"Shhhh... in other languages": My experience of working in libraries in different countries

This blog is from our October event, "Shhhh... in other languages": My experience of working in libraries in different countries". Many thanks to Emily Green for writing it for us.

Our speaker for the October meeting of CILIP Thames Valley was Marina Sotiriou, Library Assistant at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. Speaking about her experiences of working in different countries and libraries, Marina delivered an entertaining and informative presentation entitled “Shhhh…in other languages”.

Having studied library and information management in Greece, Marina worked first for the Library of Visual and Applied Arts at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Library of the 21^st Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities in Corfu. Following these interesting posts, she made a bold move to the UK; working first at Belfast Metropolitan College before taking up her current role. By this time, Marina’s varied experience meant she had already worked with numerous library management systems, classification systems, library structures and colleagues.

Based on these experiences and some detailed research, Marina was able to summarise the key differences between Greek and UK libraries across sectors. Describing health, school, public, and academic libraries, she provided an interesting insight into the strengths and challenges present in each country.

Drawing on personal experience, she then turned to those skills that she considers particularly important when working in different countries. Perhaps most striking was her emphasis on the importance of flexibility and her enthusiasm for constantly learning and meeting new people with different approaches and ideas.

Following Marina’s presentation, an opportunity for questions developed into an informal chat amongst attendees about the current state of UK and Greek libraries across sectors. Sharing our thoughts and experiences on the issue rounded off the evening well.

Emily Green – Assistant Librarian, University College, Oxford

Ruth Jenkins: Switching Sector- HE to NHS

The evening saw a very interesting talk from our speaker, Ruth Jenkins- who moved from the University of Reading Library to the healthcare sector. Based at Prospect Park Hospital in a mental health library, she works in a small team, providing information and library services to NHS staff. Ruth very kindly gave permission to make these photos available, so that those reading this report can gain some context of the library she is based in.

Interior of Library

Ruth stated that the NHS healthcare librarians were all extremely supportive, and she recommended anyone in a similar career move to subscribe to relevant mailing lists, as this has been very useful to her.

Ruth spoke about how many of the staff who utilise the service are often not in the hospital, but our in the community, so much of her work is remote. The Library provides current awareness bulletins of new research, in over 70 topics including bibliotherapy, therapy for eating disorders and also electro-convulsive therapy.

Much of her work focuses on assisting with literature searches, processing Inter-Library loan requests and in staff training. One thing she has had to do is become much more aware of the importance of planning her search, as the research evidence is often a key part of diagnosis and treatment, as can be seen from the diagram below:

The role of the Library in combination with patient assessment and clinical expertise

Ruth often conducts and assists with literature searches- not a task for the squeamish! Her previous role at University of Reading Library involved liaison with the Education and History departments, which was a full time fixed term post for 3 years- after some time in the role, she saw the vacancy at Prospect Park and thought she’d give it a go. Ruth recommends that those considering switching sector ensure that they identify their transferable skills during their application, and that they do their research prior to interview. She made sure that she had a few questions to ask the interviewers too, so they could see that she had thought about her application.

Ruth found the organisational culture to be the biggest difference between the university library and the NHS. At the University she was seen more as a teacher, whereas there are very sharply defined roles in the NHS. However, at Prospect, she is more likely to be directly incorporated into groups and work closely alongside healthcare professionals. The library is smaller at Prospect, so she gets more variety in her work, and the spread is different. Ruth does more 1-2-1 sessions, whereas at the University, she was more likely to see groups. She is invited to meetings more at the NHS. Due to the fact that many staff work in the community, much of her work at Prospect is done online via the Internet. This does however, mirror the spread of online learning in the higher education sector. Another important difference was that there was less autonomy in the NHS than in the University library.

Ruth identified several similarities between the two roles that she has worked in, which sided her successful transition. These were the need for good information skills, the need to develop user search skills, being embedded into a team or department and the different levels of experience that users have with research.

Ruth’s top tips for those considering a sectoral switch:

• 1- Identify your transferable skills
• 2- Read up on the subject you wish to support, and be aware of the library/information issues
• 3- Go for it! You won’t get the role if you don’t apply!

Exterior of Prospect Park Hospital

Personally, as someone that has only ever worked in one sector, I found the session very informative and also reassuring that should I need to change sectors, that this would be potentially possible. I think we sometimes forget as a profession that we have many skills that are of huge value across sectors and even across professional boundaries. Many of those I spoke to that evening felt invigorated and inspired to consider career moves that they might previously have shied from. Food for thought.

Running a Reading Group for Mental Health Patients

Our first meeting of 2013, held in Reading in March, was well attended and this may have had something to do with our new later time of 6.30pm for a 7pm start. We have made this move so that people in the Thames Valley who live further away from our usual venue can make it after work. However it was probably to do with the guest speakers visited us from The Reader Organisation and the Prospect Park mental health unit. Sue Colburn, a reading leader and advocate, and Sue McLaughlin, a Nurse Consultant at Berkshire Healthcare Trust, came to tell us about The Reading Organisation’s work leading reading groups with vulnerable people.

The Reading Organisation’s method is to read the whole text of a piece of literature together, slowly, so people can interact with the text and each other. In newer groups they tend to work with a lot of poems and short stories, but with more established groups they get through whole literary classics. They use literature as an in-road to helping people with their problems – many finding a way to talk, confront, or contemplate their problems by identifying with the literature. Participants can be as active or as passive as they like, but they can rely on the reading group running week in, week out, except Christmas, giving them a constant source of contact, release, or comfort when they may not feel they have this in other areas of their lives. They have open access public groups in some libraries across the country and others are help in care homes and mental health units.

At first the group at the Prospect Park unit was run as a pilot course, called Tea & Tales, which grew week after week. Some of the success of this may have been due to the fact it flattened the hierarchy, during the reading nurses and patients were all just participants. For a while they could not find the funding to continue running the group. The problem was finding a way to measure the success of these groups. They had qualitative evidence in the form of patients’ reactions and they ran demonstration sessions, but they seemed to be missing out to other things. The good news is that they have now found funding from the Healthcare Trust and hope to start up again in April. They intend to train four nurses to run sessions and run a session at Wokingham Public Library for outpatients that want to continue to use a group. They are also learning how to measure the outcomes of the programme to support their case and prove their value, however they believe that qualitative evidence should not be discounted, how people feel should count.

Currently the programme is little known in the Thames Valley, the only open group run here is in Wokingham Library. If anyone would like to become a group leader they can train to do so through the Read to Lead course, the details are on The Reader Organisation. It was a very inspiring evening and The Reader Organisation is a really worthy charity that makes a difference to lives through literature, what with being a librarian, something I have always believed in. I haven’t done it justice here but hopefully we can do our bit to spread the word in the Thames Valley region; as well as their website they have a blog, you can follow them on Twitter @thereaderorg, or email for more information: info@thereader.org.uk.