Reviewing the week

As this is the first week of the FE term, I want to take stock and reflect at the end of the week. To kick of the week, the LRC has been tidied at least twice, to provide the best possible impression. Staff returning from leave have been updated on the changes over the summer. Mainly the move of my office, create a more cohensive team and less of a disjointed management/ team structure. I have also created a training pack for the staff, with how to guides for cataloguing books, DVD and journals.

Spent the afternoon on Tuesday doing housework on my desktop, then starting working on my Chartership. Having to look again my PDP, after reading “Building your portfolio” section. 

Read http://thewikiman.org/blog/?p=1717- three simple marketing rules all libraries should live by... and it really got my thinking, with the new cohort of stuents arriving today and my frist induction tomorrow. This is the ideal opportunity to test this out. Instead of listing the resources, I'll tell the students what we do- we provide access to resources, free of charge, we help students use the resources and the benefits are, the more you (the students) use the rsources, the more your knowledge will grow, which should result in better grades for you. I've added in these extra notes in to my induction for tomorrow. I will reflect on my findings after tomorrow and my first induction is done.

Thing 7

The main organisation I am a member of is CILIP, and it's been great, think I am still on a high from the umbrella conference two months ago.

Had several dealings with CILIP, obviously website, but also a couple of phone calls, and they provide really helpful advice and guidance. Also following them on Twitter. I suppose the only thing that is a little disappointing is the number of branches which you can become a member of. Would like like to have been in more than 2, yes I know I can pay, but we are in a recession. Or are we not know. I forget.
Also living and working in the South West there aren't many activities organised by CILIP.


Being updated by newsletter and magazine is great, so I can have five minutes reading something useful connection to my role.

thing 6

Here we are at thing 6.

I seem to have got a better handle on Twitter, I was involved in a live chat #uklibchat organised by CILIP last week, which was pretty good. Managed to keep in contact with other people who were at the event.

Also as part of my Chartership I have created a skype account, so I don't have to travel all the way to Weston Super mare, and she does have to travel to me. I have my first meeting, with her tonight.

I have a linkedin account and I try and update it as much as possible, add in today about my post grad. i've linked myself to other organisations. Plus done the same with my Twitter account. I also have librarians as teachers on my Twitter account.

As I am already a member of a few CILIP communities, I can tick off that one.

As for the other two, I have a sort of allergic reaction to Facebook, which is totally unfounded.

Think at the moment, maybe it's connected to a lack of time, I find Twitter the most useful.

Thing 5- Reflective practice

As I had my PDR (Professional development review) last week, which is all about reflection, I thought this topic woould be good to start. I suppose it's not until you stop and think that you realise how much you've achieved and how much you've learnt.

12 months ago it felt link there was a massive void in my knowledge on things like social networking, and not I'm pretty good at twitter, even explained what it was to someone the other day. With CDP, I seem to have found my love of twitter again.

As September is almost here and I will be leading on the LRC inductions, it's time to reflect previous years, what went well and what needs to be improved. Having no training/ advice on how to set up an induction, I created a one hour talk, tour and task session. Which seemed to go really well, the tour was a bit of a lull, but it provided students with a chance to see the whole of the LRC and what it has to offer them. But I did feel a little strange walking in to the quiet study room, saying "this is the quiet study room" a bit like an estate agent. The only issue I had was with the IT, either the laptops lost wifi connection, the system would crash on the LMS only has 10 licences, so getting 20 students online, while still having the self service machine up and running as well as two members of staff working was always going to be tricky. So instead of running around trying to fix three IT issues at once, this year I will be doing a 30 minute induction, which will be talk, tour and informal wander around. The latter part will also be helped by another member of my team, so the students get to know more than one person.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the inductions and the students enjoy it too, NSS results are (for the third year running) very good for the LRC. Long may in continue.

Productive day

Felt today like I should write about what my day is like. Even with no students around there is still loads to do. Hopefully, as I am starting my Chartership, this will help focus my mind.

For my Chartership, I've needed to write my CV, after a few phone calls to friends and family, I have worked out where and when I was employed- really must keep hold of this information. But I think I have everything in place now. Oddly I have found writting about my current role the hardest, working out what my duties are, previous jobs I seem to be able to remember better. Spoken to HR several times about what training I have done since being in post, don't think I will include everything, as I have done several things i don't feel are relevant- OFSTED reporting etc.

Need to spend some time cataloguing some of the more random items, such as the sound recording - Barbican archive. As well as adding new journals to the LMS and getting my new office ready for me to move in to.

Going to spend this afternoon tidying the LRC, managed to get to 770 yesterday, so not too far to go. After that I need to crack on with the admin work for Athens. 

thing 4

Started to use Twitter and RSS feed not sure I actually like the RSS feed idea, but I don't thinkg I have got my head around it just yet.

Love Twitter and have done for quiet a while, I like the idea of make a short and sweet statement about what I'm up to rather than typing a massive paragraph.