tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3703604915709222512024-03-14T12:10:36.828+00:00Library Wandererlooks a lot like that @lemurph, writes on library things, most likely with added Hugh Laurie, and nothing whatever to do with Bolton Wanderers (for now)Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-63521313579142977802015-04-03T14:05:00.001+01:002015-04-03T14:05:58.162+01:00UX Libs: a very messy blog postThere was a programme on CITV back in the 90s called <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finders_Keepers_%281991_UK_game_show%29">Finders Keepers</a></i>, presented by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Buchanan">Neil Buchanan</a> (yes, him from <i>Art Attack!</i>). It was a sort of treasure hunt set in a big pink and lime green house - teams of kids in green or yellow t-shirts were given clues and then ransacked the rooms to find things. They completely went for it: upending furniture, climbing curtains, chucking stuff about, and while they were at it they were sprayed with silly string, had buckets of water thrown over them, and all other types of booby traps imaginable (to a 7 year old). The best bit of the show for me though wasn't in fact Neil Buchanan's waistcoat but the fact that these kids got to behave entirely differently from normal (you'd presume) in a familiar setting. They probably wouldn't have got away with trashing their own house like that. By the end one team were crowned winners and given a prize (Sega Master System plus two free games - though one was the tennis game which came free and therefore was a bit of a cop out), and the house was still standing, and just recognisable as a house, but it was a bloody awful mess.<br />
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UX Libs was like going on <i>Finders Keepers</i>. Except it wasn't a house; it was librarianship. It wasn't t-shirts; it was fancy colour-coded lanyards. It wasn't silly string; it was seventeen thousand post-it notes. And yes, if you follow this analogy through to its logical conclusion then it wasn't Neil Buchanan, it was <a href="http://www.twitter.com/PriestLib">Andy Priestner</a> (and in five or so years of blogging I've never written sweeter words than those - sorry Andy). We had three days to turn the whole of librarianship upside down and inside out - to take something we thought we understood and treat it entirely <i>differently</i> - and I have to admit, we kinda trashed the place too. It's still standing, and it's recognisable as librarianship, but it's probably never going to be quite the same again.<br />
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Just to be explicit: UX Libs was <i style="font-weight: bold;">brilliant</i>. It was the best and bravest and boldest professional thing I've ever been to, and these are five reasons why.<br />
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<b>The keynotes</b>.<br />
I'm so tempted to write 'MATTHEW REIDSMA MENTIONED PHENOMENOLOGY' and just leave it there as a summary of the three keynotes. But nah, you're not so lucky. I got words to say. I've been to conferences before, obviously, where there have been <i>excellent</i> speakers - witty, engaging, enlightening, capable of captivating a room. The keynote speakers at UX Libs - <a href="https://twitter.com/DonnaLanclos">Donna Lanclos</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/pauljervisheath">Paul-Jervis Heath</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/mreidsma">Matthew Reidsma</a> - were that exactly, and more. The best way I can think of to describe it is this: they were <i>wonder-provoking</i>.<br />
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Donna's keynote on ethnography pulled the rug from under my feet. It completely challenged my (slightly self-satisfied) notion that <i>of course</i> I listen to the students, <i>of course</i> I'm one of those responsive and modern and forward-thinking librarians, <i>of course </i>I'm doing all the right things. Yeah, that's completely not enough. Donna made me think I had to work harder.<br />
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Paul spoke about ideation (portmanteau klaxon! it means 'idea generation') and about design in a way that actually made it accessible. It wasn't buzzword bingo, and the design terms that did make an appearance were (wait for it) <i>defined, </i>and no longer all shrouded in mystery. I'm a total non-creative, so design for me is at the centre of this huge conceptual labyrinth - it's the Goblet of Fire, or something - so difficult to attain, and no way of knowing if you're going the right way. Paul gave the labyrinth a right good kicking - he actually made design seem <i>doable</i>.<br />
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The point Matthew made was that "libraries are people, all the way down", in the most beautifully crafted way ever, and by that I mean that his keynote included Heidegger and a computer mouse and astronaut pee. Anyway, stop reading this drivel now and <a href="https://vimeo.com/122936566">go and watch the video of his keynote</a>.<br />
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<b>The 'get in the water' approach.</b><br />
A few months ago I managed to vaguely offend my boss by saying that I thought her management style with me was less about gradually helping me into the swimming pool and more about telling me to yell if I wanted a life-jacket and then pushing me in. (Just my interpretation, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/libtil">Libby</a>!). Fortunately this works pretty well for me.<br />
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To follow the analogy through, though, UX Libs was like 'OK guys, this is water' (the keynotes). 'Move your arms like this' (the workshops). 'You'll be fine' (lunch). 'Now get in the water'. Except imagine that we'd never seen a swimming pool or a mass of water before - our sole experience of water was in a glass. Each afternoon we put into practice what we'd learned in the morning - out in the world on our own. My team went to the very lovely <a href="http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/">St John's College library</a> to do some ethnographising, less than 45 minutes after realising that's not actually a word. We went to the even lovelier English Faculty (not biased) to try out some ideation techniques only 17 minutes after realising that <i>is</i> actually a word. And we pitched the idea we'd ethnographised and ideated with about eight minutes' worth of preparation time - and honestly, I've only exaggerated the time frame on the last one.<br />
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It sounds scary, and at times it really was. But I loved it. This approach and structure really worked for me, and I've never come away from a conference before feeling not only that I learned actual, tangible things but that I might have the confidence to put them into practice.<br />
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<b>The other people.</b><br />
Shout out to begin with for my universally excellent teammates on Space Grey (which is an anagram of Gay Creeps and I'm pretty sure I deserve a bonus point for this being the first time I've publicly pointed this out). They - <a href="https://twitter.com/karinenrose">Karine</a>, Frank, Line, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/ned_potter">Ned</a>, Ali, Kristin, <a href="https://twitter.com/rachelriding">Rachel</a>, Michelle - and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/megwestbury">Meg</a>, our mentor, were a super bunch of people and working with them was one of the highlights of the whole thing.<br />
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But also, everyone else. Like many a library conference, UX Libs was packed to the rafters with interesting, engaging, completely diverse people in all types of roles and institutions. The single thing they seemed to have in common was a sense of utter bafflement at the set up of Cambridge libraries. I particularly loved getting to see the heat winners in action in their final pitches - these ridiculously smart people came up with some really impressive stuff in a teensy tiny amount of time.<br />
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<b>Housekeeping with Ange</b>.<br />
The breakout star of UX Libs was, arguably, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/angefitzpatrick">Ange Fitzpatrick</a>, whose daily 'Housekeeping with Ange' slot means that her back-up career on the sofa of the 2015 equivalent of Pebble Mill* is practically guaranteed if this library malarkey doesn't work out for her. She made haggis Scotch eggs an actual thing. But she was (both literally and figuratively) a small part of an incredibly well-oiled (also literally and figuratively) juggernaut of a conference committee.<br />
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Basically this is a long intro into this: the conference was so well organised. It was like a Russian doll of planning - every plan had another plan which had another plan, and so on. From the first bit of promo a hundred years ago when Andy and <a href="https://twitter.com/mattjborg">Matt</a> (Borg) came up with the idea to the final bit of luggage hoisting by the committee, the whole thing made sense. It had purpose and a goal. Its moving wall had a marvellous operator in the form of <a href="https://twitter.com/senorcthulhu">Georgina</a>. It gave excellent user experience. And while it was pretty obvious that the amount of thought and planning that went into UX Libs had probably shaved a few weeks off the lives of the committee, speaking as a delegate: thanks chaps, it was worth it.<br />
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*Loose Women?<br />
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<b>The serious bit</b>.<br />
UX Libs - in case it's not clear from the above - was amazing. I learned so much and I had a brilliant time.<br />
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Serious face, though. I didn't pay to go to UX Libs, and I wasn't sponsored by my employers. I didn't even steal another librarian's identity. Instead I was there because of the extreme generosity of money and spirit and goodwill of another human being, someone who decided to make it possible for a Cambridge library person to attend. To that person I say a huge thank you and I make the promise that - if ever I'm in a position to do so - I'll pass the favour forward.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-20455224362485951512015-02-08T15:00:00.001+00:002015-02-08T15:25:09.178+00:00What if there were no rules...? A sort-of thought experimentI just finished reading <i><a href="https://whatif.xkcd.com/book/">What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions</a></i> by Randall Munroe, the <strike>guy</strike> genius behind xkcd. The book is brilliant. It's about science (funnily enough) and stupid questions (actually, the title really does give it away). Like: can you make a jet pack out of machine guns? What would happen if everyone in the world had a single soulmate throughout history? Could you build a physical model out of the periodic table in which each element was represented by a brick? (Spoilers: yes, not very much, do not build the seventh row).<br />
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A lot of the science was, regrettably, lost on me. Damn you GSCE physics teachers for not curtailing the daydreaming. What I loved most about the book, though, was its underlying premise, the one which said <b>yes, there ARE stupid questions</b> but also <b>their stupidity doesn't mean there's no value in answering them</b>. I like the approach. It's liberating to take that whole 'questioning the question' thingy and blow raspberries at it. So I thought I'd nick it, and try to think up some library questions - silly ones, idealistic ones, downright ridiculous ones - and instead of berating them or judging them or dismissing them immediately like usual ("oh no, we couldn't do that, for all of these many and indisputable reasons written here on my Common Sense Clipboard*"), I'd treat them seriously. I'd answer them.<br />
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But now, The Disclaimers (like the band, but fewer promises of long walks): Randall Munroe had things on his side that I don't. Namely: science, wit, intelligence, the possibility of universality, the possibility of definitiveness, the ability to distract with comics. I daren't even hope to replicate what he achieves. Forgive me this, and anything else that seems appropriate, in advance.<br />
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<b>Q. What if we decided to get rid of all our library rules?</b><br />
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A. My current perspective (and, I assume, a fairly common one):<br />
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I hate library rules. I try to forget, whenever I can, that they exist. I offer to break them whenever the situation seems to warrant it, and such a typical situation would be a day that ends in y. And yet I still fear, somehow, that were we to officially relax just one rule the teensiest bit, it would herald utter chaos; that within mere seconds, somehow, the library would begin to resemble the final frantic round of Supermarket Sweep, except without the calming influence of Mr Dale Winton. So I expect my answer to this question to be Very Bad Things. <b><i>What if we just abandoned all of them</i>?</b></div>
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Apparently, <a href="http://lib.english.cam.ac.uk/">the library I work in</a> has five rules (how very Ranganathian of us), and because it took me AGES to find them on our website, I'm presuming they're not something that makes me beam with pride. To paraphrase:</div>
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1. Don't nick the books</div>
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2. If you miss the book deadline, there'll be fines</div>
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3. If there are fines, you can't have more books</div>
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4. Don't even think about using your mate's card to borrow books</div>
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5. Don't write in the books</div>
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There are, of course, unwritten rules too. You have to tell us your name. You can't take all of them. You need ID. You shouldn't be eating that pizza. You can only have it until next week. You have to leave now.</div>
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So let's say we abandon all of these, and any of the other ones I've successfully never learned or forgotten. There's nothing to say we have to <i>announce</i> this newfound spirit of nongovernment, so as far as our students are concerned, business as usual. We'd disable the security gates, but there'd be no reason not to switch on the self-issue machines - just because the books don't have to be checked out doesn't mean they can't be. Plus those machines cost us a fortune, and prevalence of Comic Sans on there presumably does wonders for student morale. Really the first visible sign that something had changed, on the first day, would be at 7pm when we usually close. No announcement on the tannoy, no vaguely passive aggressive switching off of lights, the staff would quietly leave and as 7.10pm, 7.15pm, 7.20pm rolled around the confused students left in the library would notice, presume they'd been forgotten, and sheepishly pack up and leave.</div>
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Slowly, gradually, the lack of restrictions would begin to have an impact. A book perceived as late would have no fine. A perceived renewal limit transpires to be non-existent. The honest would tell us; others would presume a mistake; the majority wouldn't notice. But we wouldn't be deliberately <i>lying</i> to students, so gradually awareness might start to trickle through. Would students be thrilled? Anxious? Nonplussed? Probably all of the above.</div>
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Give it a few weeks. Would our shelves be emptier than the gin and biscuits table at a library conference? No. Has eBay been graced with the more exciting parts of our collection? Nah. Has chaos ensued? Disaster struck? Nope. Has a mob-like hierarchy emerged, with a normal day at the library now strongly resembling one of the grittier scenes from The Godfather? No...Bugsy Malone, maybe, but nothing with an 18 certificate. Have the students instituted their own more radical rules, hoping against hope for some sense of normality in a post-apocalyptic library? Probably not. Have the medievalists taken over, challenging anyone who threatens their superiority to a Guardians of the Galaxy style dance-off? No - I think we can all agree they learned their lesson last time.</div>
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I honestly think - and maybe I'm naive, and maybe our library users are just particularly darling - that most students would continue to use the library within reasonable** parameters. Would there be more complaints? Maybe, because there might be fewer books on the shelves; maybe not, because the complainer might've taken them all. We'd have less money, because no fines; less control, because no dates; and maybe the odd extra missing book. Key questions though: is it a better service? Probably not. A worse one? Maybe a little - less obviously <i>fair</i>, perhaps. Would Very Bad Things happen? Not likely.</div>
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So what does it say about our library rules if we could realistically get rid of them? It says that they're not about control, or power. That they don't exist to create a safety net we can use when we need to exert that control. That we can continue to keep them so well-hidden, thank you very much. It says that our rules are an assertion of what <i>WE THINK</i> constitutes decent behaviour in a shared space and with shared resources. That they're not about punishing badness, but encouraging fairness. And that they can be challenged, stretched, ignored, because our interpretation of what comprises decent behaviour isn't necessarily shared by everyone, and might occasionally*** not be shared by us either.</div>
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*I don't actually have one of these but I REALLY WANT ONE NOW</div>
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**Like, I think they'd take MORE, and keep stuff for LONGER, but still check everything out officially</div>
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***Regularly</div>
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PS I'm (temporarily, perhaps) back! Is blogging still a thing? It's like 2009 all over again.</div>
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Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-62075874942916393182013-08-01T15:15:00.001+01:002013-08-01T15:15:59.650+01:00RDA: really daft acronyms and a bit of a success story<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_and_Access">RDA</a> (Resource Description and Access and, yes, I did look that up) is about the biggest thing to happen in the cataloguing world since <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/">Buzzfeed</a> did a list of card catalogues that look like farm animals. It's a new-ish cataloguing standard, replacing the familiar AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed.) and based on the FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records) concept model. Keeping up? Acronym apathy is a real condition, you know. Maybe.<br />
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I could go on, but that's pretty much all I know. Fortunately, some supercataloguers at the <a href="http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/">UL</a> in Cambridge designed an<a href="http://cambridgerda.wordpress.com/"> <i>incredible</i> webspace</a> which is to RDA what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Dexter">Colin Dexter</a> is to claret-drinking crossword solvers: it tells you all you'd ever need to know. Which is great, because RDA is here. From October, here in Cambridge, new records we create will have to be in RDA and, if we're just copying records, it'd be better if they were in RDA too, ta. No excuses. The times they are a-changin', and they're a-changin' soon. And if you can say anything about librarians, collectively, it's that we're reet good at change.<br />
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Like a lot of librarians in Cambridge, I'm an accidental cataloguer. It's not what I do, it's <i>part </i>of it. I catalogue 1250 or so items a year, mostly copy, mostly modern monographs, too many rare books. I don't do anything fancy, and I'm no expert, but I think I do a decent enough job AND I'm smart enough to piggyback on the excellent work of my favourite CollPW cataloguers, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jennyfromthelib">@jennyfromthelib</a> and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/dymvue">@dymvue</a>, wherever possible. I'm also a reluctant cataloguer. I don't hate it with the fire of a thousand burning John Bowman books, nor do I relish it. Only once have I engaged in a deep and meaningful about subject headings and that was more about prostitution than the Library of Congress. My approach to cataloguing is guided by the joint principles that a) if it's taking longer than five minutes SOMETHING HAS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG and b) if it's been attached together using office equipment IT SHOULD BE SOMEONE ELSE'S RESPONSIBILITY. I'm guilty of many things, but a Cartesian approach to metadata ain't one of 'em.<br />
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So when I signed up to the RDA courses Cambridge was offering, it was a decision driven largely by duty. It was like Matthew Crawley in <a href="http://www.itv.com/downtonabbey/">Downton Abbey</a>, only with more access points and fewer malfunctioning organs. I anticipated lengthy justifications for the placement of semi-colons and a comprehensive exploration of the somnambulic repercussions of added entries. The singular upside was that I thought there might be some controversy. I expected a bit of calmly worded OUTRAGE from the librarians with AACR2 still coursing through their veins. I wondered if battle lines would be drawn, if this would herald the dawn of the 21st century librarianship equivalent of the Cavaliers vs the Roundheads. It'd be cataloguing training, yes. But it'd also be a sociological experiment.<br />
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None of this happened. In fact, the training was excellent, and not just by the standards of cataloguing training, but <i>just in general</i>. Both the training materials and the trainers, Rebecca Gower, Amelie Roper and Pete Girling, were brilliant. It was a shining example of trainers having a solid grasp of <i>how</i> information will be used. They seemed to get that we DIDN'T need all the boggy context, but something pragmatic, process-driven, concrete. They seemed to get that RDA vs AACR2 comparisons had their place, but there was a limit to their usefulness. The training was well-paced, well-balanced and honest. There was a bit of politics, but it was dealt with swiftly and in a way that wasn't defensive. The trainers weren't RDA evangelists, and happily accepted that there are things about it that are contradictory or odd, but they didn't apologise for them. It was like 'RDA is here, get over it, now let's get on with it'. I was expecting boredom and polemics: I got neither.<br />
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At a practical level, RDA vs AACR2 doesn't represent a particularly radical shift, whatever is going on theoretically. The punctuation's a bit different, but no less arbitrary. Some abbreviations have been abandoned. We're about to get more intimate with the $e subfield. But, as far as I can tell, that's it. We don't have to match the dominant colour of a book's cover with <a href="http://www.diy.com/">B&Q</a> paint charts, nor include uncontrolled notes about the author's favourite type of hat. It's not about to become more difficult, just different. That's it.<br />
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RDA could've heralded waves of mass panic across Cambridge libraries. It could've had us burning our bras in solidarity with AACR2, or handcuffing ourselves to the radiators in the UL's cataloguing department. But it hasn't. It isn't that we just don't care, all of a sudden, even if we just don't care. It's that these changes, which are going to affect a lot us just a little bit, have been really well handled. I mean it. The training, the webspace, and the communication of all of it: nicely done, supercataloguers. (Psst. Especially you, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/cjclib">@cjclib</a>.)<br />
<br />Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-91440085218045238462013-07-22T15:57:00.002+01:002013-07-22T21:48:11.959+01:00Five ways in which #ALA2013 was like Idris Elba's acting careerHello, and welcome to the least gratuitous blog post I've ever written. I said <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ala-2013-if-baz-luhrmann-organised.html">last week</a> that I wasn't sure how I'd be able to write about my time at the <a href="http://ala13.ala.org/">ALA annual conference</a> last month in Chicago. And boy, how that struggle has taken hold. Conjure up this image in your mind: the tortured writer, dressed in black, eyeliner smudges, empty coffee cups and cigarette ends, '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88">Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien</a>' playing softly in the background, cursing and staring futilely at the blank screen as the clock on the oven door flashes 3:13 AM. Got it? Congratulations, you're now vastly overestimating how much effort I put into this rubbish. It wasn't like that at all. In fact, all it took was me realising that the solution to my problem and, let's face it, the solution to many of life's problems, was Idris Elba. He would become the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wilson_%28House%29">Wilson</a> to ALA's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_House">House</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_and_hooch">Hooch to its Turner</a>. And here we are: five ways in which the ALA annual conference 2013 was like Idris Elba's career.<br />
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<b>1. It was like <a href="http://www.hbo.com/the-wire/index.html">The Wire</a>, but with librarians</b><br />
Idris Elba's most famous role to date is probably still drug kingpin <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringer_Bell">Stringer Bell</a> in what has been described as pretty much the best TV show ever (but only by people who haven't seen the second series of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCIS_%28season_2%29">NCIS</a>). Initially about drug gangs in Baltimore, later seasons of The Wire tackled other issues of social realism: education, politics and poverty. If you're worried about where I'm going with this, stop. I'm not about to describe what I witnessed of librarian gang culture at ALA. And, more to the point, if ever there were tensions between rival groups (say, the Tumblrarians vs the non-Tumblrarians), it'd be more <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055614/">West Side Story</a> than The Wire. Fewer guns, more dancing and tight trousers. You know I'm right.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If he was wearing a cardigan, he'd actually look a bit like a librarian</td></tr>
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But this is the stage where I come clean and admit that I gave up on The Wire after a few episodes, not because I didn't think it was good--objectively, it was--but because I felt there was something I was missing. There was an entire cultural layer that went over my head. Something similar happened at <a href="http://www.ala.org/">ALA</a>. I'm not a member, nor can I claim (honestly, at least) to be particularly well-versed in the state of American librarianship. Even though I'm sure American libraries are facing the same opportunities and challenges as we are in the UK, I missed something more subtle: the history, ethics, culture, politics, even the personalities. I couldn't contextualise what I was hearing quite so easily, and it meant I found the experience less cohesive, somehow, like it was harder to connect the dots than it would've been had I gone to, say, <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/umbrella2013/Pages/default.aspx">Umbrella</a>.<br />
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It all boils down to the international thing. Going to ALA showed me that I've got a very UK-centric, even Cambridge-centric, view of librarianship. I don't think it's necessarily a <i>bad</i> thing to be microcosmic about it, but it did make me question how wide an outlook I should have. Or, to put it as if it were an A-Level question, how globalised could, or should, we be?<br />
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<b>2. For every <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vk2lp">Luther</a>, there was a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0183068/">Family Affairs</a></b><br />
Luther is, ostensibly, great. Family Affairs was, ostensibly, rubbish.<b> </b>(Idris Elba is/was in both, in case that isn't clear). It's almost comforting that, like every other UK jobbing actor, Idris Elba was in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084987/">The Bill</a>, adding more evidence to my long-held belief that appearing as the victim and/or victim's sibling in The Bill was a prerequisite to getting an Equity card in the 1990s.<br />
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What I'm getting at is that the papers I heard varied <i>considerably</i> in quality, content, and style. Far and away the best thing I went to (the 'Luther', if you will), was the <a href="http://ht.ly/mRXYz">LITA Top Tech Trends</a> panel. Mediated by <a href="https://twitter.com/lorcanD">Lorcan Dempsey</a>, it featured a brilliant panel of celebrarians commenting on all sorts of topics: MOOCs, gamification (and its demise), DRM, linked data, makerspaces, and more. The spirit of Edward Snowden was present--there was an undercurrent of concern about privacy, how the surveillance state impacts behavioural norms, and librarians' roles in helping users to understand the transactions they make, and the ramifications of them, when they put their lives online. It was current and brave and unafraid of controversial stuff. You know what else is brilliant and doesn't shy from controversy? Luther. If you don't believe me, search <a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> for the blender scene in 3.02 (but please, <i>please</i>, not if you're under 18 and/or vaguely squeamish).<br />
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Some sessions were less impressive: they were the Family Affairs, or the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122339/">Dangerfields</a>, or the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007rr0c">Inspector Lynley Mysteries</a> of Idris Elba's IDMB page. Entertaining fillers, but not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Some at their heart were no more than common sense, scooped up and tied with a bow, and given a Powerpoint setting. Others were formed of beautifully worded, grandiose tweet-bites about the glory of libraries or the grandeur of leadership which, once unpacked, were either meaningless or belied reality. (Prometheus achieved something similar, if I recall correctly). This is more an observation than a complaint: when it came to <i>quality</i> of content, ALA was no better than any other conference I've attended.<br />
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<b>3. For every film about sea monsters attacking humanity, there was a ... Family Affairs</b><br />
Idris Elba plays the magnificently named character <a href="http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0381330/">Stacker Pentecost</a> in <a href="http://www.pacificrimmovie.com/">Pacific Rim</a>, which I haven't seen, but which is about giant monsters from the floor of the Pacific Ocean fighting giant war robots. It sounds like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/">Terminator</a> meets the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046876/">Creature from the Black Lagoon</a>, only less realistic. Family Affairs, conversely, in which Idris Elba played something akin to a man in a pub, was about two families from a fictional suburb in London. Chances are it was equally unrealistic, but at least the only monster it had to tackle was the general apathy of anyone watching. It's safe to say, then, that Idris Elba's career has been a bit diverse. He's about to play <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2304771/">Mandela</a>, for heaven's sake. That same diversity could be found at ALA 2013 though, admittedly, there were slightly fewer sea monsters.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NOT gratuitous</td></tr>
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In fact, when it comes to <i>variety</i> of content, give ALA 2013 a tiara and a yellow jersey, because it's just won all the prizes. Whatever your interest, however obscure, ALA had three discussion groups, two programs, and a networking uncommons special on it. Not to mention six experts and 300 people also interested in it. I swear there was not a library stone unturned. There was probably a series of programs on the best building materials for libraries, and an Ignite presentation on how the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones">Rolling Stones</a> affected library services provision in downtown LA.<br />
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It probably <i>sounds</i> great. And, largely, it was. But if there are going to be sessions on every topic, ever, over just four days, you're going to have a lot of stuff happening at the same time. It may be glib to complain about the tyranny of choice, in a Chandleresque "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVsPyaLSzJM">my wallet's too small for my fifties, and my diamond shoes are too tight</a>" sort of way but, people, there was TOO MUCH CHOICE. There was an overwhelming amount of choice. I'd diligently gone through the online scheduler, not just picking out whatever I fancied, but being as ruthless as Stringer Bell, and I still ended up with a situation where I needed more clones than <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2234222/">Orphan Black</a> to get to even half of it. It triggered a sort of conference guilt, that I <i>wasn't</i> doing more, as well as missing out syndrome, that I <i>physically couldn't</i> do more without some kind of wizardry. And somewhere along the line this made me feel a bit dissatisfied, with myself and with the whole endeavour. Worst of all it meant I missed out on arguably the 'Stacker Pentecost' of the conference, the gloriously named "<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/benbizzle/go-home-library-youre-drunk">Go Home, Library, You're Drunk</a>".<br />
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<b>4. The Exhibits Hall: more sensory overload than <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0313043/">CSI: Miami</a></b><br />
According to Idris Elba's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0252961/?ref_=sr_1">IMDB</a> page, he was in an early-ish episode of CSI: Miami. I haven't seen too many episodes of things from the franchise, but I've seen enough to know a lot of stuff gets packed into any old episode of CSI: Scary Big City, and it's all big and bright and flashy, with a supporting cast of several million and more magical forensic leaps than there are red herrings. It's overstimulating, and not in a good way. You need to lie down in a darkened room afterwards, as long as the effort to suspend your disbelief hasn't knocked you out first.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the queue to the Exhibits Hall</td></tr>
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The ALA version of CSI: Terrifying Metropolis was, without question, the Exhibits Hall. It was a ginormous room, packed full of people flogging their wares, telling you stuff, and handing out freebies. There were authors signing their books, poster sessions, some kind of cookery stage, expensive sandwiches, places to buy novelty t-shirts and, slightly more incongruously, bronze statues (every library needs one). There were even a couple of conspiracy theorists. It was bright and thrilling and jammed full of people, just like any random episode of CSI: Disagreeable Kingdom. Incidentally, it also took about forty minutes to get from one side to the other.<br />
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I'm not <i>exactly</i> sure I understood the point of the Exhibits Hall, as entertaining as it was. It could well be that this is my fault: a combination of already owning enough tote bags to last a lifetime, and not having the purchasing power to snap up a good deal with <a href="http://www.oclc.org/home.en.html">OCLC</a> on the spot, meant that I couldn't quite get how it was relevant to me, except for being a bit of a lark. And I couldn't quite shake off the feeling that I should be in a conference session somewhere, not hanging out with the nice chaps from <a href="http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/">Oxford University Press</a>. It felt like the equivalent of me choosing to watch CSI: Really Sinister Realm instead of working hard on my chartership portfolio. And you know me, I'd <i>never</i> do that.<br />
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<b>5. My ALA survival tip? Be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimdall_%28comics%29">Heimdall</a>.</b><br />
In the Thor films, Idris Elba plays a character called Heimdall, based on a Norse god. This dude has superpowers. He's got superhuman strength and stamina, agility and durability. He's got excellent vision and hearing, and he's extremely alert. He also has a sword which allows him to disguise himself as a normal human being.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Headgear not required.</td></tr>
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If you're thinking of going to the ALA conference in the future (and I strongly recommend that you do), and you'd like to survive the experience, I have one piece of advice. Be Heimdall. It's busy and<b> </b>stressful and exhilarating and EXHAUSTING, especially if you get a dose of jetlag like me. You need strength and stamina and durability because librarians party into the wee hours and then get up in time for a 6.30am bus to the conference centre. (Not kidding). You need excellent hearing and vision in case you're late to a session and end up right at the back of the biggest auditorium you've ever seen. You need agility because... OK, now I'm out, although avoiding falling into the indoor water features at the conference centre did require some skill.<br />
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The one thing you DON'T need, though, is the ability (with or without the magic sword) to disguise yourself as a normal human being. If there's anything I've noticed it's that librarians in America and the UK have in common that they're friendly, helpful, witty and lovely. They're not exactly normal themselves, so they don't care if you aren't either (I mean this as a compliment, in case it isn't clear). So I want to finish with a massive THANK YOU and HELLO AGAIN to all the wonderful librarians I met at the conference. You all made me feel very welcome and were, without exception, unfailingly talented and a little bit bonkers. Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-34495026448357179382013-07-14T13:41:00.001+01:002013-07-25T12:37:16.378+01:00ALA 2013: If Baz Luhrmann organised a library conference...<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we speak (OK, well, I'm sitting here cross-legged eating caterpillar-shaped confectionery and you're reading, at least for the moment)<span style="line-height: 1.35;">, I'm still trying to come to terms with what happened last week. No, not <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/23217393">Wimbledon</a>. Not Boris' <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/08/boris-johnson-women-university-husband">latest spewings</a>. Not even the news that we share our corner shops with people who </span><i style="line-height: 1.35;">genuinely</i><span style="line-height: 1.35;"> believe that Queen Annie and King Dave would've written lyrics like "<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23284179">sweet dreams are made of CHEESE</a>". None of these. I spent last week (well, sorta) at the <a href="http://ala13.ala.org/">American Libraries Association annual conference</a>. In Chicago. The most exotic place I'd ever been to prior to this for the sake of professional development was, like, Wolverhampton. Judy Garland never sang about Wolverhampton.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.35;">If you're surprised I got to attend ALA in Chicago, join the club. Frankly I'm surprised they let me in. Granted, it <i>was</i> touch-and-go for a minute, but my passport photo does make me look like I'll kill again. I went courtesy of a bursary from the <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/membership/benefits/advice-and-support/grants-and-bursaries/john-campbell-trust/john-campbel-2">John Campbell Trust</a> (*tips hat to the lovely folk who organise that*). The grant isn't ALA-specific--you can apply to attend any international conference or to fund a programme of library-based travelling. I have to admit I chose ALA on a whim although, being the Serious Library Professional wot I am, the fact that it was hosted by THE CITY WHERE <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108757/">ER</a> WAS SET didn't enter into it at all. I had a similarly loose approach to what I wanted to gain from it: I had no long list of aims or obligations to attend specific sessions on specific topics. I could, instead, navigate around it based on whatever captured my interest. What I WANTED was a conference packed with as much diversity, of style, content and situation, as I could muster.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.35;">And cor blimey, guv'nor, I got my wish. What an EXPERIENCE. ALA veterans had warned me about the scale of it, but I'd misinterpreted this. I'd thought they were talking about the numbers. I steeled myself for the prospect of a bazillion librarians in unison organising their travel documents efficiently and picking out their favourite cardigans. I can cope with crowds, I thought, I used to have a <a href="http://www.bwfc.co.uk/">Bolton Wanderers</a> season ticket. (Don't even.) I now understand that it wasn't just about the numbers. It was that EVERYTHING was bigger and brighter and noisier and more chaotic than I'd expected. I felt like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_(ER)">John Carter MD</a> in the first episode of ER, although ALA was less of a bloodbath. Except for the exhibits hall.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.35;">Happily I met my target of attending lots of different types of stuff: papers on collection development, career development, tech trends, library design, intellectual freedom, ethics, and more. I went to ignite papers, panel sessions, "old school" presentations; to things where audience participation was discouraged, and things where it was mandatory; to formal stuff, informal stuff, and really </span><i style="line-height: 1.35;">really</i><span style="line-height: 1.35;"> informal stuff. I heard from library schoolers and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker">award-winning authors</a>. I got mobbed in the exhibits hall, I went to a lot of social events at a lot of Irish pubs, and I met masses of inspiring people who do the library thing really well.</span><br />
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<blockquote align="center" class="twitter-tweet">
Made it to the convention centre, which is approximately the size of East Anglia <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ala2013&src=hash">#ala2013</a> <a href="http://t.co/uJwzSRrQzY">pic.twitter.com/uJwzSRrQzY</a><br />
— Helen Murphy (@lemurph) <a href="https://twitter.com/lemurph/statuses/350307100007755776">June 27, 2013</a></blockquote>
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<span style="line-height: 1.35;">Now, somehow, I've got to write about it and, honestly, I've no idea how to distil five days of what I can only describe as HYPERCONFERENCING into a few blog posts. The obvious way would be a sort of journal but, duh, obvious. And I'm not going to write up reports on specific papers because there were a lot of them. Instead, I'll try (operative word) to somehow describe the experience which was, on reflection, probably the best and the worst professional development thing I've ever attended. So (apologies), expect a couple of posts, over the next few weeks, on the things that impressed me or depressed me. Not necessarily including, and not necessarily limited to, the things about ALA that would improve UK conferencing (spoiler: ribbons), what struck me about the difference between US and UK librarianship, and what it was like to be a country mouse at a city mouse conference. And, hopefully, somewhere along the line I might be able to convince YOU to apply for the bursary next year.</span></div>
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Or I could just tell you about the mariachi band playing "Roll out the barrel", and leave it at that. Tempted?</div>
Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-20281050865807847872013-05-06T10:57:00.001+01:002013-05-07T14:25:49.802+01:00Reclassify ALL the things?When I started my job, I inherited a reclassification project in its very very nascent stages. Funny, they didn't mention it in the interview. It had been decided that the extant in-house scheme (in-house the chosen euphemism for the spectrum between idiosyncratic and downright wacky) should be swapped for that universal class scheme so beloved of librarians across the space-time continuum. Do we love <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Decimal_Classification">Dewey</a>? Dewey ever! As I took over, two of the eleventy subjects we stock had been finished: chemistry, and law. Though law had, for the sake of some unknown ulterior complexity, been classified into <a href="http://www.library.uow.edu.au/eresources/UOW026516.html">Moys</a>. This is <a href="http://www.cam.ac.uk/">Cambridge</a>, after all: it's not meant to be easy. Sarcasm klaxon going off there, just to be clear.<br />
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The project became my responsibility, and it's easy to see why. With approximately 22,000 books left, and me with almost ten minutes' worth of classification experience, this was a match made in heaven. Less the heaven of cosmology, Dante or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eT464L1YRA">Bryan Adams</a>, more a nightclub in Basingstoke. Anyway, in the past few years, with occasional help, I've converted two-thirds of the remaining books to Dewey. And now exam term is upon us, now the students have descended on the library faster than well-respected actors would back away from offers to star in the 50 Shades film and are showing no signs of leaving without explicitly donut-centred bribery, the project is entering a ten-week cessation. Which makes this a good opportunity to reflect (*eye roll*) on how it's gone so far--or, in other words, to write down what I wish I'd known before I began.<br />
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<i>Plan. But ensure the plan has a caveat allowing you to ignore the plan altogether. Wait, no, all except the caveat. Bit meta.</i><br />
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As far as I'm aware, any preparation for the project was limited to "Deweyfy the library, y'all", so playing it by ear has been a theme. With no time frame identifed, nor any decisions made about the order in which subjects would be tackled, the only unspoken rule was to minimise disruption to the students. And by heck have there been times when I wish there'd been A Plan to refer back to. So, for example, I've only recently decided the direction of the new sequence (should we put big numbers at the top or the bottom of the library?), and not only does that feel a bit belated but it's meant that my thought processes have regularly borne too many similarities to the numbers bit on <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/countdown">Countdown</a> for my liking.<br />
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For the most part, the lack of plan has been vaguely liberating and I don't think it's particularly hindered progress. To get all management-speaky for a sec, it's meant that the project is primarily tactical not strategic; decisions could be made based on what's happening <i>right now</i> rather than some unknown point in the past or future; timely, practical solutions to the unanticipated, unanticipatable, pass-me-the-gins problems I didn't know I'd face could be found and, more to the point, adapted (i.e. ignored or forgotten) when they ceased to be timely or practical. Like what to do with new books: straight to Dewey, or into the old scheme? Like what to do when reclassified books end up in sections that don't exist yet. (Or didn't exist. Honestly, the philosophical dilemmas I've faced.) Yet the more that's in Dewey, the less troublesome these problems, the less frequently they arise. Not having a plan sounds dangerous, but it didn't mean that logic and reason were chucked out the window (though admittedly they've been separated and put in different places). On the other hand, the plan I <i>wish</i> had existed would've allowed for common sense to take over when the tactics needed a shift. Best of all the worlds. See, with the philosophy.<br />
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<i>Reclassification is only 10% of reclassification.</i><br />
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The few seconds that's actually reclassification are quite good fun. Relatively speaking. You figure out the new call number, and by figure out, I mean 'copy what another library did', because duplication of effort is bad, right? You can't really avoid occasionally looking at the books, which tends to mean you get to know the stock really well. And this means that, wearing Sensible Hat, you can identify gaps in the collection. Without Sensible Hat, you can pretend to the students that you're made of magic when they ask you questions.<br />
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The other 90% is made of Stuff That Will Annoy You. The catalogue record has to be altered which, inevitably, involves noticing how bad the catalogue record is. So you've got to change it/resist the urge to change it/resist the urge to complain on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> that the 008 is different from the 260 and they're <i>both</i> wrong. You've got to take off the old labels, which is a challenge in itself, because Past Librarians used glue from the planet Bloody Stubborn and then covered the books in clingfilm's genetically mutated evil cousin. Then there's new labels and all that processing stuff and even with my <strike>minions</strike> support staff doing this for me, it seemed more neverending than the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story">Neverending Story</a>, told twice, backwards, in German, by a non-German speaker.<br />
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I definitely hadn't anticipated all this extraneous palaver, nor had I considered how much it would restrict progress by dictating so flipping rigidly the order in which things <i>had</i> to be done. It would've been good, probably, to factor this in at the start. And of course there's the one last bit of the process. Only a minor thing, really. The books are now in the wrong order. Which brings me to my next point.<br />
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<i>You'll need supplies.</i><br />
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I don't just mean a sneaky hipflask in your filing cabinet and an emergency emergency chocolate stash (though, to be clear, I mean this). But I also mean a map of the library, a calculator, and a tape measure. Oh, and a torch, hard hat, spirit level and a couple of rowers. Because reclassification means book moves. And because trying not to cause disruption means getting things back on shelves in their new order faster than you can say <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftJZomwDhxQ">Blue Monday</a> it means LOTS of book moves. Pretty much, in fact, all the time.<br />
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It's all kinds of book moves, too, from shifting 12,000 books up a bit to squeeze in two shelves of syntactical grammar books, moving 4,000 books down a floor for art and architecture, and edging ten shelves up a bit so the Spanish drama doesn't get out of sequence. I never particularly anticipated that I'd be dealing with the idiosyncrasies of two systems at the same time. So while we used to have a clearly defined Geography section, Dewey sneers in the face of Geography, like a sneery thing. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raccoons">Cyril Sneer</a>. And now we don't. We used to put linguistics and languages together. Dewey divided, conquered, and sneered some more, and as a result I moved several thousand books up one floor and the music section got a new home.<br />
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It probably sounds worse than it is. But it isn't all negative. I now have a<i> brillian</i>t idea for a library-based exercise DVD (Shelversize, people? No? REALLY?) Less importantly, I learned not to neglect the library as a <i>genuinely physical space</i>, with dimensions and geometry and stuff. If that sounds daft, it's because it is. But I spent quite a while being consistently puzzled because the books kept taking up more or less room when they'd been moved, and was tentatively reaching the conclusion that THE BOOKS WERE REPRODUCING and wondering if I should leave vistafoil on the shelves as a precaution (note to self: stop anthropomorphising books). Picking up on the fact that some of our shelves were 68cm long, some 70cm and some 72cm (and this is why you need a tape measure) helped me to start to consider how the library was mapped out, how <i>physically</i> big collections are, in terms of surface area. I learned that book moves could be minimised by being clever about it, and thinking about where the books would eventually end up. I also learned that our rowers are really fit and you can bribe them with biscuits to move stuff.<br />
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<i>Think about the users.</i><br />
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I'm hoping this goes without saying. But I've definitely learned something about how we think about our users and how we communicate changes in the library to them. We can obviously feel pretty sure the change to Dewey is in users' best interests--it's certainly not just for my own amusement--that we know best because we are profeshnuls, the truth is that it ISN'T. It's in the best interests of <i>future</i> students, because they'll have a library where the books on Riemann geometry (or Chaucer, or cell biology, or museum studies) are next to each other rather than all over the show. They'll have a library with a class scheme that's better for serendipitous finding of cool, relevant things, or more consistent with what they'll find elsewhere. To our <i>current</i> users, this is just a bit of a hassle. They don't give two hoots what scheme we use. Maybe it's that micro/macro thing. Being able to justify why we're doing what we're doing, then, is all pretty irrelevant.<br />
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Instead, the kind of communication I've found most effective is way more basic. It's the visible, not the philosophical. It's signs. "Yes, I know your geology books were here last week, and now this is economics, but geology is just behind you" (well, this, but pithier). It's being aware of how changes will affect them and being willing to go to the shelves with them and help them get their heads round it. It's about putting off the <i>really</i> disruptive stuff until they've all toddled off on their hols. It's talking to them about it, and listening to what they say.<br />
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I'm pretty certain that like, um, snowflakes(?), no two reclassification projects are the same, and it's difficult to assess its impact or advantages because, well, it's not finished yet, and I'm maybe feeling slightly defensive about it because hindsight's still an elusive dream. In the past few years I've got unreasonably cross with glue, and I've stabbed myself with a scalpel at least a dozen times, and I've been covered in dying book more times than I care to remember, and I've learned that Dewey's as far from perfect as Edinburgh is from tropical and balmy, and I've developed an inability to separate my appreciation for ebooks from the fact that they don't have labels. But I've also picked up some completely invaluable knowledge about the library and its collection and, yes, about classification as well. So while I might not be dead keen to do this again, it's not been all bad. And given that it's a <i>reclassification project</i>, that's probably the best you could expect.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-80066701782266855202013-03-07T11:00:00.000+00:002013-03-07T11:27:06.688+00:00My week with copyright: one librarian's intrepid quest to stay consciousOne of the things I included in my PPDP for <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/jobs-careers/qualifications/cilip-qualifications/chartership/pages/chartershipintro.aspx">Chartership</a> was a promise to become more familiar with copyright law. I typed it regretting every single keystroke. I stared back at the letters squeezed uncomfortably into a badly formatted Word table, index finger hovering over the backspace button. There must, I thought, be simpler ways to overindulge in misery than this. I could defrost the freezer, or go to Asda, or watch Dancing on Ice. But I left it in there, albeit reluctantly. And recently, feeling a great sense of foreboding, I read four books* about copyright from cover to cover.<br />
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I won't go into the specifics of what I read. First, because I reckon you'd need a law degree before you could understand or write about it with any conviction (boom tish), and I'm as far from being a lawyer as a cauliflower is from being a shoe. Second, because I don't want to write anything about copyright law that I'm not <i>absolutely</i> certain is true. Don't want to get sued, natch. And third, because I'd be here all night.<br />
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It took me about a week, on and off, to read the books, and I'd be lying if I said that I particularly enjoyed the experience. Copyright law is about as complex and messy as its reputation threatened. It's got more tentacles and loopholes than a coach load of squid crocheting scarves badly. It's also, in my opinion, unremittingly dull. As dry as an empty bottle of Prosecco in the desert. It's not boring in a necessarily unpleasant, garish way (cf. Dancing on Ice), but it does have a certain (i.e. a whacking great big) lullabic quality. I found myself not only wishing for the bough to break and the cradle to fall, but I was trying to position myself under the tree so it'd hit me on the head on the way down.<br />
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The sheer bulk of the material, combined with its lifeless mundanity, led me to two thoughts. First, that the celebrity embodiment of copyright law would, in fact, be Arnold Schwarzenegger. Second, and vaguely less disturbingly, it made me question the extent to which I <i>needed</i> to know this stuff. I developed a gnawing sense that I could probably get away without knowing much about it at all, that information my brain already held about copyright was more than sufficient to keep me going. I'm not talking in extremes here: I'm fully aware that I don't have to be intimate with the innermost crevices of, for example, the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1977/37">Patents Act 1977</a> or World Motor Sport Council vs McLaren in 2007. But there <i>are</i> bits of information--about licenses, DRM, Creative Commons, etc.--that <i>are</i> useful, and that I <i>did</i> learn more about. I've tried, subsequently, to hold onto these, even though there's only a limited amount of space in my already undersized noggin. [NB. If I discover that I've inadvertently sacrificed my ability to recite Billy Joel's <i>We Didn't Start the Fire</i> on demand for the sake of copyright law then there'll be trouble].<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still sleeping. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/41754875@N00/4788897401">Photo credit</a>.</td></tr>
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Back in the Middle Ages when I first began working in libraries I felt like I'd started listening in the middle of a conversation. Because, of course, I had. I'd regularly be confronted by things I knew precisely zero about. These days it happens a bit less, but by no means infrequently. I've since learned that there are a million conversations happening all at once within our profession, and there's such overlap between them that it's not so much a Venn diagram as a Venn Slinky in a light breeze. Of course you can't listen to all of them, unless you're [names redacted], and of course that inevitably means you're going to come across stuff you just don't know about. If we lived in an ideal world, this would constantly function as an incentive to find out more. We don't, so it's more than likely an incentive to practise smiling and nodding and laughing intelligently in the right places.<br />
<br />
I've usually thought it was better to know about something than not to know about it. There are things that have challenged that, but they've tended to be unnecessary or frivolous or about One Direction. What I've read about copyright law is challenging it too, not because I don't appreciate the importance of it, but because, to me, it's so coma-inducingly, jaw-grindingly tedious. I'm sure some people find it fascinating and I doff my metaphorical hat in their general direction. And, as the ratings for Dancing on Ice prove so convincingly, opinions can vary. But at the end of my week with copyright, my questions are these. Can we, as professionals, wilfully and legitimately choose to try to 'get by' with something that's entirely relevant? Can we ever decide just to rely on tacit knowledge and an awareness of how to find out more if it's required? And can we make decisions like these <i>solely</i> on how boring the topic is? If not, come up with a better justification for me, thankyouplease.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yet more sleeping. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/84903395@N00/485016168">Photo credit.</a></td></tr>
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<br />
<b>*What I read</b><br />
Armstrong, C. and Bebbington, L.W. (eds.) (2004). <i>Staying legal: a guide to issues and practice affecting the library, information and publishing sectors</i>, 2nd ed. London: Facet.<br />
Patry, W. (2009). <i>Moral panics and the copyright wars. </i>Oxford: OUP.<br />
Pedley, P. (2008). <i>Copyright compliance: practical steps to stay within the law. </i>London: Facet.<br />
Pedley, P. (ed.) (2005). <i>Managing digital rights: a practitioner's guide. </i>London: Facet.<br />
<br />Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-15191472544385436102013-01-15T12:26:00.000+00:002013-01-16T11:36:24.554+00:00No imps were made to act in the writing of this blog post: the Libraries@Cambridge conference 2013 (#lac13)Every year, in the second week of January, countless libraries in Cambridge are left unattended (in the hopes that they won't be removed without warning or their contents destroyed...which actually isn't a bad plot for a film) as their librarians trek along to what is <i>surely</i> the highlight of the Cambridge social calendar, the <a href="http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/libraries/conference2013/index.html">Libraries@Cambridge conference</a>. (That is, highlight with the exclusion of SCONUL headcount days. Obviously. Goes without saying? Yup, thought so.)<br />
<br />
And actually, now is as good a time as any to point out how MASSIVELY SPOILED we are that we get a conference like this. It's free. It's got enough places that a huge percentage of us can get to it. It's Cambridge-centric enough that it's directly relevant, but not so much that we can kid ourselves that we're the beating heart of the universe. It's a chance for us to swap stories about the various viruses we picked up over Christmas. IT'S GOT DANISH PASTRIES IN THE TEA BREAK.<br />
<br />
The theme of this year's conference was 'Making an Impact'... and not 'Making an Imp Act', as I initially thought. The first keynote was given by Director of LIS at Teesside (and Twitter celebrity), <a href="https://twitter.com/liz_jolly">Liz Jolly</a>. She argued that we're good at measuring stuff in general (there speaks a woman who wasn't witness to me buying the wrong size of mattress for my bed: who knew 5ft and 6ft weren't interchangeable?). And we've got a lot of mechanisms for measuring stuff. We also have a lot of acronyms. Liz questioned, though, whether we're measuring the right stuff, or just what's measurable. Whether we're benchmarking what we measure in a meaningful way. Whether we're aligning what we measure to our institutional mission. We've got the measuring down, but what about the impact? And this led Liz to address the yin to the 'measuring impact' yang, the Cagney to its Lacey: making an impact. The tripartite approach she presented involved: one, considering students our partners in their learning; two, building relationships with students and the wider organisation; three, professional leadership and membership (yo <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx">CILIP</a>, your ears burning?). I was <i>totally</i> on board with Liz till this last point. And I'd venture into why I disagree about any direct, immediate connection between 'professionalism' and 'professional membership' but these arguments have been regurgitated sixteen gazillion times and the debate's more tedious and unwelcome than McCartney.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"They're not going on about CILIP again, are they?"</td></tr>
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Then <a href="https://twitter.com/daveyp">Dave Pattern</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Graham_Stone">Graham Stone</a> from the University of Huddersfield rocked up to tell us about the <a href="http://library.hud.ac.uk/blogs/projects/lidp/about/">Library Impact Data Project</a>. They achieved the NEAR IMPOSSIBLE by making stats engaging (no, really), despite having All The Graphs and a giiiinormous amount of data. Dave and Graham did a smashing job of describing the project and providing commentary around the stats in a way that was really balanced and fair. Like, there was some correlation between library usage (or lack of) and not completing a degree, but instead of leaping to the dead easy and dramatic conclusion that not using libraries really is bad for your (academic) health, they showed how that correlation was nuanced, how the data was limited, how this was only one part of the picture. In fact, their presentation sort of vindicated what Liz had been saying: that we can measure stuff till the cows come home and make the dinner but we still need to bridge the gap between the stuff that we measure and how we use that to make it count.<br />
<br />
And then it was time for the blessed BREAK FOR TEA, after which came the first of two 'break out' sessions. I went to a presentation on Open Access: a sort of past, present, future trilogy. Or at least, I think that's what it was about. I don't actually remember. And oi, no that isn't because I dozed off or skived off or went to the wrong room (you know me so well). It's that, for this session, I wore the beanie hat of 'live blogger' and I wrote <a href="http://www.libatcam.blogspot.co.uk/#!http://libatcam.blogspot.com/2013/01/parallel-session-1b-open-access-at.html">this</a>. And, for some reason, the fact that I listened really REALLY hard and in that hour was made of more concentration than a bottle of Sunny Delight meant that I didn't hear anything they said. Let alone take it in. Live blogging is a weird sport. It's not even live. It's not especially difficult--you just have to type really fast. The only tricksy bit is grappling with Blogger under time pressure and even that is less taxing than desperately soul-annihilating. By the end, though, I was knackered, so I was glad when the presentations ended and the ring was destroyed or something. Cue the queue for butties.<br />
<br />
The afternoon kicked off with the second 'break out' (which is a phrase that really does evoke 'Twelve Monkeys', am I right?). I went to hear Stuart Hunt from the University of Warwick talk about the future of cataloguing. Hell yeah, don't tell me I don't know how to enjoy myself. Stuart did a jam-packed SWOT of cataloguing procedures and practices at a sort of macro level, talking about shared cataloguing, decentralised practices, quality of records, and so on. Then a panel of Cambridge folk brought what Stuart had said down to a more micro level, which was really useful, especially for an accidental cataloguer like me. Anyway, the things I took from the session were: one, cataloguing has a future; two, that future might have to involve a bit of rolling with the punch-tuation marks (see what I did there); three, library conferences should have bingo cards with words like 'metadata' and 'acronym' and 'semantics' because this stuff ALWAYS gets said and because even the most serious presentation would be improved by someone screeching 'HOUSE' in the middle of it. (Hugh Laurie association notwithstanding).<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hugh approves of this clever and fortuitous segue</td></tr>
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The last bit of the day was a Pecha Kucha session. No, I hadn't heard of it either. According to that dastardly, talented genius, <a href="https://twitter.com/angefitzpatrick">Ange Fitzpatrick</a>, Pecha Kucha is Japanese for "unexpected slide". Anyway, this was another part of the day that I was <strike>coerced</strike> <strike>emotionally blackmailed</strike> persuaded to be involved in, and I gave a little presentation about some things. All the other speakers, though, were <i>brilliant</i>, showcasing some of the awesome stuff that's going on in the faculties and the UL and the colleges. Ostentatious lot. They were so good that I forgot that I had been expecting a short rendition of '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKV8uSX2nEQ">No Scrubs</a>' from the presentation titled 'TLC'.<br />
<br />
Day over, it was time for wine and gossip and heady intellectual discussions and wine. A big ta to the organisers and the speakers and everyone involved: t'was super.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-19917186517084328452012-11-02T11:30:00.001+00:002012-11-02T11:30:03.180+00:00An (this) idiot's survival guide to #aberils, part V<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=370360491570922251" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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There aren't that many disadvantages to distance learning, to be honest. The advantages far outweigh them. And of the disadvantages there are, most are administrative. Like having to organise access to resources. Like figuring out who to email if you want a new module. Like devising a password suitable for Moodle which, in a nutshell, shouldn't contain any letters or numbers which you've ever used before, in any context, in the whole of your life. Like remembering this password when you've come up with one. There are just two problems that aren't as easily overcome. First, there's the bit where you have to <i>learn</i> something. Because you don't get classroom experiences. No lectures, no lecturers. Not only do you have to motivate yourself, but you have to find your own answers, figure out your own path through the reading, organise your own time, your own work. And second, there's the bit where you're at a <i>distance</i>. Because you miss out on the socialising, the complaining about stuff down the pub, the scrapping over the same books in the library. Basically, the biggest hurdle to overcome is that distance learning probably isn't like any kind of studying you might've done before.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(C) Jessica Holland</td></tr>
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The first bit, I promise you, you get over fast. Partly because you haven't any other choice in the matter. And partly because the module handbooks, for their faults, tend to be pretty well structured. The tricksiest bit is figuring out your <i>own</i> working methods: when, and where, you concentrate best, how much studying you can cope with, but a trial-and-error approach will get you there. Another problem is that the module handbooks are quite hefty. And if you try to read All The Things, chances are you'll have retired by the time you qualify. Sometimes the reading listed at the end of a unit just replicates the content of it. Sometimes it's a bit out of date. Sometimes the interwebs weren't invented when it was written. So while it <i>might</i> solidify your thoughts, it also might not. Don't get me wrong: I'm not encouraging you to slack off or insisting that you try to get away with doing the bare minimum, but a degree of educated selectivity will help you use your time more wisely. That and, of course, finding more relevant and recent reading yourself.<br />
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Then there's the dissertation. Because the modules are nice and structured, the dissertation can be about as shocking as that plot twist in Downton Abbey a few weeks back. I don't think the dissertation study school is quite as useful as it could (should?) be in preparing you for what is, ultimately, very different form the 'taught' part of the course. One important thing, then: you should definitely, <i>definitely</i>, think about your dissertation topic before the school, no matter how premature it feels. Not just vague ideas, either. Concrete ones, with research questions, a methodology, an idea of structure (oh, and if you're planning to diverge from the "traditional" social science structure, one hell of a justification for it). The better prepared you are for the dissertation school, the more you'll get out of it.<br />
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Second, then, the social side of things. Thanks be for the interwebs! All right, it's not ever really going to replace the social element of full-time study but, then again, you're not studying full-time. So when you're at study schools, get email addresses, phone numbers, new Facebook friends. Get on the Twitters and get involved with the <a href="https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23aberils&src=hash">#aberils</a> hashtag. If there are other students local to you, organise a meet-up. Keep in regular contact with them, find out about their progress, and get them to pester you about yours. Like I said right at the start of the week (a very very long time ago!), there's a commonality of experience, and Aber students, past and present, are generous with their time, willing to answer questions, ready to offer advice. If ever there were a benefit for the course changing at glacial pace, this is it.<br />
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So, anyway, that's it from me, I'm going back into semi-retirement from this blogging malarkey. But do feel free to get in touch with me on Twitter or in the comments, even if you just want to tell me that I was right about being the idiot. A HUGE thanks to everyone who has commented so far, and especially, <i>especially</i>, to the brilliant and talented <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jescarose">Jessica Holland</a> who doesn't seem to have minded at all that I've nicked all her photos (unless the bill's in the post). So toodle-pip, and happy studying!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">(C) Jessica Holland</span></td></tr>
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<br />Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-90339977212600854092012-11-01T11:30:00.000+00:002012-11-01T11:30:05.133+00:00An (this) idiot's survival guide to #aberils, part IVIn today's little instalment, I'm going to talk about the actual assignments. Cue dramatic music. (See more ramblings here: <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to.html">Part I</a>, <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to_30.html">Part II</a>, <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to_31.html">Part III</a>)<br />
<br />
Now I don't want to get personal with the specifics of certain assignments 'cos I'll be here all night. But it seems to me that there are two separate but connected issues: what the assignment actually means, and then whether you're doing it correctly. As for the first, the errr... <i>long-windedness </i>of some of the assignment questions definitely caused me a problem or two. You have to put aside a few weeks just to get to the end of reading them through. Some of them consist of more words than they give us to complete them. Some of them are so long that I suspect they're products of the dullest <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/">#nanowrimo</a> project ever. There's the one with the quotation which, on every reading, makes less sense--quite literally, too, there's a verb missing or something. There's the one which asks you to divide your answer into four parts, and the description of what the third part should be is practically identical to the second. There's the one which--now changed, I believe--couldn't decide whether or not it was a case-study. And lastly, there's the one which, if there was a league table for unappealing prospects, would fall somewhere between root canal and cleaning someone else's oven (all right, all right, the business plan).<br />
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When it comes to <i>your interpretation </i>of the assignment, geographic isolation can really become an issue. Chances are you're the only person you know working on that assignment at that time. And, sometimes, the assignment topics are pretty open to interpretation, and even if you <i>do</i> know someone, they might be working on an entirely different topic. So if you have questions, it's often to Moodle (that's the VLE, for non-Aber folk) that you turn, and while Moodle may have the answers, they're so well hidden that you're just as likely to find them in a tube of Smarties. And often--or maybe this was just me--you don't have a specific question. You have seventy-four specific questions. You're wondering if you're doing the whole blimmin' thing wrong.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOeGhzpTDZ5InOZEcl9QKSj-nA6hyqbkAWK48tfDIx-qxvcTecpyBld9iGOrwjZbnWJs-8VsePNrW-WSr74C6K0uiG75atyTyRjuwGxKe2sZL0UeZm49xbV0csGWF5xEBHEpaMrkXlDxw/s1600/Aber+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOeGhzpTDZ5InOZEcl9QKSj-nA6hyqbkAWK48tfDIx-qxvcTecpyBld9iGOrwjZbnWJs-8VsePNrW-WSr74C6K0uiG75atyTyRjuwGxKe2sZL0UeZm49xbV0csGWF5xEBHEpaMrkXlDxw/s320/Aber+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bluebell walk. (C) Jessica Holland.</td></tr>
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This sense of unease seems to be fairly universal. My singular gripe about my Aber experience is that it isn't addressed or combated particularly effectively by the department. Partly it's symptomatic of being at a distance, and that they can do nothing about. But partly it's the fault of the assignments themselves: some seriously need updating, or sharpening, or simplifying, or focusing on one topic rather than fourteen. It doesn't help that you might have a long, long wait for feedback, that it's all a bit sporadic, and that the feedback is so (deliberately) impersonal. It doesn't help that the modules and assignments are kind of isolated from one another, so what one marker says isn't necessarily applicable to your next piece of work. And as far as confidence is concerned, it doesn't help that we're advised to do the modules in a way that's linear and rigid and which, in my opinion at least, could do with reordering*. <br />
<br />
I do, however, believe that the department is doing the best that it can. And unfortunately, dwelling on what doesn't help equally doesn't help. Even more unfortunately, there isn't an easy answer to this particular problem, but I do have two tips. First, apart from all the stuff that you'll do anyway, like keeping in the word limit and giving good referencing and reading the assignment question, make sure that what you submit fulfils the marking criteria. I often found the marking criteria sheet to be the clearest indication of what you're actually expected to do, and it's generally easy enough to interpret. Also, employ the <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/KISS_principle.html">KISS principle</a> liberally, and don't overcomplicate things.<br />
<br />
Second, and this is an important one: nervousness about assignments is usually borne of a lack of confidence, of not knowing whether you're doing something right or not. So be confident. I know that's easy for me to say and tricky to achieve. But you <i>have</i> to trust your instincts and your experience. Ask a friend or colleague or classmate to look over your assignments if you want, and get on the tailwind of his or her instincts and experience. If it helps, I've proofread plenty of the assignments of my friends on the course and no one has EVER got it wrong. So, seriously, you're probably on the right track. In fact, you almost certainly are. Have a bit of faith in yourself, you smartypants, you.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEize3gM1EX7Hn0BeHQWjVBVvtQkXLZ_EFY4umyM5kDzWWd6CD2oyikXyzt_AQokQ3h6HTWHFsprHCAqXWegyHi4UwLkcWVlYGsAJkSe6QjgqEG9BGvg4wRNUK9bRhb2ldgdHRdkllMPTBc/s1600/Aber+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEize3gM1EX7Hn0BeHQWjVBVvtQkXLZ_EFY4umyM5kDzWWd6CD2oyikXyzt_AQokQ3h6HTWHFsprHCAqXWegyHi4UwLkcWVlYGsAJkSe6QjgqEG9BGvg4wRNUK9bRhb2ldgdHRdkllMPTBc/s320/Aber+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Best castle ruins EVER. (C) Jessica Holland</td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
*The second and third modules are BY FAR the toughest of the lot, which feels disheartening and challenging. I wonder if anyone in the department is monitoring how long it takes people to get past this bit in comparison with the rest of the degree. Personally, I'd put Collection Management third--it's far more palatable and digestible than some of the others and I think it'd increase everyone's confidence at the time in the course when it's most likely to begin to dip.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-90656270424859613192012-10-31T11:30:00.000+00:002012-10-31T11:30:05.237+00:00An (this) idiot's survival guide to #aberils, part IIIToday's topic for discussion is deadlines or, more specifically, the lack of them. (Part I is <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to.html">here</a>, for anyone who's wondering why I'm banging on about this, and for more of my ramblings, see <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to_30.html">Part II</a>)<br />
<br />
One of the very greatest things about Aber is that you set your own pace, you fix your own deadlines. Equally, one of the very worst things about Aber is that you set your own pace, you fix your own deadlines. Aber's rightly celebrated flexibility is also the planet's biggest double-edged sword. Even though the department provides "marking deadlines" about once every seven or eight weeks, they're optional. Voluntary. Fundamentally ignorable. Douglas Adams might've admitted his appreciation for deadlines on account of the whooshing sound they make as they fly by; with Aber, the deadlines don't so much fly by as fizzle out like a three-day old Alka Seltzer.<br />
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Perfectionists and tinkerers have it the worst. Even I found it tough to submit assignments knowing that I could continue working on them if I wanted, and it should be patently clear to any poor soul reading this that I'm neither a perfectionist nor a tinkerer. So if you are, here's the horrible truth: perfect assignments don't exist. Seriously. The inherent perfection of your assignment is just slightly less likely than <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Smith">Dame Maggie Smith</a> announcing tomorrow that her favourite song is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM" target="_blank"><i>Teenage Dirtbag </i>by Wheatus</a>. <br />
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Of course every assignment should be the best that you can do. With this caveat. It should be the best that you can do WITHIN A SPECIFIC TIME FRAME. You have to cultivate the Babe Principle: reaching the point where "that'll do, pig". And if the department is going to insist on being a bit shy about enforcing that time frame, then you're going to have to do it yourself.<br />
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So set yourself deadlines. And more importantly, mean them. Stick to them. Write them down. Tell other people about them. Appoint a chivvier, someone to give you a "hard stare" if you're not meeting them. Try to make them coincide with the marking deadlines, so you don't have to wait ages for feedback. Try to make them coincide with the cut-off point for the next study school you want to attend. Not only will deadlines motivate you by invoking The Fear, which has long been a key factor in Getting Things Done, but they'll help you get past, and over, the most awful of assignments--because you'll reach the point where your time runs out and you can do no more. If you want to finish the course at a very fast pace, like me, make the deadlines tight and difficult, and you'll be surprised by what you can achieve (though 3 and a half months for a dissertation is probably pushing it a bit, at least in my experience).<br />
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Deadlines, written down, publicised, shared with friends, copied by friends, will keep the momentum going, because you have something tangible-ish to aim for. They'll keep that credit counter rising, more to the point. And once you have a deadline, think of it as a massive bar of Dairy Milk. You know, one of the big 1kg bars. In order to reach your goal of finishing the Dairy Milk, you have to break it down into little pieces, unless you have a gob the size of Jim Carrey, which you probably don't. So, say you want to be done with Planning for Delivery by next March. That becomes finishing the first assignment by Christmas, which means finishing the module booklet by the end of November, which means finishing the first unit by ... Thursday. Short-term targets will keep you on track with the long-term ones, and they'll show you how you're constantly achieving as you progress through the course.<br />
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By the way, if you're struggling to understand the Dairy Milk analogy, feel free to bring/post/fax me a 1kg bar of Dairy Milk and I'll gladly show you how it works. Ever the soul of generosity, me. See you tomorrow!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVV_lbm22GtxbQiSc4Zivn0D4OfdYoHNwihBY99f86bYZibol9iSaFEi8wzXNkN-TEpjvnyaeCon-5ppL2zPMfJBZ3Ns3pKcQau_MIXq2AUKVngzETuwE2Wu3l-OcyiRsBwFY6UTdDnYM/s1600/Aber+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVV_lbm22GtxbQiSc4Zivn0D4OfdYoHNwihBY99f86bYZibol9iSaFEi8wzXNkN-TEpjvnyaeCon-5ppL2zPMfJBZ3Ns3pKcQau_MIXq2AUKVngzETuwE2Wu3l-OcyiRsBwFY6UTdDnYM/s320/Aber+3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(C) Jessica Holland</td></tr>
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<br />Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-27738348209428282662012-10-30T11:30:00.000+00:002012-10-30T11:30:01.349+00:00An (this) idiot's survival guide to #aberils, part IIIn the second part of this little series, I'm going to write about momentum, how to get it, and once you've got it, how to keep it going. (Part I is <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/an-this-idiots-survival-guide-to.html">here</a>, for anyone wondering what I'm going on about).<br />
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Tell me if this sounds familiar. You're at study school, just sitting there, watching someone carry in several crates full of battered copies of DDC21 and completely ignorant of how, in just a short hour's time, the prospect of writing an essay on classification schemes will be ... yeah, all right, more interesting than it was before. You're surrounded by clever, interesting wines, and delicious, free-flowing people, and you're currently more tempted to part with your money for some stationery with the Aber logo than you are for Apple's latest invention. And in spite of spending several hours on the smallest, busiest train in Wales, and a longer sojourn at Birmingham New Street than anyone deserves, you're feeling BUOYANT. Excited. Eager to get started. But then a few weeks pass. You're at home, just sitting there, with your module handbook open in front of you. It's winter, it's dark, you've been at work all day or all week, you're tired and fed up and hungry and seriously, Information Organisation and WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSLYY_TSme24_y3CsijIcJnX8HaQ86azPtPNWFvluB18d0Uw3ach0hLoLDRo8pNM5_TH2P9Vwp3j53AQ9DnW9AfFcLknK42_AK7SfhcbdSDlk2blGD6zV14ALg_vIsopsUg1gk0PmzwNg/s1600/wines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSLYY_TSme24_y3CsijIcJnX8HaQ86azPtPNWFvluB18d0Uw3ach0hLoLDRo8pNM5_TH2P9Vwp3j53AQ9DnW9AfFcLknK42_AK7SfhcbdSDlk2blGD6zV14ALg_vIsopsUg1gk0PmzwNg/s320/wines.jpg" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our experience of study school. (C) <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jescarose">Jessica Holland</a></td></tr>
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There's this <i>disconnect</i> between the experience of the study school and the experience of the studying. As you move from one to the other, something seems to falter, just briefly, and if you don't capture it again quickly, it vanishes faster than a double gin and tonic in front of a stressed librarian. I think we all believe that it's our <i>motivation </i>that does a runner, but I think we're wrong. It's momentum. And we can talk till the cows and the sheep and the chickens come home about ways to stay motivated, but what we really need is to find ways to sustain--or recover--that momentum, and then motivation will follow.<br />
<br />
I only ever found one method of doing this, so if anyone else has suggestions, please share them. My way was simple in theory, but in practice, cor blimey, did it <i>hurt</i>. Basically you need to get things moving, which means ... doing some flipping work. Like, today. Right now. It doesn't even really matter <i>what</i> you do: as long as you do something, you're achieving something. If you're really finding it impossible, try a different setting, or work at a different time of day--don't underestimate popping a bit of novelty into your study patterns. Just getting something done is far and away the biggest battle, and it's a psychological, guilt-ridden one as much as anything else. You just need to get the ball rolling again. You'll also need a treat-based incentive/reward for when you've done. Cake, I recommend cake. <br />
<br />
But then there's another related issue, and this one is particularly beastly. It's one of the only ways in which the course at Aber is like cleaning the fridge. The longer you leave it, the trickier it gets. It's Aber amnesia: you just forget what you were doing, or where you were up to, even if you're studying very regularly. So you don't study for a week, and it takes a painful hour just to get started. Two weeks, and it's two hours. When that fortnight turns into a month, you've forgotten what module you were doing. And god forbid it gets to two months, because you're going to have to relearn how to spell 'Aberystwyth' and your own name, along with everything else.<br />
<br />
So here's what I recommend. First, you need to sustain the momentum created by the doing-something and cake-eating. You need to Keep Things Moving. I'd suggest that you aim for a
little a lot, rather than a lot a little, especially if you're
predominantly reading rather than writing. Fifteen minutes a day, or
five pages every other day, keeps things creeping along much more than
three hours' worth of intensive study every Sunday afternoon. Maybe this
sounds like a chore, or maybe a luxury, but try to magic your studying into a habit. I found scheduling it in, all official like, was useful too--I even had a special calendar for it. This meant that I had no excuse to not study when it was scheduled, but also that I could legitimately not work when it wasn't. Which is also important.<br />
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Second, and I can hear my pre-Aber self making some very convincing retching sounds at what I'm about to write, but go with it: keep a study log, or diary, or journal. No, not for your heartfelt ruminations on Huczynski and Buchanan. Unless you really want to, you strange individual. But just to remind yourself where you're up to. Spend the last minute of every study session writing down the first thing you'll do when you next hit the books. The first article you'll read, the first paragraph you'll write. Jot down the second, third and more too, if you know them. What it does is eliminate that uncertainty about where you'll start, which makes getting going again much less painful. It means you might even be able to avoid procrastinating. And it means you pick up exactly where you left off.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(C) Jessica Holland, again.</td></tr>
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Right, then, that's more than enough from me. See you tomorrow!Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-75476429811231251382012-10-29T11:30:00.000+00:002012-10-29T19:19:22.188+00:00An (this) idiot's survival guide to #aberils, part IGuess who's back?! You miss me? Nah, course you didn't. You barely even noticed I'd gone. So rude. Anyway, here I am, and more to the point, here I am with a series of posts (yes, series, get your reading specs on) that I've been intending to write for aaaages about the distance-learning <a href="http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/postgrad/postgraduate-courses/taughtcourses/infostudies/mscecondiplomainfolibstudies/">MSc Econ in Information and Library Studies</a> at Aberystwyth, which I had the good sense to finish earlier this year (celebrate good times come on). Two things have brought on this flurry of nonsensical scribbling: first, I wanted to remind myself of the tricks and turns that I picked up during the Aber course so that I could recycle them now I'm doing that there <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/jobs-careers/qualifications/cilip-qualifications/chartership/Pages/chartershipintro.aspx">chartership</a> wotsit; and second, through conversations with friends on the course, I realised that there's a <i>commonality</i> of experience among us. Similar-ish problems and concerns and difficulties, whatever pace we're working at, and each one magnified by the fact that we're all a hundred million miles away from each other.<br />
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So what I've tried to do is pull out what I think are the most common difficulties: keeping up momentum (or getting it back), dealing with deadlines (or lack of them), dealing with assignments (or whatever the opposite of lack of them is), and coping with the learning and the distance. Every day this week I'll write a bit about each of them and share some of my thoughts and, if relevant, the solutions I found. I've split it up into wee instalments 'cos otherwise it'd be really really long, but please don't think its length is in any way indicative of its comprehensiveness--it's more a symptom of its lack of comprehensionness. I've called it an idiot's survival guide not because Aber is like an extended version of <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/shipwrecked">Shipwrecked</a> (Pantycelyn notwithstanding) but because I couldn't think of a better way to describe it. (Also, I've a very strong suspicion that I'm the idiot, so don't think I'm calling you names).</div>
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Come back same time tomorrow, then, for the first instalment. And I'll finish for now with a plea, to other Aber students or graduates, to other distance learners, and to cleverer people than me: add your thoughts, add your tips, disagree with me by all means, call me an idiot. I can handle it.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(C) Photo by the brilliant <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jescarose">Jessica Holland</a></td></tr>
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Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-34561921437599384952012-09-25T20:48:00.000+01:002012-09-26T09:47:28.206+01:00The unending wisdom of the TwittersI recently asked my lovely followers on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> if they had any advice for a friend of mine who has just started university and is feeling a bit homesick. They did, and being just about the best bunch of people ever, responded with tweets so wise you could've pointed out their short, fat, hairy legs and called them Ernie. Someone asked me if I'd collate the responses, so here goes (and this is my first <a href="http://www.storify.com/">Storify</a>, everyone, so don't judge me too much!)<br />
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<script src="http://storify.com/lemurph/starting-university-dealing-with-homesickness.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="http://storify.com/lemurph/starting-university-dealing-with-homesickness" target="_blank">View the story "Ten top tips for dealing with homesickness" on Storify</a>]</noscript>
Massive thanks to all who contributed--it's completely appreciated. If you've got more thoughts to add,<a href="https://twitter.com/lemurph"> tweet me</a> or pop it in the comments--I'll make sure it's passed on.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-7377918876224615672012-04-29T16:48:00.000+01:002012-04-29T17:29:19.409+01:00The end...of my career, probably (also known as #cpd23 Thing 23: Final Reflection)Crawling over the cpd23 finishing line is going to leave a massive great big gaping hole in my life. What will I do now to procrastinate when I really should be sleeping or watching the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing">West Wing</a>? To save myself from feeling too bereft I've decided to channel my muse, the great philosopher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing">Gloria Gaynor</a>. So here goes, a song about survival. Feel free to join in. Here's the tune:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/x0-NP-rgmWo" width="420"></iframe>
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<br />
First I was afraid, I was petrified,<br />
Kept thinking I couldn't do the Things unless I really tried,<br />
And worst of all was blogging, trying not to be absurd,<br />
But I grew strong, and I remembered my password.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/1/1267468455027/Hugh-Laurie-stars-in-Hous-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="118" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/1/1267468455027/Hugh-Laurie-stars-in-Hous-001.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
We started off with personal brands<br />
I think I probably asked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Laurie">Hugh Laurie</a> to be my husband<br />
There was <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a> with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Rickman">Rickman</a><br />
And then stuff about <a href="http://http//pushnote.com">Pushnote</a><br />
It was marginally less boring than an hour of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quote_Unquote">Quote... Unquote</a>.<br />
<br />
So we say yes! to CPD!, especially when it has been numbered,<br />
And there are 23<br />
<a href="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110616180213/uncyclopedia/images/2/2e/Alan_Rickman_Snape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110616180213/uncyclopedia/images/2/2e/Alan_Rickman_Snape.jpg" width="200" /></a>Can we please just all forget I should've finished this last year.<br />
Did you think I'd crumble? Will this ruin my career?<br />
<br />
Oh no not I! I will survive!<br />
Oh as long as I know how to tweet, I know I'll stay alive,<br />
I've got reflective stuff to think, I've got connections on that Link...<br />
Oh what's it called? Oh what's it called? <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a>!<br />
<br />
[Funky instrumental bit]<br />
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Benedict_Cumberbatch_filming_Sherlock_cropped2.jpg/580px-Benedict_Cumberbatch_filming_Sherlock_cropped2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Benedict_Cumberbatch_filming_Sherlock_cropped2.jpg/580px-Benedict_Cumberbatch_filming_Sherlock_cropped2.jpg" width="200" /></a>It took all the strength I had not to fall asleep<br />
'Cos that <a href="https://www.google.com/calendar/render">Google Calendar</a>, it ain't no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meryl_streep">Meryl Streep</a><br />
Finding a decent rhyme for that was really pretty tough to hatch<br />
So you just wait until I mention <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Cumberbatch">Cumberbatch</a><br />
<br />
And you see me, a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a> whizz,<br />
And as totally into <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi</a> as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh">Prince Phil</a> is into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II">Liz</a>,<br />
We covered mentoring and <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/Pages/default.aspx">CILIP</a><br />
Chartership for all our sin<br />
And how updating our CVs drove us straight to Gordon's gin!<br />
<br />
So now that's it, and now I'm free, 'cos I'm hoping that this crap will<br />
Be enough for Twenty Three<br />
And all that's left for me to do is thank the organisers too<br />
I've packed my <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones_(TV_series)">Game of Thrones</a> pyjamas and I'm off to Timbuktu!<br />
<br />
Oh no not I! I will survive!<br />
Oh as long as there's the Internet I know I'll stay alive,<br />
There are pictures of Hugh Laurie that I haven't found quite yet<br />
So I'll survive, I'll survive, I'll survive...<br />
<br />
Goodbye for now, and thanks for reading!Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-22387500063533897972012-04-29T14:07:00.000+01:002012-04-29T14:09:01.424+01:0050 shades of volunteering (also known as #cpd23 Thing 22: Volunteering)Writing about volunteering in libraries feels like opening a can of worms, pouring them out all over your kitchen table and finding out that they're not just any old worms, but they're the worms from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worms_2">Worms 2</a>, and they have hand grenades, combat trousers and knowledge of the kitchen table's terrain. The trouble is that there are different shades and levels of volunteering, ranging from the frankly awesome to the horribly damaging, and they're all conflated under the same umbrella heading.<br />
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We hear loads about early-career librarians volunteering to get experience because you can't get a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job unless you're willing to work for nothing. Leaving to one side the less than ideal situation that precipitates this, volunteering does constitute a valuable way of getting sensibly shod feet in library doors. It's proposed as a way of progressing, filling CV gaps, getting interview fodder, showing commitment or drive or initiative, or testing out a new bit of the profession to see if it floats your boat. And it works.<br />
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It's wrong to write off this sort of volunteering just because the practice has a few darker connotations. Even if there's no denying that it'd all be a gazillion times better if the volunteer were actually being remunerated with actual money that can be exchanged for goods in B&Q rather than a few custard creams. Personally I've never done it, save for a week's work experience in a solicitor's firm when I was 17 which was enough to put me off any sort of work ever, and I'm not really certain I ever would. But it strikes me that if, at its core, volunteering is mutually beneficial--good for the institution and possibly just a little bit better than good for the individual, whether their motivations are driven by interest or self-interest; if everyone's happy and respected and if there are clear working guidelines; if the volunteer is managed well and given opportunities and listened to, and if the volunteer is a <i>bonus</i> to the organisation, then awesome. Carry on kids. Even if the volunteer still deserves to be paid. I guess it's not a perfect world.</div>
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This is all gorgeous happy-clappy stuff borne of goodwill and probably directly associated with a lack of impending mortgage repayments. The trouble is that it naturally overlaps with the doomy and ominous side to volunteering and it's this that brings the whole ceiling of political and moral issues crashing down around us. It's this which turns an otherwise useful and helpful practice into something more akin to wading through a swamp filled <i>with</i> the worms from Worms 2, but now they've traded their grenades for bazookas and are aiming them at your head.<br />
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This is when volunteers are considered to be valid, cheaper replacements for the actual library staff. Which is pretty damn awful for the staff who're told to clear their desks and get out the door in the manner of a scene from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmings_(video_game)">Lemmings</a>, but it also fundamentally undermines and denigrates their skills and their knowledge and their professionalism and yes, by extension, <i>our</i> skills and knowledge and professionalism. It's when community-run libraries are posited as the single alternative to no libraries at all and the goodwill of volunteers is, let's admit it, exploited. It damages the library service because it's now being run by someone who doesn't know their arse from their Dewey Decimal System. It's not good for users who might suddenly be faced with changes in the services, different priorities, being given duff information or--even more depressingly--being given information that's charged with particular political or moral messages. And it's bad for the volunteers too, either because they're doing a job for which they deserve to be paid (and a stressful job as well), or because they're trying to get experience and haven't realised that, erm, cuts to professional library positions will lead to, erm, there being fewer professional library positions.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm depressed now, so back to the random peaceful images</td></tr>
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I so massively wish that volunteering hadn't become something tinged with these political issues. But it has. And I so massively wish that the huge armies of wonderful, wonderful volunteers who are fabulous and do brilliant and valuable work and deserve nothing but our respect and our thanks hadn't inadvertently become the baby about to be chucked out with the bathwater. But when all the joyful, positive volunteering makes professional library staff superfluous in the eyes of them upstairs, bad things will happen. Forget about Worms 2. I'm talking <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremors_(film)">Tremors</a></i>.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-88805353575687023432012-04-22T19:18:00.000+01:002012-04-22T19:18:36.129+01:00Dum de dum de dum de dum de dum (also known as #cpd23 Thing 21: job applications)There is little more awful and despair-riddled than the prospect of writing or updating a CV. On a scale from zero to eye-bleachingly horrendous, it falls in between cleaning up dog sick and culottes making a comeback. It'll come as little surprise, then, that I haven't updated my CV since I got my current job. This <i>is</i> an oversight, and one I intend to rectify as soon as I have a few spare hours and some excess will to live.<br />
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Then there are job applications, also on the 'necessary evil horizon', sandwiched between dentist appointments, GCSEs and wrapping birthday presents that are an unconventional shape. I defy anyone reading this to imagine something more likely to take a ruby-encrusted pickaxe to your soul than a poorly formatted Word table. Truth is, though, setting aside CV currency for now, the practical nuts and bolts of getting a job are reasonably straightforward provided a) there are jobs and b) you're not fully devoid of common sense and c) you're capable of reading and following instructions.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Random peaceful image #1 by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/9422878@N08/4048134596/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Bill Gracey</a></td></tr>
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The CV/covering letter combo would be my favourite approach, if only because it means you're saved from the unsavoury and unsettling prospect of a pre-generated application form, otherwise known as an unquestionable assault to your pride and your sensibility. The first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Krypton_Factor">Krypton Factor</a> style challenge will be the format in which you submit your qualifications. If you're unlucky, which you will be, you'll have one of those aforementioned Word tables. A little known fact is that there was a law passed in 1995 which stated that the font used in said tables will at some point change from a nice 11 pt Garamond to 13 pt Comic Bloody Sans, and will be entirely uneditable. It's the law. If you're equally unlucky, you'll have to fill out your qualifications using drop down menus, in which A-levels and degrees are listed in orders unfathomable to the average human being. And they'll never include the name of the qualification you actually have (I've got an M.Th. Yes, it's uncommon. No, I didn't make it up.)<br />
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Quite frankly, if you've got that far, the personal statement is a walk in the park. All you have to do is sell yourself and your skills while weaving in all the details in the person specification, and without rambling on for England. And though initially torturous, it is an acquired skill and eventually stops hurting quite so much. Don't be modest, but don't be arrogant either. Don't make unsupported statements. Don't be subtle (some poor devil is having to read a gazillion of these, and they're not going to read between the lines). Don't do typos. Don't lie. And most importantly, if at any stage you're tempted to illustrate your exemplary teamwork skills with reference to your "Making Tea" Brownie Badge earned circa 1989, just stop and don't do anything else ever again. Then get it in on time, send it to the right person, don't get their name or title wrong, find out what format they want it in and follow their instructions--now is not the time to be creative. There's zero point in irritating the hell out of the person who has to deal with these and if nothing else it proves you can read.<br />
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Honestly speaking, I have way more trouble with the cognitive processes attached to job applications than the practical ones. Like whether to apply for something that's less--or more--than your little heart desires. Something that's part-time, or only temporary. Something that's your perfect, ideal job but just happens to be in Milwaukee. I've taken the 'it can't hurt to apply' approach before now and ended up in a pickle. It's hard to turn down interviews and--even more so--jobs, especially with the devil in the form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_chiles">Adrian Chiles</a> sitting on your shoulder and whispering in a Brummy accent that you'll never be offered anything else. The creeping hope, the creeping disappointment, fanning the teensy tiny burning flame of PANIC in your gut is such an emotional minefield that I'm genuinely surprised I haven't ended up on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisha_Goddard_(TV_series)">Trisha</a> more frequently.<br />
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By comparison, I don't find interviews quite as gut wrenching or soul destroying. In fact, they can be quite good fun. A day out somewhere new and a nosy around another library. But a lot of this is due to an ACE decision I made about four years ago which was to have a mock interview with a careers advisor at the careers service in my university. I was chronically sceptical, but it REALLY helped. I had two real interviews lined up the following week, and sent in the job specifications and the applications I'd submitted, and she tailored the interview to those. I was told <i>precisely</i> what I was doing right and doing wrong. It was like being inculcated in the mysteries of interview science. And it might be coincidence, but I was offered both the jobs I was interviewed for the following week. So if you have access to a careers service, use them. I definitely owe that woman a drink.<br />
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I seriously can't cope with another second of thinking about god-forsaken job applications or CVs now. And I KNOW I should update my CV pretty soon, but nobody's perfect and as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Mark_Sloan_(Diagnosis:_Murder)#Mark_Sloan">Dr Mark Sloan</a> once advised me (and the rest of the daytime BBC2 audience), I should cross that bridge when I come to it. And realistically, there's more chance I'll apply for the next series of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(UK_TV_series)">The Apprentice</a>.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-75521591098433671372012-04-15T14:04:00.000+01:002012-04-15T20:07:17.672+01:00Really cool AND a librarian (also known as #cpd23: library roots/routes)I begin this post with a question: what's NOT to love about the <a href="http://libraryroutesproject.wikkii.com/">library roots/routes project</a>? Its title is a play on words! It's a way of finding out random bits of information about people you vaguely know without feeling like a stalker! Its title is a play on words! (I'm not being facetious, I really do like the wordplay).<br />
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Having read a few posts, including my own, they seem to perpetuate this idea of the dichotomised pathway into the profession. In the red corner, we have those who chose to become librarians in the few moments following their own conception, and whose initial demonstration of this profound and intrinsic and inescapable desire was realised at the age of six when they designed a categorisation scheme to organise their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famous_Five_(series)">Famous Five</a> books according to the number of smugglers in each. And in the blue corner, we have those who, in some post-degree or post-other-career haze awoke one glorious morning in a library position and learned that it was warm and there were biscuits and then announced to all who would listen that they had seen the light and the light said METADATA.<br />
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The demarcation's a superficial one, right? And also generative of about as much shock and surprise as the news that the rich people try to avoid paying the tax (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/9194558/George-Osborne-Im-going-after-the-wealthy-tax-dodgers.html">George Osborne aside</a>). Yes, some people choose their careers when they're kids and they stick to their guns, and some people choose when they're a bit older. The only exception to this is management consultancy but that's only because no one under the age of 23 knows what it is. Maybe this would suggest that the profession as a whole ought to have better coverage at careers fairs for teenagers and students but actually, of all the problems we're facing right now, recruitment isn't one of them.<br />
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Having a big long list of stories to read is at best interesting and at worst reassuring. Yes, if you're considering a career in librarianship it probably <i>is</i> helpful to know that there are other people who didn't think of doing it until they were a bit older and it hasn't done them any harm, thank you very much. But ... and this is where I don my crown of cynicism: would any group of professionals <i>other</i> than librarians bother with this kind of thing? That's only partly rhetorical--I genuinely don't know. But I wouldn't read an accountant's report on why he or she chose to become an accountant. Or a firefighter's. Or a cage fighter's.<br />
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So this means that it strikes me as just another bit of echo-chambery navel-gazing, maybe symptomatic of this obsession we all seem to have with Being Reflective and maybe a teensy smidgeon self-congratulatory, though very much accidentally so. And while of course there's precisely not a single thing wrong with this, it means that I'm <i>not quite sure I see the point</i> of trying to make it escape the echo chamber. For one thing, in terms of guidance for new librarians, there are significantly better resources (such as <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/thewikiman/if-you-want-to-work-in-libraries">this</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/therealwikiman">Ned</a>) which are more instructive and give concrete advice. I'm not massively sure we should be kidding ourselves, if we are, that stuff like this would generate much interest outside the library community, and probably even less so outside the members of the library community who don't currently value social media more than they value oxygen, cheese on toast or the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_West_Wing">West Wing</a>.<br />
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Laying my cards on the table, I think this sort of thing is a little bit of a distraction, and there's a point at which that distraction becomes a little bit harmful. That point is--dare I say it--when it leaves the echo chamber. What worries me about some of the recent things we've collectively been doing--not so much Library Roots/Routes as things like <a href="http://lookslikelibraryscience.com/">This is what a librarian looks like</a>--is that it's a reaction to the librarian stereotype which, in essence, <i>validates</i> and <i>reinforces</i> it. It's a "look how wacky I am" or "look at all the weird cool hobbies I've got" or "look at the degree I did and what not" sort of statement. I'm really COOL and STILL a librarian! That's not only a bit of a <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/">rhetological fallacy</a> but also vaguely redundant. Don't get me wrong--I'm not suggesting that the stereotype doesn't exist or that it isn't harmful or that it doesn't require a response--but I wish our collective response was one which focused on <i>how exceptionally good we are at our jobs</i> rather than the fact that we once had a bit-part in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_by_the_Bell">Saved by the Bell</a> or that our hobby is baby elephant juggling and that we are therefore categorically ZANY.<br />
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I'm not for a single second denigrating projects like these <i>per se</i>. At the very least, they engender and galvanise a happy sense of community among us info pro folk and I'm completely in favour of that. I don't think we should be fooled into thinking they're of interest or entertainment to that many people who aren't already in bed with librarianship, nor do I think that those who cling dearly to the stereotype will experience epiphany when they see a photo of a librarian wearing a silly hat. BUT the big question is this: is this really the way we want to stamp on the echo chamber's toys?<br />
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Now I might be ENTIRELY wrong about this. Maybe at this very second <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_mcgovern">Jimmy McGovern</a> is perusing the posts in order to make a six-part series for the BBC. Jimmy, if you're reading this, bagsy being played by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_winslet">Winslet</a>.Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-18351798680388852192012-04-04T19:20:00.001+01:002012-04-15T14:17:46.182+01:00Under pressure (also known as #cpd23 Thing 19: Integrating the Things)If studying at <a href="http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/postgrad/postgraduate-courses/taughtcourses/infostudies/mscecondiplomainfolibstudiesdistancelearn/">Aber</a> taught me anything--and for argument's sake let's presume I learnt other stuff too--it's that I'm not all too bad at Getting Things Done. Or more accurately, Getting Things Done Within A Time Limit. The time limit's key, actually. I worked out that I naturally make whatever I have to do fit the time in which I have to do it. Which is great, if I'm in an exam. It's brilliant if the thing I have to do needs to be done by tomorrow, or yesterday, or in the next nine-and-a-half minutes. It's significantly LESS great, though, if there isn't a pressing need to do something. It's significantly LESS brilliant if I'm doing something which perhaps, say, <i>prides</i> itself on its lack of deadlines. Like Aber. Like cpd23, for that matter. And with this, the reason why I'm still only on Thing 19 stands out as much as a giraffe wearing a fez and moonboots would if he suddenly showed up in your office and asked to borrow the latest copy of Der Spiegel.<br />
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It's NOT, as you're currently thinking, that the lack of pressure or deadlines just encourages me to put things off. Not at all. Nada. OK, a little bit. Obviously the decision to watch Game of Thrones is MUCH easier if there's no immediate need to choose not to. But, really, what's more dangerous is the IRREPRESSIBLE URGE TO TINKER. I'm not a perfectionist (a fact you're probably all too aware of if you're reading this drivel) but without any particular ticking clock I feel free and, indeed, obligated, to faff about leisurely with a piece of work until it more closely reflects a slightly less borked version of imago Dei (in my very dodgy opinion). I am encouraged to mollycoddle the precious collection development essay until it is WORTHY OF ALL THE AWARDS. Or not, as the case may be, because a) I'm not <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing">Doris Lessing</a> and b) it's a collection development essay.<br />
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So Aber, with its practically-deadline-free philosophy, was basically the Last Temptation of Murph. I have, however, FINISHED (celebrate good times come on), which would seem to suggest that I found some way around yon predicament. Well, yes, I did and it relied on the same sort of mental brainwashing that is akin to my unwavering belief that Bolton Wanderers is the best football team in The Universe. I made up deadlines and I convinced myself that they were real and important and the single thing standing between me and a place as a tribute in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_universe#The_Hunger_Games">Hunger Games</a> or some other unthinkable dystopian catastrophe. And now, a promise. I'm going to apply this making-up-deadlines stuff to cpd23 in the vain hope that, at some stage, I'll actually bloomin' finish. So here goes, and you're my witness: I'll finish by 1st May. Deal? That gives me...26 days, and as there are only five (and now near four) posts to go, it'll be dead easy.<br />
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<a href="http://media-cache6.pinterest.com/upload/192880796511133317_HAoWEvlX_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media-cache6.pinterest.com/upload/192880796511133317_HAoWEvlX_b.jpg" /></a>Actually, understanding this pattern of productivity is quite useful for Thing 19, which is all about integrating professional development into our working routines. It means, for example, that I now know that while I can set myself all the valorous yet intangible goals that my little heart desires, unless there's some kind of acme style ticking bomb attached to them, chances are they won't be achieved any time soon. And certainly NOT if there's an episode of Eastenders-with-Direwolves to be watched.<br />
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It explains, for example, why I don't do the Things that I <i>don't</i> do. It isn't that I see no value in them, but I just don't see enough value to allocate some real time to it. Take blogging. Without some invocation of The Fear, whether self-applied or not, I don't naturally get round to it. And it means that if I'm ever going to blog regularly, and integrate blogging into my routine, there's going to have to be some kind of timetable, and some kind of threat that my secret secret stash of chocolate will be nicked. Take heart, though, I have no inention of doing this, and my secret secret stash of chocolate is so well hidden your threats are meaningless. It's probably also why the reflective thinking stuff makes me wince more than the incy-wincy spider--it goes on too long and isn't naturally goal-oriented enough. It's like a Bolton Wanderers football game.<br />
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It also explains why the Things I <i>do</i> like and use regularly are short and quick and offer immediate returns<br />
(yo Twitter, are your ears burning?) Same with Google Reader. They're like having the radio on in the background. You listen when it's This Charming Man and you zone out when they play Blur songs. And you switch off when you realise that Richard Madeley is the presenter.<br />
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Anyway, so <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rny9ymeCTZY">Bowie and Queen</a> might have been just a leeetle bit wrong about this. Sometimes pressure is good. It may be the terror of knowing what this world is about, but without it I'd still be writing a business plan.<br />
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PS I'm back! I'm NOT ACTUALLY DEAD. Did you miss me?!<br />
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PPS My blog has had a makeover because the old template was having some issues. I don't particularly like it though. What do you think?Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-59311073184757934972011-12-13T09:49:00.001+00:002011-12-13T16:19:59.347+00:00The Casting and The Killing (also known as #cpd23 Thing 18: Jing and podcasts)<div><i>This post may include references to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0826760/">The Killing/Forbrydelsen</a>. But there are no spoilers. Promise.</i></div><div><br />
</div><div>I've been putting off tackling <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/09/thing-18-jing-screen-capture-podcasts.html">Thing 18</a>. Partly it's a priorities thing--my attentions have been focused elsewhere. The more generous among you might presume it's the dreaded d-word that's been my main distraction. Thanks for that. Actually it's been <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517495/">The Killing II</a>. I'm struggling to shake off the belief that possession of several excellent jumpers will be better for my career than my ability to use <a href="http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html">Jing</a> (it is, after all, really flipping cold in our <a href="http://oldlibrarytrinityhall.wordpress.com/">Old Library</a>). But also I have to admit that I'm not <i>entirely</i> convinced about the value of screencasting, and podcasting, or any other kind of casting (except <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0344894/">Sofie Gråbøl</a></span></span> et al., of course) for my professional development.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://trashcity.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/forbrydelsen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://trashcity.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/forbrydelsen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>Here's the issue. With stuff like screencasting and podcasting there's a huge gulf between the experience of the producer and consumer. They're totally separate. But they have something in common: if their participation is to be really worthwhile, the end-product has to be of a really high quality. Professional quality, even. Worthy of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/">BBC4</a> quality, even. We're talking <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/feb/21/jumper-is-star-the-killing">Faroese jumper</a> quality. And from the perspective of the <i>producer</i>, he or she has to be really convinced of the purpose of the screencast or podcast not only because he or she is about to exert a whole world of effort, but also because the tools used to produce them aren't particularly flexible or adaptable. They're not applicable in loads of different circumstances unlike, for example, <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi</a>.</div><div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjIqxKEMRT3EspUNnAabe7-BVcmUCAbXfiGhdOLs6ZyMzZvO6Ms8Gqnw_TncVBfcGfQ4kSK7KGoVA68nzBcgUXhHweiqJeF_3nuP1xX2u_9DT22nDkc-mHudVKxFgY9K1p8f9UoUKjVAo/s1600/forbrydelsen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjIqxKEMRT3EspUNnAabe7-BVcmUCAbXfiGhdOLs6ZyMzZvO6Ms8Gqnw_TncVBfcGfQ4kSK7KGoVA68nzBcgUXhHweiqJeF_3nuP1xX2u_9DT22nDkc-mHudVKxFgY9K1p8f9UoUKjVAo/s320/forbrydelsen.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Knit your own jumper? Instructions <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2011-11-18/the-killing-knit-your-own-sarah-lund-jumper">here</a>.</td></tr>
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</div><div>The consumer, meanwhile, is relatively passive in this whole process. He or she is sitting and watching, or sitting and listening, ramping up the need for the content and presentation to be really hot and relevant. And neither type of casting is interactive, amplifying this even more. Let's think again about The Killing II: the fact that, despite my conviction to the contrary, my conversational Danish is actually as non-existent as the Christmas presents I've bought so far, means I've got to sit and read the subtitles on the screen. A second's distraction and I've missed Lund's latest execution of poor, yet exceedingly well-knitted, judgment. It makes me passive. And the same can be applied to podcasts and screencasts. Consumers, like producers, also have to be really convinced of the purpose and value of the screencast or podcast. Otherwise that little cross in the right hand corner of the screen will be clicked quicker than you can say "Nanna Birk Larsen".</div><div><br />
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</div><div>The truth is that neither of these tools are for me. I'm sending them to Gedser. But there's something approaching professional development in <i>knowing </i>this, and just being aware that screencasting and podcasting have actually been invented. And the ability to learn, or to know, that there are doors you don't want to push against is pretty valuable. Now there's a lesson that Sarah Lund could learn.</div>Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-66744683208289671922011-11-04T09:53:00.003+00:002011-11-04T10:51:56.106+00:00Prezis of the Caribbean (also known as #cpd23 Thing 17: Prezi)Just a quick one this week, proving that miracles really do happen. And I'm going to focus on <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi</a> because, first, I <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.com/2010/07/thing-11-slideshare-at-least-it-works.html">wrote</a> about <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/">Slideshare</a> last year, and because, second, Prezi is So Much More Fun. You know I'm right. Slideshare is like the clearly printed, legible and comprehensible fire safety warning to Prezi's irresponsible teenager playing with matches: there's a much smaller chance of fireworks, and a much smaller chance of total catastrophe. And I love Prezi. In fact, I do believe that it is a truth universally acknowledged that it is little coincidence that the words "Prezi" and "precious" share the same first three letters and have the fifth in common too. Prezi is the social-media-presenting-tool equivalent of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000136/">Johnny Depp</a> about a decade ago. Yes, you read that right. Prezi is <i>that</i> good. It's pretty, AND it's got a bit of substance.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty, with substance, and also quite a weird elbow</td></tr>
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But let's dwell for a second on the "about a decade ago" bit. It's a disclaimer, sure, but a necessary one, for two, almost three reasons: the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383574/">second</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449088/">third</a> (and presumably <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298650/">fourth</a>) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_%28film_series%29">Pirates of the Caribbean</a> films. Let me explain. It is no understatement to say that Mr Johnny Depp, as the spicily and charismatically dreadlocked <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Sparrow">Captain Jack Sparrow</a>, just about rescued the second and third films from cataclysm in such a profound, heroic way that even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie">Lassie</a> would've been impressed. Johnny Depp just about made sure that the second and third Pirates films were successful, despite being poorly made, audience-inappropriate and, frankly, rubbish. But Prezi won't do that. Or not yet, anyway. A Prezi is <b>only</b> as good as the person who created, crafted, directed and presented it; it is <b>only</b> as good insofar as it meets the needs of the presentation's audience; and it is <b>only</b> as good as the content is in the first place. We've all heard of "death by Powerpoint", but "death by Prezi" isn't a fiction: it's just that the former is the common cold to the latter's more exciting tropical disease. Still death, though, innit.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB-SzwaBggt-eK0e3IQ-WBcFID3bSSFg1Qg7HTMFNZ6NBjDXfQg0oSlexg2u8MUE4hZm4c_Y3Env28wZGGjqA-GOBubeHizTGFSiQ7AGkZ4knJPXfe3U9RtsSwlG1ELxJYqHbeKAIEYl4/s1600/JD2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB-SzwaBggt-eK0e3IQ-WBcFID3bSSFg1Qg7HTMFNZ6NBjDXfQg0oSlexg2u8MUE4hZm4c_Y3Env28wZGGjqA-GOBubeHizTGFSiQ7AGkZ4knJPXfe3U9RtsSwlG1ELxJYqHbeKAIEYl4/s1600/JD2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The trouble is that Prezi's a bit tricksy and it's got a tight grip. It takes a proper, real amount of investment to understand its foibles and its quirks; and it takes bags more investment to get it to work for you effectively; and the whole luggage collection at <a href="http://www.johnlewis.com/">John Lewis</a>' worth of investment to learn to resist twizzing upside down for every third point. It's little wonder, then, that Prezi's bedfellow is the temptation to use it for All The Presentations. After all, you now have the Skillz! But please, <i>please</i>, I implore you, <b>don't</b>. For two reasons. First, because if everyone uses Prezi then it stops being exciting and impressive and dramatic and breathtaking (and as Disney taught me, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/">if everyone's incredible, then no one is</a>), just like if Johnny Depp was in All The Films it might get a bit boring. There's the fact that all Prezis look a leeeetle bit similar, for one. But also the main chunk of a Prezi's impact is centred on the fact that it is Not-Powerpoint. And once everyone's using Not-Powerpoint, then Powerpoint might make some kind of retro comeback. And no one wants that. Not even Microsoft want that.<br />
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The second reason, and the more important one, is that just because we know how to do something doesn't mean we ought to do it all the time. (The only exception to this rule is the ability to make cakes, but only because there are no losers if everyone's constantly baking). Giving in to the temptation to use Prezi just 'cos you can, and chucking in some irrelevant zooming and twizzing about and turning upside down and flying about as quickly as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099487/">Edward Scissorhands</a> can do topiary, might shroud the reason you're using it in the first place: presumably, to get a message across to a group of people. Prezi is <b>only ever the vehicle</b> for that message. And the Holy Grail of knowing how to present well is being able to make the decision about what vehicle to use: the Ford Focus (Powerpoint); the plastic red and yellow one from Early Learning Centre (none at all, but just talking); or the bus from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111257/">Speed</a> (Prezi). And, see, I'm not the only one to think this: <a href="http://libreaction.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/not-presenting-but-teaching-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-about-which-platform-to-use/">Andy reached a similar conclusion</a>, and he has actual <b>evidence</b>, rather than conjecture and car analogies.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvv4dAoY4-XheRmqcFLFQ-LmVF3AqqFpktc4R5KJhmbKrji1K3khWsDZBT5DyjNfA06BFZACYRtSOsQqtlA8gE5_VCOP1HvPKjrXtN-hECurDocBgeOP3R1aGc6WZqS4zOLo58VUeNRI/s1600/JD3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZvv4dAoY4-XheRmqcFLFQ-LmVF3AqqFpktc4R5KJhmbKrji1K3khWsDZBT5DyjNfA06BFZACYRtSOsQqtlA8gE5_VCOP1HvPKjrXtN-hECurDocBgeOP3R1aGc6WZqS4zOLo58VUeNRI/s320/JD3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I'm going to bring this madness to a conclusion with a bit more, and finish with the old typical <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/blue-peter">Blue Peter</a>-esque adage: here's one I made earlier. A Prezi, that is. An example of bad practice, yes, but just a bit of fun too. And not featuring Johnny Depp at all. I don't know <i>what</i> I was thinking.<br />
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</style><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="400" id="prezi_bt1alfopr2p5" name="prezi_bt1alfopr2p5" width="550"><param name="movie" value="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff"/><param name="flashvars" value="prezi_id=bt1alfopr2p5&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0"/><embed id="preziEmbed_bt1alfopr2p5" name="preziEmbed_bt1alfopr2p5" src="http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="550" height="400" bgcolor="#ffffff" flashvars="prezi_id=bt1alfopr2p5&lock_to_path=0&color=ffffff&autoplay=no&autohide_ctrls=0"></embed></object><br />
<div class="prezi-player-links"><a href="http://prezi.com/bt1alfopr2p5/prince-of-bel-air/" title="...or not.">Prince of Bel-Air</a> on <a href="http://prezi.com/">Prezi</a></div></div>Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-61492755139218352812011-10-24T16:45:00.000+01:002011-10-24T16:45:00.149+01:00This is what we do* (also known as #cpd23 Thing 16: advocacy)It's high time that I gathered up the fast-decaying pieces of <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/">cpd23</a> and looked at <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/08/thing-16-advocacy-speaking-up-for.html">Thing 16</a>, in the interests of finishing at some stage before Father Christmas wheezes himself down a nearby chimney. At the moment, alas, it's looking less likely that I'll finish by Crimbo than that heartbroken <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Pearce">Harry from Spooks</a>, the fragrant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_Perkins">Sue Perkins</a> and the small one from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3T">3T </a>will join forces and release a cover of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_People">The Village People</a>'s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw"><i>In the Navy</i></a>, earning themselves, in the process, the coveted Christmas no. 1 spot, and a much less coveted interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearne_Cotton">Fearne Cotton</a>. I'll admit: I've been procrastinating with Thing 16. Advocacy and activism is a daunting topic, right? It's daunting because the need for both is undeniably patent: the situation in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/19/brent-council-library-closures-appeal?newsfeed=true">Brent</a>, and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/oct/14/kensal-rise-library-closure-how-the-protests-began?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487">Kensal Rise</a>, and <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/axe-confirmed-five-bolton-libraries.html">Bolton</a>, and all across the country, demonstrates how important advocacy and activism are, more clearly than when you're <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Nash">Johnny Nash</a> and the rain has gone. It's daunting because it's one of those areas where our <i>intentions</i> are often as mismatched with our <i>actions</i> as <a href="http://www.highclerecastle.co.uk/">Highclere Castle</a> and the cheapest tent Asda can get away with selling. And hell, putting those facts together can make us feel as inadequate as your average <a href="http://bullseyecontestants.tumblr.com/">Bullseye contestant</a> (with less chance of going home with a speedboat, too), and as guilty as a nun who's just nicked a bottle of vodka from her local Spar, stored it in her wimple while she snuck it into the convent, and is doing shots from the bottle cap while watching back-to-back episodes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavanagh_QC">Kavanagh QC</a>. It's doubly, triply, daunting because, so much of the time, the stakes are as high as a giraffe's eyebrows.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://spooksfanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/harryruth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="182" src="http://spooksfanblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/harryruth.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harry, and not Sue Perkins. Or any member of 3T.</td></tr>
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Talking about advocacy and activism is a bit tricksy. For one thing, while they're not the same thing, they're not complete opposites--they go together like rama lama lama ke whatever it is; and for another thing, they can take place on more fronts than Brighton and Blackpool combined. The one that's glaringly and eye-poppingly obvious at the moment is public libraries. I'll be honest: I'm not in the camp that thinks we have some unmitigated, inescapably grave duty in our roles as librarians and info pros to advocate for other libraries and librarians. It's not, of course, that I wish people <i>wouldn't</i>; rather, I'm just not in the business of telling other grown up people what they should be doing or thinking. I'm a leeeetle bit nervous of any views that demand that we all, without exception, should be fighting tooth, nail and hairpiece to save the libraries as endangered as the panda from ending up as dead as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_white">Barry White</a>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/04/04/donkeyblackp460.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/04/04/donkeyblackp460.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not Barry White.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
But, hellfire, where would we be without the people who <i>are</i> fighting tooth, nail and hairpiece for them? I'm not always <i>entirely</i> in agreement with how arguments are made (I've seen, on occasion, expressions from the pro-library band of sisters and brothers which display marginally counterproductive levels of aggression and fury, borne of frustration and nowt else, most of the time), but the arguments themselves are usually bang on the money. I'm definitely guilty of the intention/action disparity when it comes to public library campaigning and I should do better. But it's in the best interests of most that I wait until I've got a bit more time and a bit more cleverness, because at the moment my very best and shiniest argument in favour of public libraries is based on an analogy of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Five-O">Hawaii-Five-0</a>. You wanna hear it? OK, then, here goes. Public libraries are good. So was Hawaii-Five-0 (the original). But then them in charge got rid of Hawaii-Five-0, and then they realised what a mistake this was, and they brought it back. So if them in charge also get rid of libraries, then they're bound to realise their mistake, and bring them back again. But instead of the brilliant original, they'll end up with the equivalent of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Five-0">remake</a>. Hawaii-Five-0 became about vapid, pretty boys with, granted, excellent quiffs and a propensity for taking their shirts off at uncharacteristically regular intervals. It may have the same theme tune, but the resemblance ends there. And if the same thing happens to libraries, well, they'll sort of look the same, and they'll sound the same, but they'll also have huge plotholes, and too much of the budget will be spent on hair gel, and they'll go in for entirely unjustified toplessness. And no one wants that in a library. Well, not every day, anyway.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://crowdfusion.myspacecdn.com/media/2010/10/12/hawaii-five-o-cast-dressedup-600w-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://crowdfusion.myspacecdn.com/media/2010/10/12/hawaii-five-o-cast-dressedup-600w-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not librarians.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Then there are other types, other directions of advocacy. First off, it takes place in our individual libraries. I'm pretty lucky to work somewhere that's really valued by users and under no ostensible threats from them upstairs. But it is shrouded, just a bit, by a misconception of what we do, a myth perpetuated by people who should know better (i.e. academics). So most of the time, advocacy at work consists of saying things like, well, yes, young student, we do have books, but hark! the herald electronic resources sing! it is also available as an ebook. Open up that there laptop. And why, thank you, young student, we are a handsome place to work, excuse the blushes, but we are more than just a pretty face overlooking the river. We can also teach you how to find things, and organise whatever you find, and create sparkling bibliographies that are so thrilling that it would only be a little bit weird to unveil them with props including a tape casette of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Orff">Carl Orff</a>'s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEllLECo4OM"><i>Carmina Burana</i></a> and a truckload of dry ice. It's the kind of advocacy that resembles a slow-cooker more than a microwave. It's the kind of advocacy that's about turning the users one at a time, and fortunately for all, is a lot less cultish than I've just made it sound.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tz-online.de/bilder/2009/03/09/98640/1213316355-hughlaurie_475px.9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://www.tz-online.de/bilder/2009/03/09/98640/1213316355-hughlaurie_475px.9.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also not just a pretty face.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Last, there's the bit of advocacy that involves the profession itself. If I had a pound coin for every time I've simpered, "no, really, truly, I don't stamp books and I don't shush", I'd have, well, about five pounds. Not that much, then, which might be a sign that the message is finally getting through, just a bit, that it ain't necessarily so-lely about the dewey decimal system. I've got this bad habit of trying to make what I do sound a bit esoteric, so I talk about the secrets of the open access repository, and try to make Marc21 sound as complex and nuanced as an ancient Assyrian dialect (not that it isn't); it's like a bad, persisting hangover of long-word syndrome. I might be better off emphasising the core of what it is that I actually do: help people to find the resources to be better at whatever it is <i>they're</i> doing, and preventing them from drowning in irrelevant information while they're doing so, and ensuring that if <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2">U2</a> were in the room, then by now, they'd <i>definitely</i> have found what they were looking for. If only so I could show them the door post haste.<br />
<br />
*Yes, I am quoting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_Hammer">MC Hammer</a>. And the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles">Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</a>. You got a problem with that?Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-10785864577058490162011-10-10T22:32:00.008+01:002011-10-11T09:37:53.639+01:00Morning campers! (also known as #libcampuk11: Library Camp)I'm taking a little break from <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/">cpd23</a> to write about my Big Day Out in Birmingham last Saturday. Despite having argued countless times with countless people about the fact that Birmingham is, yes, in The South Of England (oh yes it is), I'd never actually been. Birmingham, the home of cheap shoe shops (based on what I saw, Brummies, please don't be cross), of a deservingly disreputable train station, and at least one Gap. I decided early on to travel there and back on the day, despite Cambridge's location on the rail network. For those of you who don't have the "privilege" of living here, it's approximately harder to get to Cambridge from any part of the UK that isn't London than it would be to get from Bognor Regis to Timbuktu with a road map of West Bromwich and a rickshaw as your only companions. Anyway, this all just about meant that I had to get up at 4.30 in the morning and as I normally only concede to a 4am start when there's a fortnight's holiday at the end of it, my standards were incomparably high. Would there be beaches and cocktails, ice cream and palm trees? No, because we were going to Birmingham, and even I'm not completely bonkers. The best we could hope for was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Valentine_%28film%29">Shirley Valentine</a> with Midlands accents and (hopefully) less sleaze and (hopefully) fewer evidently dyed moustaches. Worse still, we were travelling by train. And no matter how hard you try, there is no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brief_Encounter">Brief Encounter</a>-esque spin you can easily impose on a Virgin Pendolino train, especially with its lingering aroma of "panini" and spilt lucozade. The journey was NOT like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Coward">Noel Coward</a> film with less Rachmaninov and more Watford. And watching the sun rise over Coventry is not as richly deserving of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_Ivory">Merchant Ivory</a> production as you might initially think.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BriefEncounter_w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BriefEncounter_w.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not set in New Street</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
What I knew about <a href="http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/">Library Camp</a> before I signed up could be written on the inside of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnock%27s">Tunnock</a>'s Caramel Wafer wrapper. First, it has a superlative name. I like things with Good Names. (Hello, <a href="http://fuckyeahcumberbatch.tumblr.com/">Benedict Cumberbatch</a>). Second, everyone else was signing up for it, and I am a sucker for Missing Out Syndrome. While this may imply that I am merely a character from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_the_Sheep">Shaun the Sheep</a> but with thumbs and access to the interwebs, it is nonetheless as remarkably potent a motivator as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Motivator">eponymous gentleman</a> from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmtv">GMTV</a> circa 1996, and even better, all without the yellow lycra. Third, lots of the other people that were signing up for it were people that I follow on the twitters and the prospect of being <strike>allowed</strike> able to follow them around in real life for a couple of hours was a temptation of near-biblical proportions.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://9.asset.soup.io/asset/2293/1081_17c6_800.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://9.asset.soup.io/asset/2293/1081_17c6_800.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
The unconference idea was totally new to me. Its basic premises--a deliberate lack of speakers, sorting stuff out on the day, seeing what happens, going with the flow, rolling with the punches--were aces. And though I'll admit to being a little disappointed that I misunderstood what "voting with feet" would actually entail (I imagined some kind of aerobic metatarsal abacus), the way that it was run--a semblance of disorganisation underpinned by weeks of careful thought and planning by the genius organisers--was as new and as fresh as the three-week old birthday cake on our kitchen table is old and rotten (no one will take responsibility for it, so it will still be there at Christmas*). And it was as interesting and as enlightening as those Aviva adverts you have to sit through to get to the historical hanky-panky on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downton_Abbey">Downton Abbey</a> are tedious and depressing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://austenprose.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/downton-abbey-mrs-crawley-400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://austenprose.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/downton-abbey-mrs-crawley-400.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
I went to four sessions during the day and didn't write down a single thing. So I am drawing what follows from the deepest darkest depths of my brain where it is wedged in between the lyrics to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Joel">Billy Joel</a>'s <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g&ob=av3e">We didn't start the fire</a></i>, some limited knowledge of the filmography of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Hay">Will Hay</a>, and my list of (pathetic but long-lasting and increasingly insane) reasons why I haven't ever, and don't want to ever, watch <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars">Star Wars</a>. Fortunately for all concerned I am certain that there will be a great group of more precise, sensible and talented bloggers than I could ever hope to be who will write up the important stuff. But anyway, in the interests of joining in, let me try to briefly <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">pr<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">é</span>ci</span>s them and see what I brought home with me:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>On cat and class: the difference between what librarians actually do, and what systems librarians wish they'd do and ask Father Christmas for every year; the inherent flaws in the concept of having bibliographical standards; the terror and terrorisation of MARC; and essentially how cataloguers are So Damn Cool that I'm starting to believe that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeeze_%28band%29">Squeeze</a>'s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pblSU5M1d1Y">seminal hit</a> was not about felines after all (music cataloguers, take note, your subject headings are wrong).</li>
<li>On special collections: what they are and what it means to deal with them; the balance between making stuff available and controlling the hordes; why the phrase 'to have and to hold' might need to be split in two when special collections are involved; forming partnerships and knowing when to give things to other people to take care of (a strategy which I intend to adopt if I ever have to deal with children).</li>
<li>On legacies: adopting and battling against the ones you inherit and are stuck with; how they're perpetuated and by whom; how they're tricksy and self-protective and can preclude us from chucking them all out and starting from scratch. And about the extent to which we've all, as a profession, inherited this bigger, near universal legacy, a blooming <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voldemort">Voldemort</a>-at-the-height-of-his-nose-free-power of legacies, and that's the one that's edging libraries closer to the Bermuda triangle now. There was also a small amount of talk about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Skinner">Frank Skinner</a> in the buff but I think we all regretted that. And no, I was definitely not in any way responsible for that. (And no, I'm not protesting too much before you get there).</li>
<li>On FE colleges and HE colleges: how they deal with different and competing user groups and staff concerns over different levels and extents of service; how individual libraries don't often face problems that are particularly unique: often we're all in the same boat and maybe if we share some solutions we can make sure that the boat we're all in isn't the rapidly sinking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic">Titanic</a> but the one from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ransome">Arthur Ransome</a>'s <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swallows_and_Amazons_series">Swallows and Amazons</a></i> and instead of being about to drown, we're going on an adventure in the Lake District (where there's a far greater possibility of cream tea). And how buttering up the IT staff is often a solution to all the world's problems.</li>
</ul><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://webstarter.easily.co.uk/users/www.whpl.co.uk/upload/Rowing%20boat,%20Windermere.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://webstarter.easily.co.uk/users/www.whpl.co.uk/upload/Rowing%20boat,%20Windermere.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Much better, yeah?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><br />
</div><div>During the last hour of the day, I muscled in with the #knitcamp crowd and as a non-knitter I enjoyed my own little #skivecamp and had a quick brew and a nice sit down. I've said this countless times, but there aren't half some talented folk in them there libraries. <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/Girlinthe">Katie</a> was demonstrating the four needles approach to knitting: but give me four needles and I'll make <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu9MptWyCB8">that</a></i> joke from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Ronnies">Two Ronnies</a>, realise it doesn't work and poke my eyes out hanging my head in shame. <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/funktious">Sian</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/samanthahalf">Sam</a> had these amazing and confusing circular knitting needles: but give me those and I'd be guaranteed to accidentally strangle myself within seven seconds just by trying to work out what in the heck was Going On.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lps29ejfcX1qmsjsro1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lps29ejfcX1qmsjsro1_500.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>There's been a gaping omission so far in this blog post. I haven't yet mentioned the C-word. Get your mind out of the gutter, I don't mean cardigans. The <i>other</i> C-word. Cake. I am a self-professed and perfectly content non-baker, but that doesn't meant that I don't remain in a consistent, staggering state of awe of those who don't believe that the natural origin of a Victoria sponge is a <a href="http://www.marksandspencer.com/">Marks and Spencers</a>. I've never seen so much cake in my entire life. Special mentions of course must go to <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/Girlinthe">Katie</a>'s award-winning <a href="http://maedchenimmond.tumblr.com/post/11228326254/libcampuk11-cakecamp-victory">beetroot cake</a>, and a doff of the hat also to <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/bibliojenni">Jenni</a>'s peanut butter cookies, and the unknown makers of the Welsh cakes and the proper Scottish tablet**. Add in the couple of pints in the pub while avoiding New Street and waiting for the train home, as well as what Bonnie and Clyde (also known as <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/edchamberlain">Ed</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/eallen021">Elizabeth</a>, but I won't say which one's which) bullied me relentlessly into having for tea in King's Cross Station, it was no wonder that Sunday was a day for my fat pants.</div><div><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Cheers_intro_logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Cheers_intro_logo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br />
</div><div>Last of all, then, a lofty and genuine CHEERS ME DEARS to everyone who rocked up in Birmingham, who shared their thoughts and their wisdom and their jokes, especially to them from the twitters who pretended to know who I was, and to the organisers for a cracking idea, an even better execution, and for the promise of another one next year (can I just propose the idea of a library nunconference where we all have to wear habits? Go on, I've not worn mine for years). Anyone want to get a book going for how fast the ticks will go next time? I'll give you good odds, promise...</div><div><br />
</div><div>*Amazingly, while I've been writing this, one of the genius housemates has taken one for the team and got rid of the cake.<br />
** Edit (Tuesday morning): I am reliably informed by <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/joeyanne">Jo</a> that the maker of the delicious proper Scottish tablet was the illustrious and marvellous <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/jaffne">Jaffne</a>. Thanks Jaf! It was almost as yummy as Gary Barlow. (That's a compliment). </div>Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-52820847670765204762011-10-01T18:40:00.001+01:002011-10-03T11:31:48.521+01:00We're the Chipmunks (also known as Thing 15: Conferences and events)In the words of <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinnerladies">Dinnerladies</a></i>' Petula Gordino: "I'm back! New venue, new caravan, new kidney". OK, so I haven't got the kind of excuse for going AWOL that would match moving house or getting an organ transplant or ... buying a caravan. I haven't got anything at all new. But the only other references I could think of for "being back" involved either the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstreet_Boys">Backstreet Boys</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminem">Eminem</a> and, well, let's just stick to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Walters">Julie Walters</a>. No, my excuse is that I've been hiding out in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberystwyth">Aberwristwatch</a>, both the town itself and the concept, writing an essay and, now it's done, it's time to pick up the shattered pieces of my floundering and flailing attempt to stay even vaguely up to date with cpd23.<br />
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<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfNrSNXfwGboDFk3hvMP_UAMg2EMmrwME5vCHg5joiTFpwg-DQmYP0i_SkukrKtWuaUvZjenZsY_QyiglJIcU7o3QPEdNhjFzRFwk2Z-DUn_H9m4LsD8rgJwqR8kIGfHBgq9BKZG4DH0/s1600/beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCfNrSNXfwGboDFk3hvMP_UAMg2EMmrwME5vCHg5joiTFpwg-DQmYP0i_SkukrKtWuaUvZjenZsY_QyiglJIcU7o3QPEdNhjFzRFwk2Z-DUn_H9m4LsD8rgJwqR8kIGfHBgq9BKZG4DH0/s320/beach.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aber. Possibly with a bit of artistic license.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
Fortunately, <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/08/thing-15-attending-presenting-at-and.html">Thing 15</a> is about conferences and seminars and events, all of which I like. At best, you meet good people and learn good stuff; at worst, you get a day off work and are able to practise the art of the regimented drinking of lacklustre tea. <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/Girlinthe">Katie</a> asks us in the main blog to look at conferences and events from three angles: as attendee, speaker and organiser. I do like a nice trichotomy. Trying to think of a way to frame the discussion was fun too. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers">The Musketeers</a> was an option but I only really know about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtanian_and_the_Three_Muskehounds">Dogtanian and the Muskehounds</a>, and I've realised that I mention Dogtanian with a worrying frequency already. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter">Harry</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Weasley">Ron</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermione_Granger">Hermione</a>: too overdone. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Ted">Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack</a>: too sweary. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Stooges">Larry, Curly and Moe</a>: would require Actual Research, and I've made it this far without that. Then it dawned on me. The winning concept. And by winning I mean that holy trinity of being not totally irrelevant, malleable enough to make it fit what I want to say, and in the 80s enough that anyone reading this will have forgotten what they need to contradict me. It's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_and_the_Chipmunks_%28TV_series%29">Alvin and the Chipmunks</a>. The TV version, obviously. And as a self-respecting childless woman in her mid-twenties, I haven't watched the movie. OK, I'm lying. I'm in my late twenties, and I don't have that much self-respect. If I did I'd be drinking gin somewhere rather than writing this drivel. But I still haven't seen the film. Promise.<br />
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</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/pics/8/388/how-to-draw-alvin-and-the-chipmunks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/pics/8/388/how-to-draw-alvin-and-the-chipmunks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
</div><div><b>Attending conferences: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Seville">Theodore Seville</a> approach</b></div><div>Theodore was always the lovely Chipmunk. Sweet, gullible, perhaps a little naive, and always hungry. Let's begin with the last attribute: hungry. The food at conferences is always REALLY important. There's something about eating to schedule that aggrandises how crucial soggy sandwiches and strange samosas actually are. It's mainly because it's free, so it transports us back to our student days, where the prospect of a free meal was more appetising than a first class degree any day of the week. And by free, I mean paid for so far in advance that we've forgotten about it. Conference food is usually pretty good: the Danish pastries at the <a href="http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/libraries/conference2011/index.html">Libraries @ Cambridge</a> conference are worth attending for alone.<br />
<br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://th475.photobucket.com/albums/rr115/mynannysgirl/Alvin%20and%20the%20Chipmunks/Theodore%20Seville/th_theodore-1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://th475.photobucket.com/albums/rr115/mynannysgirl/Alvin%20and%20the%20Chipmunks/Theodore%20Seville/th_theodore-1.gif" /></a>But then there are Theodore's other attributes, as I've said: sweet, gullible, perhaps a little naive. This is us at conferences. We rock up, wide-eyed, blinking, a little confused, and expecting the best. We anticipate meeting a whole cast of wonderful, fascinating people; we foresee learning magical and magnificent things; we imagine ourselves leaving feeling more inspired and more energised than a Duracell bunny. And for the most part, we do. For the most part. But I've never been to a conference where all the papers were great, nor where all the speakers were bursting at the seams with charisma, nor where I felt engaged or interested for the entire day. It's not that the papers or the people were boring; it's that speakers can't please all the people all the time. Battling that after lunch slump where the puniness of the tea you've been supping really becomes apparent is no mean task. And there are always speakers who are talking about something so far outside your field of awareness, let alone expertise, that you're as confused and bewildered as you would be if you went into a post office and there wasn't a queue.</div></div><div><br />
</div><div>The best bit about conferences leads me straight back to Theodore. He acts as the safe-for-children adhesive that bonds his often warring brothers together. Attending conferences lets you meet people. And no matter how good buddies you are on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, or the fact that you've emailed each other once, there's nothing like meeting up and bonding over the ever long queue for a plastic cup of some boiler water masquerading as tea, to make you allies.</div><div><br />
</div><div><b>Speaking at conferences: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Seville">Simon Seville</a> approach</b></div><div>OK, OK, let's just ignore the fact that Simon's supposed to be the "clever" one. Of course I don't think that people who speak at conferences are cleverererer than their listening, or snoozing, counterparts. Of course. But what Simon does is this: he uses the opportunities he's given and he's pretty brave.</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t299/tifaandcloud23/alvin%20and%20the%20chipmunks/19593simon.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t299/tifaandcloud23/alvin%20and%20the%20chipmunks/19593simon.png" width="129" /></a></div>Speaking at conferences is undeniably an opportunity. If your topic is interesting to some people in the room, or if you're a good speaker, then it's an opportunity to teach people something, or to make them think about something differently. It's also, marginally more self-interestedly, a way to raise your profile or get your name known. But speaking at conferences is also something that requires a bit of courage. I know this from experience: earlier this year, I spoke at the <a href="http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/special-interest-groups/careerdevelopment/cdg-benefits/events/pages/programme.aspx">New Professionals Conference</a>, I directed a Q&A at the Libraries @ Cambridge conference, and in a couple of weeks I'm going to the <a href="http://www.cpd25.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=99999999&extmode=view&extid=513">CPD25</a> conference on applying to Library School to take part in a Q&A and big up Aber.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I'm not too fazed about speaking in public, especially if I can prepare in advance. Years and years of being forced to do masses of it while I was at school has numbed me to the nerves. When I was 17, I gave a Prizegiving speech to about 700 people, including my friends, classmates, teachers, school governors, guests, and more. I was meant to thank the main Prizegiver who was, fortunately, really interesting, and was (I think) one of the executive producers of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_as_Folk_%28UK_TV_series%29">Queer as Folk</a>. The bit where I had to speak didn't bother me particularly: I'd memorised the speech and had it written down on index cards in my pocket. It was the bit where I had to carry a microphone to the front of the stage before speaking into it that bothered me. I was convinced that I'd trip over some wires or my feet and fall head first into the choir. It also bothered me that while I was doing all this I was being forced to wear a suit and high heels and make-up. There was such a lot of displacement going on there that the fact I had to say something faded entirely.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I don't mean to suggest for a second that a lack of fear translates into any particular oratorical skill; nor am I really suggesting that you make yourself forget about the bit where you have to say things out loud to people by doing a load of other stuff simultaneously that terrifies you more. Don't juggle fire, please, while giving a paper on the digital humanities--if nothing else, the conference organisers will have coronaries. But what I would say to people who are nervous about speaking is this:</div><div><ul><li>One, offer to speak, or submit a proposal. If you get turned down, try again. If you get accepted, there's no going back. You can cross the bridge of terror when you come to it.</li>
<li>Two, prepare properly. Both the proposal and the paper. Makes the slides good. Practise enough so you know the gist and flow of the paper, but don't memorise it. Be comfortable with what you're going to say. Take out long words that your tongue trips over, for example.</li>
<li>Three, remember everyone in the audience is just very happy that it's you that's speaking and not them.</li>
<li>Four, no one is really focusing on your nerves. At the start, they're thinking about their stomachs, or last night's episode of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glee_%28TV_series%29">Glee</a>, or why whoever chose the uncomfortable chairs they're squirming on thought hot pink and orange stripes would be a good design choice. Once you get going, they're thinking about what you're saying, and still not whether or not you're nervous.</li>
<li>Five, remember they're all Theodore. They're gullible, sweet, perhaps a little naive, and looking up to their big brother Simon, who has all the answers.</li>
</ul><div><b>Organising conferences: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Seville">Alvin Seville</a> approach</b></div></div><div><a href="http://images.wikia.com/alvinfanon/images/9/9f/216530_1239084634334_full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://images.wikia.com/alvinfanon/images/9/9f/216530_1239084634334_full.jpg" width="155" /></a>OK, then, Alvin. The lead guy, the main dude. Alvin is impulsive, confident, inspired, and full of boundless energy. I imagine that if you're organising a conference or event, these traits would fall into the "essential" category, rather than simply desirable. Conference organising takes a whole host of valuable, brilliant skills of which I am totally envious. It's everything from booking venues and getting speakers and choosing samosas and making name badges to taking the risk of contracting arthritis by keeping your fingers crossed for the seventeen days running up to the big event, and hoping that something unexpected like an alien invasion doesn't happen to scupper all these well laid plans. I take my proverbial hat off, and offer three cheers and a bottle of gin to everyone involved in the organisation of next week's <a href="http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/">Library Camp</a>! Organisers are SO talented.</div><div><br />
</div><div>It's not something I've ever really done; I kind of helped out with the Libraries @ Cambridge conference in January this year, but that really just consisted in attending a hilarious meeting with <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/PriestLib">Andy</a>, <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/lettylib">Lyn</a> and Rose, showing up early to give out name badges, and holding a microphone whilst worrying that I wouldn't fall (actually, that's a theme. I wonder what it is about microphones that makes me think I'm going to tumble to my death or, worse, utter humiliation). So anyway, I can't take much credit for that conference. But maybe one day I'll get my chance. If ever there's a conference on the impact of Benedict Cumberbatch on the information society, you'll know who's behind it.</div>Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370360491570922251.post-91629704010016548672011-09-07T16:48:00.000+01:002011-09-07T16:48:24.162+01:00Why I only have eyes for Zotero (also known as #cpd23 Thing 14: Reference management)What's that you say? Write another ode to <a href="http://www.zotero.org/">Zotero</a>? Go on then. In fact, I'll just talk about Zotero. Call it cheating, if you will, but I prefer to think of it rather as giving both my readers a small reprieve from the depressingly overlong drivel I usually present (and the fact that I've nicked that joke from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Wogan">Terry Wogan</a> of all people proves the point). I say <i>another</i> ode because this time last year I went on and on and on (in a style not dissimilar to one <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Doyle#Mrs_Doyle">Mrs Doyle</a>) about how brilliant Zotero is. If you're a glutton for punishment, look, <a href="http://librarywanderer.blogspot.com/2010/08/thing-18-zotero-my-dear-watson.html">here</a>. And, at this point, my assessment was entirely prognostic. I hadn't used Zotero, but I predicted that it would be wonderful. I compared Zotero to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_holmes">Sherlock Holmes</a>, who would definitely have made it into the song if I had been responsible for <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/">The Sound of Music</a>'s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33o32C0ogVM"><i>My Favourite Things</i></a>. I registered a measly, mean 15% cynicism, centring around the fact that I felt coerced against my will to use <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/firefox">Firefox</a>. A year on, though, and I've actually <i>used</i> Zotero. A year on, and I can confirm that I had <i>quite</i> the premonition. To hell with this librarian business, I'm going to the registry office or the post office or the petrol station or wherever it is you go to change your name, for surely I am the spiritual descendent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystic_Meg">Mystic Meg</a>. Perhaps if I'm lucky I'll be able to forge a new career for myself predicting lottery numbers, and appear weekly alongside <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_Holmes">Eamonn Holmes</a> on some abysmally lobotomic Saturday night quiz show. (Please, please, don't let this ever happen to me). A year on, though, and I can confirm that Zotero is really rather good indeed.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqzqpr3tgj1qm6nako1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqzqpr3tgj1qm6nako1_500.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's BACK SOON</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Not only that, but I've since learned that while my earnest entreaties to the good folks at Zotero for a <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/chrome">Chrome</a> plug-in have fallen on deaf ears, the geniuses (for surely there is no other word) have gone one better and created a desktop version, liberating me forever (I presume) from my Firefoxy prison, and making the whole thing sturdier, more robust, and less likely to be discontinued or decommissioned or discarded as if it were a bag of <a href="http://www.primark.co.uk/">Primark</a> shoes and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fun_House_%28game_show%29">Fun House</a> VHS' outside a charity shop. (This is all supposition, I should say, but Mystic Murph might just triumph again). In any case, this has been the best news I've had since <a href="http://www.bwfc.co.uk/page/Home">Bolton Wanderers</a> managed to cling onto <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Cahill">Cahill</a> in the football transfer window (and yes, it has been a slow week).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.myfootballtops.co.uk/images/12541.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="296" src="http://www.myfootballtops.co.uk/images/12541.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hurray!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
If there's a direct alternative to the ghastly clich<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial;">é </span>about not knowing what you've got till it's gone, then I need it here, but I can't remember it. Maybe something along the lines of not knowing what you've got until you've suffered through several thousand years of manual referencing? Or not knowing how good <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Mitchell">Joni Mitchell</a>'s <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgMEPk6fvpg"><i>Big Yellow Taxi</i></a> is until you've endured <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Jackson">Janet Jackson</a>'s torturous sampling of its chorus? Like most sane people, I hate doing actual, pain-staking, manual referencing almost as much as I hate an empty bottle of gin. It involves far too much checking of full stops for my liking, and takes such a lot of organisation to do it properly and efficiently. Having said that, I do think that there's a huge amount of value in actually knowing how to do it yourself, without some fancypants software to take the trouble out of it on your behalf. But this is teetering a bit close to a "in MY day" story now, and frankly I'm just not old enough for that, so I'll change the subject.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.mikanet.com/museum/images/joni_mitchell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mikanet.com/museum/images/joni_mitchell.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She totally deserves a picture.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Reference management isn't something that we'd <i>directly</i> use for CPD, clearly, but for our potentially plethoric publications, essays, reviews, and so on, that clearly we are all writing, all the time, this kind of tool is invaluable, and it's good to know how it works. But Isla's <a href="http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/08/thing-14-zotero-mendeley-citeulike.html">Thing 14</a> post made me think about something else too. Isla mentioned a couple of alternatives to Zotero, namely <a href="http://www.mendeley.com/">Mendeley</a> and <a href="http://www.citeulike.org/">cite-u-like</a>. I'll admit that I saw Zotero and totally shunned the other two. This is, very partially, because of time constraints, and perhaps the next time I have a free moment I'll look at the others, but as things stand that'll be in about seven hundred years and I'll be prising the laptop open with my cold dead hands. But, mainly, it was because I saw Zotero, and thought, hello Zotero, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again, and wondered why on this luscious earth I'd ever bother with the others.<br />
<br />
What was that reaction?! At first, I thought, loyalty. To Zotero and to me, because I've invested bits of time figuring out how it works. And then, I thought, satisfaction, because Zotero does everything I need it to, apart from presenting me with tea and cakes for every fifteen minutes that I spend having to cite things. Or gratitude, perhaps, that Zotero fundamentally limits my association with the deepest and gloomiest depths of APA referencing. Or a combination of the three. The conclusion I had about Zotero was that it works for me. And that'll do, pig. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01486/p_babe-pig_1_1486519c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01486/p_babe-pig_1_1486519c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
But then, I thought, that isn't generally our response to Web 2.0 tools. When <a href="https://plus.google.com/">Google+</a> was launched, librarians flocked to it in droves. It was like that bit in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112573/">Braveheart</a> when the Scots attack, but with a far smaller percentage of people faking Scottish accents. With some Web 2.0 tools, then, we adopt the "ain't brokey, no fixy" approach, and with others, it's more like a "ain't brokey, but look at its potentially better, more attractive cousin". Sometimes we're dead loyal, sometimes more committed than I am to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_that">Take That</a> (which is A LOT). Sometimes we move onto what we perceive (wrongly, perhaps) as the better, more popular model, as if we were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_pitt">Brad Pitt</a> and social media tools were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelina_Jolie">Angelina Jolie</a> and poor old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Aniston">Jennifer Aniston</a>. My seven minutes of thinking about this while typing this paragraph makes me think that it all boils down to what the tools are <i>for</i>, and whether their purpose is clear-cut, because that determines whether we can two-time them usefully, legitimately, and positively. So because I use Zotero for references, I have no need for Mendeley; because I use <a href="http://www.diigo.com/">Diigo</a> for social bookmarking, I have no need for <a href="http://www.delicious.com/">Delicious</a>. Using two reference management software packages, or using two social bookmarking sites, would be more a monumental waste of time and/or more confusing than the success of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inbetweeners">The Inbetweeners</a> film at the box office. But because <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a>, for example, can be used in loads of ways, and because its purpose isn't clear-cut, and because it's multifunctional, it's harder to replace, and harder to displace, with some exciting new innovation. Like Google+.<br />
<br />
I'm TOTALLY digressing now. So I'll stop. In sum: Zotero is lovely, Twitter is indestructible. But then so was the Titanic, until it sank. And on that bombshell...Helen Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13254226104437680746noreply@blogger.com3