BBC Monitoring and BBC Written Archives visit, 29 June 2015

Our visit to the BBC Written Archives and BBC Monitoring was an incredibly popular event with a long waiting list. Thankfully for those of us who were unable to attend, Kirsty Morrison has written an excellent summary of the visit, so thanks to Kirsty for the following:

Our visit to the BBC Monitoring and Written Archives took place on a beautiful sunny day, so we slightly regretted our decision to walk the two and a half miles from the train station up a massive hill!

We had an introduction to the Written Archives which outlined the remit of their work. Their collection consists of files, scripts and documents from a range of departments at the BBC, which provide a valuable insight into the works of this unique institution from its inception in 1922 through to the 1980s. This collection covers older programmes and the history of broadcasting, as well as containing correspondence, memoranda, contracts, scripts and publications.

They provide reference support for researchers and academics, who are also eligible to use the reading room by appointment. We saw some of the highlights of the collection, including censorship correspondence regarding the broadcast of Dylan Thomas' 'Under Milk Wood', papers from the state opening of the BBC and the first television broadcast, Lord Reith's diaries and scrapbooks, a project file for 'The Flowerpot Men' containing some unexpected complaints, and letters to the BBC from a young Vanessa Redgrave and Keith Richards.

The majority of the physical collection is housed in rolling stacks with a series of archive boxes relating to people and programmes of note to the BBC. We had a tour of this facility (which was lovely and cool due to the temperature control!). We were shown the files relating to Sylvia Plath's dealings with the BBC, and the Doctor Who nerds among us were excited to spot a drawer labelled 'Dalek diagram'.

We took a stroll through the picturesque grounds of Caversham Park to the stately home which houses BBC Monitoring. Staff took us through the colourful history of the property (as mentioned in the Domesday Book!). BBC Monitoring was established in 1939 to monitor the media of the world and provide intelligence to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, GCHQ and other government departments as required.

Their role has adapted over the years to tie in with changes to the Charter, meaning that their funding now comes from the license fee rather than from core stakeholders. Consequently BBC Monitoring have had to adopt a more commercial mindset when promoting their services. Their main customers are now government departments, BBC newsrooms, Parliament, commerce and academic institutions.

They are able to rely on the expertise of staff arranged by geographical region (e.g. the Middle East or Western Europe). Core monitoring staff are comprised of translators and journalists who transcribe and analyse the output of their designated region.  Their operations span the globe so they are able to provide a 24 hour service.

Monitoring products can be extremely reactive and flexible, focusing on major world issues in a very timely way. BBC correspondents receive briefings from BBC Monitoring each morning for example, which keeps them up to date prior to delivering reports.

It was useful to hear about the innovative ways BBC Monitoring have had to change their strategy in order to promote their work, which is highly relevant to many library and information professionals in the current economic climate.

We ended the visit looking out on the stunning vista at the back of the house, including the pond, lake, cricket pavilion and views of the surrounding countryside. Definitely worth a visit!

Professional Registration event

On Wednesday 3rd June, CILIP TV held an event about Professional Registration, lead by our Candidate Support Officer, Nicola Beer. She and fellow CSO Matthew Wheeler have given permission for the slides used to be made available to those who may not have been able to join us. Hopefully they will be useful!

Click here to see slides

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!

Bodleian K B Chen China Centre Library Visit

Helen Matthews very kindly wrote up the recent CILIPTV visit to the the Bodleian K B Chen China Centre Library, which appears below- bonus points for being so prompt, especially at this time of year, Helen!:

On 17^th December a group of librarians and information specialists visited the Bodleian K B Chen China Centre Library, located in the grounds of St Hugh’s College (one of the colleges of the University of Oxford). The library is inside the Dickson Poon University of Oxford China Centre Building having moved from the Institute for Chinese Studies. The £21m building was funded by a number of benefactors, most notably the Hong Kong philanthropist, Mr Dickson Poon CBE (from whom the building derives its name), who donated £10m. The library is named after the late Mr K B Chen, recognising the gift from his son, Mr Henry Chen, to the college.

Joshua Seufert, the Chinese Studies Librarian, provided the tour of the library and China Centre Building. The Centre is built on what used to be tennis courts. The library is in the basement of the building but has plenty of natural light pouring in as it looks across a garden area that has been lowered from ground floor level, which the building wraps around. The building caters for those with disabilities with wide doorways for easy access and a lift, which the spiral staircase wraps around. Within the building you find images of the Chinese coin and the fleur de lys, the latter of which forms part of the College’s crest. Doors with the Chinese coin on lead to the China Centre areas whilst the doors with fleur de lys on lead you towards college areas.

The building brings together various people and departments of the University involved with Chinese studies into one place, rather than having them scattered around the city. We went into one of the lecture theatres which seats 100 people but can be split in half for two lectures to take place at the same time with fewer people. Some of the Bodleian Library’s Chinese special collections have been reproduced to display on the walls of the Centre, including the Selden map of China, bringing the library out to the rest of the building.

The library is one of the Bodleian Libraries, which offers benefits like being part of the Printing, Copying and Scanning (PCAS) service and offering the opportunity to order material from the Book Storage Facility in Swindon to the library. In fact, the library has seen an increase in library users including members of St Hugh’s College and St Antony’s College who are ordering material from the Book Storage Facility to the library because of its convenient location to them. There is a room dedicated to this material where library users can collect the material they ordered and read it in the library.

The library has 6 carrels, which can be used by readers for more quiet and private study. With these carrels they can book cabinets in which they can keep personal belongings. As well as space for private study there is a group study room with a projector and speakers for people to use as a meeting place.

The library has a special classification system for its material called Harvard-Yenching devised by Alfred Kaiming Chiu for the Harvard-Yenching Institute. Although the classification system has been phased out, the China Centre Library, and a few other libraries, use and update the classification system. New material, however, is being classified using the Library of Congress.

We were particularly intrigued by the library’s journal display, a case which had a panel for each journal title which was lifted to reveal past issues behind it inside a cubby hole. Before moving into the new library, 50m of journals were disposed of as well as 200m of material that had to be disposed of due to last minute ceiling height reductions, which means a loss of shelf space. Joshua explained that the new library has more space for library users to work at, which the previous library did not, which has meant a slight reduction in shelf space.

The tour was followed by a Q&A session as an opportunity for us to find out further information. The visit to the K B Chen China Centre Library was insightful with an great tour guide. It is excellent that the library has been included in the development of the brand new building and the amalgamation of various departments within the University in order to best provide for students and academics of Chinese studies.

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

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.

A day in the life of a librarian: Anna Richards, University of Reading

A version of this post was first published on the LISNPN (lisnpn.co.uk) website

Following on from Vicky's 'day in the life' post here is the experience of another liaison librarian, this time at the University of Reading. Unfortunately I kept forgetting to write down exactly what I was doing on one set day so my post is more like a description of typical tasks I may do from one day to the next.

My job title is Trainee Liaison Librarian and there are three of us at Reading. These posts aim to give you a range of experiences within an academic library and to support you through Chartership, giving you a solid start within the profession. My liaison responsibilities include Classics and Philosophy and I also work with Library User Services (LUS), which handles registration and circulation of stock.

A typical day starts with an hours' stint on the Ground Floor Information Desk with my LUS hat on. My role here is to be the first port of call for any questions about using the Library, to handle any new registrations, and to help with any account queries. I often also complete my other daily LUS tasks whilst on the Information Desk which are to help with SCONUL Access and External Borrower registrations and to answer emails that come through to the general library email account.

I then may move on to ordering new items, particularly at the beginning and end of terms as we get new reading lists through. Most of the reading list checking is done by other members of staff but I decide how many new copies of an item we need and place the order with the Acquisitions department. It's been very interesting for me to learn the different ways my subjects use Library resources and research material – Classics is much more book heavy than Philosophy, for example. As well as ordering new items from reading lists I also liaise with the departments regarding new journal subscriptions and new e-resources, as well as any other orders they may have.

At the moment I am planning and preparing for some teaching sessions I have coming up and this is another big part of my liaison role. As a liaison librarian you have to prepare and present teaching sessions of varying sizes, from lectures to small group workshops. At first it can be quite daunting but there's a lot of support in the Library and I find it very rewarding to know I'm helping students in their studies. You are also expected to volunteer to help with general Library sessions, such as the Inductions for first years or Endnote training sessions. Personally I prefer smaller workshops as I feel that you are better able to teach students how to use Library resources effectively, but it's a good challenge to think of how to make lectures more engaging. I've recently completed the University's Academic Practice Programme, which is primarily aimed at new academics. This gave me a good grounding in teaching practice and made me really think about new ways of teaching students.

As well as having liaison and LUS roles I am the Shelving Supervisor for the Arts and Humanities floor and the supervisor of the students who work in the Library as part of our shelving operations. As the Shelving Supervisor I have regular meetings with my shelving team to discuss any issues that I or they may have noticed or to discuss any changes we might want to make to our processes. The Library has recently undergone refurbishment so this was a busy time for shelving moves! The students who work in the Library also help with our shelving operations and as their supervisor I am in charge of recruitment and training as well as creating their weekly rota. This has been a challenging but very rewarding role.

Other activities I may have include staffing the Information Desk on the Arts and Humanities floor, updating the Library website for LUS or for the Arts and Humanities team, holding drop-in sessions in Classics and Philosophy, subject cataloguing of new books in my subjects, creating the termly newsletter for the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, attending meetings in my departments or within the Library and, of course, sending and answering many emails!

So the role of a Trainee Liaison Librarian here at the University of Reading is very varied but that allows you to experience many different aspects of working in an academic library and gives you a wide range of skills and experience to draw on. It has definitely been a very rewarding experience.

Anna Richards