CILIP Cymru Wales 2018 conference – final thoughts (part 3)

As a national CILIP conference there is always the opportunity to hear from people at the ‘top’, and this time on the second day we were addressed by Nick Poole (CILIP CEO, @NickPoole1) and by Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas (@wgmin_culture) the Welsh Government Minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport.  Positive things were said, but as another speaker highlighted, as librarians we are very good at having conversations, but we also need to act, and this may mean not waiting around for that strategic document or plan to land on our desk.

Phil Brabban (@philbrabban) University Librarian of Coventry University Library spoke about building an inclusive service.  He explained how the library service at Coventry University had taken a look at their provision for international and overseas students and found it to be woefully inadequate (though probably not much different from many other institutions).  Students may be coming from countries where education and library services are provided completely differently (or they may have no prior experience in using libraries), so they are facing a lot of challenges and cultural differences when arriving to study in the UK.  Coventry have worked at rectifying their approach, and spoke to international students about what they wanted and needed rather than relying on what the library services perceived them to need.  One of the initiatives they created was Pre-Arrival Library Support which helps to prepare students with all they need, and can be accessed before they ever reach Coventry.  It has been very effective and also won them the Times Higher Education Leadership & Management (THELMA) Award in 2017 for Outstanding Library Team.

Phil highlighted that actions are better than words, and even doing a small something was better than nothing at all. We should also be continuously re-evaluating our procedures and not just assume that just because we have done something to rectify a problem that we can just rest on our laurels.

Later in the morning Phil joined the panel session about diversity and inclusivity in the library community.  As has been rightly pointed out on Twitter (and at the conference itself) this panel was composed of four men and two women, all white, which raises many questions in itself.  @Bethanar’s comment for instance attracted an interesting discussion thread.

Really CILIP Wales should have made a greater effort to ensure there was more diverse representation on the panel, and should have been aware that by not doing so they were leaving themselves wide open for just criticism.

The participants themselves did have a lot of good points to make, so I am not criticising any of them individually; but how can you speak about diversity and inclusivity without having other voices directly represented?

I haven’t mentioned all the sessions I attended, and as there were parallel sessions I was obviously unable to attend everything – what helps is having colleagues sit in on different sessions to you so that you can then compare notes!

I came home from the conference feeling professionally invigorated, and pleased that as a cataloguer I had seen tech services included in the conference make up.  I enjoyed that many of the key note presentations dealt with the person in the profession and were therefore applicable across sectors and job roles.  It was good to see that Aberystwyth as a location worked (despite some apparent organisational doubt), librarians will travel!  I also still have a few items and opportunities to chase up (podcasts! references! websites! people!).  Roll on next year!

From Aberystwyth, with even more love for the CILIP Cymru Wales 2018 conference (part 2)

Discussing & voting

In my last post I talked about some of the keynote speakers that I enjoyed, in this post I would like to also include some of the breakout sessions that I attended, as well as the evening event.  The very first one I went to appealed to my ‘arty’ side as it included a photography project. Emma Adamson (@BookishEmma), Celia Jackson (senior lecturer, Photography), and Barbara Colley from the University of South Wales talked about a project between library staff and photography students.  The project helped library staff get over a difficult time of change and transition, whilst giving a group of students, who hadn’t really engaged with the library previously, the opportunity to have their work taken seriously and have their photographs decorate the library space, giving them some ownership and investment in the library.  Library staff got to vote on the final works, and an evening event welcomed the participating students and their families to see the results.  Staff and library users felt that the photographs fitted into the space so well it was if they had always been there, but they also generated conversations especially when they were being hung.  In our session we were then given the chance to vote on what our favourite image was, and we had time to peruse the images and discuss what we liked about them.  One of the prints will be given a permanent position in a counselling room.  The project worked really well for all involved, and is something that could be taken up by other institutions quite easily.

Later in the morning there was a key note talk from Professor Jon Anderson (Cardiff University) (@LitAtlasWales)about Literary Atlas Wales.  Described as “…an interactive online atlas that offers a range of maps which locate English-language novels set in Wales.” This project sounded absolutely fascinating (and I wish I had his job!!).  Out of 323 English language books based in Wales, a short list of 12 was created with detailed maps, plotlines, notes, and interviews.  I’ve only read three out of the twelve so perhaps have some reading to do.  The atlas uses ‘distant’, ‘deep’ and ‘artistic’ mapping of the novels and “hopes to stimulate new understandings of literature and place and the geographical nature of the human condition.”  Taking a look at the pages for Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce, it turns out that the Moulin Club, run by Druids, with “women selling the promise and practice of nightly relations at a fixed price” although situated on the fictional Patriarch Street, can be mapped onto Pier Street, which is where my B&B was located…

I certainly recommend that you take a look at the atlas, and you could probably lose a couple of hours working your way around.  They are also keen for people to get involved and contribute.

…and the winner of Welsh Librarian of the Year is….

After the day’s events we adjourned to the National Library of Wales for the Welsh Librarian of the Year and the Tir na n-Og awards.  I didn’t envy the committee having to decide which of the nominees would win the Welsh Librarian of the Year as all the candidates excelled in their field.  In the end the honour went to Tracey Stanley, Deputy University Librarian, Cardiff University.

Following on from this were the Tir na n-Og English language awards and we were treated to some mini interviews with the nominees about what their books were about, how they came to write them, how they became children’s authors originally and where they liked to write. Paul Jeorrett introduced and interviewed the authors and revealed he had compiled a play list to go with the books which was being played on his radio show practically as the awards were taking place.  The winner was Hayley Long with The Nearest Far Away Place, and I now have a copy waiting to be read at home.

On the second day I, unsurprisingly, attended the ‘cataloguing & metadata session’ which included two papers.  The first by Amy Staniforth about developing shared practice with colleagues across Wales which was about the WHELF (Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum) co-operative cataloguing group which emerged out of the WHELF shared LMS procurement process.  Amy described how the community of cataloguers has developed through discussions about international standards and the creation of templates, and has been empowering members to raise awareness of metadata more widely.  Although I have been part of this community it was informative to hear about the group’s activities and to clarify for me just how much we have achieved so far; not forgetting that one of the cataloguers, Jane Daniels ( Cardiff Metropolitan University), was nominated for Welsh Librarian of the Year.

Following this was Doreen Barnaville (Cardiff Metropolitan University) and Christine Megowan (Cardiff University) talking about curating and cataloguing artists’ books.  This presentation followed on from a cataloguing training day held earlier in the year.  Doreen and Christine’s presentation included a myriad of images of artists’ books, primarily from the collection at Cardiff Met, and talked about how cataloguers can best engage in recording the details of these items which may not fit into a traditional book format (think ‘pages’ of stone or wood, or 3D objects).  They also discussed ways of engaging students with these items, and the successful projects that had been achieved.

Blue cat avatar…

This post has turned out to embrace the more arts based aspects of the conference, which I certainly enjoyed, and I should perhaps mention here that participants at the conference were encouraged to make their own avatar out of play doh.  Here is mine, although I should point out that I was eating chocolate cake at the time, so is perhaps not the best example!

In my next (and final) post on the conference I will look at some of the other sessions that made an impact on me.

Aberystwyth, mon amour: or, loving the CILIP Cymru Wales 2018 conference (part 1)

Having recently returned from Aberystwyth and the rather excellent CILIP Cymru Wales conference I thought it was a good time to resurrect my blog.  I’m a cataloguer, and when the call for papers initially went out I was delighted to see that CILIP Wales had embraced a request to include ‘technical services’ within their themes and topics.  We are generally missed out within general library conferences, so I was delighted that CILIP Wales was willing to welcome into the fold cataloguers and metadata specialists, and of course I had to offer a paper!

Arriving in a sunny Aberystwyth on the afternoon before the conference I had taken the opportunity of being in the area to deliver a training session to the NHS Library staff at Bronglais Hospital, following this, a walk on the beach and a good Indian meal in the evening, and I was ready to face two days of intense ‘library stuff’.  I started the event with the pre-conference mindfulness session, and this kind of set the tone for the rest of the conference for me, in that it was a start to being aware of mindfulness, resilience, and well-being within both my personal and professional life.

Over the next two days there were several keynote speakers who looked at what I perceive as ‘the personal in the professional’ – these presentations were great on a multitude of levels, not least in that it didn’t matter which library sector you worked in, or what your role was in your library service, these sessions could be of benefit to you.

On the afternoon of day 1 Sue Hodges brought her personal story into her presentation “The power of building resistance”, she exuded an air of calmness and focus as she talked about the importance of well-being, and that our back story is important (illustrated by her own story of her family moving to Australia when she was 5 so her Dad could look for work).

Following on was Jo Wood (@Libswithlives) who turned out to be one of the main highlights of this conference (for me at least).  She too brought her personal story into her session, and I feel privileged to have been there to witness her courage in being brutally honest about life events, and a break down, that crashed her world.  She reminded us that behind every person’s CV and career history was a personal story too. In a professional context you are normally only aware of people’s achievements, but we should perhaps be more honest about revealing what else we are dealing with at the same time.  You might be under the impression that all those fantastic speakers you are listening to have progressed in a timely fashion to that peak you are now witnessing them at, but remember – everyone has ‘stuff’ in their life, good and bad, and it contributes to what they are doing, and where they are.  My review isn’t doing justice to Jo’s presentation – but for those of us who were there, we all felt the impact of her talk.

It was also interesting to hear about the Librarians with Lives podcasts that she produces, and which to my shame I hadn’t come across before, but will certainly be checking out.

On the second day, there was a third session which looked at the ‘person’, this was Jo Walley (@joeyanne) exploring imposter syndrome – and yes, when asked, just about everyone in the room put their hand up to admit to feeling this!  She talked about the five deadly Ps she had identified – Performing, Perfecting, Pretending, Proving and Pleasing and gave examples which I am sure many of us identified with.  She also introduced the concept of ‘Mindful self-compassion’ – embracing an awareness and acceptance of ourselves, a practicing of self kindness and a common humanity towards others.

So many of us don’t feel that we are good enough, and it was so welcoming to have Jo (and her gorgeous flowered shoes) end her talk with telling us that we were all “Enough – exactly as you are!”

What all these sessions did was help me to start re-evaluating myself and how “Karen-Person” fits into “Karen-Cataloguer/Librarian”.  I plan to look at mindfulness in more detail, to plot my own life events against my career/profession events to see if there are any conclusions to be drawn, and to be more aware of personal wellbeing

Beach treasure from Aberystwyth (a happy place)

in the workplace.  Last year I attended a session at the AWHILES annual conference, led by Mark Hodder on Positive psychology: the science of happiness, and as a result of this every day I identify at least three happy/positive things that have happened to me that day, which I am finding very beneficial (even if my cats do feature quite a lot!).

In part 2 of this blog about #CILIPW18 I shall look at several other sessions that made an impact on me.