Rudai 23, Thing 22: Engaged Professional, Reflective Practice
I was particularly excited about the Engaged Professional theme, as the emphasis on professional networks and the exchange of ideas is one of the main draws of librarianship for me. The tools explored in these tasks are ones that are already a key part of my daily life, in and out of the library. This section gave me the chance to reflect on how and why I use these tools. Â
Step 1 Description
The three tools or issues explored were podcasts, advocacy and professional groups. I wrote blog posts about my experiences on Jo Woodâs Librarians with Lives podcast and as a new professional in CILIP. I also analysed the ways in which advocacy might feature in my own library and created a set of relevant ideas/actions. Â
Step 2 Feelings
When setting out on a new type of professional engagement â such as going to my first conference or speaking on a podcast for the first time â I have inevitably felt nervous. However, this has definitely become easier with time and experience. Going to conferences and similar events, as well as communicating with information professionals through avenues such as Twitter, has helped me feel confident in being accepted and supported as part of a professional community. By developing my own voice through social media, podcasting and Rudai 23, I have become equally confident in my individual role and ability to create and convey my own ideas.
Steps 3-4 Evaluation & AnalysisÂ
A key part of evaluating how I interact with the Engaged Professional tools and themes has been considering whether I engage with them fully as their own unique mediums, or as a means to an end. When reflecting on my experiences of podcasting and conferences, I have been glad to find that I approach these as opportunities to learn and develop skills rather than as something for my CV or a contact-collecting activity. I often have a particular goal, such as a skill to refine or a topic to learn more about, allowing me to ensure that my professional development is value-led, focused and balanced. Â
For the Professional Groups task, my findings were slightly different. I tend to approach CILIP more as a medium through which to find opportunities, such as events or resources, which potentially limits my engagement with it. Identifying this gap could allow me to develop my relationship with CILIP, if this seems like a valuable action. Â Â
I was surprised by my experience of the Advocacy task, as while I make library advocacy a part of my personal life and social media presence, applying it to my workplace felt unusual. I realised that there were underlying matters that I had been treating as given or unavoidable which, when I applied more rigorous analysis and approached from a different perspective, were not as clear-cut as I believed. In particular, a structured approach to rethinking who our readers are and what they want and need will be extremely important in my current project of reshaping our social media strategy. Â Â
Steps 5-6 Conclusion and Action Plan  Â
Through the Engaged Professional tasks I have evaluated my relationship with professional development activities, which has allowed me to formulate action points to ensure that I use these activities in the most valuable way.
I will start recording and evaluating my professional development activities, as well as my related goals and learning outcomes.
I will look into possibilities of engaging more with CILIP or similar groups, perhaps through a committee role.
I will apply advocacy and evaluation processes to my workplace, particularly through our new social media strategy.
I am a member of CILIP, which Iâve found valuable in the early stages of my career.
The CILIP website provided me with information about librarianship and the many career paths within it, as well as job postings of traineeships. This definitely helped me feel prepared and informed when applying for trainee roles and entering the profession. Having the CILIP Graduate Training Opportunities scheme in the background of the application process gave me some sense of security that the roles they advertised would prepare me for the postgraduate course and later career. The PKSB was very useful in helping me develop and organised my skills and interests for my CV, as it enabled me to compare my experiences to what might be important within the world of libraries and information management.
I attended the 2017 CILIP conference expecting to feel like a fish out of water as someone only just beginning their first library job. I was pleasantly surprised by how supported I felt and the wide variety of events aimed at people at different levels of their career, including entry-level. As well as useful resources, I met many people in different types of library work, giving me the chance to connect with other professionals and obtain different perspectives. These early connections have expanded, particularly through social media, and led to many exciting and unexpected opportunities.
Iâve found following special interest groups on Twitter extremely useful, helping me to discover events and issues that I wouldnât necessarily discover through my traineeship. I am keen to get more involved, perhaps through volunteering in a committee to develop skills that donât feature in my current role.
While Iâve mostly found CILIP an excellent resource and support network, I feel its focus on traineeships potentially lets down entry-level information professionals who arenât on one of the formal traineeship programmes. It would be very useful for CILIP to signpost and support these roles in similar ways to traineeships, as the impression can sometimes be that entering the profession through a non-trainee gateway could be a disadvantage, which is not the case.
I am very excited that the Advocacy and Engagement tasks require participants to create plans rather than just thinking theoretically. For me, advocacy seems too often to be something I discuss rather than do, and these tasks have given me a push to think about how themes of advocacy apply to my own library in real, everyday ways.
I am particularly interested in this section of Thing 20:
The American Library Association identifies the core values of librarianship as: access, confidentiality/privacy, democracy, diversity, education and lifelong learning, intellectual freedom, the public good, preservation, professionalism, service and social responsibility.
Rather than simply being abstract moral concepts, these values can be enacted â for example, access can be fulfilled through accessible systems, and privacy can be implemented in important daily policies. Through the activities and my engagement with this task, I intend to explore the relationship between library values and actual commonplace actions, instead of holding them in separate intellectual spheres.
Exercise 3/4: Name three ways in which you can demonstrate the impact and value of the library service that you work in. Identify three key audiences outside of the library in the wider organisation/community that you need to network with in order to advance the development of the Library Service. To combine these exercises, I will match up key audiences with actions.
Students
As a college library, our main user base is the student body. In order to demonstrate our value to this audience, we first need to ensure that we are meeting their needs â there is no point in making empty promises or boasting features that no-one wants or needs. Taking feedback and advertising services requires a widespread and interactive method of communication that can reach students who are not already regular library users. Social media, when used effectively, can enable us to respond directly to individual needs and demonstrate through action that the college library is a responsive, tailored service. Our current social media use is mainly announcements and blogging, which does not make use of interactive listening opportunities. By encouraging communication and becoming present in the spaces students already use to voice concerns, such as Facebook groups, the possibility of engagement might become more viable and more visible to our students.
What values might this enact? Access, democracy, diversity, education.
Tutors
The level of library engagement varies hugely between different tutors, affecting the quality of the collections for their subjects, and the messages passed on from tutors to students about the library. A better relationship with a tutor always means higher quality and higher use for their subject collection. By creating contact opportunities, such as induction tours for new staff members or termly library fairs for tutors to find out about our services and collections, we could open channels of communication with teaching staff. Often staff members are inundated with emails, making the usual non-personal email method ineffective. Regular face-to-face engagement, particularly if stationed in faculty buildings rather than requiring a trip to the library, would enable us to demonstrate ways in which tutorsâ use and amplification of our services can affect their studentsâ access to resources and study support. It may increase impact if student ambassadors spoke at these events, sharing the role of the library as part of their wider educational experience, bringing an element of reality and results into our advocacy.
What values might this enact? Access, education.
College Governing Body
The governing body of the college makes large, high-impact decisions about things such as finance, resources and building projects. To successfully advocate for the library on this level, an instant, clear, professional approach is necessary. This means arriving equipped with thoroughly researched and well-presented quantitive and qualitive information that demonstrates the libraryâs impact and how it helps the college meet its goals. To prove success, statistics are an essential tool - for example, a study of how regular access to strong library collections boosts rates of students achieving firsts. To complement this, qualitative evidence such as student testimonials encourages a sense of connection and makes the advocacy more personal, memorable and differentiated. All of this must be presented concisely and on a non-expert level, as the audience is unlikely to make use of library services themselves.
What values might this enact? Professionalism.
Exercise 5: Write down in 200 words or less an idea for Library Week for a library you work in or use.Â
Library Week is an excellent opportunity to create connections with people who do not already regularly use the library and to raise awareness of the diverse services offered by libraries. To increase impact, I would organise interlibrary events, celebrating as a network of different types of libraries (e.g. public, college, faculty) - for example, a combined local history exhibition. This would allow users to learn about services available to them through different sorts of libraries - for example, our students might not have considered looking in the local public library for useful and interesting books not held in academic libraries, while local residents might not have considered visiting us to see our collections on local history. Sharing library week would also help create professional relationships between libraries, which often tend to be divided by sector. A better understanding of the services provided by different types of libraries would help us to signpost opportunities available to users.
This week Iâm going off-menu and reflecting on an experience somewhere in between the two tasks. In January I had the opportunity to feature on Jo Woodâs Librarians with Lives podcast along with two other graduate trainees, Elle Codling and Hannah Smith, talking about our traineeships.
Getting started â I was already aware of Librarians with Lives and had listened to a few episodes. When I saw a tweet asking for some graduate trainees to appear in an episode, I replied and said I was keen to be involved.
Preparing â Before recording, Jo sent through some topics and questions, so I was able to prepare the ideas I wanted to bring to the podcast. I also checked with other graduate trainees to see where their experiences might be different from mine, so that I could share a wider perspective on traineeships. The technical set up was very simple â I just needed Skype, and I used a Blue Snowball microphone in a quiet room in the hope of making my audio a bit clearer.
Recording the podcast â The recording took around an hour, but felt much quicker. The style was very conversational, and Jo really made me feel like my opinion was valued and interesting despite being early on in my career. Jo asked the three of us each question in turn so that we all had the opportunity to answer and didnât end up talking over each other. Questions largely related to the application process and our experiences of working as trainees.
Learning and development â From listening to previous episodes and Elle and Hannahâs experiences, I gained a window into the interests, skills and concerns of other professionals in the very wide field of librarianship. Speaking on the podcast hugely boosted my confidence and my sense of professional engagement, as well as encouraging me to evaluate and develop my ability to clearly communicate ideas. The format of a podcast requires an interesting overview of a topic illustrated with examples, so that the information is manageable and enjoyable without overloading the listener â this skill will also be useful when presenting or pitching. Formulating answers was an excellent exercise in reflective practice, as I had to describe my experiences throughout my traineeship and identify motivations, successes and skills that I had developed.
You can listen to the episode here. Thank you to Jo, Elle and Hannah for making this happen! I would definitely recommend appearing on a podcast to others. It is a great way to develop skills, confidence and professional engagement. Even if you feel your experiences arenât very exciting, they will be totally new and different to many other people.
I am very inspired by the way in which Jo amplifies the voices of library professionals at many different stages in their career through the Librarians with Lives podcasts. A key lesson I will take away from this experience is to have the confidence to value my own voice, and also to encourage and listen to others who may also be struggling to develop that confidence. At this point this may be through small actions, such as answering questions from people interested in applying for traineeships; as I progress through my career and gain more experience, further opportunities for mentorship and promoting voices will arise. I will make sure to keep this a priority.
In this post I will be reflecting on my experiences of the Critical Thinker section of Rudai 23, which has explored the ways in which we organise, evaluate and share information. I have written blogs on Tasks 14 and 15, and Tasks 16 and 17.
Each of these blog posts contains a segment reflecting on the task and what I have learned from it. Rather than repeating my points, I will use this task to reflect on Critical Thinker section as a whole and summarise my learning.
Step 1: Description
The Critical Thinker tasks required participants to reflect on and evaluate the ways in which we interact with information.
Task 14, Personal Information Management, offered tools for managing project and research information. As well as practical advice, this task presented the opportunity to test and evaluate what is most important and effective for me when organising information.
Task 15, Evaluating Information, challenged us to add a source to an uncited claim in a Wikipedia article. This required participants to consider how we determine the reliability of a source.
Task 16, Your Digital Footprint, asked us to consider how we share and present information about ourselves online, and the privacy and safety concerns involved.
Task 17, Sharing Your Work, involved methods and venues for sharing presentations. This meant considering how to share information in the most effective way for a particular audience.
 Step 2: Feelings
Tasks 14, 16 and 17 were based around themes and methods I was familiar with, and therefore felt relatively straightforward, although they pushed me out of my comfort zone and elevated my skills and understanding. Task 15 was much more daunting as the âbehind the scenesâ of Wikipedia was completely new to me. Completing this task left me with a real sense of accomplishment and of having engaged with completely new ideas and challenges.
Steps 3-4: Evaluation & Analysis
Through my experiences with different Professional Information Management platforms, I realised that a priority for me when managing information is a centralised hub for my findings and a way to track my processes as well as final results.
The Evaluating Information task allowed me to explore obstacles preventing a perfect, certain source â for example, general statements, retrospective elements, or a need for disproportionate effort. The main idea I developed through this task was the necessity of acknowledging but not ignoring uncertain knowledge and imperfect sources, and of passing this ideas on to students.
In the Digital Footprint task I uncovered flaws in my own approach to giving out information online, reminding me to take more care in the future. A more interesting element of this task for me was the role of the library in passing on awareness of digital safety and privacy to students and keeping them up to date on best practice.
The Sharing Your Work task enabled me to approach a familiar task â putting together a presentation â from a different perspective, by focusing on the needs and interests of my audience and what I would like them to take away from my presentation. My final product centred less on straightforward information and narrative, and more on the methods and skills I wanted to display and share.
Steps 5-6: Conclusion and Action Plan
 Through Task 14 I identified personal priorities when managing information, enabling me to ensure these elements â a centralised resource and the ability to track developing thoughts â are present in future projects. This will give me a secure start for effective, efficient research and planning.
Tasks 15 and 16 have added to the information literacy skills and ideas I aim to pass onto students, and provided me with resources for doing so. In particular, I aim to make digital privacy and the acknowledgement of uncertain knowledge a part of library skills teaching sessions such as inductions.
From Task 17 I came to understand the importance of considering the needs of the audience and what active skills and ideas need to be put across when giving a presentation, rather than only information and content. By starting from these priorities when planning future presentations, I will be able to make them more effective, concise and interesting.
Your task: Look through the above list of points to be aware of in terms of your digital footprint. Use these to run a kind of diagnostic of how you protect yourself against violations of your privacy on the internet. How do these compare with the precautions that you take?
I am generally very good at identifying potentially dangerous links and presenting myself carefully online. In some ways I can be complacent â for example, not checking Terms and Conditions and not giving out information on websites that are likely to share it. This has led to consequences that are not necessarily dangerous, but a nuisance, such as spam emails and phone calls.
I found it very interesting to consider the library role in this task, and particularly enjoyed exploring such as the Library Freedom Project. This has encouraged me to consider the extent to which we are responsible for passing on information and skills related to digital safety/privacy to students, and effective ways in which we might go about this.
Thing 17, Sharing Your Work
As with a few previous tasks, the Sharing Your Work task fits in perfectly with a current project. As part of my traineeship, I am required to give a short presentation on a project Iâve done during my time at the library. Using the questions and ideas posed by this weekâs task, I have created my presentation and uploaded it to SlideShare.
Please note â the final event of the project hasnât occurred yet, so the image on the last slide is missing!
What is the focus of the gathering? What is the audience?
The purpose of the trainee showcase is to demonstrate a way in which I have contributed to my organisation and developed my skills during my placement. As such, the focus of my presentation shouldnât be the content of the exhibition but the processes behind it and how my work has had an impact on other people. I have made sure to depict a variety of skills and interests, such as working collaboratively, handling delicate items with care, and including accessibility in my plans. Moreover, I have considered the skills I hope to display during the presentation: by making images rather than texts the centrepiece of each slide, I will be required and encouraged to explain my points in an interesting and easily understood manner.
My audience will be made up of library professionals, so will hopefully share many of the interests and priorities explored in the presentation. Not all of them will work with special collections, meaning I must avoid assuming expert knowledge of elements such as showcases. Most of my audience are likely to be involved in exhibitions and events on a regular basis â the structures and questions I pose might be useful to them going forward, making clarity and moments of evaluation very important.
SlideShare: What do you think? Are you happy with the results?
I had never used SlideShare before and was interested in trying it out. My upload was mostly successful, although parts of my presentation became a little blurry or wonky (for example, the occasional letter of a word moving to another line). A lot of the meaning in my presentation will be spoken, so a comprehensive narrative cannot be understood from the slides alone.
While my SlideShare presentation isnât useful for giving the actual presentation or as a stand-alone educational resource, it is helpful to be able to quickly and easily send someone a rough version of the project to check the content. It will also be useful for someone who has seen me present and might want another look at the slides, particularly as they include a lot of interesting images.
For the Professional Information Management Task, I decided to create an Evernote notebook for a current exhibition project I am working on. The project is quite complicated, requiring input from a variety of departments and different materials for different dates and locations.
I found the Evernote interface very intuitive without being too limited. I had previously been working with a paper planner for this project, and having the ability to view my tasks together and add to sections was very helpful. I particularly liked being able to mix meetings and notes while still having them function in similar ways.
One way that I used my Evernote notebook was to track my planning with the strikethrough tool. This way I was able to work creatively in a way that was neat and easy to follow, but still showed my processes.
I also tried out Pocket and Remember the Milk, but found they werenât for me. I prefer to work with a centralised organisation system, as I tend to duplicate across systems and take up more time than I save. One feature of Remember the Milk I found very useful was the ability to mark a task as passed on to someone else â this is particularly handy in collaborative project.
From experimenting with different Professional Information Management platforms, I learned about different ways to use them and also something about my own research and note-taking style. Through my experiences with Evernote, I discovered the ways in which it can be used to track developing ideas and processes in a creative project. By trying out additional simpler task platforms, I came to recognise how important a centralised hub is for me when doing a research project.
Task 15 â Evaluation Information
I found this task the most difficult so far, as I have absolutely no experience of the âbehind-the-scenesâ of Wikipedia. I attempted to find citations on several topics I know a lot about, but faced many obstacles.
1.      Often when searching for something to back up a Wikipedia claim, most of the results I turned up had clearly taken their information from Wikipedia article itself. I quickly learned to look out for similar wording or structure. Otherwise, a circular proof could easily occur.
2.      Some things are potentially outside the realm of proof and citations. I regularly found myself at a loss when dealing with general statements, âcommon knowledgeâ, or claims that were verging on being opinions rather than facts. Often these had no definitive source and any resources dealing with them were also likely to be treating as a given.
3.      At times, a source certainly might exist because the trouble needed to access it wasnât really justified. To access reliable sources, I might need to visit archives or make a freedom of information request.
4.      Often the research I found was personal research and not verified through peer review. Even though it looked sound, I couldnât be sure of its accuracy.
5.      Sometimes the information had a retrospective element. In particular, one claim dealt with the year in which a certain title came into use. However, it was difficult to know whether a depiction of this title might refer to actual use, or might be applying a later title retrospectively for the sake of clarity.
I did eventually add a citation to a Wikipedia article. The claim dealt with a concrete fact, making it easy to prove or disprove it. My source came from a trusted source interested in history and accuracy â the Walt Disney Family Museum â and referred to exhibiting the item at question, meaning it definitely existed!
Normally when evaluating, I started with a source to unravel rather than an assertion to prove; this way round was much trickier. Something I discovered that I hadnât considered before is that some knowledge cannot fit into a simple ârightâ or âwrongâ dichotomy, or might require more work than is really worthwhile to prove. In these cases, we donât necessarily need to throw it out due to its uncertainty â however, it is necessary to acknowledge the nature of the knowledge, be that uncertain, retrospective, circular, or something else.
This task has certainly made me feel more in tune with the students, academics and researchers who use the library, and the frustrations or obstacles that might interrupt their work. Alongside the usual tips we offer regarding the reliability of sources, I will start ensuring our readers that at times acknowledged uncertainty is an unavoidable and completely acceptable part of learning and discovery.
What is my personal digital footprint? Rudai 23, Thing 13
The Online Networker section of Rudai 23 prompted me to evaluate how I present myself and interact with others through my professional online profile. I use LinkedIn, Tumblr and Twitter in a professional capacity; my Twitter profile is more relaxed and includes non-library material such as art, but is never deeply personal or controversial. My initial reaction was that my use of online professional engagement and networking was quite successful and few, if any, changes needed to be made. Despite this, I have made a few key changes in my online profile as a result of the tasks.
Evaluation and Learning: Social media is an excellent opportunity to learn about and engage with a broad range of library fields and issues. Up to now I have mainly been following individuals in roles similar to mine, such as in higher education/early career roles. This offered me a limited perspective on the wider field and experiences different to my own.
Action: I have made sure to follow individuals in different fields, such as public, school or health librarianship, in order to get a wider range of perspectives. I have also made sure to follow accounts run by library organisations and campaign groups in order to engage further with issues and developments.
Evaluation and Learning: When managing several professional social media accounts, it is important to have a sense of consistency and connection. Up to now I have presented my Twitter account in a much more casual way than my LinkedIn or Tumblr, using only my first name. They also had very different profile pictures: my LinkedIn had an austere passport-like photo, and my Twitter had a very relaxed, everyday photo. As I use my Twitter account to engage with professional discussions and developments, it seemed beneficial to connect the two and find a middle ground for their tone.
Action: I selected a âmiddle groundâ photo in which I am wearing a professional outfit and stood in a library setting, but still with a colourful, friendly approachable vibe, and used this as the profile picture for my LinkedIn, Twitter and Tumblr. I selected three interests that are core to my experience in librarianship and the work I hope to do in the future and made sure these were at the beginning of my LinkedIn bio and in my Twitter bio: information literacy / accessibility / learning. Rather than defining myself only by my current role, this allowed me to centre my online presence on core values. I also changed my Twitter profile to display my full name, creating a more professional appearance and making me more identifiable.
Evaluation and Learning: Task 1 for Thing 11 asked participants to âcreate a bio of yourself that you can use when creating an online profileâ. My current LinkedIn bio was horribly outdated and focused entirely on what sort of job I wanted, rather than offering a concise depiction of myself as a library professional. I decided to rewrite this bio structuring it around these questions:
Who am I?
What am I doing?
Where am I going?
Using these questions, I hoped to encapsulate my skillset, values, experience and ambitions in an easily absorbable synopsis.
Action: I rewrote my LinkedIn bio as follows:
âI am at the beginning of my career in librarianship. I am particularly interested in reader services, including accessibility, information literacy, and the ways in which library spaces and services can support learning.
Currently I am the graduate trainee at St John's College Library where I have a very active role in the day to day workings of the library. I also take responsibility for individual projects including creating exhibitions and cataloguing collections. My role involves a broad range of library work, encompassing reader services, technical services, and working with rare and fragile items.
From September 2018 I will be studying Library and Information Services Management (part time distance learning) at the University of Sheffield. I plan to take a part time library role so that my practical and theoretical learning can complement one another.â
The Online Networker tasks also involved reflecting on and evaluating a past experience of collaboration and thinking about how online tools could support similar projects. You can read about my reflection on this subject here.
Rudai 23âs Online Networker section has provided me with the tools and questions to reflect on how I present myself and communicate with others online. I have a new understanding of how to put together a constituent, connected online presence across different social media types, rather than viewing them as separate. I have put this into action by changing features such as display names and photos, and by focusing my depictions of myself around core values and interests. My ongoing action from this learning experience will be to maintain a consistent image and carry this over onto any new professional online profiles I create.
Your Task
Think about the last time you had to work on a group project and write a blog post using the following questions as a guideline:
Did you work face to face, virtually or via a combination of the two?
Was your experience positive, negative or neutral?
Did you use any of the tools outlined above?
Have you used any other collaborative tools that you have found useful?
If you had to do that project again what tools outlined above do you think would have been the most useful?
While I have plenty of experience working on group projects from my undergraduate degree, I havenât had many opportunities for this in my library work yet. The project I will reflect on in this post is my exhibition on the history of the library. While I led this project, it required advice and assistance from a variety of colleagues and departments. I am currently working on a second exhibition which will require a much higher degree of collaboration, as it will involve items from several departments and form part of a college-wide event. I will be using this task to reflect on my first exhibition and to create an action plan for my second exhibition.
For my first exhibition I worked prominently face to face, with the occasional email. This generally worked well as it was on a small scale, although occasionally I had to take extra steps to access information sent in emails to my supervisor. One downside was that my supervisor and I were constantly sending revised documents back and forth; this could have been improved using something like Google Docs, which would have allowed us to easily update documents and add suggestions. During group assignments during my undergraduate degree I regularly used Google Docs to create plans, research documents and presentations, and found it an excellent tool to share and collect ideas.
My upcoming project will require collaboration from different teams involved in library, archives, paintings, and events organisation. In order to keep on track of tasks and deadlines and avoid having to schedule physical meetings, an online hub for the project such as Trello would be useful. Ideally, I would like to use something focused around a project timeline so that it is clear how the project will pan out and how each person fits in to it. It would also be useful to have a space to upload documents and post/discuss potential problems. For the next stage of the exhibition, I will try out different options and set up an online hub for the collaborative project.
How can we effectively and productively pass on information literacy skills to students?
Right at the beginning of my undergraduate degree I was given a library assignment, carefully crafted to introduce me to the world of finding, evaluating and referencing sources. It was a brilliant activity similar to a scavenger hunt, leading students around the library to find and experience texts. It was also compulsory in order to pass the first year, making information literacy a core part of our first step into academia.
Now a confession: like many of my peers, I did the whole thing in bed using Amazon.
Introducing students to the library and providing them with the information literacy skills they need is a core responsibility for an academic librarian. It can also be very difficult. In this blog I will explore various ways in which this responsibility is addressed and the challenges faced when tackling it.
An age-old favourite, the induction tour allows the librarian to introduce a batch of newcomers to the library, giving them a chance to make contact and get their bearings. For the student, realistically, this is another hour on a hectic induction timetable, another block of information that will be forgotten, and another handout to go in the bin. The induction tour can also be very limiting in how it portrays the library. A tour often emphasises physical location rather than services, doesnât allow students to gain skills through interaction with resources, and relegates the library to an external space, rather than making it a part of the overall learning experience. Some of its attributes are positive, particularly when used to explain physical processes or items â for example, our library tour includes a chance to discover and touch some of our old and rare books. However, attempting to communicate the full range of services and resources available through the academic library using an induction tour is overall ineffective and restrictive.
A variation or extension of the above would be induction activities, where students must find and explore resources themselves. This gives new students an experience of using resources, introducing them to important elements of information literacy. When run solely as a library activity separate from actual study, however, these activities can easily feel like busy work. Moreover, they can feel externalised and theoretical, losing any connection with actual study and any learning value for the student.
An interesting technique for passing on information literacy skills is the Transformation Project at George Mason University in Virginia. This is a yearlong project run by the library in which students select a topic to research, exploring and evaluating their skills in research and using resources along the way. This is quite similar to an EPQ, which is an optional independent research project done alongside A-levels in the UK. While the Transformation Project is a wonderful concept in terms of making information literacy a part of in-depth, assessed academic work, it wouldnât be possible in every setting, as it generates a large workload. It could potentially also be overbearing â ultimately the responsibility to develop skills lies with the student as an independent individual. If youâd like to learn more about the Transformation Project, read Kevin Simonâs âThe learning library in context: community, integration, and influenceâ (Research Strategies 17, 2000, pages 123-132).
My proposal for a more effective induction technique would be a combination of positive elements of the above. My first piece of work for my undergraduate degree was a short essay, marked not so much for content as for writing style and research skills. This meant my tutors could get an insight into my current skill set and where I needed to develop. At this point in the degree, I think itâs essential that academic work and library services come together. Rather than an external, theoretical âextraâ, the information literacy skills provided through the library must be integrated into that initial academic step.
I would work with academic staff to organise an additional short reflective piece, similar to a literature review, to be part of a studentâs first submitted work, requiring the use and evaluation of different types of resources. Flagging this critical process up early in the academic experience would enable students to practice engaging with information effectively, and allow academic and library staff to note areas in need of development. Information literacy can then be a central part of actual coursework from the get-go, with library services playing an active role in a studentâs academic experience.
As with any induction technique, this idea has flaws and grey areas. Would this piece of work be assessed, and if so, how and by whom? If areas for development are identified, how is this followed up? Through this post I wanted to explore the challenges of passing on information literacy skills and consolidate my thoughts into the beginnings of an actionable idea â this is of course not an attempt at a watertight, all-encompassing solution! I look forward to exploring the issue further and hearing other ways of tackling this challenge.
Reflections on Visual Communication - Rudai 23, Thing 9
For the Visual Communicator portion of Rudai 23, I chose to complete Things 3, 7 and 8. In this blog post I will reflect on my experience of the new skills and tools I discovered using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle.
Thing 3, Step 1 â Decription
Thing 3, Image Banks, asked us to find a striking image, consider its ownership and whether it could be shared, and upload it to a blog. My post can be found here.
Thing 3, Step 2 â Feelings
My initial reaction to this task was, âthis will be easyâ â all I had to do was find a picture and post it! I am glad to say my initial reaction was wrong, and I found myself learning and experiencing much more than I expected from this task. By the end, rather than sharing an obvious and forgettable image, I had used an image to convey a concept, engage with other librarians, and think creatively.
Thing 3, Steps 3 and 4 â Evaluation and Analysis
I began this task by exploring Flickr for potentially useful images. Something I discovered was the way in which image banks can provide us with more than individual images. When searching the name of my library, I found lots of photos uploaded by tourists, and realised that image sharing sites could be a useful tool for exploring the experiences and reactions of our visitors. When I searched âlibrarianâ, the assortment of images that were returned offered an insight into how librarians are perhaps perceived. A secondary use for image banks could therefore be a way of researching perceptions of topics.
While I have prior experience of using images, I was surprised when I paid closer attention during this task at how thoroughly many users reference the images they upload to website like Flikr. This made it possible to share the images, as they could be fully credited, and again to use them for research purposes â for example, I found a fully referenced and dated historical image of my library that I hadnât come across before. When images were not referenced, I used tools such as Google Image Search to find an original copy and gain information on its source and licensing.
I very nearly made a mistake in this task. I found an image related to libraries that I liked a lot, and almost settled on sharing it. However, after further consideration, I decided that the image wasnât actually useful or relevant for me. My interests lie in information literacy, innovation, and the use of space; while the image was uplifting and to do with libraries, it didnât engage with any of these ideas, and would have cluttered up my blog. This moment of the task made me consider the importance of evaluating images in terms of relevance, usefulness and impact.
Eventually I chose to share an image previously shared by another librarian I follow on social media. The image is of a graphic novel collection with the shelves covered in pages from graphic novels, creating a striking effect. The instance of innovation displayed here interested me and sparked my own thinking and creativity; rather than just sharing the image, I was able to add my own ideas to it, considering how the same effect could be applied to academic libraries. In this way, I was able to engage with current discussion and innovation, as well as developing and sharing my own ideas.
Thing 3, Steps 5 and 6 â Conclusion and Action Plan
The key skills I have developed in this task that I would apply in the future are:
Using image banks for research or to enhance an understanding of general public perceptions.
Carefully evaluating and selecting images that convey the values and ideas that are important to me.
Using images to engage with others in my field and to develop my own creative thoughts.
As I am responsible for the social media accounts at my library, these skills will be useful on a daily basis. Having learned how impactful and relevant images can be when carefully chosen, I also plan to use them when creating persuasive materials such as applications, reports, and marketing materials.
Thing 7, Step 1 â Description
Thing 7, Online Exhibitions, asked us to recreate a physical collection as an online exhibition. I have recently put together an exhibition on the history of my library, so I used this opportunity to put together a digital version that would be useful for us. My online exhibition can be found here.
Thing 7, Step 2 â Feelings
At the start of this task I was slightly nervous. While I am used to writing blog posts on our collections, these generally highlight only 4 or 5 items. By contrast, my exhibition contains around 20 items of different shapes and sizes. Applying the questions presented by the task to the process of transferring the exhibition to a digital format allowed me to find a structure that works well for the reader, the library and the items. I feel much more confident in my final work than I felt at the beginning of the task.
Thing 7, Steps 3 and 4 â Evaluation and Analysis
As my library uses Wordpress for our blog, I was limited to using Wordpress for this task. My initial steps were very impractical and didnât take the resources I was using into account. I typed up my introduction and inserted all of my photos, with captions copied straight from the exhibition, into the post. Unsurprisingly it looked awful.
I took a step back and considered how the Rudai 23 guidance could help me out of this mess. A particularly helpful evaluative tool was the âYour Storyâ questions:
What is the narrative? Â
How is it arranged?Â
What are the different ways in which to display the material?
By thinking in terms of narrative and arrangement I was able to break away from the physicality of the exhibition, which had been dictated by sizes of items and display cases, and consider more abstract arrangements. As this is a historical exhibition, I chose a generally chronological narrative. I experimented with different types of display, discovering limitations â for example, a slideshow did not work well with long captions â and chose a mosaic layout. This is visually striking and created a sense of the relationships between the items; by clicking on individual items, readers can expand the images and view the extended captions.
I was also able to stray from the physical limitations of my exhibition in terms of selected items and captions. I eventually included only half of my images, so that the visual display was not overwhelming. Some items that worked for the physical exhibition lost their impact when presented digitally â I found this particularly with long pieces of text. As the captions displayed as a block of text, I shortened some captions and integrated titles into the body of the text, making them more readable.
Thing 7, Steps 5 and 6 â Conclusion and Action Plan
The key skills I have developed in this task that I would apply in the future are:
Using digital platforms to communicate collections in ways that physical exhibitions do not allow.
Selecting elements carefully in order to display them in an effective and useful way, rather than including everything.
Considering items in terms of narratives and relationships, rather than as isolated and individual.
Something I would consider in the future is how to tie the digital exhibition into the branding of the physical exhibition â for example, a key image used on my posters does not appear on my blog post. Despite this, the digital exhibition will be very useful for raising awareness of the exhibition online, particularly as it offers a taster of what is included.
 Thing 8, Step 1 â Description
Thing 8, Infographics, asked us to create an infographic to convey some simple information. This is something very new to me, so I used this opportunity to learn about a new skill and consider how it might be useful for me. My infographic can be found here.
Thing 8, Step 2 â Feelings
I initially felt a sense of creative block, as I couldnât think of an infographic to make that would be functional rather than just a list of statistics. I was also worried that what I would make would look untidy and unclear. By the end of the task, I felt much more confident in my skills and had a clearer idea of how infographics might be used.
Thing 8, Steps 3 and 4 â Evaluation and Analysis
The initial challenge I faced was a topic. I felt uncomfortable creating anything to do with my own library as I was unsure about issues of permissions, privacy, and usefulness. Instead I chose a report that had interested me on changes in library spaces.
The next step was to select key points to be presented visually. I found that choosing a particular topic rather than attempting to communicate the whole report made the final result much more impactful. I then chose a structure for these points, in this case setting out a problem and its potential solutions: this gave my infographic a sense of narrative and purpose. While I had expected to rely on statistics and the traditional ways of representing them, I found it more effective and rewarding to find potentially visual moments in the report and realise this potential. In particular, the claim that libraries have on average one study space for every ten students offered wonderful visual opportunities.
I found using Piktochart very enjoyable and accessible. While it was tempting to fill the page with images, I used images only when necessary for communication, increasing the clarity of my final result.
Thing 8, Steps 5 and 6 â Conclusion and Action Plan
The key skills I have developed in this task that I would apply in the future are:
Using images sparingly and clearly to convey information.
Identifying information that could be expressed visually in an interesting and useful way.
Considering what forms of communication work well for different messages and audiences.
While I had previously associated infographics with lists of statistics, through this task I have discovered the ways in which they can be used in different structures, such as question/answer or problem/solution. This opens up the potential for using infographics in practical or persuasive materials, such as proposals. Moreover, by leading me to look at details and structure them simply, creating an infographic allowed me to shift my perspective and understand a topic in a more focused way.
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Thank you to Rudai 23 for their thought-provoking course. I have learned much more than I expected, and am sure to use it in a practical, useful way. I am looking forward to engaging with the next sections of the course.
I have recently made the move from studying in a huge state-of-the-art library with beanbags a space to pile up pizza boxes, to working in a beautiful little 17th century building where study is silent and your coffee shop cappuccinos stay outside.
With building work nearing completion, however, the big library move is fast approaching. Soon our library will be made up of our current quiet reading rooms, filled with history, and the bright lights of a brand new building, complete with the new horror of self-issue machines. This strange synthesis of contrasting spaces offers challenges and opportunities. We are able to shape this unexplored space to better support the needs of our readers, and to consider new ways of learning.
I set out to explore these ideas. In accordance with the ancient ways of the librarian, the first thing I did was make a survey â youâll be glad to know I didnât make anyone fill it in. My survey asked one question: what type of work do you want to do in the new library? This task enabled me to think from the perspective of different readers and gather a set of types of work they might do. From this, I was able to consider the materials and space they might require to make this possible. From drawing on my own experiences of studying in libraries and researching others, I was able to broaden and focus my understanding â for example, a vague idea of âgroup workâ became project work, presentation practice, and revision/study groups. Each would call for a slightly different setting with different resources.
A useful resource for this section of my research was this detailed description of study spaces from the Webster Library, Concordia University, Montreal. Iâm particularly fascinated by their Dissertations Writersâ Rooms, which graduate students can book for a term. These offer individual study spaces with assigned shelves, creating something akin to a personal office within the library environment. This is an attentive, tailored take on the concept of individual study that I hadnât come across before.
At this point I felt the need to take a step back and consider study spaces in more theoretical terms. I found a comprehensive introduction to the topic in Fatt Cheong Choy and Su Nee Gohâs article A framework for planning academic library spaces (Library Management, Vol. 37:1, January 2016). While I disagree with its emphasis on the decline of printed material, the article featured an extremely useful model for study spaces. Each type of space was considered theoretically in terms of how modes of study influence learning, and then backed up with practical suggestions, such as equipment and seating configurations. I was particularly interested the writersâ ideas on flexible study spaces that could shift to meet the demands of specific period, such as exam weeks, and could be modified by students to suit specific needs.
I was surprised by my experience of reading this article. While I had set out to find the gaps in our service and consider how the new space could fill them, I found myself noting in the margins the way in which our current reading rooms provided in ways I hadnât realised. The writers were concerned about modern libraries not offering âsmall isolated areasâ such as corner spaces, enabling a study experience between that of the open table or fully confined space. They also proposed interspersed resting areas among shelves to facilitate browsing and discovery. Our libraryâs 17th century reading room features shelves that wind their way around spacious tables, allowing readers to find a study space that is individual without being claustrophobic, and enable a browsing experience that is interwoven with pauses and moments for reflection.
As well as learning about the interactions between space and study and the ways in which other libraries are shaping their spaces to meet the needs of their readers, my research into this topic has taught me about my own library and the readers I support by enabling me to change my perspective. As hoped, I now have some ideas about how to best use the new building; an unexpected delight is discovering the highlights of what we already have.
Hello, and welcome to my blog! Iâm Rhiannon, a trainee librarian. Iâm keen on information literacy and digital learning. This blog will be a space to explore and share what I discover and create throughout my training.
Iâm starting off by following the prompts from Rudai 23, which have been formulated to help develop information skills. Iâm looking forward to trying out new things!
