Job hunting at 51.

Why am I job hunting?

I was made redundant at the end of June. I was unsure of where best to look for a job i.e. which websites. I had already set up some accounts years ago with some sites, I dusted them down and started using them. Knowing there were more out there but not knowing which were the best, I contacted JobCentre Plus and they gave me a list of recommendations. I haven't signed up to all of them and am not going to, as I'm overwhelmed with the ones I currently use but too scared to delete some in case I miss a suitable job ad. This post is about my experience with the ones I use. I figured that they couldn't be too difficult to use, which is true but I find some aspects of them annoying.

Alerts

When setting up alerts, I asked for:

• part time or remote work
• within 5 - 10 miles of where I live (in Hartlepool)

The e-mails I get from one site (I'm not naming names as I have no intention of shaming and others may find that their set up works well) are telling me about on site jobs in places like Dubai - so is their definition of remote to do with location rather than working from home?

Another site insists on telling me about jobs nowhere near where I specified, it's offering Newcastle, Scarborough, Lancashire. Why? If they were remote jobs and that is their base fair enough but they're on site jobs. At first I thought I must've done the alert incorrectly. I went on the site and checked and no I hadn't done it wrong, the alert says 5 miles of where I live, so why am I sent on site jobs that are 50+ miles away?

After a few weeks, I decided that I didn't want to work remotely after all. I went to edit the alerts and there is one site where I would need to delete the alert before I can take off the remote working. I don't know why, as there is an option to edit, it seems though this is more about adding more terms rather than taking some away.

Another site (and this maybe the hiring company's fault) sometimes don't give you the name of the town/city where it is based e.g. it will name a school but not where it is located. Are the hiring companies so full of themselves that they expect the whole of the country to know where they are? Additionally, there are likely to be other towns/cities with schools with the same name.

And there is one site that e-mails 1 job at a time instead of a round up of jobs meeting your criteria. As there are multiple e-mails a day, I feel like i'm being spammed. The same website also sends the same job alert to you multiple times, I didn't apply for it yesterday, I am not going to apply for it today!

CVs

Some sites you can upload your CV and others you need to fill in their form, doing this doesn't though mean you will not need to fill in an application form from the company you are applying to. Even when the CV information can be transferred to another online form this doesn't mean everything is straightforward, sometimes the information gets put in the wrong field, so you need to double check this and correct where necessary.

I have had trouble with the dates on the forms too, they want day, month and year for previous jobs. I don't know! I'm 51, I've worked at the same place for 19 years, prior to that I can tell you where I worked, my job title and roughly the years I worked there. Everything I have read about doing CVs and job applications has always said that companies are not interested in your full work history if you've been around a long time, they are more interested in your skills, so why so exact?. I feel sorry for the younger generation having to fill in these forms with every job they have ever had, when they are changing them so regularly.

Automatic application

This one annoyed me the most even though it only happened once. Having set up my account and uploaded my CV, I started looking around the site. When I clicked on a job to see more information, the website automatically sent an application to the company from me. I contacted the website saying I never applied for a job but my dashboard says I did. The response was that the automatic application must be on and they told me how to take that off (which I did). What a stupid set up, it must be the default setting, as I had just set up my account. Who wants to apply for a job when they know nothing about it because they haven't yet read the description?

End note

I have a Casual Community Hub Assistant post now, which I hope to start soon. I've just had a pre-employment health check for it. Once I have started that, I might feel comfortable deleting some of the job alerts. I have 2 favourite job sites, so I will likely keep the alerts from them only.

Working from home day 5 - however long it's been on 16/04

Yes, it may have been 3 or 4 weeks now but it feels like 3 or 4 months. I have got to the stage where I don't know what day it is, thank goodness for my online calendar.

I still don't feel like I have used any technologies that are new to me and that's disappointing in a way because I thought I would. On the other hand, it might mean I am confident and experienced in using a variety of technologies, there is though always room for improvement. Obviously I have done more online meetings than normal and I have initiated my first one with my team, which was a lot easier than I'd imagined. It wasn't perfect some people where sideways on, so I will have to see if there is way of changing that. Other than that, all my work is things I would normally do in the same way as at work - administration, Heritage housekeeping, social media, enquiries, ordering (e-books), cataloguing etc.

Actually doing the work, the only differences are that I only have 1 monitor (I have 2 at work), I can't print anything (I don't do much of it at work anyway) and I can't go and pick up a physical book to check information - some of that can be done online but some, especially where it specifically relates to my library, will have to wait until we get back. 

Some of the processes, I have had to alter to fit in with my new working conditions for example we usually use physical cards to record acquisitions. For that I have resurrected an old spreadsheet we used a few years ago when we had an issue with our budgets. It records what I need it to. This is a temporary measure to get us through the crisis period. I do though have a task listed to make the process electronic and I will need the input of my team to help develop that.

I miss seeing my team the most. We are still in contact with each other through e-mail, Microsoft Teams and our WhatsApp group, it isn't the same though as popping into the main office or having someone come to my office to vent their frustrations. I should point out at this stage, I'm not devoid of human contact - I live with my family (and so far we haven't had any blazing rows, just some low level tension caused by anxiety due to the lockdown, in case you where wondering).

My home office set up isn't perfect. I am using the dining room table (we only ever use it on high days and holidays for meals), as I have nowhere else. I do have a proper PC chair, which is better than the dining room chair- I tried that the first day and very quickly realised I needed the PC chair. My main issue is that you have to go through the dining room to get to the kitchen, so it can be like a (pre-pandemic) commuter station sometimes with all the comings and goings. The up side is that I am facing the window which looks onto my front garden and the street, so I can see occasional activity. There is still life out there!

Homeworking Days 1 - 4

Like many of you, I am homeworking. I have been since last Wednesday, I have an underlying condition and was told by my employer on Tuesday I should homework straightaway.

I didn't know what to expect, I've never really homeworked before, only ever checked my e-mails and done CPD. As I could see it coming though, I had already set up my PC the previous weekend and made sure I had access to everything I needed.

Last week was so manic that I spent nearly all my time answering queries from my staff or contacting suppliers about their free offers. There wasn't therefore much opportunity to try new tasks, more an increased use of things I already use like Office 365. I also had a to do list of jobs, which didn't get looked at until 3pm (I started work at 8:30am) and only then it was because one of the tasks was to make a list of jobs that my staff could do when homeworking.

By Friday I had managed to collate the free e-resources (that I knew about at that point) and had put together a page on our VLE with links and promoted it via social media. That felt like a huge achievement.

Today I have written a blog post for our Keep Teaching Keep Learning website, at the request of my manager, about using our e-resources. I have written a job description that needed doing by the end of the month - and that is the only thing that was on my to do list last Tuesday that I have done in a week.

I figured that the first few days of homeworking would be supporting my staff if they got stuck and then would come the need to support the students, who have only started their online learning fully today. I'm hoping that in the next few days I can return to the to do list I had last Tuesday and start chipping away at that.

I had recently read that you are more productive when you are homeworking because you don't have Office life as a distraction. I can definitely say I have done more work since Wednesday than I would if I was in the Office. I have been taking regular breaks and trying to keep a routine, there has though been so many things that needed doing quickly in a very fluid and ongoing situation, that I've been taking shorter lunches and working later. I'm exhausted now but know that once everyone is up, running and confident, things will settle down and that means I have done a successful job.

Making better use of e-resources

At the beginning of the year, or possibly late last year, an e-mail came through from Credo Reference informing me that some e-books had been discontinued and that I should look at replacing them with other e-books that are available. I had actually forgotten that we could choose the 100 e-books we use from the 821 listed.

As we have had recent in year budget cuts, this seemed a very appropriate time to review what titles were live, review them and look into any other way we could better use this resource to help promote its use. I think Credo Reference is a very good value product with excellent high quality information and the fantastic features of topic pages and mind maps, so it would be a real shame if I ended up having to make the decision to let the subscription lapse because I needed my budget for something else. I have therefore set about trying to make Credo Reference the most relevant it can be to our learners and increasing its visibility.

Initially I downloaded a spreadsheet of all the titles we have access to, which enabled me to choose the most relevant 100. I used the following process:

• Marked off all the titles I considered relevant to our learners, this ended up being just over 300, so I had a way to go to get it down to 100.
• I then labelled these up as to where they were published, whilst the country of publication doesn't always matter, I knew in some cases in was very important that I have UK based information.
• Next I cross referenced them against our other e-books and discounted any we already had from another source.  
• I then graded them 1 - 3 or discounted them on 2nd look based on year of publication (which again isn't always important and in some cases is very important), country of publication and content (having now looked beyond the title).
• This gave me 93 grade 1 titles. To find the remainder, I asked my colleague to look at my 2s and 3s to see if she would upgrade any of them to a 1. This gave me the final 7 to reach my 100 target.

Whilst looking through the titles, I came across Key Concepts in Health Psychology which is a very popular book in our LRC, therefore I immediately added this to the list available to use, this was a really good find. Having chosen my 100, I then set about changing the selections to reflect this. The majority of the titles chosen ended up being published in the UK and I believe that there is a relevant title for every course taught at my College.

My next task was to upload the MARC records to our LMS, Heritage. Previously we had never done this and relied on learners looking at the actual database so that they could use the full functionality of it. However in retrospect, I think this was an error in judgment, we should maybe have concentrated on providing access to the titles and encouraged use of the other features through information skills sessions, enquiries handling and promotional activities.

Within a fortnight of uploading the MARC records (and 1 of those weeks was half term), we had an enquiry that was satisfied by a title from Credo Reference. This was an enquiry about kidneys and one of the Harvard Medical School titles (ironic I know, it's US published) came up on our catalogue search and was exactly what the learner was looking for.

In addition to the titles being changed, I also looked into where the topic pages pull their information from and have made it more UK specific, this was evidenced in preparation for a recent LRC staff development session on enquiries that my colleague and I did, where she discovered that Credo Reference has a UK Welfare State topic page and EBSCO's Discovery Research Starters doesn't. In the actual enquiries session, Credo Reference was promoted to the LRC staff as a good place to start enquiries because of the topic pages (and mind maps), potentially better than EBSCO's Discovery because I have made it more UK based than US based. In the subsequent practice enquiries (based on real ones we've had this academic year) done in the session, another Credo Reference title was found on the LRC catalogue to successfully answer the enquiry, this time it was The International Encyclopedia of Depression (again ironically US published).

I have now signed up for a Credo webinar to see if I can find out about anymore features I can make use of. I am looking forward to seeing if the user statistics have increased because of these changes and the immediate impact has encouraged me to link the Issues Series title to their Issues Online counterparts through Heritage and start uploading the MARC records of the Britannica E-stax titles that we have.

Online course

I have recently done my first fully online course, this post is going to reflect on the structure and what I liked / disliked about the course rather than the content. 

The course consisted of 3 units that were subdivided into 3 - 5 sections and made up of text, video and interactive activities. The assessments were free text questions relating to the content immediately previous. Along the way there were revision questions usually a choose the correct option(s) type and free text boxes to record your examples. There was also a notes section, for any notes you wanted to record.

I quickly found that I prefered to make handwritten notes, so that I had them visible alongside the course information rather than having multiple windows open or flipping between the notes and content on screen.

The size of the units and sections varied greatly, ranging from bitesize to overwhelming. I would have prefered more bitesize sections even though this would mean more of them, as the largest sections were off-putting.

I did like the way the sections were set out though, they were clear and easy to use. There were a variety of tasks, different ways to provide the information and revision questions, all which I found useful and engaging. The parts where I had to add my own examples, I quickly started to ignore, as I discovered that I didn't need to fill them in to progress.

The assessment questions were all in the same format and this was disappointing given the different variety of tasks on offer in the actual course. I thought that some of the questions could have been multi choice like the revision questions, or the own examples sections could have been used as part of the assessments (this would make me do them!). 

Sometimes the assessment questions weren't all that clear either, some answers required examples but didn't say so. This led to me having to resubmit some of the assessments. One of my assessment questions was missed out of the unit too. I only discovered this when I was reviewing my answers and found I hadn't answered one. I then wondered how I'd missed it because the course was set up to move on only after you had answered the assessment questions.

After this experience, would I do another online course? I'm not sure. I would have to really look closely at how it was set up before making that choice. It was a different experience rather than a good or bad one. It has made me reflect on what I liked about the course and what I didn't, so in the future I have a good base to make a decision over whether other online courses would be suitable for me or not.

Spring cleaning my logins

 

I thought it was time to spring clean my logins, I have been suffering from technology overload and figured it would do me good to prune. I am not someone who signs up for everything but being aware of digital footprints and what people can find out about you, I thought I should close any unused accounts I have. Whilst about it, I figured I could make sure I know my passwords rather relying on the remember me facilities websites have.

In my mind this would take me about an hour, afterall I thought I wouldn't have that many logins to deal with and that I would end up with about 15 - 20. After 3 hours, I'm nearly there and I have over 50 logins, admittedly a few are the same but I've separated them for ease, things like Blogger and Google Drive, Skype and Hotmail. I've closed about 5 and I've finally figured out why my Google Drive and Hotmail have different passwords. I know that might seem obvious because they are different companies but I set my Google account up a long time ago with my Hotmail e-mail, so at some point I think they were the same. I've later changed passwords and they've ended up different. My logins can be broadly broken down into the following categories:

Social media / Apps / Cloud services 22 logins
Shops 12
Entertainment 9
Financial 6
Personal interests 4

All of these logins are personal ones, some I do use at work such as Dropbox and Evernote. I had considered setting up new ones at work for these, as though, I use them mainly to remind myself of things and know that I can share with my colleagues if I need to, I chose to use my personal account rather than adding to the long list of work logins. I also haven't included any logins from work that I might use at home like e-mail, Blackboard or Athens.

I have in my e-mail, a registrations folder to remind me of what I already have accounts for, this helped me greatly in both finding out what I had subscribed to and what my passwords might be, as I sometimes send myself an e-mail containing my password (yes I know that this could be a security risk). The interesting thing about this folder is that it didn't have any e-mails relating to the websites I log into regularly like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google Drive etc. These websites are the ones that I usually have set on the remember me option, so this tested my knowledge. I went to them individually, took out the password and re-entered it to see if I knew what it was. I surprised myself by still knowing them, The only one I use regularly that I couldn't remember was for Channel 4's On Demand (or All4 as they have recently changed it to). This amused me because I logged into it last Friday inputting both the username and password and 3 days later I've forgotten it!

As previously mentioned I'm not someone who signs up for everything, I therefore figure that my list of logins is small compared to other peoples. I think that I have probably forgot a few as well, although I didn't find evidence of a YouTube or a Spotify account, I have a vague recollection that I do have accounts for them. Are there anymore lurking around that I have forgotten about I wonder?

I do feel better for sorting them out, I've exorcised my technology overload. However, I am totally shocked by how many personal logins I have and never realised how many I use.

Catching up

Totally remiss of me but I haven't done any reflecting on the CPD I've done for ages. I am now trying to catch up, so in this post I intend to write a paragraph (minimum) on the CPD I have done over the last few months:

OpenAthens

Initially this training was meant for a colleague to go to so that there are a few of us trained in Athens admin. However, after the interface was changed I felt like I was a beginner again with it and was struggling to manage it. I decided that I would go to the training as I had many questions on how to do things. 
As it was awhile ago when I did this training, I can't remember what questions I had. They must've been resolved as I am managing well with it for now. The main thing that I remember learning is that I can correct any errors in the bulk upload file and resubmit it without having to leave the page i'm on. This is fabulous because I can quickly see where the errors are, fix them and resubmit the file. This has saved me loads of time.

How to build resilience in the workplace

I wasn't sure what to expect on this, our Workforce Development Manager had mentioned that the session was on and would be useful for my staff and I. So I made sure we all booked on and went along to see what I could learn. Building resilience is a way of trying to achieve good physical and emotional health, in this case within the workplace. It focussed on positively handling conflict, being positive about yourself including readjusting any self-sabotaging beliefs we have, dealing with manipulative behaviour, avoiding burnout and stress management. This was a lot to take in all at once and I think that to help me build my resilience, I should evaluate where I am at with each area and try to improve my resilience in my weakest areas.

ARLG Members Day

This year's theme was accessibility something that I have been looking at improving at work over the last year and am continuing to work on. This session gave me so many new things to think about. Some of the things that were mentioned, we already do or have but I need to train myself and my staff about them and then promote what is available. I need to implement any quick changes that can be done. Investigate new apps / services etc that I heard about and train, promote and advertise where appropriate, and finally make a wish list of big things that I would like, in case money is available for implementation.

Safer staff recruitment

This looked at the process of staff recruitment and how safeguarding should be built into it at every stage. In a way this was timely and in another way it was too late. I am currently recruiting a new LRC Assistant and the job has gone out to advertisement now, so all the processes involved before this stage have been reliant on Human Resources and my subconscious for safeguarding issues. I can now though apply this new knowledge to the remaining processes starting with reviewing interview questions.

ARLG Conference 2014: The Final Frontier - to boldly go where you've never been before

There was so much packed into the 3 days, that I can't hope to cover all that I went to, so I am going to pick out the things I took from it the most, in no particular order:

That it doesn't cost a huge amount of money to make your library and it's services more accessible than they currently are. My plan  - to assess where we are at and find ways to improve it, using some of the ideas and resources mentioned by Virginia Power in her Inclusive Practice session. They are JISC TechDis' Online Accessibility Self Evaluation Service (OASES), the MLA Accessibility Toolkit, which I do have in paper format at work and is still available online from the National Archive (Disability Portfolio Guide) and to start making screencasts of how to use the accessibility resources we have.

Promote and encourage better use of e-books - Elaine Mulholland sent lists of relevant e-books (from the JISC e-books for FE) with live links to each curriculum area in her College, to raise awareness and encourage use. This, I think, is an excellent idea and as the JISC e-books for FE original agreement is about to expire, I feel that promoting what we still have available is very important. We have 3 different e-book providers and a 4th imminent (i.e. when I get my new budget), so it's a good opportunity to drill down into what we have and see if there are any gaps in the resources.

A task that I keep mentioning and never actually do anything about (I mentioned it at my last performance Review too, so I need to do it!) - better use of social media. We have a Facebook and Twitter account and are guilty of sporadically using it. My plan of campaign is to start with Georgina Cronin and Meg Westbury's idea of a social media policy and build from there. My initial thoughts are in addition to keeping people upto date with changes in opening times, events and any database downtime we are informed about, is to incorporate stuff that ties in with our displays and maybe current events. I know that in order for this to work I will need some way of scheduling updates - Hootsuite springs to mind, as I already have used it (not to full effect though) - I will need to train myself how to use it more efficiently and then train my staff.

I would also like to make a glossary of library terms, as suggested by Kirsty Carver and Sophie North in their Culturally Aware Library session. Whilst we do not have the same extent of diversity as Bradford University, we do have learners from different countries and as importantly we have a population who, in many cases, have never been into a library before. Therefore a glossary could be of benefit to a great many of our learners.

I have set a target for all of these goals to be achieved or at least worked towards (as I know some will take some time to put in place) within the next year.

RSC Northern's e-Fest 14 - an e-Ventful Tale

Guess what? As usual I've left this too long from the event to writing it up. Bad practice I know, and not what I was taught whilst doing my Chartership. So first of all any action plan I have should start with must reflect sooner on training rather than later.

What can I remember about the e-Fest?

I can remember tweeting all day rather than taking notes. This is a first for me and something I would like to continue doing. What I haven't done is collected the tweets together so let me put that as another point on the action plan.

I am a digital native apparently, this came as a surprise. I'm not saying i'm no good at it and I'm not scared of it, I just don't find it as intuitive or as easy to use as (some) other people - especially those who are younger. I do though make the Internet my first port of call when I want to find out something which is what supposedly makes me a digital native. I'm still not convinced!

Minecraft - using it as an educational tool. I tried to do a bit of homework before this session, I'd heard of Minecraft but never seen or played it, so I decided to take a demo of it and get a feel for what it is about. I was so inept I drowned myself 3 times in about an hour of play :( Anyway as an educational tool, I can see the benefits of Minecraft, build something collaboratively, project management, teamwork, decision making etc it is all there and in a fun way.

Sensory Pods - definitely the most fun thing of the day. An immersive learning experience where you have smell, sound, climate and movement to accompany the topic you are learning about or you can go in and chill out, which makes it ideal for learners with special needs, as it is a safe haven for them. This is todays version of Star Trek's holodeck, we are not quite as advanced as in Star Trek but we are getting there.

CoLRiC Roadshow, Durham - my top 5 most interesting points

Last week, I attended the CoLRiC Roadshow event in Durham. To help get me back into blogging, I am writing this post about it. Also to help me get back into blogging, i'm going to try to keep it fairly short by writing the top 5 things I took from it. These are in no particular order:

1. I enjoyed using the Socrative app, which is an online and mobile student response system app. I was pleasantly surprised that when I downloaded it onto my phone, I didn't have to put in my e-mail and password. It only asked for a room number, which is provided by the person taking the session.
2. Dundee and Angus College have front facing IT Technicians. This is very refreshing and sadly for most of us probably a pipedream.
3. In order to survive the LRC / library service needs to make itself essential to the College. To do this you need to identify what the College needs and then provide this service. Where I work the first service that springs to mind as being essential is our assignment submission service. This service allows students to hand in their work at a central location. I will be looking at the other services we provide to see if anymore are essential and also thinking about what else is needed that we could provide.
4. The Six Book Challenge can now be ran from September. The Reading Agency has moved up the timescale for when the packs are available to accommodate the academic year, as there are so many Colleges taking part now and some would like the full year to do it in. Whilst my College hasn't yet started running the Challenge, I am now going to give it another push and see if we can get a group going in September.
5. LRC induction done as a gameshow complete with compare and scoreboard using the Cephalonia method of learning - looks and sounds great. Done in a lecture theatre, so it reaches many students at once. I really like the idea and would love to give it a go.

Library Camp North East

I have heard a lot about Library Camps in the last year and wondered what they would be like, so I was excited at having one in the local area. I wasn't sure what to expect except for cake - an absolute must at these events. I knew the theory about them - whoever shows up are the right people and what we discuss are the right topics. 

This is actually a very refreshing idea because so many times I can look at conferences or training days and think that it is a narrow scope or predominently (to the point of exclusively) aimed at university libraries and whilst there is crossover in some areas, many current hot topics for universities are not for colleges until much later. Although it is good practice to have a wider knowledge and keep up with these things.

So an unconference, where anything can be discussed, surely would have a broad scope and diverse attendees. And so it proved to be, attendees where from assistant up to senior management level and from many different sectors which was wonderful. I got to meet new people from public and specialist sectors, many who have the same issues as I do in my library. I always find it reassuring that it isn't just me or my sector that has 'x' problem and it is fabulous that I can discuss with colleagues from the wider sector their approaches.

I very much enjoyed the Library Camp and recommend to others to go to one if you have the opportunity. It is a great way to discuss important issues in an informal manner.

ARLG Members Day

This was quite a long time ago now - 15 May at Regent's College which we now have to call Regent's University. I was especially interested in the sessions about partnerships with academics and creating learning hubs. These are both things that get spoken about a lot where I work, sometimes that's a good thing and other times it worries me.

Partnerships with academics

The partnership is similar to our curriculum liaison only dealing with specialist collections. This session discussed the proactive approach at Goldsmiths, University of London to marketing and making the most of their specialist collections by targeting groups and showing them what can be done for them. It raises awareness of the resources, their content and the profile of the department. I think that this is a very important aspect of library work because it demonstrates a high level of professionalism from the library staff and helps consolidates the importance of the library services to their institution. For many years we have tried to forge close links with the curriculum staff at the College and have had varying degrees of success. This year I think we have made a significant breakthrough by attending directorate meetings that give us an overview of the wider department and what their plans are. Now that there is a foothold, we can build on this and maybe this is a way forward. We have a wide range of resources many that are underused, with more awareness and targeted promotion of them they may start to get used more.

Creating learning hubs

This is something that worried me or so I thought. The term learning hub has been used to decentralise the library I work in and that is something I don't want to see happen. It feels like a step backwards because we were orignally on 4 sites and have been brought together onto 1 purpose built site. This session however wasn't actually about this kind of learning hub, it was looking at a new way of delivering information literacy and integrating the library into teaching and learning. This proved a very timely session for me, as my College are currently piloting self supported study which they hope to roll out across the College next academic year. My Senior Librarian and myself realise that this potenially could have a huge impact on our services and are going to review our information literacy provision during the summer to take into account these changes.

Going to the ARLG Members Day was extrememly useful for me, it has given me lots to think about and has provided a starting point from which I can review and build on my library's services.

Mobile Technologies webinar

I signed up for this webinar as I was curious to find out what other institutions are doing and to see if anyone had anything to say about using tablets in College. I wasn't disappointed, the presentations covered roving with an iPad and lending iPads to students. Both of these are to be introduced in my LRC within the next year.

iPads are good to rove with because they have a good battery life according to Jackie King, from Reaseheath College. She hasn't compared them to tablets so that is something I will need to consider before buying ours. A case or bag is needed to carry it, thus freeing up your hands and so that you don't put it down and then forget about it. I think that is especially important, whatever I get to carry it in though will depend on what I buy, as size and shape will be a factor. Jackie gave a list of free apps that she found useful for library staff to have on. This was interesting because at the moment I can't see my staff needing to use any apps, just internet. The purpose for me of introducing iPads or tablets, is to provide a better customer service by negating the need to go back to the enquiry desk to use a PC. I would like the ability to have apps, as I believe this is the way forward and I'm sure that once we are using the tablet or iPad, we will discover useful apps - Jackie's list will be a good starting point.

The second presentation was from Ihar Ivanou of North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, where they already lend iPads to students. They are lent for 4 hours, are issued from the LMS and the library try to make sure they are charged before lending. Students are allowed to use them for what they want, there have been no thefts and sometimes the iPad needs to be cleared of apps that students have downloaded. Originally students were asked to sign an agreement for use before they were allowed to borrow the iPads, this has since been abandoned as it was too much paperwork and the College agreement that students have to sign cover them anyway. This was of particular use because we have not decided yet how to loan out our tablets or iPads. There is an exisiting equipment for loan service, where staff can borrow different types of equipment to either aid their teaching or to help students do work. At the moment there are sets of netbooks that can be borrowed if the classroom does not have PCs. In the LRC, there are laptops for loan within the LRC for groupwork purposes or for when all PCs are in use. As we are looking at the tablets / iPads to replace the netbooks and laptops, we haven't decided whether to keep the same system as we have now or to change it, hearing Ihar has given me much to think about. Although it won't be solely my decision, I can take this information to my colleagues for consideration.

IOSH Managing Safely

Having recently been nominated the LRC health and safety representative, I found myself going to meetings and not having a clue about the subjects discussed. That isn't to say I didn't know anything about health and safety, I have a rudimentary idea, know it is important and common sense often tells me if something is a hazard. However, I wanted to know more and be in a better place to be able to represent my department and help contribute to the overall College strategy, so when the opportunity came up to attend the IOSH Managing Safely course, I was only too glad to sign up.

It was taught over 4 consecutive days, which is very intense for any course and on the 4th day there was even an exam to sit. I would have preferred a day a week or a short evening course, however I'd signed up so I had to get on with it.

The course covers:

·         Introducing Managing Safely

·         Assessing risks

·         Controlling risks

·         Understanding your responsibilities

·         Identifying hazards

·         Investigating accidents and incidents

·         Measuring performance

·         Protecting our environment

All are interlinked especially when you come to do risk assessments, which is the final project on the course. It also proved timely from the point of view that the LRC risk assessments need updating and having done this course; I am more confident in doing the risk assessments and understand more what I’m looking for and why. These are ongoing currently, I haven’t had time to do them all yet for this year. One of the most positive things for me to come out of the course was being able to understand the reports I was reading that come to me as part of the Health and Safety Committee meeting papers. I know that if I hadn’t done this course most of it would have had to be explained to me. I would definitely recommend doing this course if you have health and safety responsibilities and believe me when I say - you all do, the buck might not stop with you but everyone is responsible for health and safety.

ALT-C 2012

I attended my first Association of Learning Technologists (ALT) Conference in September, primarily because I was co-presenting a short paper with my former line manager, Claire. Although the Conference was over 3 days, I only attended the day I was presenting, which was Wednesday 12th September.

The things that struck me immediately was that it seemed a bigger conference than i'd attended before (I don't know if it was) and that the format of it was very different to what I was used to. 

The format is what I want to explore because unlike other conferences I've attended with traditional keynote speeches and hour long workshops, this conference is multifaceted regarding the 'workshops'. This is in inverted commas as it needs an explanation. Where you would normally have an hour long conference workshop, ALT-C has a variety of things:

• PechaKucha sessions of no more than 10 mins and 9 slides
• Short papers (20 mins)
• Symposia (60 mins)
• Workshops (60 mins)
• Demonstrations (30 mins)
• Hybrids - combinations of the above (60 mins)

The sessions were in 1 - 1.20 hour blocks, so if you were attending the PechaKuchas or short paper sessions, you got a variety of presentations. This I found liberating because it meant that I was hearing about many different things in a short space of time, keeping me interested and alert.

My presentation was part of an Institutional Mainstreaming theme and in this session there were 4 presentations (inclusive of mine). I got to hear about:

• Open University's final year projects that use a peer open forum to help students choose their topic
• mainstreaming e-learning and innovation in higher education teaching
• and possibly the most inspiring talk I have ever attended, about the use of lecture capture technology to deliver classes for students of the American University in Cairo (whose main campus is in Cairo's main square) during the Arab Spring

I especially like this as it means that even though you are presenting, you are not missing out on hearing about other people's experiences. I felt at the ARLG Conference I went to in June, I was missing out on very interesting sessions, as I was presenting when they were on. The short papers at ALT-C meant I presented for part of the session and then it was someone else's turn. Granted, I had no choice over what I was hearing about in this session but I felt I was learning something, rather than only sharing my experience.

The next 'workshop' I attended was a PechaKucha session. Claire and I went along to this, in support of my colleague Richard, who was presenting. Here (including Richard) there were 5 presentations, which gave a succinct overview of each topic. The PechaKucha sessions didn't have any overarching broad theme like the short papers, (other than their use of e-learninig technologies). They again provided an interesting and diverse range of presentations that kept the delegates engaged.

The last session I attended had the broad theme of Changing Learners. The presentations here were about using digital sorytelling for reflective practice and using social media as an audience response system. Again I got a brief introduction to the subjects. I think that when you are at a conference this is all you need. You can't take in all the information you are receiving, so for me I would rather take away lots of small introductory ideas and then follow up by contacting presenters, than hear something very in depth but then forgetting most if it due to an information overload. I appreciate that other people may want the in depth information and that option is available through the other 'workshops'. This variety is why I think that the multifaceted option of workshops offered at ALT-C is a fantastic idea.

Marketing my LRC

Over the last few months, things in the LRC haven't gone very well. We feel like we are not valued at all by the senior management and despite efforts to convince that we are a very valuable service, we have taken a hit. So what to do to futureproof?

Marketing is my answer.

And that is why I have Ned Potter's Library Marketing Toolkit on my desk at work with post its sticking out all over and why I chose to go on the Marketing Libraries: strategic and creative communications for information professionals course.

The first session How do you like your eggs in the morning? provided a fascinating insight into how the University of Sunderland library market their service. They have created a 7 step toolkit to create marketing plans:

1. Identify strategic direction
2. Do SWOT analysis
3. Profile customer segments
4. Match offers to segments
5. Transform offers into benefits
6. Translate benefits into messages
7. Plan communication campaign

I think that I already do part of this unconsciously and that I would benefit more by writing and recording it as they do at Sunderland.  I especially like the trees they used for feedback, which were visible and fun. You can see more about their marketing campaigns on their Pinterest page.

I have been told by my manager that he will get us (him, our e-Learning Manager and myself) a monthly slot on the senior management team meeting agenda, where we can promote our services and shout out about what we do. I would like to use the 7 step toolkit to start planning which services to promote. I therefore expect the handouts from this session to end up on my desk alongside the Library Marketing Toolkit book.

The second session was about Social Media Marketing for Libraries and this session reinforced what I have read in the Library Marketing Toolkit. Currently I have a Twitter and Facebook account for the LRC and that is quite enough. They are not updated as regularly as they should be and I wish to address that. I have started with Twitter by tidying it up and tweeting more, I now need to turn my attention to the Facebook page, to see what needs sorting and to start to use that more effectively. I know that there are College Flickr and You Tube accounts too and hope that I can make use of those in my social media campaigns.

The third session was about being consistent and creative with branding. I have spent the summer trying to do this with the current marketing materials that we have and the few new ones that we had to do. I am pleased with the overall effect of what has been produced, it builds on the excellent LRC Guide that was produced last year with bite size information and everything now has a College logo on, so that we are aligned and a part of the College brand. This I think may go some way to help build the reputation and value that we desire.

The final session of the day was about marketing in small specialised libraries (in this case York Minster Library) and looked at the library being a place to belong not just visit. Although this session was a very different type of marketing to what I would expect in an academic library, it was still useful, as well as being very interesting and excellently presented by Antonio Jiminez-Milian. What I got out of this session was that you can promote your values and what you want to be associated with by using status updates. To do this you retweet or like updates from bodies, institutions etc that share your values. So I will be reviewing my Twitter account again (and looking into this when I review the Facebook account) and looking at following people who share the same values as the College and LRC want to promote. 

I hope my efforts are not in vain and that indeed the LRC does build its reputation up and start to feel like we are valued and are an important part of the College.

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

York Minster Library and Search Engine, National Railway Museum Visits

For our summer workforce development, I arranged a visit to York to see the Minster library and Search Engine, the National Railway Museum's (NRM) library.

We started off at York Minster Library, which is very old and looks like something from Harry Potter. They have floor to ceiling shelving around the rooms with the small books at the top and the large books at the bottom. This is because of the shelving design, which has the taller shelving at the bottom and the smallest shelving at the top. The cataloguing therefore is rather unique, the bays are numbered, then the shelves are numbered and the catalogue number is finally completed by how far the book is along the shelf. Easy!

We were treated to the delights of 'The Cage', which is a caged off area where the oldest books are. We got to see a book from the 16th century which contained 'all the knowledge in the world'. It started with the biblical stories and went through political history up until the then present time. It was fabulously illustrated and had been annotated by a previous owner. We discovered that as paper was originally very expensive, people would use every bit they had to write things on (including shopping lists). From 'The Cage', we went up the obligatory spiral staircase to the balcony area, where we saw some elaborately bound books. My favourite one was like a small handbag.

The second visit was to Search Engine at the NRM. Now being a railwayman's daughter and a bit of an anorak, this was tremendously exciting for me. We started off by being shown around the public area, which is light, bright and modern. Then we were taken down into the bowels of the NRM, to see the library archive area. Wow! 

They have a huge collection of blueprints of engineering designs. There was the original (signed by Stanier) copy of the Duchess of Hamilton blueprints laid out on table. We moved on to the book collection, with rolling stacks. That's rolling stacks, a library thing, not to be confused with the rolling stock, a railway thing. Although I suppose libraries can have a rolling stock, if they want but it would have nothing to do with trains. Search Engine's archive has allsorts of ephemera too such as a collection of railway tickets and we saw Stephenson's written design for the Rocket. From here, we entered the seriously cool (that's refering to the temperature) poster collection and original art collection. Many of these were used for promotion purposes and because of the materials used, have to be kept somewhat refrigerated. We were all very jealous that their climate control system works far better than the one we have at work.

We saw 2 very different libraries and both are seriously different to our FE library. They were incredibly interesting to go to and it was interesting to hear what kind of challenges they face, particularly regarding the preservation of each collection. The Minster was cool and their stained glass windows have had to have dark blinds put over them to keep the sunlight out. The NRM being a much more modern building has a state of the art climate control system, where we started off in a cool area and end up going into a very cold area. Any of these would be welcome at work, where our Office temperature can be quite tropical.

ARLG Conference 2012

This post is going to look at the workshops I attended as a delegate.

Writing Right for Twitter by Meg Westbury. 

Meg was looking at how companies / institutions can engage and connect with their users rather than just putting information on Twitter. Her top tips are:

• Know your audience
• Clearly state the idea
• Make the Tweets frequent and varied
• Well thought out
• Use short, descriptive and action words
• Use headline formula
• Write them knowing they might be shared i.e. don't use all 140 characters, leave room for comment

The workshop built in time for the delegates to rewrite example Tweets using Meg's tips. This was very popular and illustrated the need to think about Tweets before writing them. I will be trying to use these tips when Tweeting both at work and for my own account.

How to Make Yourself Almost Irreplacable by Steve Lee. 

Steve started the session with asking us to work in groups and write down what we dislike about supermarkets. The comparison being that as it is a customer facing business many of our dislikes of the supermarkets transfers to a library too.

His suggestion for improvement is to get out of the library. Go and talk to the tutors and find out what they want and need from the library, then see how we can meet those needs.

Top tips are:

• Send new book and journal information to staff. This may take time initially but then the process can be automated, saving library staff time whilst still giving the tutors what they need
• Respond in a timely fashion to any issues
• Trial new ideas, if they don't work you can go back to your original way of doing things
• Do surgeries in departments, you may need to be proactive to start with but it breaks down barriers and eventually work of mouth leads to people approaching you for advice and help. It was noted that roving skills are useful when doing surgeries.

At work there is a desire for the library staff to eventually become partly based in the departments. I think that if I can trial surgeries in the new academic year, this will help to make that transition.

LRCs and Flexible Learning Environments by Sue Caporn and Vicki Bowd. 

This was one of the most amazing ideas I've seen. Their library at City of Bristol College has no boundaries, basically if you are in a communal area, you are in the library. They have technology for people to borrow (all are catalogued on their LMS), the classrooms don't have PCs, they borrow laptops from the library and all the library staff have an ePICT qualification to ensure that they can help with any queries. They are hoping that eventually everything will be self issue.

This kind of idea, whilst innovative, would have to be a concept that is bought into throughout the College and might not work in buildings that have not been designed to cope with this strategy. I very much like the idea but somehow can't see it working where I work, although we do have equipment for loan and are looking to extend this.

Putting a Face to a Name by Leanne Young.

This looked at using technology with overseas distance learners. Leanne told us that currently distance learning is not done by VLE and that to help students she has been trialling free resources, as she doesn't have a budget to buy anything. She has used AnyMeeting to hold sessions with students. This requires a lot of preparation which she has done via Google docs to collate the information she has gathered in order to set up the meetings. She also makes heavy use of Tumblr, so that information is easily available to the students and in one place.

The scheme although quite small at the moment is very popular, with students being able to see Leanne and know that she is their to help them. She made the point that in some countries the librarian is not expected to be there to help students and part of what she wanted to do, was to get the message out that it is her job to help them and that they should feel free to contact her whenever they needed to. 

Although I don't work with distance learners per se, there are students who are not traditional learners and I think that some of Leanne's ideas could work with them. I look forward to trying some of them out.

I have totally enjoyed the Conference and have so many new ideas to think about. Some of them can be implemented straight away and others will take some planning. I hope that all will benefit and enhance the library experience. 

Presenting at ARLG Conference 2012

I attended the inaugural ARLG Conference last week in Newcastle, both as a presenter and a delegate. In this post, I am going to write about workshops I presented. I will write a second post about what I attended as a delegate.

I was presenting a workshop with my manager and e-Learning Manager, about student experience, expectations and how we meet them. As we are relatively local to Newcastle (an hour's drive away) we were asked if we would present the session twice. 

The first workshop we did was in the Workshop 1 slot, so early in the Conference after the first keynote speech. I was quite nervous about it, as circumstances at work had meant we had prepared the workshop but not had time to practice. We had each practiced our own bits individually but it was not the preparation we had wanted it to be. 

At first the attendees were relatively quiet and I couldn't decide if this was because they were tired from travelling, unsure of interacting more or just plain bored. Once the session got into full flow and they started doing the tasks we'd set, they became more animated.

The second workshop we did was in the Workshop 3 slot, mid - late morning of the second day. It was held in a different room to the first one and had a stage / podium for the presenters. This I found daunting and slightly uncomfortable.

My style of presenting is that I physically point to things that are displaying on the electronic whiteboard e.g. particular things in my Powerpoint or where the login button is for a database etc. In this room the whiteboard was high on the wall and unreachable, so I had to modify my style by describing which part of my slide I was talking about. Also as my physical position was static, I felt I was hidden behind the PC and desk and when asked questions from the left hand side of the room (as I looked at it) felt as though I was peering out from behind the PC. It doesn't help that i'm not very tall. 

Whilst the stage made the presenter easier to see for the audience, it made me notice how much attention is focussed on the presenters. The elevated status of the stage compared to the floor level definitely draws attention. I feel much more comfortable at floor level where, although you are centre of attention as presenter, you don't feel as noticeable.

The attendees at this session were straight away more interactive than in the first session, I think because they were more comfortable with the dynamics of the Conference by this point. This put me more at ease on the stage. I did have a chance to get in amongst the audience during the tasks and this helped to break down any remaining barriers. This session I felt went better than the first one, as it had more contributions from the attendees.

In the end both sessions were successful with good contributions and discussions from the attendees. They were though very different due to the timing and the rooms.