Yet again, long time no post…

Well. Here I am again. Haven’t posted for quite some time…in fact, I have been so busy, this is the first time I have thought about my blog since the last time I posted…it’s been chaos.

So, an update: we had a new Director of Library Services over the summer, who is very nice and is slowly starting to get his vision of what our service looks like together. I suspect more change is on its way…which is inevitable, but I really would like to have at least one week where I know who I am, what I do and where I go to for help…I’m beginning to get a bit tired of change, but it’s one of the certainties of life.

The other thing (well, one of them 😦 ) that’s really irritating me currently is the pop ups in Chrome. I cant work out how to turn them off! So every time something new comes on the BBC news, or any of the other sites I follow, a pop up comes up in the corner of my screen, totally distracting me from important matters (like trying to figure out what my job title is today…). If anyone out there knows how to do this, please help a poor Luddite out.

We’ve also taken on a new job in our team, whereby we are now participating in Library Chat. Well. So far I have had one session; it’s interesting. One of our colleagues who is used to using the system from a previous role has been supporting us and on my shift she practised with me transferring chats and answering them. It’s quite an easy system to use, but a bit stressful as it’s in-the-moment and I wanted to jump in, where really you need a cool head. I’ll get used to it.

In normal life, not much has happened. We’ve had a few holiday weekends and we’re currently in the usual run up to Christmas, which means I keep mentioning shopping and Man-Podling continues to ignore me…business as usual then…in greater news, I am about to embark on the next decade of my life…at Christmas I will celebrate a ‘0’ Birthday for which I am being treated to a lovely holiday…in a pod in Anglesey…no, really, that’s where I am going…and also to Cape Verde in February! 🙂 Winter sun here I come!

I’m not the only one though: fortunately I have many friends the same age so we are all together in this (unlike the Tories…). My youngest brother-in-law celebrated his a few weeks ago and we had a lovely family holiday in a complex in Hay on Wye. We stayed in a medieval barn and it was rather like being at home only much bigger! They even had the same fireplace…

(Photo credit: K Dolman – the one on the left is the medieval barn, the one on the right is the Podlings’ mini version)

As a Librarian, it’s a travesty that I have never before visited and I was in absolute heaven for the whole weekend. I bought LOADS of books! I even found a set of books I read as a teenager and have never found since (I borrowed them from the Library! 🙂 ). I found the 2nd-4th volumes but not the first, however a lovely friend has sourced one and is buying it me for Christmas. Here they are (and yes, my coaster says ‘Karen’s Wine Bar’ and ‘Life is a cabernet’)!

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Photo credit: K Dolman

I’m really looking forward to reading them again, but am currently waiting for the next instalment of the Outlander saga. I cant wait! I shall definitely be posting about it but it may be some time…watch this space…

Finally…

 

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Serene sands at Shell Island. Photo Karen Dolman, 2019

This post is a bit retrospective as it’s a bit late. I actually pressed the submit button three weeks ago, but have been so busy with life, holidays and work that I havent had a chance to do this! (And not that I have been procrastinating, perish the thought!).

So. I. Did. It. I pressed the button. There was much faff that day, but it was worth the rechecking as, somewhere along the line, somehow, I had managed to lose my CV. Poof. Disappeared. Gone. Where??? I have no clue. But fortunately, rather than my usual laissez faire attitude, I decided to do one last, thorough, check…good job. THE crucial piece of evidence, MIA. Or missing, presumed fed, to quote my idol.

I managed eventually to find the latest version in an email to my mentor, fortunately, and re-uploaded it, much to my relief. Everything else was in order, so it was time…I paid the fee, which was accepted, and there was no more messing. “Just push the button”, said my colleague, who had put up with me mithering and dithering for most of the day. So, I did. And I have to admit, the feelings that washed over me where…unexpected. First there was accomplishment: I had done it! Finally! After all this time, effort and procrastination, I had submitted. Then, the fall. What will I do now? What’s next…? At this point, I felt like bursting into tears (blame my age…if you dont value your life…), which I hadnt expected at all. It was as if I had lost some vital part of my life, life-changing in fact…

So, I am now waiting to hear from CILIP as to whether my submission has been successful. I got the acceptance email the following day, which was a relief, so I know they have it. I just have to wait, but am filling my time with other stuff (such as holidays) to keep my mind off it (I’ve just seen an email pop up about buying books from a colleague: we’ve been given some money to spend on Books on Prescription and Mood Boosting Books so that is what we are spending today doing – or writing blog posts. Sorry…).

But I keep thinking that I have invested such a huge amount of effort and life into this process and now they are making me wait? It’s a killer, I tell you. Is it worth it, I think…?

Yes, it was all worth it, every last bit of it, is the answer. All the worry, doubt, screaming habdabs, the lot. It’s all going to be worth it for my career, my job satisfaction, my sense of personal accomplishment. And it was worth it for one absolutely crucial thing that needed to happen…

Yes, we were going to the pub! 🙂

Long time, no post…again!

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(Collegiate Library Wellbeing Walk – April 2019. Photo courtesy of Lisa Glossop 2019).

Well, this is just a quick updating post on the subject of Chartership. Yes, it’s still going, no, I havent pressed the button yet. 😦 Lots of things have been not exactly getting in the way, but stifling progress somewhat, including several holidays all together and a job interview (which I didnt get, but am happy with my performance).

The above photo is not one of the reasons for lack of progress, but it is meant to illustrate that, no matter how much we strive, we still need time to play. Our recent Collegiate Library Wellbeing Walk (which we try to do on at least a monthly basis) took us past a children’s playground (not inhabited at time of wandering) and we couldnt resist having a little play, particularly, as you see, on the ropes. Well, and why not? My climbing experience stood me in good stead in this activity, although it does actually look like I am a lot further off the floor than I actually was (me, shorty!).

Anyway, we had great fun and are planning to relive the experience in the next few weeks – just got to find somewhere to have a walk to (possibly an allotment!). So that’s progress.

Back to the Chartership. I keep getting asked when I am pushing the button, for, I suspect, the sole reason of a visit to the local watering establishment. My plan is to finish off the little nitty bitty jobs that need doing this week (ie tomorrow) and then get one last look from my mentor, fill in the mentor completion form and then press the button next week! Given that I have an almost-full diary, this could be somewhat tricky…but I shall make a Herculean effort to ensure I do it!

I’ve also got a visit to that Brum to look forward to next week, oh joy…but for a nice reason. A teachmeet at Aston Uni on Wellbeing activities in Libraries. So that’ll be nice and I might get some inspirations for our own Teachmeets too.

So, there’s the plan. Make sure I stick to it and this time next week…watch this space…

The Intelligent Library – some thoughts and reflections on AI and the future Library

 

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(Image of Radcliffe Camera, on a wall in Oxford. Copyright Karen Dolman, 2018).

Recently, at home, we signed up for the Hive system for our heating. As part of the deal, we now have an ‘Alexa’ device, which has been a bit of an eye-opener for us both. My partner is very techy, but not very digital, and I’ve had to have a few ‘Librarian’ moments with him in terms of using it correctly (for example, he asked her to ‘play Peatbog Faeries’ and she didn’t understand. I asked her to ‘play music by the Peatbog Faeries’ and she understood, rewarding us with some very good tracks!).

So, this little issue made me think about how this technology will impact on how we teach students and also how it will impact on how they access information – we already have issues when trying to explain how to use key terms and words; how much more difficult will this be when we have to try to explain how to get the best from an AI system? As Librarians, we are used to the language of key terms, concepts, controlled vocabulary and, in Health and Medicine, MeSH Headings. However, this is something that not everyone will understand or develop and this leads me to wonder how we can develop these skills to make sure our students, and the populace at large, are accessing correct, relevant and appropriate information?

I saw a conference advertised a while ago, at which one of the presentations was ‘Skills for the future academic library‘. I couldn’t attend due to staffing demands, but my manager went and said this was a very interesting presentation. I immediately followed up with this and realised that, apart from being a future consideration, AI in libraries is already here. The presentation highlights that such systems as ‘Deakin Genie’, ‘Revision Assistant (Turnitin)’ and chatbots are already in use and becoming accepted as a way of communicating and disseminating information.

At Hallam, we don’t have any automated systems as yet, but we have recently introduced a new portal, MyHallam, which has a knowledge-base for students to search. The idea is that they should be able to find answers to their queries within this system, only coming to seek help should they not find an answer within the system. The knowledge-base will grow with enquiries that come in, and, eventually, students should find answers to all of their questions, as well as interacting with us via this portal. It’s not really AI, but I envision that we wont be long in subscribing to one of the above-mentioned systems. We already have access to an online 24 hour academic feedback service, so we are definitely moving in that direction.

Returning to the research issue: one comment is particularly telling in the presentation. A researcher points out that AI may make journal publications obsolete as a way of communicating research as, rather than subscribing to many different journals, researchers could just subscribe to a filtering service which will tailor their research strategies to personal need and the algorithms will do all the work for them. Hmmm, interesting.

For me, this begs the question: how do you know you are getting the best results? I may be being naïve here, but the elephant has to be grasped by the trunk. When I construct a research strategy and apply it to the database, I can be flexible enough to have the opportunity to do the initial scanning of articles myself, in order to eliminate any that may not be peer-reviewed or of appropriate provenance etc…I am not sure, given the rigid nature of algorithms, that a filtering service would allow this flexibility and also that it would give me the best results every time, with this in mind. A conversation with a colleague about this also raised the issue that algorithms are constructed by people and therefore could reflect the biases and opinions of those people – ie white, middle-class and male. This is another issue that I think affects the validity of such systems and which is exactly why they are unreliable in my view. People make mistakes.

Look at Facebook: it works on algorithms, the same as any other system, but at certain points it seems to get stuck in a loop – I regularly have to go in and change my settings to make it do what I want. And I only see consistently the results that I interact with, which generates more of the same results, which I interact with, and so on. Applying this to a research methodology – how can I be sure that this isn’t also happening with a filtering service? Given that, when conducting research, the idea (especially in my areas) is that we need to find as much of the body of literature that is available as possible, then select the most appropriate using screening methods and evaluation tools. How can a filtering system manage that, given these algorithmic limitations? Indeed, one of the issues raised about the use of AI in the presentation is that of accuracy and validity.

However, I also realise that a lot of these systems are ‘learning’ systems (heuristics, for example), but I still beg leave to doubt, as there are questions about whether these still will give the best results. The possibilities inherent in these systems are infinite, but I think, for me, there needs to be more evidence of their effectiveness before I subscribe wholeheartedly. We need to make sure our students (and staff!) understand the value of good research techniques, as well as the systems out there designed to help them find the appropriate resources and how to use them effectively, and their place in the research process. As a Librarian, I am all about saving the time of the user, but there is a definite ‘cutting corners’ feel to these systems that I am rather wary of. Watch this space…

Back to the original subject however, Alexa has proved to be a hit in our home, although we still can’t make her talk to the heating system…I’ll leave that to the technician in the family.

References:

Cox A, Pinfield, S & Rutter, S. (2018). Skills for the intelligent library. CILIP Briefing: Skills for the future academic library. London: CILIP

A nice thing happened on the way to Chartership…

So the Chartership process is almost coming to a close, after all this time; I have spent the past few weeks updating my evidence, working on my evaluative statement and slowly but surely compiling my portfolio. I have written several entries for my journal reflections and managed to finalise my CPD log also. One thing I havent managed to do is keep my blog up to date. Which I intend to rectify now.

However, rather than starting where I left off, I thought I would jump in where I am now and work backwards to September…because that’s logical, right?

Yes. So, a lovely thing happened to me yesterday. Last year we had a graduate intern (X) in our team who took a secondment from her post on the library helpdesk team to gain skills and experience in working in our role. While she was with us, she was given lots of opportunities to do different things, one of which was to have input into the teaching we do. She already has a qualification and significant experience in teaching, but in a school environment, which is very different from what we do. For me, I was very happy to support her development in this and, after she had observed me in a couple of sessions (both as our intern and also previously when she had asked to shadow sessions as part of her appraisal), I was happy to let her take the helm herself. We agreed a couple of shorter first year classes that she would take, and also agreed that I would sit in, in case of need. But after the first one, I didnt think I needed to and so let her have free reign. It all went swimmingly.

Needless to say, at the end of the year we were all sad to see her leave us to return to her substantive post. But, as I said, yesterday something really lovely happened. She asked me if I would be willing to be her ‘buddy’ in our team, to help her to keep in touch and to not lose all of the experience and skills she had gained in her year with us. I can honestly say that I am deeply moved that she has chosen me for this (and fairly gobsmacked!). Having been in a management role for so long, but not for the last four years, I can say quite honestly that I do sometimes miss it. Being X’s buddy will give me the ideal opportunity to dip a toe back in the water in an informal manner. It will also give me an idea as to whether I really do want to become a CILIP mentor once I have my Chartership…Next steps are to have a meeting, where we will discuss what she needs from me and how we will manage the process, there being no formal policy in the University structure for this type of relationship (just to note: this has been agreed to by both of our line managers also).

I’m really looking forward to embarking on this journey with her. I have always enjoyed seeing people fulfil their potential and being able to contribute to the process is rewarding and satisfying in the extreme for me. We cultivated a very good working relationship whilst she was with us (and have continued to do so) and so I am very pleased that she is entrusting me with this opportunity to help her progress.

Now, working backwards from this week; a few key points…

  • The Chartership application has a little more work to be done (revise PKSB, couple of reflections in journal entries on CPD actvities, tidy up evaluative statement and have a critical friend read it – I have already sounded a Chartered colleague out for this who has kindly agreed – add extra evidence, etc) so I am hoping to submit in the next few weeks.
  • I’ve survived this years’ manic teaching schedule which has quietened down now, but will explode again after the Xmas break with the MSc programmes beginning.
  • We have had initial meetings to plan our reading project for next year, which is still in the initial phase (however, we didnt get any funding for it so we are on our own – more power to make it a success, if you ask me!!). I have been researching both the literature on reading and social isolation and other institutions’ promotions and also contributing my own experience of running the Feeling Fiction group (which is going to be incorporated now into the wider promoting reading agenda).
  • On the subject of Feeling Fiction – I have abandoned trying to get an organised meet and have moved the discussion onto our Facebook and Yammer pages. Each month I post a book and invite comments around the themes. Most of the discussion takes place on the Yammer site, though, which is only accessible by SHU staff…not ideal but at least there is a discussion occurring…
  • we have had an initial meeting to begin planning our next teachmeet for May 2019. This year’s theme will be ‘Promoting Reading’ which we can align with our own experiences of organising one, and also gain valuable insight into other institutions’ experiences of organising/promoting reading activities. Being part of both teams will be very useful.

The other thing that has recently happened is the creation of a library induction group, which I agreed to be a part of, to look at our current induction materials. We had an initial meeting last week, at which I suggested we could ask what students would have liked to know when they began University, about the library. This came about from my thinking that we think we know what students need to know but, in the face of a very rapidly changing and diverse student population, we may not be giving them what they really need. Sure, they need to know how to take a book out, but what else? Is the rest of what we tell them relevant? So rather than us directing the process, let’s give it over to the students! Ask them what they would’ve wanted to know…I’ve just come back from a staff/student committee meeting (captive audience!), where the suggestions came in thick and fast! Sometimes, it could be a case of be careful what you ‘ask’ for…one of the suggestions was a library tour, which I had to demur to. We dont have the staffing to support it and we cannot traipse large cohorts of 80+ students around the library in one go. However, I had a bit of a brainwave, which I will posit at the next meeting, about organising sign-up tours for students, in the way that we organise drop-in referencing sessions…we’ll see how that goes…

There’s been a lot of things happening up to the point I am at now, but it is going quieter over the next few weeks. Only three weeks until we break for Christmas and so the focus has turned toward the impending festivities. Unfortunately I cant make the team Christmas meal this year…but we are having a ‘Donut Day’ at Collegiate on the last Thursday before we break up (which I will participate in, but not eat the donuts – yuk!!) and we are possibly going for a drink after work, with our erstwhile intern too (we have another intern starting shortly, but we havent met her yet).

I also tried to gather some enthusiasm for #TShirtday (BBC 6 Music, wear your old band tshirt day) this year, but only a few colleagues participated. I wore my 30 year old Bon Jovi 1988 tour tshirt this year…and posted it on twitter (because Librarians rock)! But here it is in the flesh (and it’s still too big – I am quite tiny)…

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Very much looking forward to winding down now and having a drink with colleagues, then having a break from it all to recharge. And, of course, pressing the all important ‘submit’ button. On a sadder note, however, for us, we also found out this week that a colleague is leaving in March to take up a new post elsewhere. I wont say more here as doubtless there will be more in the weeks to come. Our loss is their gain, but we will all be very sad to see her go…watch this space…

 

Conference Reflections and summery fun…

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(Waiting for the keynote. Little me, top left right at the back, hand on my chin, on me tod. Larger image here. Image courtesy of HLG Conference)

This year, I have been privileged to attend not one, not even two, but THREE conferences, almost back to back. They have all been Health Library focused, and identified on last year’s PDR (Performance and Development Review – more on that in a later blog post). As this is going to be a long post, I’m going to concentrate on the first conference, which was the bi-annual Health Libraries Group conference, held this year in the lovely environs of Keele University. For the very first time in my professional career, this conferences was a stay-over, so I had the very great pleasure of honouring the Holiday Inn with my presence for one night only…and a very pleasurable stay it was.

I cant possibly go through every session in detail in this post: two full-on days of innovative practice and engaging, interactive discourse is very difficult to disseminate. So I will say that the main themes of the conference were demonstrating impact, raising awareness of libraries and librarians, their work, their problem-solving and their innovative ways of engaging service users and collecting feedback. To try to give a flavour and some reflection, I have picked out some photos from the conference (with me in them, mostly the back of my head!) and given a brief precis of the session. In no particular order…

  • HLG Conference saw the launch of the CILIP Health Hub
  • Keynote 1: Nick talked about the boundaries between study and work blurring and about the changing work and study environments: online, personalised, flipped. And about digital exclusion, the proliferation of social media, diversity and culture and about how librarians make the links between all of the above. We must change as a profession to keep abreast and ahead of these developments.
    • I am currently part of a team developing a project (to be approved) around reading for pleasure supporting wellbeing, diversity and belonging. We are looking at developing a ‘Big Read’ for Hallam. I have searched the literature to find evidence on how reading for pleasure supports these issues, to show that it has impact for our project manifesto. I got involved in this project via my work with Feeling Fiction book group, and something I have a long-standing interest in an interest in: reading for pleasure and mental health. My MA dissertation investigated the impact on literacy development by engaging in reading for pleasure – and by association, building self-confidence, promoting better education and raising aspirations, all of which help towards promoting belonging, mental wellbeing and understanding diversity.
  • Keynote 2: Dr Mark Taylor delivered a keynote on why clinicians need to use evidence-informed practice. There was a lot about communicating health decisions to patients and how this is done. Language, lenses, financial and political concerns. And fake news, misinformation and manipulated content and how we need to debunk this for the public. I thought this would go over my head but actually it made a lot of sense!
    • It’s important for me to know about how clinicians and health professionals do this, as my students learn a lot about communicating health decisions and so I can use this as further evidence of how important good quality research, and the skills needed to find it, are. I tend to also promote ‘Behind the Headlines‘ to students, as a good place to look for debunking those amazingly manipulated health headlines, such as the Telegraph reporting, ‘Middle aged drinking may reduce dementia risk, new study finds‘. Behind the Headlines debunk this in an easy to read and understandable way.
  • Playing the Communication Game! And the team behind the games. A fun-filled first session with board games aimed at transferring knowledge and skills through play. It was really difficult to do; like Pictionary but with words! My team won.
  • Listening to Jane Falconer report on quality of reporting of lit searches in systematic reviews – some very unnerving stats!
    • After doing the SCHARR training (more in another post) earlier this year, this was a good session to remind me to reinforce why reporting your search strategy is really important in health research! I now talk authoritatively (and enthusiastically!) to students about why reporting your research strategy is important to the methodology and transparency of their research, and also about meta-analysis and narrative synthesis. Before the training, I would have backed off from this, but now feel very confident in addressing these issues with students. I’ve also been previously asked to help with systematic reviews and have declined, but, as a result of the training, I would now feel confident in taking part.
  • Talking about barriers to research in Gillian’s session Dont use anecdotes, use research!’ Collaboration is what we do: barriers to research such as time, opportunity and value mean we learn from others, rather than looking for it ourselves. Librarians can help!
  • The very engaging Shirley Yearwood-Jackman speaking my language about developing evidence based practitioners! ‘Yes, you do know this, I told you in the last session!’.
    • We had a good chat after the session about how students say things like ‘I wish I’d known this in the first year’ when we see them in the first year and tell them! It’s so frustrating some times as I feel that I am either not communicating effectively, or I am just wasting my time. But I do feel very happy when it just clicks for some people and others do eventually get there.
  • Helen and I, on the left of the photo, listening to the findings of a report on the impact clinical librarians have on patient care. Helen is another friend and ex-colleague from Uni. She is a clinical librarian also, so it was good to have her views on what was being reported too. The upshot: librarians make a difference!

Full album of HLG Conference photos here Conference presentations here

This conference had a few surprises up its sleeve for me. I learned a lot of things of course, and I have taken a lot away from it. But I also met a very old friend and ex-colleague whom I haven’t seen for many years since we both worked at Walsall Mobile and Home Library ServiceDavid Laws! We managed a very quick catch up during the first session, but had a longer one a bit later on, on Facebook. The impact of this isnt just re-engaging with a friend (which was lovely in its own right): he is now Library Services Manager for the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and a member of the HLG Board, and so therefore ideally placed to be an information source and a critical friend for work – wider professional knowledge as defined in the Chartership criteria. I am currently about to contact him about the new funding structure and student access to NHS resources, something which we have struggled to get a definitive answer to.

As this conference is very expensive, we share the attendance alternately between the Health Librarians at Hallam, which now means that Simon gets to go to one, then me the next…Now, when Simon went in 2016, he got to go for a seaside jolly up to Scarborough, home also to his passion for cricket. I got to go to Stoke. Not that this is a really bad thing (the seaside would’ve been better, though!); it’s only that I am originally from quite close to Wolverhampton and – as the footballers amongst my readers will know – there is a long-standing ridicule of both environs on the part of the other. Basically, we dont like Stoke!…however, I wasnt tarred and feathered, and Keele really is a beautiful part of the world. Coupled with that, my parents only live 30 miles away, so I forewent the conference dinner in order to pay them a surprise visit on the eve of their Golden Wedding Anniversary. I was forgiven by my fellow conference attendees on this merit.

The conference wasnt all about Librarians though. There were lots of opportunities to give things a go and one of the sessions that interested me was the ‘Laughter for Healthcare’ session. This comprised of an exercise called Laughing Yoga’ (I am in the middle of the photo, next to the lady with the green and white striped jumper. And, yes, I really am that short). Laughing is apparently a great form of therapy and one we do not do enough of. I felt a bit silly in this session, but actually it was a great relaxer after a quite full-on morning. Typically, I havent really revisited this since, but once I have a bit of spare time it’s definitely something I will be looking into. Who knows, I may even suggest it for our next team away-day! 🙂

So I am enthused, motivated and all conferenced out, now! I am looking forward to disseminating this to my fellow Learning & Teaching Team members at some point in the future (probably the next away day, which this post will be useful for – reflecting back!). I’ll do another post on the other two conferences which, while by no means less interesting and exciting (there was a little escapade on the Tube…), were slightly shorter and therefore can be summarised more effectively.

But it hasnt all been work. This summer, as previously indicated, has been full of fun, frolics and other frivolity beginning with letters other than ‘F’. We’ve had heatwave madness, in the form of short trips out to the East coast – Filey (oops, F!), Cleethorpes and Skeggy (lots of Podling-paddling happening!); to the West – Aberystwyth (nope, in charge of Lemmy the Whippet and he was having none of this paddling malarkey, thank-you-never-so-much!); and a nostalgic return to some youthful haunts in the south Mids. There was also, last weekend, a return to the outdoor climbing scene for the first time in years, in a visit to Birchens Edge. My knees are covered in bruises from a fight up a chimney…

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(Image taken at Deal, Kent. Podling-paddling in the sea! Copyright K Dolman, 2018)

Teachmeet Triumph!

UPDATE: 26.6.18 – Part of this post went towards a blog post for our staff blog, to promote the Teachmeet to our wider audience within the SHU academic and professional team.

So, it has come to pass again. I have been remiss in keeping up on my blog, through no real fault of my own though…Life, as usual, has a habit of getting in the way and it’s got in the way quite a lot recently.

There have been a few camping trips (memorably at Easter when we nearly got snowed in at Kielder!) and some weekends away…and a broken hand. This was due to a complete lack of attention when exiting a route, a lack of anything resembling balance and co-ordination, a small red bug and only one hand on the bars…this happened to be the right hand, which promptly decided – without any apparent consultation with my higher faculties (which I give leave to doubt I have, after this debarcle!) – to pull the front brake. This precipitated flight over the handlebars, landing on the path and cartwheeling into a puddle. The visit to Wrexham A&E involved a nurse suggesting knitting might be a more salubrious pastime for someone of my obviously debilitating co-ordination skills, a large bandage and six weeks off my bike…let that be a lesson to you all. Dont let your right hand do your thinking for you!

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(Photo of muddy me, pre-breaking of hand. New helmet was required also. The bike is unscathed. Copyright K Dolman, 2018)

But I am now back at work and back at the Chartership. So having had a few things to pick up on, I decided that one of the things I would like to reflect on was being part of the organising team for our first Teachmeet at SHU.

None of the planning team has ever organised such an event. If you aren’t familiar with the Teachmeet ethos it’s a platform to share ideas and experience, in an informal way, with a few presenters and much audience participation – the idea is about sharing. I have attended quite a few in the last few years and invariably find them fonts of information. Also, I do struggle with formal networking and the Teachmeet ethos is helpful with this as it’s really very informal and so feels a bit more relaxed.

We have been planning the event since just after Xmas. Initially we had to decide on a theme and decided we would look at supporting students who study at a distance. This doesn’t just mean traditional distance learning: it can be commuter students (as I was), placement students, students on practice based learning courses and students who may not fit these models but, for whatever reason, struggle to access their course in the traditional, campus-based way.

My job on the team was admin: I am the only full-time member of the team and so my contact details were given out when we sent out the invites. I was also responsible for feeding information to presenters and delegates and collating all of their info back to the team. This was really quite easy to manage, since we used Eventbrite to manage the bookings (really good: if you are organising anything that you need to book people on to, I recommend using it. It will even allow you to print badges of your delegates, which I didn’t find out about until it was too late!). Now we are post-event, my job is to make sure that the resources are spread more widely. We’ve put all of the information and resources into a Libguide which I’ve shared to LIS networks in the wider profession.

One of the first things we discussed was who we would like to present at the Teachmeet. We didn’t just want it to be Librarians and Academic Skills advisors; we wanted to widen it out to staff and students and their experiences too. We didn’t manage to get any students but we did get one member of staff willing to share her methods of supporting distance learning. She happens to be one of my Radiotherapists and so I was tasked with organising her slot. When we met to discuss it, she kindly volunteered to do it remotely, from home, using the software she uses to video-conference with her students. This is a product called Zoom and it is remarkably easy to use! We had a couple of trial runs and then in the morning we did a test to ensure it was all working. As well as working with Sue on this, I had to make sure that the room we were in was suitable and had all the technology we needed. This was easily achieved by contacting IT and a helpful gentleman sorted out what I needed and showed me how to use it.

The presentation went really well and everyone was impressed with both the technology and how our staff use it. I’ve had lots of requests for more information about it from the delegates and Sue got lots of questions. I was very happy about this as she had kindly volunteered up her time during her busy marking period to do this for us. So I really wanted it to be valuable time for her too. The upshot of this is that I am now being asked to deliver info-lit sessions on her DL courses, as she had a conversation with her team about the fact that I was happy to become involved! So, from September, I will be a part of the DL courses in Radiotherapy and Oncology.

As part of the day I was also responsible for helping with twitter, and we asked one of our skills team, Kirsty, to tweet on the day for us. As we only have one twitter account, and normally our Management Services manage it, I hit upon the idea of asking them if we could take over for the day. I really didn’t expect them to be so happy for us to do it! So Kirsty and I organised this and we had a really good twitter response. I created the hashtag (#SHUTeachmeet) and emailed the networks the day before to try to get the conversation more widely exposed. We did get a few people involved but not many. I’m also trying to keep the conversation going by tweeting a few things to the hashtag (this post will be one of them!).

The upshot of hijacking the twitter feed has been that our Management Services asked for volunteers to form a ‘social media group’ which met for the first time in early June. I have volunteered to represent our team as this is something I used to do at MMU and also I have a great interest in social media. It may all change after the next restructure, but we are making a start at reappraising our game plan: looking at examples of good practice and trying not to be too dry in what we do.

Back to the Teachmeet though: the day was a complete success! We all really enjoyed it and the conversations were really good. Lots of good practice was shared: one of the great things was a structured table discussion after lunch where the planning team took a table each and directed discussions about how we support our learners and what approaches we take. These ranged from very simple resources-in-module-sites type approaches, to more extreme online methods of support, such as video conferencing. These have been collated and added to the Teachmeet Libguide in the sharing platter.

group_2

(Photo of table discussion – me attempting to hide behind the water bottle, not successfully! Lots of good discussion going on.)

All in all, a great day. We had a fantastic experience both organising and executing it and we already have plans to run another one. We have a debrief session coming up, where, hopefully we will be beginning to think about where to go next. For me, this was a chance to utilise some dormant skills (organisation of resources, staff and management skills) and to help to facilitate sharing information on a subject that, with the fees conversation still ongoing and looking to stay that way, will no doubt become more of the norm for participating in HE. Watch this space…

 

Reflections of a conference-goer part deux!

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(Little me, in the middle of the photo, standing next to David in his blue shirt!)

The other thing that happened recently is that I presented, with my line manager Alison, at the Northern Collaboration event on using TEL in our work (conference abstract: parallel session 3). There’s a few tweets about our presentation which can be found here and here: and the picture above, with little me in it, is kindly taken from the NC twitter feed.

Our presentation was on the use of Articulate Storyline to develop an online teaching tool for referencing. Our presentation was good, and we had quite a few attendees and questions too! (All a bit daunting, but we got there!). In the course of the previous presentation though, we found that some Universities have done with Articulate as they don’t find it useful. I must admit, learning to use it was a little arduous, but once you master the basics, it really is quite intuitive. And I am certainly not going down the road of one librarian and learning how to programme to do this sort of thing! 😦

The day was really good though: as well as presenting, there were many opportunities for collaboration and knowledge-exchange, as well as catching up with old friends and making new ones. I also bumped into the Mentor Co-ordinator for the NW and spoke with her about becoming a mentor once I am fully chartered myself. This stems from a desire to do some staff development which I always enjoyed as part of my management role. As I don’t line manage anyone any more, this seems like a good way of keeping my skills up to date, without the nasty PDR and sickness monitoring etc that comes with being a manager…I suppose it’s a bit like being a Grannie – you get to do the nice things and give them back when they do something icky…

The other upshot of the day is that I am now going on a knowledge exchange to MMU (you cant keep me away! :)) about reading for pleasure outside the academic texts. This has come from attending one workshop with a staff member from MMU who talked about their project working with Manchester Public Libraries to promote their collection and to get students to read for pleasure and mental wellbeing. Well, this struck a chord right away, what with me leading our bookgroup this year and the work I have been doing with our student wellbeing service in providing access to their books via the library catalogue! So Gopal has kindly invited me for a jolly over on the 15th November to speak with likeminded colleagues about this. It also gives me a chance to catch up with the MMU lot! I’m really looking forward to talking about something that is very close to my heart – the therapeutic benefit of reading for pleasure on mental wellbeing. More will definitely be coming on this subject so watch this space…

Update: 29.11.17: I went along to the knowledge exchange with Gopal – I had two hours to talk about how they are promoting reading for pleasure and to talk about my reading group. My reflection on this is contained in the blog post ‘Reading for Pleasure: it’s not just about academic books!’.

Shut up and write!

So, for many reasons my Chartership has had to take a bit of a back seat – mainly because of the manic teaching workload, but also because I suffered from Fresher’s Flu which then turned into Bronchitis, meaning I ended up having a week off at the busiest time of year. That’s never happened before and I don’t intend it to happen again, so next summer I will be dosing myself with zinc and Echinacea! Along with a few personal issues, this has meant that I’ve had to devote more time to work than I anticipated.

My last meeting with my mentor was very productive though, and she suggested I allocate ‘shut up and write’ time in my diary – which I intend to do as soon as I have time! 🙂

I’m really very nearly there, though. I need to redo my PKSB, and finish my reflective statement, then put the portfolio together. I’ve actually got enough evidence to support my application, so don’t need to do anything other than the three steps outlined, but these seem to be the hardest bit for me to do! (Particularly the evaluative reflection…). I’m also struggling to decide what to use – I need some evidence of positive feedback and have a few good emails from students/staff; I also need a lot to show development over the past year and that is going to be harder to cherry-pick.

DNzC79VVoAACtEF On a happier note, I have a new mountain bike and this weekend we got muddy together for the first time…(as the picture above shows!). Don’t let the shoes fool you – I had to take off my wet, muddy, smelly riding shoes before I did anything else!

So taking some time out for leisure activities this weekend was very therapeutic, particularly in view that I will be going into hibernation very shortly and will emerge, sometime in March, white and wobbly, but hopefully a fully Chartered Librarian! Watch this space…

New University Strategy…

 

https://staff.shu.ac.uk/universitystrategy/

We had a new VC early last year and, as a new broom sweeps clean(er), he has worked with the management team to propose a new University Strategy, which focuses on three key areas: https://staff.shu.ac.uk/Documents/Strategy%20-%20final.pdf

Leading Locally and Engaging Globally

Shaping Futures

Creating Knowledge

There’s a top ten priorities for the next 6-12 months that I have identified some areas that I will be specifically involved with:

5 Drive long term improvements in the educational health of the region by working with partners to improve attainment and aspiration from early years through to further and higher education.

  • Engaging with college visits – tours of the library; pre-arrival information
  • sheffield College induction 1st November 2016

6 Strengthen our leadership role in the region by:

c. Creating a high quality and efficient Degree Apprenticeship portfolio, embedding the University’s position as the leading Degree Apprenticeship provider.

  • Engage with new apprenticeships in terms of providing resources, skills training and support for students and staff – this may mean a reappraisal of our skills offer, as these students will have different needs, backgrounds, level of skills and knowledge.

7 Develop as a globally connected and influential university by integrating an international perspective into the curriculum and wider student experience, and strengthening our international partnerships.

  • Develop and deliver webinars for DL students – this has been discussed at the meetings I have had with course leads re the new skills offer. Need to take up early Sem 1 17/18

Other priorities I can have no direct input although my role will support the wider university context in terms of student satisfaction. I will endeavour to engage with these wherever possible – the VC is running a series of road shows that I unfortunately cant physically attend but one of them is being videoed so I will watch that when it becomes available. I’ve attached the top ten priorities annotated document to this post.

I think the strategy will be of benefit to the University, however I have experienced much in nearly 30 years of working for Public Sector (including the Compulsory Competitive Tendering introduced in the late ’80s which was the effective death-knell for community services) and I am always slightly cynical about the reasons for this type of sweeping strategy. Obviously the new VC wants to make the job his own and stamp his mark. It will also inevitably mean a restructure at some point in the future – impact on job roles, security and longevity unavoidable, methinks…As to my role, hoping that getting my Chartership will help if I have to reapply for my job…
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