'UXLibs in a Day'

Earlier this month, I attended ‘UXLibs in a day’, facilitated by Andy Priestner. I was lucky enough to have been given a place sponsored by CILIP West Midlands Member Network.  It was held in the library at Aston University and there were 25 delegates. It was brilliant, by far the most enjoyable and interesting library session I’ve ever been to. I was completely new to the concept of UX and this day was the perfect introduction. We learnt so much – it is impossible to recount it all within the confines of a blog post, but below are a few of my ponderings from the event.

#ARLG16 part 2: Attending

Last week I attended the ARLG 2016 conference, held at Conference Aston within Aston University. I attended for just one day, Tuesday 28^th July, and this blog post will record which sessions I attended and the overall experience of being a conference delegate.

The morning keynote speaker was Peter Kilcoyne, ILT director at Heart of Worcestershire College. He outlined a large scale project regarding blending learning within FE. Colleges are encouraged to participate in blended learning as a means of combatting teacher shortages, but creating online resources on a mass scale is expensive and time consuming. HoW college leads a consortium, which colleges may join for a fee. The idea is all member colleges will create resources which will be shared amongst fellow members, thus saving time (and therefore money) in the creation of online resources. The project was outlined from IT and senior management perspectives rather than a teaching perspective and this was reflected in the content. Coming from a college background, I could see the value in the project and it was interesting to learn of it, but at times I felt this particular presentation’s relevance to librarians was limited. Saying that, it was good to see a keynote session coming from an FE perspective – the majority of sessions appear to be aimed at HE practitioners. 

#ARLG16 part 1: Presenting

Recently, I have been lucky enough to present a workshop at the ARLG 2016 conference. This came about as a result of my winning ARLG’s Alison Northover Bursary, which I used to attend the 2014 ARLG conference.  I had such an amazing experience attending the conference that I was determined to contribute to the next one.

I kept my eyes open for the call for papers, submitted a proposal in December 2015 and in January 2016 found out it had been accepted. I was thrilled! The proposal was based around a book folding workshop, to be co-presented with an ex-colleague, Fran Heap. In the past, Fran and I had both used book folding to lead various library initiatives to engage users and raise the profile of the library. We felt we could share these experiences in the hope that other library staff may be interested.

ARLG conference: Newsletter reflection

The following text featured in the ARLG national newsletter, February 2015. It is a short reflection of my attendance at the ARLG 2014 conference, enabled by ARLG's Alison Northover Bursary.


I was thrilled to be the 2014 Alison Northover Bursary recipient. This funded my attendance at the 2014 ARLG conference, entitled ‘The final frontier: to boldly go where you have never gone before’. I had never been to a conference before and was very excited about attending. Looking back, I was not disappointed…

Brighton, baby! ARLG 2014 conference

Earlier this year I was successful in applying for the 2014 AlisonNorthover Bursary, awarded by ARLG. I used the award to fund my attendance at the 2014 ARLG conference, entitled ‘The final frontier: to boldly go where youhave never gone before’. This was the second CILIP ARLG study conference and was held at the University of Sussex, near Brighton, between 23^rd-25^th June.

I have pondered long and hard how to best record and reflect upon my attendance at the conference, and even now – several months later – I’m still not sure of the best way to approach it. The conference offered a very full schedule of talks and workshops, and I came away with a wealth of knowledge. I met new people, learned new things about myself and had an amazing time. Attempting to put the entire experience into words is a tall order! It may not be the most innovative method, but I shall tackle it in the form of a daily diary, leading to a final post summarising my overall thoughts. I make no promises, but shall attempt to keep the entries relatively short, to prevent them from becoming overly descriptive, tedious reads.

And so, dear reader, settle down on the sofa with a warm drink as I take you back to the summer of 2014…

Alison Northover Bursary 2014

I'm all smiles!
Image by Ben Smith

This time next week, I will have arrived at the University of Sussex in Brighton, ready to attend my very first conference. Conferences are something I’ve always had an interest in attending, but due to the cost of tickets it is has never been plausible. Until now…

Towards the end of last year I decided to apply for bursaries with the hope of securing a sponsored place to a conference. Whenever a bursary was advertised I considered applying for it, and in the end I applied for three. All three were to attend CILIP’s Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG) conference, entitled ‘Academic libraries: the final frontier’. One of my applications was rejected as I fell outside the geographical boarder for applications, but my other two applications were both successful. Both bodies contacted me to say I’d been successful within a week of each other, and I accepted the bursary with the more substantial financial package. I was incredibly flattered and humbled to win both. I won’t name the bursary I turned down out of respect for the person it was then offered to, but I am both surprised and pleased to be the 2014 recipient of ARLG’s Alison Northover Bursary.

Study Visit Participation

A poster detailing the visit

During May, I spent a week in Warsaw, Poland, on a Transversal study visit. The visit was funded by the EU and focused on ‘new media in education and theprofessional development of librarians’. Each year, hundreds of places are offered on study visits through the Ecorys / Transversal programme. To qualify, participants must live within an EU country and work in adult education. On this particular visit, there were 13 participants from Iceland, Spain, Italy, France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Aruba, Bulgaria, Romania and the UK. The types of libraries represented included college, university, medical, school, public and national.

I was thrilled to discover my application had been successful, but as the time grew nearer I became increasingly nervous; being very under-travelled, I was worried about travelling alone with a language barrier.  A member of the college Estates department is Polish and gave me a basic language lesson which helped put me at ease.
During the visit, each participant gave a 30 minute presentation outlining the educational system in their home countries, as well as the organisation of libraries services. It was interesting and reassuring to realise that, despite living in different countries and working in different types of libraries, librarians throughout Europe face the same issues. We were able to exchange elements of good practice and useful connections were made.

Study Visit Seminar

A few weeks ago I blogged about being accepted on a study visit to Poland. Today, I attended a briefing seminar where necessary practical information was disseminated. I don’t feel as apprehensive now that I know what the next stages of the process will be*.

There are over 100 Transversal/Ecorys study visits this year with thousands of participants throughout the EU. Whilst at the UK briefing today, I was hoping to meet someone going on the same visit, my plan being to attach myself to them from now pretty much up until we reach the hotel. Out of the 144 UK participants, I am the only one attending the librarian visit. I know that makes me very lucky, but it also make me very scared. I’m an inexperienced flyer and it would have been comforting to have a companion. I have from now until May to lose this fear and embrace the challenge of being an international solo traveller.

Previous participants shared hints and tips with us, which I was quite grateful for, particularly as the following ones would probably have never occurred to me:

• Take appreciation gifts for the host, other participants and any organisations you visit
• Take business cards
• Prepare an ‘elevator pitch’ in advance

I don’t have an elevator pitch and I don’t have business cards. I don’t even have a firm handshake. And as for confidence? I could do with finding some of that before I go too. There is lots of preparation to do but the visit isn’t until May so there’s plenty of time. Which is just as well, I think I’ll spend most of it trawling the shops trying to find suitable appreciation gifts. Living near the Birmingham border, I’m initially thinking Cadburys chocolate. Whaddya reckon folks? Help me out here… pretty please?

*Sign contract, funds transfer, email from host organisation regarding schedule, delegate list & accommodation, book flights & accommodation, make contact with other participants, then finally… go, go, go!

Study Visit Confirmation

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to share some good news.

Back in August, my line manager suggested I apply to attend an EU-funded study visit. I’ll admit to being quite dubious at the time – I thought only the best of the best were ever awarded places on these kinds of things. I was even more dubious when I saw the application form itself - it was solid! I brushed it under the carpet and ignored it for a while, and when the week of the deadline arrived I still hadn’t done anything about it. I was really in two minds – it’d be great to do but surely my chances were low, so why even bother. In a moment of madness, I posted my dilemma on Facebook. Usually, the majority of people just ignore my status updates but this one generated a huge response and everyone said I should go for it. So I did. I burned the midnight oil and with the help of my long-suffering boyfriend, put together the best damn application I could manage. Popped it in the post the day before the deadline and never expected to hear anything more of it.