This will be the last of my posts about the conference (for now, at least) and I'll mainly use it to talk about the presentation I gave last Friday.
This was a lively lunch session titled New subjects, new communities, new formats: The library collection in the digital world - 75 minutes which included a presentation (about 45-50 minutes) and opportunities for discussion. I described my research project and then explored some issues relating to the challenges posed by emerging interdisciplinary subjects, new types of user community (communities of practice and online communities) and format issues in the digital world. I included some audience questions, gathering responses using a very basic voting system (pieces of paper of different colours and numbered 1-5) and asking the audience to record their responses on a questionnaire sheet. I'm very grateful to the audience for taking part in this - these responses will be very valuable to me as I try to refine some of the questions for inclusion in larger questionnaire which I'll be working on over the next few months. There were some really valuable contributions made during the discussion - I am particularly grateful to the people who pointed me towards Radical Reference (an example of a type of social enterprise information service acting for social justice), who suggested alternative search terms which I can use to extend my literature review and who discussed different approaches to linking to freely accessible web based materials. I was also very fortunate that my supervisor was able to be there, too (thank you!).
It was the longest presentation I've given so far about my research - it was good to be able to use some of the data I've collected over the summer and to feel that it might have value for library practitioners working in collection development and management, particularly people working with collections for interdisciplinary subjects. At the same time, I'm very aware that this project is still very much a work in progress: I'm only a year into the project and still very much in the initial stages of data collection and analysis, so it was very helpful to have suggestions about things I could improve.
Partly for this reason, I've been unsure about how widely to share the presentation - I feel that by sharing it I give some of its content a sort of permanence which doesn't really reflect how fluid this is. However, I have decided to add a version of the presentation to the Charleston Conference 2011 presentations site which I'd heartily recommend having a look at for many of the rest of the conference presentations. I've paraphrased some of the information from interviews, but the rest of the presentation is as I delivered it last week. I've also embedded it below - let me know what you think!
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
12 November 2011
05 November 2011
Charleston Conference, Part 1
This week I've been attending the 31st annual Charleston Conference in South Carolina. This is probably the most significant annual gathering of librarians, publishers, vendors and others interested in collection development and management issues. In terms of numbers of attendees, it's probably comparable to CILIP's Umbrella conference (an annual conference for UK librarians) - but Charleston focuses just on collection issues.
I originally intended to blog day by day, but, frankly, the program for past few days has been so full (a 12 hour day on Thursday and an 11 hour day on Friday) I haven't managed to find the time. I'm going to try to catch up now with some accounts of the talks I've attended - for ease of reading, I'll split this over a number of different posts. I'll probably add more posts to this blog in the next few hours than I've added in the whole of the last couple of months!
I want to round off this post by saying that this is one of the most exciting things I've ever done - it's the first time I've been to the US, and simultaneously one of the most enjoyable and challenging conferences I've ever attended. I gave a presentation here on Friday and I'll blog a bit about that experience, too.
I originally intended to blog day by day, but, frankly, the program for past few days has been so full (a 12 hour day on Thursday and an 11 hour day on Friday) I haven't managed to find the time. I'm going to try to catch up now with some accounts of the talks I've attended - for ease of reading, I'll split this over a number of different posts. I'll probably add more posts to this blog in the next few hours than I've added in the whole of the last couple of months!
I want to round off this post by saying that this is one of the most exciting things I've ever done - it's the first time I've been to the US, and simultaneously one of the most enjoyable and challenging conferences I've ever attended. I gave a presentation here on Friday and I'll blog a bit about that experience, too.
30 March 2011
Six months in: progress so far
It's now six months since I started my studies, so this seems like a good time to think about how my work has been progressing - and perhaps to talk a little bit about my day to day studies, which I realise I haven't really described much on this blog so far.
On Monday I attended a lecture about research methods - this is the third module I've taken since I've been here, all intended to provide particular skills relevant to my research. For example, last semester, as part of a module about systematic reviews, I studied the literature about library information services for small and medium enterprises in some detail. This is potentially quite relevant to information provision for social enterprises - although there are significant differences between these organisations and other types of business, there is some overlap in the kind of generic financial / legal / management information which may be needed.
Much of the rest of this week so far has been spent reading - I'm currently working on a draft literature review section about social enterprise, having already drafted sections on collection development and management issues. I have also been working on some draft documentation relating to the potential methods I might use when I move on to the practical research stage of my project. I'm hoping to get this finalised over the next month or so, with a view to starting the research proper in early June, if all goes according to plan.
The highlights of the last few months have definitely been my visits to the British Library, and the opportunity to attend relevant events like Footsey and the Digital Curation Centre Roadshow: especially all the conversations with librarians, social enterprise practitioners and others along the way!
On Monday I attended a lecture about research methods - this is the third module I've taken since I've been here, all intended to provide particular skills relevant to my research. For example, last semester, as part of a module about systematic reviews, I studied the literature about library information services for small and medium enterprises in some detail. This is potentially quite relevant to information provision for social enterprises - although there are significant differences between these organisations and other types of business, there is some overlap in the kind of generic financial / legal / management information which may be needed.
Much of the rest of this week so far has been spent reading - I'm currently working on a draft literature review section about social enterprise, having already drafted sections on collection development and management issues. I have also been working on some draft documentation relating to the potential methods I might use when I move on to the practical research stage of my project. I'm hoping to get this finalised over the next month or so, with a view to starting the research proper in early June, if all goes according to plan.
The highlights of the last few months have definitely been my visits to the British Library, and the opportunity to attend relevant events like Footsey and the Digital Curation Centre Roadshow: especially all the conversations with librarians, social enterprise practitioners and others along the way!
09 March 2011
Reflections
I've been thinking about the two events I attended last week in a bit more detail. One interesting thing which both brought home to me was that my research is definitely a project of two halves - librarians are interested in the collections aspect and social enterprise practitioners are enthusiastic about their field; being equally interested in both is my role. I think I need to take this into account as I work on a coffee break pitch for my project (I would say "elevator pitch" but being trapped in a confined space with me talking about my research isn't really something I'd wish on anyone...).
There's a related issue here, which is that in both social enterprise and specialist services related to data curation, professionals need to be able to speak different languages to different stakeholders. In data management, this may range from training students to engaging in very technical conversations about relevant systems; for social enterprises, this involves talking with customers, funders, the public and private sectors and with other social enterprises.
It's an important skill in other areas of librarianship, too - seeing it done well at an enquiry desk is very impressive - but perhaps sometimes our systems don't facilitate this as well as they could. For example, many libraries call interlending and document supply "interlibrary loans" (for historical reasons, or perhaps because this is what library management systems call the modules we use to administer the process) - even when most requests are satisfied with photocopies / electronic copies which the customer can keep. I'd be interested to know what you think about these issues of "different languages" in librarianship - or any examples.
There's a related issue here, which is that in both social enterprise and specialist services related to data curation, professionals need to be able to speak different languages to different stakeholders. In data management, this may range from training students to engaging in very technical conversations about relevant systems; for social enterprises, this involves talking with customers, funders, the public and private sectors and with other social enterprises.
It's an important skill in other areas of librarianship, too - seeing it done well at an enquiry desk is very impressive - but perhaps sometimes our systems don't facilitate this as well as they could. For example, many libraries call interlending and document supply "interlibrary loans" (for historical reasons, or perhaps because this is what library management systems call the modules we use to administer the process) - even when most requests are satisfied with photocopies / electronic copies which the customer can keep. I'd be interested to know what you think about these issues of "different languages" in librarianship - or any examples.
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