Friday, 13 December 2013

Innovation in Libraries: Swansea Central Library

Inspired by the innovation(!) talk at Library Camp I've decided to start doing posts when I see or hear about great ideas in Libraries. One of the main points that came up in the session was to share ideas, and share what you see. Hopefully this will be the start of many posts like this filled with idea-goodness.

The first great idea I'd like to talk about was one that I actually came across last summer. I was visiting JJ in Swansea, and (as we were walking past it) I thought it would be rude not to pop into Swansea's main Library. Also it was a really hot day - a break in the shade definitely did my skin some good. Almost as soon as you entered in the 'entrance space' was a quick choice book display. Displayed on this were several square objects wrapped in newspaper. Intrigued I wandered over. A sign that cheerfully read "Blind Date with a Book" or words to that effect presided over what I now realised were books, wrapped in newspaper so they all looked more or less identical. On the individual books, there was a post-it note on which three words were written, giving you a vague idea of what sort of book was underneath the wrapping. The sort of words you might use as keywords when cataloguing, for example:
Family Issues
Comedy
Travelling
Etc...
What I also found useful was that although the books were wrapped equally, you could more or less judge the size of it, so if you wanted a shorter book, no problem!

I think it's a great idea. It get's rid of the 'never judge a book by it's cover' cliché and holds the potential to get people interested in things they might not otherwise pick up. You could adapt it for Christmas, by wrapping them in Christmas wrapping paper, and calling it "Mystery Christmas Read" or something a bit more inspired.

I hope to visit again soon to see if they've got anything else innovative going on!

Over and out.

Monday, 9 December 2013

Hot off the Shelf: What I'm reading - "Junk", Burgess, Melvin

Spoilers.

Warning: This book contains drug use. And not just “Oo, let’s get high on a beach” kinda drug use. Full on, Heroin lovin’ Junkie heaven. Oh yeah, and this is a book for kids.

For kids.
Yup.
Won a Carnegie Medal and everything. And I can see why. It was a good book, full of truth.

I personally, would be happy with anyone above and including thirteen years old reading this book. The main characters are fourteen years old at the beginning of the novel, and the subject matter, sadly, is something that a lot of very young kids do go through. I am however, slightly torn on the ‘consequences’ matter. Tar and Gemma, the main characters, suffer throughout this book, even if they don’t at the beginning of it all when they run away together (for very different reasons). But in the end they do end up with a lot of regrets, and have a lot of bad things happen to them. Mostly brought on by themselves.  But I don’t know whether there was enough of a message that they really really fucked up bad, and now they’re lives are changed forever. I understood that their lives would never be the same again. I’m not sure if I would have understood this if I’d have read it aged fourteen. I would have maybe thought “Oh, well look, they ran away and lived in squalor and got into drugs in a huge way and loads of shit happened to them but they’re both alive. And not doing terribly. Maybe it happens that way for everyone on drugs.” I guess it’s the message that you can turn your life around after being an addict, sort of. I’d probably have got my fourteen year old self another book about drug users where it didn’t end so well, just to balance the viewpoint. To make myself understand that just because they’re both alive and “okay” doesn’t mean everyone who goes through that kind of stuff is.

It’s written well, the characters totally work. Each chapter is written by a different character (some characters obviously have lots of chapters), meaning we get a lot of viewpoints, but you never lose track of what’s going on, or get confused by this. I think that’s due to the fact it is written for kids (young adults, youths, whippersnappers, or whatever you want to call them) and you have to keep it relatively straight forward to follow else they’d lose interest (but not totally simple, else they’d feel like they were being ridiculed). It’s a messed up book, but it’s a messed up situation. Gemma as a character really annoyed me, but she’s just how some teenagers are – stroppy, not getting on with her parents, self-centred and thinks she knows best. Basically I think the book was really true about a whole lot of stuff that other books just sort of ignore or pretend doesn’t exist.

Hard hitting stuff. Really interesting to read, especially if you’ve never really read much like this. It got a lot of bad press and was banned all over the shop, probably because in parts, it really makes taking drugs sound like the best experience ever. Read it and see what you think. It looks like a chunky book but it took me a little less than two days to read. I’m on a pure role with reading at the minute – reading lots and getting myself high of other people’s words. That’s a good high y’know? I’m waiting for a bad book to come along and ruin my enjoyment.

Over and Out.

Friday, 6 December 2013

Hot off the Shelf: What I'm Reading - "Never Let Me Go", Ishiguro, Kazuo

No Spoilers.

I loved this book and felt indescribably let down by it all at the same time. I’ve never read Ishiguro. I chose to read the book because I came across it on the library bookshelves and the blurb sounded like something that might interest me. I’ve literally just put the damn thing down and all I can think is UGH. WHAT ARE THESE FEELINGS?

For a start, it was depressing. Do not read this book if you want to be cheered up. The narrator had this habit of making things perhaps seem okay for a bit, because you didn’t know the whole truth. Then the whole truth was revealed, bit by bit. Jarring, almost (something I didn’t enjoy) and it is all at once like a small feeling of “Oh. Well then. That’s depressing.” Some things you could see coming anyway, so the little ‘reveals’ were a tad overdue and therefore provoked my emotions not even a little bit. But some were good. The ending was the most depressing of all. It didn’t make me cry, this wasn’t ‘The Color Purple’ (sweet flip-flops if you want emotions - read that book), but it just left me feeling really empty and sad for the character.

One thing I enjoyed was the writing style. It was almost like having a conversation with the protagonist. Like you were sat in a room with her and she was telling you her story – going back and forward through her memories so that you’d get everything. This writing style is really bugging people according to other reviews I’ve read. Everyone either seems to find the writing style beautiful and engaging or the most painful, dreary, boring experience of reading the novel. I personally really enjoyed it. I think it’s one of the better ways of enjoying a novel more fully and exploring characters well. Even if you end up with a slightly biased narration at the end of it all.

People have compared this novel to works by Atwood and Huxley.

NO.

NO.

JUST…NO.

No-where near as good. “Never let me go” was alright, and is currently leaving me all muddled emotion-wise, but nothing close to Atwood/Huxley.

In conclusion – give it a go. If the writing style begins to put you off just stop reading because it pretty much stays the same throughout the entire thing. If you want something cheerful, stay away. For all it’s bad points it does seem to be getting everyone all worked up and irate about how good/bad they think it is, so I’ll give it that – it makes a total bitch of your emotions whichever way you go.

Over and out.

Sunday, 1 December 2013

Library Camp UK 2013. The results from the notepad...

So at the beginning of Library Camp I left a notepad in the main theatre. The idea was that Librarians could write in tips for Graduate trainees, along the lines of "Things people I wish people had told me before doing my masters" or "Tips for the Librarians of the future".

I didn't get a massive response, but there were a few who wrote some things down, thank you to whoever they were! Here's what they put, in no particular order. There are a surprising number of exclamation marks. Love it:

1) Open up your content!
2) Learned more from my MscILM than my PGDIPILM - which is already out of date. Do the Dissertation!
3) Get involved! Stay in touch with passionate people. Try not to get bogged down by naysayers. Embrace your profession, be proud of what you are studying.
4) Spend as much time telling people what you're doing as you are doing it! Learn about marketing.
5) Keep an open mind - I've ended up 500 miles away from "home" doing a job I got the lowest mark for that course at library school, but I've learnt SO much and have really grown, good luck!
6) Un-conferences - Library Camp ;)
7) Keep gaining practical experience throughout. Even just through plt or voluntary work.
8) Talk to everyone on the course, find out what they do and share what you've done, you learn the most this way.
9)
- Get on Twitter
- Learn how to use reference management software
- Talk to lots of people in the profession
- Visit libraries
Don't get stuck in the (echo) - (Not sure if I have read this correctly!) chamber...read non-library journals and get ideas from other sectors.


And that's that! If anyone know where I could post this that will be of more use - I'm going to post to the graduate trainees facebook page for a start - please let me know!

Over and out.

Library Camp UK 2013. My take on a brilliant day.

Okay, so it didn't start out brilliant. I've been full of a horrendous cold since Wednesday. Little sleep and the fear of passing on germs meant that I did not attempt to make any food to contribute, which I was really looking forward to doing. I was going to make Vegetable Roll Ups. I even did a test run the previous weekend to make sure they tasted nice. Never mind. The lack of sleep also caused me my first (and only, thankfully) stressful moment of Library Camp.

I missed my train.

It left at half seven in the morning, meaning I would get to the library of Birmingham not only on time, but with enough time to mingle with some people before-hand. But it was not to be. I ran half heartedly up the hill towards the train station, and got there just in time to see my train pull out towards Birmingham, leaving me out of breath, coughing hideously and feeling like I should just go home and resign myself to the fact that I was not 'with it' enough to be going to Library Camp. But I stuck it out, bought myself a green tea and waited an hour for the next one. On arrival at Birmingham I didn't even consider trying to carve my way though the Christmas shopping crowds, and instead flung my sorry self into the back of a taxi and wheezed out "The Library, please - the new one, the big one!"

At least the drive gave me a few minutes to compose myself and gather my thoughts. I payed the driver (such a nice guy, why can't all taxi drivers be as pleasant?) and ran though the doors, barely taking in the outside of the building (which yes, does look like a giant Christmas present). I followed the signs to Library camp and inched my way into a dark room (a theatre of some sorts) lit warmly with a yellow haze. It seems I had only missed the introductions and I listened to a friendly bearded man (there was a lot of bearded men there), explain how the day would work and where all the rooms where the talks would be held were. Then everyone who wanted to pitch a session, stood and gave a thirty second pitch, a show of hands were given to indicate interest and the idea was written on a post-it and placed on a hand drawn timetable on the floor. After all the sessions were pitched, they were organised and some similar ones were merged and a full, organised timetable was typed up onto a spread sheet and projected onto a giant screen so that everyone could start to make some decisions about which talks they wanted to attend. I chose the following talks:

1) Social Media in Libraries
2) LIS (Library and Information Studies) students talk
3) Digitalization
4) Cataloguing
5) Innovation! (There was actually an exclamation mark after it. This may have been a factor in me choosing the session...)

The social media talk was definitely the busiest I went to during the day. We had to split into two mini-groups to fit into the space. The session proposer began by saying who she was and who she worked for, then basically everyone chatted back and forth about elements of social media that worked in libraries, elements that didn't, the various types of social media and the benefits and drawbacks of using it to promote your library. Things I leant:
- I need twitter. I was possibly the only one there without a) an I-Pad or Smartphone good enough to be doing lots of technical things on and b) twitter. The hashtag for the event was #libcampuk13. People were bigging up twitter in the promotion of libraries all over the shop. In deciding what type of social media might work for out library, I should just ask the students which they think would be best, or which they use most.
- Linking your social media sites works. One guys explained how their facebook and twitter pages are often used to promote links to their blog. Apparently more people are willing to read a blog post via social media than they are via an email update.
- Visual things work. Pinterest was mentioned. and there was a guy there using rubber ducks to help promote stuff at his library. People like the ducks, apparently.
- Have a personality. There's nothing worse (apparently) than a library social media page with no personality. Be exciting and relevant to your workplace. Make them 'like' you. Ducks can help.
- You could link with other institutions or places in your local area. Promo for promo kind of...

..and lots more. This is gonna be one long post if I keep blabbering on! Basically it gave me some cool ideas about potentially using twitter for our library. I could use it to promote new books, remind them about overdues - events in the local library in town. Get them to post books they want to read. Other stuff. Getting them interested in the library basically. It could also be a means of communication between the students and us when we aren't at our desk. I need to lean how twitter works first though, then run it by the 'powers that be', see what they think. It might never take off, but watch this space...

The LIS student gathering was interesting. There were people currently doing their masters, people who had done it, people who were thinking of doing it and people who were just interested. We talked about the various location options to study (studying abroad came up) and the perks and let downs of a couple of universities. There was a girl there who'd recently done her masters at Manchester Met, where I'll be next year and she only had good things to say about it. Which I must say, made me feel much better (and more excited). A good point that came up was that just because each university calls the degree something different (all variations on something along the lines of "Information studies/Librarianship") they'll all get you qualified and they'll all be recognised for what they are. A lovely friendly group of people, many of whom I chatted with later on too.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting from the Digitalization talk, because I couldn't remember exactly what the guy pitched, but it sounded mildly interesting so I popped along. To summarise it was basically along the lines of how to/ how do you digitalize your archive material - do you make it open access or not, do you hire other companies to do it for you, do you do it yourself etc. I didn't really have much to contribute here, as CC does most of the archive business for the school I work at, but it was interesting to listen to, as it's something I might have to do in the future. There was also a little discussion about the pros and cons of Google books. Apparently there's a website somewhere on which someone has gathered and posted all the pictures of scanning errors on Google Books, handprints, folded pages, shadows etc. I tried to find it to post a link, but I think it's blocked on the school's system (bane of my LIFE).

The cataloguing talk was interesting, especially to someone like me who hasn't been doing it for very long. The two guys running the session gave a brief history (with awesome drawings) of cataloguing and Dewey. The three things a catalogue must be: Sustainable, Browsable and it must Assist you in your choice. (I remembered!) We talked about the different systems people use to catalogue and which management systems people were using also. There were some brief comments about whether people just go with the assigned Dewey number of a book or change it to fit in more with the structure of their own library. Smaller libraries and school libraries tended to be the places where Dewey was messed with a little bit and books put 'outside' of where it was recommended to go, ours included. There was a bit of natter about the inventory as a whole, and how a network of relationships is important, helped of course, by using controlled vocabulary upon choosing keywords for books. Don't just make up words, or use common slang - as it may become a 'dead' word or phrase sooner or later. Controlled vocab keeps everyone happy about what to search. Another lady pitched an awesome idea - they keep 'dummy books' on the shelves with the real books, where the e-books would normally sit. These dummy books have a scan-able code on the front, which provides a link to the e-book. A nice way to get people who prefer shelf browsing using the e-books.

My, this post is rather long. But we continue. Because the day was amazing and I don't want to split it all up. It needs to come out in a massive chunk of amazing, just like the day was.

The last session I went to was 'Innovation!' This is how it was written on the timetable. I love new ideas and have a few myself that I think could work well in our library so it seemed like the place to go. It was great. we all sat in out room and the session proposer explained she'd called this session for ideas and also for thoughts on how to get around the 'powers that be' whilst trying to be innovative in the workplace. Some of the ideas about this that came up:
- Allocate 5% of staff work time to their innovative projects per week. Although a lot of projects include out of work time-input also.
- Think simple, in a lot of cases a simple tweak here and there could make a big difference.
- Do first, seek forgiveness later (I suppose this depends where you work. - No-one will die, but you may be fired or something depending on what you did!)
- Do a month of risk taking. See what comes out of it. People usually have more ideas than we give them credit for, just no chance to show-case them.
- Get to know your customer base before changing things. See how you could make things better for them. Innovate for your people.
- Often it can be a case of what you can stop doing, on a day to day basis, to make time for new ideas. There's many things that if you stopped to think about them, you could always do less - increase efficiency and look at what is core to your schedule.
- A lady there suggested a book. Sticky Wisdom: How to start a creative revolution at work. You can find a link to the book here. I hope to read and review it next year at some point.
And also there were lots of ideas about what kinds of innovation you could do. Another key point was sharing ideas online, and the importance of it. It's probably been done elsewhere, but others may not know about it, so share away via every platform you can!

And that was my hectic day! It was rounded off by some quick thank-yous, some cake judging and a reminder of how awesome we all are. You know what, I really think so too.

After all of that I declined the offer to spend some time at the bar with fellow Library-People and searched out my friend who lives in Birmingham for some well earned pizza and a catch up, and finally managed to get a train home - a little earlier than I would have liked, but the need for sleep was pushing me back to my bed. I only feel a little sad that I didn't get a proper chance to look around the library. I will have to return again one time, to do it properly! I had a fantastic day, and really look forward to hopefully going again next year. In the meantime, I'll recover from my cold, get Twitter (hopefully) and get innovating. And hopefully never miss a train ever again.

From a proud library worker,

Over and out.

I got my place!

I received a letter a couple of days ago - I've received an unconditional offer to study for my masters in Information Management and Librarianship next academic year! In Manchester!

Basically, I'm going home!

*Happy Dance*

It's a huge weight off my shoulders and means I'm one step closer to being a fully qualified Librarian.

Over and Out.