Wigan redux, or how CILIP got my goat this week

I finally got round to opening and reading an issue of CILIP Update this week, and almost immediately had to put to down again because it made me cross.

At the foot of page 12 appears a small two-column news piece on the sale of rare books from Wigan public libraries (as mentioned previously on this blog). Unfortunately, the whole tenor of this short news piece is that selling off rare books is a perfectly sound way to raise money for public libraries.  The headline is 'Rare books raise cash for service', which makes it sound like this is all a jolly good idea, and possibly something other libraries should be thinking of, too.  Well done, those rare books...

The text just repeats the council's line that the books had "no intrinsic connection to Wigan".  Which is likely true, but doesn't represent the whole picture: "intrinsic connection" is not the only way books can be relevant to a place or institution. 

It notes that "at least some of the proceeds [are] set to be ploughed back into the library services": maybe that headline should read "Rare books possibly raise cash for service" then, eh?  And "ploughed back" sounds awfully like it's been copied straight from a council news release.

That's really my whole gripe with this short piece.  I appreciate that it's a news item, not an opinion column, but it very much feels like lazy journalism - repeating a release from a particular source without giving sufficient thought (or research) to what other opinions there might be.  There's no mention of opposition to the sale from the Historic Libraries Forum (who do get a mention in this local paper piece from October), nor any nuance to the writing to suggest that the relevance or value to Wigan of the books as stated is the opinion of the council and not necessarily a fact.

I know that CILIP can't campaign on everything, and I'm not asking them to.  But I don't think it's asking to much to expect a professional body to recognise a professionally controversial event and to report on it carefully, accurately and with a bit of subtlety.  I wonder now how much I can trust the Update news on sectors and issues with which I'm not so familiar.  And I do hope that no heads of service or councillors read this nugget and took away from it the idea that they can sell their old books to make a fast buck, too...

Of course, public libraries are not necessarily the best place for rare books to be, given that there's often little or no resources for cataloguing, preservation and conservation, or access and outreach (Brooke Palmieri comments very interestingly on this point on my first post about Wigan - I recommend a read).  But I really think we as professionals, and our professional body, should be trying to make these resources exist, rather than just to report blandly on collection dispersal.

#cpd23 Thing 23: What next?

Right. My cpd23 six-word story is definitely: "shouldn't have taken me so long".  But, at long last, I'm up to the last thing: looking forward.

Having some sort Professional Development Plan is definitely a good idea.  I've yet to work out how best to manage it for myself.  I don't really like the PPDP format used in Chartership, although that's maybe because the whole Chartership procedure feels artificial to me.  I do know that I'll be needing a plan seeing as I'm starting a new job soon.  But I can't really do much on it until I have my feet under the desk.  I do already know that an improved knowledge of RDA and of the history of medicine are needed.  The former I'm addressing by watching this webinar, the latter by watching #histmed tweets.

I'll set myself a target to have a plan written by the end of January. That will give me a little time to work out what it is I need to know.

#cpd23 Thing 22: Volunteering

Wowee, this is a contentious issue, and not just in UK libraries.  There was a great post the other week about the use of volunteers in archives: I recommend reading it, even if you're not au fait with the workings of the Society of American Archivists.

There's a real and unpleasant tension between the competitiveness of the job market necessitating everyone get experience even before they're employed in a library and the constant pressure to save money (in the short term, if you actually want to maintain a decent service I suspect) by losing staff.  Of course, the latter also contributes to the former.

I've been remarkably lucky in not having had to weigh up my conscience against my need to gain experience.  I did a few weeks voluntary work in my local public library when I was a third-year undergraduate, at the point at which I'd worked out I wanted to go into library work and had read the university careers service advice suggesting I get some experience. Even at that time (c. 2004/5) I felt a bit concerned that I was doing work, as a volunteer, that probably warranted 'proper' staff attention.  I spent quite a while updating a very useful catalogue of the contents of song compilation books in the music library: vitally useful when someone's looking for a copy of a given song and doesn't know, or care, what book(s) it might be in.  I think I did a good enough job of it, but I did feel that there really should have been enough paid staff time for it to be done regularly and not relegated to "when we have someone extra here".

I was considering offering up my services to various libraries if I'd not found a new post after my current contract ended.  The areas in which I thought I could do with more experience (cataloguing in particular) lend themselves to volunteer help, I think, and there's always something to be catalogued somewhere.  Other extra-curricular work, such as sitting on the Cambridge Library Group committee also counts as voluntary work, I suppose.  (And the Group is always looking for new committee members, if anyone local is interested...)  It's certainly a good way to develop new skills, and is a way to broaden your horizons without feeling that you're contributing to putting professional and para-professional out of their jobs.