Tag: Welsh librarians

CLIC@10 – Celebrating 10 years of Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation

CLIC@10 – Celebrating 10 years of Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation

by CLIC Cardiff ♥ 4 Comments

To celebrate ten years of Cardiff Libraries in Co-operation, CLIC held a CLIC@10 event on 9th February. We celebrated with home-baked cookies, chocolate biscuits and a birthday cake! (Thank you Helen!!) The theme for today’s event was collaboration. 

Karen Pierce and Rebecca A. Evans presented a history and overview of CLIC, a collaborative network of libraries in Cardiff that was established in 2005. CLIC began with aims to provide shared staff development opportunities for library staff, a broader underlying remit of collaboration and encourage partnership between the constituent members. The presentation charted the progress from the first CLIC event in December 2005, to the CyMAL Regional Development Officer for South East Wales chairing the Staff Development Group, the 2006 a project report produced by CLIC project officer, Dr Angela Evans-Jones, into the continuing regular programme of staff development events reflecting the spectrum of the library profession, plus the extras of Library Camp and ‘Do Something Different Days’, all opportunities to collaborate across the different library sectors.

 

Newly appointed Director of Learning Services at University of South Wales and WHELF Vice-Chair, Emma Adamson delivered a detailed outline of Wales Higher Education Library Forum (WHELF)’s principles of a shared national community, quality and impact of service, shared services and projects and opportunities like the Gregynog Colloquium for library staff to work together. Emma described WHELF’s work to provide sustained library development for both individual members and collective success. Looking to the future, WHELF is working to continue to support shared services and the value of academic & research libraries. 

Emma Adamson
The key project currently is the WHELF shared service Library Management System, ExLibris – Alma and Primo. This project draws together 9 universities plus National Library of Wales and NHS Wales libraries to work for shared procurement, shared knowledge during implementation and benefits for both users and Library staff. Staff contributing to the project were the winners of the Times Higher Education’s Leadership & Management awards 2015 – Outstanding Library Team! Demonstrating recognition for their collaborative work.

Following the Cake Break, Anthony Skates, spoke on behalf of SEWP – South East Wales Partnership discussing the various previous projects the group has contributed to. From the SET South East Training Group sessions, running Books4U and working with Macmillan Cancer Support. Current projects include supporting the Big Lottery Bid in Torfaen and surrounding areas; mapping engagement with Communities First Hubs and actively supporting front-line staff working in Public Libraries with relevant skills in this changing time. Since 2013, SEWP has worked to provide a range of training to Library staff. These have been coordinated by Christina Nevines. Work has included ‘Best Practice in Reader Group Development’; ‘Partnership working with Job Centre Plus’; ‘Working with Dementia training and workshops’ and other skill focused training sessions.
Anthony Skates
       


  

This anniversary event was held at the recently refurbished Cardiff and Vale College. Attendees had the opportunity after the presentations for a tour around the Learning Skills Centre & Library facilities that are available for the FE students studying at CAVC. A big thank you to Melissa and her colleagues for their welcome and hospitality.

Cardiff and Vale College



Karen, Emma, Rebecca, Helen and the Cake!!
Same but different: working in different library sectors

Same but different: working in different library sectors

by CLIC Cardiff ♥ 7 Comments
The CLIC ‘Same but different: Working in different library sectors’ event took place on Friday 26thJune 2015 at the Welsh Government Building.
The morning’s programme covered the work and services of four very different library sectors; each one demonstrating the wide range of information work and those recurring core tasks present in each of them.

The first speaker, Marlize Palmer, was from our host venue, the Welsh Government Library, and she  presented “Supporting law making and policy development”. The Welsh Government Library oversees areas from law making support, policy support, CPD, Copyright and digital continuity. The 20 members of staff in Library and Archive Services based at Cathays Park provide support to all Welsh Government locations including Merthyr and Llandudno Junction. The range of query work ranges from CPD, for staff learning and development; legal services, EU legislation, including specific work to support the regional restructure in Wales and Organ Donation legislation and Record Management especially where there differences between England and Scotland to Wales. The Library also responses to queries about historical ministerial decisions, many of these have now been digitised and can be accessed.
The Library and Archive Librarians have allocated policy areas but often find themselves working with other colleagues to meet deadlines for their clients. The service always works within CILIP’s code of ethics to ensure they provide a balanced response for information. This is an important quality when meeting the demands of 625 literature searches & specific information searches in 2014-15. Other queries relate to copyright, this is an area that the library has seen a growing number of questions about.
Other services provided are, access to publications that have been removed from the website and disseminating information to their clients via their Current Awareness Blog. The Library staff run training sessions on databases like Lexis Nexis for those needing law resources as well as general library introductions.

Fun Fact – Current Awareness Blog has had 22,000+ views!!

Rhian, Sarah and Catty
The following session was presented by Catty Bennett from the Office for National Statistics, who is based in Titchfield, Hampshire and works with the office in Newport, South Wales.
Catty discussed her role in “supporting the information needs of the ONS” through the library service. The ONS is probably best known for the Census, Consumer Prices Index and Top 100 Baby Names in England and Wales; what is less known perhaps is the work that the ONS Library and Information Services does to support the ONS field staff working across the country, by working with the Knowledge & Information Management Group, assisting with staff development and providing access to their collection of statistical and other ONS publications. This covers both current and historical data and the collection is complemented with free publications and inter-library loan provision. A select number of databases and journals are available to staff online. Queries from the public are directed initially to the Customer Contact Centre, where information can then be sent out or a visit arranged where appropriate.
Like many other sectors the Library services faces the challenge of increasing demand and a decreasing budget to provide service and resources. The service has been looking for ways to continue to support staff by initiatives such as training for catalogue, databases and Google searching and providing broadband access to help with the business needs of staff, for tasks such as downloading videos or larger data in a quicker time to meet deadlines. 

Fun Fact – The most popular first names given to babies born in England and Wales in 2013 were Oliver and Amelia.  Baby Names, England and Wales, 2013 (ONS)

Starting the second half of the morning’s event was Sarah Davies from the Health Promotion Library, who gave a captivating account of the tasks and responsibilities that she and her colleagues undertake each week. As part of Public Health Wales the library serves users, some visit in person though the vast majority access the library’s service as distance users; users from across all sectors, mainly in Wales but also from any part of the world that send enquiries! The range of users include NHS Wales staff, Local Government, Academics, Nursing and Health & Social Care students, Voluntary sector workers, Health Visitors and  high school students all with a range of enquiries relating to health promotion – facts on smoking cessation to weaning advice leaflets in ethnic languages and anything in between. The library keeps in touch with its users via twitter and a Library Newsletter. In addition to this information is available about Health Promotion events via the Health Events Calendar.  To promote their services and Public Health Wales Library staff regularly put on marketing events at various health conferences and events.
While the Health Promotion Library does not give health advice (please contact your local health professionals!) Sarah and her colleagues do work continuously to promote health initiatives and current awareness of health events and campaigns for example Health Info4Life and British Heart Foundation’s stair-climb challenge where people are encouraged to increase the amount of steps they take each day by undertaking a ‘virtual climb’ of a mountain or tall building. This challenge has been enthusiastically accepted by the staff working in Churchill House offices where the Library is currently located on the 4thfloor.
Other work areas include supporting the Book Prescription Wales scheme that helps people access high quality self-help books that have been selected by health professionals working in Wales.  Sarah also outlined her work at Shire Hall Care Home, where she participates in the Read Aloud Reading Group with the residents there to support their mental health and well-being by enjoying shared reading.
This scope of work is of course in addition to the day to day library tasks such as book selection and processing, information and statistics done by the three staff answering 1,666 queries each, serving their 2,400 library members!

Fun Fact – Virtual Mountain – Mount Snowdon is 7,120 steps or 475 flights of stairs!

The presentations were concluded by Rhian Date, a school librarian working at Bryntirion Comprehensive School in Bridgend. Rhian gave a great insight into “A ‘normal’ day in the life of the school librarian”, where in reality no two days are the same! The school library is open lunch time and breaks but there is also an often call for help with toner for the printers and emergency stationery pleas at other times too. The library is used by the teaching staff for booked lessons and throughout the day for quiet study for 6th form students.
A major part of the school librarian role is to support the reading of staff and students at the school; working with the English teacher, Rhian supports the Accelerated Reader system, the library PCs are used for the STAR reading tests and the books including in the scheme in the library are identified by stickers indicating the book level and age range. In addition to the Accelerated Reader work, Rhian also supports the BTEC lessons, online PC quizzes and offers an after school Challenge and Puzzle Club, where students can use resources from the library; these include a range of educational games.
One way the library encourages reading and literacy is by the teachers putting up notices of the current book they are reading on their classroom doors. This is encouraged by Rhian as she also has a “I’m currently reading…” notice. As a lone worker Rhian is helped by a few volunteer library assistants to help with queries in the library. But if you think this means that a school librarian has long holidays, not necessarily – Rhian’s contract means that she works in the Public Library whilst the students are on vacation!!

Librarian recommends ARBookFinder

The event was completed by tour of the Welsh Government Library as discussed by our first speaker Malize Palmer. Apologies for no live tweets from this event due to unavailability of wi-fi.

Rebecca Evans, Cardiff Met

CLIC Social

CLIC Social

by CLIC Cardiff ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The CLIC Summer social will be at Barocco in Cardiff city centre on Thursday 7 August.


Come along and have a drink [2-4-1 cocktails!] with us to celebrate the fact that it is summer! Open to anyone working in libraries in Cardiff and the surrounding areas, we will be there from 5.30-8.00pm.


For more details please email cliclibraries@gmail.com or contact us on Twitter.

Review of CLIC Summer TeachMeet 2013

Review of CLIC Summer TeachMeet 2013

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CLIC held their first summer ‘Teachmeet’ at Cardiff University on 11th July. It was held in the rather grand wood-panelled Glamorgan Building Committee Rooms.  There were over 50 attendees from government, school, public libraries and HE and FE libraries which brought together a great mix of experience for discussion and networking. 
Rosie Jones (University of Manchester)
The afternoon began with a workshop by Rosie Jones from the University of Manchester who incorporated a wide range of interactive techniques into her presentation. Rosie was introduced as being a former member of the CILIP IL Group as well as a stalwart LILAC Committee member and also an impressively superfit person which showed in the energy that she brought to her presentation. There were a number of tables around the room each seating around 8 people and Rosie had the groups interacting within minutes of the start of her talk. The first activity in the groups was where each group was given a card with a number of objects on it and the group had to decide how they might use those objects in a student induction. For example one group had a stuffed rabbit toy, cups and envelopes and they had to devise a way to use these items to create an interactive game at induction. One suggestion was to make the rabbit a suit of armour from the cups and envelopes as a team building exercise! Many other surreal and creative solutions were forthcoming from the groups. 
Rosie then introduced 5 simple facilitation techniques: ‘Jigsaw’, ‘Redirecting Questions’, ‘Wait time’, ‘Think, Pair, Share’ and ‘Rounds’. All of these Rosie managed to demonstrate to the audience during her presentation.  Rosie also introduced the groups to voting with different coloured lolly sticks, a low-tech version of audience participation software. 
Rosie summed up her highly interactive presentation with a message to ‘practise what you preach’ i.e. put interactivity into different aspects of your work, e.g. using interactivity in meetings that you chair etc. 
Networking with Welsh cakes
After Rosie’s talk and a break for networking (with Welsh cakes and tea/coffee!), there were 2 Teachmeet rounds. In each round, each participant was able to hear 3 x 10 minute talks which meant by the end of the afternoon, each person had heard 6 talks, each giving unique tips about aspects of Information Literacy training. Those giving the talks had a very strict 10 minutes to get across their message. The variety of talks were excellent ranging from blogging, audience response technology, treasure hunts, ‘buzz groups’, using ‘apps’ for research and study, using post-it notes to facilitate group study, and card games to test students’ knowledge.  The standard of presentations was excellent. A vote was held at the end of the afternoon for the best presentation and this was won by Charity Dove of Cardiff University whose presentation style won the day with her effervescent and punchy presentation on “passion, possession and performance”. A close second was Sue House from the University of South Wales whose presentation involved using a can of coke to get students talking about search terms and how to combine them.
Charity Dove (CU) and Sue House (USW) with their prizes
Finally the afternoon was brought to a close by John Wright’s (University of South Wales) ‘groovy’ musical finale, a satirical song about the Learning Resource Centre (“for people who don’t like the word libraries”!) which John uses in library inductions with his students. 
All in all it was an excellent afternoon, which passed incredibly quickly and which undoubtedly will have sparked a whole host of ideas for enlivening Information Literacy training for all of those involved. 
Sally Earney
CLIC at CILIP Cymru/Wales annual conference 2013

CLIC at CILIP Cymru/Wales annual conference 2013

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Last week (16/17th May) the CILIP Cymru/Wales annual conference took place in Cardiff at the Radisson Blu hotel.  Several members of the CLIC staff development group were there to take part, help out behind scenes, and give a presenation.  For some of us the conference activities started on the Wednesday evening when we held a ‘fringe’ social event at Las Iguanas inviting CLIC members and conference attendees to join us for food and cocktails.  We were joined by some of the CILIP Cymru committee, and later on by some conference goers.  A nice way to set proceedings off.

The title of the conference was ‘Rising to the challenge’ with a thematic look at partnership and collaboration, and over two days we were treated to many different examples of such collaborations – both within and between different sectors.  From public library examples in Edinburgh and Nottingham, to academic collaborations in Gloucestershire and Cumbria, and a long lived health library partnership in Wales.

Of course the theme of the conference was right up our street and embodies what CLIC aims to achieve, so on the first day we presented in a session about regional partnerships and collaborations, alongside LINC y Gogledd (a North Wales Libraries Partnership). You can see the CLIC presentation here.

Attending the conference meant we also got to hear talks from the CEO of CILIP – Annie Mauger, in conjunction with Rebecca Davies (Pro Vice-chancellor, University of Aberystwyth); and from Phil Bradley, the President of CILIP who rounded up the conference at the end of the second day.

The Welsh Minister for Culture and Sport, John Griffiths, AM also spoke briefly to the conference, before opening the trade exhibition.

At the conference dinner the Welsh Librarian of the Year awards took place, and we would like to congratulate Lori Havard of Swansea University for winning the academic sector librarian award, and the overall Welsh librarian award, and Bethan Hughes from Denbighshire for winning the public librarian award.

We are already looking forward to next year’s conference, although as the location is yet to be decided it may not be on our doorstep next time.  For now, however, we also want to thank the organisers for all their hard work in providing us with a great conference.