Blatant self-promotion

I am absolutely delighted to share a link to a blogpost that I wrote for the IAML (UK & Ireland) blog. I had submitted my "third"* year dissertation to their ET Bryant Memorial Prize one year, and was really surprised that my work came joint-first with another. The blogpost shares the more unexpected and tangential outcomes of my work - the bits that didn't make it into the results pages of the dissertation when I submitted it to Aberystwyth.

* I was possibly their second-slowest continuous student *ever*, starting in April 2008 and actually graduating in May 2014.

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!

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

TFI Friday

So it's been a busy old time here in the reference library. We've been closed to the public now for 5 weeks (one to go!) due to building works elsewhere, resulting in the relocation of three other departments (that's right, three!) into our hallowed reading room.

The library looks remarkably like this

Not only that, but as I mentioned previously, we said goodbye to a number of colleagues, two of which were library staff. Given that we were effectively a full-time staff of three...yeah, I've taken over a few extra responsibilities! But now we're looking at the future, and hopefully soon we'll have a temp coming to ease the pressure, so that's good news. Though I'll still have to train them, and supervise them, and they won't be working Mondays at all...

Then we've had a colossal book move, swapping a room of oversized books, dealers' catalogues and art books with some of the archives. Hundreds...maybe even thousands of books being moved in two weeks...ouch. And much as I love not having had to move the books myself, this does mean I wasn't able to stop the movers when they reshelved the oversized books not by classmark, but by size. So now nothing's in order and I have no idea where anything is!

Added to that we've got the usual start-of-term chaos happening out in the real world university - I shall be giving tours to the History of Art postgrads soon. I've also been asked to run tours for the Cambridge Library Group, so I'm ankle-deep in email conversations with the other two libraries here to try and co-ordinate that (but that won't be until April, so I have a little time yet!).

The students I'll be showing around the library are ever so slightly older than these

I am luxuriating in the freedom to make decisions - I'm looking at ways to publicise the library and tie it closer to the general museum experience. So the idea is a person comes in, checks out the exhibition that they came to see. They might take in a couple of other galleries, eat at the café, make purchases from the shop...somewhere in there I think I can insert "visit library to look at further material on the exhibition, or just have a browse of the fantastic resources the library has on various forms of art". Or maybe just "visit library to sit down and allow feet to recover from all that ambling and read the Times Literary Supplement". I'm not fussy.

And finally...
My course is ever-progressing (at snail's pace). I've read 26 articles and learnt Set Theory for my latest assignment - and I'm hoping that that will be sufficient! I want to get it all done in order to go back to Aberystwyth in April, which means basically having completed everything by January. A month for each assignment should be possible, I think. Particularly given I've done so much reading for the next two already. Once I've completed Information Organisation and Retrieval, it's only Collections Management and Research in the Profession to do to be allowed to go back. It would be nice to have done Music Librarianship and one other before then, but we'll see. I'm hoping to have an idea about my dissertation by then too. I'd love to do something to do with music, but I'm pretty stumped for ideas beyond that thought.

And just a last cartoon which seemed pretty relevant to an art library but that I couldn't fit in with the rest of my verbal splurgings.

Happy Friday!

Back to librarying!

Today I posted off my second assignment for Studies in Management, part of the Aberystwyth course. In between training for the new job and moving house, this one module has taken me 18 months to complete, so naturally, I'm a little relieved. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed management - I'd done business studies and sociology at school, and a lot of this stuff linked the two really nicely. But 18 months, when it should really have been four...I'm so glad it's over!

How do I intend to celebrate? By throwing myself con brio into the next module (Information Organisation and Retrieval, or for those in the know, Cat & Class) with the intention of finishing both it and another twenty credits by March so that I can attend my third study school in April. A tall order, I realise. Particularly now term's started up in a big way, and every weekend until mid-March is occupied. On the bright side, two of my orchestras have their concert on the same day, so I'm going to have to pick one, which means there'll be no point me rehearsing with the other one, which gives me another evening free each week.

pcorreia at Flickr

I mentioned my joy at being able to return (cue hasty counting on fingers) seven books to the UL and to the Judge Institute to a friend, and he likened it to a ritual burning (in fact, 'returning' is almost a portmanteau of 'ritual' and 'burning' now that I look at it). I've only ever actually burnt one book in my life - following an arduous year of failing to learn German, I chose French as my GCSE option and disposed of my German exercise book in the barbecue at home. Fun times.