CILIPS Autumn Gathering Report

Category: Blog

The following is a guest blog written by Dianne Sandford and Christine Proudfoot on behalf of City of Glasgow College:

CILIPS AUTUMN GATHERING OCTOBER 24 2018

On behalf of COGC Libraries Dianne and Christine attended the 2018 CILIPS Autumn Gathering on Wednesday 24 October at the Double Tree Hilton Hotel Glasgow.

In this short report about our visit to the Autumn Gathering we have decided to focus on three of the main talks that we personally found to be of most interest and possibly more relevant to college library staff. However, in saying that, a link to all presentations discussed on the day can be found at the end of this report.

My Journey to Professional Recognition

Sally Walker, Orkney Libraries and Scotland’s Library and Information Professional 2017

We found Sally’s talk very inspiring and interesting as to how she began her career as a temporary library assistant to eventually become Scotland’s Library and Information Professional 2017.

Sally’s first position as temporary library assistant began at Heaton Public Library. From there Sally went on to study at Leeds University.  After completing her degree she worked at King Edward Village School and Huddersfield University in the engineering department but soon afterwards felt it was not for her. Her first job, after her chartership was completed was at Golspie High School.

Sally has been at Orkney Libraries for the past four years and during that time she has worked extremely hard to build up a strong community environment  within the library. This included five bookbug sessions per week plus teaching the use of micro: bit and lego. She also held a’ Teddy Bear Sleepover’. The teddy bears stayed overnight at the library and photos were taken on what the teddies got up to (a lot of mischief no doubt). This encouraged more people, young and old, to use the library not only for book borrowing but for other fun activities too. However, even though Sally had worked extremely hard developing varied library activities for the people of Orkney she never once felt she deserved any praise or rewards for her efforts. If anything Sally felt like an imposter and that somehow she wasn’t a real Librarian and was forever doubting her skills and talents.

Laura Cagnazzo, (another Library professional) commented about Sally:

It is surprising and relieving hearing Sally Walker talking about the “Imposter Syndrome”. I am not the only one doubting my skills and Knowledge as an information professional.

Sally was absolutely astounded to find out she had been awarded the Orkney Libraries and Scotland’s Library and Information Professional 2017. Sally’s closing remark after receiving her reward was: “I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing. That is peace”

Thus, for all our COGC Library colleagues reading this …….. there just might be hope for us yet.

For further information on Sally’s talk please see below

Hackathons and Libraries – Louise Graham, Digital Services Libraries, Stirling

What is a Hackathon?

A Hackathon is an event whereby various people such as computer programmers, graphic designers, entrepreneurs and others involved in software development collaborate together to develop new software products. In this particular case, Louise Graham, Stirling Libraries Digital Librarian, collaborated with a variety of groups including technical software programmers. Louise’s idea was to create a device that would measure the impact library services had on the general public. Therefore, a web-based measurement tool was created in the form of an App.  As Louise stated in her presentation;

 “Libraries offer a range of service, but the question is always so what? We really want to find a way to measure impact. If we could gather information from people easily through an App or online we would have a database of information that library services, funding bodies and the Scottish government could interrogate”.

The App had to be fast, attractive and simple for library borrowers to use. By asking a few simple yet specific questions to library borrowers the app could measure the impact of information gathered on such things as:

• reading, literacy and learning
• digital inclusion
• economic wellbeing
• social wellbeing
• culture & creativity
• excellent public services

A pilot scheme was set up in different areas, one in an affluent area and another in a poorer area of Stirling. Over the first two days Stirling Libraries had 46 responses and within a month 243 people had used the App.

The pilot has been so successful that a story telling tool has now been developed for events module and people can state how that event has affected their lives.

For further details on the above please go to:

Librarians with lives: an innovative way to build networks and promote resilience, by Jo Wood

Jo Wood is a podcast producer, blogger and Library and Information Service Manager with Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.

Jo started her career as a part-time bookseller in 2000. She took up her current post in 2009.  Unfortunately in 2016 after having a extremely stressful time at work, together with experiencing an assault, Jo suffered a mental breakdown. This led to her giving up her job temporarily. During this time she had eight counseling sessions which did slowly begin to help her.

It was when Jo returned to work that she developed the idea of using a ‘Podcast’ as an innovative way to build networks with others. This was done through interviewing different people from all walks of life about their dream jobs and problems within their careers.  It involved people from over 50 countries across the spectrum at various stages within their careers.

By sharing her stories and experiences on Podcast with others, Jo slowly began to recognise her own skills and worth. More importantly, she came to realise that a number of people had experienced similar problems to her own. Therefore, sharing stories through the Podcast had really boosted Jo’s confidence and due to this Jo was able to get her life back on track.

However, even to this day Jo still has her dark times. Jo has had to come to terms with the fact that she will never be completely “better” but with the help of the Podcast she has learned to cope with her bad days and take charge of her life again.

For further info on Jo’s story see below

For all other CILIPS Autumn Gathering 2018 presentations please see the link below

https://www.slideshare.net/CILIPScotland/clipboards/cilips-autumn-gathering-2018

Finally, we would just like to say that this was the first time we had ever attended a CILIPS Autumn Gathering. We would highly recommend it to all library staff, especially if you have never experienced this conference before.  Ahem! … the salmon lunch was particularly delicious.

Hope you all enjoyed this little snap shot of our day at the Autumn Gathering 2018.

Dianne & Christine

CILIPS Autumn Gathering 2018 Glasgow Double Tree Hilton