Ebooks and me: part 1

This post from Library Thing’s Thingology blog has had me thinking this week about my relationship with ebooks.

Two disclaimers:

1. I love ebooks
2. I hate ebooks

Yeah, I know – how totally uncontroversial. Doesn’t everyone have mixed feeling about ebooks? Does anyone love them unconditionally? Does anyone hate them with a rare and rabid passion? I suppose they must be out there…

So what do I love about ebooks? Well, first off, they’re books. They may not have all those fancy bits-of-paper-with-ink-on, but they contain words that tell stories. That’s good enough for me.

Secondly, they’re immediate. I’m a highly impatient person – I hate waiting for anything – and I’m completely hooked on the idea that if I want to read something *now*, I can. Ok, not everything is available as an ebook, but a suprising number are. Enought to keep me happy, anyway True, it might cost me a lot to read it, but that’s the price of indulgence. And…

… thirdly: so may ebooks are free! It’s almost impossible to say just how much I love Project Gutenberg. It’s a source of constant delight to me. So many books! For free! And I can do whatever I want with them! (within certain limits). What’s really important for me is that Gutenberg ebooks are platform independent. I generally choose to read them in Word if I’m on my pc, and my phone has some good text readers for me to Gutenberg on the go. In fact, Gutenberg are making their texts available in loads of formats, that can be read on almost any device.

But it’s not just Gutenberg – there are loads of good, free ebooks sites. I’m not going to go into details about that here (oh, you insist? ok ;p ), but I will give a shout-out to the Internet Archive texts collection. Sometimes, I really do like the experience of seeing the book in its original layout, rather than robbed of some of their character – as they can be – when they are reduced to just text, and formatted/fonted to your preference.

One of the things I love most about free ebooks is the serendipity involved. I don’t buy new books very often, and when I do, it’s usually by an author I know I’ll like. Most of my reading experimentation is done in the library or the charity shop. But with free ebooks, you get the freedom to try something just because you like the title. I subscribe to the Gutenberg new books rss, and I’ll go through and tag the ones I like the look of. Then when I’m bored – instant reading list!

I know you do get the same kind of low-risk serendipity in libraries, but not to the same extent – certainly not with most public libraries. They’ll have a collection development policy, which will necessarily limit what you will find. The ebooks sites don’t have that – the Internet Archive explicitly states ‘This collection is open to the community for the contribution of any type of text’. This naturally creates a greater diversity (within the bounds of public domain texts, of course) – nothing is excluded, nothing is weeded. Nothing is on loan with a 4-month reserve list!

Before I leave free ebooks, I must mention Distributed Proofreaders, who provide most of the books for Project Gutenberg. Anyone can sign up to start proofreading texts, which have been scanned and OCRd. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? Well, it is! I don’t know why, but I really enjoy it. You can choose which books you work on – some really dedicated DPers work on things in miniscule columns full of Latin and Greek and obscure scientific formulae. I work mainly on children’s books, with about 100 words to the page

It’s incredibly satisfying to feel that you’ve been a part of preserving this knowledge, and enabling its dissemination. I also like spotting errors (*ahem* librarian *ahem*), and puzzling out what words might be based on the context. Oddly enough, reading a few random pages of a book can be absolutely fascinating. I don’t do as much with DP as I should, but when I do make the time I love it, and vow to do more.

This has turned into a bit of a monster post, so I’ll save the hate (grr!) for part 2 (which means I have to remember to write it). A few more quick ‘things I love’:

• Portability! Often mentioned, but the fact that I have about 100 hours of reading material on my phone – including War and Peace and 4 vols of Maupassant short stories – never fails to astound and delight me. And it’s always with me. I never used to leave the house without a paperback in my bag; now I’ll only take one for train journeys.
• The fact that I can read ebooks while eating (assuming, as I do, that I generally eat in front of my computer) without having to juggle food and book, or concoct elaborate book-proppy-open devices. It’s on the screen – it doesn’t move, or close, or get obscured by gravy. And one finger will turn a page.
• Left your book at home, and dying to spend lunchtime catching up with it? No problem! Just download another copy. This applies to most paid ebooks, as well as free ones – many (possibly all?) retailers allow multiple downloads of the same book. You may have to enter passwords or register a device ID, but you can get at it. And for those of us with story-addictions, that’s a great big plus.

Ok, that’s the love over. Ready for some hate? Part 2 will turn up some time after I get around to writing it

food in libraries

I’ve really been enjoying the food in libraries stories going around on twitter today. It takes me back to my graduate trainee days (because, umm, that’s the only time I’ve ever actually worked in a library), when John Rylands were rethinking their food and drink policy – at the time, bottled water only. It interested me at the time, and when I went on a presentation skills course, I chose to do my presentation on food and drink in the library.

Leaving aside the searing terror, and the issue of my presentation skills (I fidgeted too much, and wrote in all caps, which is apparently Bad Practice), the thing I remember most from the presentation is the anecdote I used to illustrate my conclusion. I’d been working in the library for all of about 3 months at this point, and I was happily walking back from the kitchen to our office, when I saw a student with a cup of coffee. I was on my way to say something to him, when I looked down at the mug of tea in my hand, and realised what a screaming hypocrite that would make me.

True, I was employed by the library. True, I was going to drink the tea in my office. But there was still a computer there, still plenty of damage I could have caused with a careless slip of the wrist. It’s not like ‘advanced beverage handling 101′ was part of my induction. This really made me rethink my initial response (no! no food! bad students!) into something more measured, more conciliatory (well, ok, then, that’s fine. Just be careful. and don’t take the piss! and do take your rubbish!).

And that’s the line that John Rylands took (I can claim absolutely no role whatsoever in that decision!). Their food and drink policy became ‘it’s your library, leave no trace‘, and I still think that it is a pretty sensible policy. It took a while for me to get used to seeing food and drink being blithely consumed under the watchful eye of librarians, but I got used to it, and have even drunk coffee in the stacks myself.

I’m not saying it’s a perfect solution – I’m sure current JRUL staff could tell you about a number of drawbacks! – but I think it’s a good way to educate the user about the consequences of their behaviour, rather than just forbidding them. And the library cafe serves good coffee, so overall? Benefits all round

ps my ambition is now to take a kettle to a library. and a toaster. and an electric coffee grinder. maybe a juicer? gadget lady forever!

Library day in the life round 4 day 4: where I’m not

This is a bit of a cheeky/cheaty library day in the life post, as it’s not actually about where I am and what I did today: it’s about where I’m not, and what I’m not doing.

I’m not in St Louis, for the SLA Leadership Summit. I haven’t just come out of the ‘Moving forward with Alignment’ session. I’m not currently networking with other delegates while eating lunch and waiting for Jim Kane’s keynote. I won’t be visiting Busch Stadium with a host of new contacts, colleagues, and even friends.

I wasn’t there, earlier today, to hear the fantastic news that SLA Europe is the Chapter with the highest % growth, and with the highest number of new members. I don’t have a slight headache from last night’s networking cocktail party. I won’t get to hear the hands-on experience panel of the First Five Years Advisory Committee talk about how to encourage new professionals into leadership.

I’m not there to hear the announcement that I’ve been named an SLA Rising Star for 2010 (this worries me slightly, actually, as I can’t quite shake the feeling that it’s all a big joke. This award comes with an invitation to attend Leadership – I would never have thought about attending otherwise, but now I feel that I’m missing something…) I wasn’t there to meet the other Rising Stars! What are they like? When do I get to know them? When can we start collaborating??

I’m not there to experience an SLA conference with only one thing on the schedule at any given time! I can watch the #slaleads tweets – which is great! – but I wish I was there to add to them.

So that’s what I didn’t do today. The Leadership Summit goes on until Saturday, but don’t worry, you won’t get two more posts whining about what I’m missing! I know we can’t always take all the opportunities that come our way, and that dwelling on missed ones won’t shoe no chickens, but I think everyone’s allowed an occasional reflection on what might have been

Library day in the life round 4: day 3

I’ve been mainly doing my day-in-the-life updates through twitter, but decided you deserved a proper blog post today Apologies if you know all this already!

I got into work slightly earlier than usual (9:45 instead of 10! I’m not a morning person, and prefer to work later if possible), as a colleague was borrowing my phone to record an interview with a Copac user, and needed to be shown how to use it as a voice recorder. We’re interviewing users of Copac, the Archives Hub and Zetoc at the moment, to gather evidence about how our services are being used by researchers and educators. I always enjoy talking to our users – it’s great to hear how much they value the services, and how they are using them. It’s also interesting to hear about people’s research areas! Among the topics so far we’ve had mosquito mating; the history of Scottish shawls; 12th century views on magic; and African border disputes (my sincere apologies to anyone whose research area I’ve just totally misrepresented! This is all filtered through my limited understanding.)

I spoke to an Archives Hub user at 10:30, which meant I missed out on a Mimas institution – coffee morning. This is a legacy from when Mimas staff were spread over a number of locations, and didn’t have much contact with each other. We’re rather more collegial now (down to only 2 locations!), but it’s still nice to meet up on Weds morning, for coffee and a chat.

After the interview, I posted a blog post I’d written earlier. I’d asked an SLA E colleague to read it, to make sure that I wasn’t dragging the good name of SLA Europe into disrepute, and posted it once she’d given me the thumbs-up (yes, I can be quite paranoid!). Then to transcribing the interview, which – as always – took far longer than I expected!

Just before lunch, time to arrange a visit to Chetham’s – always a treat! they’re a Copac contributor, and are interested in contributing their archive records to the Archives Hub. I’m going down to talk them through exporting their records from CALM and uploading them to the Hub EAD editor. In their supreme loveliness they’ve offered to buy me lunch if I go in the morning

Then to trying to work out why the file from the first interview this morning would play on my computer and not Lisa’s. I’m fairly sure it was a codec problem, but I didn’t really have time to identify exactly what the issue was, so I just downloaded a freeware converter, and converted it to .avi. Thankfully, that worked.

Lunch, and drafting this post to cover my morning. After lunch I set up a trial access to the RLUK database for a potential new customer, which involved everyone in the office trying to remember where we’d put the documentation, and which login to use (we don’t do this very often!). That task successfully conquered, I emailed a contributor whose descriptions are being added to Copac very shortly, to ask for some information and a photo so that I can make them a Copac library page.

Then a news blog post and a tweet about the new Copac iGoogle widget that one of our talented programmers has produced.

Then back into the murky world of IT-ish things, as the xslt I needed arrived from Adlib. I soon realised that I didn’t actually know what to do with the xslt – I knew I needed to apply it to the xml file somehow, but how? After being very scared by the results of a Google search (’simply build this in basic!’ ‘applying xslt transformations in asp.net!’), of one my colleagues pointed out that my xml reader should have the necessary software built in. It did, and I managed to find the right menu options all by myself! For me, this counts as a victory over technology

Before heading home, I decided to finish off the blog post I started yesterday, to be a follow-up to this post on the Copac Developments blog. This post deals with the format of the Copac records, and how we de-duplicate, so I’ve sent it off to be checked by people in the know, to make sure I’ve got my facts straight.

Other things I’ve done today? the usual email checking (including a wry smile of amusement at the discussion on the lis-web2 list about whether discussions should take place on the list); catching up on a few lib/info related RSS feeds; and admiring the new artwork around our offices.

This is the result of a Mimas photography competition, and I’m really pleased that my favourite picture (by Copac’s very own Ashley) is right outside our office.

judge not…

I have a confession to make: I’m not looking forward to judging the entries for this year’s SLA Europe ECCAs. In fact, I’m starting to wish that I hadn’t put so much effort into promoting them; hadn’t encouraged so many people to apply. Why? It’s not because I’m jealous of younger (and probably prettier) librarians muscling in on my territory. It’s not that I want New Orleans all to myself. It’s not because other people’s achievements will send me scurrying away to weep into my cardigan. No, it’s because I’m on the judging panel. I have to help make this decision. And frankly that scares the bejeebers out of me.

Let me make this clear: I am on the judging panel. I do not make the choices myself. And if we are tied, there is Someone Else who will make the final decision. But I’m still scared.

Part of that fear is because I’m still a fairly new professional; still rather unsure of my professional footing; still astounded that anyone thinks I should be allowed to have a say in these things. But the hard parts are the price of the fun parts. I got to swan around telling everyone how fantastic the ECCAs were and how everyone should apply and now they are and I have to deal with making the hard choices.

And they will be hard choices. The applications we’ve had so far have been of a fantastic standard, and we expect many more before the deadline. We do have objective criteria to judge on – don’t worry, your chance doesn’t rest purely on my whims! – but I don’t know how good I’ll be at applying them. I’ve never done anything like this before: never judged; never interviewed; never had to give marks for anything (except to 5-year-olds for maths, and that’s a whole different kettle of poo). How do I know I can be objective? I know some of the people who are applying. Even with their names taken off, I know where they work/study, papers they’ve written, presentations they’ve given. Just how difficult is it going to be to discard all I know about them, about their talent and what they’d get out of the award, what they’d give to SLA in turn, to forget all that and just judge by what’s on the paper in front of me? I know that’s what I have to do. I’m just saying it’s not going to be easy.

Winning one of the ECCAs last year has made an incredible difference to my professional life. How do I deny others that chance? How do I say ‘no, sorry, not you’? I know that I should be thinking of it as giving 2 people an amazing opportunity, but right now I can’t stop thinking of the others who don’t get it.

That said, it’s not just me. I have wonderful colleagues on the panel who I trust to steer us through to the right, albeit difficult, decision. And there always has to be a first time, I guess. (you see? I’m so distraught I can’t think of anything better than that really lame cliche. It’s taking its toll!)

If you’re thinking of applying for the ECCAs please, please, PLEASE don’t let my whining put you off! I’m having a ‘poor little me’ moment, but really I want the judging panel to have a very difficult job. I want us to be overwhelmed with incredible applicants. I want to give two fantastic people a fantastic chance. And I want everyone who applies to know that, simply by applying, they’ve done a brilliant thing. They’ve stepped forward and asked to be counted. They’ve shown commitment to the profession, and to their personal development. I wish we could send everyone to conference, but as that would require the help of some whimsical millionaire with a passion for effective and professional information provision, you might just have to settle for the promise that I’ll buy all unsuccessful applicants a pint. Scant comfort, but tasty beer

[ps I spent ages trying to get a heavy metal quote into the title somehow. I really wanted a variant on 'Fear of the Dark' but the best I could come up with was 'Fear of the Quark. Rest assured, if I ever have occasion to blog about particle physics, that will be my title ]

Library day in the life round 4: day 1

Now, although this is the fourth round of the highly interesting Library Day in the Life project, it’s my first time at it, so forgive me if I’m boring/off-topic/repetitive/very bad at posting daily. I’m probably going to be doing most of my updating on twitter, partly because I’m lazy (and full blog posts can seem like just too much effort, what with thier need for proper sentences and grammer and all yer-what-nots), and partly because I like having the little snapshots of what people are doing at a particular point in the day.

I thought I’d start this week with some background on what I actually do, so that the day-to-day (or hour-to-hour) updates will have some context, and hopefully make some sense! Following on with the theme of laziness, I’ve decided to lift this directly from the annotated CV I’m putting together as part of my CILIP chartership portfolio:

Content Development Officer, Library and Archival Services
Mimas, the University of Manchester Apr 09 – present
This is an expansion of my Copac Challenge Fund Support Officer post to include a role as Project Officer for the Archives Hub.

The aim of my role is to identify and facilitate sustainable content development opportunities for Copac and the Archives Hub. This involves scoping the UK library, archive and museum scene for potential contributors, and then liaising with these potential contributors to determine the possibility of them becoming contributors. For those who do become contributors, I manage the logistics and data processing. This involves corresponding with musuems, libraries and archives by phone or email, and has included some visits to institutions.

The data processing side of the role for Copac has seen me using a linux command-based system to study files of MARC data, ensuring that no errors have been caused by our automated procedures, and that the data we receive from the libraries is consistent and valid MARC. This has led to me becoming very familiar with MARC rules and fields.

For the Archives Hub, I am working with archival software providers to improve their EAD (Encoded Archival Description) exports. This has involved learning EAD and examining exports in XML reader software. I will be providing the two major archival software manufacturers (CALM and Adlib) with specifications for improving their export.

My role also involves promotional and outreach activity. I have worked the Mimas stand at the 2008 RLUK conference and the 2009 Online conference, and I presented a poster on the Copac Challenge Fund at the 2009 CILIP Umbrella conference. I also contribute to the Copac and Archives Hub blogs, and have co-authored articles about Copac with a colleague.

I also provide general support for Copac and the Archives Hub, which involves answering user queries two days a week, and supporting colleagues in producing documentation and giving user training. I have also assisted Jane Stevenson in teaching EAD to Liverpool University MA Archive students.

It’s not exactly deathless prose, but it’s a fairly formal rendition of what I do with my time. For a more informal and in-depth look, watch this space

Swearing on Twitter

Something that’s been on my mind recently is the issue of swearing on twitter. This hasn’t been prompted by anything in particular, and it’s purely relating to my own tweets. I’m not criticising anyone else for swearing (or not!), just trying to work out where I stand on it.

Now, I swear. A lot. And I don’t have a problem with other people swearing. I’m not going to go into why I think swearing has a place in the language – others have done that far more eloquently than I could hope to – but whether it has a place on my twitter stream.

The thing is, I’ve always lived by the rule that you don’t swear in professional situations, or in front of clients. Spilled a cup of tea over a huge stack of newspapers? Oh sugar. Getting torrents of abuse from punters? Smile, grit your teeth, and call them sir. I’d never swear while working a reference desk, or at an interview. I wouldn’t swear on a conference stand, or in a work-related blog post (in general, yeah? Appreciate that this post might be a little hard to write otherwise! So, if you haven’t already guessed, there will be swearing in this post. Look away now if you’re of a nervous disposition.)

But what about twitter? Is it a professional milieu? Sure, I have a lot of professional contacts on twitter, but we don’t just talk about work all the time. Sure, my twitter contacts may one day be interviewing me for a job, or reviewing my papers, but will it really matter then that I once called someone a wanker on twitter? Will they remember? Will they care?

It really does come down to where I feel my twitter circle fits in the professional/personal scale. Many of my tweets are personal, or not directly professionally relevant; but I know that when I do have something of professional interest to say, then I have an audience who will be interested and engaged. So how do I deal with this mix?

I’ve come to the conclusion that, for me, twitter is like after-conference drinks in the pub. For an even more concrete example, twitter is like drinks in the Head of Steam after Mash oop North (possibly because I met a lot of tweeps for the first time there). It’s a friendly, collegial atmosphere, where you know that you can appreciate each other’s professional interests, but are also more relaxed, talking about telly and books and music and making jokes. It’s an atmosphere where a bit of judicious swearing is perfectly in order.

And so, I have decided, for my twitter. Don’t worry that my stream is going to become NSFW, with random expletives jammed into every post. This is, after all, judicious swearing – and I do have to remember that other people’s twitter milieus might not be the same as mine. They may feel that it is a professional only area, and that swearing is inappropriate. But what sort of swearing? I doubt anyone would be offended by the occasional ’sod it’ or ‘bloody’. ‘Bugger’ is probably ok, and I think I could get away with ’shit’. ‘Bollocks’ is probably moving closer to the wire. And as for the f and c words? Well, as you can see, I’ve wimped out of using them here, in a post about swearing, where I’ve warned people there will be swearing. So probably not, no. (why am I so worried about it? It’s not like no-one’s ever said ‘fuck’ on the internet. oh, there we go!)

I realise that this might seem like a trivial post – or an excuse to chuck swearwords around on my blog – but it has actually made me think quite carefully about what being a professional entails. I’d always had this vague sense that being professional meant being on your best behaviour at all times – until you’d locked the door and taken your shoes off, and then you could do what the hell you liked. Problem is, a lot of our professional interaction now is taking place behind that locked door, and I can tell you for a fact I’m not wearing any shoes right now.

I can also tell you that the professionals I respect most are those who let their human side show. Those people who are efficient, informative, and amusing. Who can get the job done and still have time for a natter. Who are confident enough in themselves to find the balance between formality and informality. People who are ‘always on’ I find intimidating. Little touches of the personal help people to relate to you, feel more comfortable with you, and (I believe) make for better working relationships.

So, that interviewer who remembers me swearing on twitter. Will it hinder my chances? Could it even help? Or would it simply be of no importance? We are adults, communicating with each other by the tools commonly used in society, and swearing is one of those tools. So why am I agonising about it? I think it’s about time I bloody well shut up

Reading habits

With 2 hours to go of this working year, and my inbox down to zero (mainly due to the creation of a ‘random’ folder), I decided to resurrect this rather old reading habits meme, as previously done by woodsiegirl, jaffne, joeyanne, stupidgirl_no1, ioverlord, and – of course! – infobunny. And probably others I have missed (sorry).

(2 queries arise from that paragraph: am I odd for naturally referring to people by their twitter usernames? probably. did I just link to all those posts just to get more visitors? of course not! perish the thought)

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?

Let’s get this out there to start with: I read a lot. I appreciate that this isn’t going to particularly set me aside in this company, but it does mean that if I didn’t snack while reading, I would probably die of malnourishment. I eat whole meals while reading. Favourite reading food? Anything that can be eaten with one hand.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

Horrify? no. I did this when I was younger, but haven’t done for years, mainly because I have no need to. Writing in a book you own, that isn’t rare/unique etc is fine by me. As long as it’s done in pencil! Pen in books does horrify me. Dunno why.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?

Bookmarks! but not yer proper fancy bookmarks, all with pictures on and everything. I’ll use anything that comes to hand – preferably paper, but have been known to use photos, rulers, random bits of plastic. Train tickets work well, but I have a nasty habit of leaving them in the book when I need them to get off the platform *sigh*

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?

Fiction all the way! I do read occasional bits of non-fiction, but they tend to be quite narrative-based.

Hard copy or audiobooks?

Generally hard copy. I will sometimes listen to audiobooks (especially if the reader is someone appealing), but it takes me much longer to listen to a book than read it, and I’d generally much rather just get on with the story!

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?

Actually, I’m the sort of person who tends to read to the end of books! If I’m really into a book, you just can’t prise me away from it. This has led to me having to impose restrictions on my in-bed reading – poetry, short stories/essays, or novels only if they’re not plot-driven. Wodehouse is great for that. Other fave night-time authors are O Henry, James Thurber, John Donne, Alan Coren, E B White, Stephen Fry, Ring Lardner. If I try reading something with a strong plot, I never get any sleep

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?

If I can’t figure it out from context, and have OED access at hand, then yes. I likes words

What are you currently reading?

Horror of horrors, I’m actually between books at the moment! Day-time books anyway, my current bed book is Kipling’s The Jungle Book.

Recent books have included the new Stephen King, General Bramble by Andre Maurois, and an old favourite, Joan Aitken’s Midnight is a Place. I think this is going to be next, when the partying finally stops and I’m sober enough to focus

What is the last book you bought?

Loads for christmas presents. I’ve actually been buying myself quite a few new books recently. This is normally taboo, as it would cost me a bloody fortune to keep myself in new books, so it’s generally library and charity shops all the way. I love charity book-shopping! The thrill of the unknown!

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?

More than one, often. I tend to finish books very quickly (my goal for this year has been a book a day, and I’m currently at 1.045! hurrah!), and so I find I can switch without getting too confused. I’ll switch books if I need a handbag sized book for a bus journey etc.

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?

Anywhere. Anytime. My sofa is probably the comfiest, but I’m happy reading under almost any circumstances!

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?

Series books! There are more of them And I can get a bit obsessive about reading them in order as well – no spoilers for me!

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?

Depends. I’ll receommend different things to different people, but I do have some staples that absolutely everyone should read: Catcher in the Rye; and Diary of a Provincial Lady.

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)

Roughly alphabetically by author’s last name (all the A’s together etc), with works by the same author grouped, and series books in order. This only holds true for the main collection – I have sub-collections in other rooms that are much more higgeldy-piggeldy (ie kid’s lit in the spare room; old-style Penguins downstairs looking decorative).

Graduate Trainee days

Recent mentions of Graduate Trainees (in various contexts) have had me thinking back to my graduate trainee days. Spoiler alert: I *loved* being a graduate trainee. Absolutely adored it. I sometimes think that it would be my ideal job: roving the library, a few weeks here, a few days there; some nice project-work to be getting on with; sticking my nose in to absolutely everything; a veritable library JOAT.

Alas, this is probably never going to happen. But I did have the chance to do that for a year, which is more than many prospective librarians. Especially now.

I did my trainee year at the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester, and it was brilliant. Graduate traineeships work slightly differently at all institutions, and at Manchester we worked in different departments in short blocks, to give us a taste of life throughout the library. From knowing absolutely nothing about the workings of a large academic library, I got to attend faculty and Senior Management Team meetings. From never having handled a rare book, I was sent to check the accession slips in the incunables. From never having used a bio-medical database, I started training students in how to use them.

Some of my fondest memories are of my time in the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. They were preparing to re-open after refurbishment, and we go to be part of moving the collections from off-site into their new storage areas. We also got the run of the building. And what a building! Stunningly impressive to visit; inspiring to study in; and quite frankly astounding to work in. It’s so odd to visit now, to remember ‘oh yes! I spent hours in front of those cases, with accession numbers and archival tape’.

In my enthusiasm, I kept records of some of the work I did as a graduate trainee. (If you’re interested, you can see them here) I’m incredibly glad that I did! It’s very valuable for me to be able to trace that early development; a record of the time when I was learning that I loved being a librarian!

My graduate traineeship gave me very high expectations for the rest of my career. I was treated as a professional. My ideas were listened to. I was allowed – nay, encouraged! – to come up with suggestions and ideas for projects. It instilled in me a deep and abiding love for the profession, and a respect for those who practice it well. It also gave me a very strong loyalty to John Rylands – they gave me a fantastic start, and I’ll always be grateful to them for that.

This makes me all the sadder that there are no graduate trainees at John Rylands this year. I understand that budgets are tight, and may well need to be spent elsewhere, but I do feel that graduate trainees are an excellent investment. They’re good for the library itself, who get enthusiastic, intelligent staff with new ideas and outlooks (for a fraction of the cost of a professional). They’re also good for the profession as a whole. I certainly wouldn’t be half the information prof I am today without my traineeship. This isn’t an attempt to big-up my value to the profession! But extrapolate that to all the graduate trainees, every year (there are currently 56 traineeships advertised on the CILIP page), and that’s an awful lot of potential information professionals who may not be being developed to the best of their capabilities.

If I had gone straight into my MA, I would not be as enthusiastic about the profession. I would not be as confident in myself as a professional. I would not have as high an opinion of my fellow professionals. I almost certainly would not be where I am today, and I like where I am today. Very much, in fact. I wouldn’t have got involved with SLA Europe, and be in a position where I can now help other new professionals.

I’m certainly not saying that graduate traineeships are the only valid route into the profession! I’m saying (in a long, rambling, ranty kind-of way) that they are a valuable route which can produce quite unquantifiable benefits. Ah, there’s the rub. ‘Unquantifiable’. Who has money now for anything unquantifiable?

There was an email recently on lis-link about the possibility of setting up a network for graduate trainees. Perhaps what we need as well is a network for past graduate trainees – perhaps an off-shoot of Library Routes/Roots? – where we can share what traineeships have brought to our careers. Start to try to document the unquantifiable. Be a concrete reminder of what could be lost.

Thoughts on my failure to meet my chartership deadline

I was supposed to be submitting my chartership, via the trial e-portfolio system, before 31/12/09. This is not going to happen.

I am meeting my mentor tomorrow, and I was supposed to have done a CV, an updated PPDP, and a draft evaluative statement. Most of this is not going to happen.

Why? I jokingly remarked that it was because I was too busy developing professionally to spend time on my portfolio. While this was a flippant remark, it does have a grain of truth. Since I agreed to submit by the end of December, I have become more involved with SLA E, and my work as co-chair of the Early Careers Committee has increased. We have also been very busy at Mimas, with all my projects taking off at once!

Another contributing factor has been my frustration with the e-portfolio system. I have found it very un-intuitive to use, and found the lack of documented help/instructions very frustrating. I’m normally quite keen to be an early adopter of these things, but just found that I couldn’t get to grips with this system.

After contacting some other people who were using the system, and finding that they wanted support too, I set up the ning, where we could share ideas and tips. This sense of having a peer group did help, and I started to feel better about the system.

Then I tried using it again. It might just be me, but I found that it was really detracting from my chartership experience. I had no feeling of something coming together, just of odd pieces of evidence stuck on at various times. I found that I was really dreading coming to look at it, and really wasn’t enjoying doing any chartership work. So I have decided that I probably won’t be submitting using that system.

I hadn’t realised quite how stressed I was, both by the e-portfolio system and the December deadline, until I decided that I wasn’t going to make it. I hate missing deadlines – it feels like such a failure! – but in this case it’s actually an enormous relief.

What this extra time (I’m hoping to submit around March/April) will give me is a chance to completely revisit how I am thinking about my chartership. I realised that while some of my disjointed feel was down to the e-portfolio system, much of it was due to the fact that I didn’t have a coherent plan for my portfolio. I knew in a vague way what should be in it, but I’d just been picking things out as I went along. I hadn’t been using my PPDP properly, as a basis for the structure. Frankly, I didn’t have a structure! I’d been assuming that as long as I was doing the development activities and the reflection, that the portfolio would pretty much organise itself. I was very, very wrong.

So, what I will have for my mentor tomorrow is this blog post, explaining why I don’t have any of the things I was supposed to prepare. But I do now have a better appreciation of what is involved in putting together a chartership portfolio, and am feeling geared-up to get going with it. And a little enthusiasm is worth a boat-load of paperwork, right?