Past seminars and training courses

2011

23 May  Library Advocacy

The ILIG Conference 'Library Advocacy: Sharing and Learning from National and International Experiences' took place at CILIP in London on 23 May 2011, attended by around forty enthusiastic and committed professionals, including public, academic and school librarians, LIS consultants, CILIP Trustees and staff, and international colleagues.

Conference Chair Maria Cotera kick-started the proceedings with a timely quote:

“I want to concentrate on two...contributory factors. One is Government policy with its dogmatic refusal to invest in the public sector. The other is a fundamental failure by librarians adequately to prove their case, define what they're about, or demonstrate the value of the services they provide. A failure which, as far as public libraries are concerned, means that many have no real defence against the threat to their existence inherent in the policies and philosophies of the present Government and its advisors.”

While Conference agreed that this sounded very right now, Maria announced she was reading from Bob McKee's article Future imperative: the presidential address published in the Assistant Librarian: the Journal of the Association of Assistant Librarians, July/August 1985.

Over 25 years later and we are still in the same predicament! So, what are we doing about it? What is advocacy and who is or should be advocating for libraries and library and information professionals? Those were the key questions for the day.

A CILIP team, headed by Annie Mauger, Chief Executive, delivered the first presentation of the day (available here).

Annie defined advocacy as “bringing about positive changes through building relationships with communities on the ground, and with those individuals and organisations who can influence policy and help our cause.” She went on to say that “advocacy is about having something to say based on what our communities need, and recognising the underpinning role of library and information professionals in society.”

Mark Taylor,  Head of CILIP Corporate Marketing and Media Relations, talked about CILIP's strategy to engage with the press as part of the Save our Libraries Day campaign.

Jill Howard, from CILIP Policy and Advocacy Unit, said that “advocacy should be about the people, not the buildings” - what in the Advocacy Unit is called “Brains not bricks”  and can be described as “raising awareness on the quality of library services and the value it brings to communities.”

Richard Hawkins from CILIP Information and Advice Team closed the CILIP presentation explaining how CILIP is engaging with social media to communicate with and mobilise activists, especially via twitter.

IFLA Senior Policy Adviser Stuart Hamilton's definition of advocacy was “action for change in attitudes to bring about a positive change”. He also talked about “finding the areas in which we can work together in order to cooperate with the people we disagree with”.

Fiona Bradley, IFLA's Action for Development Through Libraries Programme (ALP) Coordinator, advised us to distinguish advocacy from other concepts such as promotion, lobbying, and campaigning. She told us that advocacy “needs to be done by everyone at every level” and that “advocacy should support our strategic goals”. Fiona also introduced the concept of advocacy as “about measuring our long term impact, about collecting information to present to stakeholders and decision makers in a way that makes sense to them.” 

Barbara Schleihagen had travelled from Berlin to tell us about her successful advocacy experience as Executive Director at the German Library Association (dbv). She advised us “to have one key clear message to communicate, coupled with success stories to highlight this message.”

Fiona Bradley and Guy Daines from CILIP Policy and Advocacy Unit were available at lunch time to show some useful online resources on advocacy:

IFLA's Building Strong Library Associations Programme (BSLA), a comprehensive programme offering a strategic and coordinated approach to capacity building and sustainability of library associations, benefiting associations, libraries and their communities, and

CILIP's Campaigning Toolkit, a resource designed by CILIP to help create an effective action plan to demonstrate our value as library and information professionals.

After lunch we welcomed Kathy Roddy on Measuring outcomes and impact as a tool for successful advocacy, in order to have the evidence and the statistics to demonstrate our value. Kathy defined outcomes  as “the positive changes that library services bring to communities as a result of our work”, and talked to us about soft-outcomes, which are those which measure quality of life. We then learnt about some tools we can use to measure the outcomes of our work.  Link

Elaine Fulton, Director of the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and CILIPS, reinforced the messages given by previous speakers. She advised us not to overcomplicate our messages, to use case studies, and to put ourselves where the ones who you want to influence are going to be. Using her own case study, the Love Scottish Libraries Campaign, she reminded us that “advocacy should not be a response to public sector cuts, but about nurture and love for our services.” Elaine advised us all to prepare a short elevator pitch which we can use at any time to influence any stakeholders. This is something we can all do to advocate for ourselves and the services we provide at any given moment.  Use this link to Elaine Fulton's presentation.

We were also given another couple of practical ideas from Tom Roper, from Voices for the Library, who encouraged us to wear the Save our Libraries Ribbon (this can be purchased from local library campaigns), to engage with the campaign via social media (facebook page and twitter) and even to request a guest blog spot to showcase our own success stories on the Voices for the Library blog.  Use this link to  Tom Roper's presentation.

Doug Knock then chaired a lively panel debate where various interesting ideas, including what should be taught in library schools, whether an International Library Day should be created, and whether we should develop a universal set of outcomes to measure our impact at the international level, were discussed.

Closing the conference, Maria Cotera once more urged delegates to become advocates of our value and the services we provide, before leaving us with another thought provoking passage from Bob McKee's article Future imperative: the presidential address:

"My view of what public libraries are about - or should be about - is determined by my view of society, by my conviction that there is a need for a strong network of caring support services to work against the inequalities, disadvantages and deprivations which exist in our society." 

The Conference has received excellent feedback from both delegates and speakers. 

2010

22 October  Two half-day Seminars were held at CILIP.

The afternoon Seminar, Transliteracy and Web2.0, was led by Phil Bradley, the well known guru in all things web-related.  Here he turned his expertise to new Web2.0 gizmos and assessed their value, and considered issues around Transliteracy and Web2.0.  The learning outcomes included an understanding of the wide range of literacies needed by pupils and students to access different types of information; some of the latest Web2.0 tools and how these tools can be used to enhance information literacy skills in pupils and students. 

2009

21 October Two half day seminars, Facilitated and presented by Graham Cornish, were held at CILIP.

The morning Seminar - Ecopyright - practical solutions - looked at issues which face librarians and their clients when using electronic materials. The focus was on practical issues rather than extensive exploration of legal situations. The workshop was designed to be of use for anyone involved in managing electronic materials including ejournals, databases and CD-ROM and to be useful to those at the ‘coal face’ as well as to supervisors and academics trying to unravel the nuances of the electronic world.

The afternoon Seminar - User-generated content - a copyright challenge - looked at the issues surrounding the creation of electronic materials, especially by individuals. Different contexts were explored including Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), Managed Learning Environments (MLEs), social networking and personal websites, Creative Commons and Open Archives. The workshop was designed to be of use to anyone involved in creating or managing electronic materials, whether for educational purposes, commercial exploitation or personal use in a range of sectors including academic, commercial and public. 

30 April  Two half day seminars were held at CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE: 

The morning Seminar -  Copyright for the education sector - was presented by Paul Pedley, Visiting Professor of Information Management at London Metropolitan University and also Head of Research at the Economist Intelligence Unit. He is a member of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance. 
  
The Seminar was designed to cover
1. The copyright exceptions
2. Issues involved in posting content onto a virtual learning environment
3. Copyright licences available for the educational sector - NLA licences - ERA licence - Ordnance Survey
4. Recent developments such as the Implementation of the Gowers Recommendations and The Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. 

Note: the slides from the morning Seminar are not available from the ILIG web pages.

The afternoon Seminar - Information services for international students - was presented by Karen Senior and Marie Scopes.   Karen Senior is Head of Library at the University of Bolton.  She is a member of the CILIP Multimedia Information and Technology Group (MmIT) North West, and an Assessor for the CILIP Chartership process.  She was a member of the SCONUL Access group from 2001- 2008 and chaired the Access Working Group which published the SCONUL Guidelines on Library Services for International Students in May 2008.  Marie Scopes is Skills for learning Manager at Leeds Metropolitan University. 

Following the presentation [link] there was a workshop [link] on the 17 key concepts [link]. 

Note: these links go to copyright material; contact the presenters for permission to copy or quote from them;  k.senior@bolton.ac.uk  and  m.scopes@leedsmet.ac.uk

2008

14 October  Two half-day seminars were held at the British Library.

The morning Seminar - Internet search techniques: current state of the art and the next five years - was facilitated and presented by Terry Kendrick (Marketing and Information Consultant; Lecturer in Marketing, University of East Anglia) and Chaired by Diana Rosenberg (ILIG).  

Terry outlined the current state of the art in searching both the visible and invisible Web, highlighting key hints and tips for effective search. He also outlined some recent developments in Internet search technologies and techniques and explained how the traditional librarian’s mindset can help and hinder effective Internet search and speculate on what this means for library searchers in the coming years.

The afternoon Seminar - Information services for migrants and refugees was presented by Helen Carpenter (Paul Hamlyn Foundation), Diana Edmonds (Assistant Director Culture, Libraries and Learning, London Borough of Haringey) and Amanuel Gebrekidan (British Broadcasting Corporation, Future Media and Technology, Information and Archives) and Chaired by Stephanie Kenna (The British Library). 

Helen Carpenter talked about the opportunities and challenges facing libraries in a multicultural environment.  Link to Helen Carpenter's 18 slides (1256KB)

Diana Edmonds followed with an examination of the practical aspects of designing and running library services.  Link to Diana Edmond's 22 slides  (131KB) 

Finally Amanuel Gebrekidan, a journalist and qualified librarian and himself a refugee from Eritrea now living and working in UK, spoke on what sort of library services a migrant or refugee to UK wants and will use.  Link to Amanuel Gebrekidan's 14 slides (498KB)

Fuller reports of their presentations will be published in ILIG's journal, Focus on International Library and Information Work.  Check here for details.

16th May  Two half-day Seminars were held at CILIP, 7 Ridgmount St, London WC1E 7AE

The morning Seminar was entitled Web 2.0: the basics and was presented by Phil Bradley, Internet Consultant

It covered Web 2.0 resources and how they can be used to enhance library services and discussed RSS, weblogs, instant messaging, podcasting, start pages, social bookmarking, Flickr, custom search engines, creating communities with wikis and portals (and more!). 

The afternoon Seminar was entitled Web 2.0: developing and promoting services and was presented by Lyn Robinson, Director, Information Studies Scheme, City University.

This session considered how library and information services are embracing Web 2.0 technology to enhance existing services, develop new initiatives and to promote their expertise and resources.

Although aimed at information professionals working within the health sector, the approaches were relevant to a wide range of fields. The session also aimed to highlight ways in which the impact of Web 2.0 services can be assessed.

2007

15 October  Two half day seminars.  The morning seminar was a repeat of the popular Web 2.0: the basics which was facilitated and presented by Phil Bradley (Internet Consultant).  It covered Web 2.0 resources and how they can be used to enhance library services.  It will be run again in 2008. 

The afternoon seminar was Copyright: what you need to know which was facilitated and presented by Graham Cornish (Copyright Circle Consultant).  It covered the fundamentals of copyright - principles and practice - and although concentrating on the digital environment it also included print.  Most of the afternoon was spent on the implementation of the existing law, but the final session looked at changes to be expected as a result of Gowers.

4 May Two half-day seminars on WEB 2.0, facilitated by Phil Bradley (Internet Consultant). 

The morning seminar covered Web 2.0 and Library 2.0. It discussesd how weblogs, new search tools, RSS, instant messaging, podcasting, wikis, network pages, social bookmarking, Flickr (and more!) can be used to enhance library services.

The afternoon seminar was for librarians who wanted to advance their understanding to a higher and deeper level.  It included turning weblogs into resource pages and using RSS feeds to keep clients up to date. The comparative value of wikis, weblogs and portals to a library service was assessed.