Women in Libraries Revisited

The organisation Women in Libraries came up during discussion in 23 Things. I'm currently having a clearout and came across Newsletter No. 1 May/June 1981 and the programme for the 6th Annual Conference March 1986. Main Speaker was Dale Spender on images of female writers. My memory of this is of Dale Spender confessing to illicitly borrowing things from the British Library for the purpose of photocopying. I don't really remember the other speakers at all. Sadly I wasn't really involved apart from those two publications - I clearly didn't subscribe to the newsletter or attend any more conferences - perhaps the 6th was the last? I'm not really sure why I didn't get more involved - it was clearly my area of interest. I was probably a much less assertive person in those days, but it does make me sad.

 A search for "Women in Libraries" brings up as its first hit the ALA's Feminist Task Force which seems to be still active.

 

This image of a librarian selecting books is produced by the US government so public domain

Irritation!

Hmm, slight problem commenting on someone's Wordpress blog - it wanted me to login with my Wordpress account, which I only created to test the commenting process. Managed it eventually but it was a bit irritating.
Irritation... by ~Nine-Tailed-Dragon on deviantART">
Image is shared under a creative commons licence

Bit of an Ooops moment!!!

Well, some of my tweaks resulted in the 19Things email going out a bit late this week. I was changing the time at which the emails go out and managed to miss the two hour window. I had to revert the posts to draft and re-publish them. Looks like they've gone out now though! The image shown below is from the Library of Congress Photos and Posters catalogue. It was published in 1898 and as far as I can tell is out of copyright.

More tweaks and ampersands

I've just been fiddling some more with Feedburner and I think I have eliminated that really irritating ampersand that was showing up in email feeds.

I like this image which shows the evolution of the ampersand though.

Feeds and Tweaks

A post to report on some tidying up I've been doing here and over at the 19Things blog. 

I've removed some blogs from my feed here as they appear to have been hacked (by someone selling machine parts of some sort) and I think I'll remove some which are not being updated.

I've been tweaking the 19Things blog a bit. I've added a blogroll listing all the registered blogs and tried to add a feed for all of the blogs at once like the one of the CPD23 site but I'm not getting quite such a neat result. It's possible to add the feed to Netvibes or similar but the CPD23 one is better.



I'm adding my Tagxedo cat image in here because I like it! There's more variety to the shapes you can use in Tagxedo than in Wordle.

19 Things TV & Wessex

I'm reviving my Blog because now I'm happily employed at the Royal Berkshire Hospital and the Thames Valley & Wessex Healthcare Libraries Staff Development Group is running a version of 23 Things for NHS staff.
Because I so much enjoyed the 23 Things for CPD programme which came at a really helpful time for me I have volunteered to be one of the facilitators and have written some content. I will also be putting my Blog on the 19 things blogroll

You can see the original CPD 23 things site with much useful content still available here http://cpd23.blogspot.co.uk/


Because of the limitations of IT access in the NHS several of the original Things are being left out but I hope there is still going to be enough for people to get a feel for web 2.0.

Podcasts and videocapture

Thing 18 is about incorporating podcasts and screen capture into our practice. It's appearing out of order because I was hoping to get some actual podcasting done before I published.

I’ve started experimenting with using Screencast-o-matic and Screenr software at work to incorporate a catalogue search demo in an online library induction. The main problem at the moment is a compatability issue between their files and our e-learning software. I’m determined to get it sorted though, because they do the job so well.

I have not yet found time to make a podcast. I am determined I will do this, but it’s more likely to be a knitting related one than a library one. I am a keen podcast listener and I find I enjoy most the podcasts which have 2 voices – this is possibly more about interaction between the podcasters than a voice issue. If a single podcaster is talking the podcast needs to be shorter and more focused. The voice quality is important – I had to stop listening to one podcast which I otherwise liked very much because the podcaster’s voice just put my teeth on edge. I’m also not keen on music being played in the podcast – if I want music I can find it for myself.

Having said that I did come across the fantastic “Codemonkey” song on a podcast.

Summer learning journey, winter reflective practice

As someone with long experience in libraries I found it quite hard to identify areas where I need more experience. I have never actually managed a library or information unit – I seem to perpetually be a deputy or assistant, but I feel I have the technical skills in the unlikely event they are needed.

I think my development needs are clustered around social skills, self-marketing and assertiveness. This probably accounts for my lack of management experience, as well as the political naivety which lead to my redundancy. How to achieve this is the big question for me. I’ve identified that I would like to do more work for the profession and this might offer me a chance to develop in these areas.

I think it is useful to have a PDP but real life is much more random than you can plan for.  The process of going through CPD23 has been very useful in filling some knowledge gaps and in getting me to reflect on my route into librarianship. I am incredibly grateful to the team who set up and ran cpd23 – I think it really helped keep me going when I thought I might never get a job in libraries again.

Will I keep on blogging? I’m not sure, because of the strange way it mixes personal and professional which I’ve written about before. I hope so.

My 6 word story?  Summer learning journey, winter reflective practice.

Volunteering and the rise of the intern

I am going to cover 3 aspects of volunteering – to gain experience, use of volunteers in libraries and volunteering in a professional association

One of the things mentioned in Bronagh McCrudden’s: ‘Would you work for free? Unpaid work in the information profession (and how to make it count)’ is that information work is invisible.  It did strike me that this is a bit like that other women's job -- housework. I think this is actually a difficult case to make in a time when other professions are also looking for people to work without pay, but it is still an interesting parallel.

I've seen quite a few intern posts coming up in the @UKLibraryJobs stream on Twitter. I'm pretty sure that in better economic times these would have been paid posts. It makes me very sad for the (usually) new professionals who take up these posts because they are desperate. A really pernicious thing about the intern culture is that it discriminates against those who need to work to live. It keeps young people dependent on their parents for much longer than in previous generations. However it appears that many people do make volunteering work for them as 2 out of 3 people in McCrudden’s paper had a successful experience. And I know that many organisations will get good use out of volunteers in their libraries but still – if it’s worth getting done shouldn’t it be worth paying for?  

If I am ever unemployed again, I know I would consider a volunteer post to keep my skills up-to date – if I can afford it.

So the converse of librarians working as volunteers is the use of volunteers to run libraries. One of the things that slightly shocked me about the Cilip  Council candidates was that they were all a bit mealy-mouthed about the use of volunteers in libraries.  Not a single one said that they were outraged that this government and many local councils seem to think that anybody can run a library. They were all very careful to talk about the great contribution made by volunteers which is no doubt true. Of course, if all the volunteers are unemployed librarians trying to gain experience then hey – why pay anybody.

A less controversial way of gaining experience as a volunteer is to work for one of Cilip’s groups or another professional organisation. While in work I have volunteered as a mentor and I plan to volunteer to do something for one of the professional groups I belong to.

Job-seeking etc

For Thing 21 we are supposed to think about our skills in a job-seeking context.

As any regular readers will know I have just emerged from a very painful experience of redundancy and unemployment which involved a great deal of this kind of self-assessment so I'm not going repeat that in public!

Instead I will say that the important thing for me was to keep on thinking of myself as a professional. After all, you don't stop being a doctor or an architect beacause you are not currently working. I kept on doing professional development, including cpd23 and I think it was this which got me the job I currently have.

I have discovered that I don't interview well because I come across as nervous and lacking confidence even when I'm only suffering from slight interview nerves. I really should do something about this - but it's probably so much a part of my personality that it's likely to be really difficult. 

I will be revising my CV in light of some of the new skills I've been practising at work - the Atlantic link software and Netvibes come to mind. I'm hoping not to need a CV any time soon though!

Routes and Roots

I blogged in Thing 10 about my way into librarianship, so I won't repeat that here. Instead I'll reflect a bit more on the why.

It has always interested me how many people come into libraries, or information work if you prefer, via other jobs and after a number of false starts. For me, working in libraries was what I wanted to do. As several people say in their blogs, it sometimes feels as though we are no longer allowed to say that it was a love of books that brought us into libraries. In my case that was the reason - I've developed a great interest and passion for other parts of the profession, but basically, without the love of books I wouldn't be here.

 There are some interesting class (and gender) issues around library work. I remember seeing a paper ages ago on librarianship as a kind of halfway house in class terms. Librarians compared to their parent were supposed to be either on their way up in terms of social mobility or on their way down.  This struck me as reflecting my own observations, but I'm not sure how this compares to other professions. I can't find that one, but I did identify a couple of interesting papers in a similar area. 

One on men in librarianship which seems from the abstract to be saying that men become librarians because working in a female dominated profession gives them greater access to class mobility and one on the "glass ceiling" in libraries (quite old this one) which (again from the abstract) seems to be saying that women achieve less because they choose to take career breaks to bring up their children. So that's ok then. I was surprised at just how annoyed this one made me!

Anyway, enough about my obsessions. Let's publish.

References(if you're interested)

Lupton, B., Explaining Men’s Entry into Female-Concentrated Occupations: Issues of Masculinity and Social Class  - Gender, Work & Organization -

Available at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2006.00299.x/full

[Accessed November 7, 2011].

Jones, Elizabeth & Oppenheim, Charles, Glass ceiling issues in the UK library profession - Journal of Librarianship and Information Science -

Available at: http://lis.sagepub.com/content/34/2/103.short
[Accessed November 7, 2011].

Catching my breath

Thing 19 is a chance to reflect on how we can use the new tools professionally.

Although I retain some of my doubts about the professional personal divide I have become a complete convert to Twitter. As a means of disseminating and receiving information and as a way of catching the zeitgeist I think it's unparalleled. I will definitely continue to use it when the course is over.

I was impressed with some of the free reference management tools. Sadly, I don’t think I’m going to get a chance to use them in my current post, but I am going to try to stay aware of what’s available in this area because they are so useful.

I’m currently also taking a course on e-learning which feeds into this one and Prezi seems an ideal medium for delivering some of that.

I somehow don't seem to be keeping up with as many Blogs as I ought to - perhaps because I easily let my own blogging slide?

As previously blogged my awareness has been raised to the extent that I was really shocked by the lack of engagement shown by one or two of the candidates for Cilip council – which I don’t think I would have been before doing this course.

Playing Catch-Up.

Dammit, I’ve let things slide again. I see CPD 23ers now have until 30^th November to finish if they want a certificate. Ok, I’m going to make a real effort to catch up and get my certificate. (How shallow!).

Because I’m late I can do Thing 17 in the correct place which is handy as this fits in very well with the Folio course on e-learning which I’m doing for work. This could be a big help.

I’m really excited about Prezi – I think this may be the tool to use as my submission for Folio. I’ve started to work on an introduction to a finding the Evidence Workshop.  It’s really quite different for me as I am fundamentally a text/audio learner and, if I’m not careful, teacher.   I think it could be brilliant at incorporating all types of learning. (Not that I’m really convinced by VAKL, but it can’t do any harm.)

The idea of having a visual CV out there on the web is intriguing. How does this differ from simply having a CV on a jobsite or my LinkedIn profile? For me the question of where the division should be between personal and professional is raised again. Many of the CV presentations start with personal details about where and when they were born and incorporate personal photos  – not something I’d choose to include in a written CV. 

In any case, are the UK library community ready to do their recruitment via social networking? Probably not, judging by the responses from the Cilip Council candidates to a question on the use of social networking.  http://communities.cilip.org.uk/forums/t/23088.aspx

I think you’ll need to be logged in to Cilip to see that.

I was really shocked how low the level of awareness was from the candidates although I would probably have been in a similar category before undertaking CPD23.  I think this raises a real issue for Cilip. The candidates are mainly, as you’d expect, in mid to late career.  If they cannot communicate with the new professionals using their preferred methods the outlook for Cilip as these young information workers progress is bleak.

A month late..

Darn, who'd have thought. It's a month since I signed in and naturally I'm really behind on my 23 things. A short report here on my new job and then I'm going to really concentrate on catching up

New job is fine. I'm finding it a little odd not to have any management rsponsibility and I am sometimes taken aback by the way one of the other staff speaks to me about what I would regard as fairly trivial admin. mistakes - but of course it's no longer up to me to decide what's trivial.  I think I am making other people's lives easier, if not making a huge original contribution. I hope on Wednesday to ba able to teach my first session on literature searchig - which gives you an idea of how slowly I'm being integrated.

On the bad news side, other hal'fs job is possibly not as secure now as it originally seemed so I need to look for a weekend or very part-time post to make up some hours. I'd happily do anything, but I'm not sure how I would go about getting the CRB check thatall local authorities seem to need.

On a really bad news issue I was shocked to see one of the library jobs coming up on the Twitter feed was an internship. or some reason I didn't think this was likely to happen in th information field. Really, really tough times.

  

Some very brief reflections on advocacy

I’m not going to say much in this post.  I’m not entirely sure I agree that advocacy should be part of every librarian’s job description. It may be, but is this a good thing?

Before the axe fell on my previous position I spent a lot of time advocating for the library service in general and my colleagues’ posts in particular with some success in preventing redundancies – except my own.

I think in the health sector advocacy is about proving our impact but also increasingly our effect on costs.

Work with schools : a librarian's assistant telling a story.

Dated 191?

Picture from New York Public Library's Photostream on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.

Conferences and events.

Going to be brief on this one. While I was unemployed I was lucky enough to be given a bursary to attend Umbrella 11. I wrote this up for the HLG newsletter and it should appear in the September issue. I’ve never presented at a conference and it is something I’d like to do. Maybe the new job will present some opportunities. I have helped organise some local events for staff – this is hard work but enjoyable.

The thing I find hardest (and if you've been reading along you'll be expecting this) is the networking which everyone says they find so valuable. I can sometimes force myself to engage with people - but I'm not a natural at it and doubt I ever will be!