Some readers will remember my nerves followed by enjoyment when I spoke at my first conference last year – the New Professionals Conference. As you can see from my write up of the experience, I really enjoyed the conference – there was such a buzz of enthusiasm. Following the success of last year’s event, CILIP Career Development Group are organising New Professionals Conference 2010 this summer, this time in Sheffield.

Quite a few people on Twitter seem to be considering proposing a paper, and I’d strongly encourage anyone to do so if you are eligible and you’re thinking about it; it is a really great opportunity. I was really unsure about what to expect initially, but the organisers where incredibly supportive, and the level of peer support from other speakers (all of whom were first-time speakers) was excellent too. Ned Potter (winner of last year’s bottle of fizz and £100!) has written a great post which answers some key questions and gives advice about your proposal. I’d echo what Ned says, particularly that you don’t need to worry too much about writing in a formal style – you just need to give a basic idea of what you would like to talk about and why. Then, if it’s accepted, you can do more research into the area and begin to develop your idea further into a full paper and presentation.

I’m hoping to attend as a delegate this year, and look forward to seeing this year’s presentations – go on, give it a go! The deadline for proposal abstracts (300 words) is 26th February.

Yesterday I attended my first CILIP West Midlands branch committee meeting at Birmingham Central Library (where I must investigate sometime, can’t believe I’ve never been in before!). I’m the new Marketing Officer for the branch which I’m really excited about.

Marketing in the library and information sector is becoming increasingly more important at the moment, particularly with budget cuts, and I know from my own experience that many in CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) are unaware of some of the benefits available to them as members. There is also a large number of information professionals who are not currently CILIP members, and although some of these people I know have perfectly valid reasons which I respect, I’m sure there are others who just aren’t a member through lack of awareness (either of CILIP itself or of the benefits of being a member).

At both a national level and a local level, I’m finding out more and more about how you can get involved in the profession and benefit from CILIP activities, even if it’s just an informal chat with like-minded people over a pint (or an Archer’s and lemonade in my case!).

I’ve taken over responsibility for the marketing from Katharine Widdows (now newsletter editor), and it’s a tough act to follow – her and David Viner (current chair), along with the rest of the committee, have been developing the use of social media in a big way over the last year or so. This has certainly contributed to an increase in my own understanding of what the branch does, and has inspired me to volunteer my time to join in helping to spread the word! We discussed some marketing ideas at the meeting; it underpins so much of the work of the branch (no point doing all this work and organising events if no one knows about them or what we do!).

I’m going to work on a strategic marketing plan for 2010, building on the work Katharine did as Marketing Officer last year. I’m really looking forward to this new challenge and can’t wait to get going with some marketing activities.

Due to the nature of my career history so far (numerous temporary contracts and moving campuses), I have changed jobs a lot in the last few years. In just over four years at my current place of work I’ve had five interviews, five different jobs (four in the same job role but different locations and contracts), and worked at three different campuses. I’m now in my first professional post which I started just over a year ago.

I’ve become pretty accustomed to moving around and having different jobs, so having a permanent librarian job is a bit of a novelty. However, it’s got past that twelve month period now and although a lot of the time I still feel like the new girl (I hadn’t worked at this campus before and many of the staff have worked here for a long time), part of me is wondering where I’m supposed to go next. I guess it’s because I’m so used to changing jobs, and also because by nature I’m very reflective (need to get myself registered for Chartership really to make the most of it!). I think it’s also maybe because I’m at the beginning of my career so am still very keen and enthusiastic!

Don’t get me wrong, I still really enjoy my job and there’s a lot I want to learn and improve upon, but there’s a side of me that’s ready for a new challenge. I have my dissertation which I hope to begin soon (I sent my proposal off recently – see my recent blog post) and as mentioned I’m hoping to start my Chartership also, and I’ve just become part of the CILIP West Midlands committee – I guess those things should challenge me!

I think I’ve just come to realise that my work side is very different to my personal side where I’m pretty averse to change, maybe they balance each other out?! I suppose it’s a good thing for me that we will be going through a restructure soon, hopefully it will bring with it new challenges.

I’ve just finished reading Paco Underhill’s book Why we buy: the science of shopping, which was recommended during Rachel Van Riel’s talk at the CoFHE conference earlier this year. It’s a fascinating book for anyone interested in marketing, retail or human behaviour. The version I read was the 2000 edition so there have obviously been more developments in the way we shop since then (in one chapter he talks about the futuristic way we may scan our own shopping in at the supermarket!), but a lot of the principles discussed I imagine remain. This is of particular importance now that we are experiencing the “consumer generation”

The main points I took from the book include the following (many of which are common sense but rarely considered):

• The transition zone – first few metres of a store require people to adjust to the lighting, temperature and other environmental factors and we therefore do not tend to notice much in this area
• Product placement is crucial – the area of the store it is located in, the adjacencies (e.g. Charcoal near BBQs), and the way it is displayed on the shelf (also the shelf level bearing in mind potential consumers – lower for children, not too high or too low for elderly)
• Flow of traffic can affect sales – queues may restrict browsing if there is little room, as may high traffic areas or smaller areas (due to a problem Underhill describes as “butt brushing” – being knocked into from behind, which is especially off putting for females)
• People will buy more if they can carry it around the store more easily and especially if their hands are free to rummage and touch
• People are more likely to buy something once they have touched it
• Correct placement of signs is extremely difficult – need to think about where people are likely to look, not just where there is space
• Sales aren’t the only record of how successful the store is (how many people browse but do not buy? How many begin queueing but give up after waiting? How many people are in different areas at a specific time? How easy is it to navigate? etc etc…)

It got me thinking about how some of these principles could be applied to libraries, and I can certainly see why Rachel recommended the book and where some of her research in libraries stems from.

I thought I’d share some of my initial thoughts on how the browsing experience could be improved in libraries:

1. Books facing out on shelves – preventing what Rachel referred to as “browser’s neck” (bending to read the spines). Outward facing books can grab people’s attention but can also help if someone is looking for a particular book; I frequently get students who are looking for “the green book on study skills, I’ll know it when I see it” and it’s a lot easier to find covers rather than spines.
2. Book displays – can be a useful way of increasing borrowing as you encourage people to touch the books, however also need to be aware that displays should not be perfectly neat as people could assume it is just for show and not to be touched or borrowed. Underhill recommended in some stores that employees purposely mess up some displays and found that their sales increased.
3. Bestseller lists – Underhill recommends large freestanding bestseller lists for bookstores and video stores; these could be used to good effect for book lists, particularly in public libraries (e.g. Richard and Judy lists), but how about lists of the most commonly borrowed books, recently received books or books on a particular topical issue?
4. Utilising queues with impulse borrowing/buying and information – queues are one place where Underhill recommends using information leaflets and boards for two reasons – to take advantage of everyone looking in a certain direction for an amount of time, and aso to help reduce customer perception of waiting time (anything over 2mins and customers will feel like it was a lot longer and can lead to dissatisfaction of service). How about some impulse bookmarks, bags, leaflets, marketing materials or stationary too? It’s certainly made me think about the other areas people may be waiting – for example utilising space outside study skills advisor rooms so that people have something to read whilst waiting (and we have a way of getting our messages across!).
5. Ensuring there are enough chairs around the building – generally I don’t think libraries are too bad at this but I have seen examples where all the seating is in one area and the shelves in another; there really should be somewhere to sit near the books so that people can examine them more clearly if necessary.
6. Giving people something to store their books in – this is something I’d particularly like to do as I know it’s a common issue for our students. Wouldn’t it be great if on the edge of the shelves (not at the entrance as people don’t tend to know if they’ll need one until they’ve examined the stock) there were a collection of reusable bags, like supermarket bags for life, that people could use to carry their books around the library (thus enabling them to carry more) and then offer them the option of purchasing when they borrow the books. I know I’d appreciate something like that and am sure I’d buy one that I could then reuse. I’ve seen some of our students bring reusable bags from public libraries and I think we’re really missing a trick by not having our own. This could increase revenue, make life easier for our users, and also market the service if people use them around campus.

These are some of the initial thoughts I had; I really enjoyed the book and would certainly recommend it – it’s given me a lot of food for thought! Are there any other things libraries can learn from retail, or any you have already seen evidence of? Please share in the comments, I think there is scope for really improving libraries by following the success of the retail environment.

Last Friday was CILIP’s Graduate Open Day where I spoke about Realising your potential: marketing yourself using online tools.

Emma Illingsworth and Ned Potter have written posts about the day, but I thought I’d add my own views too.There seemed to be a lot of people there; I spoke to Kathy Ennis and Lindsay Rees-Jones (nice to put a face to the name!) who were really pleased with the number of people at the event. It was great to catch up with Emma, Ned and Chris Rhodes who were also speaking – all of whom I met earlier at the New Professionals Conference. There were a wide range of students and graduates there – some who were only really beginning to consider librarianship as a career option, others who had finished their librarianship degree and were now looking for work.

The day was very relaxed, and gave the opportunity for the delegates to do what they needed to do – whether it was just to find out more information about librarianship, come along to some of the talks, or whether they needed tailored 1:1 careers or CV advice. The speed networking sessions seemed very popular and the buzz from the room was incredible! There were a number of “networkers” from various different fields of librarianship/information profession and the “networkees” moved around and spent 3 minutes chatting to each one. It’s a great idea and hopefully they will have got a lot out of the session about the variety of different jobs you can go into within the information profession.

I did a very similar talk to the one at the New Professionals Conference earlier in this year (see below for presentation), although expanded a little bit more on some of the areas as I had more time allocated.

I also tried to use Twitter in the first talk by posting a message before the session asking people to say hi and include the tag #grad09, and then checking it at the end to see who was around. Unfortunately only one person replied in time, but it still showed that there are librarians out there using Twitter. In hindsight, I would have liked to make my sessions more interactive, but I had expected larger numbers – I was expecting maybe 50 in each group, but in reality both groups had around 20-25, a much more manageable number for interactive tasks. One of my talks sparked an interesting discussion about privacy issues on social networking, where the general consensus was that it is the role of educators (including librarians) to discuss these issues when advocating the use of them. This has also been touched on recently in the UK press regarding the controversial decision to include social networking in the primary curriculum. Personally, I think it’s more important to teach the principles of the communication tools and how to use (and not to use) them rather than the tools themselves, but that’s a whole other blog post.

In between my sessions I had a look round CILIP HQ as it was my first visit, and was pleased to find the Information Centre – which is open to all CILIP members Mon-Fri 9-5 (sadly not at weekends or evenings due to the position of the centre). Even more exciting was seeing my name in print in a copy of the latest issue of the Program journal in there, and also a mention in the latest issue of Impact, the Career Development Group journal. Hopefully, my articles in Open Access and Refer (will post about this when it is published) will also join them soon.

I had a quick nosy at the materials in there which may be useful for researching my MSc dissertation, but they didn’t have some of the books I’m looking for – the CILIPInfo team have since been in touch asking for suggestions of new additions to stock though, great service! It’s a good information centre for information professionals; latest copies of LIS journals (including the local branch and CILIP group journals), a collection of books and reports, a reference section, as well as PCs with database access, and of course a photocopier. For anyone living in or near London it’s a great resource, and worth a visit by anyone else if they’re visiting CILIP at any point. I also discovered that CILIP members are now entitled to two free careers advice sessions per year with qualified careers professionals, and these can be taken at a distance by phone or email.

Whilst I had the opportunity, I also had a chat with Michael Martin about qualifications as I’m interested in chartering and wanted to find out more. It certainly seems like a good thing for me to do, I just need to decide whether to tackle it at the same time as my dissertation or not. Part of me is inclined to do it now as I’m at the beginning of my professional career and will probably find it of most use. I’m also already doing a lot of the activities that I could do for my chartership, and am already reflecting by blogging. Having said that, I’ve already put off my dissertation for almost a year and don’t really want it to drag too much (as it’s a flexible course I have until September 2011 to complete the MSc). I’m still at the early research stage of my dissertation but will be posting some thoughts soon and would really appreciate advice!

All in all it was a great event – both as a speaker talking to potential future information professionals, and as an excuse to visit CILIP HQ and find out more about the organisation.

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be writing a post about how I got into librarianship, following a meme going round. Ned Potter has now set up a Library Routes wiki to record all these posts, in a similar way to the Day in the Life wiki. It’s really interesting reading everyone’s posts and I also think it could be very useful for anyone considering entering the profession to see how others got there. Here’s my story anyway…

I always wanted to be a primary school teacher – from as far back as I can remember that’s what I wanted to do. Throughout my time at school, the curriculum changed with more and more emphasis on performance in tests/exams and less importance on the child’s learning experience as a whole. The amount of planning and standards to adhere to also seem to restrict creativity in teaching and I just didn’t think it was for me.

I’m a qualified gymnastics coach (I used to compete in Sports Acrobatics until I left University) and had been coaching through my teenage years; I loved coaching but found it difficult to turn off afterwards, particularly when there were kids I was coaching who had problems at home. This confirmed teaching wasn’t right for me – I admire those who teach but for me I don’t think I’m mentally strong enough.

I finished my A-levels and because I wasn’t 100% sure about teaching I decided to do a regular degree and then I could always do a PGCE if teaching was the route I wanted to take. I really enjoyed the theory side of my PE A-level, so decided to apply for courses in Sports Science. I was also contemplating doing Maths (yes, I’m one of those weirdos who loves Maths), and I did consider a joint degree but in the end settled on doing Sports Science at University of Wales, Bangor. I loved my degree, and focused on Sports Psychology which fascinates me (I also did Psychology at A level and am really interested in studying people). I got a first in my degree (yay me!), then wondered what on earth to do next. I’d definitely ruled out teaching for the time being, and I didn’t fancy being a sports psychologist (although was tempted by an MSc/PhD route to lecturing).

However, we then moved to Wolverhampton (due to job prospects for my boyfriend), so I started looking for a job. I’d begun to try to look into librarianship (not really sure why, think it was suggested to me on an online test, and the idea of staying within education in some way appealed to me). I struggled to find any information in my careers library at Bangor or on the net (plenty of American information, not much in the UK), so I went to a jobcentre in Wolverhampton where I was told that they wouldn’t help me find a job because I lived with my boyfriend rather than my parents.

Feeling a bit deflated, I decided to get some voluntary library experience and a local friend came with me to the libraries she knew. I asked at the University and was told they don’t take people for voluntary experience, then tried the public library where I spent a day being told about the dodgy visitors to the library, scary experiences in the evening, and that there weren’t any jobs and I’d just have to wait until someone retired. It was all looking a bit bleak but a library assistant job came up in two of my local libraries, and my friend managed to get some work experience for me in the local high school too. I absolutely loved working in the school library, and the librarian there is fabulous – I still keep in touch when I can.

I was successful in one of the library assistant jobs, and was waiting for a CRB check to start working every Sunday for 3 hours – a whole £50/month! I spent a few weeks at the school in the meantime and then0 a graduate traineeship came up at the University library. The school librarian I was with used to work at the University too so she gave me an inytroduction to what it was like and I decided to go for it. I waited ages after I’d sent in my application and thought I hadn’t got an interview – but then on the last day I got a letter inviting me to interview. The interview was pretty intense – I had to do a presentation followed by a panel interview, and I have to admit I didn’t have a clue about some of it – I was asked about journal database providers and the librarian situation in Bangor (as an undergrad I don’t even know if we had a librarian and I did use Sports Discus but had no idea what platform it was on!). I didn’t think I stood much of a chance but got a call that evening to say that they hadn’t made a decision yet but that I was in the shortlist. The following morning I got the call to say I’d got the job and could I start the following week!

The job was a one year contract, and since then I’ve shifted campuses and worked different contracts, usually for a year each time, whilst I studied for my Information and Library Studies course via distance learning (Aberystwyth). I worked at the public library on Sundays for just over a year, but gave that up when I started my course. Last year I finished the Diploma section of my course, and shortly after I applied for a Resources Librarian post at yet another campus. I got the job, and am now almost a year into my first professional librarian post. I still need to complete my dissertation to get the MSc, but I am really loving librarianship – it’s the perfect career for someone like me who enjoys a variety (with the exception of Art and History I loved all school subjects), likes flexibility and different job tasks, and wants to help people. It really is the best combination for me – I still get to teach but I get to do so much more too!

If you’re working in the information profession, it would be great to hear your story – you can write a blog post if you have a blog and link to it from the Library Routes wiki, or if you don’t have a blog you can write a page on the wiki (there are instructions on the home page). Looking forward to hearing other’s stories!

The UK newspaper Guardian occasionally have articles on academic libraries. Normally they’re not too favourable, but last week there was a really interesting article about how academic libraries are undergoing a quiet revolution.

The article talks about how the information environment is changing and with that the role of the academic librarian must adapt from one of a keeper of information to one of a marketer of services and teacher/trainer to help students (and academics) use the right services with the appropriate tools and techniques to get the best information.

The article features insights from academic librarians in the UK and gives examples of the sorts of activities and skills required for an academic librarian today. A lot of the article really resonates with me – I’ve always been a strong believer in improving communication and marketing services (I even plan to complete my MSc dissertation on this topic), and agree that even in the short space of time I’ve worked in UK University libraries the climate has changed. Particular interesting quotes from the article for me include:

people recruited to work in them have to be willing to embrace new technologies and customer service

tuition in research skills and how to use online library services is crucial

[f]lexibility and willingness to adapt to new ideas is key

It’s really worth a read for those already working in the profession, those considering entering it, and those who wonder what life as an academic librarian is really like!

At the New Professionals Conference I presented at last week, I spoke to CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) representatives who mentioned the CILIP Network of Expertise and Interests. Seeing as I was talking about online networking, they seemed surprised (and I was fairly embarrassed) that I hadn’t heard of it before. I asked others on Twitter last week and was relieved to find that it wasn’t just me who wasn’t aware of the network. I decided to register, and thought I’d share a brief review of the service.

The network is not part of the Communities area of the CILIP website, and is not attached to the CILIP Communities login. This surprised me, and I was a little disappointed to have to wait a day to be verified before I could take a look at the network, despite being a CILIP member and already registered on the CILIP Communities website. Having said that, one thing I was pleased about was that registration is open to anyone, even if they are not a CILIP member (although obviously it must be approved before being accepted). On the flip side I see the argument that there needs to be incentives to CILIP membership, but for this particular purpose I feel the network offers more value if it is open to all (UPDATE: unfortunately, this is no longer the case – the network is only open to CILIP members, which is a shame but I can see the reasoning.).

It wasn’t completely clear to me before being verified (which took about 24hrs) what the network was for or how it worked – CILIP referred to it as a sort of LinkedIn but it doesn’t have many of the same features that LinkedIn does. On the initial registration email it mentions matching members so I did wonder if it recommended other members with similar interests to yourself (like online dating might do but obviously for a different purpose!) but it doesn’t seem to do that.

Now I’m logged in I have found the aim of the network:

The CILIP membership is rich in skill and experience. This site is for members to make connections, share experiences and learn from each other.

Here’s a screenshot of the service once you have registered and logged in (I have just used my own profile as I appreciate it is a private area, when you log in there is an alphabetical list of entries similar to mine):

CILIP Network of Expertise and Interests

You can browse all members alphabetically (at present there are 119 members), or you can use the search functionality to find people. One feature which I really feel it’s crying out for is the ability to list people with a certain interest (these are selected from a list when you apply for membership so there should be consistency). These interests are included in the main entry on the home page, and are listed on each profile (see mine below for an example):

CILIP Network of Expertise and Interests - my profile

I wish these were links to take you to a list of everyone who has included that interest, it’s certainly what I was expecting (maybe I’m too used to tagging technologies!). I couldn’t find an easy way to list people by their interests and this is something fairly basic which I really think the network should be able to do.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to create groups either, and it seems the only way to contact people is by email, there is no way to send a message within the network.

It has potential to be a useful service and is good to be able to find other members with similar interests, but it is fairly long winded to use and the information is minimal. It’s more like a directory listing than a network really as it doesn’t encourage communication on the network platform.

I know I’m coming across a little critical, and I do think there are a lot of enhancements which are necessary before it is a viable alternative for LinkedIn (and as Owen Stephens pointed out on Twitter, one of the great advantages of LinkedIn is that different professions are all represented therefore providing links outside the library profession as well as within it). However, it’s great to see CILIP trying these new ideas, and acting on developing new networking methods as they mentioned mention in their recent Draft Council Paper on the use of Web 2.0.

One thing I am confused by however is the lack of publicity about this service. I don’t know if it’s a deliberate thing to soft launch to try the service with small numbers, but it seems to have been around for a while, and I wonder why it wasn’t mentioned amongst the #cilip2 discussions earlier this year. The CILIP representative I spoke to last week wanted to promote the service, so hopefully I’ve helped raise the profile a little (I know quite a few others on Twitter have joined since I mentioned it last week).

If you’re interested in finding out more, why not apply online and let me know what you think – do you see yourself using the network?

UPDATE: I wrote most of this post last week, but since then the page has been updated. Discussion forums have been activated along with a note that the network is hoped to be incorporated into CILIP Communities shortly. I’ll keep the blog updated with any new developments.

I thought it would be useful to share my experiences as a speaker at the New Professionals Conference last week. The talks were by new professionals, all of whom were first time speakers, and I was lucky enough to be one of them.

I was pleased that my proposal had been accepted (apparently there had been 28 proposals and 10 were chosen to speak), but I was incredibly nervous about talking at the conference. I was even more nervous when I found out the week before the event that there were 90 delegates; I had only expected it to be a small event (as had the organisers who were pleasantly surprised by how many delegates they had!). Some of the organising committee met us the evening before for dinner, and I soon realised that many of the speakers were as apprehensive as I was – we were all in it together.

The venue was London Metropolitan University, and those of us who had arrived the day before were escorted from the hotel to the event (which was a relief – navigating the tube isn’t so tricky when there’s a group of you!). The speakers had the opportunity to set up before the delegates arrived and it was good to have chance to ensure our presentations displayed as planned as well as get a feel for the room and the microphones. A couple of people’s presentations didn’t display as expected despite saving in the correct format, so I linked my laptop to the projector and some of us used that instead – I knew it was a good idea to bring my proper laptop!

There were three sections of three presentations centred around a theme, as well as the first speaker, Katie Hill, who had her own special section on the consumer generation at the beginning of the day. My presentation wasn’t until the afternoon in the section around marketing ourselves; there were also sections on meeting the challenges and career profiles.

The presentations were as follows:

The New Generation:
“The Consumer Generation and How it is Changing the Library and Information Profession”: Katie Hill, Serials and E-resources Assistant, University of York

Meeting the Challenges:
“Why Are We Still Defined by Our Building?”: Ned Potter, Digitisation Coordinator, University of Leeds
“Attracting Young People into the Profession”: Sarah Newbutt, Assistant Librarian, The Grammar School at Leeds
“Gaining Skills in the Social Aspects of Libraries”: Lydia Mayor, Knowledge Advisor: Research and Training Support, Eversheds
Followed by panel discussion chaired by Christopher Rhodes, New Professionals Co-ordinator, Career Development Group

Marketing Ourselves:
“Unleashing the Potential: New Professionals in the Workplace”: Emma Illingworth & Sarah Ison, Assistant Information Advisers, University of Brighton
“Beyond the Counter: What Skills Can New Professionals Offer in the Public Library Sector”: Kath Aitken, Reader Development and Stock Management Librarian, Derbyshire County Council
“Market Yourself Using Online Tools”: Joanne Alcock, Resources Librarian, University of Wolverhampton
Followed by panel discussion chaired by Dave Percival, Vice-Chair, Diversity Group

Career Profiles:
“From Old School to New Profession”: Hazel James, Librarian, Dame Alice Owens Secondary School, Hertfordshire.
“New Technologies, New Professionals”: Nicolás Robinson, Graduate Trainee, EC3: Science and Scientific Communication Evaluation, University of Granada, Spain.
“Wanted: New Professionals for Public Library Service”: Anne Sherman, Literature & Reading Development Officer, Cheshire East Council
Followed by panel discussion chaired by Sylvia James,Treasurer & Board Liaison to the First Five Years Council of the Special Libraries Association

Laura, one of the delegates, has written a fantastic summary of each of the talks over on her blog (part 1, part 2, part 3). The summaries cover a lot more than I can remember – I made some notes but missed some, especially those in my own section as I was sat in the panel with my back to the screen! There are also some write ups on the day from Kathy Ennis (CILIP) and Lizzie Russell (Sue Hill Recruitment).

It was a fantastic event (I may be biased but I really enjoyed the other talks!), and it was great to see so many new professionals passionate and enthusiastic about the library profession. I really liked the structure of the event; the panel discussions with involvement from the audience were really interesting. There was plenty of opportunity for networking too, with breaks throughout the day and a long enough lunch to eat as well as network. As well as new professionals, some delegates had been in the profession for longer, and representatives from CILIP and Sue Hill Recruitment were also there. There seemed to be quite a mix of sectors from delegates and speakers; academic, public, school and corporate librarians.

I actually really enjoyed presenting for the conference, it was a little overwhelming at first but after a minute or so I realised it really wasn’t that scary. There is quite a lot of interest in online networking at the moment and I had a number of people speak to me after the presentation, as well as contact me privately since the day. It’s great to think that I may have inspired someone to start using these tools and makes all the effort and nerves worthwhile. I’ve been asked to speak at the CILIP Graduate Day in September and hope to be able to share my experiences there too.

Overall, I’m really glad I chose to take Meredith Farkas’ advice to try new things, and at least now I’ve lost my speaker’s virginity maybe next time it won’t be so scary!

Managing in tough economic times

Sheila Cannell, Director of Library Services at University of Edinburgh, spoke about the current risks to libraries and how to try to overcome some of them during the recession.

The risks she highlighted included:

• Value proposition
• Human Resources – large numbers close to retirement age, little to attract newcomers to profession
• Durable goods – value of books decrease, value of space increase
• Legacy technology – still using old technology
• Intellectual property – using Google to find e-books etc.

Sheila made suggestions as to how these risks could be addressed, such as changing the perception of the library, investing in staff development, building a new vision for the profession, adapting the collection to use space differently, and collaborating to find new ways of doing things (e.g. collaborative digital books such as Hathi Trust).

She talked about how many of our users are in different places to libraries, using a version of the Web Trend Map with its distinct lack of library presence to demonstrate this (click image for larger version):

Web Trend Map from Information Architects (formforce on Flickr)

Sheila emphasised that the word “library” isn’t an issue, and instead of trying to rebrand as a different entity we need to focus our efforts on changing people’s perceptions of the library.

Some of the ways libraries can address the recession include:
1. Taking costs out of the business (e.g. giving user what they need, but not more than they need; review all activities and stop some if appropriate; review staff costs; increase productivity)
2. Finding other sources of income (e.g. diversification of income streams – charge for services, find different funding streams, new business opportunities, grants)
3. Collaboration (e.g. work with others to reduce costs or bring in income, cloud computing, hosted services – for example SHEDL, Scottish Higher Education Digital Library, which combines funds from Scottish HE institutions to allow access to wider variety of e-journals for each institution)
4. Innovation and creativity (e.g set a tone in library to encourage low cost innovative ideas, create a culture to discover small solutions that work for users)

As well as saving money, the recession gives libraries the opportunity to move on with other agendas, e.g. sustainability, digital, open access, empathising with user groups.

What can we do?

• Move to user’s space (e.g. Web 2.0)
• Provide easy to navigate digital environment
• Support institutional business in all ways possible (learning and research)
• Transform library as space
• Think about information literacy agenda
• Provide help, support and consultancy
• Measure impact! Value value value
• Be proactive
• Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate (users, others professions, other departments etc.)
• Listen to users

As many of the audience were managerial staff, Sheila also discussed how bosses need to adapt their skills to cope with the economic climate. She emphasised the important of looking after staff and also themselves by sharing values, motivating, developing, being open and honest to build trust, and the key – communicate, communicate, communicate.

I was pleased to see Sheila mentioning how important communication is; it’s something I’ve been harping on about for a while as I think it’s something that as a profession we need to improve, it’s been evidenced both at local levels in all the library work I have experienced, as well as on national level (such as the CILIP 2.0 event regarding communication from CILIP), and even further afield to global communication with other countries e.g. American Library Association. One of my main areas of concern when implementing anything at work is the consideration of communicating that change to both staff (within our department and further afield) and users.

Sheila’s talk was really interesting, it’s good that despite accepting the difficulties, we can focus on how to overcome these and there was actually a lot of positive ideas in her presentation. I certainly look forward to more collaborative work and addressing some of the other agendas affecting libraries at the moment.