Library Day in the Life - Round 8

I’ve decided to participate in Library Day in the Life Round 8. This is the first time I’ve taken part in my current role – last summer I was on holiday during the week allocated. I did take part this time last year, however, when I was working at Northumbria University on a temporary basis as a Senior Information Assistant. It’s hard to believe I’ve been in my current post for almost a year!


I work for an HE establishment which provides (mostly) postgraduate legal education. My role involves helping to manage courses on the VLE (we use Blackboard). Officially my job title is Team Member (Delivery Team) but considering that this means nothing to anyone outside the organisation, I tend to use the unofficial title Information Officer outside of work.


My job doesn't change all that much from day to day, so instead of writing about each day individually, I decided to write about a 'typical day'.


I normally get in just before 9 and have breakfast and a cup of tea while waiting for the computer to boot up. I check my emails and then start on the day's work. At the moment my colleagues and I are engaged in building a number of courses on the VLE system which are due to become available to students in a couple of weeks. This involves checking we have received all of the course materials from the designers, uploading the materials and linking to them from the course itself, checking all links are correct, all audiovisual resources are the right ones, and that everything is named properly and in the right place. Depending on the size of the course, it can take anything from a couple of hours to a day to finish building a particular course. At the moment I am working on LPC (Legal Practice Course) courses, but I have also built GDL (Graduate Diploma in Law) courses in the past, and am responsible for building the courses we run in conjunction with the Open University. There are a number of courses for each qualification - they are divided by stage of study, subject and/or mode of study. Many students attend either full or part-time, but many are distance learners and the resources we offer on the VLE are particularly valuable for them.


As well as building courses myself, I also QA (check) courses that others have built, and they do the same for me - sometimes it takes a new eye to see if there are any mistakes. When you're adding links to lots of different documents and resources it's fairly easy to make a mistake and it really helps to have someone else go through it - a bit like proofreading.


At lunchtime, I generally stay in but sometimes like to go out and go for a short walk. Working in central London means that there is a lot to see, and as I work round the corner from the giant Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road, lots to buy too! I try not to go in here too much as I have a bit of a stationery addiction. I try to go the other way, away from the shops, and was rewarded on one occasion by finding this:

I love London, because you can find pieces of history like this around just about every corner.


In the afternoon I might have a Helpdesk session. We deal with student and staff queries via email, which can be very varied. The enquirer could have trouble locating or downloading a document, or a member of staff could be asking us to upload documents for a forthcoming course. Some queries have to be forwarded to the IT Service Desk, Library or another department, if they are not queries that we can deal with. In previous jobs I've always dealt with users face to face, so it's been interesting learning to handle queries via email. In some ways it's easier, as I prefer explaining things via the written word, but in other ways it's more difficult - getting the tone right, for example, can be a bit tricky.


Later in the afternoon, when the Helpdesk gets a bit quieter, I get on with another task - testing the VLE upgrade. We are due to move to a new version of Blackboard in a few months and I have been trying out the test version of the new system, building a test course to see what's changed and checking out the functionality. I have to give a short presentation to my colleagues during our next team meeting which is quite nerve-wracking!


This is a typical day in my job - no two days are exactly alike but they all follow the same rough pattern. It's not the sort of role I envisaged doing while I was studying my Masters, but it's been an interesting and different kind of experience.

It seems learning to code is my New Year's resolution

Unlike some others I hadn't made any specific professional resolutions for 2012. However I noticed that several people on Twitter were talking about something called Code Year. This is a programme run by Codecademy designed to teach people to code using Javascript. A lesson is emailed to you every Monday which you can then work through in your own time. The Twitter discussion can be followed using the #libcodeyear and #codeyear hashtags.

Not wanting to be left out, I signed up and have finished working through my first lesson. I'm proud to have completed it, but I'm not sure how much I actually learned. I worked through the instructions step-by-step with success, but I'm not sure if I could apply it in the real world. Still, this is only the first lesson and I want to reserve judgement for a while.

I wouldn't describe myself as a techie person and I'm not aiming to go down this route in my career. However I think it's important for librarians of any kind to keep up with technology as much as possible and the recent news relating to the idea of teaching secondary school pupils computer science shows how programming has become much more of a general skill than it was. I don't want to be left behind and feel that if school children are going to learn this stuff, the least I can do is try and keep up...

Merry Christmas!

I got my 23 Things certificate about a week ago. I really enjoyed the programme and am grateful to the cpd23 team for all their hard work.

On that note, Merry Christmas!

Seven books that changed the way I see the world

A while ago I read blog posts by Rachel Bickley and StEvelin on Seven books that changed the way I see the world, originally inspired by Bobbi Newman’s post on the same topic. Now that 23 Things is over, I’ve been thinking about what my own choices would be. It was a tough decision, but I’ve finally come to a conclusion.

The Story of Holly and Ivy – Rumer Godden

I first read this book when I was about five and found it on the bookshelf in my infant school. It made such an impact on me that I tried to track it down on Amazon twenty years later, having still remembered the story after all this time.

The book is about a lonely orphan girl called Holly and how she wishes for a grandmother to love her and a doll of her own. Put on the train to a children’s home one Christmas, she ends up in the little village of Appleton, where Christmas doll Holly waits in the window of the toy shop hoping for a little girl to love. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jones prepares for Christmas, all the time feeling that Christmas is a time for children and wishing that she had a little girl of her own.

This is a lovely story about Christmas, magic and wishing. It strongly influenced my view of Christmas and the sort of books I liked to read afterwards – books with a bit of magic in them, even if it’s implicit.

The Doll in the Garden – Mary Downing Hahn

I came across this book while I was in primary school. Though I absolutely adored reading as a child I wasn’t incredibly adventurous – I read a lot of Enid Blyton for example – but took this book out of my local library as part of the Summer Reading Challenge.

The story is about a young girl called Ashley whose father has recently died. She and her mother move into a house next door to a rather unpleasant old woman, Miss Cooper. While exploring the garden, Ashley and her new friend Kristi find a doll buried in the soil, along with an apology note. Following a ghostly white cat that appears in the garden, Ashley travels back in time to the early 1900s and finds the owner of the doll, a young girl called Louisa, who is seriously ill with consumption. Back in the present day, Ashley and Kristi discover that their neighbour Miss Cooper is the person who stole the doll all those years ago and have to try to persuade her to return the doll to Louisa, hoping that this will help her get better.

This book is excellent in the way it explores grief, jealousy and relationships, dealing with adult themes in a way children can relate to. It made me think about all of these things in a way I hadn’t before, and the memory of it stayed with me all these years. As with The Story of Holly and Ivy, I managed to track down The Doll in the Garden on Amazon recently and enjoyed re-reading it from an adult point of view.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

This one’s probably a bit of a cliché but I first read this book when I was about eleven and really related to the heroine. I really admired Jane and tried to model myself on her. I think she is inspiring in the way she maintains her self-respect and determination even though she is completely alone in the world. I have to admit that I have never expected a Mr Rochester-like figure to turn up and carry me off, although I maintain that Edward Rochester could wipe the floor with Fitzwilliam Darcy.

His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman

I first read this trilogy when I was about fifteen, around the time the final book, The Amber Spyglass, was released, and absolutely loved it. As well as telling a fantastic story, the books tackle important subjects like religion, philosophy, quantum physics and the nature of the soul. One part that made an enormous impression on me was the part towards the end where Will and Lyra end up in the world of the dead. I loved the idea that when you die the most important thing is to have a story to tell – about something you’ve done or something you’ve learned – to show that you’ve lived. This genuinely influenced my outlook on life.

I can also thank The Amber Spyglass in particular for my interest in poetry. At the beginning of each chapter there is a quote from a poem or play and I took great pleasure in tracking down the ones I didn’t recognise, which in turn led me to a greater exploration and understanding of poetry.

Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

I absolutely love Thomas Hardy’s books, even though most people I know can’t stand him. In Jude the Obscure, the title character Jude Fawley faces a number of hardships including being unable to attend university owing to his working-class background, difficult relationships, and other tragedies I won’t go into in case I spoil the story for those who haven’t read it. Jude is my favourite of Hardy’s novels, though it’s also considered his most depressing. I think this is why I like it so much, although I’m not entirely sure if Hardy appeals to me because of my pessimistic nature or whether his books influenced my pessimism. In any case, I sometimes feel like I do have a bit of a fatalistic attitude to life which was probably shaped by his books, especially this one.

The Seagull – Anton Chekhov

The Seagull is a play not a book, but I’m including it anyway – I do actually have the text in book form, though I’ve also seen it performed three times. It is set on a Russian country estate and peopled with a rounded cast of characters. The younger characters have different ambitions and dreams. Konstantin wants to write plays, but his innovative work meets with bafflement. Nina wants to be an actress, but her family is opposed to the idea and she has to sneak out of the house in secret. The older characters have unfulfilled dreams and regrets of their own: Konstantin’s mother Irina is a fading actress, while Trigorin is a writer who is slightly scornful of his own middlebrow novels. Irina’s brother Sorin, meanwhile, spends much of the play lamenting the mistakes he made while young.

Love triangles and emotional undercurrents form the backbone of the play but it was the different reactions of the main characters to tragic events in their lives that really struck me. Konstantin and Nina in particular deal with things very differently and I found their actions and behaviour alternately saddening, inspiring and thought-provoking. I won’t say any more for the sake of those who haven’t read or seen the play, but it made me think about my own attitude to life and how I deal with things.

Antarctic Navigation – Elizabeth Arthur

I wasn’t sure whether to include this book or not, seeing as I only read it a few months ago. However I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. I discovered it in a moment of serendipity – it caught my eye while I was browsing the shelves in my local library and I thought it looked interesting.

In short, Antarctic Navigation is about one woman’s mission to visit Antarctica and trek to the South Pole. However it is so much more than that. Covering the first thirty or so years of the heroine Morgan Lamont’s life, it is a kind of Bildungsroman in the tradition of the great Victorian novels. You learn about her childhood, the beginning of her interest in Antarctica, and her obsession with Robert Scott which eventually prompts her to try and recreate his doomed 1912 expedition. The descriptions of the harsh Antarctic landscape are vivid and the history and science of the area are woven into the story in a fascinating way. The story has quite a modern sensibility as it carries the awareness that the continent is under threat due to human activity and the fragility of nature. Antarctica itself also becomes a kind of symbol for the unknown, and the book’s title is a kind of metaphor for exploration both externally and inside of you – this is much more beautifully done in the book than my clumsy explanation suggests.

It’s a sign of a good book when you don’t want it to end and feel bereft when you close it for the last time – particularly when the book is eight hundred pages long. Before reading this novel, I had a passing albeit largely unexplored interest in Antarctica. Now, I have a wishlist of books about the place and really want to learn more.

These books are among my favourites, but I do have other favourite books which I wouldn’t necessarily put on this list. It’s interesting that I read four out of the seven while I was a child – I wonder if you are less likely to have your viewpoint challenged or shaped as an adult. Do we lose the capacity to be strongly influenced by literature as we get older?

Thing 23 - Reflection - What next?

I've finished!

I'm sorry the 23 Things programme has come to an end: I've really enjoyed completing it. I think the best thing about it was being able to engage with other librarians and information professionals. I hope people carry on blogging, and don't give up now that the programme is over!

I completed a SWOT analysis which I found very useful. I've just found out that my job has been extended to next autumn (it was originally due to end in February) which has given me a bit more breathing space as I figure out where to go from here.

Thing 22 – Volunteering to get experience

Volunteering has always been a controversial topic, but my own experience has been very positive. Before deciding on a career in librarianship I completed the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which requires a voluntary placement, and at university I volunteered in the Marketing department of York Theatre Royal. Therefore I already understood how volunteering can develop your skills and allow you to experience areas of work you wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to.

When I decided to become a librarian, I worked full-time at my local council for a year and decided to try and get some library experience to support my graduate traineeship applications. I wrote to several libraries in the North East, ending up with a two-week work placement in the library of Beamish Museum, County Durham, and I was able to spend a few hours every other Saturday helping out at Chester-le-Street Library, also in Durham. Through these very different placements, I was able to gain experience cataloguing library and archival materials, conducting research for other members of staff in the museum, and assisting library users. Not only did these experiences confirm that librarianship was the right career path for me, I am certain that they assisted greatly when it came to applying for graduate traineeships, and helped me get the position at St John’s.

Beamish Museum - Thanks to Calotype46 on Flickr for the image

I was able to continue working full-time while undertaking these placements, as I used two weeks of annual leave to spend time at Beamish and my full-time job didn’t involve Saturday work. This was perfect as I certainly couldn’t afford not to work full-time. I suspect many people are in the same position. I did undertake further voluntary placements where time allowed: I spent a week at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers in Newcastle immediately after my graduate traineeship finished, and some time during my MA assisting in the archives of Sheffield Cathedral.

Overall, I think that a certain amount of volunteering is a Good Thing. It proves that you are committed to the profession and gives you a chance to gain experience and develop skills you might not be able to otherwise. However I would hate to see librarianship turn into the preserve of the wealthy or those with the right connections, who can afford to work for months without pay. I agree with Jo that volunteering should be mutually beneficial, and a complement to paid staff rather than a substitute for them. This has been the case in my experience, but with the Government’s calls for volunteers to run libraries, it is likely to become an issue in the future. While volunteering is a great way for potential librarians to develop their experience, if the profession is devalued through the excessive use of volunteers to make up for a lack of paid staff, there won’t be any jobs for these potential librarians to work up to (of course there are many other issues with using volunteers in place of paid staff in libraries, but this is the most relevant to this Thing).

If anyone reading this is thinking about trying to volunteer in libraries to gain experience, I recommend writing to as many libraries as you can. I wrote to lots of libraries in my area; most didn’t reply, and a few replied thanking me for my interest but stating that volunteer opportunities were unfortunately not offered. Only two said yes. Write to the most high-up person you can find: when I was writing to councils I directed my requests to the Head of Libraries where possible. I used both emails and traditional letters depending on the contact details available. I preferred to write a letter, as I feel it creates a good impression when you’ve gone to the effort of typing, printing out and posting a letter. This is just me though – others may prefer email as it shows you are capable of using technology.

Recently I’ve been involved in volunteering of a different kind – I’ve joined the committee of the Career Development Group in London. Hopefully I will be able to develop my skills further and get to know other librarians and information professionals in the process.

Thing 21 – Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview

Part 1: Identifying your strengths; capitalising on your interests

I think identifying your strengths, thinking long and hard about what you like and dislike, and thinking about what skills your interests have developed is a useful exercise and I would like to take some time to do this. I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of posting my thoughts here on a public blog, but I will certainly look into it in my own time.

Part 2: Applying for a job

I’m quite proud that, as a Very Organised Person (or else a person who once had far too much time on her hands), I already have a kind of CV database similar to the one Maria Giovanna describes which list everything I’ve done that could potentially go on a CV or an application form. It’s saved me hours of time over the years, as I can just copy and paste onto an application form. Of course I make changes afterwards, to tailor the form to the job, but this is a lot easier than starting from scratch each time. I also have another document listing contact details for all my referees, which is a lot easier than having to Google your last workplace each time you need to find the telephone number for your old boss.

Part 3: Interviews

I’ve had mixed experiences with interviews. When I was applying for graduate traineeships I was offered the second job I interviewed for, which was a surprise as I’d mentally prepared myself for months of rejection. On the other hand, when I graduated last year it took me six months and seven interviews before I got a job, whereas most of the librarians I know were offered jobs after one or two interviews (even if they found it hard to get those interviews in the first place). I must have been doing something wrong, but I was also confused. During my traineeship I was told that I’d come across as confident and knowledgeable in my interview, and as far as I could work out I was behaving in exactly the same way last year. However, this can’t have been the case: my interview record speaks for itself, and I was actively told by one interviewer in her feedback that I’d come across as very shy.

I was talking about this with a (non-librarian) friend a few weeks ago and she gave me a very useful piece of advice: basically, “It’s not you, it’s them”. She said that she had been interviewed for several jobs and been told by some interviewers that she was too shy and quiet, and by others that she was very confident. It’s all to do with how different people perceive you, and if you don’t fit with what they are looking for, or they don’t ‘get’ you, do you really want to be working for them? It’s probably better to find out earlier rather than later if you and a potential employer aren’t right for each other. This made me feel a bit better about the whole situation.