even so, an 11 page reading list can be quite overwhelming just to look at! What happened to students learning to find their own resources and do their own research?

Next there’s the issue of key texts (sometimes called core texts) and recommended texts, and what this means. In some schools, students are expected to buy key texts (therefore the library is expected to have a few copies but encourage students to buy their own copy); in other schools the key texts are those that they should definitely consult during the module (therefore the library is expected to have plenty of copies). It’s often not clear which makes it very confusing for students (and causes problems when they expect the library to have plenty of copies of all key texts).

But the main problem isn’t necessarily the lists themselves but the procedure of reading list production, checking and publishing in the module guides. I appreciate that reading lists aren’t the most exciting of things, but I do think it’s important that both librarians and academic schools should work together to ensure that the reading lists are appropriate for the module (i.e. reasonable number of up-to-date resources, students not expected to buy out of print (or very expensive) books etc.) and that we have the resources available to support the courses.

The current situation:

Some schools have administrators who ensure that module leaders have submitted their module guides for the next semester well in advance. Other school administrators don’t do this role, and some schools don’t have seem to have general school administrators at all. Some schools have some form of repository, be it our VLE or Public Folders on Outlook Exchange, to store all module guides to ensure they are relatively easy to find and anyone can get access to them (providing they have access to the repository of course!). Some seem to leave it up to the module leaders as to where (and if) they publish the guides. This has meant that sometimes librarians don’t get to see the guides until after the students (sometimes when a student alerts us to the fact that we have no copies of one of their important texts!), and often have to keep searching through the VLE in the hope that they may have added the module guide.

When we finally do get hold of the guides we check the stock on our OPAC, note the number of copies we have, and order more if we need to. This involves lots of paperwork which I’m sure will be streamlined in the future. We also check for newer editions and order those if necessary, as well as informing the module leader that there is a new edition available. Then when the lists are finalised (newer editions added, out of print books removed if necessary etc.), we pass them to another team in the department who manually add the lists to TalisList for students to use. All in all, it’s a very long process and I’m sure there must be a better way.

The solution?

There are lots of problems with the process, and although I’m particularly interested in the liaison between academic staff and library staff stage, if you have feedback on any other aspect I’d be very pleased to hear it.

I’d love to be able to set up a wiki of some sort with collaboration with some academic staff so that both they and us can edit the lists and be notified of any changes, do you know of anywhere that has done this? Or do you have a better idea of how to cope with reading lists? Please share any views or ideas in the comments.

I’ve been playing with the new Google Sites offering on and off for a couple of months now. I joined under my work e-mail address and created a sort of mini portal for our team at work which could either be the answer to my prayers or a complete nightmare - I’m still undecided.

It took me a while to sort out a separate Google Apps account under my work e-mail but I got there eventually, although it does tend to get a little confusing having two Google accounts (one personal, one work). Once I’d registered it took me to our organisation’s section in Google, where I found around 30 other people who had registered (only one other from my department). No one else seems to have looked at the Sites element yet, so I thought I’d experiment.

The problem:

The main reason for me doing this was to replace and improve upon our current situation at the Information Helpdesk (enquiry desk). There’s two main elements that are currently in paper format which I feel would benefit from being electronic - a useful information folder and a helpdesk diary.

We currently have a “Useful Information Folder” into which goes, unsurprisingly, any information which may be useful for us when we’re on the helpdesk (e.g. procedural information, phone numbers, maps etc.). This would work OK if we remembered to use it properly. I try to keep it up-to-date, but being in paper format it’s not ideal and I know it’s not easy to find the information you’re after (it has an A-Z index but then there’s all the problems like is it a phone or a telephone?). I have to admit, I’ve never used it to help with an enquiry and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone else use it either.

We also have an information book, sort of like a diary. Into this goes details to keep us all up-to-date (for example, current assignments and where best to look for information on a certain topic, new projects that have recently been added to stock, etc.). Again, this is fine in principle, but in practice I know we don’t use it as we should and tend to e-mail each other instead.

The solution?

I’ve been thinking about how we can improve things and I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until I’d given it a go. The voices in my head just weren’t going away, they were screaming at me and tormenting me:

• Useful Information Folder = WIKI
• Diary = BLOG

I’ve been wanting to get a procedural wiki sorted for a while now, but it’s such a mammoth task that I haven’t been able to give it a go (I think it’s something that will one day have to go through the project route and get everyone in the department on board).

As for a blog, other teams in our department are using them with great success, and as long as everyone gets on board and are comfortable reading and contributing to the blog then I think it makes a lot more sense than a paper diary.

I didn’t want to have two totally different products and needed something that is easy to use for a total novice, so when I heard about Google Sites which combines the two products (and more!) and is supposedly very easy to use, I thought it was worth a go. One of the big advantages to putting it all electronic means you can now search the whole site to very easily find what you’re looking for (no more searching through indexes!). Another great feature is the page subscription, you can either subscribe to the whole site (in which case you will receive an e-mail every time something is changed with the altered text in the e-mail), or just certain pages (e.g. staff could subscribe to the announcements page so that they would receive an e-mail whenever a new announcement was added). You can see a screenshot below (click for larger version - it’s nothing special, I’ve only spent a very limited amount of time on it so far!).

I’ve still only really got a basic skeleton of the portal but the main sections include:

• Announcements (to replace the diary)
• Procedures and useful information (to replace the useful information folder)
• Useful documents and forms (so that people can quickly and easily download forms we use regularly like room booking sheets and enquiry tracking sheets)

I’ve also added an enquiry follow up form which is linked to Google Spreadsheets. The idea of this is that if a student wants some subject specific help or needs to book an appointment the librarian on duty can complete the enquiry follow up form which will send the enquiry to the spreadsheet (and an alert to anyone who is subscribed to the spreadsheet). I don’t know whether this will work but it’s something to play with.

I’ve asked a few people from the team to have a look at the site and see how easy it is to use before we can make a decision about whether or not it’s something worth pursuing. I haven’t spent too long on it yet as it might prove to be impractical, but so far I’ve found it relatively straight forward to use.

I can see it could be very useful for collaborative websites, but to be honest I think most organisations already have this sort of thing sorted with intranets or other solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint. Nevertheless, Google’s offering has the huge advantage that it’s free and easily accessed from anywhere.

Has anyone else used Google Sites for anything or do you know of an even better alternative?

Last Friday I finally managed to get hold of a copy of the eagerly awaited book Information Literacy Meets Library 2.0 edited by Peter Godwin and Jo Parker.

I started writing a draft blog post about it last Saturday, but I was whizzing through the book so I left it until I finished, which I now have. The book is structured in a very nice, easy to read way - there is an introductory section, a section about the implication of Library 2.0 on teaching information literacy, a case studies section (which is the main bulk of the book), and a conclusion including what may happen in the future.

I found the case studies particularly interesting - most of them were based on academic library experiences although they could easily be applied to other libraries. I’ve heard of quite a few of the initiatives before (e.g. Penn Tags, Going Beyond Google module at the OU), but there were also some new ones there (e.g. using Flickr and Wikipedia in teaching information literacy). I read the book in less than a week (I just wanted to keep reading!), and it’s really inspired me. It’s great to hear about successful initiatives using these technologies to improve information literacy, and has really given me hope (and some great ideas) for our University.

We currently have a project based around information literacy but it’s such a huge area and so many of the academic schools struggle to see the value of our support at the moment sadly. I’d love to be able to adopt some of these new ideas to help improve our presence and value within the University and help our students become information literate.

Anyway, if you are looking for some inspiration or just an interesting read, I strongly recommend giving it a go. Unfortunately it’s out of stock at Amazon at the moment but you can get it from Facet Publishing (with a discount if you’re a CILIP member!). There’s also a blog to accompany the book and add any new developments in the area of information literacy.

Following on from UK law librarian blogger Jennie’s search to find UK librarian blogs, she decided to create a wiki to keep the list up to date and create one place to find UK librarian bloggers.

The wiki has developed into different sections for different types of blog (e.g. individual blogs, institutional blogs) and is growing into a great resource.

I’ve volunteered to help Jennie out in keeping all the information up to date and checking all the blogs to ensure the blurb written about them is accurate, and with the help of others it should continue to grow. If you are a UK library blogger and are not currently listed on the wiki, please e-mail Jennie and she will add you to the wiki (contact details available on the wiki front page).

Despite starting this blog thinking that I would use it to discuss things I have been studying as part of my MSc in Information and Library Studies, I’ve hardly really mentioned it at all.

This may be due to the fact that although I have enjoyed some of the modules, my main passion is for emerging technologies and how they can help academic libraries, and this is the sort of stuff I choose to do in my spare time so I dedicate more of that to the blog. However, I thought it was about time I shared some views on my studying progress.

My speed of progress throughout the course has varied massively, mainly depending on circumstances at home and work. I’ve had slower periods where I’ve struggled to find time (or motivation!) to study, and other periods where I’ve been really racing through. The flexible nature of the course has definitely suited me in that respect, although it does still seem strange that I can set my own deadlines and move them the day before if I realise I’m not going to meet them! At the moment I seem to be getting a lot more motivated - I’ve settled into a routine of working through the modules on the bus to and from work each day, and concentrating on assignments when I’m at home on the PC. I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s very exciting.

My previous blog post about what makes a librarian a librarian (and the discussion that continued) made me reflect on where I currently am in my course and what I still need to do before I can become a fully fledged qualified librarian. In terms of course credits (this may sound incredibly complicated but bear with me!), I’ve currently completed and had my grades agreed on 70 credits. I’ve almost completed the assignments for another 20 credits, and am about half way through the reading for the next 10 credit module so I should be able to start that assignment once I’ve finished the ones I’m working on now. I’m hoping that in the next couple of months I should therefore have completed 100 credits, which only leaves me 20 to complete my Diploma. I can exit after the Diploma if I like, and I am classed as a qualified information professional. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to continue as I want to complete the dissertation and gain the full MSc, but it does mean that I can start looking for qualified jobs whilst working on my dissertation.

It may sound like a way off still, but I’m really hopeful now that I can complete the Diploma by Christmas this year, if not before. I’m really starting to look forward to looking for qualified jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I love my current job - but it would be great to get more involved in providing information skills training and working closely with academic schools (if I decide to stay within academic librarianship). I’m now starting to wonder where exactly I would like to work and what sort of job would make best use of my skills. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is helping students, whether on the enquiry desk or in information skills sessions. Although I love the techy side of things, I don’t think I’d like a job where all I do is office based work and I don’t get any contact time with users. There are some great new jobs coming into the field which I think would suit me well - being involved in project work to further advance training and support materials for users. These sort of jobs involve working with new technologies, whilst still keeping contact with users to find out what sort of things they want as part of the research, and showing them what has been developed and how they can use it on completion of the project. Most academic librarians get chance to do this sort of work anyway, but it’s difficult to fit everything in and these sort of things often take a long time to implement due to other commitments such as meetings, enquiry desk duties, student appointments, information skills sessions, etc etc.

I’ll have to see when the time comes what sort of jobs are available, I just hope there’s something out there for me.

There have recently been some very interesting posts about the difference between librarians who hold a qualification (mainly the American MLS as discussions have been primarily from those across the pond) and those who don’t have a qualification. There seems to be ambiguity about the term librarian and when it should be used, something which causes me no end of confusion as a not yet qualified “librarian”.

It all started with a post by someone who felt that the Library Journals Mover and Shakers should only include qualified librarians:

… why are non-librarians getting these acknowledgements? I’m very much for non-librarians bringing their expertise and excellence to libraries; but shouldn’t there be a clear distinction between the work that we do and the work of non-librarians.

Personally, I don’t agree with this view - to me a Mover and Shaker is someone who has had an innovative idea or put into practice something that has made a drastic difference to either their own library or the library world in general, regardless of who they are. This year, Tim Spalding from LibraryThing was named a Mover and Shaker which I think is great - he may not be an information professional but he’s made a massive difference to libraries and fully deserves the recognition.

I believe the original commenter feels that whilst non-information professionals do deserve recognition for their efforts/achievements, Mover and Shakers should only be qualified “librarians”, whilst others should be represented in a different category. Why? Why should only qualified librarians be able to become a Mover and Shaker? Why does a period of study at a library school mean you deserve greater recognition?

I guess maybe I hold this view because I’m not yet a qualified librarian, but to be honest I think I would feel the same even if I was qualified. You see, despite being a typical “academic” type, I really don’t think qualifications mean as much as experience in the real world. OK, so without my Undergraduate degree I couldn’t have got my first library job and until I complete my Masters I won’t be able to progress to the next level, but aside from the letters after my name I don’t feel I’ve gained many relevant skills from them. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed the courses and I have found out some interesting things, but almost all the skills and knowledge I use and will continue to use as a “librarian” have been learnt through experiencing them in the workplace. Yet I can’t be called a librarian until I’ve got the qualification, which isn’t so bad for me but really sucks for those who’ve worked in the field for numerous years and for whatever reason have not taken their qualification. Also taken from the original post:

Those without the MLIS do not have the requisite training or ‘right’ to call themselves librarians

This makes me quite sad to be honest. I guess strictly speaking, my blog shouldn’t really be called Joeyanne Libraryanne as I’m not qualified yet and haven’t earned the right to call myself a librarian. It seems to only be in the profession that there is this distinction. Our users tend to refer to anyone who works in a library as a librarian, and why not, it makes logical sense! However, as a recent post by Pegasus Librarian shows, even users are now getting confused about whether or not they can call us librarians due to bad experiences from library staff correcting them. Whenever I meet people at conferences and events I always feel really awkward when they ask what I do, I don’t want to offend anyone so I try to avoid using the L word but without it it’s very difficult to describe what I do.

The ironic thing is, despite certain librarians being fussy about making sure non-librarians are not thought of as “real” librarians (yes sadly this is true but fortunately not from personal experience), in my experience most of the UK general public think of a librarian as someone who stamps books and shelves them, whereas in the library world they would probably more commonly be known as a library assistant.

I’m pleased that CILIP seem to have recognised that experience is just as valuable as academic qualifications with their route straight to Chartership, and I just hope that maybe in the future other members of the profession will recognise this too.

Now, anyone have any suggestions for a different job title that could be used universally to eliminate these difficulties and also shake the librarian stereotype people have? I’m all for killing two birds with one stone!

I recently came across a couple of interesting posts about librarian bloggers (or lack of!) in the UK. I also found a similar discussion last year on Brian Kelly’s blog and it doesn’t seem like much has changed since then. At my last study school I was shocked to discover that I was the only one in my cohort of about 40 that kept a blog of any sort, let alone a library blog.

I was very pleased to see my blog mentioned in Jennie’s post, it’s good to know it’s findable at least! Her post is an excellent summary of some of the blogs she found on her search for UK library bloggers, please check it out if you’re interested in what’s going on in the UK library world. There’s also the British Librarian Bloggers group on Google which Phil Bradley set up, but sadly the group isn’t that active.

If you write or know of any other UK library/librarian blogs please feel free to leave a comment here or on Jennie’s post to see if there are others which have been missed.

It got me thinking - just how many other great blogs there are out there that go unnoticed and how do you keep on top of finding blogs which interest you?

I recently got access to my statistics from my hosting and was amazed at how many people view this blog and how many different ways they do so. I found it fascinating to discover what search terms people had searched and found links to my blog, and also wondering whether they’d got what they’d been looking for when they got here (there were quite a few recent searches for Google Calendar synching due to my recent posts on Google Calendar). Then I got thinking about how I found most of the blogs I currently read. I think most of them have spiralled out from my subscribed blogs mentioning a post from their blog or from blog comments.

Anyway, I’m waffling now but I do find this whole thing fascinating - just how findable are our blogs/websites now that there are so many out there and how do people find other useful web resources? Do people generally actively look for them or just happen to stumble upon them?

Amazon Kindles are all well and good but it’s just not the same as a real book is it? (Plus I can’t help but image a Kinder Egg whenever I hear mention of the Kindle - is that just me?!). So many people are against e-books and e-book readers due to the loss of the emotion attached with reading a real book and I can certainly sympathise with that view.

So the discovery of the LIVRE (via Engadget) was an exciting moment (well, as exciting as you get with regards to e-book readers!). It’s currently a concept produced by a student from Monash University but I really think this is the way readers have to go if they want a serious marketshare over paper books. I personally like using e-books for studying with the massive advantages that they’re always available from wherever you are (particularly useful for distance learners like myself), but I still love to settle down and read a good book. I really can’t imagine myself being converted to an e-book for leisure reading but this is definitely a step in the right direction for e-book readers.