Prezi- thing 17

I've seen Prezi a few times, normally on large screens, and felt sick, due to the motion. I think it provides a more interesting design concept but I the presentations can still be boring. The best presentations are the ones with decent content on an interesting topic, not ones which induce sea sickness in people.

On a more positive note, it can be great to capture people's attention, with high quality resources. I've watched the videos and maybe I'll have a look at it next time I have to do a presentation to senior management.

Thing 16

Promoting service Having recently completed an in depth year long study of item usage in the library, and presented it to senior management team, as well as additiontal important members of staff. I have needed to, explain the importance of information literacy to them. With there being connections to both grades and retention. Both of which are critical topics in education at the moment. In addition to this, I am also promoting a new cost saving service, where digital chapters from books therefore saving paper, as well as the academics time. As the service with be being supported by the IT Support software team. Advocacy As I work in a specialist library, where students have particular issues. Promotion the services in a manner which is acceptable tithe cohort is essential. In terms of advocacy, I am keen to promote the excellence of libraries In general. Interns of my own library, I promote the library during the induction process to students, continues to promote them during the course of the by either attending team meetings, or via our twitter account. We are also have an LCD screen, which we can create content, again this is used to get the message across to students about what the library can offer to them. Such as the lend of headphones, Computer games and DVD, along with more traditional resource. During the course of the following year the library will start to actively promoting itself to members of the general. In the first instance this will be promoted to people leaving from our evening courses. Getting published Having previously had two articles published, one being a letter and another being a book review, I am tempted to try for a third.

Art and Design libraries

As I work in a specialist art library, there is limited resources for myself to read, however the Handbook of Art and Design Librarianship for Higher Education, as proven to be an excellent read, Rachel Clarke’s chapter on cataloguing and classification for art and design school libraries: challenges and considerations. Where the article draws the reader’s attention to the process of cataloguing which must suit the information seeking behaviour of the student cohort. This concept has previously leaded me to have flexibility in aspects of the Dewey system to ensure that the users needs are considered. 

Some excellent points have been covered with in the chapter, for instance Artists in DDC are classified the country of  origin, not at our library, were we use their surname, this aids searching and creates less confusion for the students. Along side this there are other possible ideas for development, were the same process of the end user, a visual learner is taken into consideration.

Job description

Having to look again at my current job description, to alter in, so where I work can recruit a suitable replacement, whilst I am on maternity leave.

Wish list 
A qualified librarian, ideally with Chartership
Copyright and information literacy, so we have someone who is knowledgeable in both fields.
Experience in FE and HE education- you never kow when Ofsted are going to turn up.


Useful points to consider from Laura about the job advert.

http://darkarchive.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/writing-a-job-advertisement-that-will-attract-the-candidates-you-want/

Back to college

Having had a two week break, feeling very freshed. I've managed to work on my Chartership, starting to feel more confident, and happier with the content, to the point where I have started to remove some less needed information. I need to look in to reflective writing, and my mentor has kindly sent me some information to read up on this morning.

Other developments for the week are: read the rest of Art libraries journal, focusing on copyright, having already read two of the article and been very impressed with what i've read, as I am currently working on a digital achive for the college. pulling together all the images of students work, in the first instance it was going to be for academics to have a pool of images they can use for presentations and to demonstrate what previous students have done. However, looking in to the copyright, and consulting with other who have provided a similar service, but gone global. I am hoping that our archive has similar success.

Digitial archive

Been working, what seems like ages on the digital archive for the college, don't seem to be getting very far. The content is great, we have images of students work from 2007 to present, but I am the only one tagging and adding in details such as course and year information. As it is taking me a morning to do between 6-10 files depending on the size, I might be on the task for some time.

My day

Following the diaster of yesterday, I feel today has to be better.

Started day at 8am, ordered a pile of books for GCSE english course, must do a budget transfer later today! I'm terrible at remembering finance.

First job of the day is to re-write my CV, easy peasy, I have a completed and up to date version as a I am doing my chartership, but I am struggling with the section professional profil and creative practice section. Ok, after a cup of tea, I manage to type and drink. Finished that task and sent it to HR.

 As I have no teaching today, there is nothing major in my diary, I have a report to read on copyright and I have two reports I need to finish for SMT. Plus I could probably order a few more books and do the connected paperwork for contemporary craft.

Well my plan worked for all of ten minutes, when I relised that WilsonWeb has still not had the problem solved, needed to re-contact IT. Back to Copyright article.

Managed to last 20 minutes this time, before getting distracted- this time it was with tomorrow's display, it's on Brazil, so each member of the department has made a few carnival masks.

Finally managed to finish the document on copyright, it seems to have answered a few more questions I had on digital copyright, but created a few more.

Before lunch my plan is to work out the classmarks for the books that have arrived/ been donated to the college library, so one of the assistants can catalogue them. Will work on the SMT reports this afternoon. Hopefully.


It's 1.45pm and I have completed 2nd draft of the report for SMT, not sure how many drafts I need to create, so I think I am almost there. Very happy, once I have this report done about art and design libraries, I have managed to create a little network of art and design librarians, done some work on criteria 4 for my chartership and managed to (finger crossed) impress SMT.

Overall today has been pretty successful, managing to almost complete the report is a very big task, and doen two finance tasks, however I have broken my email account and can no longer communicate to the outside world.

the next three hours, will be spent- cataloguing books, not work on the report and giving my brain time to heal itself