ClickView intentions

Some things take time to achieve.
Image by kamera.obskura

Back in September  I started to oversee ClickView, the library’s online streaming service. Our subscription package allows us to record six Freeview channels twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for a rolling 14 days. There are some great programmes on TV which may be beneficial to learners and ClickView allows us to record and store these programmes. It works in a similar way to BBC iPlayer, except programmes do not automatically expire after a pre-defined period of time.

This academic year I have started looking at it from a management viewpoint.  After a term of finding my feet with the system I feel much more confident. It is a sound concept and can produce some excellent resources for learners to use. The main issue I find is the marketing of the service. In October I attended a drop-in session with the college marketing department and asked how to publicise ClickView.  Usage of the service could be higher and there is plenty of room for improvement.  The marketing department suggested various methods of raising the profile including one which had not been tried before – going into curriculum team meetings.

Staff Development Week

Just a relatively brief post to record this year’s staff development week...

In February 2013 the college in which I work formed a ‘Federation’ with another college. Senior management are very clear that this move is the strongest way of securing a thriving fiture for the college considering the £260 million cut from FE by the government. The senior team is also very vocal that this is not a merger but a partnership which will save both colleges money due to shared services, procurements, vacancy management, financial bids and strategies etc (each college has since save £750,000). There is only one other FE Federation within the UK so the future is unknown for such a venture. As expected, this has generated a certain amount of uncertainty for staff and activities within the staff development week tackled this.

@VoicesLibrary curation

Last month I was luckily enough to be a weekly curator of the @Voices Library Twitter account. This is a project allows different library staff to take over the account for a week and post library-related tweets to approximately 1000 followers. I’ve followed it for a while and when I saw an invitation to apply I jumped at the chance!

I used my week to tweet about the role of a Systems Librarian and what it’s like to work in a further education college library. Initially, I was quite nervous apprehensive that none of the followers would interact with my curation. If I’m honest, I feared my tweets would bore people to sleep! I need not have worried – it was a great experience.

MyPC user group

Image by kerolic

Last month I attended a user group session for MyPC, held at Bournville College. I found the West Midlands user group session of 2012 (blogged here) to be very useful, and the same is to be said for the 2013 session. I left the session having made 6 pages of valuable notes and action points!

MyPC is a computer booking system, which allows optimal usage of computer resources. It allows learners to book in advance or drop-in, and runs reports outlining usage patterns. Several local colleges were represented and it was interesting to hear how we all use the software differently.

Two year anniversary

Image taken by Leo Reynolds

My boyfriend believes that blogging is mostly self-indulgent waffle-tosh of little value to anyone else. Usually I disagree with him on this topic, but I’m afraid this post may well prove him right…

 Last week marked the second anniversary in my current job. It gave me cause to ponder the last two years and all that has happened since I left my last post. I found redundancy to be a very traumatic experience and hope I never have to go through it again. It affected me in all manner of ways I didn’t think possible; the majority of these are too personal to share in a public blog, but I admit I found it distressing and fundamentally sad. I refused to take redundancy lying down and treated finding a new job like going to war – I was determined to succeed and go out fighting. I managed to secure a new post within 10 weeks but will long remember the feelings of sheer relief and utter elation. When I received the call telling me I was the successful candidate, I’m embarrassed to say I actually jumped with joy!