Champs!

Earlier this summer, my employer held a staff party. Staff awards were distributed during the event and I am pleased to say the library won the ‘annual recognition award’.

We were presented with a shield and a bottle of champagne each. The decisions were made after senior management studied feedback from the annual staff survey and also the regular end-of-semester student surveys. I’m not sure what comments were made about the library but they must have been good!

It feels great knowing the library and the work we do is appreciated by both students and fellow staff. It’s nice to see people appreciating a library service, a provision which is traditionally often overlooked. In my previous employment, the library was often side-lined but here we have support from senior management and that feels good. It allows us to develop the service and for this I am very grateful. 

HE versus FE: my top 5 observations

Still learning.
Image taken by Chelsea:( Used under a CC license.

Last week I passed the probationary period in my new job. I felt uneasy with the direction FE was heading, so I was glad when changing jobs meant leaving the FE sector and joining the HE sector. I loved working at the college, but had long wanted to try my hand in a university library and was excited at the chance to do so. Now that I have been here almost six months, I have had chance to reflect on the differences between libraries. My initial top 5 ponderings are below:

Evolving CPD needs

Attendees at #hugsm15. Image by @HeritageUsers

Back in June I attended the Heritage User Group (HUG) meeting. These meetings are twice-yearly - this year’s Winter Meeting was held in March and the Summer Meeting held in June. I started attending meetings in 2011 and haven’t missed one until this year. (Previous HUG blog posts are here.) Due to changing jobs, I was unable to attend the March meeting. I was really disappointed by this and was glad to attend the next meeting in June.

Looking back, I can see that over the years the meetings have been of benefit to me in various ways. When I first started using Heritage the meetings were an incredibly useful source of information on how to use the software. I was thirsty for knowledge and the HUG meetings satisfied this need. Over the years, my knowledge of the software increased considerably and as a result my development needs changed also. Last year, I presented at a number of external events for the first time, one of which was a HUG meeting. I felt confident enough to deliver presentations exploring Heritage usage. By accepting the opportunity to present at HUG, the meeting met my development needs but in a slightly different way to how it usually did. I really enjoyed presenting and would like to continue doing this on occasions.

Lecture time!

I recently enjoyed the opportunity to attend a university lecture for the first time since 2006. This was the last time I was a university student and things have certain moved on since! I remember endless sessions where the lecturer would deliver a presentation and students would spend the lecture hurriedly scribbling notes on a writing pad. Interrupting the lecture to ask a question was a rare occurrence and as a result it was easy to ‘drift off’ and allow your thoughts to wander.

Attending a lecture as an observer rather than a student was an interesting experience. I wasn’t distracted by the need to absorb content and was therefore able to focus on elements such as structure, delivery, interaction etc. There were approximately 40 people in the room, excluding myself and the lecturer. It was far more informal than I remembered lectures to be, with more of a seminar vibe in the air. Questions and interruptions were frequent and encouraged, and as a result, students proactively engaged with the content of the session. I am new to working within the HE sector and I don’t know if this way of delivering lecturers is now the norm in all institutions, but it seems to certainly work well for our students.

A lot of students had their mobile devices to hand – tablets as well as phones. I have recently left he FE sector, and in the college the use of personal devices during sessions was discouraged unless it was part of a BYOD initiative. It differed from group to group, but some FE lecturers preferred students to not be distracted by such devices during the main part of the session. I can understand this in compulsory education and FE. Is it the same in HE? Perhaps. I don’t know yet. At first, I presumed the devices were being used to browse social media or send text messages, but when I sneaked peaks at a few screens, I could see students were mirroring the actions on the big screen at the front of the auditorium. Instead of watching the lecturer demonstrate a website, they were following along on their devices and learning kinaesthetically too. One student even used his phone to photograph the printed resources the lecturer used, and later visited the library referring to these photos as the starting point for his research.

A few students used laptops to make notes, but in general, handwritten was the most common form of note taking. Incorporating modern technology into lectures is interesting and can be advantageous, but it is comforting to know scribbled notes are still the order of the day! I will soon be delivering lectures myself, assisting students with research techniques and assignment preparation, so it is important for me to know the format of lectures in my institution.