Life goes on...

I've not posted anything on here since I finished CPD23. I feel a bit guilty about that, since much has actually gone through my mind and I've had plenty to muse over.

So what has been happening, well work has been busy, we've had events galore - the delights of working in a public library.

In one library we've had a history event, launching a DVD of the town. We used the event to also publicise our HertsMemories sites.

One of our local HertsMemories volunteers demonstrating the website

We also hired some oral history booths from our local university. We can set these up with specific questions and get members of the public to talk into them. We then put these videos onto our HertsMemories sites. Nifty bits of kit, huh??

The oral history booth

We've hosted an image roadshow for the local museum at another branch. They hired our Meetings Room and displayed photos from their collection along with our large collection of old photographs too. Then... we've also held a Family History Open Day. We have library subscriptions to Ancestry and FindMyPast, so we got a local family history group to come in and help as well. members of the public could come in for free and learn how to use the sites, amongst others such as FreeBMD, etc and our family history books.

We've also held a drawing event during the last week of October at another library. This was a combination of Family Learning Week and The Big Draw. Children were invited to draw what they thought their dream library would look like. I sat in the children's library with a lovely box of colouring pencils surrounded by children laying on the floor, sitting at the table, etc drawing pictures. It was good fun to do and gave me a chance to interact with them (believe it or not, the future of the country...)

We also had some contributions from big kids (staff to you and me...)

The posters are going to be displayed in our new library when it opens.

We're now in the process of organising the next set of events and displays. We've a new library opening in one town, so we're getting ready for that. The museum in another town has received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to display a piece of furniture from the Victoria and Albert Museum, so we're tapping into events on the back of that. And that's just the start of it!

In the library world as a whole, I can't describe how brilliant the result is from the High Court ruling over Gloucestershire County Council. The full statement is on the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries website. All I can say is well done Johanna, Demelza and all those involved in the campaign, you worked tirelessly for something you believed in to get a result. I am definitely in awe of you all. As much as I can support you from a distance, I know I could never have done so much as you all have. I feel proud to have worked with Johanna a couple of years ago and her enthusiasm is infectious!

The last thing I saw which interested me... The Times newspaper in the UK has been publishing a Graduate recruitment section on Tuesdays. On 8th November, they published an article about a graduate career in libraries and librarianship, entitled "Why life as a librarian can be an open book." The article basically described how to get into the profession through Graduate trainee schemes and studying for a Masters.

There is a description of the possible role we may take and the type of person we need to be. Annie Mauger quotes that we need to be "enthusiastic and proactive, asking 'what can we do for you'?" I do however disagree to some extent where she says "One of the big advantages of our profession is that you can move easily between sectors - public, private, education, commercial. It can be a very flexible career." From my experience this needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I have moved between sectors and have not found it easy. Certainly you can move but don't expect to remain at an equivalent level. You will most likely go down. I came to my current post from managing a small university Learning Centre, with staffing and budgetary responsibilities. I now work for a public library with very little, if any responsibilities which I can call my own, I'm constantly checking if I can do something, have no staffing or budgetary responsibilities. When I tried to apply for an equivalent level post, I was told I didn't have enough public library knowledge... I've also moved from FE to HE, depending on the university, beware, since there is a definite pecking order and FE (and possibly where you did your Masters) does not count for some universities in the UK. If you want to change sectors, make sure you do your homework thoroughly and don't be afraid of rejection.

So possibly on the back of that, it's time to get my own CV up to date and ready following on from what I learned in CPD23...

Thing 16: Advocacy

This is hard! OK, here goes!

Well I certainly try to stand up for the profession and libraries as a whole. It's difficult at the the moment because I work in a UK public library and I'm on a fixed term contract, which means I can be got rid of a lot more easily than if I was permanent.

We've had our RFID self-issue units in most of our libraries for over a year. Certainly a number of members of the public commented and said that they hoped it wouldn't mean staff were going... We always said no, but we've gone through a massive transformation (restructure) where lots of jobs were deleted from the structure. Supposedly people have gone through natural wastage, retirement, voluntary redundancy, etc... I'll leave you to read that as you will.

When Save our Libraries Day took place in February we didn't have many extra people in the library, but a few came in to ask what we were organising. Locally, there was quite a lot of apathy, which surprised me, although possibly we had a few more people suddenly join (where they are now I don't know!)

We advertised new opening hours in June this year as part of the transformation, suddenly everyone came out of the woodwork complaining! By this time there was little we could do, the consultation period for the new hours took place in November last year...

I certainly and very fond of fighting off the stereotypical view of libraries. One of the sewing blogs I read thought it would be wonderful to be a librarian, stamping books all day; The TV show Silent Library, which I believe has been in Japan and the States before it came here - ARGH, now that programme really does wind me up!! I'll be the first one out there sticking up for us to say how wrong they are.

I'm certainly in awe of people who stand up for us so much. I'm lucky to have worked with Johanna from Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries and she is amazing. So enthusiastic - I don't know where you find the energy Jo!! Her latest blog post about advocacy, is possibly the best comment about this "Thing" I've seen. The quote I'll take from her post is

As a librarian you have to be involved in advocacy and if you are not then you are in the wrong job.

I wish I could take part in Read-ins like Annie from The Hobbit Hole has done, but I'd have to go outside county for fear of my job!

I think I'm probably getting to the point in a round about way! I do stand up for us and will the the first person to notice an article and make sure people read it. I tend to publicise these on my Facebook page (not all my friends know what a library can offer). The latest article which I felt supported libraries was one written by Caitlin Moran in The Times newspaper. Unfortunately this is behind The Times pay wall so I can't provide a link. The most unfortunate thing about this article was the strapline, which many of my colleagues read as anti-libraries. Not good to get people reading.

By the time the economy gets back to normal our libraries will be coffee shops, Lidls and pubs.

 A response to this article is viewable though on the Voices for the Library website.

I have stood up for the library and service at risk of a complaint once or twice, but it's not an easy thing to do. We run Baby Rhyme Time sessions in most of our libraries. Our Young People's sections are not always separate from the main library, so the sound of parents and babies can be heard throughout the library. I once had a member of the public come in and complain about the noise of the parents singing and the babies laughing. He said

Libraries are silent places and this is disgraceful. Either they go or I go.

My reply ran along the lines of

I'm sorry if you feel this way, sir, but this is something which happens every week at this time. You could come into the library at another time during the week.

His look was of astonishment, so I continued...

Whether we like it or not, these are the adults of the future in this country and may be running the country. It's good to encourage them into libraries from an early age.

It was nice to have a another reader come up to me later on and say she thought my reply was brilliant and if we'd got rid of one adult reader, it was better to have 20 new young readers. I have to say I'm completely in agreement with her!

All in all though, I think possibly "Must try harder" applies to me in this situation!

Thing 14: Citing stuff!

Well I've been a bit quiet since my last burst of creative juices over a week ago! Thanks for all your comments, they all help and have suggested some ideas of what I could do to get access to these resources. I'm still here, but have been reading all the blogs I subscribe too and also updating my other blog (for which I've now signed up for a challenge!), so it's certainly all go!

Like Isla and some other blogs I've read, these tools certainly weren't available to me at University. I'd have been laughing if they were. I was the sort of person who wrote it down on a scrap of paper to lose it about an hour later and then not know where the reference came from! I ended up with an address file box for my Masters, which helped no end. I think it is also helpful which form of referencing you use. At least with Harvard I could just stick the name and date in and worry about the rest at a later stage. When I first started writing long word processed reports, it was almost like using a typewriter and everything had to be planned in advance (no I'm not that old, but...)

I'm at work now and can't check out any of the free software, so I'm off to Evernote to remind me to check those at home!

I've certainly used EndNote. I previously worked for an academic library and we subscribed to that, part of my role was to demonstrate to students how it worked. I also updated the Referencing and Plagiarism section of their website, so there's very little I don't know about Harvard referencing! I think I could tell the developers if they're software is producing the bibliography in the correct format! I'm proud to say that I worked with Jo of the Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries (before she came famous in the UK for her advocacy work - more in a later post methinks!) That's my claim to fame over with!

As for how I would use them. At the moment I don't have a need to use any of these tools in my work, so as Isla suggests it would be as well for me to be aware of what is out there and particularly if it's free. A job doesn't always last for life and knowledge of different software, etc goes down well on a CV!

To quote my title - this is all 'Citing stuff