Library Day in the Life #8, part 3

It seems like Friday has come around very quickly!  Today will be a very busy day, to celebrate National Libraries Day, CLIC (Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation) have organised a series of tours of Cardiff libraries for library staff.  We have two planned for today, one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon, plus both myself and the other library assistant will be heading off to attend tours of our own.

The day starts with an all staff briefing first thing in the morning to introduce the new exhibition, The Queen: Art and Image, opening to the public on Saturday.  These briefings are a really great opportunity to hear about what went into the planning of an exhibition and to get a chance to look around it before the building opens.

After the briefing we race back up to the library to start getting everything ready before the first tour arrives at 10.30am.  We put out on display a number of items from our locked cases that the visitors will be able to handle, including a 15th century incunabula, a copy of Pliny's Natural History!


Museum scrapbooks from the early 20th century


I'm a little nervous about the first tour, as I will be leading it for the first time.  Normally the head librarian is responsible for all the tours, but he decided to give me and the other library assistant the chance to do the morning one.  I think everything goes ok, I don't forget anything too important or get too tongue-tied, and everyone seems to enjoy it.  They weren't however, quite prepared for just how much walking was involved as we showed them around all the many departmental libraries we have scattered throughout the building.  Thankfully, no-one got lost in the labyrinth maze of the basement corridors!



Doing the introduction to my tour


There's time for a quick break for lunch, and a trip across to the art department to drop off some new books and see if they have anything for me to collect.  The art staff are often sent free copies of books and exhibition catalogues, or they pick them up on their travels, and they usually donate them to the library.  We have a shelf in their department where they leave books for us to collect and catalogue, today there is only one, a V&A publication on Jingdezhen porcelain.

The second tour of the day is conducted by the head librarian, but I have to duck out early in order to make it up to Cardiff University's SCOLAR (special collections and archives) department for my guided tour.  When I arrive at SCOLAR, I get the opportunity to check out the latest exhibition they have put on in the foyer.  A selection of students were each given a display case to exhibit items from the special collections that illustrate their chosen theme.  It was a wonderful example of how you could showcase your 'treasures' in different ways, and the various ways books could be interpreted depending on how they were grouped together. 

Also out in the foyer is Cardiff University's Turning the Pages kiosk, a massive thing which must be incredibly difficult to move, on it students can view ten items from the collections that have been digitised.  Going through to the main area, I see a few researchers hard at work in the reading room, before we duck in to the closed stacks to see shelf upon shelf of books and archival material that staff are working through. 

Items from the Cardiff Rare Books collection at SCOLAR, Cardiff University

The largest project that the SCOLAR team are working on is the collection of over 14,000 items that make up the Cardiff Rare Books collection.  The collection was acquired back in 2010, and although work began on cataloguing it immediately, only a fraction of it's potential as a research tool has been explored yet.  The collection includes many rare and unique items, including 175 incunabula (pre-1501 printed books), Shakespearean material and a wide selection of private press material.  I spent most of my visit oohing and aahing at all the amazing books, and feeling very jealous of what an amazing experience cataloguing that collection must be!

Library Day in the Life #8, part 2

The second of my Library Day in the Life days begins with a meeting of the CLIC (Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation) Staff Development Group at one of the Cardiff University buildings.  Although I've been involved with CLIC for a while I've only just joined the Staff Development Group, and this is the first meeting I've attended.  We discuss the upcoming library tours that have been arranged to celebrate National Libraries Day, and the next scheduled CLIC event focusing on marketing.

I don't get back to the office till late afternoon to discover that the printer wasn’t working, and we had to wait for an engineer to come out and fix it.  This creates a bit of a nightmare as we need to print out all our library leaflets and drop them off for tomorrows display.  Thankfully we managed to find someone in another department willing to do the printing for us.

Before I head off to lunch I deal with a query from a member of staff who wanted me to perform a search for a book title on our catalogue.  We are currently waiting for an upgrade to our system, until it is completed user searching is not as accurate as we would like, so staff often ask us to search on their behalf.

The leaflet designed to promote the library,
the Welsh translation is on the reverse

After lunch we pop across to the Welsh Assembly Government building to drop off a poster and the leaflets for the National Libraries Day display.

When I return I discuss with my boss some of the items we will put out on display for the library tours the next day and work on what I am going to say in my introduction. I also email everyone attending the tours to confirm the arrangements for when they arrive.  Finally, I email any staff whose work areas the tours will be passing through so that they are not suddenly surprised to see a load of visitors outside their offices.

I head home feeling that somehow the day has flown past before I had enough time to get everything done.

Library Day in the Life #8, part 1

I took part in Library Day in the Life round 7 last July, which I used as an opportunity to provide an insight in to my job in the library at the National Museum Wales.  I decided to take part again this year because I think that working in a museum library can be varied enough that there shouldn't be too much repetition. 

I only work at the museum three days a week, so I don't start the project till the Wednesday.  I’m running a little late this morning, and it’s 8.50 before I get in.  There's just time for me to say a quick hello to the Head Librarian before he heads off to one of our other sites for the morning. 

My workspace in the library

I start by going through my emails, checking what needs doing.  The most urgent to require my attention include;
-Updating the subscription details for the auction catalogues we receive from Bonhams.  We take sale catalogues for a number of auction houses, but only for certain sales.  We need to regularly check that we are receiving all the catalogues as if we miss one it can be tricky getting a replacement, they only print so many at a time.
-Going through the final edit of our new library leaflet which has come back from the translation and publications team.  As part of National Libraries Day we are contributing to a display celebrating libraries in the foyer of one of the Welsh Assembly Government buildings.  We haven't produced much in the way of promotional material for the library in the past, so we feel very proud of our new leaflet.
-Attempting to reinstall a printer to my computer (with partial success, primarily my own fault). 
-Answering a query that came through via our website from a man trying to research a member of his family.  We were not able to help, but I passed him the details of someone I thought might.  We often get queries from people researching local or family history, but in those instances we find that the records office and local history section of the public library are better sources of information.

By the time break-time comes around I'm very much ready for my caffeine fix down in the museum restaurant.

When I head back up to the main library I do some shelving in the stacks which are freezing.  They are right up in the roof of the building and tend to reflect whatever the weather is like outside, very hot in summer, very cold in winter, today it feels like stepping into an icebox.  I hurry back to my spot next to my heater as soon as I can. 

After lunch we had an email from one of our curators trying to trace the reports of Scott’s National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04, that we had received back in 1913.  Had a dig about on our folio shelves and finally found them, the shelves were triple stacked with big hefty folio volumes, and the reports I wanted would be the ones right at the back, typical!

Because we are relatively quiet today I decide to get on with some cataloguing. I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t really had time to do any, and the next two days will be busy, so I doubt I’ll have time to get any done then either. I'm focusing on books for the Industry library at the moment, and am currently working my way through a pile of Mines and Quarries reports from the early 20th century.

I finish up my day by looking through some of the posts other people have been writing for Library Day in the Life project.

Thing 22 - Volunteering

I haven't had to do any volunteering myself, although I have considered it in the past.  The main reason for this is that I am able to get the experience I need at work.  Although I am a Library Assistant, ever since I decided to become qualified and exhibited my intention to become a professional librarian my employers have been very supportive in helping me develop my career prospects.  They have allowed me to take part in activities such as cataloguing, and given me plenty of projects and responsibilities that all add to my skills and experience.

Of course they are only able to do this because we are quite a small library that's not really open to the public.  This, I think, makes it much easier to create opportunities for staff to try working in areas that are not truly part of their job specifications.

I do have experience of volunteering from the other side of the fence, we have taken on a number of volunteers during the time I have been there.  They primarily tend to be library students or recent graduates looking to gain that all important experience, but we have also had staff from other departments and Museum Friends.  Reading through Headstrong Way's report on a presentation about  Bishopsgate Library's use of volunteers I was struck by how similar their set up sounds to ours.  Our volunteers tend either to work on particular projects, or if they are library students, get a taster for the different aspects of working in a museum library.  The Museum has a volunteers policy in place to make sure everyone (Museum and volunteer) gets as much benefit from the experience as possible.

Thing 18 - Jing/screencapture/podcasts

Yet again I'm going to skim over, rather than fully explore a 'Thing'.  I have tried to give each new tool introduced to us the time it deserves to review it, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to spare the time for those that are less relevant to my job.  CPD23 has inspired me to be more proactive in looking at how to use new media at work so I'm hopeful that once the course is over I'll continue to explore what's out there.

Screencasts - a digital recording of computer screen output, often containing audio narration
I think there could be scope to use these in my current job.  I've often explained to staff over the phone how to access either the library OPAC or the e-journals on the staff intranet.  Occasionally it has included me demonstrating the process on my computer, and they on theirs, going through the steps together.  It would be useful to simply direct people to a screencast showing them how to do the more common queries.

Podcasts - a media file (audio or video) that can be downloaded and saved
I'm not sure whether we would use these, I know lots of places use them to supplement inductions or training sessions.  Although we do inductions for new staff, they tend to be in quite small groups and not very frequent, so it's easier to do them in person.  However, recently we have discussed doing tours for groups interested in the history of the Museum's library, but space and security constraints have limited how much we can do.  I think placing virtual tours on Rhagor may be one way to combat that problem.

I've downloaded Jing to my home computer, and went through some of the tutorials.  If time allows I may try doing some screencasts introducing searching on the Library OPAC, and maybe try some mock up virtual tours to show to my boss.

Reading Aloud event - 5th November 2011

Last Saturday I took part in the BookIns Reading Aloud event at the National Museum Wales.  Organised by Leona Jones, it's the second of these events to be held at the museum (the first was back in March 2011 to celebrate International Women's Day) and aims to create an "aural and visual impact in unexpected places".

 Participating in the BookIns Reading Aloud event at the National Museum Wales

The theme of this event was travel writing, so we all brought along our favourite travel related books to read aloud for half an hour.  Mine was Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks.



Courtesy of Amazon

Participants spread out over two locations, the Main Hall and the Welsh Landscape Gallery.  As we were reading a large screen in the Main Hall displayed images from the library's collection of travel books including; Gerald Cambrensis The Journey through Wales/The Description of Wales; Sarah Anne Wilmot's Diaries (c.1810) and Shirley Jones's Taith Arall/An Other Journey (2008).



Illustration from Taith Arall by Shirley Jones

The event was a great success, and I'll definitely be taking part in the next one to be held at the Museum, which is happening  in February 2012 to coincide with the LGBT week.

Thing 16 - advocacy, speaking up for the profession

Typical conversation when meeting someone new and we get on to the ‘so where do you work then?’ part.
Me – In the museum
Them – Oh wow, that sounds great, what do you do there
Me – I work in the library
Them – [long pause] The museum has a library?
Me – [big sigh] Yes
Them – Well I never knew that!
Me – No, no-one seems to [goes off to cry in the corner at lack of public interest in our library]

The Library at Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales

Then of course I have to get into explaining how we are in a private part of the museum and only open to members of the public by appointment.  And you can’t really browse, it’s for specific research requirements only, and you can’t borrow books, by which time they have completely lost interest.

Because of the kind of environment I work in I’m not used to shouting about our library that much, it seems unfair to promote something that many people won’t be making use of.  However, I’m starting to think maybe we should, I’d be interested to know how other people in special libraries approach this.

I decided to have a look at the CILIP campaigning toolkit for ideas on some advocacy tools to use within my organisation, my aim is to start small, promoting us to our staff, and to the targeted audiences (post-grad students at the local universities for example) before attempting anything larger.

Other than that my primary method of advocacy is to continue to use my public library as much as possible, I read loads, but I rarely ever buy books, particularly not fiction.  When I hear about a book I might be interested in, my first instinct is always to check the local library catalogue, never to check the price on Amazon, I visit my local library about once a week.  I’m constantly amazed at how many of my friends, many of whom are also avid readers, never use the library. 

So, my new resolution is to try and promote the use of libraries (of all types) wherever possible, it may not be as big as the Voices for the Library or the Women's Institute's Love your Libraries campaigns but it's a start!


Lib-heart.jpg from Read and Shout

 

LibCampUK11 Session 4: Wikipedia, Wiki Commons and QRpedia

Andy (@pigsonthewing) mentioned this session during the special collections one when we were discussing how to use the internet to raise the profile of your collections, and it immediately caught my interest.

Unlike some of the other sessions, this one had more of a presentation feel.  Andy started off with an introduction to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and QRpedia and what it could do for your library for those of us that had never heard of it before (which was quite a few of us I think).

He explained the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) outreach project to us, which aims to encourage (and help) cultural institutions to share their resources with the wider public.

The two main points he put across to us were that you can;

1. Release content to the public with open license via Wikipedia Commons
2. Have Wikipedia volunteer editors write about particular museums (or libraries) and the objects in their collections

The criteria for Wikipedia articles were;

1. They had to be notable, ie talked about elsewhere
2. Those articles should be cited in the Wikipedia article

Wikipedia would then ask its volunteer editors around the world to translate your pages into their own languages.  In doing so you’ve already increased your collections visibility on the internet.  However Wikipedia is a voluntary service, so there is no guarantee that the articles will be translated speedily.  You could use incentives to speed up the process, for example invite people from the user groups you are targeting to come and have a back of house tour.  In addition, you can release images on a Creative Commons license, which can be added to related pages on Wikipedia and link back to your institution.

There are currently more than 270 different language versions of Wikipedia available, and Andy mentioned one that they are keen to expand on more is the Welsh Wikipedia (Wicipedia) which at 27,000 articles is the 59th largest Wikipedia edition (as of April 2010).

Wikimedia Commons – Encourages institutions to upload open license images from their archives.  The benefits to the institution are increased awareness of your collections and raising your worldwide profile.  You can also get Wikipedia editors around the world to help you find information about your items.  For example, the National Archives in the U.S.A. put photos with no metadata on Wikimedia and asked the Wikipedia contributors to tag them.

QRpedia – encodes URL of a Wikipedia article and when the QR code is scanned with a smart phone it returns the article in a mobile friendly format to the phone in the language that the phone uses.  This is particularly useful if you have a lot of tourists visiting your collections, it will save you the cost of translating exhibition panels.  It doesn’t even have to be your own article, it can be a generic one, or an associated one, i.e. next to a Van Gogh painting can be the link to the Van Gogh biography on Wikipedia.  I found this part of the session very interesting, as I immediately saw the benefits it could have where I work.

Scanning QR codes at Derby Museum (QRpedia site)

At the end of the session Andy set us all 'homework', he recommended we find an article on Wikipedia that has errors in that we could correct, or one that was a 'stub' (a short article in need of expansion) and add to it.  Although I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, I'm definitely keen to give it a go.



The Wikipedia entry for the National Museum Wales,
 which is currently a stub article



Wales's National Museum of Art, or shameless promotion of my place of work

Not strictly cpd23 things related but it's all most of us at work can think about at the moment.

Amgueddfa Gelf Genedlaethol - Wales National Museum of Art is opening to the public this weekend.  It's a really big deal and includes the unveiling of the brand new contemporary art galleries in the west wing of the building, which had been closed for refurbishment since 2007!

I was lucky enough to look around the galleries a few months ago, after the refurbishment was finished but before any art was installed, and thought they looked stunning.  They've done an amazing job, somehow managing to make it look modern but at the same time still in keeping with the age of the building and the other gallery spaces.  They had originally seemed like small rather dark spaces, but the team has opened everything out and they are now spacious and full of light.

On Wednesday we got the chance to see them with all the art works installed, and I have to say they looked great.  Amgueddfa Cymru is known for its impressive collection of Impressionist works, but it's clear that our selection of modern and contemporary art is pretty strong also.  One of my favourites was a Richard Long installation in the very top gallery.

And the best thing is, it won't be a static display; the art department is committed to rotating the works on display on a regular basis!

So if you happen to be visiting Cardiff you should definitely make a point of coming to see the new National Museum of Art http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/3357/