reading

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Update catchup August 2014

Slightly scared that I am falling yet further behind with these!

The August 2014 issue has a beautiful image on the front from the National Fairground Archive and has probably travelled as many miles in my bag as many a travelling fair. I loved the article on this collection. It sits far from the things I am involved in professionally but I am always pleased to read about such a fascinating cultural treasures.

This issue has a report from HLG Conference which took place in sweltering heat in Oxford. I really enjoyed the conference offering up a version of my paper given in updated form at UKSG.  I also spoke as part of the CILIP Debate programme. There is a nice picture of me chatting with Donald Mackay at the end (and a great boggled eye one in the Dropbox collection for the conference.  I was on the losing side but this was no surprise since I had to advocate for hiring nurses using precious library funding. I gave a rather silly talk full of ill informed comment on the merits of the internet and the low level of need for our skills (not like librarians are the angels of the NHS eh?).  But I was very serious on the point that unless we act to defend our services they will get whittled away in a semi random fashion.

The article on tri-borough in London public libraries is interesting as a picture of one route forward for making the cuts that will face many services. I wonder how far such arrangements can extend – what is the most effective scale for a PL network? It is also interesting to read what @wylie_alan had to say about it after attending a CILIP in London event a couple of years back. Some things look like they could end up a bit thin – a public health officer for one borough is now spoken of as one for the tri-borough. Could be a bit busy! That said I am not sure the shift of Public Health from the NHS to local government has seen library provision survive very well.

The merger of Careers Development Group into the CILIP Branches to form Regional Members Networks seems a reasonable plan overall to me. That said I bumped into a member of the Cilip London RMN on the tube today (small place London) and it sounds like the committee is almost unchanged from when I was a member a couple of years back. A number of that committee have done very long service and I had hoped that the merger might prompt a renewal with fresh blood. Maximum terms of membership are supposed to be in place and I hope people will move aside to allow others to have a go.

Reading about Midlothian libraries I was struck by how similar our issues are in terms of needing to influence decision makers. A steady stream of data and stories is required to help people outside our world understand what we are busily up to.  The need for partners is also familiar. I was somewhat dismayed by the fact that the service is so short staffed that people are working through their holidays and in their own time.  This is simply not a sustainable way for people to live and for a service to operate.

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Journal clubbing

The latest paper discussed in our team journal club took a bit of a kicking.

The Library Student Liaison Program at Eastern Washington University: A Model for Student Engagement

This paper covers a project where a student was paid to become a student liaison working directly for the Library.  They worked 15  to 19 hours a week during term time reporting directly to a fairly senior member of Library staff. They were set three main goals – enhance communication with the student body, articulate student perspectives / determine priorities to meet student needs and increase student participation in library programmes.

In common with the paper about the Library street teams (discussed last time) the paper tells us about what they did but falls down on the evaluation.  There are few attempts to address how the programme will be evaluated and where figures are provided they are frequently partial. For example we have no context to claims of an improvement in the affect score on Libqual+.  Changes to enquiry levels are discussed but without absolute figures.

In critical appraisal terms it falls at the first hurdle with a focussed research question lacking.  Like much LIS research we get a case study approach.  Applicability of the model proposed is quite limited locally with a very different institution involved and large sums of money required (at least $5K in pay for student at 2006 prices).  The commitment of staff time to managing the role was also substantial.

On the positive side we can see many of the initiatives that were proposed or introduced correspond to work we have in place or under consideration / development.  It also prompted lots of discussion of various paths for student engagement and ways to gain the student perspective.

So not a paper to change our practice but plenty to stimulate debate (and a nice blast from the past with them proudly reporting making 192 friends on MySpace).

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Update catchup July 2014

It cannot be said that I am catching up at present. This issue was read before Christmas and has now travelled across London numerous times in my bag. Onwards…

JournalClick looks like an interesting developing tool. The prices for libraries are very low. Almost worryingly so and I wonder how the coverage compares to other tools. Nearly a million articles added since last July.

There is a puff from the RCN for their journal changes. Time will tell if they can find a sensible pricing model for these.

60 seconds is with Gary Birkenhead in the run up to HLG conference – here is hoping someone will step up for the role of HLG Chair as he vacates it. A really excellent opportunity for someone having had the pleasure of doing it myself a few years back.

The article on wikipedia is a nudge to actually making a few edits myself something I have long meant to try out. Cilip in London organised an evening event on the development of reference in the digital age. The best question came after what can only be described as a chest butting session amongst the audience about who knew the most about reference books / counted the most obscure one as the most vital / glories past and tales of written corrections sent to editors. “Who edits the thing?” My suggestion was – the kind of people who send corrections to the editors of reference books.

KCL colleagues feature next talking about how they have benefited from formal teaching qualifications. I have benefited from their experience without felkng compeled to pursue that path myself as yet. Shadowing their sessions it is clear that they are well structured to support learning.

The next article covers 7 tips for health website managers (though all are generally applicable). I have to look after a number of pages and this was useful when looking again at my content. Always more work to be done here – the challenge is to break free of the confines of the CMS.

The Hometrack website is one I know from mooching about property online (is this now one of the top UK hobbies I wonder?). The main thing I took from this is that most mortgage valuations are done by someone driving past and looking at the property – how on earth do they get away with charging so much!