The future of CILIP

On 16th May I attended an engaging talk on 'Our professional future' by Annie Mauger, the new CEO of CILIP.  Annie's explanation of changes and challenges affecting different library sectors was interesting and easy to follow. While proposed public library cuts and closures have been all over the news, I hadn't realised that the Schools Library Services were facing similar closures.

The direction that CILIP is heading in seems like a positive step to me. The focus will be on three areas: advocacy, communities and continuing professional development. I hadn't been involved in the 'Defining our professional future' conversation as I wasn't a CILIP member at the time. I was interested to learn that co-operation with the Women's Institute is planned, and CILIP members are talking at WI meetings to get the WI on board to campaign for libraries. Annie explained that CILIP is relatively new to campaigning, while the WI are experienced at this.

CILIP will have a new structure from July and there are likely to be changes to branch and special interest groups. Some special interest groups may merge. Hopefully these changes will allow CILIP to provide better value for money to its members.

I was particularly struck by one of the comments Annie made. She had asked a colleague whether they were nervous attending their first board meeting at a new job, and they had replied 'no' because they knew that they would already know some of the people there. Annie used this to highlight the power of networking. I was inspired to attend the East of England CDG AGM on 18th May. It was useful to meet people from different libraries and sectors working in the region and to find out more about the East of England CDG. Hopefully I'll be seeing more of them in the future!

April round up

My plan is to write regular updates in order to reflect on my learning. Since it has been a few weeks, I thought I'd round up the main news from April in one (very delayed!) post. Must get better at blogging straight away rather than trying to remember things from a while back! April was a busy month...

I attended a presentation given by the British Library on the upcoming changes to their document supply service. It's useful to know what's in store for inter-library loans. They outlined the challenges, both positive and negative, for document supply, and then introduced their new IRMDS (Integrated Request Management Delivery System) which will go live from July-September. Responses will apparently be faster and colour will be standard, which is good news for many library users. The ability to track orders online sounds like good news for us librarians too. The new system will allow the option for end users to search the BL catalogue and request items. This has potential to save users' time as they can instantly make a request remotely if they are searching the BL catalogue from home at a time when the library is closed, for example. Libraries can choose different levels of control, for example the system can be set up so that librarians have to approve/reject all end user requests. It looks as though there will be scope for quite a bit of customisation. For libraries who decide to allow this option, there will be things to work out, such as how to process payments/refunds. Whether or not my library decides to enable the end user request option, I look forward to seeing the other functions when it all goes live.

I've been getting on with the cataloguing practice. This time I'm cataloguing bought books, which already have minimal level bib records and need checking and upgrading. I dug out my notes from my university course and found the bookmark to MARC online, which had been feeling neglected in my favourites list, as a useful reference for when I need reminder. This brought back memories... The cataloguing has been slower than I'd hoped, mainly because the enquiry work side of things has been busy with exams approaching. It's nice to see the library so full of people working hard, let's hope it continues!

Discovering public library collections

I was pleased to read in a recent Update that OCLC are planning a national union catalogue for UK public libraries. Anything that increases the public's awareness of public library resources has to be a good thing, especially at a time when some libraries are under threat.

On a personal note, as part of my job involves working in inter-library loans, it will be useful to be able to quickly and easily see holdings of multiple public libraries. We rarely obtain inter-library loans from UK public libraries at the moment and rely heavily on COPAC and worldcat but we may find that some of our readers requests can be found in a UK public library.

Hello from LibRhi! (Previously known as Newbie Blogger)

I have been very quiet on the blogging front for some months now since the end of 23 Things, but with the spring comes new enthusiasm. I found during 23 Things that keeping a blog really helped me reflect and evaluate my learning so here's hoping I can keep it up on this new blog! I decided to start a new blog as I don't feel like such a Newbie Blogger any more.

It was a while ago now, but back in January I attended the Libraries@Cambridge 2011 conference, which was inspiring. Unfortunately I couldn't make it to the first two sessions, and was disappointed to miss Ned Potter's talk, especially as this seemed to generate a lot of discussion throughout the day. I plan to catch up with the slides though, to find out what escaping the Echo Chamber is all about.

Lesley Noblett's session on redesigning the library was very interesting, especially thinking about how by removing counters and moving towards self-service, the focus can switch from library processes to users. It was particularly interesting to hear about new ways of working in Cambridgeshire public libraries, such as floor-walking/roving, the skills staff needed for this and how they adapted to the change. It was good to get a different perspective on ways of working in libraries as this is quite different to how we currently work.

The afternoon sessions celebrated working together in Cambridge libraries. It's always nice to hear about what is going on. One of the sessions was about the Cambridge Librarians TeachMeet in September, which I attended as an 'enthusiastic lurker'. The short presentations and informal atmosphere of the TeachMeet made for an enjoyable evening and I was disappointed to miss TeachMeet 2 earlier this week. My favourite thing from TeachMeet was Prezi, which seemed quite popular with other attendees judging by those who used it at the Libraries@Cambridge conference. Prezi presentations are visually appealing and make ideas so easy to follow. I don't have any presentations lined up, but I would consider using Prezi as an alternative to Powerpoint for future presentations.

All in all, it was a good day at the Libaries@Cambridge conference!