6 months

I just put the kettle on and already it's June. I can remember starting my new job, standing in the kitchen with its blue laminate floor, making tea. Flicking the switch, to boil the water, to wet the teabag, stir in the milk and drink. I couldn't possibly count the number of cups of tea and coffee i've drank over the past 6 months but its a lot (at a guess 720). The tea gives me a minute to relax, no thinking, searching or talking.
Aside from the tea I've spent six months learning from one of the best local history librarians in Scotland, Graham Hopner. It has truly been an honour and an education working with Graham. I wish he wasn't retiring tomorrow, I still have so much to learn from him. The history is there, the records, cuttings, books but it's the life that Graham breathes into each piece of history that makes the understanding all the easier.
Looking back over the months I've used Wordle to devise a word cloud of the enquires and documents I've worked on.

Looking through my files the first email enquiry I received was from Glasgow Museums looking for information on Dumbarton Art School. 
The school has it's origins within Dumbarton Burgh Academy; it was set up in the attic flat of the academy in 1882. The school was begun after a meeting on the 21st Nov 1882 of interested parties to create an art school, initiated by Mr. William Denny of the Leven Shipyard. The school was only used for a month in the attic flat of the Burgh Academy as a fire destroyed the building after the school started operating. A plumber carelessly knocked over a candle whilst installing some pipe work.The Dumbarton Burgh Academy was rebuilt in 1884 and the School of Art moved into more spacious accommodation, the cost of which was £1000 pounds provided by Mr. William Denny and friends. Early in the 20th Century the school was named the Dumbarton School of Science and Art.It wasn't the history of the school that intested me the most but a photograph of the interior. It has became an iconic image for me.

Dumbarton Art School © West Dunbartonshire Libraries

Day 3 - retail therapy?

Day three of the CILIPS annual conference began for me with a presentation by Fiona Edwards of Opening the Book. The theme for the presentation ‘Turning Browsers into Borrowers: adapting retail techniques for the library’. As you can imagine it was a packed session in the Blythswood Room of the Mitchell Library. Fiona gave us cause for thought with her presentation on improving the browsing/choosing experience of our library patrons, customers, users, visitors. The retail aspect of the presentation focused on bookshops in particular Waterstones, which to be fair still have a hold on the UK High Street book market. Fiona briefed us on where bookshops get it right, mostly through their promotions such as multi buys, bestsellers, top ten and book of the month displays. As library services we don’t have the stock budgets to produce these large scale displays or keep these displays adequately stocked. So, how do we improve our services and turn browsers into borrowers? Fiona gives us some tips:

• Quick Choice – tempts the borrower, makes choice easier
• Recommendations – whether it be reader to reader or staff recommends  
• Face-on Displays – in fiction and non-fiction areas, helps to brand non-fiction areas

As mentioned Fiona is from Opening the Book, who provide online library training ‘frontline’ for library staff. The enthusiasm of staff that have completed the course was evident today listening to Elizabeth Farr and Liz Moffat from Stirling Libraries. Their session ‘Marketing Books to readers in Stirling’ described their approach to reader development and marketing after completing the frontline training course. They explained how rewriting their policies on reader development and marketing came from re-evaluating after the training. Through identifying their strengths and weaknesses they have several new initiatives, one being ensuring they have 2 new promotions each month. They have also taken the approach of branding their libraries, having not only a marketing team but a design team who work in conjunction with Stirling Councils corporate communication team, which I thought was an excellent idea.Tips from Liz & Elizabeth:

• Talk to your borrowers
• Just do it! Try things, if it doesn't work drop it
• Remember your 'loss leaders'
• Evaluate constantly
• Keep information positive 
• Look outside your comfort zone for stock promotions

I enjoyed the session however as a past employee of Waterstones and a current public librarian I also felt exasperated by it. Only over the past couple of years it seems are public libraries looking at retail techniques that have been about for decades, longer even (I can remember one Scottish authority visiting Waterstones in the late 90’s to discuss with us how to promote stock to both adult and junior borrowers). Although comments heard after the presentation concentrated on the realisation that the majority of us use or have used the techniques mentioned above. So, have we become complacent in our approach to continuous best practice in developing the reading experience and marketing of books? We provide excellent services; we have large diverse ranges of stock, we have fantastic initiatives – too many to mention SO are we just really bad at marketing book stock? Do we need to be making more regular visits to the High St for inspiration? Should I be calling Mary Portas for advice? Have we spent far too much time over the past few years concentrating on our learning provision and lifelong learning initiatives and not enough time on stock promotions and reader experience? As librarians we should not underestimate what we can learn from the retail sector, after all Waterstones is still fighting and winning its retail battle. Many will argue that the retail bookshops learned from librarians, maybe so and it’s a large maybe, but they manage to keep selling books, our issues are dipping. At the end of the day bookshops need to make money and we need borrowers and issues, its cold hard profit which ever way you dress it. If the retail sector holds the key to falling issues and active borrower statistics then I’m all for getting a copy of the key.

fbook

I’m not addicted but I do spend time on social networks. I wondered today, do I actually learn anything whilst on Fbook? I browse, flick and glimpse my way though other peoples updates, I learn about birthdays, babies, holidays, nights out, politics, books, films and music. Great, but can I use any of this in everyday life? Will any of it ever be a golden nugget of information that I’ll one day get out and polish? I looked back at the last five days of fbook updates and found; one new web site, airline charges, some DIY tips and some seventies TV nostalgia.

Nuggets:
Ryanair will charge you £40 for being 3 minutes late for a flight.
The film 'The Bands Visit' is recommended.
Need a t-shirt http://www.cuteweethings.com.au/
That a hangover can be induced by red bull and monster just as much as it can be with alcohol.
You can power wash wooden decking.
Dr. Peter Reid became a professor.
One of my best mates completed her 300th geocache today.
Your hungover brain can find animal shapes in landscape photographs (lion below)
It was confirmed that Gary Coleman had died, the actor from Diff'rent Strokes… ‘what you talking about willis’.
Twiki (pronounced twee-kee) was the best thing in Buck Rogers! Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny et al) was the voice.

The Lions Head

©Sharon Donnelly