Tag Archives: networking

How do you make a good case for your library?

We all have been there and experienced it: the utter frustration at seen a proposal for change or development turned down by your line-manager or the Headteacher. I have been at the receiving end of many refusals before I realised that something had to change in the way I was preparing my presentation. So the big question was: how can I be more persuasive next time? How can I sway the key stakeholders on my side?

This is how my personal campaign began…

In my research for a better way to change management, I have come across a number of useful resources that have made me see my problems from a different point of view or given me practical tips that I could apply in my workplace.

The first resource that has opened my eyes to other alternatives is definitely the book “The Library Marketing Toolkit” by Ned Potter (Facet Publishing). There is a fantastic website which acts as a companion to this book and which I urge to visit and explore: http://www.librarymarketingtoolkit.com/ .

Proactive vs reactive.

The chapter that has absolutely revolutionised the way I think about tackling any obstacles in my way is the “Marketing and People” one: full of tips and case studies, it really made me realise how the ability to influence people had to become my constant priority, use the the power of Word of Mouth as well as regularly reaching and outreaching. Our colleagues as well as other stakeholders in our service, big or small, can become our champions in our campaign for change. They can assist you in establishing your professional reputation and they will probably be your biggest supporters in pushing your agenda. What I really learnt in applying these priorities is that you need to constantly nourish your support network and not seek to create one just when you most need it: this will probably not come organically and support may arrive too late!

Battle Plan.

When preparing to make a change or submit a proposal for a major re-development, one model is highly recommended to ensure that you are successful: the 5 case model. The five elements of this model ensure that you are really prepared for your upcoming battle: I find it easier to see every element as an extra arrow to my bow. This model includes: The Strategic Case, The Economic case, The Financial Case, The Commercial Case, The Management Case.

If all these elements are carefully considered, investigated and analysed, you not only considerably increase your confidence in delivering your proposal but you also prepare solid grounds for your proposal to be accepted more easily.

The Strategic Case

What is the strategic context of you proposal, namely why do you want to make this change? How does this change fit within the existing structure of your organisation, including goals & strategies, existing practices and resources? Does the change that you are proposing allow the organisation to exploit new opportunities or respond to new threats?

Essential elements to be included:

  1. A clear description of what is proposed and its fit with the business strategy
  2. The key objectives to be met and benefits to be realised
  3. Key performance indicators for those objectives
  4. A resource overview

 The Economic Case

How does your proposal deliver value for money? How does your recommendation/proposal clearly provide a return on investment? How does the option that you are proposing deliver better that the other options considered?

Essential elements to be included:

  1. Critical assessment of the options considered, including cost-benefit analysis of each option: for example, a risk impact assessment of each option.
  2. A final recommendation based on a balance of cost, benefit and risk

 The Financial Case

How affordable is your proposal? How will it be funded and to what extent can your business/organisation afford it?

Essential elements to be included:

  1. Total cost of your proposal
  2. Impact upon cash flow
  3. Source of funding
  4. Possible considerations regarding the business affordability gap. If this is the case, considerations about borrowing additional finances and at what rate.
  5. Analysis of the split between revenue and capital expenditure

 The Commercial Case

What is the commercial viability of your proposal? How will you source and ensure a steady and secure supply of the commercial elements of your proposal?

Essential elements to be included:

  1. Identification and sources of the required internal and external resources
  2. How continuity of supply of those resources is to be maintained

 The Management Case

How will the proposal be project-managed to successful completion?

Essential elements to be included:

  1. Clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities
  2. Delivery plan, including contingency plan, progress reporting and evaluation procedures

 

 

SLG London and SE – January Social!

Don’t miss our visit to the British Library’s exhibition Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imaginationhttp://www.bl.uk/events/terror-and-wonder–the-gothic-imagination
followed by our Winter Social in the function room at the nearby Central Station pub.

On Saturday 17th January – ALL WELCOME!

See the exhibition (which ends 20th January) at a special discounted price and then join us for a drink and networking.

Meet in the British Library foyer at 3.15pm for entry to the exhibition at 3.30pm
Exhibition closes at 5.00pm
when we will adjourn to the pub 5.30-9.00pm

Exhibition £9 per person
Social £5 per person including one FREE drink and ticket for prize draw!

Food and more drinks available to purchase.

BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL!

 To book contact Amanda Ball

email: amanda.ball@portland-place.co.uk
or phone 0207 307 8700

See you there!

A Year In The Life Of A Committee Member.

Post written by Barbara Ferramosca

“What don’t we do?” This is the answer that I have recently given to a person enquiring about the work that we do at the CILIP School Libraries Group committee for London and the South East.

Writing this blog piece has been a very interesting exercise as it gave me the opportunity to take myself out of the usual flow of work and really take a look at what we have done, frankly, in awe and pride.

I am a solo librarian at an inner-London secondary school and, as many of you already know, this is a job that keeps you busy, busy, busy! I absolutely love my job and I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world: however, there was a moment a couple of years ago when I realised that I wanted a little bit more of a challenge. I felt that I reached a good point with my service, I had developed the skills to make it move forward but I also identified some big gaps that I could not fill within the remit of my school. Although I could confidently say that the importance of my work was recognised in my school, I was and still not officially considered a head of department: this was quite an important consideration in order to keep open future career prospects in higher managerial positions. So experience in leadership, project management and working as a team came at the top of my priorities.

Something had to be done but where to start?

Volunteering for the SLG Committee came at a colleague’s suggestion and I decided to give it a try, even if I was quite unsure whether I would be up for the job. I had not been in the profession for very long and had not even started my Chartership yet!  However, I knew that I had on my side boundless enthusiasm and a willingness to learn new skills and help so I went for it and never regretted the decision.

I am pleased to say that my perception of committee meetings as a place of reverence, where established library professionals meet in an atmosphere of authority has been smashed to smithereens since the first meeting. Committee work brings together experienced professionals who have been in the job for twenty years or more with people who have join librarianship only recently. Engaging in honest discussion with people of this calibre may have sounded daunting at one time, however in the last two years I have become much more confident in presenting arguments or points of view in a way that effectively contributes to a discussion and learn from others as well.

In this atmosphere of shared experience, going to committee meetings has become an invigorating process because ultimately we are all working towards the same goal and everybody contributes with their unique perspective of the profession.

So what do we do? In a nutshell, our objective is to create both formal and more informal opportunities for school librarians to meet, keep updated with the latest developments in the field and share good practice. Our big challenge is to give all our SLG members value for money by ensuring that our courses are affordable and of the highest standards of professionalism. Unlike some other training companies, we know how difficult it is for school librarians to be sent on CPD courses and we make it our priority to make it possible!

The mind boggles a little if I think about what we have achieved in the last year alone and what we have in programme for 2015. We have recently run a whole-day course on library services impact on education attainment and currently planning a new one for next June. Between a winter social event at the pub that we have in plan for January and our fantastic annual Libmeet unconference in April, every committee member is involved in the organisation of an event and learning new skills in the mix.

We are also spreading into blog-space, as you are currently reading. We are quite excited about this blog because we wanted to create an informal yet high-quality online venue where we can discuss current issues with other professionals. This is going to give fantastic new experience to the committee members who felt that they are still struggling with Social Media, myself included.

I am really looking forward to the year ahead: with such a great team to work with, I cannot but feel that 2015 will be our best year yet!

If you are interested in joining our committee, please contact our Secretary, Sue Ayling, at the following email: AylingSM@aol.com

 

The Ultimate Guide to Comics and Manga

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Choosing graphic novels, comics and manga for your school library can be a bit of a minefield. This event run by London and South East SLG will help you choose the right material for your pupils, and it’s a great opportunity to meet up with other school librarians, and explore the wonders of Forbidden Planet.

Date & Time:
Wednesday, 22 October 2014 – 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Visit to the Forbidden Planet shop

This free visit will give attendees an introduction to the manga, comic/graphic novel genre, and an opportunity to take advantage of the discounts available for libraries. Discounts of 10% will be available for purchases on the night, with free delivery!

All (members and non-members) are welcome to this free event.

No booking required: just meet at the shop.

Speakers – SLG committee members and staff from Forbidden Planet.
https://forbiddenplanet.com/
Address:
The Forbidden Planet
179 Shaftesbury Avenue
WC2H 8JR London , LND
United Kingdom
See map: Google Maps
Contact Details

Amanda Berrisford
amanda.berrisford@portland-place.co.uk
0207 307 8700
Library and Information Sector Subject Tags

School libraries
Event Format

Visit
– See more at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/school-libraries-group/events/ultimate-guide-comics-and-manga#sthash.tfR5VY4a.dpuf

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Twitter 101 with James Dawson and Dawn Finch

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Twitter 101 with James Dawson and Dawn Finch

At the London and South East SLG LibMeet we were lucky enough to have top YA author James Dawson with us and he helped us out in a discussion about the merits of social networking and using Twitter. If you haven’t discovered him yet, James is particularly entertaining on Twitter and is more than aware of the importance of social networking. I’m deeply envious of his huge number of devoted followers, but I hope I’m worth a follow too!

You can follow James @_jamesdawson and me @dawnafinch and decide for yourselves.

Firstly, are you on Twitter? If not, why not?!

These days it is vital that School Librarians are more proactive with their approach to their work, and this should include embracing and using social networking. Many of us are now used to using Facebook amongst our friendship groups, and this format is not ideal for use for work or school, but what about Twitter?.

Twitter at its most basic is a simple forum for people to share short comments (140 characters long), links and photos and to retweet (share) other member’s messages. It is a fantastic way to link with your followers (pupils) and to express a public profile for your library.

For starters – get an account! Obviously you are going to need to check that this is okay with your headteacher and SLT. If you can, choose an account name for your library account that shows that you are a school library, this will help. Authors love library accounts and are far more likely to reply if they can instantly see that you are school library. If you have a private Twitter account, keep it that way and don’t link the school account to yours. Everything that you post on your school account should represent the ethos of the whole school and should promote books and reading.

Next – follow people. Search for authors and other librarians that you know and see what they post. If they are interesting and posting regularly (and replying to questions) then follow them. A lot of people will follow you back, but don’t take it personally if they don’t. Search for organisations connected to books and reading, and follow them. Because you want to keep this interesting for young people, avoid the dryer more sales-orientated organisations and stick to things that your pupils will want to read and share.

Make it known. Pupils will not follow you if they don’t know you are there. Put the Twitter name on all of your emails and stationery. Stick a poster up in the library saying that the library is on Twitter. Make sure that the staff know about the account and have the account name in a prominent place so that others can follow too.

What to say! Twitter is full of things that are of interest to young people. Seriously, have a search and see what other people have posted and share it with a retweet. Start off by sharing things like new books in the library (with a photo) and tell people what the library offers. Are there school events you can share? Author events? Book launches? Follow your local bookshops and share their events. Search for events by the most popular writers in the library, and retweet their posts. Don’t wait for something interesting to come up, search for things and keep your Twitter feed interesting and up to date. Start up a Library Twitter Group at school and take pupil advice on what should be on there.

What not to say! Basically, if you wouldn’t put it on a t-shirt and wear it around school, then it shouldn’t be on your Twitter feed! It sounds simple but you have to be in work-mode at all times online. Make absolutely sure that you do not post anything that the parents and governors might find inappropriate.

What next? Direct contact with authors is one of the best reasons to be on Twitter. Authors use Twitter all the time and you can find most of the top names in children’s and YA fiction on there. Search your favourites and see if they reply to other people, and then Tweet them too! Just write a message with their Twitter name in it, and see if they reply. You’ll be amazed how many will reply to an account that is clearly a library.

#hashtags When you have worked out how to do your tweets and are finding it easier to navigate the pages, you should start using hashtags. These are the little bits that you add into your messages so that people can find other messages with the same themes. Basically you write your message, and then you add a hashtag into the body of the message. For example, if you are writing a tweet about how great the library is, you might use #lovelibraries and it will become a link that other people can use to find people who also love libraries!

Some of the most useful hashtags for librarians are #lovelibraries #amreading #shoutabout but you might also like #amwriting as lots of writers use this one. Keep a note of the hashtags that other people use so that you can use them too.

Advanced stuff! When your account is busy and active you might find that you need to start thinking about how to organise your account a bit more. This is when you might want to try things like Hoot Suite. You can organise things into lists so that you can just see the tweets that matter to you and your library.

 In summary, we need to be out there, be visible and be active in all aspects of reading and literacy and social networking is just another part of it. Agree with it or not, it’s not going anywhere and so we may as well use it to our advantage!

 

 
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