Tales from the CDG Tardis

Good morning blog pickers, I’ve been neglecting you again, haven’t I? Am in some turmoil as I await the result of my interview last Friday. Definitely wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but maybe emergency booster rockets will have compensated. Hard to concentrate when your brain is simultaneously working on two different prognoses and all their associated implications.

Monday: went at the emails like Kim and Aggie, swept away many and even answered a few, down to a less frightening array now but it can all turn on a dime. Pleasant evening watching Murray play actual tennis, you know the kind of match where chaps actually run about and look interesting instead of just exerting brute force from baseline. Packing mini suitcase again for another trip down to Lullon Tahn.

Tuesday: planning day at a colleague’s house; also known as ‘playing on the wii’ (we didn’t, even, so it was very unfair of management to make such accusations). Got our heads round a few information literacy documents and tasklists and future plans and WebCT evaluation templates, all without having our heads nipped or being interrupted. Lovely lunch too although the crisp Chablis I longed for had to be downgraded to elderflower. Jumped on train to London and finally made a start on that Emotional Intelligence book I bought 3 months ago. Also finished When we were bad for book group, quite a jolly Jewish London romp, although not exactly profound.

So to Wednesday, down in London for the CILIP Equal Opportunities Panel. Still quite new to this outfit so lots of listening and less talking than usual, although I’m interested in how CDG can support the new Positive Action Scheme and also thinking ahead to the next Umbrella debate (aka the Trevor Knight award for gallantry in the face of deliberate provocation), getting my head together with the Diversity Group rep.

Still hoping the mobile will ring with promise of pastures new…

No, I can’t blame blogger’s block, I’ve just been (a) too busy or (b) too knackered to face writing.

UC&R conference was fabulous all round but my feet didn’t touch the ground Tues or Weds, hence the blogging silence set in. How to sum up such a full programme? Great plenaries (especially good to hear from college Principals), inspiring workshops on everything from ethical influencing to edutainment and humour, quality networking with colleagues old and new, and a fab social programme. Tuesday saw me on the Magical Mystery Tour which took in Penny Lane, Strawberry Field and sundry Beatle birthplaces, ending with a drink at the Cavern. In the evening I spent a very pleasant couple of hours lambanana spotting with a handful of dedicated colleagues.

Wednesday was a packed day which included my own workshop joint with Carol Campbell-Hayes, entitled ‘With a little help from my friends: making the most of CPD‘. We had a dozen enthusiastic participants and the two-hander worked well despite only having the coffee break to discuss it face to face. By Weds night I was ready for a celebratory dinner at Liverpool Town Hall. Neither food nor venue disappointed - best ever Eton Mess and some rather good red wine - plus we were treated to an after dinner chat by author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce. OK so the DJ didn’t show up and the disco was rather dubious, but lots of great conversations made for a memorable evening.

Thursday it was a long wet journey home, with problems affecting both connections. Sigh. Eventually made it back and had to get straight into interview mode for Friday… not sure I was firing on all cylinders but we shall see.

Tomorrow I will stun everyone by actually going to work.

So, fresh (or rather excited but a little exhausted!) after my trip to London and the success of Raising the bar, I now find myself in sunny Liverpool Hope University for the UC&R/COFHE joint study conference. Actually travelled down Saturday to stay with cousins and catch up with my four great-aunties. This involved a pub crawl which took in The Grapes, Rigby’s, The Saddle Inn, Masquerade, The Postie and the Crown Vaults. Soft drinks are a wonderful invention; it’s too humiliating to be drunk under the table by septuagenerians.

Am safely delivered to Hope Park nonetheless and immediately bump into one of the RTB delegates who says how much she enjoyed Thursday’s event. Also catch up with a former colleague and a few other sundry professional contacts.

Bijou gripettes: my room is fine but lacks soap, coathangers, a chair and anything to drink out of. Improvise 3 of these but stuck on the coathanger front. Will have to just be creased or make use of shared iron and put clothes straight on hot off the board.

Liverpool is host not only to the European Capital of Culture but to SuperLambBanana, a joyous spectacle of public art that picks up where Edinburgh’s Cow Parade left off, i.e. same principle (sponsored brightly decorated animal structures, only this time with lambs. That have a pointy back end. For some reason. I plan to snap as many as I see - they brighten up any powerpoint presentation.

We are warmly welcomed by Linda Taylor, Director of Library Services at Liverpool Hope Uni, who gives us the history of her institution which started from just two students training to be schoolmistresses in the mid 19th century.

Joyce Little, Head of Libraries & Information Services for the City of Liverpool then gave a spirited and honest keynote address. She described her service’s mission as being to inspire, inform and entertain; to be the street corner university; to empower residents. The capital of culture offers the promise of lifting what is still a very deprived city, through culture and regeneration. She mentioned some key projects and investment in transforming heritage buildings, balanced with the need to attract new audiences. One interesting comment was that she felt a ‘huge disappointment’ that more has not been invested in electrionic resources for public libraries. Student user numbers are falling in Liverpool’s Central Library, and this is one contributing factor, along with the investment in many LRCs at HEIs in the area.

Dr David Collins CBE, Principal of high-achieving South Cheshire College, spoke next. He emphasised leadership, clarity of vision, values; feels that staff needed to feel secure before they could welcome change; believes that ‘management is more concerned with guidance and support than with regulation and control’. He was vocal ont he topic of meetings: says we should never take minutes, but only record the names of those present, the cost of their time, and any changes or major decisions resulting from the meeting. A sobering thought.  He believes that the time-honoured technique of MBWA needs to have a purpose, and that the purpose should be only to thank or acknowledge individuals for their contributions to the college. We shoul cut down on emails and use more varied means of communication. We should fit structures to people and never the other way around. Above all, we should show that we care.

After a quick coffee break, we reconvened for the first workshop (there was no choice for this one so it was either accept the 3 line whip or skive with impunity!) Debbi Boden and Ronan O’Beirne battled technical hitches (I maintain this was LOLcats breaking in…) to deliver a lively and interactive information literacy session. They considered digital immigrants and natives and digital citizenship, and described their work on the POP-i and LolliPop projects.

Well now, I’ve duly blogged and now I need to freshen up in time for for the rigours of dinner, Hollywood Librarian (for the second time!), drinks and a quiz.

A very quiet day back at the office today after a whirlwind trip to London. The filing frenzy came upon me and now stuff is sensibly arranged, I can find it, and my desk looks shiny and bare.

Raising the bar was a great success. Everyone turned up, and there were no technical hitches. Speakers were all excellent, and workshop leaders managed to be universally interactive and keep to their time constraints, no mean feat. Dr Paul Ayris welcomed us to UCL and spoke about their work on Investors in People. Anne Poulson and Ian Snowley offered us an unofficial masterclass as they reviewed their own careers and focused on leadership and personal motivation to succeed. We enjoyed a range of workshops - first up I got to hear Jacky Berry speak on managing stress for improved performance, which featured a case study of the BMA. Jacky was good-humoured and her empathy came through as she tackled this difficult area. We heard about the wonders of bug lists and the perils of orange creates, before we broke for a relaxed lunch featuring some lovely fruit and cheese - a welcome additon to the usual conference menu. (Though not a patch on Peebles of course!) I didn’t get to hear fellow conference planner Helen Blanchett run her session on scenario planning, but it sounded lively!

Afternoon saw workshops from Caroline Williams from Intute on managing change, and Veronica Fraser on influencing skills, as well as parallel sessions from Lesley Robinson on making a business case and Ayub Khan on achieving personal goals. (I was sorry not to be able to be at all of these!) Both Caroline and Veronica were thoughtful, well prepared and informative.  Bruce Madge rounded the day off with a thoughtful assessment of marketing based on his experience at the London Upright MRI Centre. He managed to sweep through marketing, USPs, medicine and art and still leave time for a leisurely and pleasant chat to leave people feeling inspired. I even let him have a free plug for The Bearded Pigs, but he wasn’t makin’ any bacon any time soon.

All this plus the airy cloisters and the contribution made by our bijou exhibition - CDG, PTEG, Intute, Netskills and Sue Hill Recruitment. The conference planning team rewarded themselves with a well-earned bottle of Pinot Grigio before deciding to run a similar conference in 2010, keeping the same title, so we can spread the word and let others experience such high calibre speakers and enriching programmes.

The best was yet to come. Having boarded the 1800 from King’s Cross, I decided I couldn’t face one more train sandwich and oppted instead for a proper meal in the on-board restaurant. Chap sits down opposite me, I make the usual pleasantries such as ‘how far are you travelling’ and ‘how was your day’, then we progress on to ‘what’s your line of work’. He’s a writer. ‘Oh, what kind?’ I ask. Children’s books - this sounds highly promising. To cut a long story short, my dinner companion is none other than highly respected author Marcus Sedgwick, on his way up to a festival in Melrose. I try to get the fan bit over with fairly quickly (having read just two so far, The Foreshadowing and Blood red, Snow White and we then have a great chat about books, reading, readers, writers and publishers. Too bad I didn’t have a notebook to hand… anyhow, Sedgwick is a capital fellow and I shall certainly be looking out for his future releases.

Afternoon, the sun is shining today and despire being woken up obscenely early by said burning orb, am definitely feeling perkier today. This may have something to do with Developments on the career progression front…

Day job wise, have a couple of reasonably productive meetings and - shock horror - actually complete the task of drafting 6 programme annual reports.

Also looking forward to Raising the bar in London. UCL is a great venue and if we get sunny weather it will be idyllic. We have a strong programme and it’ s a joint effort between CDG and PTEG, exciting and possibly could lead to more joint working in future.  I hope the delegates enjoy themselves and I know they will come ready to contribute and network enthusiastically. And maybe we will be raiding the bar afterwards.

Must have plenty of train reading about my person - I have Allende’s Paula; When we were bad (Charlotte Mendelson); Update; and no doubt some suitably trashy magazines.

Sorry folks but not feeling too bright or inspired. Too much to do, especially writing, and worse still things involving numbers and pictures. Yikes.  Have training on how to upload content to the portal, all looks terribly confusing and time-consuming. Up against multiple deadlines (main one being impending implosion of head).

Kept up late last night by need to iron clothes for trips down south, feed medicine to ailing kitty, and electrical blackout mit crackling caused by placing ironing board in cupbaord - knocking fusebox out of whack in the process. Two of us wandering round dark house at 10pm, can’t find torch, light candle but afraid to put too close to source of crackling and fizz. Hubby remembers we have electrical knowhow in the form of friend round corner, and sets off. Said saviour turns up with torch on his head and sorts out the problem. Normality temporarily resumed. Humour hanging by a thread…

Terrorise the nervous chap in Waterstone’s again today. Freak him out by buying 3 copies of same book - When we were bad - it’s on 3 for 2 so Book Group buddy up and pool resources, I buy and ask for fiver plus bar of chocolate each as contribution. Choc not forthcoming yet so have to visit vending machine.

Tonight is two lots of packing for trips to London and Liverpool - hoping I will be energised by meeting with colleagues in different contexts.

It’s train time - if I leave it much later it will be a case of run, fat librarian, run…

Nothing profound here today (or indeed any day, say some of my cheekier readers). Can hardly believe it’s only Monday. Woke up feeling exhausted and haven’t improved as the day has gone on.

Numbers and percentages make me panicky. Look at my tasklist for some time to try and identify anything that isn’t horrible. Settle on writing a few more information literacy programme reports. This is vaguely heartening as I realise I have actually done something useful in the last year. Some nice comments on the student evaluations.  In the afternoon have a meeting about a whole other area of work which has looming deadlines and will entail much fiddling and technical jiggery-pokery. Surely by now it is time to retreat to the safety of the duvet?

Lunchtime: buy speaker gifts for our CDG Raising the bar conference. Chap in Waterstone’s is a bit nervous, says thankyou about 500 times during the process. Drives me slightly mad.

Serious need for chocolate before heading off to the vet’s - by 7pm I will no longer be the grumpiest member of the household…

Level 5 Computing Subject Assessment Board. Not a meeting I’ve been invited to before, but in the current climate of strategic visibility, yada yada yada, I thought having been invited I should probably turn up. Spent most of an hour and a half listening to the shipping news… Smith, Fred. Fail. MF7. Bloggs, Joe. Fail. NS0. And so on and so forth until I really was drifting in and out of consciousness and was in every danger of falling into the upright nap, you know the one where your head lolls against a stranger’s and you wake up with your mouth open?

Trying to write programme report for biomedical science. It’s already about 7 pages and it was supposed to be succinct.

Finally start writing a resource evaluation for a new e-book collection and discover can’t get into said collection. Again. Gah. That’s them off my Christmas card list.

On plus side, indulge in end-of-year spending bonanza on market reports, precious things that only savvy printwise students discover (unless they come to our sessions).

Time to brave the June showers, Tesco and all manner of other obstacles before I get to the weekend proper. Off to the wedding of hubby’s PhD student tomorrow: will we be the oldest people there? Should just be pipped by parents of the B and G so that’s something to be thankful for. And finally after 4 years I get to see inside St Salvator’s Chapel.

Happy weekend everybody, go out and do something less boring than reading blogs…

37 today… getting dangerously close to the big four-oh. Am I still in my mid-thirties or have I crossed into the shark-infested waters of the late thirties? Never mind, I get to play my lovely new cherrywood recorder that smells all yummy. Mr Amazon may smile upon me also.

Book group today, fairly much did a hatchet job on Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale. Contrived? Possibly. So much tragedy in the family and yet so hard to really care about any of the people. Have agreed no more tortured artists and something fun for next time (jury still out…)

Reporting is taking over - information literacy seems to be one strategic document after another these days. Trying to write programme reports, made stupid decision to start with programme where I have the most extensive input (biomedical sciences). Need to map so many variables against each other that I will require at least seven dimensions. Analysing things brings me dangerously close to uncontrollable weeping fits. (So decided extra cake and clothes shopping trip were in order…)

Frined reports that her nearly 2 year old has a vocabulary of 10 words, one of which is TARDIS. Good lad: he’ll go far.

Hopefully succeeded in convincing PGCHET examiner that she wants us to include information literacy input intot he taught module. We have all-singing all-dancing plans plus theory and content to go. Fortunately she is a social software enthusiast so we may be able to satisfy that angle. Programme tutor keen on fireside chats over nice wine in the local Tasting Rooms, he wants to start including IL tutors as regular part of the team, can you see where I’m going with this?! (Excellent conflict of interests as I am also a reluctant student ont he course, and have just hopefully scraped a C in the second module, aka Curriculum Deisgn, aka Module of Doom). If I write module 3 based on reflections on teaching input to the PGCHET I may in fact disappear right up my own module descriptor.

Surely it must be time for a little scampi and chardonnay?

I’m hoping that like my garden, this blog will thrive or at least survive on neglect… today’s post title recalls a conversation with some colleagues about a nameless colleague at another institution who has a rather liberal attitude to ethical use of information on a blog… nuff said or I could put the cat among the pigeons. (Way too many metaphors in operation here).

Been ignoring you in order to get on with some Actual Work. This is: reports to write, stock to dispose of, emails to answer (whaddyamean that’s not work?!), objectives to set, with ‘Just Survive’ not being acceptable to senior management

CDG is never quiet for more than 5 minutes, gearing up for our joint senior conference with PTEG, Raising the Bar, taking place next Thursday at University College London. Lots of little jobs to be done and we have been holding our breath waiting for delegates to place their bookings - which they have now done and hopefully will continue to do right up until catering deadlines. Should be a fun, quality event with a good buzz. Spotted some familiar names on the bookings sheet, friendships due for renewal.

And pretty soon it will be time for the UC&R/CoFHE conference in Liverpool, capital of culture every year and not just this one IMHO. Renewing family relationships the weekend before, so will have Gone Native by the start of conf proper and will deliver session entirely in Scouse (agh’ey soft girl). Small matter of workshop to be written and materials prepared. All manner of things shall be well.

Moan of the day: Edinburgh Fringe online booking is STILL closed! Most annoying. I bet Bill Bailey is already sold out.

Serendipitous moment of the day: bumping into Senga the Storyteller, fabulous local figure and some time user of my commuter train (today she was being a 17th century Scots cook, or some such, at Claypotts Castle). Was just thinking about her this morning and wanting an injection of inspiration on children’s literature and such like. This may or may not feed in to any possible forthcoming interviews…