"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

CILIP President Jan Parry talks Career Planning and Advocacy

On Wednesday 7^th October we were honoured to receive a talk from none other than CILIP President herself, Jan Parry, at RISC in Reading. Thank you to Matthew Henry for writing the following summary of Jan's talk. 

Jan started the informal presentation with a brief roundup of her career, including how she got into librarianship, and how she got out of it again but used her professional skills to great effect in a wide range of applications. Of course, she was more modest than this but her CV includes senior Whitehall civil service positions working with Secretaries of State and other ministers and more recently being a member of the Hillsborough Independent Panel’s Secretariat.

Jan was not ashamed to admit that, having attained her degree in Librarianship and Information Management a little later in life after starting her career at the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate library, she discovered that she was ambitious.

She didn’t let on to anyone else – even her family – but quietly went about her duties confident that there was almost always a better way of doing something.  She also believed that she was capable of discovering and implementing those improvements, and that the only way to achieve them was building a case for them using evidence and demonstrating that they were effective by collecting data and communicating them.

The key to her message to us CILIP members at various stages in our information careers was that the very same principles apply to us as individuals. We should be able to communicate what we do, and its value, easily and quickly. And for this, librarians, “you need your business head on.”

If someone asks you what you do, don’t give the passive response “I’m a librarian” or “I manage a library service.” Better to say something like, “I’m an expert in finding information from a wide range of sources, and fast.” You might not be a natural self-promoter but becoming one will help to advance your career.

Jan told an anecdote about one civil service colleague who sought out his boss every day to give an informal report on what he was doing. Some in the audience thought this might become counterproductive, but this employee apparently got a bonus every year for his efforts. Jan recommended an alternative tack for those of us who don’t want to look like the school swot (because, lets face it, how many of us actually were the school swot?). Instead, write a weekly email to your superior, copied to his/her manager, outlining your achievements and ideas that week. Do this religiously. After a year your manager will have ample material with which to perform your appraisal, you will definitely have been noticed, and – perhaps most importantly – you will have had to stretch yourself in order to have written about your progress, week-by-week.

As to what that progress might be based on, with information services forever having to justify their resources – even existence – you should find ways to gather evidence, whether it be qualitative, such as written feedback or quantitative, such as user numbers, resources accessed, costs saved, etc.. All of this should be documented and ready for if – when – your service is under review.

In short, get a career plan. Don’t wallow in the “duvet of librarianship”. There are no longer jobs for life so you need to be ready to measure, improve, and move on and up.

Inspiring stuff; and it was easy to see why Jan has been so successful.

Matthew Henry library assistant at Reading Libraries and MSc Library Science student at City University London. Twitter: @matthew1001001

Jan has kindly shared her presentation slides for those who weren't able to attend:

Whose career is it anyway?

Visit to the Dragon School Library

On Monday 28th September, we visited the Dragon School Library in Oxford. Beth Ash from Radley College Library has kindly written the following summary of our visit:

What a treat to be in leafy North Oxford on a glorious sunny September afternoon.  We were visiting The Dragon School, an independent mixed boarding and day school for children aged 8-13.  Tucked away  just off the Banbury Road, the school felt  100 miles away from the bustle of the city centre.

Our motley group of school, university and public librarians were welcomed by the Dragon School Librarian, Helen Mastrantone, who showed us across campus to the library.  Helen works full time across five days and is aided by a part time Assistant Librarian, to cover opening hours from 8:00-6:00 through the week and 8:00-12:45 on Saturdays.  My first impressions were of a well laid out, spacious and comfortable library, with thoughtful and clear displays.  Helen’s obvious enthusiasm for her role was apparent throughout the visit and it was fascinating to hear about her journey from teaching into school librarianship. 

Helen talked us through her ‘imaginary average day’, describing the mix of activities that make up her role at the Dragon School.  I was impressed by the amount of organised contact that students have with the library, with every English set having a reading lesson in the library each week.  This means that Helen has contact with every child in school across the timetable.  As well as this considerable responsibility, Helen’s role also includes the usual tasks of book buying, cataloguing and classifying (amongst other things!).

What kept coming across was Helen’s care that the children should feel ownership of their library.  She described herself as a custodian of the library, actively encouraging recommendations and suggestions from the students.  This struck a chord with me and the environment we try to foster in our library at Radley – in both instances the school is also the children’s home.  It is important that the library is a place that they feel comfortable, welcome and want to spend their time. 

It was great to hear some frank discussion about the positives and challenges of school librarianship, and helpful to swap tactics on dealing with issues such as building relationships with other school staff, library discipline and line management.  For me, working in a very similar setting, much of the conversation resonated and I enjoyed seeing what was clearly a well thought out, and well run school library service at work.  

This was my first foray into attending CILIP events, so I was a bit nervous about what to expect, but based on this afternoon’s event I can thoroughly recommend taking the time out to meet up with other librarians.  It is invaluable to see how other settings are putting ideas into practice, and there are certainly some aspects of Helen’s work at the Dragon School that I will be taking back to Radley.

Grateful thanks to Helen for her kind hospitality and all the work she put into our visit, and to Becci for organising the trip.  

Beth Ash – Assistant Librarian, Radley College Library

A day in the life of a librarian: Michelle Thomas, Hampshire School Library Service Advisor, Basingstoke

This month's posting in the "day in the life" series is from Michelle - our fantastic Publicity Coordinator for CILIP in Thames Valley. Here is her account of a typical Tuesday:

I am one of 10 professional advisors in Hampshire’s School Library Service & normally begin my day by arriving at our north centre between 8.30 & 9.00 o’clock.  We have 5 centres county-wide and 3 mobile library vehicles. Each centre is located on a public library site or a school premises and has around 25-30,000 resources in the centre at any one time.  Our centre has a further 76,000 resources currently in use in schools. Hampshire SLS is a large and successful service and we bucked the national trend last year with 92% of our schools (state and independent) buying into the service. This is in stark contrast to England & Wales generally, where less than 60% of authorities have any SLS at all. We are ably supported by 1-2 administrative staff in each centre and they are invaluable. Our new three year SLA offers schools a wide range of resources and activities to support curriculum requirements and foster a love of reading.

Today however I am visiting a school so arrive after the school crush at 9.15 in Andover.  I am visiting the Head Teacher and librarian of one of the 115 subscribing schools we serve in the Basingstoke and Andover area.  The advisory meeting begins with the librarian who is being trained to reflect the changing priorities of the school.  We discuss the appearance of the non-fiction collection, considering signage, shelf labelling, general layout & displays.  The Head Teacher joins us and we head down to the fiction collection to look at similar concerns for the layout and design of the collection.  Both libraries must operate as self service points for the pupils and a general discussion ensues about the software and how to get best use of this as a promotional tool.


The range and variety of the stock is also deliberated and I suggest ways to refresh the stock using our lending service more effectively to support the curriculum and reading for pleasure needs in school.  The Head requests another meeting with an advisor and the school English Manager to discuss new resources that we can recommend for purchase.  We will have to analyse the school catalogue beforehand. Our resources are selected by the librarian during the mobile library exchanges which visit the school twice a year. Resources can be provided for topics requested by email through the school courier network also.  I complete my visit with some one- to- one training looking at the use of the LMS and the support materials subscribing schools have access to on the SLS Moodle (VLE).

40 minutes later I arrive back at our Basingstoke centre.  There are 4 other centres in the county and I am based in the north. After a quick break and informal meeting with the Lead advisor about the schools visited within the last 4 days, I return to my untidy desk and emails.  I must record minutes for the morning meeting, chase resources for the email requests that have arrived that morning and reply.  Resources are sometimes difficult to locate particularly for the new curriculum at present and they often involve time to assemble.  I have an interesting request today for books on crime and punishment through the ages.  The teacher has not mentioned the year group concerned so after some detective work on the school blog, I discover this topic is for Year 4 (8-9) year olds.  I locate some non-fiction by looking at different periods in history, gauging the reading age of the text & selecting accordingly.  We generally supply some fiction to support curriculum topics so I must give more thought to this too, but manage to find some fiction to enrich the topic.

Shortly after this, the primary school booked to do a full school exchange arrives bringing in their wake 200+ books.  When a whole school attends there are generally a lot of teachers & with a 2 class entry there are 8 teachers today for us to help & advise.  I help my colleague with some of their requests- fiction for able year 5 boys, fiction for the “inventors” topic & then I must go.  I have another school visit booked for this busy Tuesday. 

This time I am off to a large primary school in Basingstoke.  They have invited me in to run a staff meeting raising awareness of the LMS they have in school and it’s curriculum applications.  I demonstrate the multi issue/return facility, the pupil reading records and how these can be interrogated to ascertain how the pupil is progressing.  We look at the reviews facility which enables pupils to do book reviews and publish these electronically. Finally we discuss the implications of the enquiry side of the software looking at and considering the use of Boolean operators and the potential this provides for teaching their pupils how to refine search enquiries.  The meeting is concluded with a flying visit to the SLS Moodle to share the area where we place our booklists.  

We also have an information literacy package here which is a progressive programme which can be introduced at Reception and is completed in Year 6.  One of the teachers enthusiastically talked about how they had used this extensively in her last school, embedding it into the taught curriculum.  After answering a couple of questions, I leave school and by 5.45, am home for the day.  An early finish provides me with the chance to do some reading; I am preparing for a primary school fiction meeting and will need to read titles across the key stages to introduce to the teachers.  The theme for this meeting is “Beyond the door” so am busy identifying and reading new books for this talk.  A busy Tuesday is over & I settle down with Kenneth Oppel and his new book “The Boundless”.

Do you have an interesting role, or would you like to share your experiences in Librarianship in the Thames Valley? Get in touch with the CILIPTV committee and guest-blog about it. Remember: you can use this in your Portfolio to show engagement with the profession!

A day in the life of a librarian: Nora Khayi, St Hugh’s College Library, University of Oxford

This month's posting in the "day in the life" series is from Nora- our fantastic Secretary for CILIP in Thames Valley, and who is also Publicity Officer, for the South East Member Network- so a very busy lady indeed! Here is her account of a typical day:

I am the Librarian at St Hugh’s College Library in Oxford: The Howard Piper Library. The College has about 700 students (undergraduates and graduates) and is situated in beautiful grounds in north Oxford. The view from my office window looks out on our renowned garden and always surprises me by its splendour.

The Howard Piper Library is one of biggest college libraries in Oxford. This is notably due to its historical heritage: founded in 1886, the College was for woman only and, as they were not allowed into the central library until the early 1920s, Women's College libraries tend to have been built up larger collections to respond to that issue. St Hugh’s has about 80,000 books held mainly on open access. We also do have a small Special Collection with such wonders as a 1st edition of Hobbe’s Leviathan. I am responsible for the management and development of the collection as well as for providing information, resources and services to members of the College. Managing the library collection includes managing risks, opportunities, challenges and value of the collection. So let me talk you through a typical day in the library…

I arrive in College between 8:30 and 9:00 and the first thing I do is to have a coffee while checking my emails. The Senior Library Assistant goes through the morning daily tasks and there are always unexpected tasks for me such as emailing our students regarding food in the library, or our security alarm. Going through my emails I respond to queries from students and Fellows, as well as dealing with emails regarding overdue books, meetings, or training. At any time, I like walking around the library – students then have the opportunity to catch me and ask questions, or just have a chat, and I have the opportunity to remind them that no cans of coke or other liquids as well as no chocolate bars are allowed in the library.

This morning I have a meeting with the management team of College. The team constitutes Head of Departments in College in a roundtable where we discuss particular topics, events of the week and share good practices. This usually could take up quite a bit of time depending on what is happening in College. There are also a lot of emails that are circulated from this team which requires time.
One of my primary tasks is acquisition of new and relevant materials for the students. We do not specialise in any subject and I work very closely with our College Fellows who in the best scenarios are very willing and proactive at providing reading lists and emailing me every time there is a new publication of a relevant book in their subject.

I also liaise with subject librarians in the different faculties to obtain new reading lists. I spend a fair amount of my time liaising with academics and librarians and ordering books. Moreover, we also have a book suggestion form that students use to recommend books from their core course reading lists. This is rather popular among our students and on a daily basis I look into their recommendations and correspond with them. If their request is successful, I’ll order the book and let them know.

Most days, I’ll have a small pile of books that the Senior Library Assistant leaves on my desk which requires cataloguing, I also have regular meetings with the team, the archivist, the bursar, and I write policies and proposals for our library committee to discuss and approve. While term is going ever so fast, I am thinking ahead and planning projects for the vacation periods – the most recent ones have been to write an in-house classification scheme for our English section to follow the curriculum and to reclassify over 7000 books over the summer. All of this is happening while we cover the enquiries of students walking into the office because they couldn't find a book, or who need a book from the stack, or can’t find an article, or just need a stapler!

At some point in the day I have lunch, probably sat next to one of our Fellows, where discussion on the library continues, and as a result, books will be bought, Fellows will come to the library to look at their section, reading lists will be sent…or in some cases a discussion goes on and nothing will happen. I have to say that I feel very lucky at St Hugh’s, Fellows really value and appreciate the Library and are ready to get involved.

While I am writing this note, I’m looking through the office door, the lobby area is full of students working away, my emails have grown since the last time I checked and I have a pile of books on my desk waiting for me…the day is not over yet