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.

Some thoughts on brand #cilipnpd12 #cpd23

At the CILIP New Professionals Day last Friday the always-super Ned Potter gave a great keynote about personal brand: You already have a brand: here are five ways to influence it.

Ned emphasised that personal brand is more about what you do than about working out what colour your business cards should be: action not appearance.  He covered a lot of ways to influence personal brand, all of them useful, but the part that most caught my attention was the section on blogging.  Little of what was said was 100% new to me, but Ned somehow brought it all together and into focus, so now I have a much better idea of what I should be trying to do.

My efforts to brand myself as an interested, enthusiastic and competent special collections new professional can't have been doing too badly, as I was asked to lead a workshop at the New Professionals Day, but I'm always keen to improve. I've been wondering for a while quite what it is I'm doing with this blog: I use it to record some of the things I do and what I think about them, and to put out information about things I hear about, and sometimes how to explain to do things.

Ned suggested that to be successful for promoting a personal brand*, blogs need to offer one of the following characteristics: usefulness, helpfulness, silliness, style, honesty or provocation. When I first started, as part of 23 Things Cambridge in summer 2010, the other participants voted me most helpful blogger both, I think, for some of the how-to posts I wrote as well as my comments on other blogs.  Since I finished that course I've not been so consciously helpful: I've been focussing a lot more on reflective writing, which is rarely of such great interest to other people. Looking through my blog stats, my most popular posts are as follows.

By views

• Doing it wrong (provocation and honesty)
• What's your name (useful)
• Threat of library closure at the British Museum (useful and a rant)
• Knit one purl one (silliness and knitting)
• A week in my library life (useful)

By comments

• Thing 18: "They may pass for  excellent men" (a post about Zotero and Mendeley, asking for advice)
• On anonymity (honest post about blogging choices)
• What's your name? (useful)
• Does my bran look big in this? (asking for comments)
• For your reading pleasure (useful)

Useful posts score pretty highly here, but I don't write as many useful posts as I'd like to. Lots of them are lurking in my mind, but to be useful to other people (and useful to my brand) they need to be well-written and/or the resources they offer need to be well put together.  (You would not believe how long it took to put together the Why Libraries Are Great Slides, or the Special Collections Librarianship prezi.)

So I'm going to make an effort to write-up more useful and helpful posts.  This is something I know I can do, and comes much more naturally than being provocative (well, most of the time - I'm not always a shrinking violet), or silly, or stylish.  To start with, I'll compile a weekly list of useful special collections links I see and retweet on Twitter: not everyone's on Twitter, and even those who are can't catch everything.  I think it could be useful to record them somewhere less fleeting.  Unless anyone knows of somewhere else doing the same thing already?  I'll also pull my finger out and try and write up some of the how-to posts that have been languishing in my to-do list for too long.

Thanks Ned for inspiring me into action!

*Edited to express what I meant to express first time round, 15 May 2012.

News and events

This is a quick round-up post of some recent reading, announcements and events. I've shared much if not all of this on Twitter, and it seems worth sharing here too.


Special Collections

NEW PROFESSIONALS DAY
CILIP is holding its annual New Professionals Day this year on 11 May. It's already fully booked, but there is a waiting list.  I was delighted to be invited to give one of the nine workshops on the day.  Under the unimaginative title 'Special collections librarianship: What's it all about?' I'll be taking a look at what special collections librarians do, what skills they need, and ways of getting into special collections work. Do let me know (in the comments here, or at maedchenimmond at gmail dot com or @girlinthe) if there's anything in particular you'd like me to cover. I'll be making the workshop materials available online after the day, so do get in touch even if you can't be there in person.

SPEC COLLS IN THE STATES
Continuing the careers theme, Brianna Marshall has written a great post on getting special collections librarianship in the USA over on the Hack Library School blog.  Do read the comments, too, for some further useful thoughts.

SPEC COLLS OUTREACH IN CAMBRIDGE
Polly Harper, current graduate trainee at Newnham College Library, Cambridge, has written an engaging post about her recent experiences taking part in special collections outreach in Cambridge on the always excellent Rarely Sited blog.  She ends by wondering which library sector will afford her the most opportunities to engage in this work later in her career.

SPEC COLLS IN THE LITERATURE
Geoffrey Little (Concordia University, Montreal) has an article in the forthcoming issue of The Journal of Academic Librarianship reviewing some of the ways in which special collections departments are harnessing technology.  I'd say that the article itself doesn't break much new ground, but the references are quite handy.

MAKING USE OF BOOKSELLERS' DESCRIPTIONS
Anyone who has looked through a high-end antiquarian bookseller's catalogue will have noticed that they can and do include far more information about the books (contents, significance, history, condition, details of binding, etc.) than most of even the most detailed rare books cataloguing can manager.  Mike Widener has written a very interesting post on the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog about how his library is including booksellers' descriptions in the catalogue by making use of the OPAC's 'add a review' function.  Two immediate concerns: booksellers' copyright and disclosing sensitive information are dealt with by asking permission first, and by not including price information. I'd love to hear if any other rare books libraries are doing similarly and whether they have had any problems with it.  Sarah Werner has written a great post about this - do go and join in the conversation there (it's sad that the original post doesn't allow comments).

ARCHIVES ON DISPLAY IN A MUSEUM
A display of material from the museum's archives has just been opened in the Segwick Museum of Geology in Cambridge.  It's great to see that museum recognising its documentary holdings and heritage like this.


Library History

WALKING TOUR
The Library & Information History Group has organised a walking tour of 'some of London’s forgotten book collections', led by Dr Alice Ford-Smith of Dr Williams's Library.  Booking is essential, and I hear that tickets (£10) are going fast!

CONFERENCE
The Leeds Library is holding a one-day conference on 'Books of every variety of taste' - The advance of the library in the long-eighteenth century on 12 May.  The programme looks very  interesting, and it's a chance to visit the oldest surviving subscription library in the British Isles. Booking closes on 1 May.


General

CILIP PRESIDENT COMING TO TOWN
The East of England Branch have organised an audience with Phil Bradley on the afternoon of 12 May, taking place in central Cambridge.  The theme is ''Making CILIP work for you', and it's open to members and non-members alike.

MASH CAT IS COMING
Mashed Library events are unconference-style gatherings aimed at sharing ideas to do with using and reusing library data.  MashCat is a Mashed Library event focussing on catalogue data, and open to cataloguers, techies, and anyone else who's keen and interested.  It's happening on 5 July, in Cambridge, and booking is now open.

#libcampuk11: an unconference to remember

I'm just back from the UK's first Library Camp: an unconference for librarians held in Birmingham and organised by a team of wonderful, hard-working people.  People were *really* looking forward to it - it seemed like all of Twitter was going to be there - so I was a little concerned in advance that it might not live up to the hype.  I needn't have worried: it was superb.  Even getting up at 4.15am (and not getting home again until 11pm) and two visits to New St station didn't put a damper on it.

I took part in the following sessions, and will write about those separately soon:

• Cataloguing & Classification
• Special Collections
• Enabling the re-use of library data
• Wikipedia and Wikicommons

My opinions and thoughts on the event as a whole:

• Everyone was very friendly.  At the intros at the start lots of people said they were there to meet people, so that shouldn't have been a surprise, but it was really very, very nice.
• I think there was a good balance between organisation and chaos.  
• Having people pitch their session ideas ended up with a wide range of different sessions, which seemed to fall into a few vague 'streams' of  related topics.
• The timings were pretty good, everyone seemed to respect the balance between enjoying the current activity and getting on to the next. Unlike a 'proper' conference there was no slow by steady creep of everything getting later and later as people keep on talking to their slides past their allotted time...
• Not only was there cake, there was plenty of tea and coffee and a nice coffee area to sit and talk/eat/rest.
• I was a bit dubious about giving everyone there a chance to introduce themselves (with name, where they're from and why they've come), but think it was a good idea.  It did take a while to do, and there's no way you can remember everyone there, but it's a nice way to identify a few people you'd like to speak to later, and to break the ice.
• I only went to 4 of 5 possible sessions - decided to bunk off the last (nothing in particular attracted my attention, and I was pretty tired) and sat around with other crafters having #knitcamp instead.  All lovely people, and no feeling of guilt that I wasn't 'getting the most' from the event.
• Sorry to people I didn't say hello to, or whom I only said hello and nothing more to. Would have loved to have time to talk to more of you!

#cpd23, Thing 7: 'Real-life' organisations and networks

On the subject of CILIP, and of belonging to organisations more generally, I can say nothing that hasn't already been covered most adeptly in the following three posts and their comments:

• If only Benedict Cumberbatch were CEO of CILIP by Helen Murphy
• Extracurricular committees and professional networks: I’m taking it lying down by meimaimaggio
• Face-to-face networks and professional organisations by Lauren Smith

My personal attitude is to try and get involved for the greater good of all concerned. I'm a bit naive and idealistic sometimes.  But anyway, here are some more practical thoughts that may be of use:

Getting the most from CILIP

Did you know that your CILIP local branch and special interest group(s) can only communicate with you by email if you have registered on the CILIP site? Each group/branch can send a monthly email, though sadly I can't promise that they all do. No registration = no email = wondering what CILIP's doing for you. Here's how to register and check your settings (click on the images to enlarge them):

Go to http://www.cilip.org.uk/ and click on 'Register on this website'

After you've completed the registration process, check the 'Membership details' tab to see which branch and group(s) you're a member of.  Use the 'eBulletins' tab to sign up for CILIP central's various eBulletins.

If your branch or group isn't emailing you - get in touch with them (there should be contact information on their page on the CILIP site) and harrass them into communicating (or offer to help out!).

Useful organisations for the special collections librarian

Aside from the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group (and you'll notice above that I'm not currently a member - I switched allegiances for bursary-application reasons), what's useful for rare/special folk?

• The Historic Libraries Forum is FREE to join. They have a newsletter, an annual conference (last year's was very good), run training courses, they campaign on behalf of libraries under threat, and they've got a new mentoring scheme just starting.  Go and register.
• AMARC is the Association for Manuscripts and Archives in Research Collections. Alison Cullingford recommends it, and membership is only £10.00.  They have two or three yearly meetings and a newsletter.
• IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, has a Rare Books and Manuscripts Section.  I haven't managed to work out what's what regarding IFLA membership: I've heard more than once in the last year that CILIP membership gets you some sort of IFLA membership, too, and will post again when I untangle the mystery.  Anyway, the forthcoming Mid-Term Meeting, 'Ambassadors of the Book. Competences for heritage librarians', looks very interesting indeed, and is in Antwerp Where The Plantin Museum Is.
• I understand that it's possible to be an overseas member of the American Library Association (ALA), which has a Rare Books and Manuscripts bit (RBMS). On its homepage it describes itself as a "Section [...] of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA)", and maybe that helps you understand why I haven't summoned up the wherewithal to find out more, and whether I can benefit from it at all. (The ALA website hurts my brain even more than the CILIP one.) I hear that other bits of ALA have all sorts of online training and events, but I don't see heaps of evidence of that on the RBMS pages. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong way. [4/08/11 Edited to add: a helpful tweeter points out that ARCL, the parent group does do e-learning things.]
• There's the Archives and Records Association (ARA) for those for whom 'special' spills right over into archives.  It's a recent amalgamation of the Society of Archivists and the British Records Association.
• In a slightly different specialist field is IAML, the International Association of Music Libraries.  As a librarian with a music degree, though no actual music librarianship experience, it has been suggested (you know who you are) that I should join to help keep my options open. International membership is 37 Euro, but I can't find the cost of UK & Ireland branch membership (it seems to get you less, so is possibly cheaper).
• Finally, returning to the online networking business, here are a couple of Twitter lists of rare books/special collections/archives people:
• http://twitter.com/#!/Girlinthe/rare-special-archives-etc
• http://twitter.com/#!/speccollbrad/spec-colls-archives-folk

Any useful groups I've missed?

CILIP Branch and Group discussions

Is it too twee to suggest that this could be a
new spring for member involvement in CILIP?

The future of CILIP branches and groups is very much up in the air at the moment.  CILIP can't afford to keep running the branches and groups in the way that they are run at present, and has recently started a consultative process to try and work out the way forward.

Emma has written a very informative post about the meeting for branch and group representatives that took place on 16 February, and I recommend that you read that for further information about the meeting and about the process in general.

In summary, CILIP can't afford to keep all the branches (12) and groups (27) that currently exist.  It's hoped that through increased cooperation and collaboration, and a reoganisation of the structures, a more streamlined (and cost-efficient) system can be worked out.  It is, depending on how you look at it, either a very scary or a very exciting time.  Things are definitely going to change, but CILIP seem keen to get members' imput into how they'll change.

The level of input that you have already had will depend on how proactive your branch and groups have been in soliciting your ideas.  If you've not heard much about this already, fear not, as there should be opportunities very soon to voice your ideas: watch this space.  In the meantime, get your thinking caps on and consider what you want or need from local or specialist CILIP groups (and share your ideas in the comments if you like).

Here are my ideas:

• Branches/groups to provide a way of getting to meet local(ish) people from different sectors, and people from across the country from my sector and/or with my special interest(s)
• Branches/groups should be communicative and friendly - putting a personal, if not local, face to the organisation

That's pretty much it.  I'm not sure how concerned I am about the specific specialist areas covered by each group, so long as overall there's a home for everyone, and that each of the sub-interests in a group gets events that are relevant to them (as well as wider networking opportunities).

Dragged kicking and screaming into the future...

I'm just back from the New Professionals Information Day (#npid2010) organised by the CILIP Membership Support Unit for people thinking about a LIS career, starting out in the sector, at library school, or recently graduated with their MA. The first thing I noticed was that suddenly I'm old. I graduated MA *two* whole years ago now, and a lot happens in just a few years when you're near the start of a career.


'Architecture - Futuro UFO' by watz on Flickr

It was mentioned more than once during the day that no-longer-new professionals wished they'd had a day like this when starting out. I agree with that sentiment, but I'm really not sure how the me of 5 years ago (when I was just starting my first library job) would have received npid2010. Actually, I'm not event sure what the 2008-(just got an MA)-vintage, or even the start-of 2010-(should I get round to Chartership)-vintage would have thought.

The day was relentlessly forward looking, and, fundamentally, I'm a special collections aort-of person, and as such, have a tendency to want to retrench back to about 1650 when everything was much simpler... (cue consort of viols in a wistful mode). Not-so-long-ago Katie would have balked at being told that everyone (in the library) needs quite a bit of tech knowledge (Ned), that libraries aren't about books - they're about the information/knowledge held in them, and therefore about power (Phil), that there are academics crying out for 'embedded librarians' to help with impact ratings and article submission (Nicolas). I'm not sure I quite entered the library world naively believing that 'librarians spend their time just looking after shelves of books', but I've been too eager in the past to retreat to the position that 'special collections will always have nice tangible books-as-artefacts in them, so maybe I don't need to worry about the future too much'. That is a position that's easily maintained when cocooned at work fetching beautiful old books for scholarly readers.

But I am already working the future, helping to redefine how libraries do what they do: using the beauty, historical significance and human interest of our special collections to attract all sorts of people into the library, to offer them 'learning opportunities', and to demonstrate that the worth of the library is greater than its (undoubtedly significant) value to serious academics. To be fair, there's not a lot of techno-wizardry involved in that, so it doesn't look immediately 'modern'*. When Phil Bradley declaimed that this is the most exciting of times to be an information professional, rare books librarianship may not have been at the forefront of his mind, but that doesn't mean I can continue to hide myself away.  In fact, I don't really want to: brave new world, here I come!

P.S. I also enjoyed the LISNPN meet up in the evening. Thanks to WoodsieGirl for organising it.

P.P.S. Thanks to Phil Bradley for quoting "Libraries are brothels for the mind" in his keynote. I'll be using that in future...

* But I suspect that a lot of online, social media tools are as yet under-used for the promotion of special collections and the like. As I've written before, I really must find out what more adventurous institutions are doing with blogs, flickr, interactive catalogues and the like, and work out how I can get involved.

Eye spy...

I've just worked my way through my CILIP publications backlog, and the following articles particularly caught my eye:

'Toucan bird' by doug88888 on Flickr

• Like, the London Information and Knowledge Exchange, is organising a masterclass aimed at library and information professionals 'seeking to improve the effective sharing of knowledge and good practice within their organisations'. I thought of the Post That Wouldn't End. (From Gazette 22 July-11 Aug., p. 3.)
• CILIP is having a Member's Day on 14 October. I've no idea what a Member's Day is, but feel I ought to find out as part of trying to cultivate a less cynical attitude towards CILIP. (Gazette 22 July-11 Aug., p. 7)
• Sheila Thomas, who works at TWI and came to the Conversation about CILIP organised by Niamh in June, writes about her week in the regular slot at the end of Gazette.  I really enjoyed reading about what she gets up to, which seems to be the real nitty-gritty of abstracting and indexing relevant publications and conference proceedings - having had no idea before I met her what the 'information professional' bit of CILIP might really mean. (Gazette 22 July-11 Aug, p. 15)
• There's a whole page about and a plug on the cover of the latest issue of Gazette for the recently-launched New Professionals Network, of which I'm already a member. It was nice to feel ahead of the news, although I really must get on and make more use of the network! (Gazette 12 Aug.-1 Sep., p. 11)
• Also in networking news, apparently CILIP group on LinkedIn now has 1,000 members. I was quite sniffy about LinkedIn during 23 Things - maybe I ought to reconsider? (Update Aug. 2010, p.7)
• According to Update, Universities are going to 'talk tough' over big journal deals when they next come up for review. Journals pricing deals just make me grumpy when I think about them - I'm quite pleased that I don't currently have to manage them for work. (Update Aug. 2010, p. 4)
• Funding cuts and community engagement were the most heavily revisted themes, being the cover stories for both issues of Gazette. A Big Lottery report has found that 'community engagement takes time', which isn't a great surprise, but may well be good message to hear as libraries are looking towards the communities for increased support. A report from the Libraries Change Lives conference encourages libraries to create a clear message of what they offer and to make the library a valued place. (Update Aug. 2010, pp. 9 and 16)
• School libraries featured heavily in my reading. Given the work I (try to) do with schools, school libraries are of increasing interest.  I note with alarm that the Cambridge schools library service has been closed, and read with interest tips from former School Librarian of the Year Anne-Marie Tarter on how to convince children that citation is important, and how to market the library and the librarians within a school. (Update Aug. 2010, pp. 6 and 28-30).
• Practical tips were also found in two articles about services for blind and partially sighted people.  This is an area in which I have no experience, but the model of fining out users' needs and then meeting them as best as you can is one that any librarian can learn from. (Update Aug. 2010, p. 49, Sunrise 2010:2, p.5)
• Lastly, there's an article by yours truly in the latest issue of Sunrise, the CILIP East of England regional branch's magazine. Under the title 'The Way to the Stars' I give a brief run-down of the history of astronomy event I ran for the Cambridge Science Festival in March this year and a few tips for those thinking of organising events of their own. It should be available online in due course on the CILIP website.

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone reading, but it's useful for me to record what I've read.

CILIP Update: Elspeth Hyams responds

Yesterday, the last day of the CILIP conversation, I posted some thoughts about the online version of Update, CILIP's monthly professional magazine.  This morning I received an email from Elspeth Hyams, editor of Update, asking if I would consider posting the following text, and I am happy to do so.

It is always good to receive comment on Update's content and the delivery channels we are using to deliver it to members. We introduced a digital edition to complement the hard-copy magazine in October 2008. It was a first step. This year we have added web-only issues with video and audio content (impossible in print). We’ve also built up a two-year digital archive. And we are publishing more frequently, despite having to cut our costs significantly.

Update's digital edition enables us to keep publishing despite the recession. The web-only issues significantly reduce our print and distribution costs. You personally may prefer a digital issue, but many of our readers do not. They say they already spend so much of their time at computer screens. That is why we have introduced the option for members and subscribers to download a PDF copy. Those who prefer can read the magazine at their leisure.

Update's turn-the-page digital offering is a format publishers worldwide are using. It offers the opportunity to develop apps that allow download to iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices, so we are in good company.

We are also investigating how we can launch an app as we respond to members’ requests for access via mobile devices. However, as with all such developments, cost is an issue. In our current economic circumstances we need to be sure any such development delivers real value and is not just 'nice to have.'

Of course, cost efficiency is a key driver for CILIP at present, and developing database-driven online information services is frighteningly expensive. The Guardian website, for example, may be a dream to use but it has cost a fortune. CILIP just does not have the resources to match this type of service, but it is using one of the UK's leading developers for its digital offerings and they are being enhanced all the time. Just look at the difference between the new web-only digital issues (lots of links to facilitate navigation, video and audio content) and the archive copies (a simple facsimile of the original print edition).

We have a strong and dedicated readership for the hard copy magazine and are building up a significant readership for our new web-only issues too, which have been well received, and praised by some members. They especially appreciate the quality content we provide. Where we can, we have taken their views into account and made many changes to the initial offering. It is not perfect, but every issue is better than the last.

Taking into account the options available, and our current cost constraints, we believe we are on the right track. We do hope that if you read the content, you will find it of increasing value to you - whatever the delivery platform.

By the way, who are you? Shouldn't you have the courage of your convictions and identify yourself? We do!

Elspeth Hyams, Editor, Library and Information Update

I'm keeping myself anonymous on this blog for the time being as I'm new to blogging (those coming in fresh from elsewhere might not know that I've taken this up as part of Cam23) and I'd rather make my mistakes without my name all over them for the time being.  If you would like to know who I am, you can always email me at maedchenimmond at gmail dot com.

What does Update say about CILIP?

[Update, 1 July 2010: Elspeth Hyams, Editor of Library and Information Update, has asked that I post this response.  Please do take a look.]

A theme in some quarters of the CILIP Conversation, and certainly of our conversation in Cambridge, has been the perceived inadequacies of the CILIP publications.  I must confess to not being an avid reader of either Gazette or Update, although I do try and flick through each issue to keep up with what's new.  I don't think that the content is necessarily as engaging or relevant as it might be, but I haven't yet managed to form any definite ideas about what I think would be better.  This post is about the medium itself, and what message it conveys.

It's the online versions (CILIP membership required) of the publications that have attracted my attention, and not in a good way. I shan't enter into debate about whether its better to have CILIP publications in hard copy or online, except to say that there certainly should be an online version available.  And given that there is an online version, it really ought to be good.  As one of the main means of communication of CILIP with its members, I really expect the magazines to embody some of the ideas and principals that librarians and information professionals are implementing and promoting in their work.

Do Update and Gazette currently meet this ideal?  To my mind, no.  Last month I took some time to read through Update online, and I found several things which I think could, and should, be done better.  They fall into two broad headings: interface and searching.

Interface

• The Flash interface might look flashy, but I really don't understand what we as readers gain from having animated page turns, and even the sound of the page rustling as it flips over.  This kind of effect is just naff, as far as I'm concerned.  We all know what turning a page looks and sounds like, and the content would work just as well, if not better, without it.
• The Flash presentation isn't just a bit naff, it's also slow.  Not everyone has a high-speed connection to a high-speed computer.  Making people wait for pages to load will just lead to them not reading the magazine.
• The interface isn't just naffly presented and slow, it's actually inaccessible to many.  Flash isn't supported well on all operating systems (honk if you use the latest Ubuntu release), won't be installed on all computers (and in a work setting, it might not be possible to have it installed), and readers with motor and/or visual difficulties might not be able to use it at all: there don't seem to be keyboard shortcuts for all the functions, and Flash can't be interpreted by screenreaders.

I'm clearly not the first person to have raised these concerns with CILIP, as they are partly addressed in the online Update FAQ:

3. I access the internet at work where we don’t have Flash and I’m not able to install it. How can I access Update?
Flash is an industry standard software solution. Some organisations require their staff to make a valid case before they will install Flash on networked computers, so this is a good opportunity to do so. Update Digital delivers high-quality information of direct relevance to members’ work activities, and access to it is restricted by log-in.
If it is not possible to have Flash installed on your network computer, it may be possible on a laptop or netbook. Otherwise access may need to be from your home pc or laptop. Longer-term we are investigating whether Update can be provided online via Apple’s iPhone/ iPad or Smartphones.

4. I have a disability (e.g. visual impairment/poor motor control) and find that I cannot use Update Digital. How can I access Update?
You can zoom in and magnify the text by clicking on the page. You can also print all the pages by going to Menu and choosing Print pages. When the thumbnails have loaded, choose Select all to print all the pages. Our software developers are working on speech-activated controls and text-to-speech, but these are not yet available.

I find these answers dismissive and patronising. CILIP ought to be making obvious efforts to make its magazine content available to as many of its members as possible, seeing as they have paid for it, rather than implying that members' complaints are unwarranted. There are other 'industry standard' solutions that could be used for the dissemination of online magazines that have better accessibility options for disabled people, and which are more widely supported.  The suggestion that CILIP have people working on making the current interface accessible via speech-activated controls and with text-to-speech capabilities is confusing.  These are solutions that are already available in other platforms (an HTML version of the magazine, for example) why are CILIP trying to re-invent the wheel? 

Searching
Assuming you can gain access to Update in the first place, can you find what you're looking for inside it?  Well, the online-only issues have a clickable contents list, although those issues that appear in print form too, don't (although the weblinks in those versions can be clicked).  But even without a clickable contents list, finding items in an individual issue isn't too onerous.

Electronic publications really have the edge over print when it comes to searching archives: the possibiliy full-text searching ought to make it possible to find whatever you want.  This isn't really the case with Update online.  For starters, two different search boxes appear depending on where you are in the interface.  When you're in the archives page, click the 'search' button in the bottom right, and a small, Google-style search box appears.

But when you're looking at a particular issue, click on the search button now at the top right, and a better search box is brought up, with options to limit searches and witha  help screen explaining different search possibilities including phrase searches and truncation.  Optimistically, and interested in what CILIP had to say about the recent merger of archives bodies, I entered a search for 'Society of archivists' with limits of 'all editions', and requesting the results bedisplayed 'by edition'.  I was hoping that 'by edition' would give chronological sorting, but alas, not.

The results appear to be grouped by edition, but the order of the editions is obscure: some Masters supplements, Jan-Feb 2010, March 2009, September 2009...  It carried on like this on the second page of results, although today the same search returns no results at all.  If there's logic here it's too advanced for me.

So, what does Update say about CILIP?  In the context of high-quality retireval and display options available for many online publications, Update Digital say to me:

"We're not interested in reaching our full audience, and we don't want you to be able to find anything in the archive".

No wonder librarians and information professionals are so infuriated with CILIP!

[Update, 1 July 2010: Elspeth Hyams, Editor of Library and Information Update, has asked that I post this response.  Please do take a look.] 

Cambridge Conversation (1)

This is the first part of my report about a discussion between health, academic, business and school librarians held in Cambridge on Tuesday 22 June as part of the CILIP Conversation. Part 1 is all about CILIP and part 2 is about the future of libraries.

Lots of the other participants have also reported: Anna, Anne, Isla, Niamh, Sheila, and Jenni.

What do we think about the Conversation?
CILIP asked us to say what we think will happen in 10 years time, but we really can’t do that; it’s a job for futurists. What we can do is to evaluate what has changed in the last few years, and how this might develop in the next 1, 3, or 5 years, and we could have been asked about this in more detail in the survey.

We really didn’t like the CILIP survey much ; it felt irrelevant and lacking in detail. Some of the questions just didn’t even make any sense at all, such as ‘do you think that expectations of your role are increasing’. We also wanted more detailed questions about what we want from CILIP.

What do we think about CILIP?
CILIP feels distant, remote and irrelevant to many - particularly those working in business, school and health libraries – it seems like Update and Gazette have little that reflects our working lives.

The principal of chartership is worthwhile, but there was opposition to having to remain a member of CILIP for life to retain it. Personally, I understand this objection, but I suspect that this is the case for most professional bodies and that it isn’t just a CILIP issue.

CILIP CPD courses are expensive. Many people were very impressed with the courses organised by special interest groups, at very reasonable prices, although it was noted that speakers for these courses are often only paid travel expenses. CILIP courses are much more expensive than those from other similar professional bodies such as the Museums Association, and they’re not reliably good enough for people to want to risk spending £400 to attend them.

CILIP’s building in London is very unpopular; issues regarding its costs and value have been addressed elsewhere.

We read Update and Gazette for the job advertisements, and some people (those training and chartering) try to read it all, but we don’t find much that is relevant or interesting to us. The job advertisements are sometimes for such poorly paid jobs that we wonder whether CILIP should be advertising them at all. It was also noted that it’s so expensive to advertise in Update and Gazette that many jobs are missing.

It was thought that there could just be one CILIP magazine, possibly delivered online only. (I have a lot of thoughts about the online magazines, and the CILIP website in general, but I’m saving them up for another post.) It was even suggested that the magazine format could be dispensed with in favour of personalised news bulletins. There is an e-bulletin feature already, but there’s not a lot of refinement to it.

So why do people continue to pay for membership? Some jobs do need chartered status, and for professionals without an LIS degree, chartered status is important evidence of competence. People couldn’t praise the special interest groups enough – they seem to make membership worthwhile.

We do want a professional body
We want it to advocate for us, and to have good PR abilities and a strong public and media profile. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors was mentioned; we’d all heard spokesmen from it on the TV and radio. We really want CILIP to have someone whose job it is to appear on Newsnight, instead of making excuses about how hard it is to face up to Jeremy Paxman.

We approved of Phil Bradley’s idea that it would good to see a proactive CILIP that gets things wrong sometimes, instead of seeming to sit back and let us get on with it.

The example of Micahel Rose advocating for children reading was made. Andrew Motion (chairman of the MLA) wrote in 2008 about libraries in a way that suggested he hadn’t been in many recently, but he has been speaking up for them in the last few weeks. His opinions may not be nuanced enough to capture all the issues that concern librarians and information professionals, but CILIP could benefit from having someone similar to make a public impact.

Cambridge Conversation (2)

This is the second part of my report about a discussion between health, academic, business and school librarians held in Cambridge on Tuesday 22 June as part of the CILIP Conversation. Part 1 was all about CILIP and part 2 is about the future of libraries.

Other peoples' reports are also available:  Anna, Anne, Isla, Niamh, Sheila, and Jenni.

What is ‘librarianship’?
There was some debate about whether libraries and librarians need to rebrand as ‘Learning Resource Providers’ or something similar, but this term seemed far too narrow. Maybe there’s something else we could call ourselves, or maybe we just need to be clearer about what librarians do.

One good summary of librarianship (or information professionalism, if you like) that we thrashed out was:

Librarianship is helping people to work what question they’re really asking.

The emphasis was very much on personal interaction and support. The organisation of data can happen from anywhere, but user support and training is best done face-to-face, and one-to-one. This 1947 promotional film emphasises personal interaction in the role of the librarian. Why are we having to work to re-emphasise this now, when it’s surely never stopped being true?

This level of personal interaction and help needs professional staff. There’s definite concern about the de-professionalization of public libraries, and in a similar way about also the closure of government libraries: what impact will this have in the long term?

We discussed some of the ACRL predictions for future of academic libraries, in particular the idea that in 2025 there will be ‘no need to search’ (link to pdf page 16, item number 17 ). This ‘no search’ environment (we wondered if it would be something like foursquare, about which I know nothing) will surely require a lot of unseen work in the background, and it will need common languages and standards across all sources and platforms, and not continual re-invention of standards as we see today (apparently the Europeana project isn’t using Dublin Core standards for metadata but inventing some different standards [I've been corrected in the comments - Europeana are tweaking Dublin Core instead of using it straight, which is clearly better but still not ideal]).  Librarians will have to keep interpreting what people say and want until the semantic web is very, very good indeed, and that won’t be soon! Users expect intuitive interfaces, and need to be shown that there are benefits to learning more complex search techniques.

In 5 years time...
We ended the discussion by trying to imagine the future of libraries and information services on a more manageable timescale than the 10 years asked about by CILIP. If you have thoughts about what your library or service will look like in 5 years (both best and worst case scenarios!), then please continue the discussion in the comments.

School Libraries
School librarians can be very isolated. They rely on local networks, feel distant from CILIP, and unrecognised by teachers. School budget cuts means that there may be no money at all for CPD.
School libraries will have to adapt to match evolving teaching methods and to provide tools to help students find what they need outside the physical library, as well as providing project collections of books for use in the classroom.
There are currently not enough computer resources, but this might change as increasing numbers have their own laptops. Even with their own computers they will need help to locate resources online, and in the physical library.

Academic/Faculty/Subject Libraries
Subject librarians will have to know their subject more so as to be able to provide tailored search and indexing services. They might not need to be the academic, or doctor, but will need to speak enough of their language not to sound stupid, but to sound reliable and useful instead.

Business Libraries
Publications need more detailed metadata, for example about the precise materials used in engineering. This has to be added somewhere in the process, but it will be a lot of work, and it’s unlikely that author or user tagging is the answer.

A Cambridge College Library

In five year’s time the physical library with books in it will still be here. Students are currently very clear that they want to have the physical space to work in, and not even all new academic books will be available as e-books by then, never mind the older texts that are still needed.

Special collections are being digitised, but this can’t replace the importance of the books and manuscripts themselves, and will often lead to increased reader numbers through improved publicity. Digitisation also isn’t futureproof.

What can we do to improve the situation?

• Collect evidence of what we do in order to prove our worth.
• Ask our readers and researchers what they want from libraries: this might include help with copyright, and with getting published, more detailed enquiry answering about specific items (see Greening the material text).

Interesting discussions elsewhere

A very quick post to mention that some interesting discussions are happening on some other Cam23 blogs.

At Blurtmetry we're discussing communication between librarians and library staff:

Communication amongst librarians

And N Page is encouraging people to get together to discuss the future of the profession and CILIP's place in it:

Conversation on the future of information services

Q: How is a library like a charity shop?

A: Both can easily be run by volunteers!

Or so said Alan Downey, one of the authors of the KPMG report 'Payment for Success - How to shift power from Whitehall to public service customers', on this morning's Today Programme.

Now, I'm not a public librarian, and I haven't the time or the intellectual capabilities to write the cutting analysis this deserves, but I would like to make few points in a slightly ranty fashion:

1. Mr Downey makes running a charity shop sound like a piece of cake.  I doubt that it actually is.

2. People aren't falling over themselves to run charity shops as he suggests - several in the neighbourhood in which I live (not the classiest end of Cambridge) have recently closed, or are open only restricted hours.

3. Even given that running a charity shop isn't simple, running a successful library, especially in the areas where they are currently undervalued, is probably significantly more difficult.

4. If libraries (and other currently public-sector services) are going to be run in volunteers in the future, where are the skilled volunteers going to come from once the current crop of probably retired trained former-librarians has run out?

So, what to do? Many people are tweeting about this, which I suppose engenders a feeling of collective dismay (much better than being miserable alone). I suppose I'd like someone (CILIP? the MLA?) to make a hard-hitting statement about the value of libraries and the importance of professional librarians, but I'm not so hopeful.  Maybe I'll contribute to the CILIP Conversation ('Defining our professional future') on this topic once I'm feeling a bit more coherent.

Edited to add: Better rants have been written by Elspeth Hyams and Bethan - go and check them out.

Further addition: There's a post and discussion about this on the CILIP Information and Advice Blog and at Optimus Librarian.