It’s been a surreal week, a surprise album from My Bloody Valentine, the success of the squatters of Friern Library in winning a 2 year reprieve for the library, an 8-1 win from the mighty Stags and a return to writing on my blog.
Work wise – dare I say it – we’re over busy as usual and it’s one of the prime reasons why I’ve lapsed on my blog. We’ve been another person down since October and working on my blog in the evenings is the last thing on my mind. Just getting through the week in one piece is my aim!
Since I last blogged back in September, we’ve moved in to a new office in a completely different part of the building after 16 years of living with the frantic Customer Services. It’s quiet, in its own contained space which opens up loads of possibilities of doing things like running a regular reading group for staff and is next to the new braille and giant print library which has just moved down from Stockport. It’s probably one of the best things to happen at work since I’ve started! (I’m easily pleased). The downside is the lack of people to fill the office! We should be getting a couple of afternoon part time staff in a few months’ time though in reality we could have done with some extra cover in the morning – our busiest time! We also going to be extending our opening periods in the afternoon though, barring any disasters, the new staff will be picking this up. Looking on the bright side (as I always tend to do) – there may be an opportunity to have a break from the phones for the odd hour in the afternoons. We’re also will be picking up some of the braille and giant print duties which will be good, particularly for the customer so we don’t have to keep passing them on.
Our forthcoming new reading business system is still forthcoming! Unfortunately we had one of our not so finest hours by sending all our members a letter announcing the benefits of the new computerised system where you can select your own books and manage your own lists only to cause a massive panic from customers who thought they had to cancel their subscription as they didn’t have a computer and would therefore no longer be able to use the service. One positive thing that did come out of this fiasco was how the customers valued our services and the horror that they could no longer ring us up to help them choose their books.
Our stock familiarisation and book club meetings are still going strong. Claire Morrall (The Man Who Disappeared) received an almost record 8 out of 10 from everybody, which was pretty credible considering there were a number of members who prefer Crime Fiction. I’ve read a real mixture of authors for stock familiarisation, trying to mix it with books I really want to read and popular authors I keep putting on people’s lists but have never read myself. It’s really widened my horizons as I’ve been introduced to writers who I would not normally have considered such as E V Thomson and Sidney Sheldon.
I’ve finally braved it and sent in my revalidation (first cycle) in to CILIP. It’s gone very quiet so slightly worried that it’s failed! I’m busy collecting evidence and filling in my log for my 2nd cycle in the meantime. The first year is already nearly completed though so I’m going to sit down and write some objectives for the next 2 years – probably split them in to essential, realistic and nice to do goals again.
The newly merged CDEG committee continues to work well together and I feel quite excited and optimistic about the future. I’ve also taken on board the e-newsletter which has given me an opportunity to learn new skills – Constant Contact and Sharepoint - and a feeling of contributing something.
This was the article I contributed regarding the Library Camp (Birmingham) 2012 (slightly belated!)
Helped with a large flask of black coffee to cope with an early start and a freezing Melton Mowbray railway station, I made my way to Library Camp 2012 with some trepidation. Cheered by the sight of all those cakes and more caffeine, I soon forgot the inconvenience of getting up so early on a Saturday morning.
Despite arriving late, I managed to arrive just in time to find out more about the sessions which seemed to involve lots of people jumping up on the stage “selling their pitch” and someone armed with a flipboard and post-its madly trying to keep up with the day’s sessions on offer.
Clutching my library camp timetable, I hastily scribbled the pitches down in the allocated time slots and made my decisions on which ones I wanted to do. With 5 sessions running on the hour from 10.00 to 4.30, there was plenty of choice with topics as wide ranging as cataloguing, book repairs, the happiness index, starting a library from scratch and how to cope with users swearing at you.
My first session was Mental Health in the Library and was probably the best session I attended. We debated whether it was best to be open about your mental illness as people would be more understanding about your problems or whether this would lead to prejudice. The group then talked about however understanding the manager is, the attitudes of other staff could be problematic. Solutions suggested included buddying staff with mental health problems, getting mental health awareness as part of staff training such as a Mental Health First Aid Course (run by MIND) and incorporating mental health awareness in corporate policy. One participant, speaking from personal experience, found that her team were more accepting of her manager making reasonable adjustments to her work because of good communication within the Team.
I also learnt about a couple of interesting initiatives – Make Friends With A Book (Sandwell) – where participants of reading groups held read out aloud sessions and Health in Mind Project (Northern Ireland) which has also recognised the importance of mental health first aid training and read out aloud sessions. Online discussion groups for people with mental illness including http://www.facebook.com/mindelephant and http://www.blackdogtribe.com/ was also mentioned.
The second session I attended was on careers and was led by a couple of librarians who are part of #uklibchat at http://uklibchat.wordpress.com/. Although it was a supportive group though a little subdued, I didn’t really come out of this session feeling that I had learnt anything new. An experienced library camper would probably have left half way and tried a different session.
Next up was Media Literacy and Young People which started with a healthy discussion on young people interpreting media, grainy footage of rioting in Syria was given as an example. The discussion moved on to doing essays in the age of the internet and the problems this created such as plagiarism which concluded that information literacy needed to be embedded in the national curriculum. Somehow this led to a discussion on the Rucksack Librarians of Hammersmith where library staff went out in the community and found the families that wasn’t coming into the libraries to try and get the children to come to the library. Interested, I later looked this up and found out that they were referring to the Doorstep Library Network of Hammersmith and Fulham.
The debate moved on to libraries not stocking particular papers such as the tabloids and dis-encouraging young people in reading papers like the Metro. However, this view was questioned that surely it was better that young people were reading something and they may read other papers in the future and then start to question what they’re reading.
After a really good lunch of veggie bean chilli, couscous, salad and more cake, it was back to the afternoon sessions. Next one up was Living libraries: overcoming prejudices (Living Books Project) where the idea is that you borrow a person and lose a prejudice. This was a project that took place in Malmo, Sweden, back in 2005 as part of a festival on multiculturalism and featured people such as a Jew, Romany, transvestite, homeless person, ex-criminal, Muslim and an animal rights activist. Follow up projects included a female vicar, ex-addict, police man, middle aged straight white man and a senior citizen.
Variations of this were suggested and included borrowing experts of skills and hobbies, borrowing for history purposes ie people that have lived through certain periods ie holocaust and One World Week where you borrowed a person and learn about other cultures.
One problem that was raised was - who was doing the borrowing? Were they open minded already? Also how do we reach people that don’t have contact in the library?
Although people in the room thought that this was something new and hadn’t happened in the UK, I was sure that I had come across this before and later found this useful article http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/03/living-library-communities.
The following session was working with volunteers which polarised the room in opinion. The lady who led the group had worked with volunteers for 2 years and, from experience, found that when she worked closely with staff identifying gaps where they didn’t have time to do the work themselves, it helped to alleviate the attitude “they’re here to take our jobs”.
One of the arguments was that using volunteers helped to involve the community with the library and allowed tasks/events to take place which wouldn’t normally happen; she cited the library being able to run a gardening show with the help of volunteers. Examples of uses of volunteers cited in the group included helping VI people to choose books, being computer buddies, chatting to users and summer reading challenge.
The invisible cost of using volunteers was also discussed including training, expenses including travel and that there were often situations that they may not want to do certain jobs, after all they’re not being paid so you couldn’t really force them to do something they didn’t want to do. Concerns were expressed that we needed to have the library service intact after the recession with library staff that were members of a professional body with professional ethics and values at the core of the service. In fact, somebody argued that she would rather see her local public library close than see it run by volunteers. This debate is continued on the following blog http://johannaboanderson.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/library-camp-pub-chat-dilemma-volunteering-would-you/
The last session was how to run a library camp where people shared their experiences of running camps in the past and inspired others to have a go next year.
More details on Library Camp 2012 can be found at http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/p/librarycamp-2012.html or http://librarycamp2012.wikispaces.com/.
Here are some other perspectives of the day.
http://rachel-s-b.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/library-camp-2012.html
http://neonlibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/library-camp-2012/
http://bumsonseats.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/my-notes-on-libcampuk12-playing-games-organising-your-own-library-camp/
There’s a lot to like about the Library Camp. It’s on a Saturday which makes it easier to attend, it’s free apart from my train ticket, there’s a distinct lack of suits, the majority of the people are on the same level as me so no awkward faux pas conversations about management, it’s up to the participants to decide on the day and it’s a great opportunity to eat lots of cake.
