Visit to National Media Museum, Bradford
UC&R Group (Yorkshire & Humberside) recently visited the Media Museum in Bradford.
This was a really informative and among the delights we saw was the camera used in filiming The Red Shoes. They also have an original negative and photograph from Talbot, as well as early daguerreotypes. The photograph collection of the Daily Herald is also available, as is the library of the Royal Photographic Society.
Report from Umbrella
UC&R Group (Yorkshire & Humberside) recently sponsored a place for Jodie Walker to have full residential attendance at Umbrella 2009 who was a first time attendee to an Umbrella event.
Umbrella 2009 took place on 14-15 July at University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield and offered you a unique experience to meet the UK library community, discuss issues affecting your future, and improve your knowledge.
Jodie's report is below:
As a soon-to-be-graduate the 2009 Umbrella event provided a great opportunity to explore my chosen profession beyond ‘library school’. The theme of the conference was ‘Making connections: the power of people, partnership and services’: this captured the essential sociability of the event and its dual emphasis on professional exploration and networking. The myriad of speakers provided by the CILIP special interest groups presented a wealth of ideas that were frequently hard to choose between. These were complemented by exhibitions and poster sessions that encouraged a relaxed, interactive exploration of projects, products and services relevant to the profession. The atmosphere of positivism that infused the event served to reinforce the suggestion that, despite the current economic climate, library and information professionals remain committed to providing an excellent service.
The opening plenary for Umbrella 2009 appropriately set the tone for the event with Charles M. Brown, Director of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County (PLCMC), USA, discussing the innovations and challenges involved in transforming a public library service. Brown’s account of his visionary reorganization project, Project 2010, depicted the strategic efforts involved in establishing a twenty-first century library service despite the complexities of change management and a struggling economy. He stressed the value of communication and marketing within service transformation and highlighted the necessity of staff engagement in promoting the value of change and in applying front line tacit knowledge. More than anything, Brown’s plenary emphasised the importance of communication and aspiration in successful library transformation.
Thus inspired, it was then the part of the conference delegates to go forth and choose from the speaker smorgasbord – a task complicated by the interesting range of lectures on offer. As a student, I am understandably interested in perceptions of, and predictions for, our professional future. I therefore attended Professor Feather’s (Loughborough University) discussion on the information professions in an information society. Feather questioned the construction of professional identity given the pervasiveness of digital technology and the elevation of a knowledge economy. He suggested that the information professions must redefine themselves if they wish to remain relevant. One means of doing this would be by revaluating current professional boundaries and encouraging a more porous attitude towards other information workers. Feather concluded by emphasising the need for a greater evidence-based exploration of the general impact of technology and the role professionals have to play in wider society.
Paul Sturges (Loughborough University) was one of the speakers who kicked off the afternoon sessions with his quirkily titled discussion on professional values: ‘Why is poo brown? The child’s right to information’. Although amusingly providing an answer to the title question within his session handout, Feather’s presentation explored the necessity of supporting the child’s quest for information. Whilst family values, religion and schooling might necessarily restrict the candour with which a child’s queries are greeted, Sturges revealed the fallacy of question evasion under the precept of child protection. The defence of a child’s right to freedom of information and expression was approached via two arguments. The first, grounded in ‘pop-neuroscience’ characterised the child’s brain as a ‘plastic’ adaptable organ highly responsive to external stimuli. The denial of a child’s quest for information was suggested as in turn denying input that could aid cerebral development. On a more ethical basis, Sturges cited Article 19 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 13 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. He argued the unique position of libraries as a means of realising the child’s right to information and intellectual development.
Refreshments and a cake-fuelled wander around the posters and exhibitions preceded the final speakers of the day. I attended a two-part session on the opportunities and challenges facing librarians as teachers. Despite an increased demand to teach information literacy skills, some statistics suggest that the majority of informational professionals learn to teach via a process of trial and error. Debbi Boden (University of Worcester) and Ruth Stubbing (Loughborough University) discussed Sir Learnalot – a digital project developed to promote the formalised teaching, learning and assessment of information literacy. Next, Lucy Gildersleeves (University College London) discussed the increased need for promoting library and information professional teaching skills within degree courses and continued professional development. She advocated the importance of face to face training achieved through Education Libraries Group workshops and the development of a certificate framework to promote a recognisable teaching qualification.
The evening activities consisted of either a quiet meal on campus at the Club de Havilland or attendance at the Gala Dinner at the RAF Museum, Hendon, which presented the surreal experience of dining under the Avro Lancaster. Following this, the diehard delegates returned for campus karaoke, where a rendition of Rihanna’s Umbrella provided much hilarity among other, equally entertaining, performances.
The next day began with the annual general meeting of the UC&R wherein a lavish spread of pastries compensated for the early start. The meeting provided an opportunity to get together with fellow group members and gain a more personal perspective of the committee. As a new member to the group it was an excellent opportunity to gain an overview of their achievements and network with individuals sharing similar sector interests.
Alan Carr’s (Mid-Cheshire College) introduction to podcasting in education had a highly practical focus with demonstrations of podcasting resources and the uses of podcasting technology in further and higher education. His examples of podcasting projects, many of which were initiated by students, served to reinforce the suitability of such technology in the information environment.
I chose to follow this by attendance at Sheila Webber (University of Sheffield) and Keri Weekes (Weekes-Gray Recruitment) demonstration of the professional potential of virtual worlds. This session emphasised the value of Second Life in supporting career development, education, and the promotion of library and information services. An interesting perspective was provided by Weekes who depicted the advantages of Second Life for recruitment and developing employment skills either through the creation of virtual recruitment events or by attaining work experience in virtual library and information facilities. Examples of Second Life best practice, such as the West of Ireland Library and Culture Centre, demonstrated the advantages of virtual libraries for engaging niche markets and exploring concepts and strategies prior to ‘real life’ implementation. A tour of the Sheffield University Infolit Island reinforced the educative application of Second Life with its ability to support creative exploration of a virtual learning space that encourages playful progression through core learning resources.
Pat Beach and Simon Morgan (RNIB) discussed the challenges of digital library services for people with sight loss. They revealed some unsettling statistics with 81% of websites currently not accessible to blind users and an even higher percentage of sites failing to meet minimum W3C requirements. Beach and Morgan presented the means by which information professionals could improve this situation by considering website accessibility during site design (i.e. keeping links in context and improving metadata). They emphasised the importance of libraries in providing access to adaptive technologies which could otherwise seem prohibitively expensive.
For a first timer, attendance at the CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award ceremony was an inspirational experience. It provided an occasion to witness the efforts of library and informational professionals to improve their services and, by extension, the lives of their community. The award was presented by Sir Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate 1999-2009 and Chair of the MLA. Motion movingly described the significant impact libraries can make and the capacity of individuals to inspire. The potential impact of single individuals to stir creative and progressive efforts was characterised in all the award finalists, but particularity in the winning project. ‘Across the Board: Autism support for families’ is a project headed by Leeds Library and Information Service. The project represents how an idea from a single person, a parent requesting Boardmaker software to aid communication with their autistic child, was met with a proactive determination to provide support for this local need.
Umbrella opened my eyes to the huge array of interests and personalities within the profession. It provided a forum for both intellectual and social exploration whilst also maintaining a sense of fun and enthusiasm for the profession. What a shame it’s only biannual!