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.
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