Spoon feed them, then give them the spoon, then chuck away the spoon

I seem to have a different view to a lot of information professionals in that I'm all for spoon-feeding. It's a loaded term - I'm actually all for the process it involves, rather than the philosophy it evokes. Above all, I think libraries are there to provide information and we should do this in as straightforward a manner as possible. Crucially, I think we can spoon-feed the students AND give them the skills they need to ditch the spoon entirely over time.

(There's an on-going debate in academic librarianship about spoon-feeding - should we give students all the help they need and make things as easy as possible, or should we be looking to educate them so they can fend for themselves? For example, providing digitised materials via the VLE - many people object to this, because if the reading is put on a plate for them, how will the students learn to find good quality literature? Etc. Simon Barron wrote a very thoughtful post on the subject yesterday, and linked in the comments are other bloggers' views on the same subject: Jo Alcock, Georgina Hardy and Sian Blake.)

Ideally, though, spoon-feeding should be the first step in a structured approach to helping students navigate their way through a degree, with the library embedded and responsive at all stages. I'm all too aware of where the phrase derives from because I have a 17-month-old daughter (or "17 month-yearold" as I always seem to call her) - we feed her with a spoon. We also give her a spoon of her own so she can feed herself. We're just starting to get rid of the spoon, and let her loose on a fork. The point being, spoon-feeding isn't a directive or a philosophy or an way-of-life, it's a stage - just as it should be with information in education.

She absolutely had to be spoon-fed at first because she couldn't feed herself - it was spoon-feed or no food at all. This is analogous for undergrads, for me - I think we underestimate how stark the change is from school and Further Education to Higher Education, and they have a LOT to adjust to in their first term without the library contributing to their problems as part of some misguided belief that it's for 'their own good'. If possible, we should be digitising all the core readings for undergrad modules, and putting them in the VLE, so that the students definitely get to read what they need to read. This allows them to participate fully in their lectures and seminars, which is more important than their level of information literacy at this stage. I used to run a digitisation service that did this, and the lecturers loved it because it allowed them to teach in the knowledge that EVERYONE had done the reading - without it, there were always people who couldn't get hold of the book in the library in time.

One department had a pedagogical objection to the digitisation programme and didn't use it - they said this wasn't preparing the students for real life because they didn't have to come to the library, learn to use the catalogue, find books on the shelves etc. But of course, real life isn't like that - real life is using Google because in 99% of cases that's perfectly adequate. I liked this quote from Georgina Hardy:

We must be very careful not to value process above principles.  Because, let’s face it, the skills of getting good results from a Library Catalogue, remembering to reserve books over a month in advance in order to photocopy a single chapter, and negotiating a complicated, publisher-specific, multi-stage login procedure to access journals from off-campus are skills only useful to those students who wish to go on to become Librarians.

Or, indeed, researchers / academics...

Once students get past the crazyness of their first couple of terms, that's when we can start trying to help them develop the skills to find stuff for themselves. I'm currently looking after English at my institution, and I really like the approach of one of the lecturers - she's requested that the core readings be digitised, but she's got me in to do a workshop (or 7 workshops, actually...) in the second term all about how to find secondary readings, via e-journals, Google Scholar and so on. This is just right, for me - give the students what they need to function, AND teach them how to get stuff for themselves. It doesn't have to be one or the other - spoon-feed whilst teaching them to use the spoon is surely the way forward?

Ideally the library shouldn't be only involved in teaching at the start and the end of the degree. This is often how it works - we do loads of stuff during induction (literally week 1 of their academic lives!) and then get parachuted in at the end to provide much needed aid on the eve of exams or dissertations. Ideally, we'd do some stuff in the 2nd year - guiding their hand as they use the spoon themselves - and again at the start of their 3rd year - getting rid of the spoon and giving them the skills they need to find food for themselves from any number of sources. This 2nd and 3rd year intervention should be based on the level the students have reached, and the needs they have then.

This way, we get to be helpful in the way students actually want (and in the way that will ensure good NSS scores which is, of course, The Only Thing That Matters In HE) and will expect for their 9k a year, and we get to teach them to help themselves in the way they actually need in the long-term. Quite apart from anything else, if the students are getting what they perceive as a good service from us (i.e. we have the provision they need to help them study, so they spend their time studying rather than searching for materials) they'll be more receptive to our instruction about info/digital/all-the-other literacies later.

Spoon-feeding is a useful service to provide, at the beginning of the student lifecycle; we shouldn't eschew it entirely just because we want to teach them to fend for themselves later on.

- thewikiman

Why the 2nd job you ever get in libraries may be the most important of your career

I have a theory: I think the 2nd job you ever get in libraries is the most important. We’ll come on to the why in a minute – first of all I wanted to see if others’ experiences backed up my hypothesis. I put a poll on to Twitter, asking this: Which job was most significant in getting you to where you are in libraries now? Which most influenced you onto your current path?

I didn’t want to prejudice the outcome so I didn’t mention my theory. The results were interesting – they did seem to (just!) back me up:

Now, this is a very specific question. I’m not asking which factor is most significant to where people are now (a lot of people would say professional development outside of their 9-to-5 jobs, or their Masters perhaps) and I’m not asking which job is the most important in terms of people being in the information profession at all (presumably that’d be the first job for the vast majority of people) – it’s all about where you are, the path you’re on, the area of librarianship you’ve ended up in or the role you’re currently doing.

So I believe the 2nd job you ever get in libraries is arguably the most important because it dictates much SO of what happens to you afterwards. Obviously all jobs have an effect on what comes after them to some extent, but the 2nd job is something of a tipping point whose significance is, I’d imagine, not appreciated at the time most people are applying for it. Most people’s first library jobs fall into one of two categories – securing an entry-level position prior to doing the Masters (or becoming a graduate trainee), or securing an entry-level position because you’ve sort of stumbled into libraries accidently, and then finding it was a lot more interesting than you thought, so you stay in the sector. As has been discussed before, almost no first library jobs are beyond the entry-level – even people who have the Masters have to start at or near the bottom.

So – as a result of this, there’s not much proactive career choice about your first library job: you just need a job. Most people start as something like a ‘Library assistant’ – often a customer facing role, in the library itself, issuing books and helping with queries etc. You only really start to mould you career when you apply for that 2nd job – and my argument is that you need to make a really sound choice here, because it has a vital domino effect on your subsequent career. And actually, it’s tricky to divert off the path you choose for yourself at that 2nd job choice, because the 3rd job will (probably) be a higher up or better or related version of that 2nd job and (probably) pretty good, meaning you build a career off the back of it.

I’m obviously generalising here, and of course there will be exceptions – and throughout I’m imagining someone staying in more or less the same place, rather than having accrued several jobs at the same level on their CV simply because they’ve relocated a few times. But generally speaking, if you’re in that position that so many of us were in – you’re in your first library role, thinking it’s actually pretty good, wondering about making it into a career – you need to think carefully about the path you choose and, not least, how long that path is in reality.

I’ll take the academic library as an example, because that’s what I know best. Your first role was in Lending Services on the desk, so where do you go next? If you choose to stay in Customer Services then you’re looking at a Reference / Enquiries Desk role perhaps, otherwise there’s a big jump up to something like Customer Services Manager or Site Manager. If you go into the cataloguing side of things you could go for an Assistant Cataloguer post. You could try and move towards the subject librarian side of things by going for a Team Assistant post in an academic librarian subject team. Or there might be a ‘Digital Library Assistant’ type role, to do with digitisation or e-Resources. Whichever of these you choose, your 3rd job will probably also be in this area, is my point. And your 4th job too, perhaps. Of course people change all the time, but it’s quicker to develop a career in a roughly straight line. (I know this, because I didn’t - and have only in the last few months arrived at the job I actually wanted to do all along, and have much younger colleagues who took a more direct route…)

Part of the reason I’m writing this is because I know some people who’ve been working in libraries a good while, and are just sort of treading water – because that second job took them down a path, and now that path is blocked for whatever reason. There just aren't any more senior jobs than they're already doing, in the area they've come to specialise in. So I’d recommend getting hold of one of those organisational structure charts for your library (or the library you’d like to work in) and literally plotting your ideal route upwards, seeing what’s feasible, where the obstacles are, when you’d be waiting an age for people to retire or leave, etc. Some paths have very few destinations so are more competitive. Some might not even exist by the time you get to the good bit. Some paths might look like their beyond you in terms of expertise, but actually you could get there over time. Some paths have loads of destinations but aren’t well paid. Money certainly isn’t everything, but progression means a lot – you don’t want to get stuck in a rut.

It would be nice just to live in the moment, just to ‘be’ and not worry about all this stuff. But librarianship is a hugely competitive profession, with far more qualified librarians than there are jobs for qualified librarians. So it’s really never too early to be thinking about the career path you’re embarking upon – ideally, you need to start making informed choices almost from the very start.

If you’ve made it through all that - do you agree with my 2nd Job Hypothesis?

- thewikiman

Student Induction, Libraries, Prezi, and Interactive Maps

This'll probably be my last blog post for a while - I just wanted to share the results from a bit of an experiment to try and increase student engagement with library induction (and market the library at the same time). All new students go through quite a lengthy induction process in the first three weeks at the University. The library is slotted into that - how much time we get with the students varies between departments - and so it's a good opportunity for us to make contact, promote our services, and try and embed ourselves in the academic culture, but also tricky because the students are overloaded with information as it is.

I wanted to give each of my departments an interactive map with all the library info relevant to them specifically - the idea being that it's easier to navigate an actual map of the library than it is to just search for stuff on the library website. Because each department would have a bespoke map it would mean the students had all the info they needed in one place, and because I created the maps in Prezi they could also be used as a presentation tool (as well as a stand-alone web object, later; I give students the URL of the Prezi itself and tell them not to worry about writing down any of the other URLs it contains).

I created a generic map of the library with all the information which wasn't department specific, then copied that for each of my two departments and doctored it accordingly. I also made it available to my colleagues in Academic Liaison here at York, and a few of them created their own subject-specific versions too.

The upshot of all this is, it really seems to have worked! Both me and my colleagues have reported that students noticeably perk up when the Prezi starts zooming about (I even had some gasps from one of my groups...) and seem more engaged than they had in previous years when PowerPoint was used. I don't have anything to compare it to as it's my first Induction as a subject librarian, but my colleagues seem to think the student response is definitely better. What's also really good is that it's been great PR for the library - the academics all seem really impressed by it. One of my departments have asked me to run a session to teach them, the staff, on how to use Prezi, and it's made the library look innovative and more of an intellectual partner to the academic departments. I'm collecting a quote-book of all the comments we're getting (for example, a lecturer emailed one of my colleagues and said "[the Prezi] went down very well, and generated a much greater response from the students than in previous years – it’s a great presentation format, so do pass on that feedback"), and I might submit a proposal for LILAC all about this whole thing as I'd really recommend other libraries using Prezi in this way.

Anyhow, here is the presentation, based on a top-down outline of the library buildings created for my by my colleague Matthew Herring:

Music: Library Induction on Prezi (works best on Full-Screen)

It is designed to either be navigated through in the normal way, or to be a proper 'interactive map' with clickable hotspots. Anything that flashes green when you hover over it can be clicked on and zoomed-in on for more info - this also gives you the option of a student-led session where you ask them where they want to go, rather than leading them around. I'm planning on doing this with the Postgrads (many of whom will already know the library fairly well) but I must admit I chickened out of doing it with the Undergrads... I wanted it to be interactive but I didn't think fresh-out-of-school students would know enough about academic libraries to want to lead the session.

To achieve the hotspots I used a lot of hidden frames, one of the most useful features Prezi has. Here's what the canvas looks like in edit view - check out a new feature of Prezi, along the bottom: a preview screen showing you each stage of your navigation path:

And here's a closer view without the path showing, so you can better see how the hidden frames sit within the canvas:

Finally, here's an infographic I created about the library, which you get to when you walk in through the 'door' of the library map. The idea is to get across the scale of the library operation in one screen, without having to bore them with lots of stats throughout the presentation.

So overall, this approach worked well for everyone. For my other subject (Theatre, Film and Television) I'm planning to use an expanded Prezi for teaching purposes too. I don't think the scope of this is limited to Academic Libraries, either; you could easily embed a virtual Prezi map on a public library website, to help people use it better, too. If you're wondering about creating your own, here's a link to the Prezi guide.

Incidentally, one other  thing I did was let the students leave early from my 45 minute sessions. At this stage of the student lifecycle they are getting too much thrown at them for the full 45 minutes to be valuable - I wanted to get the key info across and leave it at that, rather than get them so bogged down in detail that they forget all of it or just switch off. When I see them again later in the term they'll hopefully be in a better position to go in-depth into the services and resources the library offers.

- thewikiman

5 easy ways to create fabulous slides

5 easy way to create fabulous slides

View more presentations from Ned Potter

Presentations, eh? We pretty much all have to do them now - and we certainly all have to watch them at some time or other. So let's all make nice ones, and collectively save ourselves from death by Powerpoint.

Creating decent slide-decks is actually very straightforward. The deck above details five methods, in order of easyness:

• The simple colours method (easiest)
• The one background, many colours method
• The two-tone-texture method
• The found-flickr method
• The augmented white slide method (trickiest) .

On a closely related note, here's a quick reminder not to break the basic rules of presenting, which Slideshare featured on their homepage a while back:

Stop Breaking The Basic Rules of Presenting

View more presentations from Ned Potter

Other guides (including Prezi presentation software) available here: thewikiman.org/tech.

Good luck creating fabulous slides!

- thewikiman

How to build 5 libraries in 2 weeks

Last week I gave a 20:20, or Pecha Kucha, presentation. Basically this means 20 slides, set to run automatically for 20 seconds each - it makes for quick and punchy presentations with none of the filler that can make PowerPoint sessions drag on. We use them at York to keep each other up to date within the Information Directorate (our converged Library and IT service) with what's going on and what we're interested in. I really recommend this, it's a great way to bring people together across an organisation and communicate ideas. Anyway, normally I'd choose something more relevant to my work but this time I decided to do something different, and present on the Buy India a Library Project, which ran at the start of this year. Here are the slides:

How to build 5 libraries in 2 weeks

View more presentations from Ned Potter

It was really fun to revisit this, and reflect on what an extraordinary thing it was that Buyalib was able to crowd-source nearly $4000 from librarians, in two weeks, for a charitable cause! Everyone who donated or spread the word - you are amazing. We have literally created something out of nothing.

I had a letter from GoodGifts the other day, saying that work had started on building the library in India and would likely be completed by April next year. Justin, Jan, Andromeda and I were invited to the opening but, frankly, if we had enough cash knocking around to afford those air-fares, we wouldn't have needed to crowd-source the cash to begin with. :)

For people who think Twitter is 'just people talking about what they had for lunch', this kind of project - which would have been all but impossible to achieve pre-Twitter, certainly in that amount of time - is the ultimate riposte, I think. If you're new to this story, you can catch up via the Buyalib blog.

Cheers!

- thewikiman

p.s Did I mention that 5 libraries now exist or are being created in impoverished areas with no other access to books - libraries which otherwise wouldn't have existed? That's absolutely amazing!