To embed or not to embed?

Each September and April the University accepts new cohorts of health students. They have a 2 week skills module at the very beginning of their course during which they have several library activities scheduled in their timetable. As part of the module content and for a formative assessment they have to carry out a search on a topic given to them by their tutor. They are expected to find a couple of books; journal articles and websites on their topic and explain how they found the sources. At present their timetable of library activities looks like this:

Week 1:

Monday – Core lecture about ‘Finding information’ – 1 hour (compulsory)

Tuesday – Orientation to the library physical space – 1 hour (compulsory for 1^st half of cohort)

Wednesday – Library workshop 1 ‘Library catalogue and introduction to e-Library’ – 1 hour (not compulsory but strongly encouraged by tutors to attend/shown on central timetable)

Thursday – Orientation to the library physical space – 1 hour (compulsory for 2^nd half of cohort)

Friday - Library workshop 2 ‘Finding health information resources’ – 1.5 hours (not compulsory but strongly encouraged by tutors to attend/shown on central timetable)

Week 2:

Wednesday: Repeats of library workshop 2

Friday: Repeats of library workshop 1 and 2

As expected, there is good attendance for the lecture and orientation activities. The optional workshops have ok levels of attendance but certainly do not cover the whole cohort (Total students numbers are Sept = 380 students and April = 110 / students are from a range of health areas and are mixed together).

Why are the workshops non-compulsory?  Several reasons, firstly (and quite wrongly) because there are not enough members of library staff to run the number of workshops required to accommodate the large cohorts in the two week module (plus lots of other students also start at the same time). Secondly, some students will ‘get’ searching from the off and will possibly have done a degree previously therefore both library and academic staff felt it was a little harsh to make them go right back to the beginning. 

Overall the timetable and activities work well. The workshops were started by a previous librarian and have been built on and modified over the years. I get the students to evaluate the library workshops and feedback has been consistently positive for many years – something I am very proud of.

However, it has emerged that the start date of the module has shifted to a quieter time of the term and with the changes to higher education it has meant a modest reduction in student numbers for 2012/13. This has made me think that I can offer compulsory workshops to all the new students rather than optional ones.  I’ve been musing over this for a while. I can offer compulsory library workshops but I can only provide workshops that are 1 hour long rather than the combined offer of 2.5 hours when they were non-compulsory workshops. I’m worried that this is wrong – am I better off embedding the short library workshops or persevering with the positively received 2.5 hour offer of non-compulsory workshops?  Here’s how I envisage the possible timetable of library activities:

Week 1:

Monday – Core lecture about ‘Finding information’ – 1 hour (compulsory)

Tuesday – Orientation to the library physical space – 1 hour (compulsory for 1^st half of cohort)

Thursday – Orientation to the library physical space – 1 hour (compulsory for 2^nd half of cohort)

Week 2:

Tuesday – Library workshop ‘Using the e-Library to find journal articles’ – 1 hour (can run 6 one hour workshops covering 10 personal tutor groups)

Thursday - Library workshop ‘Using the e-Library to find journal articles’ – 1 hour (can run 6 one hour workshops covering 10 personal tutor groups)

Pros	Comments
All students have equal access to workshop	Gives parity across the different pathways of the programme
No sign up required	No wikis, paper forms, extra notices needed
Less confusing for students/staff if workshops are timetabled centrally	All in place before start of term, academic staff can request large IT rooms.
Embedded into their timetable – no longer an add on	Eureka!
Content can be more closely tailored to their area of health	Can introduce them to their key resources rather than ones which cover a spectrum of health topics
Opportunity to meet the librarian on 3 possible occasions rather than one	I can’t do all the sessions but I can do most of them
Can rejig lecture and tour to accommodate some items that were previously delivered in the workshops	Revitalise lecture and tweak orientation activity
Cons
Time to cover e-library only in workshop whereas we used to cover evaluating websites and the catalogue	But can move these items to lecture and orientation activity. New VLE gives scope for video content.
Complicated timetabling	But probably worth the agony
Some current workshop evaluation forms say they ‘want more time to practice’	However they can log in at any time and keep practising using the worksheets/VLE information
Is second Thursday too late in module?	Needs discussion with academic staff

I think I may have made my decision simply by writing it all down for this post - it helps to see it set out.

New blog post in sight...

I've been busy with inductions and book orders for the last few weeks but I'll be blogging again next week. In fact I'll be doing a post about an information literacy issue I'm wrestling with. Hopefully people will give me some feedback via the blog that will help me make a decision. In the meantime have a look at A Cat in the Library  who has just embarked on cpd23 Things and is hoping to ramp up their blog viewing statistics.

Things I have been up to this month....

Another busy month full of bits and bobs:

1.  I had a meeting with my Chartership mentee who is progressing extremely well. I enjoy mentoring as it keeps me on my toes with regards to thinking about issues beyond my workplace and it gives me a way to give something back to the profession.

2. I helped to staff an e-books promotion stand at work. We were hoping to catch people who had not yet discovered our e-books or those who were a little hesitant about using e-formats. We had a steady trickle of people drop by the stand and it was pleasing to see that most of the students had at least tried an e-book once and there were many keen to discover more about our collection.

3. Inducting new students to the Library - the courses I look after have two intakes per academic year. I'll have 2 cohorts of BSc, Foundation Degree, CPD and Master students every academic year. This means that induction happens all year round and just when you think things are calming down, in comes another group.
It's all good fun though and means that I get to try out induction activities and not have to wait a whole year to tweak it or try something else.

4. Learning not to assume - I had a request from a member of academic staff who wanted advice on "advanced search strategies". We made a time to meet, talked about the topic they were intending to search for and what resources they had used so far. Now when someone said 'advanced search strategies' I assumed (quite wrongly as it turns out) that they wanted truncation, snowballing, search filters and subject headings galore... How wrong I was. It became obvious that advanced searching was simply using the Boolean operator - AND. On reflection this was what they perceived to be advanced searching (and for them it was) but it wasn't what I thought it should be. Still their expectations were met even if it meant I couldn't flex my searching muscles as much as I wanted to.

5. Running tours for prospective students on Visit Day. This is an important and yet infrequent part of my role. Several times a year the University holds Open Days (for those thinking of applying to the institution) and Visit Days (they've applied but aren't sure whether the institution is their 1st or 2nd choice). Library tours are on offer at these events and the take up is good. The tours are devised to promote the library and therefore the institution. We run short tours of key parts of the library and mention lots of statistics about the number of computers, books and journals we have. These tours cater for prospective students and their parents. It is my observation that the parents get more out of it than the students do - why? Well there are still a lot of parents out there who didn't go to University (this Sept will see us cater for those born in 1994) and they enjoy seeing inside institutions that were once, for whatever reason, seen as not for them. Their child might also be the first in the family to attend University so they'll be interested to see where they are going and what they'll be doing when away from home. So it's often the parents who ask all the questions.

6. Professional development activities - I've arranged a visit to the College of Occupational Therapists to see the library and find out about their services. Many of the students I look after can apply for membership of the organisation and I wanted to ensure I knew enough about them to promote their collections to our students especially those doing their dissertation. I'm also waiting to book a place at my first ever TeachMeet - I'm too chicken to present but maybe next time. I'll blog about these events later in the Summer.

8. Annual leave - yep - there won't be any posts for a while as I'm on leave and after that I will be busy with inductions. So Happy Easter and I'll be back in May.

The one-to-one...

So far this academic year I have delivered 105 one-to-one appointments. This is a record number for me and it's not even Easter yet!  I thought I'd offer some of my observations on what's involved in running a one-to-one search support appointment.

The one-to-ones I run for students and staff tend to range from being 10 minutes to 1 hour long. It could be on anything - library catalogue, databases, finding the full-text, creating a search strategy, referencing, how to record a search... or all of these. The student/staff member could be a novice or good searcher - they just want to learn that little bit more or have a refresher.The aim is to help/coach them to carry out a search, not to do the search for them - it's their degree and it needs to be their work.

Before the event:
1. If the person emails or telephones to arrange a date  - make sure you ask them what course/what module they are studying/what assignment they have been tasked with.
2. Ask what it is they want your help with - people rarely ask for what they want and a quick conversation should elicit the aim of their visit or allow you to direct them to another more appropriate source of support. I quite like being confronted with a topic/query that I'm not sure how to solve as it's good for the little grey brain cells to be tested but the student's needs come first and I like to be prepared with something on their topic when they arrive - even if I've just peeked in a few databases to see what's out there/looked up the condition etc they are searching for.
3. Do you have a room/space/computer to work with?

The event:
1. Ask what it is they want your help with?  Yep, ask again. Don't jump in with advice, let them take the lead with their questions.
2. Don't take over. Let them use the computer/do the clicking. If you have to demonstrate things, talk them through it and explain what you are doing.
3. Answer their questions, not the questions you think they should be asking.
4. Summarise at the end - check you've covered what they wanted.
5. Do you need to give them handouts/guides for extra support when they are searching on their own later?
6. Remind them that they can contact you again - email/phone or another one-to-one appointment if appropriate.

After the event:
1. Keep statistics on how many one-to-ones you have carried out - it helps you to keep track of your workload because one-to-ones can be time consuming.
2. Keep a note of who you have seen - what course they were on and the general details such as search topic/advice given. This might seem onerous but I find that these students will pop back for additional bits and pieces of advice later on in their search - it's much easier to remind yourself of who they are and what it was they were looking for so you can help them quickly.
3. Reflect on what you did, why you did it and what you might do differently in the future. For instance I have run one-to-ones where students have wanted to bring their husband 'because he helps me use the computer at home', son 'because he types up my essay' and boyfriend 'because he'll get lonely sitting outside'. At first I thought it a little odd but on reflection if that's the way they learn/study and it works for them - I'm ok with it. Obviously the one who said he never realised 'how clever librarians were' was my favourite!

The best bit of a one-to-one is when you see the penny drop/the fog clear. It could be 20 minutes through, 59 minutes through or 3 minutes in. We all have different ways of learning and although people attend library workshops/lectures as part of their module it might be that a short one-to-one meeting consolidates all that person's previous learning.

Things I've been up to this month...

It felt like a quiet month but when I make a list of everything I've done it turns out I was busy. Definitely lots of bits and pieces this month but the meaty workshops get going again in March so this 'quiet' period will be short-lived.

Webliographies - I've been working with a colleague to try and introduce the idea of 'webliographies' (I'm not convinced we should be using this term) to the Faculty that we support. There is much discussion about how students never go beyond the reading list compiled by their tutor and we've been looking at webliographies as tool to change this.

In conjunction with their tutor our hope is that student groups will be set the task of searching for and locating sources (both online and printed) that are not on their tutor-compiled reading list. They then have to add these references to a group wiki. Our aim is to cover searching, using wikis, working collaboratively and referencing. The hope is, and this is dependent on timetabling, that they will be set the task and that I can be available as support either in the library or via email if they get stuck.

We are at the stage of searching for guinea pigs so we are going to present this idea to the academic staff at the next Faculty Staff Development day. I'll post more on this in the future.

Tutorials - lots of staff and student tutorials this month and all sorts of topics covered. For example, men and their perceptions of dance movement therapy; service user involvement; immunisation; ultrasound and pressure ulcers. Although I do not carry out searches for people (it's their degree not mine) I always run a pilot search to make sure I'm giving the right advice about keywords etc so I have a good rummage around the subject headings. I try to avoid the images that pop up in searches - pictures associated with wound care make me nauseous!

In-house task groups - there are a couple of projects going on at work this term and I'm on two working groups. Firstly we are looking at moving a large amount of stock around the building - this is proving tricky to say the least. We solve one problem and then create another. Secondly there is a group looking at new communication technologies. My library is not big on web 2.0 tools but we are investigating whether to use them for communication purposes and how best to use them.

Workshops - I've run a couple of lively workshops this month and the evaluations were good. I've also done lots of preparation work for workshops scheduled in March. I've been busy looking at search examples for "systemic anti-cancer therapy", "reflective practice in nursing" and whistle blowing.

Mentoring - one of my mentees is ready to submit their portfolio to CILIP. As a mentor I sometimes feel like a mother hen - I'm really pleased for them although it will be sad to see them go. I've been really impressed by this candidate - they've put in lots of hard work and even went abroad to gain some experience.

Displays - It was my turn to put something together for a library display that promoted an area of our stock. As we had topped up on study skills books last term I thought that would be an appropriate choice. The display promoted printed books, e-books, items available from the University bookshop and study skills workshops run by the Uni's Student Support Unit. There was also a QR code to direct people to the catalogue but I forgot to track statistics for it's use (I know, I know - total lemon) - still I won't forget to do it next time.

Library Day in the Life Round 8

I'm a Faculty Liaison Librarian for Health and Social care and I work in an academic library in the UK. I'm capturing my week because it's good to share! I thought I would share what tasks I've done this week and the kinds of enquiries I've had.


Monday
Created a presentation for a departmental meeting - the aim is to promote the scanning service; give a quick update on resources and encourage the academic staff to incorporate more/any information literacy sessions within their modules. I'm quite lucky as I have a foot in the door of most modules but there's room for improvement.
I also prepared a couple of things for some student tutorials that are taking place on Tues. I had to look up a couple of medical terms that I had not heard of before.
General emails were answered - these included various requests such as how much money is left in the budget; how do I access the full text of the journal Menopause International; a request for some items to be scanned for the virtual learning environment and several book orders.


Tuesday


I've carried out 4 student tutorials today where I've given one-to-one support for database searching; creating search strategies and locating the full-text of articles. I also gave advice via email for a student struggling with a search - once we had developed some extra keywords and changed the databases she was using all was fine. I got a lovely reply to the email which is good - it's always nice to feel you've made a difference.


I managed to start work on scoping a project regarding our subject pages on the web. They are a little outdated now and the team are looking to revamp them. This has been given to me as project so I'm still looking at the brief before I get going on anything.


Wednesday


I attended a staff development course called 'The Art of Presenting' which was run by an external company. The brochure described the workshop as a ‘high impact, experiential and playful route to finding your personal presentation style’. This sounded just right for me as I needed to refresh my skills and was looking for something that would challenge me.

I deliver lots of presentations, in fact so far this academic year I have clocked up 66 presentations, which take the form of orientation tours, induction talks, lectures, demonstrations and workshops. I like to refresh my presenting skills every so often, mainly so that I make sure I’m still effective and can get the message across to my audience but also to liven things up for me.  It’s important that my audience can’t tell that I’m thinking “Oh no, not another presentation on how to search the catalogue” because that negative vibe would ruin the whole show. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind delivering the same presentation but sometimes you want to shake it up a little!

The workshop was fantastic not least because is dragged you out of your comfort zone. The day involved poetry, the Alexander technique, body language, voice exercises, lots of fun and barely any PowerPoint. Many of the people attending were petrified or at best hesitant of standing up and presenting but by the end of the day they were all volunteering to go first in the different activities.  Luckily I am happy to stand up in front of an audience (although that wasn’t always the case) but I was particularly pleased to learn some vocal techniques and get some advice about posture which I put in to practice the day after during an induction talk.

Thursday

Today I had a stack of emails to answer as a result of being at the course on Wednesday. I delivered an induction talk to a new group of nursing students who were studying prescribing. They got a little talk about what the library can do for them and what resources we have for their topic. Plus I did a quick demonstration of how to access e-books and search the British Nursing Index. Finally and this always the bit they like best - they got their Library freebies (pens, pencils, highlighter) and a tailor-made printed subject guide compiled by me. In the afternoon the same group visited the library for a tour and we're most impressed by our moving shelves and the self-issue machines.

My last task of the day was to meet my colleague who is a 'Faculty Learning Technologist'. We are working on a joint display about how to get your students to take notice of your reading list and yet go beyond it to find their own sources of information. We are still at the early stages and spent our time scoping the project, setting deadlines and having a good old natter about all things library and techie.

Friday

No appointments in the diary but lots of things to be getting on with. I wrote a piece for the in-house library newsletter about the 'Art of Presenting' course I attended on Wednesday; made some appointments with academic staff for next week; chatted to my fellow health librarian at a neighbouring institution and read some papers for a meeting happening next week.

Update PDP on Thing 23: Reflection

The PDP plan I put together at the end of the cpd23 Things programme is progressing well. I've completed a number of actions on the plan and I'm still working towards a couple of others.

I'm particularly please to have updated my CV both the Word file and the LinkedIn entry. I have been meaning to do this for a while but had put it on the back burner many a time. The process of updating my CV (especially thinking of relevant examples, from recent times, of demonstrating key skills) has allowed me to identify a couple of gaps in my skills. I've decided to do a couple of ECDL Advanced modules (Word and PowerPoint) and I'm still hoping that our Staff Development office can help me get on to a course to give me some credit for my teaching skills.

Plus it's appraisal time so I have many things to get working on in the next 6 months.