Advocacy for Librarians

This is definitely not easy. For personal reasons I do not campaign for Libraries. I have a different priority and I do not think that there is an endless pot of money and my other priority matters more - to me. I think that money could be saved from other sources but it is not for me to point the finger and specify where that money comes from as its target matters to someone. I think Libraries are more important than a lot of things, but if I campaign for Libraries then maybe my higher priority will suffer as I think it could be one of those either or decisions. So I shall continue to sit silently. There are lots of others willing to join the fray. Good luck to them. Up to a point.

How effective are they? How many libraries have been saved? Both as a number and as a % of those that were ear-marked for closure? How many were saved only to be run by volunteers? How many of those will still be a library in any useful sense of the word in five years? If they closed, why? Lack of tenacity on the part of the volunteers? No new stock so users stop using? The authorities slip in and close them when interest has waned? That will be the only way to measure the success of these campaigns.

Augmented Reality

Aurasma - what serendipitous timing! We have just started using this to produce book reviews at the school where I work. It is part of the Learning and Teaching Committee work, I am a member. I can testify it can all be done on mobile phones and iPads. However, it can be does not mean it should be. If you use a mobile phone for the video bit then you need to stabilise it or it looks amateurish - like a moving selfie. It depends who your anticipated audience is, if it is just students then the amateurish look is OK, however, if it is also a part of your marketing tools either for the Library or the wider institution then quality matters. I will have to see if I can get you access to this as it is a school thing I may not be able to due to Child Protection rules. Otherwise I will try and put a couple together. Unfortunately I can't get into Aurasma studio at present. Bloody internet I suppose.

However, it is free, it is easy to use both for originating content and for viewing that content. I think one of the things that does need doing - an idea for someone's MA dissertation perhaps? Is to see how effective all these apps are in increasing the number of loans on a title and on which titles are borrowed. Or are there other factors which are far more important? Such as peer recommendations? Anyway just a thought.

Professional Organisations

For me these are really CILIP and School Library Association. I find it difficult to write about CILIP which is supposed to be the organisation representing all Librarians. It seems to be an organisation determined to include everyone, and I think this is eventually going to be a problem. Chartering is now available to anyone who seems to have the loosest connection with libraries, they like you to have a degree level qualification but do not insist on it. Is this really good for a 'profession'? Or should CILIP welcome everyone? After all chartership is about how you do your job, it is not a qualification. Maybe of equal importance would be to try and get some uniformity of qualifications for jobs, rather than for chartership? Unfortunately CILIP has no influence in this area so many schools employ often a cheaper option, even if unqualified or unchartered. Budgets are all, although one wonders would they be equally happy to employ unqualified teachers? Maybe they would. This does not mean that CILIP is not staffed by dedicated and hard working individuals who I know give up a huge amount of time campaigning and advocating for the professional they represent and I think their voice is being heard more but sadly maybe not listened to.

The School Library Association seems a far more useful organisation and it is far more relevant to my needs. This is the one I would pay for if my employer didn't, I guess part of my enthusiasm for it is in the name - it is for school librarians, and so what they do is relevant to me: the jobs, the resources, the info, everything has something to do with my job. It is much better value for money, more responsive, to my day to day needs and their web site much more user friendly. However, it has a different role to CILIP which must be acknowledged although the SLA also campaigns and advocated for Librarians and provides courses and the ever popular weekend conference, it is CILIP that can confer the status of Chartered.

Reflective Practices

This needs to be a quicky.

Everything I do in this course is done at high speed as I have no time. Right now I am awaiting the arrival of my husband's flight but before I meet him I have other chores to do. I am sure this is the same for everyone. I almost gave up in November as it was many weeks since I had looked at it. However, I would like to have something to put on BlueSky, we get weekly CPD sessions, mainly aimed at teachers. Anyway I do not use breaks to do this course. So it is evenings or Sundays - we work most Saturdays. Now I am really driving myself it is impressive how many Things can be got through, luckily I have at least a passing knowledge of most of them. I think the Podcast is the only one I will not use. Just not convinced of their use with children.

As for a study plan - ha! No chance, I do it when I have a bit of spare time. Like now. This makes me realise that I could be starting another Thing so this is it. The End.

Live Streaming

I can see this would be very useful in some situations. For instance, I work for an international school that is affiliated to an UK school. There may one day be an occasion where I might want to do a live streaming event with this school. There is the inevitable problem with the 8 hour time difference, but if we stay late or they start first thing in the morning I can see that may work. So long as the internet holds up. Author events are routinely held like this but to UK timings so of no use to students here - there is something artificial and excluding about watching a live streaming retrospectively. So long as it is not me on the screen.

I watched the Hang out (after it had finished - that old time difference again) and saw that it is all down to the connection.  I have certainly used Skype in this way in the past - I used to work remotely for a company and we would hold meetings in this way so I did not have to go to London, but admit I do not enjoy being on a screen visually. I use Skype every day to keep in touch with my family and when it is good it is excellent and I love the fact that when my meagre download allowance is almost finished then we can type.

I had a go at this and hated it. I can type like this all day about a range of subjects without a problem, I don't mind talking - although I prefer to type. But I absolutely never want to be filmed. I have recently done a couple of Skype interviews and that was bad enough but the idea of actually broadcasting myself to strangers - no - that is where the line is drawn. So I had go just so I could say I had done it, technically it was fine.

Video

This was much better than I expected, thank you for dragging me kicking and screaming to it! If I get time I will reshoot it and put it on the school website as it will be interesting to see if it is ever used.

I just tried Jing and it was very very easy. My only word of advice - and I am sure this is fairly obvious to anyone who has done this before - make sure you are exactly where you want to be at the start of the shooting! I have left out logging on, not intentionally but because I could not retreat once I had started with the selection of the window I wanted to film.

Here is the link for youtube

As you can see no link. That is because the Jing file format is not supported. How disappointing.

I am sorry but I do not have time to trouble shoot so will get back to this at the end if there is any time left and may do so for my own satisfaction. I would have liked this to work but that is often the way with freebies especially as I could see it being something that could be combined with another app to do something I mentioned in a previous blog.

Podcasts

Like most people I have listened to podcasts but never thought of making one, mainly as I think they are quite a boring way of communicating and listening to two people talk about their favourite graphic novels did not make me want to go and read them - although I know enough to have heard of quite a few of them. If I am honest I thought they reminded me of the kind of radio I dislike most - very amateurish shared dialogue.  I would not be this critical but they are presumably paid to do this and therefore fair game for criticism. It also confirmed that podcasts are not for me.

As you can see I am really struggling on this one. I really cannot think of anything that I could talk about in this format. Happy to write stuff, but not to talk. I think the difference is that if someone doesn't like what you are writing they can very easily skip a few paragraphs but with speech that is much more difficult. It is one of the reasons I like audio books - you hear every word. So I have looked at the tech and understand the principle so I could do a podcast if I wanted to but no wish to.

The only way it could be useful, in my job, although at the moment is not technically possible, would be in a three layer Aurasma type app where you  have the image to be scanned, say a book cover, then a silent version of a book trailer from youtube (or wherever) and a podcast of a book review spoken by the writer.

Attending Conferences

I attended a very interesting non-conference a couple of years ago. There were impromptu talks on many topics. Unfortunately when I was in the UK conferences were not really an option due to location and cost. I was willing to go but the school I worked for was not willing to pay especially as they nearly always involved an overnight stay and I was not able to pay for myself. The conference I would most have liked to attend was the SLA Weekend Conference, held every year in a different location in the UK as it sounded everything a conference should be: informative, friendly and fun.

In Malaysia I will be going to a mix between a conference and a course in March - a bit late to write up for this course. It is being organised by the Librarian at Garden International and should be enormous fun, very informative as there are a series of micro presentations being given and friendly as it is for the KL Librarians' Network, a group of Librarians working at the many international schools in and around Kuala Lumpur, this too is a weekend event and so involves a stay in a good hotel, an added bonus.

Curation Tools

Pinterest - at last something I really love. I have lots of Pinterest Boards - I have just recently started an account in the College's name - not sure it was appropriate for the parents and students to know I love beaches or where I was looking to buy a house! In fact at one point I tried to transfer all my Diigo links onto Pinterest as I could sort them into boards - but only since Diigo stopped being so flexible and free - I know you can pay but I would prefer not to. More  Diigo a little later. Anyway I like the visual aspect of Pinterest. I like producing lists, I tried to do it as a business in 2013-4 but of course there are too many free ones and like me, people don't pay if they don't need to.

However, back to Pinterest, I have just started replacing my bookmarks with Pinterest boards for reading suggestions. Currently along the line of follow-ons from ... . There will also be genre boards, eventually genre by level to guide readers towards books for their age and level of achievement. As this is for work they will be colour coded using the College's Library system. There will also be boards to support topics and themes being studied in class and even straight reading recommendations from subject teachers.

There are of course disadvantages the biggest of which is the inability to rearrange the order of Pins on boards without deleting them and re-uploading them in the required order - very very tedious.

Pinterest is endless and I don't have to put myself out there, which I love, and it is FREE.

Pinterest is (mostly) about books (for work). Diigo is about websites.

Diigo, my used to be favourite list keeper of websites. I love that you could categorise everything to your hearts content and share or not it was up to you and so easy to change. Now you are very restricted as to what you can do and it is very annoying, but it is free and if I wasn't so mean then I could have what I want!

Diigo is one of those cross-over products that I use for me and work - It has work stuff on it but I only update it in my time on my computer so consider it 'mine' which is why I took it with me when I left my last job. I am very careful about the way things are named so that if I do change jobs then I can take all the things I have put together in my time with me - schools write very time intellectual copyright clauses into their contracts now. A previous school wrote there's in retrospectively for the teaching staff - very sneaky and not at all appreciated. So this is something to be aware of.

Reflections

As anyone who looks will see there has been a positive (in every sense of the word) burst of activity today. Term has ended and at last I have convinced myself to get on with it!

There is no doubt that I have a problem with this course - it is useful in telling me what is out there and how much of it is not what I need - sorry, but there it is. I don't need LinkedIn as i am not job hunting, I don't have time for FB professionally - really I am busy enough. I think all these things need constant updating and I am simply not convinced of the benefit of this use of my time. I feel I would be better improving what my Library does, the quality of data on the OPAC, the quality of the Library Skills lessons I teach, the EPQ sessions I teach, keeping the College community informed about what I can do for them, running events etc. When I want to publicise these things I want to use a medium all the students at least in the senior school can access - that is not FB, but twitter.

I am in a small town in Malaysia but still manage to attend courses - more per annum than I did when I was in the UK as my current employers are much more generous about my training. I also belong to a very good group of Librarians - we meet about once a month and arrange events, share author visits, and collaborate in others ways, including training and sharing information.

I work in a school that has just completed its fourth term and is growing steadily, the board and SLT all appreciate the Library and what it does, I am a HoD and could ask for little more (it would be silly to say nothing as there is always something!). I am happy here, I considered chartering just before I came out but am glad I didn't especially after doing this course as I now realise that I don't have time. I know in an ideal world all school librarians would be chartered ...

One of the advantages of this job is that there is a fixed contract and you have to start considering whether to renew it in November of the year before it ends, initially for two years and then one or two years by choice. So every year or two you have to sit down and decide whether or not you want to continue with what you are doing. Which is a good example of reflective practice. I am just coming to my decision so this bit of reflection has helped with that.

Facebook and Twitter

Facebook for me is personal although I belong to two professional lists: rudai23;  and a librarian list.  I also belong to a staff and families list associated with school but that is for information about where we live, etc. For me FB is about keeping in touch with real people, I know and have met in the flesh all my FB friends - all 12 of them. That's how I like it, not sure why I would want to talk to strangers about my private life - I know people who do but makes me squirm.

I don't need a FB page for work as the school already has one and I do not have time to take on yet another commitment and I think an out of date FB page is worse than no FB page.

Twitter - I starter a work twitter account recently, the short nature of the messages makes it more manageable and I think the whole tone is so utterly public you know it is like talking to a huge stadium full of people, so have no illusion that your remarks might be between you and 'friends'. I also think it is obvious that is is not mostly about the minutiae of people's lives although there is always someone willing to tweet they are on the 6.40 to Sunbury or wherever. So that is a much more appropriate focus for professional social media.

I wish you could stop chosen individuals following you, but realise that is not good for the Twitter business. This social media is not really meant for people like me!!

Google

I am a regular user of many things Google as I work in an igle school. I like the calendar and the fact it can be several calendars showing as one - I have two, the school's one and my personal one. I use gmail (I also have yahoo and apple accounts but it is gmail that i use - again two accounts one for school and one for personal). At work I use Google docs and sheets which I find very frustrating due to the things they don't do - for most things I use MS office. However, as the Google apps are all free they are high quality.

Probably my favourite app if you can call it such is Google drive, I have two one for home and one for work, my only bug bear is only being allowed to download one to my computer. I understand why, it is just frustrating. I have used Google drive for some years now and so far have had no problems although I know people who have, therefore my advice is do not rely on it as your sole copies of data.

I like the photos app for school photos as it solves the problem of not wanting school photos on my own computer. I find Google maps more efficient than my satnav although less useful when I miss a turning!

My husband and I have just spent some time hunting for a new home and have spent so much time on Google earth and street view - I love it but also appreciate it has short-comings.

Of course the biggest problem with google is that it relies being online - which is fine if you live somewhere with good internet access. I don't but as I say I have alternatives for most things when the internet is down and if not then it has to wait.

So, on the whole I am a fan of google - I wish they paid some tax but feel that no one does if they can find a way around it so maybe it is up to govts to close the loopholes.

My professional brand

I had to laugh when I typed in my name into Google - it had no idea who I was, hooray! Mostly I am one of a selection of older ladies in America (which I am not!) Even the Facebook page brought up one of these same ladies so I am satisfied that all my privacy settings are working.

I started my LinkedIn page really just to keep up with what other people I knew from the School Librarians Network were doing. I updated it a bit a few months ago for this course - just filled in some of the missing gaps - and then again when I was told of a spectacular job possibility which now seems to have fizzled out. Not the end of the world as I already have a dream of a job in a school I like a great deal, where I am happy to end my professional days.

I must confess that I am not at all comfortable putting so much info online about myself and this blog has reminded me to readjust my LinkedIn Page! I think it is the self promotion aspect that I find most uncomfortable - I do a good job and if I am thanked then that is great but advertising myself? Not so good. I very rarely approve followers, I never quite understand what someone in an industry I am unlikely to be associated with would want with following me. So as you can see I am not your average social media person.

The LinkedIn page stays for now but it will probably go when I sign my last contract as there will really be no need then.

I can see this is a useful service especially to the self employed although I suspect that mostly it is people looking for customers not customers looking for people to employ.

It is now only two weeks and a day until the end of term. Finding time to write this blog is difficult. The course has just been sacrificed to work. Others have managed it, but part of the problem lies in my personal reluctance to expose too much of me online. As each of the new things were announced I realised that I am not as enthusiastic as many of my peers at being socially online. I have 11 FB friends and feel no need for any more. I did the LinkedIn thing, updating my profile and found the net result was being approached by people I had never heard of in industries way outside of mine for no reason I could fathom. I am not looking for a job as I have a lovely one, so all these people were rejected. So I am increasingly questioning whether this course is for me.

Perhaps not. I am interested in some of the 'things' but those that enable me to enhance my skill levels and to widen what i can offer our students. I would like to finish this as we are part of BlueSky and it would have been helpful to have been able to add it to my account. Bluesky allows members to record their training/CPD.

If I can find an email address, then I will apply for an extension, otherwise this blog will be deleted and that will be that.

Does anybody else feel uncomfortable with being so public?

More from the life of a Librarian working in Malaysia (most of the time)

I am in the UK at present, for the summer holidays - we are selling our house and buying a new one. If we exchange whilst I am here then I shall do as much of the packing as I can - at least my books which I always feel happier packing myself. So I am rather busy as I also have to select and order books for most of next year for the Library. Annoyingly I am having problems with my Amazon wish lists which I use to co-ordinate my wants so the order is going nowhere in a hurry. 

I also want to do the Rudai 23 course - time is far too short but somehow I will fit it in, as it has plus go and visit various friends and family. I really need to do the SLA EPQ course as there is a chance I might be an EPQ tutor this coming academic year.

Malaysia seems far away right now, but as the book selection shows I am not ignoring it. I am also picking up a few books to take back with me and posters (thanks to Heaths for posters they are including with the order). 

Being a new school we are taking on a significant number of new teachers for the new academic year and want to make sure that the resources are as suitable as possible for them as well as the existing teachers. I will be returning to Malaysia on 22nd August. A day off and back to work. Two weeks induction and then term begins. The excitement of meeting new students and staff is very real as we grow and develop into one of the foremost international schools in Malaysia.

Interview with a Librarian

I often became bored and dissatisfied with most of my jobs prior to becoming a School Librarian, nearly 14 years ago. School Librarianship has given me an ever changing backdrop to work against and I am never bored or dissatisfied with the work. There is so much variety and always something new to learn or to try as well as the satisfaction that no knowledge is ever wasted - everything you learn can be applied sooner or later. I love having access to so many good books, although I can barely discuss books written for adults!

I have a regularly changing population of users in my school library, they usually stay long enough to get to know them and to learn about their lives and dislikes. The ever changing population is one of the variables that keeps me thinking of new ideas and new solutions to sometimes new challenges and sometimes the same old challenges.

I decided to become a Librarian in 2000. I needed something to immerse myself in after years at home with my two youngest children and had initially decided to train as a teacher - so glad I didn't as I would not have been a good one. I discovered a City and Guilds Library and Information Professionals' course about to start at a local college that fitted in with my other obligations; my son's school agreed to let me do the practical part of the course in their library - they had no Librarian, two of the teachers ran it between them and they were very happy to let me take over and two months later I was employed, initially on a very part time basis but gradually the hours grew. Such a good decision for them and me. So a love of books, reading and computers and the wish to share my loves meant I was in the right place at the right time.

My husband has always supported me, it is very difficult to have a career without family support. I realised almost straight away that this is the career I should have chosen when I left school. I have always loved it and I am happy to put in however much effort is required to do the best job I can.

Before becoming a Librarian I worked as a desktop publisher both self employed and initially for a large software company where I learnt all my computer skills and picked up a knowledge and real enthusiasm for databases and the use and manipulation of information.

My degree helped me as it taught me to think critically - it was in Modern History, a subject I continue to be enthusiastic about to this day, it also taught me to apply myself in a prolonged and concentrated way. I did it as a mature student as an evening degree whilst working full time and being a one parent family - thank goodness for my mother! Not a traditional route into the profession but it has proved to be the right route for me.
Marion Prickett

My summer holidays began at the end of last week and now is a great opportunity to start the 23 Things course. This is the first time I have used Blogger so it will be interesting to see how it goes. I have a very busy summer ahead so this is unlikely to contain very long posts. I also have to fit in an EPQ course and a trip back to the UK for a few weeks, including a visit to Heath's for some book buying. Of course there is also more personal stuff but that belongs elsewhere.

Tomorrow if I finish the Library Lesson Schedule I will try to find time to play with this some more and do some editing of the look and feel of it. The WCBW heading does not work properly at the moment and I may try and add my logo too. Anyway it is late here and so this is it for now.