‘Follow Us On …: Using Social Networks And Technology To Reach Readers’ – a CPD25 event

Follow us on...social media

On Tuesday I attended the above CPD25 event at the London Mathematical Society in Russell Square which was organised by Caroline Fletcher of UCL with minor assistance by myself (well, I helped line up one pair of speakers anyway!).  The speakers lined up for the event were:

Dave Puplett (LSE) – Fill the communications vacuum – engage your users online.

Emma Woods and Ellie Murphy (Westminster) – Blogging at the University of Westminster.

Tim Fletcher (Birkbeck) – Twitter Case Study: Birckbeck Library.

Ironically, given the subject matter, Emma and Ellie offered to deliver a presentation after I put out a call on Twitter for someone to talk at the event about blogging in a university library context.  Luckily for me, Emma got back to me pretty quickly and she very kindly agreed to present on blogging with Ellie.

First to present at the event was Dave Puplett.  Dave talked about how important he felt it was to be where the users are.  This was particularly important for LSE as there are a large number of distance learners and part-time students, who are obviously unable to interact with the university in quite the same way as other students.  He also suggested that using tools such as Twitter was a good way to find out what users think about your service in a way they would not necessarily have shared with the library through official channels.  As such, LSE use Twitter to find out what students are saying about the library, identifying any issues that they might have raised, and then addressing them directly to remedy the situation (usually using more formal communication tools such as email).  Comments that students have made about the library are regularly collected and shared across the library team to raise awareness of any areas of concern or, of course, anything positive that was being shared.

Dave highlighted one particular issue where someone was unable to locate a journal they required, publicly complaining about its lack of availability to their followers on Twitter.  This was picked up by a member of staff who was then able to locate the journal and point the complainant in the right direction.  The complainant subsequently declared how impressed he was and how ‘pro-active’ the library was for resolving it in this way.

I had had a sneaky peak at Dave’s presentation prior to the event, and it certainly provided plenty of food for thought about how social networking can ‘fill the communications vacuum’ with both users and non-users.  It also made me appreciate that Dave has a substantial archive of Henry hoover images to call upon!  If you want an interesting image utilising a Henry hoover, I strongly suggest getting in touch with him…

Dave Puplett’s presentation:

Next, Emma Woods and Ellie Murphy spoke about their experiences blogging for the University of Westminster Uni.  Both Emma and Ellie maintain a couple of blogs each covering Resources for Electronics and Computing, Resources for Transport and Tourism, Resources for Fashion Business Students and Resources for Business Students.  As they did not have subject pages, it was decided to try using the blogs instead to share interesting and useful resources for students.  Amongst the tools they used were a LibraryThing widget to share the latest titles added to the library, RSS feeds from relevant news sources and, on the business blog, a business resources FAQ page to help resolve some of the issues faced by students in making use of online resources.  When consulting with students they found that there was some interest in blogs maintained by librarians and wanted them to be a space where they would find links to journal articles, advice for finding items and general library news.  They also found that the best way to promote their blogs was through the academics as this seems to drive up traffic to the blog.  They are currently looking at ways to make the blogs more visible and raise awareness of them amongst students.

To break-up the presentation a little, Ellie and Emma asked us all to discuss in groups what we thought a successful blog would look like.  There was a fairly unanimous feeling that it was important to get the tone right, not to sound too formal and to make use of the author’s personal style and voice.  It was also suggested that they should be regularly updated with timely and up-to-date information as much as possible.  Both points I couldn’t agree more with.  I very strongly believe that communications with students via blogs, Twitter etc should be in a vain that students would appreciate, not in the way that the institution would prefer.  If it becomes too much of the latter it can make for a very dry read.  Personality has to be key in any communication via social media – else what is ‘social’ about it?

Emma and Ellie’s presentation:

Finally, Tim Fletcher from Birkbeck spoke about how the library uses Twitter to communicate with students.   Tim noted that to date the Birkbeck library Twitter account has attracted 1,322 followers.  Birkbeck see Twitter as an alternative way to communicate with students about the library and the services it offers.  Whilst Twitter is used regularly to communicate with students, they are always referred back to the library website as the ‘official’ source of information.  The content that they tweet varies from urgent information to advanced warnings (eg any systems related downtime) to social tweets welcoming students back to the university after their breaks.  They particularly found it useful during periods of heavy snowfall to inform students that buildings were closed or that icy conditions made certain parts of the campus dangerous.  They also made a conscious decision not to ‘follow’ students as they felt that this would make students uncomfortable.

Finally, they use RSS feeds from various aspects of the website to feed information through Twitter automatically, reducing the need to manually tweet items and helping to keep the information current and timely.  This is particularly useful when the regular administrator is away on leave or otherwise indisposed.

Tim did have a one word of caution however.  It is essential to consider how to deal with messages directed at the Twitter account in the appropriate way.  Should they be dealt with via email or via the Twitter account?  Clearly there is the danger of failing to deal with the issue appropriately (particularly given the character limit that is central to the service) and policies should be put in place to ensure that such issues are managed professionally.  One thing you certainly don’t want to do is get into a very public spat with a student/academic – it would not look good in the timeline and would certainly undermine the effort made to build relationships with students/academics.  It is far more sensible to deal with ‘hot’ issues privately and promptly to resolve them to the satisfaction of the complainant.

I certainly found the event very interesting, particularly as I have a strong interest in the use of social media to promote services (it’s one of the reasons I was quite keen to oversee the Voices for the Library social networks when we first started out).  Certainly my experience managing the VftL Twitter and Facebook accounts chimes with much of what was said yesterday.  Sometimes I have had to deal with ‘difficult’ or critical messages sent to one of our social media accounts.  How I dealt with it often depended on the nature of the comment.  Sometimes it is best to ignore, sometimes it is best to provide a measured response.  One thing is absolutely certain however sometimes you definitely need to be able to take a bit of criticism on the chin.  Once you stick yourself out there as a ‘brand’ you are bound to attract some criticism – it’s the nature of the beast.

Of course, the beauty of an event like this is that the environment is constantly changing.  New networks crop up all the time.  Since the event was planned, Google+ has already come on the scene and who is to say what the landscape will be like another year from now?  What other essential tools will crop up in that time?  A year from now another similar event could be put together and it wouldn’t even mention Twitter.  But that is the nature of the internet and that is the challenge we all have to deal with.  It’s not easy, but I certainly think it is vital to keep on top of the latest trends and services that are emerging (I’ve even recently signed up for Foursquare despite vowing never to do so!).  One thing is for certain, you can guarantee that your customers/users most definitely will be in tune with the latest developments.

Academic libraries after the Browne Review

The actual M25 (obviously!) - via Bob McCaffrey on Flickr

I should probably have blogged more about CPD25 over the past couple of months since I started getting involved in one of the task groups.  It’s one of those things I keep meaning to blog about, things keep distracting me.  Well, yesterday I delivered my first presentation for many years at a CPD25 event so now is as good a time as any.

CPD25 is, essentially, the training arm for the M25 consortium of academic libraries.  There are a number of task groups which are each responsible for a different aspect of academic libraries.  The group I am involved in, Task Group 3, is concerned with Operational Management – covering a broad range of activities including digitisation, use of social networking and, in the case of yesterday’s event, the impact of the Browne review on academic libraries.

In the lead up to the event, I was asked by one of the organisers if I would like to talk about Voices for the Library.  Normally I leave public speaking at these events to others involved in the campaign (I am far happier pottering around in the background…causing havoc mainly), but I thought this would be a great experience for me and, as I live relatively close to London, I thought I should take on presentation duties for a change.

The event itself was fascinating.  There were speakers from a range of different libraries, including one from a private university, BPP (who, it seems, appear to be embarking on some aggressive expansion).  Having not encountered a private University library before, I was quite interested to hear what their situation was and how they saw the future post-Browne (I fear that phrase will be used a lot in the future).  It seems there are few differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’, it just seems as though they are better prepared for the ‘customer orientated’ future that we are all facing.

We also heard from Goldsmith’s College and in particular how they dealt with the student occupation before Christmas.  Without getting into the politics of the occupation, it was hard not to feel sorry for the staff who had to deal with what must have been a very difficult situation.  It was interesting to see how they relied on social media to keep up to speed with what the students were planning (chalk another one up for social media).  It was certainly interesting to hear how the occupation was handled and what lessons were learnt for next time (and I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of student occupations).

After the first two talks there was a break out session which enabled the attendees to discuss what is happening in their universities and what they felt the future held.  The common theme emerging from all these discussions could probably best be summed up by the words ‘uncertain’ and ‘challenging’.  I don’t think we will have a clear idea on what the future holds until a year down the line when, hopefully, things will become clearer.  It was certainly interesting to hear from representatives of various institutions about the kinds of challenges that they were having to face – and I think it proved helpful for those in the process of change to hear about similar challenges in other universities.

After lunch we then heard from two representatives from UEL who talked about their inspiring New Beginnings programme.  The one thing I will take away from this more than any other was the story of a current PhD student who left school with no qualifications, took a chance on the NB scheme at UEL and gained the confidence to obtain a degree at the institution before embarking on their PhD. Really amazing stuff that underlines the importance of the libraries and trained librarians in universities.

The presentation before last was a Prezi on the re-structuring that had taken place at the University of Sussex.  Sometimes I am a bit ‘meh’ about Prezis (there’s a temptation to ‘show off’ what they are capable of, which is a little distracting), but this one was simple and not too ‘showy’.  Yep, all the Prezi lovers are going to have a pop at me for those comments I’m sure.

Finally came my presentation.  I won’t talk about it too much as you can view it yourself below.  I will say, however, that I was glad to have been given the opportunity to talk about the campaign.  I haven’t delivered a presentation or stood in front of an audience since me days on a PGCE programme many, many years ago.  Fortunately I was not presenting before a classroom of teenage boys so, despite some initial reservations, I was fairly confident that the crowd wouldn’t turn nasty (yeah, I used that ‘gag’ at the start of my presentation too…shoot me please).  I was also fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to dish out the business cards I had printed out a while back, hopefully a few people will check us out now they know where to find us.  Now I have got one presentation under my belt, maybe I’ll do a few more.  Although maybe I am not quite ready for Prezi just yet.

A copy of the script is also available.

Present. Tense?

It can't be any worse than unruly teenagers surely?

Yeah, I got a biggie coming up.  A week on Tuesday I will be delivering my first live presentation.  It’s only going to be around 15 mins long, but it’s still kinda a big deal.  Up until now, the only presentations I have prepared have been for interviews or assignments on my course.  I have never really delivered a presentation for more than three people.  That said, I do have some experience of talking to an audience.  Although the kind of audience that I have dealt with in the past is a little…er…different to the kind of audience you get attending these kind of events.  Different in that they were teenage boys.  Yep, after completing my undergraduate degree I went on to train as a secondary school teacher.  I can barely believe it myself looking back.  I don’t regret the experience for a moment, although I may have said otherwise at the time.  One thing is for certain, if you can hold your own at the front of a class of 25-30 teenage boys, you can cope with almost anything that gets thrown at you (and there were a lot of things…ah, too obvious).

I know there is a lot of stuff out there advising on how to deliver a presentation, but I think a lot of it can be taken with a pinch of salt.  Many of the ‘rules’ are not really universal.  I’ve seen excellent presentations delivered with bullet-pointed slides.  I’ve seen terrible ones that are delivered in the ‘right way’.  The deciding factors in whether a presentation sinks or swims for me as an audience member?  Passion and enthusiasm.   Present with those in your armory and everything else is irrelevant.  Hey, there’s a way to put more pressure on myself beforehand.  Now I am going to be conscious of whether I am conveying enough passion and enthusiasm.  Way to go.  Let’s back out of this paragraph now before I start pontificating further on what makes a ‘good’ presentation and really shooting myself in the foot.  Pretend you didn’t read any of that, ok? Hey! HEY!  Don’t re-read it! Move along!  Next paragraph…

So anyway, I’ve just realised that I haven’t even explained what my presentation is about.  I guess that should really have been in the first paragraph.  What the hell, I’ll introduce it in paragraph four.

Just recently I’ve become involved in CPD25 – a  staff development and training organisation in association with the M25 consortium of academic libraries.  Shortly after attending my first meeting, I was asked if I would like to deliver a short presentation on Voices for the Library for an event.  Despite my determination to avoid any speaking engagements on behalf of the campaign, I accepted.  I thought it would be good to get the experience under my belt and ultimately it was one of the main reasons I asked to be involved in CPD25 – to challenge myself and push me into trying new things.  What better way to start than by delivering a presentation?  Although it is only going to be around 15 mins long (hardly a keynote speech), it is 15 mins more presentation experience than I have previously had.  Normally I leave the speaking engagements to others, I’m far more comfortable behind a keyboard than behind a lectern.  But who knows, maybe I might step out a few more times once I get this out of the way.  And then maybe I could write one of those ‘this is how you do a presentation’ type posts…

All kinds of good

"Can I interest you in lunch?" Image c/o Regonold on Flickr.

A lot of goodness has been floating around the past couple of days.  It kinda feels weird saying that when you have spent the best part of two days in bed and feeling as rough as a…well, you can guess the rest.  Anyways, like I say, there has been plenty of goodness around.  First up has been the cool news that Lauren Smith, friend, fellow VftL-er (does that even work?) and all round super-campaigner (cheque better be in the post Lauren ), has been highlighted as a Library Journal ‘Mover and Shaker of 2011’.  This is fantastic news and is nothing less than she deserves.  From her article in The Guardian through to her local and national campaign work, she has been an inspiration and I am certainly proud to work with her (maybe write out another cheque??).  Ned Potter was also recognised for his awesome work too, something about an Eccles Chamber or something…think it was to do with cake.  Oh no, echo chamber!  Sorry Ned, just kidding Oh yes, and do check out Ned’s slideshow here, also awesomely super.  Anyway, congrats to both, it was really very much deserved and it’s well good to see you get the recognition [round of applause].

As well as having some fab news regarding a fellow VftL bod, I have also had some rather good (if completely surprising) news.  An email dropped into my inbox yesterday inviting me out for lunch next week.  “So far, so meh” I hear you cry.  Bizarrely, this offer of lunch didn’t come from an old school friend, an ex-colleague or a distant cousin (which would have been interesting for me, but made for a very dull blog post).  No, this offer came from Private Eye magazine!  Yes, the phrase “WTF?!?” was the first thing that sprang to mind when I read that email.  So much so, I ill-advisedly asked if they had made a mistake.  Turns out they hadn’t, I was genuinely invited to lunch by Private Eye care of the Library News editor on the magazine (I have recently made contact with them and thrown a few library things their way).   I’ve been a pretty regular reader of the magazine for some time so to say that I find this rather cool is a bit of an understatement.  I am pig sick with nerves about it, but I am also very excited and blown away by the invitation. God it feels good writing these words!  Definitely a case of all kinds of good.  [Funnily enough, whilst writing this I was asked what I would like from the menu!  It’s like all real and stuff!].

The trip to London for the lunch could (potentially) be my third trip to London within the space of a couple of weeks.  Later that same week, I am hoping (baby sitting permitting) that I will be attending the big march on the 26^th for public services (alongside my fellow VftL-ers with luck).  But I am also due a trip up to London on Thursday to attend a meeting after recently becoming a member of a task group in the M25 Consortium of Academic libraries.  The consortium is:

…a collaborative organisation that works to improve library and information services within the M25 region and more widely across the East and Southeast. The Consortium now has 60 member institutions. Its aim is to provide services and resources for the benefit of learners and researchers.

The Task Groups themselves provide staff training, foster good practice and facilitate the exchange of experience.  The Task Group I have taken up a place on is the Operations Management Task Group which looks at “outsourcing, knowledge management, restructuring (inc. options & theories), operational / manpower planning, strategy, quality.”  I’m very excited about this opportunity to aid my development and gain some new skills and I hope I can make a good contribution to the Group. It will certainly be an interesting challenge and one I am very much looking forward to.

So there.  All kinds of win.  Now if I could just shake off this blinkin’ dodgy chest…

Libraries, technology and competition….

Interesting article at Library Journal about libraries and the opportunities provided by new technology (particularly ebooks).  Here are a few choice extracts:

Public libraries

Public libraries also serve their communities as physical gathering places that nurture culture. But libraries have no monopoly on offering free Wi-Fi Internet and comfortable reading and cultural spaces; it’s only a matter of time before Starbucks and others add free ebooks, book clubs, and other content services onto the music and news that they currently offer. Bookstores of all types will not want to be left out of the reading-room market.

It’s unlikely, however, that the Starbucks and Borders of the world are going to want to serve the folks who can’t afford the $3 lattes or the $20 hardcovers. It would be tragic if communities found themselves divided between ebook-haves and ebook-have-nots.

Academic libraries

The cheap distribution channels made possible by ebooks will allow libraries to nurture written scholarship in ways that were not possible with print. Cheap digitization will allow libraries to expand the reach of collections, while lowered barriers to publication will help libraries foster written scholarship into the future.

School libraries

School librarians may well find their space, print collections, and budgets completely devoured by an ebook monster sooner than they imagine; we are only a few years away from ebook reader devices being cheap enough that it will be economically feasible to put an entire school library…. into every student’s backpack. This could be mortal competition for school libraries as such.

Or maybe not. Now more than ever, children need to learn how to find, access, evaluate, and interact with digital information. Devices don’t make that happen by themselves, even if they come with thousands of carefully selected ebooks.

Eric Hellman concludes:

Obviously, there is still a lot of uncertainty about how and when libraries develop ebook services as well as how libraries might best fit in a world where books are mostly consumed via ebook readers. What seems clear is that if libraries just sit back and wait to see what happens, rather than participating in the cycle of innovation and competition, they will end up with diminished roles in our culture. It’s important that we don’t let that happen.

Can’t argue with that.  There will be many difficulties ahead in the light of the current economic situation, but it is important that the library service can find a place for technological developments alongside a strong, undiminished book fund.  New trends in using the service are emerging, it would seem prudent to take note and put the changes in place to take advantage of this.  Far better that than burying heads in the sand and ignoring the obvious change in interaction that is taking place.  Ignoring changing trends has led to many businesses falling by the wayside….it will be no different for libraries.

That Exciting News….

I almost forgot I was going to write a blog post this evening! I thought a quick post on WordPress would remind me to do so, but I still nearly forgot.

Anyway, the point of the post….Now, this will come as no surprise to those who follow me on Twitter but, after 4 years in public libraries, I’m moving into the world of academic libraries. As a result of a recent interview, I’ve been offered a position as a Library Systems Officer at a local university which I gladly accepted. Although it is going to be quite a big change for me jumping from public to academic libraries, it’s a challenge I’m really looking forward to.

Despite moving into a different type of library, I’ll still be following developments in public libraries because if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be where I am today. Besides, I see public libraries as a vital public service (particularly in the current economic climate) and there will be many developments in the future that demand comment and opinion. Quite frankly, they are too important to ignore as a public service.

I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities thrown my way during the past 4 years, especially as it opened me up to a whole new career path. It has been a fantastic experience for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my time in public libraries. That said, I’m really looking forward to the next step in my library career…..exciting times are ahead!