Shiny pencilcase time

Yes, it’s back to ’school’ after a lovely relaxing week in North Yorkshire – spent reading, exploring, eating fish and chips and feeding carrots to the resident goats, Basil and Spangle. Most bucolic. Particularly enjoyed reading the book Tunnels and its sequel Deeper – definite cult potential for the younger generation (and big kids there). Also greatly enjoyed 3 Big Finish Doctor Who audio adventures (for the fans they would be The haunting of Thomas Brewster, Brave new town and Sisters of the flame). Only problem was this meant I couldn’t snooze off on the journey!

Back at the ranch, inbox is suitably full to bursting, mainly relating to bookings for IL classes. Timetabling continues to be a headache. Time travel may become a necessity rather than a luxury. Summer school students are around this week, and I actually have to teach them in a few days so did lots of ordering of materials etc. Am anticipating several early starts or late finishes this month!

CDG National Officers are busy bees writing their reports for our meeting next Monday and dealing with professional niggles of one kind and another. Have a surreally premature discussion with the Past President about Christmas cards. And Scottish Division meet this Wednesday and hopefully will be full of dreams and plans for the coming year!

I do miss the Olympics, though…

Cloning for beginners?

Timetables. A fine way to dampen any spirits, if they weren’t already sodden through with the current weather. Eveybody wants a piece of us. There are only so many bodies, so many suitable rooms and so many hours in the day. But of course everyone wants the same slots. And no I can’t teach 32 people in a room with 27 PCs, not if any of them need any help or attention at all.

Take all day to update one modest summer school presentation, due to constant interruptions, mainly involving simultaneous consultation of six different documents. Brain all to pot.

Manage to escape to the gym at lunchtime and get some exercise while hearing good news about Chris Hoy (pretty much the only athlete as far as the Scots are concerned).

Umbrellas at the ready; it’s time to go home.

Warmups required

Teach summer school students today for 2 whole hours and realise I am definitely not match fit. Keep launching into long explanations and then having to stop and catch my breath. Completely bamboozle thewm about e-books, referencing and all kinds. A few little surprises too as I test drive the new library web pages and discover various Shibboleth nasties.

Not much else to report. Tum ti tum. Completed my papers for officers’ meeting over the weekend, so hoping for a quiet week or two on the CDG front.

The barefoot librarian

What is the weather about? Pouring rain this morning so out come the winter coat, boots and such like. Now it has gone all muggy and my feet are burning up. Dare I risk letting them out or is that just too unkind to colleagues?

Shibboleth day so lots of things changing. Need to update guides that I’ve only just written with great behemoth URLs that hopefully will take students where they want to go. (Shibboleth and behemoth in one paragraph… very biblical… just bring on the dugong and away we go).

Finally manage to email staff about information literacy classes. The main aim being to make my spreadsheet look nice and tidy. Much mapping of this to that and the other. Perhaps today I will even get to start writing up staff development events I attended 2 months ago.

CDG still in a bit of a summer lull but many missives from CILIP to read and digest and inwardly mark. Also signs of pre-officer meeting activity. I think we are all dusting off our to-do lists and reminding ourselves what it’s all about.

On Topic

Just made a trip to the vending machine for Topic and Bounty bars for two of us. My excuse is that I have just drafted the longest email ever in response to an academic colleague’s 5 very searching questions on a paper I had drafted on information literacy within his School. You know these documents that cause major headaches at the time, come back to bit you after a month or two, and then still have to be redrafted before The Big Meeting where a wider group of people get to tear said document to shreds or else overlook it entirely? It’s that kind.

Just about to resume contacting staff re information literacy sessions for next semester. I would normally have done this by at least the end of June, which confirms my susipicion that I am running at least a month behind myself. Considering sporting a false moustache and trilby so as to pass through hostile crowds of neglected colleagues unseen… why do I always bump into the very person whose thing I’ve been studiously ignoring?

Get very excited when a Revalidation candidate contacts me and asks whether I can look through a draft submission. My first one so it will all be a bit experimental. Fortunately I know the Revalidee (Revalidant? Revalidator?) in question so we can hopefully engage in helpful conversation about the work.

I can see a few square inches of desk so things must be on the up slightly. Also made it to the gym at lunchtime and felt a lot better. Endorphins ahoy!

Back at Chateau Quick, we are regular visitors to the vet, mainly with one kit but tonight with the other one after a disturbed night of cat hoiking. Suspect her of munching small FBCs (Furry Bone Crunchers) in the farmland at the weekend. Recreational viewing is on the cards for tonight: video of last night’s Olympic dreams, which I am loving from the comfort of the sofa; Private Practice, as the RT put it – ‘for those who didn’t think Grey’s Anatomy was sexist enough’; and this week’s DVD of choice, the 1980s TV version of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Considering going into counselling after seeing Douglas Adams’s bare bottom in episode 2. Mind you, a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster would just slip down round about now…

Till next time, keeeeep surfing…

Hanging on the telephone

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…

SuperLambBanana

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.

Squashed tomatoes and stew

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?

Information underload

Bother it, another day nearly over and I have failed to plant any more seeds in the blog patch. Day Job was taken up with urgent stuff, finishing a key paper, some meetings with reps (who were mnore than averagely personable for company reps), making difficult decisions about collection management (stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before…)

Also having a little personal dilemma about whether or not to apply for a job I’ve seen. It’s appealing but there would be material sacrifices. Also sense that my appetite for change, which has always been quite healthy, is on the wane and I’m starting to lose confidence in my ability to seize new opportunities. That is evidence if anything is that I really should be thinking about moving on…

Write a little review piece for CDG Scottish Division newsletter, reflecting on my first two months as CDG President. It’s been challenging, sometimes stressful, but there have been some real highs. I’m trying to stay on top of everything and hold it all together, but I don’t know whether it’s working. Still feel quite daunted by the whole thing.

Busy the rest of this week – tomorrow I join in a Show & Tell day for SALCTG, speaking about my use of wikis in 1st year information literacy. On Thursday it’s the CILIPS day at Peebles and I’m looking forward to co-leading a workshop on the Timelord’s Guide to CPD. Who makes up these titles?!

Stay out of the shadows… and don’t blink…

Jiggery Pokery

Skived off blogging yesterday so missed the opportunity to say pinch, punch, first day of the month, *no return* – as we used to do in the playground. (I’m coming over all Iona Opie…)

Tried to cram a quart into a pint pot’s worth of time today. Felt a lot like packing for one of my holidays, kitchen-sink style.

Trying to regain the plot on information literacy. What kind of reports do we need to write this year, bearing in mind new currents that are afoot in the uni and the feedback from our IL review? How can we make reporting our friend and not duplicate effort needlessly?

New electronic resources are in the pipeline but it’s a full time job catching up with the details of the packages, prices and mechanics of them all. Oh, and letting people know what we’ve got. Need to go and make some hard decisions about print stock too, but couldn’t quite face it this afternoon. I need to write a report on scholarly electronic provision soon and have not a clue what to put in it – line manager made helpful suggestions and assured me there were number crunching experts on hand – but still feeling just that wee bit of panic.

Prepared a short presentation for SALCTG (Scottish Academic Libraries Consortium Training Group) – they’re having a Web 2.0 show and tell day on Wednesday in Edinburgh. I’m going to chat a bit about a wiki we used in some first year teaching and assessment.

Marked a few reassessments and sighed. Why resubmit and not include all the necessary components of the assessment? Why bother if you don’t improve your mark or in some cases actually fare worse than first time around?

Evening off tonight? Oh yes; I think so.