Librarians are trained to work effectively in a climate of ambiguity!

In the library and information world, who could have predicted a few months ago that organisations would be pushed to change so rapidly; the genie is out of the bottle. Even if ‘eventually’ is now, it isn’t too late to prepare because I suspect that we have a long way to go; the effects of this pandemic will be prolonged and far reaching. As one historian wrote recently,

Some tips for avoiding anxiety at conferences

Library and information industry conferences, seminars, events offer attendees valuable opportunities for networking and continuing professional development. However they can also be anxiety inducing. 

If it’s any consolation for nervous first-timers, it can be just as bad for those going for the umteenth time. The truth is, we ALL get anxiety - some of us worse than others, but it affects every single one of us. 

Useful Information Management Blogposts from 2018

Where were you for the start of 2019?

This was originally published on the current awareness based Vable blog in January but I wanted to keep a record of it here. Continuing Professional Development, and all that! I took a look over the best blogposts from 2018 - an exciting year when information awareness went mainstream from GDPR, as well as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

We also attended various conferences to explore innovative and flexible approaches in the world of library and information work. With our own approaches to innovation and working with others, late last year we were proud to announce our MLex integration, as well as a partnership with Onelog. 

Virtual teams and collaborative working #BIALL2017

I've now completed my first full week of truly remote working so am reasonably well equipped to comment on and consolidate the notes taken from the various relevant sessions. As usual BIALL had ensured that although there were topic overlaps, a different perspective was given by each expert. Eleanor Windsor from LibSource presented on 'Managing a successful virtual team', whilst the entire Vinge law firm library team came in to offer insight on working together in different offices. And finally a duo from the University of Law talked about collaborative working to reduce pressure on library services.

Being Informed about Brexit #BIALL2017

The notes that follow arise out of the BIALL Conference 2017 and given the theme of the conference was 'Together or Apart? Effective ways of working'  I'm happy to share my notes! This has recently been updated to reflect the #BIALL2019 conference on Vable.

Being Informed about Brexit

The first plenary session - and Willi Steiner Memorial Lecture was entitled 'Informing the debate about Brexit', presented by David Allen Green. This is obviously a contentious topic as a whole but at least law librarians can claim to be well informed as to the arguments. After all, it is the legal chaos in which we are interested. As I have noted in the past information specialists are experts in spotting fake news. We have all the skills and expertise required to assist the general public and others who rely on us to get things right.

'Law Librarians! I want to make your role more interesting’ - #MmIT2015 Conference

Me looking professional

This is the full text of the talk I gave at the MmIT 2015 Conference 'With Power Comes Great Responsibility - How librarians can Harness the Power of Social Media for the Benefit of their Users'. This is a subject very close to my professional heart and I hope you will forgive me the length of this post.

Introduction

‘I want to make your role more interesting’ was one of the more unusual things that a lawyer has said to me in my twenty year career as a law librarian.

It was September 2013 and inspired by a talk given by commentator Helen Lewis, I had just written an article about internet trolls for my own wide ranging blog. I mentioned this in passing to the lawyer heading up a newly formed Collyer Bristow team – the official sounding ‘Cyber Investigations Unit’. This concentrates on assisting victims of cyber stalking, online harassment and abuse. After a read of my article,  he decided to make ‘trolling’ the topic of the next firm’s Cyber Matters newsletter. 

It's All About Us: The Importance of Embedded Librarianship

Sometimes it is only with hindsight that you realise you’re going about things the right way, professionally speaking. Over the past year I’ve been reflecting on how the law library profession has changed over the last two decades. When I concluded that ‘I like to think of library services being an 'information centre'; we are at the centre of the firm and information revolves around us, whilst we ensure it gets to the right place’, I had no idea that I was describing embedded librarianship. Although I was actually referring to communications, the latest SLA event on the 20th April at the Sage offices emphasised the importance of physically being in the middle of things.

We heard two very different speakers; Jacqueline Beattie, Information Services Lead at Neftex Petroleum Consultants Ltd, and Genny Franklin, Clinical Librarian at Barts Health NHS Trust. Both offered a tale of embedded librarianship in their respective fields: geoscience and obstetrics and gynaecology. A brief overview of their roles and their employers will inevitably draw out differences between the two roles, but there are inherent similarities. And it was these similarities to which I found myself nodding my head.

Reverberations: #SocialMedia, Impact and #Altmetrics within Libraries and Research

I changed my CILIP Special Interest Group membership recently and, although it is too early in the year to tell, it’s possibly cemented the new direction in my continuing professional development. I’ve previously been nervous of the Multimedia and Information Technology Group (MmIT) because I am not a technical whizz and merely an enthusiastic end user of other people’s inventions; I constantly salute the brains behind Blogger, MiCoach and Evernote. However preconceptions are there to be unconcepted and at their AGM yesterday I was astonished at the group’s breadth, scope, and imagination.

During the introduction to the afternoon, chair, Leo Appleton said that the AGM usually set the theme for the year, providing a springboard into the annual conference. After the success of last year’s conference on ‘Sound and Vision in Librarianship: Going Beyond Words and Pictures’, which I’m sad to have missed, they are thinking about revisiting social media and how it's developed. Given that library and information services are using social media in increasingly inventive ways, it would be interesting to reflect on these changes and talk about where it is all going.

A CPD Review of the Year

Reflections...

CPD is an essential part of being a chartered professional of any type. So I’m pleased to announce I’ve just submitted my CILIP revalidation statement. For those of you unfamiliar with CILIP processes, when you charter you are expected to maintain your professional development by annual revalidation.

I admit that this is my first formal revalidation. It’s not that I haven’t been keeping up-to-date, just I hadn’t informed CILIP. This year has been different for two reasons; they broadened the types of valid CPD, so time spent on reading, presenting, social media etc all count towards the minimum 20 hours; and at the end of last year they launched a virtual learning environment to help with the administrative process.

Property Law Current Awareness

A guide for the grumpy!

Sometimes it's good to go back to basics and take a fresh look at a topic. In the past I've worked with property departments, helping them access and make the best of current awareness. However I felt a bit rusty last week so I've popped some sources together and I hope that others find this collection useful - and feel free to tell me about any others. My focus is UK material and I've steered clear of planning law.

There are a wealth of sources for ensuring that property lawyers are fully conversant with current affairs. From newspaper special reports, to social media, I have included an updating method suitable for everyone.

Book Review: 'Corporate Libraries: Basic Principles in a Changing Landscape’

Confusion reigns in the land of CILIP: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. What is the difference between people who are mid-career managers, experienced directors, newly qualified solo specialists, or…something else entirely? An email from the largely public and academic library umbrella organisation regarding focus groups got me thinking about why our professional body is struggling with this complicated brave new information driven world. In my view, part of this is due to the perceived differences between public and corporate librarians.

Some insights are inadvertently offered in Constance Ard’s new book ‘Corporate Libraries: Basic Principles in a Changing Landscape’ and it goes straight to the heart of why CILIP is in turmoil. I shall come on to specifics shortly. Firstly, it saddens me that this book wasn’t published by Facet Publishing because, aside from a few gripes, it is one of the most insightful and readable - and expensive - books about the changing role of library and information staff I’ve come across recently. Ard and her team of extremely well qualified contributors set out to explore the way that corporate librarians are instrumental in contributing to the aims and objectives of the companies that employ them.

The BMA Library: Mission Anything is Possible

Last July I went on a visit to the RCS Library and so when an opportunity came up to visit another high profile medical library, I was quite excited. CLSIG organised a trip to meet Jacky Berry at the British Medical Association for an overview of the services they offer to their 152,000 members.

The library is unmissible. As you go through the swish main reception area and security gates, arrows and a sign LIBRARY points you upward. As you head up the flight of stairs, you are met with a model of bright modernity, with low wooden shelving, open work spaces and plenty of natural light. A successful team of 13 offer a suite of services to their members, and they see themselves as 'a working doctors library' providing access to a diverse book collection - from clinical to business management. They provide journal alerts, full text doc delivery, electronic services, training to all, and they have a high profile within the BMA.  Last year they had 19328 visitors!

Twenty Years as a Law Librarian - Admin

Remember these?

This is the fourth in this series of Twenty Years in Law Librarianship. Given it has been generated by general high level themes of my Chartership Report, such as technology, communications, and professional bodies, I decided it was time for something more prosaic

The reality is that librarianship entails a lot of admin, and although it's boring and unglamorous it is vital to the smooth running of the library service. Whether you are just starting out or reaching the vigorous middle age of your career, admin is everywhere, so it seems appropriate to salute its ubiquity.

Twenty Years as a Law Librarian - Professional Bodies

This is the third in this series of twenty years in law librarianship. I already have covered technology and communications, both of which are fairly uncontroversial. This one is about librarianship's changing professional bodies, which made up part of my report's section on ‘professional awareness’, and could be problematic.



Our Professional Future 1998

Twenty years ago the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals was the Library Association. My Professional Development Report provides an excellent snapshot of where I was in 1999 and was submitted to prove my professional worthiness to become an Associate Member of the LA. At the time of writing it, the profession was undergoing momentous change, and they were consulting on the proposed merger with the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS). I wrote,

ICLR Online Review

The ICLR was established in 1865 to “prepare and publish, in a convenient form, at a moderate price, and under gratuitous professional control, of Reports of Judicial Decisions of the Superior and Appellate Courts”. With a long standing information pedigree, excellent archive, and a selective editorial approach, I felt optimistic about their online database. I've put down a few thoughts.


The Main Site

Before logging in to ICLR Online, I looked at their main site which has a wealth of free information. As well as the latest case summaries/published cases search, it has an up-to-date blog, details of ICLR events, and other entertaining snippets. I must admit to not using the case digests in my current awareness, but I have now rectified this by adding their RSS feed onto my reader. This is going to be an extra part of my daily bulletin and I can link to the summaries.

Twenty Years as a Law Librarian - Communications

Early librarian communication

This is the second in my series of 'Twenty Years as a Law Librarian' blogposts. Although the first was about technology, whilst writing it I found myself constantly thinking about communications. I decided to split the two so I could expand on other areas so that, for example, in the technology piece I could explore the development of  search engines, electronic services, and library catalogues. In this I want to explore different aspects of communications, not just in the obviously technologically reliant areas, but the many other ways we communicate day-to-day.

Twenty Years as a Law Librarian - Technology

Not a computer pic

It’s not just the internet that has been around for ages. Turns out I have too. I have been mining my LA/CILIP Professional Development Report (1999) for insight into what has changed (or not) in the information profession. In this first piece I focus on technology, but I will be reviewing communication methods, taking a look at changing training requirements, and comparing the state of the profession - then and now.

It was 1998. I’d just come off the standalone Lexis terminal after finding a case for a lawyer. He’d been grateful for my speedy search technique not because he needed it quickly, but because spending longer than 10 seconds on there meant a hefty fee. I was pleased that I’d found an unreported case and it had made me think about doing my job without a networked computer.

I asked the experienced library manager I worked with, 'what was librarianship like when you first qualified?’ Her response was ‘cards, cards and more catalogue cards'. She had been in the profession since the late 1970s and the changes she’d seen fascinated me. I am now in the same position as she was. I have been in (law) librarianship full time since 1995, and chartered in 1999. It is now 2014 and the past twenty years have seen incredible developments.

The basics have not changed. We are still employed to find the right information, at the right time, and at the right price. Our libraries and the way our users access information have changed beyond technological recognition. We may have different job titles and work in areas which may not previously have come under ‘library and information’ but the areas I am looking at remain constant, even if the details change. Technology is all encompassing in our role so I have picked out a few naïve gems from my report.

Glamorous Librarians: Or Improving Your Law Firm Website

New pic due soon, thank goodness

Lawyers and various support services staff here have embraced new challenges recently; we have been models and copywriters. An artist photographer came in to take our photos last week, whilst Business Development sent us a template so we could write about ourselves, our role and how we can help you, the client. Obviously we are completing these difficult tasks for our firm’s exciting new website.

We are striving to present ourselves as qualified, approachable and trustworthy people who, if engaged, would work tirelessly on your behalf in a legal and business capacity. This is precisely what every other law firm is trying to do with their website, so how do you differentiate between all these legal sites?

Warm welcome from the RCS Library

How many men have been injured opening bra straps? How many people currently have a cold at the moment? These aren't questions that can be answered by the good librarians at the Royal College of Surgeons. However they assist their 20,000+ members, medical professionals, researchers, patients and students with all sorts of queries from policy guidance, copyright and specific medical questions. I've been in there a few times as part of Hunterian museum exhibitions but this was a talk and guide for librarians, by librarians. Tom Bishop (Head of Library & Surgical Information Services) and his team gave an insight to the college, the library and what they do for their members.

We were given an overview of the library service, which is an independent, membership funded organisation, where the patient is centre of their concerns. The RCS oversees the surgical profession; from standardising examinations, supervising training, providing professional support, audit and evaluations, to advising government and giving a single voice to surgeons in England.

The role of the library was familiar to all of us; to select, organise and preserve knowledge and promote access to and understanding of the collections. As usual, information staff deal with a wide range of queries, anticipate further information needs and add value where possible as well as providing resources for training. They also work with other people such as Chill, a consortium of independent health libraries. The library is made up of 50,000 books (the earliest from 147), 57 incunabula, around 2000 periodical runs, 30,000 tracts and pamphlets, taking up 4.7km of shelving as well as 200 ejournals and 2800 boxes in archival storage. The focus is strictly surgical and they have the best collection of primary resources for John Hunter in the world. Their importance as a library/archive of note was recognised this year by the Arts Council which most importantly enables them to access funding from other avenues. They saw it as an opportunity to step back and evaluate their services and see things from a different view point. For example the standard they used, PAS197:2009 required them to think about other libraries as competition.

I was interested in hearing about the challenges they faced; similar problems are seen across the library world and we are dealing with them in different ways. As a membership library they are reliant on annual subscription fees for funding; a strong academic/educational function requires access to specialised medical information; highly sub sub specialised members are extremely demanding; geographically dispersed membership presents challenges of access and service provision. When your members are out doing their job, the library can feel physically underused, even if the services you offer are being appreciated. The library is also working within a landscape of upheaval as health care is facing massive challenges. Their members are being confronted with NHS league tables for surgeons, concentrating on new requirements for revalidation, as well as looking at the implications of The Francis Report and so on. There is too much to read, too many sources of info, and too many platforms.

Although we had a very interesting tour of the library areas where we touched on architecture, archives, the rare book room and exhibition space the two areas of work that I want to focus on are current awareness and the systems that they are working with.

Current Awareness

Steffi Sams *is* the library current awareness which was newly set up in April 2011 and has been chronically underfunded. Current awareness is the bread and butter of most special library services so to imagine not doing a round up of journals for colleagues is quite strange. However if I thought that lawyers were difficult, surgeons sound impossible. The reason that it took so long to set up was the large amount of consultation, discussion and tech issues that they faced. Surgeons felt that librarians wouldn't know what they would find interesting/relevant and that without some big names on the bulletin editorial committee, it would lack the necessary gravitas. So they set up pilot bulletins in two areas; cardiothoracic surgery and urology and embraced the learning curve of multiple platforms, specialised content, and sceptical user groups.

I have said many times that you cannot think like a librarian when compiling really useful stuff for lawyers. You have to really get into their heads and see how an article can be applied to problems and clients. So when she reiterated the necessity to think like a surgeon and have to think in a particular context, it struck a chord. She gave the example of a report on the issues around bleeding and anti-coagulants in surgery in over-80s. This would be of general importance to surgeons but a keyword mentality would not help find it.

For ease of use and the excellent statistical analysis, they use Campaign Master. This has RCS branding, however she says it's not really fit for purpose. Combining this with the internal Surgeons Information database, SIMS database of interests, they can send it out to specific people. The monthly bulletins include the editorial panel so readers can see the clinicians behind this. Each article has a citation, in house written summary and link to the full text. They also include links to help pages, cutting edge conference news, Anatomy TV material and adverts for other services such as image provision for talks etc.

They are planning to get more staff and set up bulletins for vascular surgery and plastic & reconstructive surgery. They are already prototyping a patient safety bulletin, all of which will run along the same principles. And like law, surgical specialisms have their own idiosyncrasies so each one will have different issues for the library staff. All signs suggest that the current bulletins have been very well received and the library hold 5 of the top 10 spots for activity for bulletin activity - something that the business development/education people are quite envious of. The successful current awareness service requires the compiler to know their stuff. They are looking at other possibilities - putting articles in context of medical arguments, looking at sponsorship opportunities to recoup some staff costs, spin offs and finally, the platform will need reviewing.

Library Systems

This part of librarianship is rather mysterious to me. I look after my LMS, College of Law Portal, my legal databases and they tend to look after themselves to be honest. However when your users are accessing the services remotely, suddenly library systems take on a massive importance. The various systems the RCS use are:

1. Opac - Sirsi/Dynex/Symphony Grew out of Unicorn. Based off site
2. SIMS Database. Feeds user system over night into the library database.
3. Adlib. The front end is SurgiCat. They are in process of upgrading to joint library and archive system... 

4. Plarr's lives of the fellows online. They are planning to take it off Orm(?!) and move to Adlib.
5. Access to Ovid/medline/pubmed must be maintained on the site 

6. Anatomy tv. For teaching, good copyright terms so that they can use images/stills from it

7. She lost me on the Athens stuff but there were good ways of administering passwords etc, and bad ways. Basically they have set it up so the user can do it all themselves as long as they are on the SIMS database which is good for non office hour requests.

They are looking at ebooks but there isn't that much content yet. Regarding online material, many publishers are not always happy to deal with the RCS library because speciality journal publishers want individuals to buy their titles. They also make it difficult for overseas member to access services.

Of course this reliance on online material has its downside and risks. They - and other departments at the college - heavily rely upon SIMS. If that was to fall over, that would be very bad. And if the website went down then there round be a problem as Athens directs users to the RCS site, there is no alternative. So they stress the importance of maintenance and communication.

All in all this was a very good learning experience. So when you are at the Hunterian, please feel free to drop by the Library next door.

Oh and finally, if you need to know what classification system they use, it's the Barnard classification system, originally designed for veterinary libraries and evolved into human use...

Career reflections and staff retention

’ Do you remember when you started your first post-university professional job? When you were eager to sign up to your professional organisation and get going on the post-nominals? I had just moved to London and during the mid-1990s had an open mind as to whether a job was going to be for life or for 6 months but I really hoped my first job would be special, long lasting and I worked really hard to get it right.

Which I did; that firm never had a keener or more passionate library assistant and I loved it there. Building on my theoretical library school knowledge, I learnt so much about how to – and how not to – run a library, design a new one, set up a library catalogue, see how lawyers reacted to the thought of mere support staff having email and communicating directly with clients. I would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for a number of issues, which I shall come on to in a moment. Despite having written a career overview for the excellent UKlibchat group, this posting isn’t just a mere excursion into nostalgia but recently I overheard someone say ‘if someone is good [at their job], we don’t expect them to stay’. Both have made me consider staff retention and there were a few things I wanted to think through.