Farewell post

Dear Readers

I am afraid due to lack of time, I have stopped blogging. However there are lots of great blogs in CILIP website that I am following:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/cilip/blogs

Good luck!

Hamideh

Social Media and professional updating

Social Media has become one of the hot topics in Library and Information Science (LIS) recently. I am glad part of my Personal Professional Development Plan (PPDP) is about this exciting subject which might shape the future of LIS. Reading relevant books, articles and following 23 for professional development all were definitely informative but attending Philip Bradley speech was a fantastic experience. I went to Sheffield to listen to the guru of Library2.0 whom I follow his blog curiously. I was looking forward to meeting the man who is very influential in Library and information science.

The location was Hallam University LRC. Not only it was easily accessible but also huge and very contemporary compared to our LRC. The event started with an hour of informal chat before the actual talk which CILIP members could share their points easily with Philip Bradley.

The event was very well organised by SINTO. First we listened to “I am a believer“ song in the memory of the Monkees. Then Philip Bradley started talking about why librarians need to use social media. When people talk about Web2.0, they think about Face book, twitter, and Linkedin whereas this subject covers lots of other activities in virtual world. He insisted “ask question anytime, no question is silly. I won’t use abbreviation or jargon. Feel free to tweet, blog, take photo or video”. Then he continued about importance of librarians’ involvement in Web2.0 in order to gain enormous potential in interacting with users in the virtual space. He believes some people who don’t understand Web2.0 or worry about their authority are not keen in social media. However we should consider how library2.0 makes our job easier and saves time. In future, information power moves from the big organisations to the individuals. He added “what we are interested in is information and the container does not matter. Things never come back to the past, changes never stop. Therefore we need to adapt ourselves to new forms of information. If something is a good idea it would stay otherwise, better idea will replace.”

Then we had comparison between the old way and new way of doing things in internet. Pre-social Media era was complicated, computer based, and control was through websites. Now or in near future it would be simple (Tools exist to create pages and resources for you), Cloud based (Save directly onto internet servers, without even realising it), Browser based (load the software when you need it) etc.. There is no doubt books, magazines and printed stuff shrinks in number and we move on to screen reader generation.

He mentioned Google is not the best place for search because it is designed based on the click times. Google doesn’t recognise good or bad source of information. For better search results than those offered by Google, try search engines like DuckDuckGo, Bing, Blekko, and Sperse. Social media can be used as a search engine as well.

Then we had 15 minutes break; a chance to talk with others about the subject. I noticed other peers also try to understand the concept better for themselves and update their affiliations to these changes.

After the break, he went through Google+, Google reader, Facebook, Facebook Library pages, Linkedin, Twitter, social bookmaking, Diigo, Pinterest, Zite, XYDO, News.medaily digest, Scoop.it, Netvibes, WIKIS, Bookclubs using goodreads, Trailfire, Pearltrees, Trailmeme, Jogtheweb, Live Binders, Quora, Flicker, Library thing, Ask a librarian, etc…

Finally, he ended up his presentation with a telling statement: “if we don’t involve (social media), we will die.”

By the time I left Sheffield, my vision about future of information was changed completely. I feel more determined about improving my involvement in social Media.

E-Book Reader

I treated myself to a Kindle over the Christmas holidays. According to Liza Campbell’s report, nearly 1.5 million e-book readers and Tablets have been sold over the festive time.

From my experience, I feel that switching from printed copy to e-book is a difficult decision. It is not only because of joy of reading, but also about style of reading which we have become used to for long time.

It is amazing that an e-book reader can hold over 3500 books in a small and light device, two months battery charge, and a variety of useful features such as adjustable font size, dictionary, commenting and bookmarking.

In my opinion although it is exciting to play and download new stuff into the device, but the touch, feel and even smell of paper is somewhat missing. Say goodbye to the comfort of dropping the book by the bed when going asleep. We can’t deny the pleasure of exploring a big bookshop as opposed to shopping books online. The good feeling of sending your unwanted/read books to a charity shop or passing them to a friend is going to be missed too.

I read Jonathan Franzen’s article about e-books in The Guardian a while ago whereby he said “the combination of technology and capitalism has given us a world that really feels out of control.” I partially agree with his view in the sense there is no doubt that new technology improved access and added comfort to reading, something which was unimaginable even ten years ago. However, I think the pace of advances in technology is faster than general public can adapt. At least it is not as easy as information professionals are expecting.

For better or worse, I thought it is time to move on to e-book reader. I had a long search about different e-book readers (Sony, Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle fire) and other available tablets. Choosing the right device depends on the user’s expectation. There are continuous debates about the advantages and disadvantages of different devices, even versions of the same device. Personally when I read, I do not like to be distracted from other tasks or applications on the device. I watched Kindle fire ad, but wasn’t convinced why I should watch my favourite movie on a tiny screen when I can watch it on a big screen. At the end it is about you and what you really want from your device. I preferred Kindle 3G which can connect to 3G networks almost anywhere in the world for free and download e-books.

I was surprised to find out there are large collections of free e-books available on line e.g.  http://www.gutenberg.org/ and http://openlibrary.org/

What about borrowing e-books? According to CILIP, by March 2010, 30 out of 151 public libraries authorised provision of an e-book lending service. By November 2011, about 87 out of 151 are either lending e-books or plan to introduce the service before end of the year. E-books have wider reach through libraries in the US than in Britain but they are beginning to make an impact here as well.

There are some of issues for publishers who are concerned about security, such as illegal downloading and so on but I am sure solutions will come about in near future. Libraries have also opened new section for their e-books lending service. It seems inevitable that the number of printed books will soon be overtaken by e-books. 

As a new e-book reader, I start to familiarize myself with my new device and try to enjoy new style of reading…....

Related Link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/jonathan-franzen-ebooks-values

Shelf-ready in libraries

I attended the Cataloguing Indexing Group event which was very well organized by Katrina Clifford to learn more about “Shelf Ready” in libraries in a bitterly cold December.

First Janet Pryce-Jones, Chief cataloguer of Birmingham City University, talked about her university background, 25000 students, 7 libraries and over 700,000 titles. They use Talis LMS and Coutts as supplier. Each title comes in fully processed. Then she discussed challenges they had over authority of collection, no control over classification, extra cost, delays and special collection which could not be done by supplier. With regular meetings, visits and discussions between UNI, Coutts, Talis and introducing EDI, they managed to sort out their problems. She explained how the cataloguing process has changed and improved with corporation. At last they regain control over records and classification, slight delay, no backlog, speedy process and greater students’ satisfaction as advantages of using Shelf-Ready.

Second speaker was Nathan Newey, Bibliographic service co-ordinator of university of Greenwich, who talked about history of university and 3 campuses they manage. The UNI signed up for Shelf-Ready in late 1990. They also use Talis LMS, DDC22,23 ,AACR2,MARC21,LCSH and EDI. I found challenges similar to first speaker including e.g. not all materials Shelf-Ready from supplier and some issues about quality control over Bib record, and also some disagreement about class numbers. They deploy some solutions like cataloguing, classification implications and some new ways of working to have authority and consistency over collection, also planning for reviewing their LMS. Finally they achieved more efficient workflow with Bib service team and most important that stock reaches users more quickly.

Third speaker was David Baron, Bibliographic service manager at Leeds University. He talked about his UNI, 22500 students, 362000 titles and 2 libraries in different campuses. Interestingly, they spent about third of their budget on books last year. They imply latest library cataloguing sources and Coutts and Dawson as suppliers. About %85 of books processed Shelf-Ready but %15 of items like audio visual materials, foreign languages, items from specialist suppliers goes to cataloguers to deal with that and they spend more time to maintain, upgrading and quality control of records the stock. However %95 of book orders would be on shelves in 5 working days. To finish the presentation he said “When it works it works very well but when it goes wrong, it can be horrible.”

After lunch Andrew Coburn, Acquisitions & cataloguing manager in Essex county council talked about Shelf-Ready in public libraries. Shelf-ready has been around in public libraries for years. Andrew was very positive about the system although they had same problem with AV items and local studies. According to this new concept, the technical part of Public libraries are centralised or outsourced whereas Customer service was left for library branches. He mentioned Netherlands has implemented “shelf-ready” in public library a long time ago.

After that we had two presenters, Fiona McCollum and Kier Finnerty from Ingram Coutts who talked about the way their service works which was quite informative and interesting.

At the end, there was a panel discussion which mainly was about quality of Bib, cost, adaptability with some rare classification especially in art collection.

What I take from a day is latest views about Shelf-Ready in different sections and good networking. I think this process brings new challenges to cataloguers and managers which is different from library to library. Would it work for public libraries? Definitely.  Particularly, in the current bad economic climate, where more and more public libraries are faced with the possibility of closure. However in other libraries Shelf-ready is handy but it seems necessary to have qualified staff that supervise the quality of Bibliography, consistency of stock and upgrade the collection.

CIG link:
http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/catalogueandindex/archive/2011/12/15/shelf-ready-event.aspx

CILIP Advisory Course

Finally I got a chance to attend CILIP advisory course qualifications on the day students were demonstrating over tuition fees in central London. Apart from high presence of police in Christmassy Oxford road I didn’t see much difference. I met a lot of ambitious colleagues who gathered in CILIP building, seeking professional advice.

 Franko Kowalczuk from career development group (CDG) support team had a presentation on importance of continuous professional development and support networks which is available for candidates.

Next was Michael Martin, who I am following his blog for a long time. He had a presentation about the way these qualifications could be obtained. The majority of presentations were given to charter candidates, which was also the highest proportion of the audience.  Then we had a talk about portfolio surgery, regulations and assessment criteria. We had some activities at the end which helped to know each other better and even a chance to have a list of colleagues who are working through this process .Who can deny the benefits of networking with people who are committed to LIS service.

To be honest it was also quite interesting to see some CILIP support officers who I knew and had their support via internet. I wish I had attended the course earlier, make faster progress and save a lot of time.

I think I have more confidence and better understanding about the process of achieving library Chartership now.

The event was streaming online for first time. http://bambuser.com/channel/CILIP