Thursday 30 September 2010

TeachMeet - techie tools and teaching tips

Monday night was the inaugural (lib)TeachMeet Cambridge event. I wasn't sure what to expect really, because there was no schedule (the emphasis is very much on informality), but it sounded great. Basically, there are a number of talks by people sharing tips, tools and technologies, sharing experiences - both good and bad! - but in 2- or 7-minute slots at a time. So if you didn't like something, or knew right away it wasn't going to be for you, you only had a few minutes before the next great idea came along!

I found a number of the talks very interesting, particularly the ones about Prezi and the Cephalonian Method of Library Introductions. Definite food for thought from each there - Prezi is about as far removed as you can get from PowerPoint, while still being a presentation software package, while the Cephalonian Method sounds a much more enjoyable way of introducing students to the library. Who knows - maybe I'll be using it on the next batch of guinea pigs students!

The TeachMeet format itself was great - very relaxed and friendly. I could almost picture myself daring to stand up and give a talk (although on what I've no idea!). Two minutes goes by so quickly though, while the seven minute talks seemed to finish early. Maybe everyone has a natural stopping point more between 4 and 5 minutes?

Anyway - definitely interested in going to the next one!

Thursday 16 September 2010

Footfall fun and frolics

Following completion of Cam23, it's been patently obvious that there are things I really haven't considered at work. Marketing of the library was definitely one of them - and looking back at Thing 19, I made the point then that our library hasn't thought about marketing at all, much less marketing with social media.

The background: the library is primarily based around the museum collection and is intended as a resource for the keepers. It has always been open to the public, but prior to refurbishment about 6 years ago, it was by appointment only - intended for academic research rather than general interest. Now, the wooden doors have been replaced with glass ones so people can see in. When we're open, people can literally walk in off the street and into the library.

The trouble is, as far as I can tell (I've only been here 2 years), this refurbishment was well-advertised, and the new facilities elsewhere in the museum promoted very heavily. However, none of that seemed to impact much on the library. I have to use more than my fingers to count the number of times people have walked in, said "I've come here many times and never known there was a library." Not good!

The other issue I have been dealing with is that people see the name "Reference Library" on the glass door, and enter, believing it to be a general reference library, as opposed to an art reference library. We try to help wherever possible, but in the end usually have to show people the way to the Central Library.

With this in mind, I was brainstorming on Tuesday as to how to draw people in, and how to keep them there. So many times people walk past without even giving us a glance. No, fair enough, you don't come to a museum to head straight for the library, but even if you can just acknowledge that there is a library, then you know that the resource is there when you want it.

We tossed some ideas round, and in the end we made two very small changes to the library. The first was moving our periodicals racks from the door wall to the right-hand side as you walk in. I'd noticed that of our browsers, the majority don't bother looking at the books at all. However, with the periodicals effectively behind the door, they'd walk to the leaflet racks and look at adverts for other libraries/museums/galleries, and it would only be upon leaving that they'd see the periodicals.

The second change was the design of our "welcome" sign at the door. Originally it said "Please do not bring coats or bags into the library". Hardly welcoming! We had a play around and settled on one which is a bit more text heavy, but hopefully slightly more welcoming:
Pretty basic, but I'm a Ronseal sort of person. The one thing I was very hot on was that I thought it was important that we should avoid negative words wherever possible, and so the word "not" only features at the very end. (I suppose we could have written "please leave food and drink outside", but then people start to notice that you're not saying "not" and can get pretty suspicious of how welcoming the rest of the sign is meant to be!)

We implemented all this on Tuesday, and the results have been quietly positive so far. My desk is near the door, and I've noticed a definite increase of people actually reading the sign we've set up in front of it now. Meanwhile, people coming in have headed straight for the periodicals racks, and then have stayed to ask about books and exhibitions. It will be interesting to see whether we get a noticeable increase in visitors.

And the beauty of all this is that it is marketing the library in a more positive way than before. How much did it cost? About ten minutes of staff time moving the periodicals across the room, and about half an hour to compose the wording on the sign, and the few pence it cost to print out the sign onto card. From little acorns...

Next stop, challenging the misconception that only certain people are allowed to enter! Anyone have any ideas?

Monday 13 September 2010

Students - Lazy or Ignorant?

This was shared by LibGoddess on Twitter today, and given I'm determined to keep this blogging lark going for as long as possible I thought I'd offer my take on it.

I had a lot of books growing up (aged 12 I counted over a thousand), and my family were a pretty knowledgeable bunch, so it wasn't until high school that I was introduced to the library as a source of information rather than as somewhere to borrow fiction books. In Year 8, somewhere within the first few weeks of starting high school, my class were invited to the library where we were given a tour of the resources and told about the books. We were each given a topic (mine was Thomas Gainsborough) and given two weeks to use the library resources to research this topic and present the information to the librarian, who would mark it based on the resources used.

Gainsborough, from mira66 on Flickr
 Fantastic idea in principle, but the librarian was a bit of a harridan, and I didn't feel welcome in the library at all, so when I found a small paragraph on Gainsborough in a general encyclopaedia, I copied it out and handed it in, then didn't return to the library for four years. (I got a low mark for the work too, for not using the more art-specific resources available.) Curiously enough, when I returned, it was not as a reader, but as a volunteer. I must have been some kind of glutton for punishment...

Fast forward to university, and once again, I and my peers were subjected to the ubiquitous library tour. I can't remember much but it was definitely one of the less scary moments of being at university¹. However, we were given reading lists specifying exactly which books we needed, so once I could wrangle my way through the catalogue search and find the books, that was it. In fact, it wasn't until I actually got a job there, and then began my librarianship degree, that I began to learn what a library was really for and how it actually worked.

So what's my point? I think that yes, there is definitely a need for institutions to recognise that students' expectations have changed significantly since the development of search engines and online information. I still find Newton cumbersome and difficult to use, and as a cataloguer I'm always aware that while trying to catalogue to minimum bibliographic standards, I'm also trying to predict how our library users are going to search for something, and tweaking records to fit that too. And students today are all about speed. If something isn't immediately useful, they move on. I do too. I'm not going to run through eleven different resources either; if I can find one that works well enough and blag the rest then I will (though I'm trying hard to train myself out of that now!).

The Pendlebury: not very scary.
However, I think some effort has to be made on the part of the user too. Libraries run all sorts of training, but students don't take it up sufficiently. For my part, I just wasn't aware that there was all this information out there (one of those "unknown unknowns") that could help me. I could see there were periodicals on the shelf, but I didn't know what an abstract was, let alone that there were indexes for these abstracts that I could search! Perhaps if we'd been set a project like I had in Year 8 I would have learnt about this at university? Certainly the Pendlebury librarian was a heck of a lot less scary than the one at high school. But my lecturers and supervisors had done the work for me, so I perceived no need to find out beyond the framework of that hallowed reading list. And this is where I think maybe academics and libraries (and teachers and school librarians) really need to work together. Research skills should be taught in much the same way as geography, or science, or Notre Dame polyphony. And they need promoting, not just by the libraries but also by the departments and their academics. If I knew that there was a genuine reason to grapple with a resource, I'd have had a go, rather than resorting to Google.

Remember that Oxfam advert? Give a man a fish, he'll eat that day; give him a net, he'll eat for the rest of his life? Students don't need spoonfeeding. Trust me, it's nice, but ultimately it doesn't help anyone. What you produce is a generation of "students" who expect everything to be done for them. Instead of a reading list, give them the link to the library's electronic resource page. Tell them what each resource is, and how it will help them, what you thought of it, its advantages and disadvantages, and then let them go forth and discover. They'll thank you in the long run.



¹The scariest moment was definitely at my first supervision, on keyboard technique, when I had to harmonise a melody at the piano, had my efforts subsequently pulled to pieces and I was asked whether I thought I should actually be there. Bit of a sore point still, as you can see.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Happy Hump Day!

I'm not posting for any reason in particular, beyond the fact that it's been nearly a week (gasp!) since the last post and I'm sure there must be something Web 2.0-ey that I've done recently. Hmm.

I've been working on Twitter a bit more recently. I discovered to my chagrin that despite being added to the list of people (tweeple? - still not sure of the Twerminology yet) in the Cam23 group I wasn't actually following it, so managed to do that, finally! Discovered I had been missing quite a few tweets from my fellow Cam23ers, so allowed myself to feel guilty for a short while, then had some chocolate. I also recently had my second-ever reply, which was exciting (not least of all because it was about getting half price satellite tv =), so I'm beginning to feel if not fully-fledged, then at least I've managed to peck my way out of the shell at last.

Because bird metaphors require bird pictures. Image by Dunbar Gardens on Flickr.

Thursday 2 September 2010

Oh to be an Aaronson...

I wonder how many of my fellow Cam23ers are doing the same as me? "Have done something not entirely unrelated to 23 Things - MUST BLOG ABOUT IT!!!"

The Closing Ceremony was a typically glamorous and glitzy affair, featuring wine and balloons with a strong performance by supporting nibbles. I felt overwhelmed by the number of little groups all chatting and laughing uproariously but was swiftly adopted by a couple of UL staff.

The talks were so good. Helen's ability to orate so fluidly without props or cues of any kind is nothing short of amazing, and Angela's dissection of the experience was very humorous. And I'm signed up to TeachMeet as a lurker and really looking forward to it now! (Oh dear, there's that word really again. Didn't my Wordle teach me anything?)

But it was then to be the most gruelling experience of my life¹ as I waited with bated breath to hear whether or not I had actually passed. I mean, I was fairly sure I had, but until I had that certificate in my hand, I wasn't going to be popping the cork on any champagne.

And then?

It flippin' ran alphabetically, didn't it! But after 60 rounds of applause, I heard my name called, and if that wasn't sufficient (I know for a fact that I'm not the only person with my name in the University), there was a picture of my blog, with my lolcat image filched for my blogpost about Wikipedia. Phew. I passed. Officially.

And here's the proof.
Success!!!


¹ Okay, maybe not the most gruelling. Perhaps the nineteenth most, between having to teach plagal cadences to A level students at number 20 and falling out of a bobsleigh² travelling at about 30 mph in the Netherlands at number 18.

² Just a few friction burns and the feeling of life passing before my eyes, other than that I was fine. Wasn't allowed to go on the zipline afterwards though.

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