Cataloguers

Ok, I admit, conversations over the last couple of months have been driving me a bit nuts! Well, lots nuts, if I'm honest!

A recent Tweet asked CILIP followers to say how long they'd been a member of the organisation, and I admit I was a bit shocked to realise I've been on the CILIP books since January 1979 - that's 40 years! How astonishing! And during that 40 years I've witnessed many changes to the profession - some good, some not so good. If you're really that interested you can read about my journey on an earlier blogpost. 

So, the realisation of the length of time I'd been in the profession, and some conscious changes in the workplace, along with some impromptu conversations led me to throw a bit of a wobbly!

I don't know about you, but over the years I've been aware of a myriad of job titles associated with librarians. Here are just a few examples:

• Librarian
• Assistant Librarian
• Senior Assistant Librarian
• Library Assistant
• Subject Librarian
• Information Librarian
• Liaison Librarian
• Faculty Librarian
• Academic Librarian
• Repository Librarian
• Systems Librarian

And then there are other roles that don't include the term "librarian", like:

• Resource Centre Manager
• Library Director
• Team Manager
• Information Assistant
• Information Professional
• Knowledge Worker/Manager
• Metadata Specialist

Oh, and not forgetting Cataloguers!

Now, what my recent conversations and discoveries have revealed is that if we don't have the word "Librarian" in our job title then other people do not consider us to be librarians. Hmmmm ...

Part of the role of a cataloguer is also to classify resources. The classification scheme I'm most familiar with is DDC (although I've certainly used UDC, LC, NLM and BLISS) which is an hierarchical scheme where the top-level topic is sub-divided into more specific topics. I'm probably not explaining this very well, but then since you, my readers, are likely to be cataloguers, I don't really need to explain!!!

Anyway, the point is that to exclude a group of people from the top-level description "librarian" because they do not include the word in their job title is to misunderstand the range and breadth of knowledge, skills and experience that comes with the job. Exclusions from the "club" can also lead to alienation, disenfranchisement and strained relationships. 

You might argue that the term "librarian" is a little out-dated, but in my experience this is still a term that is widely applied and understood by people outside the profession. That people within the profession are hazy about whether or not someone qualifies to be labelled (for that is what the term is, a label) as a librarian is a bit worrying.

I have in my head a hierarchy which begins with Librarian, and then subdivides into all those terms I've mentioned above. This, of course, might not suit, and might indeed upset those people who would not think of themselves as librarians, but I myself take umbrage at not being considered by others to be a librarian first and a specialist librarian second. 

For my part, I  consider myself a librarian, albeit a librarian with a specific set of skills honed over a long career. I joined the librarianship profession for many reasons, not least because I saw it as my way of helping people, of sharing with people, and an opportunity to carry on learning with people. The fact that I went down the cataloguing route makes me no less a librarian than any other person in the profession. I am proud to call myself a cataloguer and I am proud that alongside my specialism I have continued to develop my "readers advisory"/"reference interview" skills (20th century terms!), and my UX skills (21st century terms!), and have embraced the technology that comes with all areas of our work.

So the next time you meet new folk and they ask you what you do (when really what they want to ask is "Who are you?" "What makes you tick?") will you be a librarian or a cataloguer? 

I do hope in explaining how I see myself in the profession that I haven't offended anyone along the way!
  
       

It started with a move ...

... never thought it would come to this!! A rare blog post on, ummmm, cataloguing, well, librarianship, and all things related!

Many years ago our cataloguing team were based in the library, until we were moved out to a nearby building: for the life of me I can't remember why, especially as I was on maternity leave at the time of the move. I do remember being told it was only for a year or so ...

9 years later we moved back into the library. It took us about 3 months of discussions, floor plans, moving desk / drawer / cupboard icons on bits of paper, before we came up with a workable office layout for our new office - in the basement of the library. What? Well, where else would you expect to find a cataloguing team?! Once we were installed, we made the space work or us and our processes. After a couple of years, we did some subtle move arounds when our "sister" team moved out. And it's stayed like this for quite some time. 

During our time in the basement, and as a result of many other things (including, but not exclusively, the HVCats initiative, the preparation for the coming of RDA, the move from OPACs to discovery systems) it became [even more] apparent that few colleagues actually  knew or understood what happened in a cataloguing department, and for cataloguers themselves, it was felt that the role was changing somewhat. Even when we were based in that other building, we realised the importance of promoting ourselves and our work, and so we initiated the Open Morning series of events which are still on-going today.

Our first foray into Open Mornings was a huge learning curve. It attracted a huge audience, and we found that some of our work was so complex that it took far longer to explain and do it justice than we had allowed for. To overcome this issue, subsequent events were themed, and the topics reduced, or targetted. Participants on our Open Mornings are always treated to something different: so in 2013 everyone received a party bag and copies of the READ-ability Initiative and PIC Project leaflets, whilst at the last event attendees received a #delaytheonsetofdementia -related item and swanky updated versions of READ-ability and PIC. Not sure what will the next event will bring, yet!!!

Where am I going with this? Ah, yes, to another building! Yes, cataloguing are again moving to another building, but this time we are in the good company of many other library colleagues. Open Mornings will take a different approach as some of our operations are split over two floors of the new building, and also in the library. Interesting times, as they say!

Interesting times also, happening over at the CILIP Conference. I must admit, I've surprised myself by feeling a tinge of envy of those who are in attendance. In truth, I haven't been to a full CILIP conference since about 2001, in Manchester (not a particularly easy place to get to), and I had great fun. I have more recently been to a couple of CIG conference (which I have to admit, were even more fun!!!) and had a thoroughly great time, but in all honesty, I haven't actually done much cataloguing since those exciting days when we moved to RDA. 

When looking at this year's CILIP conference programme, I must admit, my out-of-work activities (gosh, that sounds awful!!! but what I mean is mostly my local history stuff - being on the committee of the Loughborough Archaeological and Historical Society, an Honorary Member of the Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteers, a local tour guide, blogging weekly about Loughborough, writing a book - as well as trying to keep reasonably fit, etc., etc., etc.) seemed to be occupying much of my mind and my time, and I really thought I was feeling less committed to the profession than I had been, but on reflection, I've found this really isn't the case! 

Yes, the fact that we're moving to another building, changing our working practices (you'll be surprised to learn that we are finally going to go shelf-ready - and you'll be surprised we already aren't!), yes, we are finally doing away with bits of coloured paper, and we're taking on new services etc. have all been occupying my work time, as well as following discussions on RDA and other library-wide issues, so I am committed, and would probably still get a lot out of the CILIP conference, despite the slow, relentless crawl towards retirement! I still have much to learn (whoever stops learning??), but I hope I still have a little bit to offer the profession.

Talking of "little", according to my Twitter replies, a good boss is bossy and contrary, as well as being determined, wise and kind! I'm hoping this describes me, but feel I need to add the following little miss-tree:

        

Getting used to a new catalogue interface

If you’ve been used to using the same catalogue interface for the last 10 years, the idea of learning the vagaries of searching a new catalogue interface could be quite daunting.

This was the position I recently found myself in. I wasn’t daunted, but I was conscious that our new catalogue didn’t quite operate in the way as our old one, and often didn’t produce the results I would have expected. So, I wondered how other library staff were getting on with it: Did they find what they were looking for? Did they find searching easy? Did they wonder about their unexpected results? Were they frustrated by anything? Did they like the new interface? Did they think our users would find it easy to use?

So many questions!! Wouldn’t it be good if we could pool our knowledge and share our searching hints and tips with each other, to minimise the re-inventing of wheels, and to give all staff access to the same knowledge. How would this best be done? A stand up and talk lecture? Booking a lecture theatre and allocating each member of staff a pc on which to try things out? Compiling a written list of hints and tips, and circulating this to everyone? Hmmm. And then it came to me!

The cataloguers had spent rather a lot of time using and getting used to the new interface in relation to the changing cataloguing standards (i.e. from MARC21 to RDA) and so perhaps we were the ones best placed to host a sharing event! So we did! And it worked really well!

This is what we did: We offered an open day with a difference!

We sent out an email invitation to all library staff:

Dear All,

On Tuesday 11^th February, the Bibliographic Services Office will be hosting a

Catalogue interface familiarisation event

This event will take the form of an “open house”, between the hours of 10 and 4.

You are invited to come down to our office on Tuesday 11^th Feb, anytime during the hours of 10 and 4, when you are not on front-facing duties, and bring your catalogue queries and questions, likes and gripes with you!

You will be able to share any worries and concerns, as well as any comments and questions you may have, with any member of the team. We will do our best to address any concerns and answer any questions on the spot, but in the event that we don’t know the answer we will investigate and get back to you as soon as possible after the event as we can.  

If you are not at work on this day, or you work evenings/weekends, I will be available to answer your questions on the evenings of Monday 10^th Feb (5-8) and Wednesday 12^th Feb (4-6.30), in the LGF Office.

We look forward to seeing!

Lynne

And followed this up with a reminder at 10am on the day of the event:

 

Just a quick reminder that this event opens today at 10am and continues throughout the day until 4pm. Everyone is very welcome!!

Lynne

Each member of the Bib Services team was available between the hours of 10am and 4pm to answer any questions that anyone who came down brought with them. We also invited one of our colleagues from the library IT side of our operation to come down and help answer questions. Having an extended drop-in time meant that most people were able to come along, and could fit their visit around their scheduled front-of-house activities without having to excuse themselves from the rota, and likewise Bib Services staff could still undertake their own rota duties but there would still be some of our staff available throughout the event. Front-of-house duties can be a difficult obstacle to overcome when sessions are offered that are potentially of interest to all members of library staff – someone has to staff the desks/counters!

So, the idea was that when people arrived in the Bib Services office they could chose who from the Bib Services team they wanted to talk to, and they could chose if they wanted to do this on a one2one basis or as a small group (no more than three people to a group). This meant that people could choose to talk to people in the team who worked at a similar level (e.g. Information Assistant to Information Assistant), or to people they already had a good relationship with, or people who they thought might be better able to answer their questions. 

Also, when visitors arrived, they were greeted by a member of the team who gave them a sheet of hints and tips that had already been compiled, and offered them bribes, sorry, I mean sweets! Each member of the team also had a plate of biscuits or a bowl of sweets from which visitors could help themselves. In the event that no-one was immediately available to greet, there were also some games and things to do on the  “welcome desk” so that no-one needed to feel left out.



"Reception desk" - a couple more games were added later!

As well as the email publicity, we placed a poster on the staff noticeboard, and a poster on the office door, and a welcome poster above the “welcome desk”. One member of the Bib Services team very kindly offered to go around all the other offices and remind people that the event was taking place, and personally inviting them down to take advantage of our offering. This actually proved to be the most successful part of the advertising: Nothing quite like the personal touch!

We also sent out a reminder at about 2.15pm:

Just a reminder that the catalogue familiarisation event finishes at 4pm today, but there’s still plenty of time to come down and share your likes and gripes with us!!

Hope to see you shortly if you haven’t already come down.

Lynne

For the whole day there was a buzz in the office like I’ve never witnessed before! And, judging by the feedback forms we received after the event, it seems most people not only had their questions answered, and learned a bit more about the new catalogue interface, but they also seemed to enjoy the event!

Some of the strengths of the event, as evidenced by the feedback included:

• one2one attention
• the informality
• convenience of drop-in
• expert help and advice
• ease of asking questions

We had about 25 visitors over the day, and received about 68% of feedback forms returned, and out of a possible score of 340 points we received a healthy 298.

At the end of the event we sent out a thank-you message, and a suggestion about what might happen next:

Dear All, 

Many thanks to those of you who came down to the LGF Office and took part in the catalogue familiarisation event. As I suspected, we in Bib Services learned a lot from you, and I hope you learned enough from us to make your visit worthwhile.

If you had any queries that we were unable to answer on the spot, these will have been passed to me and I am currently working my way through them, and at the same time using your questions as a basis for extending the FAQs we had already compiled. This may take me a little while though, so I hope you will bear with me.

If you came to visit us, I’d be ever so grateful for your feedback, and I have attached a feedback form in case you didn’t get one on your visit.

Many thanks for your support,

Lynne

A couple of days later I was able to email out to all staff a list of questions and answers that had been received on the day of the event. Where there were unanswered questions, or questions that needed further investigation, these questions were included with suggested action points.

Following the familiarisation event, a number of further questions were received and answered via email. But, I wanted to go further! In our world, the world of cataloguing and technical services, we are used to taking part in e-forums, and this was what I wanted to do next, to give people another opportunity to find out more about the new library catalogue interface.

Unfortunately, the timescale was too tight to create an email group of which all library staff would be a member, although the advantages of such a group would be that the email list would include an archive accessible to all. In the end, I used my own email account, and advertised that I would be at the end of my email to answer any catalogue questions, during a two-hour period on a specific day. As you know, with the ALCST and CIG e-forums, these are structured around a specific set of questions, but I decided against any specific format, and simply accepted any questions that were posed of me.

The event was publicised on email:

Dear All,

As a follow-up to the library catalogue familiarisation event of last week I would like to offer you a different opportunity to share your comments and queries about the catalogue.

On Wednesday 19th February, between the hours of 10am and 12 noon, I will be at the end of my email to answer any questions you may have, and to take your comments on the new library catalogue interface. As these emails will be coming in along with all my other regular emails, please adopt the subject line “library catalogue comments” so I can easily identify your email and respond quickly.

If you are not able to participate tomorrow, please do send your comments to me at any time to suit you, but be aware that, although I will respond, it may not be immediately.

I look forward to hearing from you tomorrow,

 Lynne

In the event, we had about 5 different library staff emailing a total of about 8 different questions. I answered all the questions myself apart from one, which I referred to the only other cataloguer who was in the office at the time. Again, all questions and answers were recorded and issued to staff, like the results of the previous events.

As with the previous event, questions were received after the scheduled event, and these were also answered and included in the feedback. Again, staff seemed pleased to be offered the opportunity to ask their questions in the knowledge that someone was listening and likely to provide them with an answer.

As a result of all this activity, the Bib Services team is planning to create an extended FAQ for library staff in the use of the new catalogue interface, based on the questions and answers that were received at the various events. I am also going to suggest that we create a new library email list that can be used like an e-forum, for discussion about new services etc..

Overall, I think the two activities were quite successful, and I would hope to run similar events the next time we move to a new service.

PS The box labelled “Open me!” on the “welcome desk” contained loads of different quotes about libraries, catalogues, and cataloguers!

  

Discoverability

Promotion is part of discoverability, but it is only a part!

Libraries are vast sources of information, contained in a variety of formats, shelved in a variety of ways and locations. So how do [potential] users find the information they need?

In our library we have many different locations, from collections housed in different buildings (including an off-site storage facility), through collections in the basement (hard-copy journals, media items, missing pages/offprints, the archive and the rolling stack) the ground floor (short loan items), the first floor (reference section and Dewey sequence 001-615) to the top floor (Dewey sequence 616-999, oversize items, pamphlets and vulnerable items in secure glass display cabinets). How on earth do we expect users to be able to navigate through our valuable information resources when we spread our stock throughout the buildings in jigsaw-like fashion? If you have the picture, it’s easy enough to do, but if don’t have that useful aid, what do users do, and how can we help them?

The online catalogue

The catalogue is a huge part of the library’s public face; it needs to be clear, accurate, easy to use and reflective of the information resources that are available. At collection level, some of our resources are discoverable through their site code on the online catalogue (e.g. Law Library, Short Loan Collection), whilst some through their sequence (e.g. Reference, Media, Special Collections), and most are discoverable by old-fashioned serendipity – walking the shelves, finding something that catches your eye and turns out to be relevant!!

But what of title-level discoverability, or content discoverability? This is where, I believe, lies the strengths and skills of the cataloguer. An online catalogue can only ever be as good as the cataloguers who got the information onto it in the first place! If that information is wrong, sloppy, or partial, or the access points are too few or badly assigned and aligned then that title/content discoverability will be compromised.

As cataloguers in my workplace, we all recognise the importance of access and consistency, but we know our catalogue is far from perfect, so we are working on cleaning up our data, thus helping to ensure successful discoverability for our users  

We currently have a couple of projects on the go to enhance the discoverability of our resources by ensuring that we have adequate/copious/excessive authorised subject headings in our records, and that all our name headings are consistent according to our chosen authority list. Our jury's still out on the value of the 505 and 520 fields (at least until we get an OPAC display we have more control over), but couple our enhancement work with cataloguers answering users’ questions when on frontline enquiry work, and you have a recipe for success, at least for the regular stuff – if you’ll pardon the expression!

Other collections

However, not all our collections are catalogued on our library management system, and therefore they don’t appear on our online catalogue. The institutional repository uses different software, but, as cataloguers are involved in helping to create entries, it is possible, to a certain extent, to ensure discoverability through naming conventions, use of consistent keywords etc., where possible using the same conventions that are used in our catalogue records which can help to make more things more easily discoverable. 

The other area where information discoverability can be enhanced is in our archive collection. Again, consistent naming conventions, keywords and classifications all help users to find the information they are seeking, and if these are consistent with records in our other systems then this can help to link disparate collections of resources and therefore information.

And that’s what we want to do! Help our users to access information held in our resources that will help them to achieve their degree, their postgraduate qualification, or keep up with developments in their chosen field.

As cataloguers, I get the feeling we do all this with little thanks and little recognition, from colleagues, of the skills, time and effort we put in. We may hide in the basement, and we may not shout out about our achievements, but our work is omnipresent.

Quick post about CIG12

CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group conference,

10-11 September 2012, Sheffield University

The value of cataloguing

The CIG conference this year was organised around a consideration of what was believed to be the value in cataloguing, and this, naturally, also covered the value of the cataloguer and his/her skills, and how these might be changing and developing. In these challenging economic times it was simply amazing to see over 100 cataloguers (a manifestation? Jardine) gather amongst friends, to consider their role.

The conference was a mixture of longer presentations and short, lightening talks, all on issues of interest to the cataloguing community. The four main themes in this 2-day conference were:

1. Working with new standards
2. Working co-operatively
3. New challenges for cataloguers
4. Developing working practices

Grouping talks into themes helped to ensure that a wide range of topics were covered. These included:

• RDA;
• cataloguing in times of change and in times of austerity;
• institutional repositories;
• collaborative working;
• historical perspectives on cataloguing;
• shelf-ready;
• re-classification;
• high visibility/marketing of cataloguing and cataloguers;
• the changing role and the development of cataloguers;
• special library work.  

As you might imagine, I have made copious notes and it is going to take me quite some time to work through them all, but I think it will be well worth me reminding myself of things that were said that, for me, ranged from being interesting, through useful, to vital!

So, really I suppose I’m using this particular blog post as a *note to self* and to serve as a reminder of the main things that struck a chord with me, and things I want to follow up. If I get time later, I will report back on selected talks in more detail. So, there are loads of things I want to read up about, there are hundreds of things I want to think about (see my previous blog post on my learning style: This will explain my need to procrastinate!), and there are some potential quick wins, things I think I can start to do more or less straight away.

My action points are to:

• Read the JISC Impact Data blog (I should have done this already as we were a partner institution in Phase 1!)
• Check our new books listing is working and appropriate
• Investigate that stats course!
• Make sure no.3 child uses the library before he goes to uni and it’s too late!
• Decide whether or not to upgrade legacy records when convert to RDA (or maybe the LMS supplier will be able to affect this automatically?)
• Refresh self by reading up on Cutter/Paris principles, FRBR
• Consider the (hidden) cost of (not) implementing RDA
• Consider the cataloguing axiom (discoverability rather than rules) and importance of cataloguer’s judgement
• Investigate Google Refine, Web 3.0
• Consider the rhizome!
• Consider the weeding of videos (in relation to rarity)
• Checkout membership of COPAC
• Participate in the CIG RDA e-forum
• Check progress of our order for toolkit, checkout the “essentials” webinars, the RDA website (LC training is available to us) and Lauren Bradley’s googledoc checklist
• Look out for CILIP VLE, CIG NACO funnel, cat23 (take up that offer of podcasting training)
• Discuss RDA with lots of different people (e.g. suppliers (records, shelf-ready, LMS and RDN), partners, colleagues and library management)
• Checkout library typos of the day
• Consider the idea that “Good enough isn’t good enough”
• Investigate automatically getting our theses records from DORA to the library catalogue
• Get our process instructions onto wiki/libguides etc.
• Measure the “backlog” in book costs (£s)
• Avoid smug tweaking of catalogue records
• Consider the idea that global changes equal consistency
• Consider turning our team delivery plan into a service-level agreement
• Consider the idea of the “do something different day”
• Remember that cataloguing is about increasing access and discoverability
• Remember that implementing RDA is the first step on a road that will lead our data to “play nicely” with other data.
• Checkout the LMS user groups/meetings
• Re-investigate OCLC Classify
• Think about inside-out cataloguing – promoting stuff that our institution produces
• Gather usage stats for streamed videos

Maybe I'll have managed to do all this by the time of the next major CIG conference in 2014! See you there!

Post Script: Remember to check those useful RDA links!

A personal Belbin

What Belbin means to me

On returning from my first maternity leave all those years ago, I found myself wondering who I was, what I wanted, where I was going  - and all those other confusing feelings experienced by new mothers returning to work! Shortly after this return, the library merged with various departments within the university and a series of training courses was set up, with a view to networking members of the new Division of Learning Development and providing essential staff development sessions, and it was at one of these courses that I first encountered Belbin.

I’ve always been interested in personality type quizzes and was game for having a go at the Belbin quiz. Interested yes, but mostly they didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know about my personality! Belbin was different though, being less about personality and more about working styles. For years I despaired of myself in working situations – why would I sometimes have loads to say, other times nothing, why was I sometimes positive, other times negative, why did I sometimes take charge, other times hide in the corner? I’ve no idea how other people viewed me, but I certainly saw myself as a moody cow!  Till the day I did the Belbin quiz! It was so enlightening I remember rushing into the office after the course exclaiming that I’d finally found out the meaning of life, the universe and everything! Let me explain!

There are 8 [in 2012 there are now 9] basic Belbin types; if you get a high score for a type this represents your predominant style, while a low score indicates a type that you rarely use. So, like most people I was expecting to get a high score, a low score and lots in the middle, so that I could honestly say that I was one particular type. However, things just didn’t turn out like that! While other people doing the quiz revealed their scores to the group – highs, lows and lots in the middle – and usually found they agreed with the results, I was sitting re-calculating my scores, hoping they’d come out a different way, because I couldn’t quite work out why they’d gone wrong – except they hadn’t! My scores range from a massive 12 to a very low 4! (Just as a comparison, some of my team have done this quiz more recently and one member’s scores range from 0 up to 32!)

My score of 2 x 12s, 2 x 11s, 1 x 8, 2 x 6s and 1 x 4 had me perplexed. What was my dominant style? Interestingly, I don’t seem to have one – I could almost equally be any of the Belbin types (except perhaps for the type that scored 4). Great – so I’m a Jack of All Trades, and master of none! Wow – I’m a wishy-washy, fickle type who flits from one type to another! On the flip side – I’m versatile, I suppose. This explains how I can be so different in various situations – instinctively I will fill in the gap and be the missing type in a meeting, or, I will choose to be a particular type for that situation – not moody at all, just responding to the other types around me.

Of course, the dilemma is how do I improve my score of 4? As I see it the only way to increase that score is at the expense of some of the other scores, which, given that they are all so low, makes it a difficult decision – have I ever had the urge to be more extroverted, enthusiastic, curious or communicative – nah. Probably not worth it then!

As for the three clusters of types, my average scores suggest that I fall into the ACTION-oriented roles firstly (average score 11.5), followed by the CEREBRAL-oriented roles (average score 8.5) and finally the PEOPLE-oriented roles (average score 6). The typical features of my 2 x 11s is quite contradictory – highly strung, dynamic and outgoing, compared to sober, unemotional and prudent – as are some of my other close scores. Goodness me, no wonder I get confused sometimes!! And no wonder, also, that you never know quite what you’re going to get when you enter into a discussion with me!

At our recent team away day, we again looked at Belbin, and initially I was surprised to find that my scores had changed a bit! The range is greater: I now go from a 4 up to a 15. Nevertheless, the scoring is very similar to previously and again, they are all very close (4, 5, 7, 9, 3x10, 15) meaning I am still a jack-of-all-trades! Interestingly, now I think about it I think I can see that my 15 has increased because the person I work most closely with at work scored a 0; our styles are complementary, and as long as we both recognise this then we can work together harmoniously, with only the odd moment of despair!

Again, interestingly, I still fall firstly into the ACTION-oriented roles, although the average score dropped from 11.5 to 10.5. However, PEOPLE-oriented roles has moved from last to second place, its average score going from 6 to 8, and, therefore, CEREBRAL-oriented roles have moved to last place, the average having gone down from 8.5 to 7.5 These are not huge changes, but they are enough to make me reflect that these really are based on working styles and some of these I have adopted because of the way my role at work has developed and changed over the years.

For more info on Belbin team roles you could look at this website, for more on the categorisation of the roles, this summary is good, and for an update, the Belbin website is great, as is their comprehensive review, showing the latest thinking, and the actual questionnaire is also available from them (for a charge).

I'd be very interested to hear from you if you've know your team role preferences - especially if you're a cataloguer!

ALCTS - eforums

I've discovered how to check and see if any of my blog posts are being read and whilst checking I've noticed that my post headed ALCTS-eforum seems to appear regularly in the list of posts consulted, but I have a feeling this may be for the wrong reasons, or at least, I haven't been specific enough in the heading of that post.

ALCTS hold regular eforums and that post was a report on the forum specifically devoted to looking into catalogue research, following research that had taken place in 2010 - the Year of Catalog Research.

Since then there have been several eforums on topics of great interest to me and I have found them to be very helpful in demystifying several issues. So, from now on, if I report back on any of these eforums, I will be a bit more specific in my headings and tags so you don't get here and feel short-changed.

Thing 16 - advocacy

I went to university and studied librarianship 31 years ago, and I'm sorry to say that during those years when I have met people who have asked what I do for a living, I rarely get past the point of dispelling the myth that librarians stamp books! I used to despair that people didn't know or understand just what exactly a librarian does, but now I can see that the fault lies within ourselves for not shouting loudly enough about what we do.

Now, of course, in these difficult times, I think you'd be hard pushed to find anybody who didn't know, at the very least, of the existence of public libraries, and to a certain extent have an opinion about their value.

In my own area of the profession, there has been concern and threats to our existence, as well as a lack of understanding from our colleagues about what we actually do and the value that this adds to the library service as a whole and to the user experience. Cataloguers have been re-examining their role and contribution to the profession for a number of years now, and more recently, the high visibility cataloguing blog has provided a platform for cataloguers to share their day-to-day roles, their hopes and aspirations, their visions for the future, with fellow cataloguers and other interested readers.

I've contributed a couple of pieces to this blog - on the role of the cataloguer and how to market your services to your fellow librarians - and while it could be considered a blog for cataloguers by cataloguers, the fact that many of the members are Twitter users and regularly tweet about updates, information on the site easily reaches places cataloguers cannot normally reach.

A whole issue of the CIG quarterly journal, Catalogue & Index (issue 162), was devoted to high visibility cataloguing, promoting the role of cataloguers in today's libraries, describing a role that no longer deserves the label "backroom" work. Hopefully, these targeted acts of advocacy will have fruitful results and libraries, librarians and cataloguers in particular will continue to contribute much to the quality of life in our society.

My personal brand

I have always been a bit of a wimp when it comes to divulging personal information on the internet. It took me a very long time to trust the internet enough to buy things online (and my purchases are still rather limited) and I have never gone in for internet banking. So, when I decided to create a wiki and a blog, way back in July 2007, I was determined to remain as anonymous as I possibly could.

Choosing a username can get very confusing for one so innocent of the ways of technology. Sometimes sites require your username to be your email address (now, which to use, work or personal?) and sometimes they request a unique username. Chances are, the one you want to use has been taken, so you start adding numbers to the end, or the site does it for you! Then comes the tricky issue of the password; do you use the one you always do, oh, no, can't do that it's not long enough or secure enough etc..

That is how I ended up with the name most people will now associate with me - by trying to be clever and not give away my real name so no-one could steal my identity! How naive! Anyway, you'd be right to say that Jerome was the patron saint of libraries, (and now also refers to a specific library research programme) but that's not why I chose the name. It had more to do with the photographer of one of my favourite photographs, the name of the author of my favourite book, and a couple of sentimental initials. What impression this creates for anyone who reads my stuff, I have no idea. It's a bit like trying to interpret a poem, a work of art or a piece of music; the artist knew what they meant, but that doesn't mean to say it will be interpreted in the way it was intended. But it seemed like a good idea at the time! Of course, I actually didn't want to use exactly the same name for all my web 2.0 sites (to avoid that identity fraud again!) - or was it just that some names were already taken so I ended up with a variation on a theme?


On the subject of photographs, I remember the uproar there was when a photograph of each member of our library staff was digitised and uploaded to the VLE for all our library staff to see - that's all our library staff, not all our insitution's staff, nor all the people in the world - a secure service for which we had to log on. People (and I include myself in that) were worried their pictures would be stolen and edited and implicated in all sorts of crimes. So, I chose a fairly innocuous photograph to upload as my picture on the blog and the wiki, which was also partly determined by lack of expertise with digital photos! This picture has stuck with me on all the sites I've joined, and like Tina has said in her blog on personal brand, I'm reluctant to change this as this picture is probably easily recognised as me by my select group of followers! The added advantage is the air of mystery it creates! Imagine going to a CILIP Executive Briefing on RDA having primed your new Twitter friend (in this case Celine Carty) with the words: "I'll be the one carrying the bar of Toblerone"!

Thanks to a couple of things (not least reaching the grand old age of 50 and wondering why I have a tendency to hide in the basement) and a couple of people (not least our new VC for encouraging all staff to shout about what they are doing, and Celine for being so encouraging when my confidence has waned), I have, however, decided to raise my head above the parapet (yes, I know this is the name of one of the bloggers registered for cpd23 too) and blog about my profession as a cataloguer. This has led to opportunities for me that I would never have thought possible, but my real name has now become attached to my web 2.0 identity.

Interestingly, I "attended" a lecture given by Dr Claire Warwick at UCL entitled: "Great 2 meet u :-) Twitter and digital identity" which talks about why people choose the pictures they do etc.. Well worth the listen.

Last week I discovered that Google search results are based on searches that you have previously made and it is most opportune that Phil Bradley has today tweeted a way round this! So, the following searches produced the following results:

• Searching Google on IE and Firefox for Lynne Dyer resulted in 5,700,000 results of which my Twitter account was the 7th result

• Searching Google on IE for "Lynne Dyer" resulted in 5,230 results of which my Twitter account was the 5th result

• Searching Google on Firefox for "Lynne Dyer" resulted in 5,230 results of which my Twitter account was the 3rd result

• Searching Google on IE and Firefox for "Lynne Dyer" &pws=0 brought back 4 results - none of which were me!

I would conclude from that that I am still pretty well hidden!

Anyway. good luck to all you cpd23 - ers out there!

Blog post on hvcats!

This month instead of putting a blog post on my own site I have contributed to the blog over at hvcats.

It would be naive of us to think that all librarians and library colleagues know what goes on in a technical services / cataloguing / acquisitions department, so over at hvcats I have suggested a brilliant way to increase our visibility by showing people what we do!

Pop over to hvcats and read about one way of organising open days to raise awareness of what you do. You don't specifically have to be a cataloguer to offer an open day to other staff; open days can work for any team wishing to showcase their talents to their colleagues!

Don't forget to browse through earlier posts too: there's some really good stuff over there! Where was that again? Over at hvcats!

Why meetings?

Do meetings have a value?

Someone recently raised the question of meetings; why do we have them, why do we have so many, could a meeting be avoided by using some other method of communication – and so the list goes on! Made me feel a bit guilty having a meeting for the cataloguers whilst this concern was still live – although thankfully the issue wasn’t raised by the cataloguers themselves.

Our team of cataloguers is quite small and so we don’t find it at all difficult to discuss things with each other as and when we need to, as and when issues or concerns, problems or queries actually crop up, so you would be right to ask why we have meetings. The cataloguers work a variety of days / hours so it’s not always possible for every cataloguer to liaise closely with every other cataloguer so it is a legitimate way of catching up with what each of us is doing, especially when we have a variety of projects on the go, and when change is in the air.

We try and have a meeting about once a term and for each meeting we produce an agenda and a set of notes / action points. This ensures that we don’t wander form the point and therefore don’t spend more time than necessary away from the work of cataloguing.

I think the person who raised the question about the value of meetings may not have thought through just what exactly is the purpose of meetings. Sometimes meetings are to inform staff of where we are, other meetings are set up to discuss a specific issue and either make decisions or recommendations, whilst others are for getting a specific group of people together to talk about issues – to name but a few reasons for meetings.

The real value of meetings though is determined by what people get out of them, and this is often directly related to what they put in! Sitting in the corner quietly muttering about this meeting being a waste of yours and everyone else’s time ensures that it really will be a waste of time as you are not engaged in the what's going on. If you talk to your paper on a specific topic you can easily generate conversation and discussion by the meeting attendees and thereby take away with you a lot from the meeting.

Coincidentally, around about this time, Andy posted on the World Needs More Badass Librarians blog about the Five laws of library staff meetings: sticking to these should ensure that your meetings are worth the time spent on them! Brilliant stuff, the five laws being:

1. Ensuring that Meetings are for use(ful purposes)
2. Every staff member, the right meetings
3. Every meeting, the right staff members
4. Save the time of the attendee
5. The meeting is a growing organization

I would add to this the benefit of face-to-face communication which can often save time compared to protracted, often misunderstood email communication.

Of course, I suppose one could apply the same criteria to the value of external meetings / training sessions / briefing sessions etc. stressing the added bonus of a wonderful opportunity to network with a different group of people who will lead you to new ideas, new ways of thinking and new ways of developing. Invaluable.