What a week. Busy, manic, busy and exhausting.
The week began by delivering a one hour lecture to the new first year students. They have started a two week academic skills module where I meet them three times. The lecture was about what is information, why do we use it and where can we find health and social care information? We talked about books, journals (because often they have not heard of them before) and databases. It was a full-house in the lecture theatre and miraculously everything went to plan - including the IT. We played a game to introduce Boolean and they were quite happy to shout out when I asked them questions. I had to deliver the lecture twice to cover all the students on the course so I was worn out by the end. I don't know what I did to deserve it but I spent the rest of the afternoon at a Quality meeting!
I ran seven orientation sessions (each lasting 1 hour) over 1.5 days. Good attendance and some of the tutors joined in with their students. Most of them engaged in full with the talk/tour and task but inevitably there were some who preferred to do as little as possible - I usually find they are the ones who get to the third year and still haven't used a database. Still you can't take a horse to water...
Mid-week I managed to deal with all the emails I had red-flagged and photocopy everything I needed for the rest of the week. It's difficult to keep up with the induction timetable yet alone do 'normal' work in addition. I also got lots of requests from students to meet for search tutorials - I've had to tell them all I'm fully booked for the next 3 weeks. I always send them guides and hints and tips to keep them going in the meantime but it feels bad to keep them waiting. Most of them understand that my time is currently consumed by meeting the new students but some get a little cranky.
The end of the week saw me deliver two more lectures for the third year dissertation students. They were furiously scribbling down everything I said about truncation and wildcard searches so I think I hit the nail on the head with content. I demonstrated reference management software and got a round of applause. We had the usual banter about why I didn't show it to them in the first year but they were keen to try it out for themselves. Just before I left for the weekend one of the students sent me a lovely email. He said that he had previously cross-searched lots of databases but had tried my suggestion of using one at a time and making full use of their limit/refining functions. Apparently it has changed his searching habits and he was surprised and relived to find he got lots of relevant, quality articles in his results list. Hearing things like this is greatly rewarding and is validation for all the time spent creating the presentation. I've saved the email in my special 'Comments' folder as such emails come in handy for appraisal/end of year review time.
It was a very tiring but rewarding week. From looking at the timetable next week looks to be more of the same - hopefully my voice will not diminish from croak to whisper....
Saturday, 22 September 2012
Inductions: a pause in proceedings
This week was a little calmer - thankfully. It consisted of:
a) a meeting with one of my Chartership mentees.
b) two student tutorials where I offered assistance with developing keywords and accessing the full-text. One of the students had compiled a rather extensive and impressive Boolean connected concoction of keywords. It was a valiant attempt but they had ended up in a bit of a pickle. Once we had unpicked it all became much clearer and they are now finding articles here, there and everywhere.
c) a refresher workshop for a group of MSc students - they were bowled over by reference management software.
d) a meeting with a colleague to 'thought-shower' ideas for some workshops the team is putting together for a new cohort of PhD students. I always think we'll be discussing advanced search techniques and how to access various archives elsewhere but every year they want (and need) the same old talk covering logging-in/passwords/explaining what databases are for. One day they'll surprise me and ask about truncation or institutional repositories!
e) a couple of tours - more practise for next week. I'm almost on auto-pilot now.
f) I showed a librarian, from a nearby University, around my library. They were impressed with the facilities and we exchanged library-gossip.
g) one team meeting looking at last minute preparation for upcoming inductions and a discussion about the business plan for this year.
h) I had to return my journal renewals spreadsheet to our Periodicals librarian. I've basically signed up for another 12 months of expensive material that will probably go up in price without any real explanation and wipe out the budget by Christmas. But hey ho that's journals.
i) the last task of the week was to run a library orientation activity for library staff in order to refresh their memories for this year's inductions. They will be helping out with some of the scheduled activities.
A busy but relatively calm week. I've looked at the timetable for next week - my feet are hurting at the thought of all the upcoming walking tours.... see you on the other side.
a) a meeting with one of my Chartership mentees.
b) two student tutorials where I offered assistance with developing keywords and accessing the full-text. One of the students had compiled a rather extensive and impressive Boolean connected concoction of keywords. It was a valiant attempt but they had ended up in a bit of a pickle. Once we had unpicked it all became much clearer and they are now finding articles here, there and everywhere.
c) a refresher workshop for a group of MSc students - they were bowled over by reference management software.
d) a meeting with a colleague to 'thought-shower' ideas for some workshops the team is putting together for a new cohort of PhD students. I always think we'll be discussing advanced search techniques and how to access various archives elsewhere but every year they want (and need) the same old talk covering logging-in/passwords/explaining what databases are for. One day they'll surprise me and ask about truncation or institutional repositories!
e) a couple of tours - more practise for next week. I'm almost on auto-pilot now.
f) I showed a librarian, from a nearby University, around my library. They were impressed with the facilities and we exchanged library-gossip.
g) one team meeting looking at last minute preparation for upcoming inductions and a discussion about the business plan for this year.
h) I had to return my journal renewals spreadsheet to our Periodicals librarian. I've basically signed up for another 12 months of expensive material that will probably go up in price without any real explanation and wipe out the budget by Christmas. But hey ho that's journals.
i) the last task of the week was to run a library orientation activity for library staff in order to refresh their memories for this year's inductions. They will be helping out with some of the scheduled activities.
A busy but relatively calm week. I've looked at the timetable for next week - my feet are hurting at the thought of all the upcoming walking tours.... see you on the other side.
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Inductions: number crunching
The first week of 2012 inductions is done. Thankfully it went well. My biggest problem was the fluctuation in student numbers. With set numbers of students expected I had made sure multiple rooms were booked and plenty of staff were on hand to help. However, all but one of my groups experienced considerable numbers of no-shows (not for the library tour but no-shows for the course itself).
Tour number one was for social work students and the full quota arrived. As they were a Masters group I chose to run traditional walking tours. So we toured 3 groups of 15 students around the library simultaneously - this involved much choreography so that we didn't all crash into each other en route. When I was at library-school it didn't dawn on me that logistics would play such a huge part in my day but I always plan routes for each group so that they get the best experience.
The second group were registered nurses who were returning to specialise in being public health nurses. Alas instead of 60 we had 28 turn up. They are always my favourite group of students - the phrase "cracking bunch" doesn't do them justice. I couldn't run the tour I wanted to because they students hadn't been through their registration process and did not have computer logins/id cards etc so the tour couldn't be as hands on as I desired. Still we had lots of fun - a walking tour and a talk about the e-Library followed by an attack on my basket of freebies!
A group of Foundation Degree students were next up - they too were reduced in number, 28 instead of 40. They looked distinctly nervous about starting their course and using a university library but we had a good natter about all things library and they seemed to relax a little. I did an orientation activity for this group which consisted of a short and sweet presentation about the library service, followed by a mini-tour on one floor of the building and then they had a quick activity. The task consisted of picking one book from a little list, searching for it on the library catalogue to find its classmark, the number of copies and which floor it lives on etc. They then had to go off and retrieve the book from the shelf and tell me what the title of chapter 2 was. The team I work with rest their tours on the principle that we 'learn by doing' so we like to get the students to put their hands on a book and use it.
I was off-site delivering a lecture to a group of distance learners on Friday morning and returned to a phone message that my afternoon group had been reduced from 30 to 7 and then later in the afternoon only 2 turned up! Still the two that made the effort had a small, personal tour around the facilities and got plenty of freebies between them.
The first week is always a wake-up call. Summer hurtles by and suddenly your back in the saddle trying to remember all the things you're supposed to mention on the tour and fluffing words in presentations as you try to regain your patter. By the end of week two I'll be word perfect and probably on tour auto-pilot.
What did I do on my day off - I went on a tour! Yes, a tour of a newly opened museum/library in my home town. Still at least being on the tour was a change from running the tour.
My top tips for inductions:
Freebies - always have freebies. A free pen endears you to many a student! I am often reminded in workshops that I was the lady who sorted all their stationery needs in week one.
Rooms/staff - better to be over prepared. It's easier to take structure away rather than add it at short notice.
Flat shoes - if you're giving walking tours your feet will suffer so be nice to them!
Engage tutors - get them to join you on your tour (freebies work on them too) as the students can ask them questions about reading lists etc during the event and the tutor gets an annual update on all things library.
Tour number one was for social work students and the full quota arrived. As they were a Masters group I chose to run traditional walking tours. So we toured 3 groups of 15 students around the library simultaneously - this involved much choreography so that we didn't all crash into each other en route. When I was at library-school it didn't dawn on me that logistics would play such a huge part in my day but I always plan routes for each group so that they get the best experience.
The second group were registered nurses who were returning to specialise in being public health nurses. Alas instead of 60 we had 28 turn up. They are always my favourite group of students - the phrase "cracking bunch" doesn't do them justice. I couldn't run the tour I wanted to because they students hadn't been through their registration process and did not have computer logins/id cards etc so the tour couldn't be as hands on as I desired. Still we had lots of fun - a walking tour and a talk about the e-Library followed by an attack on my basket of freebies!
A group of Foundation Degree students were next up - they too were reduced in number, 28 instead of 40. They looked distinctly nervous about starting their course and using a university library but we had a good natter about all things library and they seemed to relax a little. I did an orientation activity for this group which consisted of a short and sweet presentation about the library service, followed by a mini-tour on one floor of the building and then they had a quick activity. The task consisted of picking one book from a little list, searching for it on the library catalogue to find its classmark, the number of copies and which floor it lives on etc. They then had to go off and retrieve the book from the shelf and tell me what the title of chapter 2 was. The team I work with rest their tours on the principle that we 'learn by doing' so we like to get the students to put their hands on a book and use it.
I was off-site delivering a lecture to a group of distance learners on Friday morning and returned to a phone message that my afternoon group had been reduced from 30 to 7 and then later in the afternoon only 2 turned up! Still the two that made the effort had a small, personal tour around the facilities and got plenty of freebies between them.
The first week is always a wake-up call. Summer hurtles by and suddenly your back in the saddle trying to remember all the things you're supposed to mention on the tour and fluffing words in presentations as you try to regain your patter. By the end of week two I'll be word perfect and probably on tour auto-pilot.
What did I do on my day off - I went on a tour! Yes, a tour of a newly opened museum/library in my home town. Still at least being on the tour was a change from running the tour.
My top tips for inductions:
Freebies - always have freebies. A free pen endears you to many a student! I am often reminded in workshops that I was the lady who sorted all their stationery needs in week one.
Rooms/staff - better to be over prepared. It's easier to take structure away rather than add it at short notice.
Flat shoes - if you're giving walking tours your feet will suffer so be nice to them!
Engage tutors - get them to join you on your tour (freebies work on them too) as the students can ask them questions about reading lists etc during the event and the tutor gets an annual update on all things library.
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