80 New Professionals Walk Into a Bar...

Actually, they weren't ALL New Professionals, maybe 10% of them had never worked in libraries at all; plus it wasn't a bar, it was CILIP HQ, although later, a lot of them did go to a bar.... Friday saw the first of the New Professionals Information Days for this year (to read about how they came about, check out this earlier post) and I had a great time; everyone else seemed to do so, too. Kathy Ennis of CILIP's Membership Support Unit put together a little organising committee to plan the day, which I loved being part of. We tried to plan a unique day and one that improved on the previous years' Graduate Days and I think it worked - I liked the structure, I thought the content was useful, and most of all I liked the combination of speakers. We tried to ensure that New Professionals ran the workshops, but the keynotes were from inspirational leaders in the profession. The result was a day that, hopefully, wasn't like any other library event this year - and I'm certain you won't find another programme that good without paying considerably more for entry than nothing at all, which is what Friday's event cost the delegates...

I really enjoyed Lex Rigby (link below) and Katie Fraser's presentations (I couldn't see any more because in a late change I ended up doing a session myself, which I wasn't looking forward to but went fine I think) and I loved the keynote presentations from Phil Bradley and Maxine Miller, which I thought dove-tailed nicely. It was exhilerating stuff! Highlights for me included:

• Phil saying "all bets are off"
• Phil saying "this is the most exciting time EVER to be a librarian"
• Phil saying "don't assume people know more than you - at least don't take it on trust. If someone says 'I'ved worked in this industry for 20 years' they may just have worked the same year 20 times..." (I didn't take notes at the time so aplogies Phil if those aren't exactly right)
• Maxine giving a talk without notes which was, she later told us, completely different from what she had planned! I don't want to make too much of her ethnicity as the awesomeness of her talk had nothing to do with that, but it was so nice to see a non-white face presenting at a library conference! Also to be in charge of the Tate's library is a pretty cool job, too...
• Attempting to use Muffins as a bribe to get the audience talking, and finding the one audience member who was so allergic to chocolate she couldn't even have the spiced apple one because it had been in the same bag.. (thanks for speaking up anyway though!)
• Using my iPhone for my notes rather than a piece of paper - I only did that because of #epicprinterfail but it actually worked quite well
• Meeting new CILIP CEO Annie Mauger who popped in at lunch time - impressive considering it was her first full day in the job!
• Lots of people saying how useful they were finding the day

After the event there was a LISNPN meet-up in the pub around the corner from CILIP. There were many reasons that I loved this - getting to meet people properly and get to know them was one, seeing information professionals coming in out of the rain, not really knowing anyone but turning up and throwing themselves into the fray, was another. Plus, marvelling with Chris Rhodes that the network we'd created had progressed from online to face-to-face events so quickly, and not only that but events that were nothing to do with us! That's absolutely awesome - if all LISNPN members can take it upon themselves to organise regional meet-ups, using the network to advertise them, then that's just fantastic. The network is so much stronger if it is self-organising. Thanks so much to Bethan and Laura who've organised spontaneous events so far! Final highlight was meeting a very nice bloke in the pub who said he'd been wondering about librarianship for a while, applied for a few things but not got anything he wanted, and today was make or break for him in terms of pursuing it as a career. And we made him! (Rather than broke him - I don't mean we forced him...) He really enjoyed the day, it opened his eyes, and made him really want to do it for a living.

So 80 New Professionals went into a conference - I think the veterans among them were inspired anew, the brand new ones found out there was more support and engagement than they'd imagined, and the people who were not librarians at all at the start of the day either ended up committed to the profession, or scared off it entirely - and I'm fine with that; better to find out now what it's all about than get a job and realise it's much more intense than they realised later...

If you're in the North of England, book on the Newcastle one now! November 23rd, Newcastle City Library. Even if you have to take a few hours off work it's worth it; it really will be a great day...

Other stuff relating to NPID2010:

• evil_jen's blog post
• Lex Rigby's blog post
• Neon Librarian's post
• Annie's blog post
• Girl in the Moon's blog post
• Libraries, the Universe and Everything blog post
• Tina Reynold's blog post
• The slides from Phil's presentation
• The slides from Nicolás's presentation
• A tweet archive of all the #NPID2010 Twitter activity
• Twitter archive analysis
• Some pictures from CILIPInfo

- thewikiman

Blogging is growing up: why be merely commentators when we can be activists?

I get really wound up when people dismiss blogging as a dead medium. I feel the same instinctive aggressive defensiveness that older professionals must feel when we New Professionals suggest their ideas and methods might be out-moded, because I like it and I've invested so much in it, and I'm ill equipped to move on from it. Recent events have given me cause for optimism that my faith in the medium is justified, because in the library world there appears to have been a subtle shift from those of us in the biblioblogosphere just being 'describers' to becoming 'doers' as well. There's just as much conversation, but a little more action too.

Even in the short-time since Laura and I did our Echo Chamber presentation (and if you missed it, we will hopefully be doing it twice in November both Up North and Down South, so stay tuned for that) a whole load of people seem to have gone out and broken free of the Chamber - particularly gratifying for us is that Lauren Smith (aka @WalkYouHome) was catalysed by the presentation into thinking she COULD actually make a difference herself, and SHOULD actually start trying to make things happen. Since then she's turned into a veritable one-woman media savvy library saving machine... Guardian articles, appearances on Radio 4 and 5Live, a Save Doncaster Libraries campaign getting wide recognition and generally actually making a difference - and, in fact, the use of 'one-woman library saving machine' in that description isn't accurate as she's clubbed together with several other library bloggers to launch Voices for the Library.

Voices for the Library involves no less than 8 librarians, many of whom have previously provided much comment and analysis of library problems (via various online platforms) but all of whom now felt moved to get out there and DO stuff. The result is an excellent website which is getting thousands upon thousands of hits, is being promoted in Library Campaigner Alan Gibbon's blog (great to see librarians and non librarians working together), and contains loads of stories and accounts highlighting the value of libraries and more particularly, librarians. More than that it has a page entitled 'What librarians do' - I love that, I've argued so many times I'm bored of hearing myself say it: if people knew what we do, they'd value our services and use them more. It's ignorance of our actual existence in 2010 that is at the route of a lot of the problems regarding library perception, and it is OUR job to right that perception.

Right before I started this blog, I presented at my first proper conference on the subject of how we're defined by our building, as librarians, and how unfair that was (and, indeed, is). I was quite happy to see my job as flagging up the problem. But actually it is my job to try and change that perception, at every opportunity, and by multiple means - not just talk about how that's what we should do. When the echolib thing first started, I was happy to just identify the problem. But now the presentations we're doing are offering up solutions, and because the Prezi is acting as a living archive of suggestions, more and more solutions will be added over time. And if just one person in the audience at each event (we're booked up for four so far over a 12 month period and we may end up doing more) is moved to try and change stuff in the way Lauren has been, then things really will start changing.

People are quite immunised to the argument that if we all did something little, something big would happen. People say, well I could take the train to this conference so as to save the planet, but if everyone else takes the plane anyway it won't make any difference. But what people seem to be proving recently is that actually you don't need EVERYONE to do something for it to be effective - even just a few people are able to be agents of real change. Me taking the time to explain to someone what librarians do next time I'm asked why I need a degree in it, rather than shirking the question, will make a tiny difference. But if the three or four hundred people who read this ALL take the time next time they're asked that question, and continue to do so as time goes on, that'll make a small difference and a worthwhile one. That's really the LEAST you can do - take serendipitous opportunities to enlighten people. And if you're feeling gutsy, go a little further and create opportunities for yourself. [preaching mode disengaged :) ]

Since I wrote all of the above, @reddite tweeted the following: "There is a difference between wanting libraries to be saved and wanting to save libraries". I'm really excited that people in the biblioblogosphere seem to be understanding of that difference, and moving from the former camp to the latter.

-thewikiman

The LIS Masters is a qualification of convenience

A few times recently I've read blog posts about the LIS (or Library & Information Management, or whatever version you want to call it) degree. Mostly this focuses on the Masters, because very few people I know actually have the full under-grad degree (although there are some). A recent post on the excellent Agnostic, Maybe blog has clarified my thinking.

Disclaimer: this is just my view, based on my own experiences of the degree I completed. As always this blog represents my views alone and, god knows, not those of my employer - in fact for this post, just to be on the safe side, this blog doesn't even represent my own views. :)

I think the reasons the LIS qualification is most often a Masters are just reasons of convenience. Reason 1: The vast majority of library staff do NOT know they want to join the Information sector at the age of 17, when people are deciding which degree to do. So, if we want people to have degrees, we need them to be able to complete them as something of an after thought, most usually whilst working. Which is to say - it can't take a full three years, who can wait that long? So it needs to be a Masters, that can be done via Distance Learning if necessary. Reason 2: is there three years of stuff you can teach about library work, really? Really, though? Perhaps if you cover all types of librarianship yes - school, health, academic, business, public, special. But when people realise they need the qualification, they are probably past the primer course stage. The reason which is conspicuous by its absence is: the subject matter and level of learning is at a very advanced level that couldn't realistically be achieved by an undergraduate.

I think my Masters course was, to all intents and purposes, a 1 year under-grad course. There was not much about it that you could conclusively say: this is POST-GRAD level stuff. It was just latter stages of BA type stuff, with the possible exception of the dissertation - but you don't NEED to do a super advanced dissertation to get a pass in the Masters. I've done another Masters, an MA, so I do know what post-grad study is like - that felt like another level on from my undergraduate learning; my BSc did not. I'm sure this isn't the case across the board: I've heard great things about the course at Sheffield, and obviously the UCL one is supposed to be fantastic as well - but these are both residential and, increasingly, the majority of LIS Masters are coming via Distance Learning courses, so I think my experience may be the norm rather than the exception. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I thought I was just doing the course to get the piece of paper to get a better job - and I was, but actually I learned some really interesting stuff too. But when it comes to an employer assessing me for a role, are they going to know, look into, or even care what I learned on the course? Almost certainly not (I'm in the academic sector; it may be different elsewhere) - for a start the library Masters very quickly becomes out-dated because this field moves so quickly. What the employer needs to know is that I'm the type of person who did the Masters course - which is to say committed to the profession, willing to learn, committed to professional development, ambitious and here for the long haul - not that I learned about Research Methods and wrote a God-awful essay about it.

As part of the big CILIP conversational survey, there was a question about the value of CILIP ratified qualifications. It hadn't really occurred to me that there could be any kind of library Masters that wasn't, but I do know that CILIP continued to allow Leeds MET to be a certified course long past the time when any students on it believed it should have been; I don't think CILIP can have assessed them very thoroughly if they continued to allow the course to run, by all accounts. So I'm not sure there's value in the Masters being given the CILIP seal of approval either.

The Masters is also extremely expensive - my Distance Learning MSc was twice as expensive as my part-time MA. And as Andy Woodworth (again) just pointed out on Twitter, the course is a one-size-fits-all librarians course which doesn't specialise in academic or public or any other type of librarianship. One year to study ALL types, even when some of them have almost nothing in common with each other?

So basically we have a system where we ALL, all of us who are working in libraries as a vocation rather than just as a job, have to fork out a fortune for a not-really-that-advanced degree which everyone else has anyway, that has to be a jack of so many sectors it can't really afford to be a master of any of them, a degree that means you can tick the boxes on the application form but doesn't actually help you in the interview, and which those outside the library profession are astonished to hear exists at all!

I'm not trying to undermine anyone who has the Masters, I'm not trying to besmirch the good people to teach the courses - I'm not even trying to devalue it, as I'd be very surprised if I apply for any job in the next 50 years which doesn't list it as a requirement on the person spec. I suppose what I'm trying to say with this post is, why are we all of us complicit in a system that is so obviously unsatisfactory? Employers, employees, CILIP, and library schools.

Is this really a good state of affairs to be happy with? Can we change it? If so, what do we do, what are the alternatives?

-thewikiman

This isn't just a library, it's an M&S library...

So they want to put libraries in supermarkets, eh? Well that could work - depends on the supermarket. Iceland - maybe not. Kerry Katona eating snack-sized party favourites whilst dead-eyededly telling Jason Donavon about how she saved 33% on her access to SWETS resources, equals bad. But Marks & Spencer, on the other hand...

With deliciously free Wifi access, and an achingly gooey selection of online resources wrapped up in gorgeous single sign-in, presented on a bed of modern, bright interior with brightly coloured children's areas, filled choc-full of tender, flavoursome books, CDs and DVDs and more...

Etc etc.

Anyway, I'm behind. I only get online for short periods of time at the moment. But today I've had an hour or so to catch up with the latest headline grabbing library statistics, which equate to a drop in public library use in this country. I've got a big old blog post on statistics planned when I get more of an opportunity - in the mean time though, Ian Clark's piece is essential reading for everyone - read it now! :) The part of it that is really interesting is statistics from CIPFA show that while library footfall is indeed down, the numbers of web visits is up (from 07/08 to 08/09) by a massive 49%. A hypothesis immediately presents itself - the way people use libraries is changing, they don't have to visit them so often due to the accessibility that comes with internet access (not least because they can renew book loans online - that alone accounts for a huge amount of library visits no longer necessary), so although visits to the building are down, the use of the library per se is not.

Sadly, the Government - or, to be more specific, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport - have NOT chosen to take into account internet access in the report which forms the basis for the recent headlines. Take a look at the report for yourself - you can download the spreadsheets detailing the figures, as well as the actual Word document with all the analysis, here. It's 2010, yet the report only looks at library use from the point of view of whether its subject, to quote it directly, 'Has visited a public library in the last year'.

[snarky aside] Guess how I accessed this report? Online. So does that mean that, according to this report's way of analysing 'use', I haven't read it at all because I didn't go to Westminster in person and pick up a paper copy?

Buffoons. [/snarky aside]

Anyway, the figures are quite interesting - mainly fairly miserable reading, but the clouds part to let some light through on occasion:

• Black and ethnic minority use of libraries is up since last year (it's only by less than half a percent, but hey, no one reads the details of these things anyway, right?)
• People who are religious but who don't classify themselves as Christian's use of libraries is up since last year (same again with it being by only a tiny amount, but still)
• 11-15 year old girls use the library quite a bit more than they did in 2006/07 when the figures were first collected
• The number of 5 to 10 year olds (of both sexes) who have visited the library 'in the last we'ek has gone up by more than 20% over last year...

HA! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, doom-mongers! On a serious note, I think that's encouraging - good to see that even during a down-turn in overall visitation, some minority groups are finding more reasons to visit than before. Incidentally, the report says, more than once, "The decrease in library visits is consistent across all socio-demographic groups." Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems quite a sweeping statement in light of the stats above. If the report itself glosses over any positives, what hope is there of the headlines picking up on anything other than the negatives? In the same Ian Clark blog post I linked to above, he makes another point I think is interesting, true, and very important: "...the narrative is not being controlled by the profession but by those who either do not understand the service or are trying to undermine it for their own ends." In this case, the Government itself is undermining the service with a report whose own headline conclusions are apparently determined to see only the negative even where the figures can be seen positively - it doesn't take much of a cynic to interpret this as a classic Tory 'softening up' before they unleash massive cuts. Happy days. How can we take back control of the narrative?

Interestingly, the sample size used to generate the recent, poor figures, are much, much lower than the sample size of the earlier ones. Does that mean the figures are wrong? Probably not, but they are certainly slightly less valid than the original ones - asking 6,000 people about their library use does not represent England nearly as well as asking nearer 30,000. Some of the regions surveyed are only represented by a couple of hundred respondents. Anyway.

Libraries in pubs and supermarkets? Yeah, why not.

Among the proposals the Government are considering is sticking libraries into pubs and supermarkets apparently. This has perhaps understandably met with some derision from the library community. But actually, I think this idea is considering.

Providing the pub and shop branches didn't replace actual purpose-built libraries, why not take our resources to where the people are already? After all, that's why social media works so well - that's why we all love Twitter. Because we're on Twitter anyway, so the news, views, links etc come to us. So why not follow a similar principle with libraries? Clearly the part of libraries that would easily transport to other venues is mainly going to be the traditional 'borrow a book' part - but that's okay, it will get people interested, and maybe, just maybe, they'll be tempted to visit the library proper and see what else we have to offer.

Maybe there'll even be a Halo Effect! (See the comments section of this previous blog post.) So to use the example in that link, the National Archive digitise collections, and then withdraw them from circulation in order to preserve them. They do this on an epic scale; more and more gets digitised every day. The statistical upshot of this is fascinating - physical consultation of the actual collections they digitise goes down (in most cases to near zero), but physical consultation overall goes up. People are finding what they want online, and they get so hooked and interested that they end up requesting other stuff which hasn't been digitised, so they have to go to TNA to see it in the paper. Digital use and paper use are both way up, together.

Perhaps it is worth, then, trying to embrace the idea of libraries in different places and ensure it's done well so we can reap any benefits, rather than just assuming it's a completely hopeless idea...

- thewikiman

taking a hit for the (library) team

NB: have renamed this blog post; it used to be called why we can't help mixing our messages

Woodsiegirl and I referred to the excellent M Word library marketing blog a lot in our Echo Chamber presentation - if you've got any interest in the marketing / advocacy side of libraries at all, it's an essential subscribe. One of the things we quoted was a recent post on mixing your messages - one example being with regards to (arguably out-dated) policies:

"Come in and spend the afternoon here, but don't bring anything to eat or drink!" "We're all about new technology, but turn off those cell phones!" "Please use our resources, but if you owe more than $2.00 in fines, you can't borrow anything."

Kathy Dempsey (who wrote the piece) makes the point that all these policies are there for a reason, but we must continually reasses that reasoning and make sure it's still valid. My own view, and I made this point in the Echolib presentation, is that it might be worth taking a hit for the greater good. Which is to say, if we relax our rules, and downgrade the sanctity of the book, then the losses this will cause in terms of alienating some users and allowing a minority to basically take the mickey out of us, may be worthwhile for the gains in terms of repositioning the library as a more welcoming, modern and inclusive facility.

My own local library in York has just reopened after refurbishment, as an 'Explore' Library Learning Centre' - cue predictable hurrumphing about the name. I'm fine with it, of course - rebranding is part of what needs to happen to libraries, and while no one wants to alienate core users, if there is a net gain in patronage then that's a good thing in what are change-or-die times for the public library sector. Anyway, I decided I needed to use my local library more as this blog often talks about library advocacy, so I went along to check it out - it's actually really ace! There's no specific entrance or exit, which is really nice (don't ask me how they stop people stealing books) - you just walk into the building and are met with several doors in a semi-circle, all leading straight to books and other resources. All books are RFID'd so the self-service machines seem like magic to those not familiar with that technology ("You don't have to scan anything, it just knows what you've put in it!") and there is, of course, a very nicely appointed new cafe. My top tip for local library usage: have the Amazon app on your phone, so you can check your wishlist when you're in there. No more 'my mind has gone blank - what do I want to read again?' moments. :)

To get to my point about mixing messages - I was marvelling at all this, and remembering one of the presentations from NPC2010, and thinking to myself, not for the first time: I have pretty much none of the required skills to work here. I've got a good job, in a library, yet never in a million years could I get even an interview at York public library, because the skills-set, the neccessary experience, and the day-to-day activities are so different from mine. I said this to my wife, and she said 'yes but you don't do normal librarian stuff do you?' I know what she meant (that I work in the digital arena more than anything) but really there IS no normal librarian stuff - there IS no role which constitutes an 'average' for a library worker. So it's no wonder we can't help mixing our messages, because our messages are just so diverse. How can we get across what we do to those outside our echo-chamber if we don't even have much in common with our own peers? It's tough to consolidate all of our activities into a single marketable nugget - although, as I've suggested before (.PDF), the two threads which seem to run through 90% of jobs whose salary is paid by the library are the use of IT, and problem solving.

When people think of 'a librarian' they think of front-of-house staff, either on the counter or the enquiries desk. I wonder what percentage of staff in the industry actually do that stuff?

- thewikiman