Enclosing of public space

One of my favourite sessions at the LIANZA conference was about the “enclosing” of public space.  Brian Pauling discussed how the increased privatisation of digital space can hinder access to information and the free exchange of ideas.  Pauling argued that libraries are in a unique position to act as guardians of public space, and that we should migrate some of what we practice in the physical space  to the digital space. 

At least I think that is what he was talking about.  You can read the paper here.

I will discuss the paper further at our conference report back sessions in October.

 

Awards follow-up

Many thanks to Donna for getting all the info out so quickly.  Nerves aside, we enjoyed the ceremony and have just had a great time lunching with two winning authors (Ben Galbraith and Bernard Beckett), a few publishers and the sponsor from Wheelers.  I think we picked the right winners because they gave excellent acceptances and were great to converse with afterwards!   Ben Galbraith made special mention of Wellington City Libraries and their excellent collection of picture books, which he consulted often while preparing his book.   It was great to hear that both Ben Galbraith and Bernard Beckett have other projects well under way. Unfortunately Leon Davidson and Robyn Kahukiwa could not attend. 

Fellow judge Bob Docherty is going to be reading from some of the shortlisted titles during lunch hour tomorrow to keep the throngs entertained.  I think he will also be on U-tube.  Several  people have commented on how the Book Awards Ceremony was a nice reminder that librarians can be involved with books!  The sessions have been so digitally-focussed that it is nice to remember that!   It was also lovely having a group of local children performing, an excellent reminder of who we’re here for.

 

Finding my feet

I didn’t write anything yesterday, as I was a bit overwhelmed by my first ever LIANZA conference.  Today, I am much more enthused, and less worried about how to find my way back to my room. 

I’ve seen/heard lots of cool stuff today -  my favourite so far would have to be Roy Tennant.   He stressed how important it is to continually review and adapt our systems and services to meet the needs of our customers.  He said heaps of other good stuff too, but unfortunately,  I can’t make sense of my notes. 

 The most striking thing about conference for me, is how progressive CCL are.  Many of the practices that are being encouraged, we already do.  Blogging, is one example of this.   Our strong commitment to professional development is another.  I’m feeling that a lot of what is being talked about is either geared to academic libraries, or small centres.  It’s good to be made aware of what’s going on out there, but it is a bit of an eye opener.

Yesterday I enjoyed a session on collecting ephemera.  Not only were there lots of pretty pictures, but it was very thought provoking.  It’s something I have never paid  much attention to, and now I’m definitely going to be bringing ANZC  those local government campaign fliers that keep appearing in my mailbox.  Especially good was  the thank you that Susan and Vera  (ANZC) received at the end.

Ok, I ‘m off to something about creating a new art, design and media library now.  Hopefully more pretty pictures. I will try to report from the conference dinner, as I am expecting hi-jinks.

 

LIANZA Children’s Book Awards

The theory was that I was going to report on my experience as a judge on the book awards panel.  The ceremony is going to be in an hour’s time.  So far I can report that it involves getting up very early, as the only time we could have a run through and look at stage etc. was 7.30 am!  I can also report that it is nerve-wracking, having discovered that the room for the book awards is not a small discreet one to seat an interested few.  It’s the enormous main hall, in which I could fit my house about 4 times over.   One of us will be back on the blog after the ceremony to tell you the winners.   Probably Donna, as I may still be shaking from the ordeal.

 

Web3 Alive and Well!

Themes emerging from two conferences are Place, Pace and Space. However very quickly:- over 3/4’s of the higher ed professors have own avatar. Attended 3 courses where lecturers spoke about their SL course – ‘juggling with jelly’ is how managing this environment with students is described. Don’t replicate just what you can do in other environments, think about what you can do that you couldn’t do in real life. PICT – model Proactive, Interactivity, Collaborative and constructivist as basis for design in SL. SLOODLe and SLAMs being considered with next step merging of SL and google earth.

Interpretative phenomenological Analysis + interviews – the data gathering and analysis method which we could use for SLC. We have already gathered the data using this method, it is now analysing it – was very reassured to see new methods of data collection and analysis presented – hope!

Don’t talk web2 and web3 to students, learners it is all just learning using different tools. They don’t want the jargon used just ‘give us the elearning options’.

Better go as will be cut off shortly. Typed this all up before in more detail and misjudged timing and lost it all.
Cheers take care Pat

 

Satisfaction v low expectation

Birmingham Public Library is rather tired and in urgent need of an update, but this applies only to the building and not the staff. Interestingly if the building been built as per the original plan, in marble, it may not have deteriorated quite so dramatically. My time here was full on, energising, tiring and lots of ideas. However I wish to comment on a meeting I had today with MLA Westmidlands, a follow up visit as a result of conference networking.

Geoff was discussing Library Spaces, a mystery visit of libraries in opening hours and opportunity for reflection and discussion about how people respond to changed library spaces, successful impact factors and how this feeds into oher things. One aspect is the invisibilty of libraries – does it matter that in some instances they are not labelled as libraries or even identified as this service. Many new joint use initiatives like Castle Vale do not even have the name library anywhere. I was lucky enough to have visited Castle Vale yesterday and this is an example of a joint use that has not fulfilled its potential and indeed has been a major disappointment. More on that another time.

Finally we spent considerable time looking at research and what this tells us or not as the case may be. A recent national survey indicates 92% of customers are ’satisfied’ with libraries. What does this mean? Should investment in libraries be reduced, we are all doing a good job, customers are happy or can we suggest that satisfaction hides low expectations? To take this concept one step further can we therefore suggest if customers expectations are high then we can expect lower satisfaction?

 

Learning centre – we can be proud

Sustainability, measures of success, programmes, management, relationships with schools and community were topics shared today with Richard and Simone at Wolverhampton City Learning Centre. A stunning building and a set up very similar to South. However there is one point of difference, they only work with schools, no parents accompany the visits and no intergenerational learning is catered for. We can feel very proud of our achievements at South and in comparison with others we are well and truly delivering services that are exceptionally innovative and focussed on community engagement.

We are developing a collaborative programme between the two centres and also RHS for September, with a focus on personal, cultural and national identity, blogs, digital stories, podcast are the order of the day.

Funding for LC here will shortly become an issue. It is expected a number of models will be considered and for the most pasrt local body will almost certainly continue their investment. One measure they have implemented is a revamp of one learning space to include a conference room for hire. 6 oval tables can be used as flat surfaces or at the flick of a switch the central part of the table lifts to reveal 6 computer screens for indiviudal work or joint use of one flat screen on the wall for collaborative input and display. The platform offers both Mac and PC for the users and both systems can be used within the pod. This is their first step towards funding generation, the room will not be used by students but hired at top dollor or rather pound. Interestingly Innovation is valued by central and local govt so staff are optimistic funding will be continued, however they are extremely interested in developments for SLC sustainability and have one year left to ensure a back up plan is in place. I am sure you can imagine the intensity and passion of our discussions today. However they are one LC of 150 throughout the country and they are all attached to schools. We have it all at SLC and i can honestly say it was one of the most affirming experiences to see where we sit in terms of international benchmarkingC. Congratulations to all staff, including our wonderful digital library team for their work on this initiative, our City Council can feel proud as we are most certainly World Class!

On a lighter note I forgot to mention MANGA is the catch cry of the teens and Dudley Library has run classes in this genre for parents and children. Birmingham Public Library tomorrow – a full on programme starting with a visit to Welford Primary School and Handsworth to view their Words on Wheels.

 

Abraham Moss – public library

As Pat has already mentioned we visited the AM Learning Centre and discovered a run down public library on the site.  With security guards and a security office to check in to, we were amazed to find a beautiful Learning Centre tucked away in the centre (complete with security system and buzzer access only). 

The Library, upstairs with no street appeal or connection, at first appeared sad and run down but like all passionate librarians, the team had developed a fantastic after school homework club.  Closed during the day, the area was adorned with huge posters displaying all manner of things, lovingly created by the ’supervisor’ in the old fashioned way.  There were eight computers courtesy of the ‘peoples network’, and we were told up to 80 children can visit the club on a single day.  With high levels of deprivation, the community value the access to computers and homework help greatly and turn up in droves to use the place.  There were many similarities with the customers visiting New Brighton Library and I detected similar coping strategies and sense of humour with Sue the ’supervisor’.  Interestingly, she was a teacher support person at the high school in the centre and moved in to the homework role in a sideways move.  She has no library qualification but many skills to help the children.

I think Pat would agree that the homework club was a little gem in a tough neighbourhood and the librarians were very welcoming and enthusiastic.   

 

Book Bars

Having posted home most of my conference and visit information so that I can continue to travel, I have only a few snippets of observation and experience to share at this stage.  Adding to what Pat mentioned about teens purchasing stock, I also heard the same message from the Book Bar organiser for the new High Street Library in Bolton.  With the first Book Bar opening any day now, the team at the High Street library have been working with a group of teens to set up the service which will include ‘book waiters’, essentially teens dressed in a uniform hanging out in the book bar talking about books with their peers and helping them find reading material to suit their interests and facilitating discussion amongst the group.  This group has also been instrumental in purchasing titles for the teen collection and went local buying with library staff to help stock the shelves in the new library.  Not suprisingly they chose paperbacks, graphic novels and magazines as top priority which pretty much mirrors what we understand teens enjoy reading.  I will be keen to hear from the team at New Street to find out how it is all working out and hope to post some photos on this blog before too long.

 

Dudley – we can learn

Today I had the real pleasure of visiting Dudley Public Library – in Dudley. I was recommended to visit by the conference organiser Sarah McNicol and yes we can learn a lot from them. There are 18 libraries in this area and I met with the manager of children and youth services, Hazel. Despite the rain the welcome was warm and friendly and her and Lyn had so much to share both in terms of strategy and operational and not all good news either.

Restructuring sees them under community engagement, specialist positions given a rethink e.g. Will Reference positions be retained as the impact of the people’s Network has reduced the demand for these services, Reader development officers are new, Information and Study Support librarians, Early years Officer and all library staff are expected to deliver on all customer service experiences e.g. they take turns at running children story times – huge implications for roles, time and professional upskilling.

This has not gone unchallenged by some staff. However a noteworthy initiative is the Engaging teenagers in the selection of books. A teenage content team is allocated $1,500 from Sept – Dec to select books and promote accordingly eg Boys Choice, Teens Choice. Interestingly in the first year of operation the books selected would not have been the librarians’ choices, but the issues for the young people’s selections justified the retention and roll out of this concept to other groups e.g. childrens 7-10, 10-13.

Lots to soak in apart from the rain! Wireless has proved elusive as are internet cafes. Birmingham Public closed on Sundays, updating when and where possible. Wolverhampton LC tomorrow and then two days with staff at Birmingham Public – a full programme 8.30-5pm planned and time with MLA on Friday so will need the weekend to recover