ARLIS 2014: The Journey Continues

Two things I did at the conference I didn't write about in the last post because I wanted to give them a fair hearing: the visit to the John Rylands Library and the break-out sessions I attended.

The visit to John Rylands is mostly just pictures. Someone else wrote about it, and made notes on all the facts during the tour, so I didn't bother, I just snapped the things that interested me.

We started here, at the sculpture of Archimedes. Some wag had left a deflated balloon hanging out the corner of his mouth.

We walked past Chinatown, which is the second biggest in the UK (after London) and has the second biggest gate in the UK (after Liverpool).

The round Central Library, just peeping out from behind the other building there.

And here is the John Rylands Library, looking very imposing.

My phone isn't great with handling bright lights and dim corridors, so lots of blurriness I'm afraid. We meet Stella Halkyard, the Visual Collections and Academic Engagement Manager.

We're taken round some of the exhibition spaces. Some are rotated fairly frequently, while others are only removed for conservation care.

The very grand entrance hall - much more forbidding than the modern bit they've attached now!

This is the Historic Reading Room. We were given a lot of the history of the building, and John Rylands' wife, who sounded a pretty imposing figure!

Now we get to the really interesting, behind-the-scenes stuff. One of the issues is that over the years, librarians knew how to deal with the books that came in, but there was a more haphazard approach to images and other non-book items, so we learnt a bit about the challenges Stella faces.

Although you can't really tell, the floor here is glass, to allow light through three floors of bookstacks! In the right spots, you can see down past the floor to the storeys below. The ceilings here were really low.

An interesting door. Taking this picture I nearly got locked into the basement stacks!

One of the original toilets (I think)!

I did enjoy the Victorian Neo-Gothic architecture, although being so used to the really old buildings round Cambridge I couldn't help but feel that it just didn't look crumbly and dilapidated enough! It was really interesting finding out about the history and ethos of the library, and what they're doing in outreach now. If Manchester was a bit closer, I'd definitely try and come along to one of their workshops, which sound like a lot of fun.

Break-Out Sessions

I attended Gaming in the Library and the Update to RDA - one for me, one for my work! The RDA update was really useful, even though we were a very small class, and I learnt about forthcoming opportunities to improve my RDA knowledge and practice, and about resources already available. I'd never heard of the Yellow Book (Art exhibition documentation in libraries), which I've now ordered for my library. Also if I can spare the budget I think it would be really useful to have the print copy of the RDA Toolkit, since I get logged out of the online one entirely too often!

Gaming in the Library was interesting too. The slides are available from the link in my previous post, but I also took a few pictures of some of the games Andrew Walsh brought with him.

These are Library A-Z cards, which we used as visual cues for challenges we face in our work. We had to pick a picture that spoke to us, and explain what it meant and what challenge it represented. This method works as a safe space to talk about things and make them less scary, and apparently works really well with Lego, and getting people to build the challenges.

These are two of the card games. The first was designed to teach students how to build references correctly, and the second a quiz to test information literacy. There was also a Top Trumps style game, Top Resources, where students could fill in the cards with the resource they were using, and give it marks on ease of access, breadth and depth etc.

The point Andrew made was that playing these games would take about as long as lecturing students on resources or skills, but by playing the games, the students are more actively engaged in their learning and therefore more likely to take on board the message behind them.

After that he discussed gamification - using gaming mechanics in non-game environments. I have to be honest here, I loathe gamification. On the one hand I'm too competitive and perfectionist, which means I get sucked in unwillingly and will do all the ridiculous things necessary to get 100% on everything. On the other hand, I'm really not a social gamer *at all*. I'm not interested in seeing how I compare to other people, and my favourite games are single player.

So something like Lemon Tree, which is gamification of library usage at the university, seriously wouldn't appeal to me (or at the most I'd try it out, quickly get really annoyed with it and delete it or never use my library card again). However, for those people who enjoy that sort of thing, I guess I can see how it works, and best of all (imho), it was entirely optional for the students.

ARLIS 2014: Reaching New Peaks

For about the last three years, since I took over running the library from my predecessor, I've often felt I've been playing an arduous game of catch-up. On the face of it I've been running this place in much the same way, with certain things improved (like unique classmarks for different books) and cataloguing certain things which needed to be made more visible, like our collection of Sotheby's and Christie's catalogues, but underneath the surface I have been scrabbling around like a mad thing, trying to find out everything I need to know to actually do a good job, not just as far as the staff here are concerned, because let's face it, none of them are librarians and don't actually know how great a resource it could be.

ARLIS was one of those things under the surface - I'm a relatively new member, and a personal one at that. Work doesn't appear to have ever bothered with it, nor the librarian, which meant it was very difficult to justify to my line manager exactly why we needed to join up. I gave up trying in the end, and just joined for myself. The worst part was, I'd never even heard of it until a passing comment from one of the librarians at the Faculty of Architecture and the History of Art*. I don't know why it hadn't occured to me that such a thing might exist - after all, I knew about IAML, and BIALL, and there'd even been a conference in Cambridge when I was working in an art library - how had I missed that?!

Manchester, by PimlicoBadger

Anyway, though I'm seriously pants at networking, often the best bit about going to conferences is talking to people and making new contacts. I felt like I owed it to the library to try and put us on the radar a bit, so that was one of the aims, to say to people "Hi! My library exists!" The second aim was to learn as much as I could about all the things I should be doing and don't know to do - all those unknown unknowns, as Donald Rumsfeld might call them. Thirdly, in addition to telling people about me and my library, I wanted also to find out about them and their libraries, and perhaps organise some visits to libraries like mine, to find out how they cope with challenges similar to the ones I face. And finally, one of the breakout sessions was on Gaming in the Library. I'd seen so much about this sort of thing happening all over Twitter, and was insanely jealous at the thought of all these people getting to play with Lego and calling it work, and was keen to find out more!

Sweet stash!

So off I went, daunted at the prospect of driving 4 1/2 hours, alone, to a place I hadn't been to since I was about 15 (and only to visit MUFC's ground and get my shirt personalised with Cantona's name and number), to spend the next three days with about 70 strangers. Why was I doing this to myself again? It wasn't even as if work was paying for it either! Anyway, I arrived, registered, and made approving noises at the quality of freebie stash, including a pen that lights up when you hit someone something with it, and got started on my Arlis Adventure!

There were so many talks from a wide variety of speakers - lecturers, researchers, students, artists, curators and librarians, that to try and list them all would just take far longer than I can stand to write, and - I'm sure - you can stand to read. The programme is available, and I think different people are writing up each session for the Arlis newsletter, so I won't try and describe every single session, just the points that I took home.

Some of the things libraries can do really well

The keynote speech: "Library Futures: Opportunities Not Threats". The speaker was pretty controversial, coming to a subject-specific conference and telling us they'd got rid of all their subject librarians (except for music and foreign languages). However, there was also a lot of value in what she had to say. One point she listed everything that librarians and libraries can be good at - I think I got most of them down. Another point I thought was important was that the library strategy should be bold and align itself stringently with the strategy of the parent institution. Theirs stated: "The library will be vital to [achieving this stretch goal]" - very bold indeed! Finally she stated that libraries should be considered partners, not servants, by their institutions. How much would I love this to be the case here?!

This was from a talk about the refurbishment of Manchester Central Library. Their music library now has guitars and drums for silent playing as well as keyboards - brilliant idea, and I would love to see this in Cambridge Central Library too!

This was a lovely illustration of the sort of work that The National Archives does (although the speaker took great pains to assure us she'd never seen an archive quite in that condition!). I had no idea they were part of the Ministry of Justice, which I suppose makes sense when I think about it, but I was surprised to learn this.

The release of what sounds to be a wonderful resource: The Art Discovery Group Catalogue, which indexes the holdings of 60 art libraries around the world. Promote this to your users! Apparently they're exploring solutions for libraries with significant art holdings within a larger general collection too.

For the visits, I went on the tour of John Rylands Library, which I'll cover in a separate post, along with the breakout sessions. The conference reception and dinner on the second night was held at Manchester Museum, which has some fabulous natural history collections.

Meet Stan

Here's Stan, the second most complete T-Rex in the world, with the most complete skull.

I think this was Percy, it might
have been the other one though..

And there's Percy the Plesiosaur.

Definitely an interesting place to have a dinner!

Finally a couple of points from the Library Impact Data Project talk. I'd seen some earlier findings presented at a lib@cam conference a few years before which were really interesting. Of course, correlation does not equal causation, but when evidence strongly suggests that people who use libraries will get better degrees, that's a good position to start from in discussions at your university. Even more powerful was the statement that those who do not engage with their library at all are more likely to drop out of university entirely! There's a follow-up project happening now, JiscLAMP.

What did I learn? Here are my final thoughts and findings:

• There was a lot of value placed in kinaesthetic learning, and being able to handle things, not just look at them - this from all the academics, students and librarians present, and not just those from art backgrounds.
• There was a definite tension between the need (and desire!) to provide a personalised/boutique service a la Priestner & Tilley, and the fact that art libraries are being marginalised or lumped in with other services.
• I learnt there were specific needs that art-related subjects have that other subjects don't - for example, most art books are massive, therefore art students need more deskspace!
• One librarian said she felt "bruised, damaged", from having to fight the same battles over and over again, and this conference was a way of rediscovering the passion she had for the job. It was nice that we could support each other, but at the same time I think it's really sad that we do have to constantly defend the existence of even the really specialist libraries with unique and significant collections.
• A lot of non-librarians were keen to impress upon us just how vital the library collections were for their work - both as research material and as a source of inspiration - and informed us it wasn't just librarians who are passionate about the collections!
• I couldn't help but notice the not-insignificant North American contingent of librarians, which says a lot about the quality of the conference, I think. Also enabled wider sharing of experiences and expertise, which was great!
• I got to meet lots of librarians and information professionals from a wide variety of institutions - mostly universities, but also the Henry Moore Institute and the Scottish National Gallery. But no two university art libraries seemed alike either, covering a wide range of subjects too - art history, visual arts, 3-D arts, fashion design, architecture...

All in all, it was a great opportunity. I met lots of wonderful people, learnt lots of new things, and about key resources I'll want to try and obtain for my library. It was a valuable half-week away, and hopefully I can get involved again next year!

---

*Incidentally I found out about the existence of the Faculty and Departmental Libraries meetings the same way - but much more recently. I still need to find out where Basecamp actually is too.

With every door that closes...

It has been a crazy-ass month and a half. I have done what I set out to do, namely:

• Written up and submitted my dissertation thereby (hopefully) finishing my Msc
• Planned, organised and got married at my wedding
• Gone on a wonderful 2-week honeymoon to sunny Mexico, where we explored various Mayan ruins and sampled local culture (also many, many cocktails).

Here's a picture of the view from our balcony. Luxurious doesn't even begin to describe it! (But I can't help but feel we kind of earned it!)

Now that they're done,  I've been reflecting on it all a bit (and frankly, putting off the mounds of work I've got to catch up on having been away from my desk for nearly a month).

It's done...so what?

I'm pretty sure I remember feeling overwhelmed and slightly bricking it at the prospect of getting it all done, to the very, very strict, absolutely-no-leeway-whatsoever deadlines (I'd be kicked off the course on 30th April, the date of the wedding was unchangeable). And yet, now it's all over, I'm emerging, blinking in the light of day and not only saying "What was I worried about?", but also "Huh, shouldn't I feel a sense of accomplishment?"

I do have to bear in mind that I haven't passed the degree until the university says I do. Academically, I feel I probably have, even though I felt that what I wrote was inadequate, but until the certificate comes through, there's always the doubt, particularly since hindsight is 20:20 and you can always spot improvements you could have made. But even so, it was a big deal, wasn't it? And I did it, no? I feel relieved, certainly, that it's all over, but not proud, exactly...

Work of art or merely artifice?

One thing I distinctly felt while I was in the process of writing up, was just how artificial the process seemed. I couldn't shake the feeling of "you're testing my ability to compose a structured 10,000-word essay, you're not testing my library skills". I had a major problem in that my supervisor and I were largely incompatible, and I got little support, which meant that right up to the point where I had to submit it, I'd received little feedback, and I had pretty much no idea whether what I was doing was right. My "research", for I am singularly loathe to call it that, was not good, but I can write well, and argue convincingly.

But the librarian as an academic researcher is only one of the avenues librarians can take. Why then, should it be such an integral part of the degree? I have pretty much no intention (currently!) of undertaking any further research in this way, so to spend half of a degree to prove I can, rather than finding out whether or not I can actually help the patrons/would-be-patrons of the library I work in (which to my mind is far more important), seems unnecessary. To all those who exited with the diploma, I say "good call", and wish I could have done more modules to get the Masters instead.

To thine own self be true...

So the lack of sense of achievement, but the fact that I got things done, and the feeling that coursework is guff - these are all leading up to the fact that ultimately, I'm an exams person. I know this, and that's why I planned it so that the wedding and the dissertation submission date were close together. Give me pressure, see me thrive. So I got everything done in time, and that was fine. But the other aspect of being an exams person is the single focal point of achievement. It's kind of like needing instant gratification, I think. I need a "crisis moment", a sink-or-swim event, to know whether I can really deliver. Exams, concerts, tournaments, or even just having someone come into the library with a really tricky question - these are how I know whether the work I've done has been sufficient.

I hated coursework at school. To my mind, being left to do the work with resources on hand gives very little idea of whether the individual actually knows anything. Exams, where I had nothing except the knowledge I'd gained and the analytical skills I possessed, felt like a much fairer test. I know the arguments for and against, and the people who suffered exam panic, and being able to memorize facts not a true test of knowledge, so I'm not going to say outright that exams are the true test of a person's knowledge and understanding. But they felt a true test of my knowledge and understanding.

This sounds terribly negative, doesn't it? I don't mean it to, and maybe with greater distance I'll feel more positive about it! But I guess the greater implications of having done the degree are yet to be borne out. We'll see, and in the meantime, I've still got thank you letters to write, wedding gifts to find room for, and a job to return to!

IAML(UK & Irl) Annual Study Weekend: Cambridge 2014

They (whoever they are) say "A change is as good as a rest", so I hope that's the case and I shall emerge from this weekend fully charged and ready to finish writing up and submitting my thesis and finishing off the wedding preparations! (TWO WEEKS. EEK.)

Fitzwilliam College (from artq55)

This weekend was the IAML UK & Ireland Annual Study Weekend, in which music librarians and others (more on this later) descend upon a venue somewhere in the country for a long weekend of reports, presentations, awards and dinners. And a little bit of music. This year it was held in the delightful surroundings of Fitzwilliam College, so a bit of a blast from the past for me. It was my first, since I've only just joined IAML, and because I wouldn't require accommodation, I was able to convince my line manager to convince my work's HR that they could support my attendance! Thanks HR!

This is the sort of thing I have to negotiate when
responding to microfilm orders (from basschez)

It was a little bit lucky, since my job only involves music tangentially. There is a lot of music at the museum, but the really interesting stuff is all held by a different department. However, when requests for microfilms of manuscripts come in, it's muggins here who has to decode the request, and find the right pages of music to reproduce! "So, that's classmark 32.F.5, that's now MU.MS 177, 45 recto to 51 verso, an aria beginning with some illegible smudging at the front which might be the first line...no problem!"
Also we get in a lot of the published editions of the books which have used manuscripts at the museum in their research source material, and those materials come into my library and therefore my remit.

One of the nice things about music being such a small part of my job (actually, I guess the only thing, since I would far rather be doing much more music!), is that I didn't feel a terrible sense of urgency to learn all the things when I attended, and I could pick and choose to only make notes where I thought things had very practical applications in my work. I started taking notes in the first session. I stopped in the last. But I was very relaxed about doing it!

I didn't take this as a souvenir,
even though I really wanted to.

A number of presentations had particular resonance for me (didya get it? Resonance? Music? Pff, you're no fun), so hopefully I'll find the time to go into a little more detail about them in a separate post (or two). In the meantime, there were lots and lots of reports, engaging presentations, a lively round-table about the different roles of conservatoire and university libraries, plenty of coffee, and delicious food (ah, to be a student again!). I successfully restrained myself from the student tradition of pinching the college's crested cup and saucer, but failed miserably at not taking photos of the excellent meals!

We were also fortunate emough to enjoy two concerts over the weekend, Francis Knights performing some great stuff from the Fitzwilliam Virginals Book on harpsichord and organ, and then the next night, Erasmus Chamber Choir performed some works by composers who were linked (no matter how tenuously!) to Cambridge. A couple of my friends sing in it, so I've been to most of their concerts, but I'd missed the last one, "500 Years of Cambridge Music". Fortunately, this one was a slightly reduced programme from that, so I hadn't missed too much!

Postprandial entertainment being enthusiastically applauded by some IAML members

Queens' College Old Library. Considered
to be quite large back in the day!

There were several visits available to those who attended. I was one of the lucky ones to get in on the visit to Queens' College Old Library, which, as it turns out, doesn't have that much music in. Does have a spiffy skeleton looking very dapper with his pipe though, and a couple of little exhibitions geared towards both adults and children, which included a choice selection of rare books. And manuscripts, in the form of end papers!

I say, do you mind awfully giving
me a light? Been waiting ages to
smoke this...

 There were some great bits and pieces which Tim Eggington, the librarian, had found in just two years of working there. He also showed us the original catalogue from 1475, with the details of the 200 books the library had started with. That was thought to be a suitably substantial and impressive collection (I wonder which 200 books I would keep from our collection if that was the maximum? Just our series of Hollsteins runs into that many!).

A doodle of Henry VIII.
Just coz. 

There was an exhibition covering the history of Queens' College and its library in context, so the fact that it was founded about the same time as the invention of the printing press was pointed out. The royal connection was highlighted, and there was a rather brilliant annotation of Henry VIII in the marginalia of one of the books! Given the author's close association with the court, it's quite likely that this isn't a bad likeness of King Hal (mind you, I could draw a picture of someone I know well, and it would still look nothing like them, but never mind).

Underneath the bookplate is the
answer to life, the universe and
everything. Maybe.

We were shown what happened to some of the manuscripts - waste not, want not, and the "outdated, irrelevant, space-occupying" manuscripts were cut up and used as end papers for the shiny new books. Some escaped this ignominious fate and ended up in other colleges around the town (actually, I'm not sure which is worse ;) ). I liked the casual pasting in of the college's bookplate over the top(!), so even though the photo's pretty lousy, you get to see it anyway.

So there was some music, it turns out ;)

So, as I said before, I'll go into a bit more detail on the talks in another post. For now, I think I'll just wrap up by saying what a brilliant opportunity this was. I've learnt so much, both musically and librarially. There are archives and libraries and other places of interest I need to visit as soon as I have time (I can't wait to see the digitized Soho Jazz Festival posters - I know I played there one year, and have a t-shirt to prove it! I wonder if the archive wants it...?).

The other thing was how friendly everyone was. In a way it reminded me of the archery circuit - everyone sort of knows everyone else, at least in passing, so you get to put faces and names together really quickly, and there's always someone around to take you under their wing and talk to you. The buddy system is a lovely idea, and the reception for first-time attenders - they do everything to make you feel welcome. Of course, it helped that I knew a few of the Cambridge library team quite well already!

The IAML International (or "Big IAML", as it appears to be known) is having their conference soon, in Antwerp. I'm definitely going to try and get to it if I can, otherwise, roll on Birmingham 2015!

Stuff is happening!

This is going to be a quick update to what's happening and what I've been up to.

Degree

Still working on my dissertation. Feel like I'm getting somewhere with this, which is great, and even though I've only really got two months left, I think I can do this from start to finish if all I do is eat, sleep and breathe dissertation work. To that end I've gone to some talks, contacted a few information professionals, chatted to a few music academics, and feel like I've got a really solid information base to work with. Hurrah!

Real Life

The reason I need to hurry up and finish is because my wedding is happening THREE DAYS LATER!! Eek. Aside from this I'm getting a lot more involved in the music scene in Cambridge. I've just agreed to fill in as a soprano in a chamber choir (quite why they haven't kicked me out upon hearing my top A flat I don't know), and with two bands and two orchestras I have a few concerts of my own coming up. Next I need to find a swing band that will accept a beginner trombone, and I may join a new orchestra or two, but not yet! (And maybe I'll also go back to doing archery...?)

Brown Bag Lunch (CPD)

I went to my very first of these, feeling obliged since I had entered the UpGoer 5 competition being run (see my previous entry). I came second in the competition and won a cake, which isn't bad going for my first BBL. Also I got to chat with a few librarians, we discussed things like linguistics, etymology and English as a foreign language. The BBLs seem to be a lot more based around discussing topics with an article or two as a springboard; but having gone to one I think I might have a go at going to a proper one next time - assuming my timetable allows for it!

Friends of CUL/IAML(Uk): Thurston Dart Archive

This was a talk given by Christopher Hogwood and Greg Holt, both students of Dart, interspersed with some lovely music performed on spinet, violin and bass viol. Given my dissertation is looking at the music archives of the University, this seemed entirely appropriate! Although the notes I made on it are less relevant than I hoped they would be, it has provided me with a new angle for research, which is quite exciting.

Visit to SPRI (more CPD)

Last week was rounded off with a very interesting visit to the Scott Polar Research Institute. Martin very kindly took me for a tour round the library, showing me some wonderful treasures and talking about how the library integrated with the rest of the museum (much better than I do here!). We finished off at The Snug for lunch, where it transpired that Uni staff get a discount on food there! Whoop whoop!

So that's basically it for the moment. I think in about 3 months' time I will actually be at a point where I can start thinking about CPD in earnest, instead of squeezing it in around everything else, and this blog will begin to function once again - can't wait (though maybe I'll try and have a honeymoon first)!

from Wikimedia

Libraries@Cambridge 2014 - Up-Goer Five style!

When the word which explains the thing that you went to is not one of the ten hundred most used words, it makes talking about it very hard. But I'll try.*

The day was about being great at giving people what they need. One of the most important ways of doing this is to find out what they want. It sounds simple, but I think more people need to remember this! The person who gave the talk said we need to "say yes, not no because...'", and while I think there are so many people around who do say yes (and that is why we are great), it is good to remind us every now and again why we should.

The next talk I went to was about getting better yourself. There were many great ideas coming out of this, and I am going to be trying lots out. In fact, moved by this, I have already asked my work to help me go to something which will help me do my job better. (They said yes =) ). A good point was "what? so what? now what?" which I will use when keeping track of and writing about everything I do.

I was really pleased because even though in large groups I usually listen more than talk, I spoke up and had my idea written on the wall. This is something I need to work on, and so this was another step forward in my plan to be a better me.

In the next talk, I finally learned what a really long word means, so I can now talk to my friends about their work and know what it is they are doing! It was about working out how important different people's writing is, and how to order it from most important to least using both the older ways and some of the new ways around. It seems like there is not one good way, and each different way has different problems, so there is no right answer as to how this should be done. This was not such a practical talk for me at present, but was still very interesting.

Listening to the last part, I was amazed at all the different areas we work in, and the talks were so interesting. The picture of the water car was really good! The music talk was eye-opening, and the one by the place where they study cold stuff at the top and bottom of the world had a lot of interesting points for me because our areas of work and the problems we have are quite like each other.

By the end of the day I was very tired, but there was a lot of good stuff to take away from it. I can't wait for next year!

* Thanks to Aidan Baker for the brain-wrackingly fun idea of trying to write about attending a conference using Up-Goer Five! (I cheated on the word count though; 467 words total).
EDIT Credit to be awarded to Lyn Bailey for combining #lac14 and Up-Goer Five (sorry!)