Thinking about library inductions (Part 3) - making sparks fly

As we plan for this year's round of library inductions, this is just one of a series of short posts on things that I'm pondering. Apologies for it not really going anywhere - just throwing it out there!
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The NSS may have its faults as a tool for assessing the worth of universities but, at the start of the year, it's good to be reminded what university teachers (that's us too) are being judged on:

1. Staff are good at explaining things.
2. Staff have made the subject interesting.
3. Staff are enthusiastic about what they are teaching.
4. The course (or, in our case, class) is intellectually stimulating.

It struck me those are pretty good aims to have when preparing any form of teaching. No.1 is pretty basic (explain things well) but the other three are things I think about a lot. The last point is perhaps the one not often at the forefront of my mind when planning a class - it can be easy to worry about overwhelming or overcomplicating but this shouldn't be at the expense of challenging students and making them think, not in a superior or patronising way, but hopefully stimulating ideas and creativity and inspiration in how they can tackle their assignments and research. We want to make lights go on. Too often I worry I'm turning them off!

Thinking about library inductions (Pt.1)

Here's the thing. We have at best about 45 minutes. That's 45 minutes to justify our existence with the people who matter the most. To persuade them that we're worth our wages (subsidised from their fees) for the value we can bring to their studies. To persuade them that it's in their interests to engage with us, to come back and talk to us. We need to get them interested in visiting our building and using its contents. The building may be at the centre of campus but our online spaces are completely off their information map, unless we can get them to remember to look for them. This assumes our online resources justify being looked for, can be easily found and easily used. They cost a whole lot more than our wages.

We don't have a lot to work with: a computer and a projector at the front of a big room, often full of computers they can hide behind or surf on. Then there are clickers they can vote with, voices they may or may not choose to use, phones and tablets they may prefer to focus on, friends both inside and outside the room who may distract them. If we're REALLY lucky we may have the real life* or virtual support of a tutor, telling them they need to listen to us. We have our enthusiasm, friendliness and knowledge. They may bring apathy, interest, confusion, enthusiasm, language barriers, disabilities both seen and unseen, immense talent, enormous real life problems we know nothing about...or indeed all of these in just one student. 

So that's the challenge. What the hell are we going to do about it?  

* This only happened to me once. It was the most enjoyable session I've ever taught.

Thing 10: Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

For me, the heart of this Thing is formal, recognized learning vs. informal CPD. The former is good for job hunting or proving something to yourself or other people but usually comes at a high cost of money and time (both to you and your workplace perhaps). The latter is more responsive and flexible, can be free, yet is hard to get recognized in the long run unless you can do wonderful things as a result. 

I have a silly amount of qualifications amassed over the years. I did the library Masters purely because it was the only way to get a "proper" librarian job where I wanted to work - I'd loved working on the Issue Desk but I also knew I'd want to move on in years to come. As I was already maturing (like a good cheese), I decided I didn't have time to waste so took a leap of faith and went off and did it in a year full-time at Aber. I have to say it was quite a dreary course apart from the utterly wonderful Local Studies module (we begged for more at the end!), the more tekkie Internet Searching stuff and of course anything taught by the brilliant Geraint Evans (now author) was worth attending. It did the trick and without the MScEcon I wouldn't be where I am today...

I did go on and get Chartered. I'm not entirely sure why, looking back - I think I just felt it was the logical conclusion if you were a librarian...I'm not too sure I'd feel that now? I enjoyed the discipline of it and the reflective practice. I also did it at a time when I wasn't employed in a library (I was an e-learning advisor for a few years) so it meant I kept a focus on librarianship. 

I would only do another work-related qualification if I was very sure it was going to be interesting and practically useful. A teaching course is the one thing I'm pondering at the moment as I'd love to have a better understanding of teaching theory and improve my practical skills (which have all been learned on the job). However, with two small children and other things that need to take priority (learning Welsh to keep up with my son's homework), I can't see it happening for a few years. Otherwise, I try to research and learn about things as they crop up in my job - I've just been scanning around for any good practice or ideas on library inductions as tomorrow we are discussing what to do different this year. 

Getting Published: Session for Postgrads

The highlight of this week was our fully-booked session for postgrads on Getting Published. I felt a little out of my depth in this one as I've not done it before and I have zero publications to my name. Luckily we had a fantastic academic come along to give his experiences of the whole process along with plenty of tips and advice. Quite rightly, he got highly praised in the evaluations. You can't beat hearing from someone who's actually done what you're trying to do. (I'm trying not to harbour a sense of abject failure that I never published anything from my PhD!)

The librarians then covered the following:

• Where to publish? Included a hands-on looking at Journal Citation Reports and Scimago / Scopus.
• Open Access (my bit) - a quick overview with some useful resources
• Copyright: including making sure you look after your own Intellectual Property and also not infringing anyone elses...

My bit was a little tricky as our institutional repository is not yet fully operational and that's kind of a cornerstone of open access. Hopefully this time next year (if we run it again) Cronfa will be all systems go.

I learnt a lot from listening to everyone and also am now fully up to date on Open Access which is useful knowledge to have. You can't beat the worry of imaginary questions to get you swotting up on something....