MEG Lib Annual Meeting

This is my round up of the Mixed Economy Libraries group (MEG Lib) annual meeting. This was the first time I had attended this and I was presenting a paper with my manager. Sadly, my manager couldn't go, so I ended up having to do the presentation on my own, which was another first for me - or so I thought.

On the train to Birmingham, where the meeting was, I was trying not to worry too much about doing the presentation by myself. I quite suddenly had an epiphany and realised that actually it wasn't the first time I'd presented on my own. I, of course, had presented at University as part of my course and not only that but I was much more familiar with the subject I was talking about at this meeting, than anything I had done at University. Phew! Glad I got that sorted. So I continued my journey to Birmingham quite happy in the knowledge that I could do this.

The room that we were using was a lecture theatre and it was quite difficult to hear the people at the back, when I was at the front presenting. It was also a large room for the number of people attending. In my presentation, I had to try to remember not to touch the whiteboard as by doing so it moved the PowerPoint to the next slide, I have never encountered this before and it took me awhile to stop accidentally moving the presentation forward when I didn't want to. This is something I need to bear in mind when I present again. Apart from that little issue, I thought my presentation went well and again it provided much discussion.

Moving onto the other presentations:

EBSCO had a promotion slot talking about their new pricing structures for Colleges, based on JISC banding. This was of particular interest to me as I am tasked with increasing e-resources at work and these look like they will meet curriculum need. I will be looking into this soon.

Northampton College were presenting about their information skills programme and what I have taken from this is:

• To pitch the ideas at the people paid to promote good practice
• Self evaluate skills both at the beginning and end of sessions, to see where students have started and where they think they are afterwards
• Put together a comprehensive programme but make all parts able to stand alone. This way students can dip in and out

Bradford College talked about their new building which they will move into in a couple of years time. It seems to be a cross between somewhere like I work and City of Bristol College, which I blogged about after the ARLG Conference. You can find that at http://traceytotty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/arlg-conference-2012.html. Sue Caporn from City of Bristol College, also did a session here about her library.

Croydon College presented about their new library and how that was working. Points to note for me were:

• They went fully self service
• Customer service skills are more important than library skills, when recruiting new staff
• Roving helps with behaviour management
• Text messages are used to inform students about reservations
• They have a room check board system (like in toilets) to help manage self contained areas

I have gained a lot of knowledge from attending this meeting and have new ideas about how to move the service forward. Some can be implemented immediately e.g. check board and others will require funding and planning e.g. self service

MyPC User Forum

A few months ago there was an e-mail on the MyPC discussion list asking about user forums in various regions. The North East wasn't mentioned, so I replied asking if there was interest in one, offering a venue to host it etc. From there, I ended up organising one with the aid and assistance of Nick from ITS.

This is what I learned from the day:

Bradford College have moved from walk up bookings to advance bookings, to help with behaviour management. This is interesting as my LRC did that 3 years ago because we had no security having moved into a new building with teething problems. Now we are considering moving back to walk up bookings, as a way to move forward the service provision and free up staff time to do other LRC work. Our security is much better now, we have turnstile access (activiated by College ID cards) and classroom management software to block websites like Facebook at our busiest times. So if we move back to walk up bookings will the behaviour decline I wonder?

Features of MyPC that I would like to utilise that I didn't previously know about (this will require an upgrade - a summer job?).

• MyPC can be booked using QR codes
• Heritage can link with MyPC to show / block learners with fines or overdues. This can be done daily via updates for free or if you have the money, there is a live links version updating from Heritage Online.
• There is a web app to show availability, that can be used on smartphones.
• We can set locations so that only certain learners can use them (where we have specialist software on the PC) and retain the right to override if all other PCs are in use.

It was a very useful session with some great ideas to consider.