Inadequate - chartership

Do we all get a feeling of inadequacy at times, unless we happen to be Yoda?

I’ve realised that it’s now 12 months since I started my Chartership journey and I still feel rather perplexed by the whole process.
I’ve perused CILIP’s Chartership webpage, read the example submission, joined the JISC mailing lists, attended the portfolio building course, collated the information from personal to professional, included the wider context, dissected my service and filled several folders full of potential evidence. [remembering to breathe in and out]
Then when I think I’ve got the 1,000 words, the contents page devised and the evidence ear marked for final submission, I get that overpowering feeling that it’s just not good enough.
When I look at some of the exciting young librarians on Twitter, the work they do everyday to promote library and information services is fantastic. I often think that what I do doesn’t measure up….I’m not an advocate like Jo Alcock, Ian Clark , Bethan Ruddock and others.

I’m just the Local Studies Librarian for the fourth smallest local authority in Scotland. Nonetheless every day:


I can make someone smile, a genuine eye smile.
I make it easier for people to locate information.
I find that piece of information they have been searching years to find.
I can help find the last piece of someone’s puzzle.
I help people become familiar with their heritage.
I can correct someone’s assumptions.
I can listen to someone tell me a little about themselves, just because I’m there.
I find things every day that make we want to cry.
I find things every day that make we want to smile.
I can spend days on just one enquiry, relate that to a statistic.
I can teach people to locate information for themselves.
I make researchers jobs easier.
I geek my job.


If you found the above list rudimentary then I’m sorry but at times it’s the simple things that matter. If you want to read the in-depth version then I’ll post you the 2, A4 folders full of reflections over the past year. I could have typed out all the facets of my job but I’m afraid my job description is rather long.
I think these are the things I’ve found frustrating not being able to mention during Chartership, the passion as individuals we hold for our jobs. I adore what I do, yes it’s an operational post, I have great colleagues [not quite yoda's yet!] who are great strategic thinkers, who have more time and energy to spend on the strategy but I think you need the ying and yang in all organisations to bring out the best in everyone.
So, hopefully come October I’ll put my submission for Chartership in the post and hope that the information I’ve included passes the board. Yes, getting the nod does matter, I’ve spent a long time getting the post-grad and writing the Chartership portfolio.

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.

Chartership Portfolio Building 12th Jan

It was a very cold start to the day in Edinburgh, walking up to the National Library certainly cleared the head and cooled the hands. The morning session started with Celia Jenkins introducing herself and letting candidates know that she is working on courses and informal gatherings for the Scottish CDG. There was advice on how to find a mentor from Valerie Walker and Paul Hambleton from the National Library shared his experiences of chartering. The main presentations coming from Michael Martin from CILIP and Anna Heron a member of the chartership board, both talked through differing elements of the chartering process. From the session the most important comments were:
Use the framework matrix
Evaluate your service performance
Evaluate your personal performance
Measure your effectiveness Be aware of wider professional context/issues


An informative morning spent in Edinburgh and it was good to see a great turn out for the event.

CILIPS Equality & Diversity 17th Nov Mitchell Library - afternoon

The afternoon session started with John Kelly from JISC Legal talking about the “Framework for a fairer future: the new legislative landscape”. The equality landscape is changing and with the new equality bill on the horizon we must ensure that as employers and service providers our services are inclusive and that we make certain that best practice is followed. The new duties within the Equality Bill will affect all of us working in or for public/private bodies. The new legislation will ban pay secrecy or ‘gagging clauses’ on pay, reporting on gender pay gaps will be required and public authorities will report to ministers on equality. The influence of public procurement – using our purchasing power to improve equality by encouraging suppliers to promote equalities.
However, could a new government change priorities? John mentioned that this Equality Bill will be the present Labour Govt’s last manifesto pledge to be completed. After the election however will the Bill receive the same attention?

We try as services to be as inclusive as we possibly can when delivering our library services; this has been shown at the event by the amount of initiatives running throughout the country in the area of equality and diversity. However to my mind there are invisible minority groups that I feel we still don’t fully cater for in public libraries or where we don’t realise we are still not fulfilling our role as equality providers.

The second presentation of the afternoon was from Margaret McKay from JISC RSC Scotland SW, who Introduced Access Apps. Margaret discussed our role in libraries and how we hold a critical role in accessibility, she introduced Access Apps which can be used by people who have specific difficulties with reading and writing and may have sensory or physical problems, these apps give individuals the freedom to use any PC within a library and not one set aside specifically for those who need support. The ability to have this information on a pen drive increases the freedom and flexibility.

The final session of the afternoon was from Clair Scott and Claire Elliot fromEast Renfrewshire Libraries and Renfrewshire Association Mental Health, they discussed Positive Mental Health & books on prescription. They talked on the joint venture between the two, the libraries initial funding of 10k from the Health Board to fund 42 titles covering areas such as, stress, anxiety and low mood, they were given recommendations for tittles by local health professionals, the selection of books has been a success within East Renfrewshire and they have worked with the RAMH to ensure that the section is maintained and have encouraged partnership working between library and RAMH. The collection is geared more toward the adult learning however in the future they are hoping to include more titles for a younger audience.


The day ended with closing remarks from Margaret Forrest, Margaret focused on the good demonstrations of partnership working throughout the day and remarked that no library was an island and that we had to work with other agencies to keep libraries moving forward.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend the event and listen to the work that has and is being done continually by Scottish Libraries on the issues of equality. I found the stories from Edinburgh inspirational. Having the ability to use Access Apps will help so many individuals have more confidence when using public libraries. The influence that partnership working has had in East Renfrewshire, would the project been so successful without the work done by both the libraries and RAMH. Like Margaret Forrest, I have areas of equality that I feel are underrepresented by libraries at times, the customers that we tend to overlook or feel that we represent using other avenues. The day was full of good practice and ideas however for the future we should look at the equality groups that aren’t so PC, where we need to think outside our comfort zones without prejudice or ignorance to their needs. In Scotland this year alone I am only aware of one authority covering LGBT month however many more covered black history month, is this equality?

However I’m not trying to take anything away from what was an interesting day held at the Mitchell Library in Glagsow and it was also good to catch up with an old friend from the past.

CILIPS Equality & Diversity 17th Nov Mitchell Library - morning

Yesterday was CILIPS Equality and Diversity Course – promoting good practice in library work, held at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow.
The morning session began with Ayub Khan and Marion Huckle talking about the CILIP Encompass Project this is a positive action scheme to encourage more people from ethnic minority groups into the profession, at present only 2% of members are from a black or ethnic background. The course is a graduate training scheme and their aim is to train 50 librarians over a five year period. The scheme would work by converting an existing post into a trainee post over a three year period, they are however aware of financial constraints on all sectors in the coming economic climate and that it may not be possible to convert posts. The traineeship would have benefits such as tax advantages, recruitment costs and support from Path National. The main points to come from the question session were whether this could then be expanded to include people with disabilities and other minority groups. The overall cost of the traineeship, academic expenses to salary for the trainee were discussed. The traineeship seems an excellent opportunity but is it seen as a viable career by many ethnic parents as one member noted many parents wish their children to study law or medicine not librarianship. A fantastic opportunity to join a great profession however lets hope that during the interviews it is truly people wanting a career in librarianship who achieve the trainee posts and it’s not seen as just a job opportunity by young graduates.


Next on the programme Paul McCloskey from Edinburgh City Libraries talked about what makes good inclusive practice? Paul discussed the initiatives that Edinburgh have in place to increase inclusiveness in Edinburgh libraries. Children can join straight away when visiting the library without proof (however a letter is sent to parents if they want to opt out), the Capital Collections  a community digital program that empowers the local community to participate in their local heritage. The services they provide to care homes in the city, where they take trolleys into the homes and allow people to browse the books, Paul mentioned that the homes have some of the highest level of book requests in the city. For ethnic communities they have 14 separate collections within the city and have recently done work with the local Polish community and others supported through the PLQIM.


Having worked in young peoples services, I was impressed by the work Edinburgh have done with children and teenagers by seeing them as a minority group, the work they have done in particular at Sighthill Library has reduced the levels of anti-social behaviour. The reading champions initiative for kids in care, working in partnership with Barnardos , Action for Children and Edinburgh Book Festival where the books have been seen to help build emotional literacy.
The message from Paul was not only about inclusive practice but about working in partnership with other organisations to achieve realistic aims and create a more inclusive library service. To not only support the library user but our own staff to ensure that we can help the communities around us.


The last speaker of the morning was Professor Andrea Nolan from the University of Glasgow talking about Internationalisation in the education sector. The emphasis being on creating culturally diverse learning communities, promoting students who are more culturally aware and how by having a system of internationalisation local communities surrounding the higher education facilities will benefit by integrating into the local community. The need to increase educational partnerships as new competitors emerge into the higher education market creating newer places for students to study out with universities in the UK. To create partnerships where students to have the chance to not only study abroad but become more globally aware. I’m afraid I had to leave near the end of Professor Nolan’s talk as my car park meter was running low and I didn’t want a ticket.


The lunch break also consisted of an optional tour round the RUVI Resource Unit for the Visually Impaired at the Mitchell library with both sessions being booked full.


I'll add the afternoon session later in the week
All of the presentations for the morning should be available soon on the Scottish Librares Slideshare page.