Thing #6 cont...

As I enjoyed this latest 'thing' so much, I've been playing around with Big Huge Labs a bit more and, inspired by my colleague Ellie, have created this map of where I've visited in the world.

http://bighugelabs.com/map.php

Clearly, I have a lot more exploring to do!

Thing #6 - image generators

Image generation is the latest task for Westminster's 23 Things programme. I've had great fun with this, really enjoyed creating festive images on the three sites.

Letterjames can be used to manipulate text into an image. Here's my example, using an image of Cologne Christmas Markets:

Big Huge Labs can be used to create lots of different products from blog headers and profile widgets to magazine covers and pop art posters using your images. The child in me came out when I saw a letter to Santa as an option :)



Cooltext.com can be used to create logos or button designs. So, sticking to the theme:

I could see how these sites could be useful for marketing purposes, as they provide a quick and simple way to generate interesting images. If I was to pick a favourite, I would probably go for Big Huge Labs, as it has the most potential for fun and creativity.



USTLG meeting - the role of libraries in the research process



Keble College, Oxford.
Photo by Robert Hextall

 On a cold November morning, I made the trip to Oxford to attend this USTLG meeting. The topic, supporting researchers, was very timely as I have recently delivered my first two library sessions for researchers at Westminster. These forms a compulsory part of their initial PhD. They has previously been delivered by just a few of my colleagues, but this year we all had the opportunity to get involved, which meant we could tailor the second session to individual schools. Although the feedback we received was generally very positive, I felt slightly out of my depth at times, and unsure about whether what we were telling them was really the most useful for their needs. Therefore, when I saw the USTLG meeting advertised, I was very keen to attend!

Slides from the meeting are available on the USTLG website. I've put some of my thoughts from the day below.


The first talk was from an academic, Prof. Richard Darton, which provided some useful insights, although not in the way I'd expected. He gave his perspective on how the librarian has evolved since the start of his academic career, from curator to supplier to web manager. He seemed to concentrate a bit too much on the physical collection managing aspect, rather than the other work we do e.g. training people how to locate and use information effectively.

Kimberley Hackett gave an overview and update on the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Research metrics is quite a complex topic to talk about in 30 minutes but Anne Costigan explained it very well and made many of us realise that it's something we need to have good knowledge of when talking to researchers. This is certainly an FAQ and as information professionals we should be able to discuss this with confidence. Along with the well-known ISI metrics, useful tools mentioned were Researcher ID (to avoid disambiguation), Scopus, Scimago, CiteRank and MESUR.

Yvonne Nobis gave an interesting talk about finding the known unknowns and the unknown knowns. She was planning to show us the http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/scienceportal/ portal but unfortunately there was no internet available. I've had a look at it since though and like the look of it.

After lunch, we heard the bibliometrics training that Cardiff Uni offers from Kate Bradbury. They have staff sessions on the training calendar, have arranged a lunchtime seminar programme, and even managed to secure a slot at the Computer Science away day. Kate advised that the best attendance comes from sessions arranged with the school.

Alexa Dugan from Wiley (who had kindly sponsored the excellent lunch!) spoke to us about Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIRES). The idea for these stemmed from an American academic who felt that articles in reference publications don't give the writers any real credit. Interdisciplinary Reviews aims to address this by being a sort of cross between a journal article and a reference work article, with the content being the key factor. Several titles are available already and more are due to be published next year. Access is free for two years, then you can subscribe.

The final session of the day, given by Katy Sidwell, was very interactive and practical, which went down very well. It focused on us becoming a part of the research process and made us consider where we currently catch researchers in this cycle and where we could do better. The new researcher development framework was mentioned and it was suggested that we should map library support to this.

The day ended with a tour of the Radcliffe Science Library, which had some beautiful interior architecture.

Thing #5 - Creative Commons

After a bit of a break whilst first semester busyness took over, 23 Things is back! Thing 6 is to add a Creative Commons license to our blogs, so you will now find details of this at the bottom of the page. I wasn't sure which to go for but in the end I went for the more restrictive one. I may reconsider this at some later point in time. Generally, I think the Creative Commons is very useful.

Westminster 23 Things - thing #4 using photos, images and Flickr

Image by Emma Woods, all rights reserved.

This week's task is to create a Flickr account. I've used Flickr to find images but never to share my own (I tend to use Facebook for sharing photos with friends and family). I already had a yahoo ID so it was very quick and simple to set up my account.

I've uploaded a few photos of my Nile Cruise holiday earlier this year. See them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodsemma For now, I've decided not to share them through a creative commons license.

I was inspired by a post on Twitter to join the Guardian's Green shoots Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/guardiangreenshoots/ This provides me with a great excuse to go photo taking around Wandsworth Common tomorrow instead of writing an essay about Egypt and Nubia :)

Westminster 23 Things - #3 RSS feeds

The third 'thing' in the 23 Things programme is RSS feeds. I'd already subscribed to some using Google Reader but this was an opportunity to review my selection, deleting and adding subscriptions as necessary. As part of this, I've subscribed to all the feeds from others at Westminster who are participating in 23 Things.

The task is to write a reflective blog post telling about an item of interest from your reader. The one I've chosen comes from Sheila Webber's Information Literacy weblog and concerns a survey about Informs and the Virtual Training Suite. As you may be aware, they will not be funded for much longer, and the survey explores options on alternative ways they could continue e.g. through subscription. I think the Virtual Training Suite is an excellent resource and it will be shame if it isn't updated or developed after next year.

You can see the blog post at http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/2010/09/informs-survey.html

You can complete the survey at http://www.snapsurveys.com/swh/surveylogin.asp?k=128524501923 (ends 6th Oct)

23 Things

Westminster has recently launched 23 things, a way to get staff up to speed with web 2.0 (thing #2 is blogs, hence this post!).

The blog documenting the scheme is at http://academicliaison.wordpress.com/

Thing #1 was widgets.

Library (Wednes)Day in the Life

Attended my summer task & finish group on promotional materials in the morning. It was held at one of our other sites and it was nice walking over there in the sunshine! After a discussion on the four things we are tasked with finishing by the end of August, I offered to take the lead on a calendar of promotional activity, the idea being that we target key messages at appropriate times through the academic year.

I updated both of my subject blogs with details of new ebooks we've added in the last few days. Hope somebody reads them!

Library (Tues)Day in the Life

I spent most of the day with e-reading renewals and withdrawing items from behind the counter - not the most exciting tasks but necessary ones! Not sure why some of the things behind the counter hadn't been thrown away years ago - many old VHS tapes and items that hadn't been issued this millennium. Guess they were kept because we've had the space but this is soon to disappear when we get our new library counter next month. The new counter will give us minimal storage space, giving over more of the library entrance space to users, which can only be a good thing.

After work, I went to a meeting with my chartership mentee. This is the first time I've mentored and I really enjoy it. My mentee is from a different sector to me and it's interesting to hear about her work and the challenges that arise. We're approaching the final stages of the process now and she's hoping to submit towards the end of this year. If you're chartered, I'd definitely recommend training to be a CILIP mentor.

Library (Mon)Day in the Life

Thanks to Twitter, this morning I found out about Library Day in the Life. Somehow I have managed to miss the first four rounds of this - must have been when I was living in a cave! (quite at apt description of my time working at CILT, the National Centre for Languages). Anyway, now I've finally cottoned on to it, I am going to tweet and blog away for the next five days. This will hopefully act as a good development opportunity, as well as providing some insight to anyone thinking about entering into the library world.

I started the week off with a 'love your libraries' tour. This is an initiative taking place at Westminster and involves going round the four site libraries (Regent, Marylebone, Harrow and Cavendish), critically assessing the space and considering how it can be improved. Today it was Cavendish's turn. This requires quite a bit of imagination as it's currently having a extra floor built. We therefore had to don a hard hat and fluorescent jacket (height of librarian fashion!) and head into the building site. It was quite nice to see what has been achieved from all the drilling and hammering that we've had to deal with throughout this year!

I then checked some postgraduate reading lists to see what needs ordering when the new budget for 2010/11 becomes available next month. I also sorted out some e-reading renewals and researched possible organisations a lecturer can donate his maths/engineering books to. Found Education Aid and the London Mathematical Society. Hope one of them can help him!

My first strike

On Wednesday, I experienced my first strike. Unison had balloted us a few weeks ago and the majority had voted for strike action. I was a bit unsure about striking but decided to support the action. I went down to the picket line in the afternoon and handed out leaflets. It was a very positive experience - I met new colleagues and we had mostly supportive comments from staff, students and passers-by. We even managed to catch Boris!

Raising the profile of Academic Liaison Librarians

A while ago, I asked other librarians how they raise their profile within their institutions. 21 replies were received from two lists, lis-link and lis-infoliteracy. Below is a summary of the various activities and ideas that were mentioned in those replies.

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this.

1. Face to face
a. Attending school’s coffee break
b. Attending key academic meetings
c. Series of roadshows within the Faculties
d. Events for academics, one in the summer with strawberries and cream and the other in winter with mince pies for Christmas. As well as the networking aspect we did short demos of ebooks, distance learning support etc. Quite informal, attendance was good and it was definitely worth while. We sent out printed invitations to academics with a RSVP on so we knew how many to cater for and seemed a better idea than an email being lost in their inbox.
e. Attending the new academic staff induction day. There is short talk on
the library and then over lunch we have a stand with information and
rove the room talking to new members of staff.
f. Sometimes just developing a good relationship with one or two people in
a particular department can help raise your profile as everyone else
then gets to see what a good job you're doing.
g. Something as simple as taking a new member of staff out for a coffee can be a good way in.
h. 1-2-1 meetings with staff

2. Written
a. A newsletter to all members of the university at beginning of academic year
b. Contributions to wider internal staff newsletter
c. Subject guides for each department
d. Library snippet planned for university's PG newsletter, due to come out fortnightly
e. News on the library home page
f. Subject pages
g. Area of website for other staff
h. Liaison librarian web pages
i. Liaison librarians details linked through our areas in the VLE

3. Web 2.0
a. Yammer https://www.yammer.com/
b. Library blog
c. Library on facebook and twitter
d. Blogs based on faculties, which feed into a twitter account

4. User training
a. Making contact with the person who runs the PG training programme, we now run courses there.
b. Series of sessions with our staff development department, aimed at academics, to promote what we do
c. Talking to individual lecturers/department - teaching sessions for their courses.
d. Library lunch and bring your own lunch sessions
e. Drop-in sessions in a café
f. Receive new staff and postgrad lists and contact new staff and postgrads with an email to say hello and offer an introductory session to show them various library resources
g. Action research project with one subject area, to see if I can evaluate whether one-to-one interactions with academics are more beneficial than the standard group sessions we have run in the past in regard to them understanding what I do and how I can work with them.
h. Informal drop-in session for staff just before the start of each academic year - when staff are back but haven't started teaching/inductions. We invite all the academic and admin staff (by email*and* flyers in their pigeonholes *and* posters around the Faculty!) and on the day the Subject Librarians act as hosts, dole out the drinks, network, and talk staff through using the resources.


5. Working together
a. Joint project bids with academic staff
b. Presenting papers at institution’s conference
c. Become as fully engaged as possible with the work and achieve seats on committees within the teaching school served. Out of that can come opportunities for wider engagement and profile with the rest of the university.
d. Take part in course planning and (re)validation
e. Library reps who are members of academic staff in the departments
f. Sitting on faculty quality enhancement committee
g. Take part in subject team meetings
h. We work on cross service groups e.g. with our Learning technologists or
IT trainers. One of the main things we do is promote the Teaching
Day which serves to showcase and develop good teaching practice
throughout the school

6. Other
a. Taking postgraduate certificate of academic practice (to get HEA accreditation and to get to talk to more academics!)
b. Research into the promotion of librarians as partners in Higher Education, using my own relationship with the faculty I support as the basis.
c. Publicity board with our pictures and names of departments - this is on
display in the Library but we also take it to events

Librarians as Teachers: the New Professionals?

May has been full of inspirational events, the latest of which was held at the University of Warwick Library on Wednesday 26th.

Having first heard about the Librarians as Teachers event at LILAC back in March, I was very keen to attend. Events kind of overtook me though and in the end I was very fortunate to get a place, as when I originally tried to book it was full. On Monday morning, however, I received a very welcome email from Jess Humphreys (CDG West Midlands) asking me if I was still interested in attending. I jumped at the chance and on Tuesday evening got the train then a bus to my parents' house in Kenilworth. My parents were away on holiday but the cat was delighted to see me, so that was an added bonus to my rather impromtu trip!

It's been two and a half years since I moved to London and in that time I have grown used to cramming myself onto a train and it taking nearly an hour to get to work. Therefore, the ten minute bus journey from my parents to the University of Warwick felt a bit surreal - I even got a seat!

I know the University well and as a student often used the library during the holidays. It's about five years since I was last there and was very impressed by its transformation during that time. The event itself was held in the Teaching Grid, an extension to the Learning Grid.

The day began with Anthony Brewerton giving us a quick tour of the Teaching Grid, an "experimental teaching space". He talked about the library's values - information, support, community, the idea of space being a catalyst for change, librarians being equals to academics, the "ladder of loyalty" and the idea of the librarian in the lobby. He also showed us a video of advice about the library from students which is a great idea. Would love to get Westminster students to do something similar. Particularly interesting to hear their perspective on the library and the staff e.g. 'tutors in the library'.

Debbi Boden began her talk 'Evolution: do we buy into it?' with two highly amusing YouTube clips - Haunted Love and the Librarian Song - to demonstrate how librarians' image is still an issue. Librarians need teaching theory - they need to know the language to be credible with academics. Debbi requires her ALLs to take the PGCert. In a time when we have to develop new services with less money and staff, we can:

• work with academics - library champions
• learn to say 'no' (e.g. to last minute requests)
• critical evaluation rather than database training
• work more with web 2.0 tools
• take advantage of the financial situation - how can we help our academics in a time of recession?

There is no room for complacency!

Also of note is that in the Researchers framework, IL is key component. Link to lifelong learning.

Debbi said librarians in HE should become fellows of the HEA. This topic was taken up by the third speaker, Jo Webb. The HEA promotes learning and teaching and provides support and recognition. They have recently changed policy so it is now harder for librarians to become fellows. The associate option is open to us though. Jo recommended looking at the professional standards to see what we should base teaching practice on and how we can engage students.

The PGCert was the pre-lunch talk by Sally Patalong. Sally admitted that the idea of teaching had for many years not held any appeal. However, taking the PGCert totally changed her attitude and has increased her confidence. It has lead to exciting new opportunities, such as becoming a teaching fellow in the library. She has worked with education developers and learning technologists, as well as in the academic writing centre. She recommends peer observation as an excellent way to improve your teaching practices, along with watching other people teach (not just librarians, lecturers too!) and getting feedback from students (post-its). Remember to keep evidence of what you're doing!

The lunch break gave me the opportunity to catch up with someone I did my MA Librarianship with, which was nice. I also met someone who's following me on Twitter.

The post-lunch slot was taken by Dr Geoff Walton and he kept us awake with some thinking exercises. For example, what are the essential ingredients for teaching? A lot of teaching is about risk taking. Do you agree or disagree that teaching IL without assessing is pointless? I stood towards the disagree side as sometimes it is simply not possible to include assessment but that doesn't mean what you teach is not having a positive effect on the learner.

Emma King gave a very interactive discussion on teaching spaces and learning design. In groups, we looked at two of the spaces within the teaching grid and comment on their potential use and engagement opportunities. Adapting strategies to spaces can be daunting.

A panel discussion rounded off the day. Matters raised included the issue that PGCerts are not specifically aimed at librarians, and the fact that there is a lack of teaching practice on CILIP accredited ILS courses.

All in all, a brilliant event, with excellent organisation and innovative use of space.

Some retrospective blogging required!

Afetr attending many brilliant conferences and events recently, I've finally realised that I need a blog to keep track of it all, so here it is!