AGM and Professional Development Day – April 2024.

by Darren Bevin
Chair, CILIP SW.

The CILIP South West AGM and Professional Development Day took place on 10th April in the Rougemont Room at Exeter Central Library.

The previous AGM took place only last November and had been solely online. Looking ahead to future meetings, it was felt that there would be more chance of a venue being available around Easter (for example, at a University setting).

The event in April had both speakers and an audience who were online and in person. Attendees were equally split with twenty in person and another twenty on Zoom. The talks took place after the AGM and centred around the themes of welcome and access.

The first to speak was Sonia Ramdhian, the Director of Sector Development at CILIP, who provided a short introduction to the day’s themes. This was followed by Kay Ecclestone, Vice-Chair of CILIP SW who spoke on her involvement and work with the Peninsula of Sanctuary movement. This was the first cross-sector project in the country and offered free training, created a Resource Bank and gave access to an online Forum for library staff interested in improving their welcome to new arrivals and refugees. Kay engaged the audience both in the room and online with a quiz accessible via a QR code that challenged assumptions and knowledge on the refugee situation in the UK. Results of the multiple choice questions were screened live.

This was followed by Lara Marshall (via Zoom), the Library Engagement Manager for the Royal National Institute of Blind People with her talk: ‘See Differently: How to Make Your Library More Accessible to Blind and Partially Sighted People’. Her detailed talk on the equipment and technology available followed an interactive discussion on common sight loss misconceptions and simple but effective ways to interact and offer the best customer care to blind and partially sighted library users.

After lunch, Emma Laws (above), the Exeter Cathedral Librarian, gave us “ ‘… much visited by the curious …’ 1000 years of Exeter Cathedral Library and Archives”. Housed in the West Wing of the Bishop’s Palace in Exeter Cathedral is a modern library and archive facility in which are preserved and made accessible to the Dean and Chapter’s many thousands of books and documents, which span the 10th to the 21st centuries. Emma kindly tailored her talk to cover themes of welcome, access and outreach that addressed issues of conservation and preservation alongside the desire to make the contents of the library available.

Finally, Sarah Gosset (above), the Librarian for Families and Outreach at North Somerset Council discussed the challenges when reaching out to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. These stemmed from a variety of barriers on both sides, ranging from location and literacy levels to mistrust of authority. North Somerset Council have been working to engage this community and to show that libraries are a space and resource for everyone, regardless of background.

CILIP South West would like to thank everyone who attended this event, especially those who presented, and also to Exeter Central Library for hosting this event and providing refreshments. Particular thanks must go to Callum Elliott-Archer, the Centre Manager, for his support throughout the day and overcoming the challenges of a hybrid programme to ensure the day ran smoothly. Our aim is to find another venue next year in a different south west county that can support a hybrid event.

Your Library Service: Plymouth Proprietary Library

By Darren Bevin

Outside the Plymouth Proprietary Library

Q1: Introduce your service! What’s the main aim of the service, and what sort of users does your service cater to?

My name is Darren Bevin and for the last two years have been the Library Manager of the Plymouth Proprietary Library, an old institution that has survived at various locations. The building we are now in used to be a church hall. It is a subscription library and for an annual fee members can borrow from a wide variety of books and get discounted rates on a range of talks and activities. The library does not currently cater for children and many of the users are locals who like to get involved in what we do.

Q2: What has been a profound/memorable moment in your library? (it can be funny, something that made you change your practice, a learning moment, something poignant, anything!)

We were a venue for a vampire movie filmed by a local company. Fortunately, the actors were just using the library to conduct research on vampires rather than fighting evil! 

Q3: What has been your most successful library service offer or resource to date?

The monthly coffee mornings (with homemade cakes) are always popular and a chance for members to meet up and exchange books. I try and tie them in with an event such as a book launch or a book/plant sale. Our fortnightly talks can also occasionally reach full capacity (there is seating for thirty-five).

Q4: What top tip, or piece of advice, can you offer to aspiring library and information professionals?

Don’t give up if it is something you really want to pursue. When I began (a long time ago) I wrote to over a hundred academic libraries which eventually got me a graduate trainee position at a Latin American library in London.

Q5: What top tip can you offer to experienced library and information professionals?

If time allows, consider getting involved in library related activities outside of the workplace. I used to be on the committee of the Independent Libraries Association and I am currently preparing a talk for their AGM in Penzance in May. I am also Chair of CILIP South West and busy organising our AGM and Professional Development Day at Exeter Central Library in April. To coincide with all this, I am in the process of going for my Fellowship with CILIP. I find all this does support my paid work (which admittedly is part-time).

Knowledge and Libraries: a story of FEDIP membership

Knowledge, Libraries, and Technologies

Knowledge Services and Libraries are adapting to new technologies, experimenting with data analysis, generative AI, and new social media platforms.

Historically, and presently, libraries have enabled equal access to technologies, from providing the public with access to computers and the internet, to showcasing 3D printer technologies and virtual/augmented reality!

Library, knowledge and information professionals are pioneers and users of technology.

Last year, I got a chance to be a member of FEDIP for free, courtesy of CILIP! I work in the NHS as a Knowledge Specialist. With a keen interest in innovative technologies, I was pretty excited to learn new things.

What is FEDIP?

FEDIP: Federation for Informatics Professionals in Health and Social Care (pronounced FED-eye-P) is a body comprised of folks interest in health and care informatics, in its many forms.

It fosters spaces for people with similar interests to network, supporting their learning and professional development.

It has a lot of excellent resources in the FEDIP Hub; e-learning courses, videos and plenty to read!

There’s also member registration, a bit like chartership, and the FEDIP Standard, which makes for interesting reading.

Something else I found interesting was their job description database, highlighting loads of different jobs descriptions!

E-Learning and CPD

I did a quick online course on using R, a statistical computing language. It was very friendly for complete beginners, and it was fun to try out different things! Probably better to try that out on a non-work PC, as the course requires you to download a bit of software.

The forums are good to read too! I haven’t been active on them, partly due to shyness, and partly due to being super busy, but it’s certainly ‘on my list’ of things to do in the future.

There’s also handy monthly newsletters, which notifies people of upcoming webinars, and other useful information.

And speaking of webinars…

FEDIP’s fabulous webinars

There are frequent webinars looking at advances in technology and innovation in healthcare, which I have found truly fascinating. I find that they don’t require too much technology know-how; a lot of the content is often very user-friendly.

A few webinars I attended were:

• ‘Embedding a Culture of CPD in Digital, Data and Technology Teams’
• ‘Gearing up for AI’

It was great to hear perspectives from across the health and care sector nationally, with many facing similar challenges around workloads, AI literacy needs, information needs around upskilling the workforce, and assessing the impact of new technologies.

The future

I’m doing a PGCert and feel that there’s a lot I have yet to cover in FEDIP, but I want to try out member registration after finishing up my course! I will be continuing my membership in FEDIP, as I think it’s really worthwhile and although I haven’t been able to immerse myself as much as I had originally planned this year, I hope to do so more in the future!

Librarians are adapting to meet the challenges of new technologies, like they always have done in the past.

I look forward to continuing my FEDIP membership, and learning more as time goes on!

CILIP Conference 2023 report by Marlène Rak, Subject Support Librarian, UWE Bristol.

Following my application to receive a bursary from CILIP South West Members Network, I had the immense pleasure to attend the CILIP Conference 2023 in Birmingham last July. This was such a lovely way to end an otherwise busy academic year and I knew, from looking at the conference programme, that some tough decisions would have to be made as to what talks to attend, with some events running concurrently.

Photography by Marlène Rak

Opening the Conference, John Trevor-Allen, CILIP’s President, reminded us about how much our association has achieved over the past 125 years, uniting practitioners across sectors as well as internationally by bringing representatives from all domains. This was an opportunity for us all, he told us, to make and renew contacts and look to the future together, learn from each other and inform the services that we offer to society at large. Bringing and sharing ideas and initiatives that we can then cascade on to colleagues has the potential to touch millions of lives. Sparking inspiration in others to help moving our profession is what information professionals do. “Wherever the next 125 years take us, it starts right here […], it starts right now, and it starts with you”, enthused Trevor-Allen.

Rebecka Isaksson, who used to find knowledge management very boring before eventually embracing it (according to her own words and as a result of her passion for communities of practice), delivered the first keynote on driving value through AI-powered Knowledge Management. Her excitement for generative AI was palpable in the room, and her eagerness and energy set the tone for the remainder of the day. It was lovely to hear her comment on how, despite her background in business and management, she felt she had found her tribe amongst this bunch of friendly information professionals.

Throughout the two-day event, many enthusiastic speakers shared their ideas, dilemmas and solutions on key issues currently affecting our professions. Their vision for what is yet to come was always being offered with eagerness and joy and, and sometimes apprehension too, but never with indifference. As the conference progressed, some of the themes being discussed kept coming back to the fore more regularly than others; themes such as the impact of artificial intelligence on our lives and profession, the transforming and transformative nature of leadership, knowledge management, engagement and humanity. It seems that for most of us, generative AI displays a real challenge, and not just for academic librarians for whom the ramifications on their delivery of study skills are immediate. But we do have to bear in mind that AI represents more opportunities than risks, despite a lot of people having a very emotional response to it; therefore, a fear of it.

Photography by Marlène Rak

There is a lot of hype going on around AI now and it is crucial to remember that we live in a very polarised world where the truth generally lies somewhere in between. We need to accept that artificial intelligence, as scary as it may appear to some, and human intelligence aren’t in competition, and better results can be generated when they are both being used together. “ChatGPT is NOT cheating, it’s working smart” reassured us Rebecka Isaksson. Despite those technological advancements, however, we do need to remember that many people are at a great risk of being left behind. It is crucial, more than ever, that we are able to build a digitally ready workforce. This applies to the overall workforce, not only information specialists. Our future will look very different from today, with lots of opportunities and implications that we neither understand nor know about just yet.

On the theme of leadership, it is important to highlight that being a leader doesn’t equate to being in a managerial position. Anyone, regardless of their job title or length of service, should be able to influence others. Leadership is about having a vision and inspiring. Sadly, though, opportunities for the young generations coming through our doors are scarce, regardless of how much skills, passion and energy newer professionals may have. The lack of diversity in our profession is a challenge; the Victorian structure of power has been dismantled but this hasn’t quite gone far enough. Another consideration to be made is that people working in libraries are often risk-averse; our culture is very different from, say, the more reactive culture that has been adopted in other industries such as IT. Which brings us to the thought-provoking keynote from Masud Khokhar on day 2 of the conference.

A cultural and functional shift ought to be enabled for changes that we aspire to become a reality. “Change is external, transition is internal” pointed out Khokhar. His talk on redesigning leadership for continuous innovation embodied a spectacular dive into the human mind and how the later shapes the way we select and process information. Ultimately, leadership is a human story, not a technology-driven phenomenon. Being authentic, genuine and helpful is certainly something a lot of those who spoke at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole valued above all. So was being consistent, and building rapport with people – which really was at the heart of this life-affirming symposium. Later that day, we were reminded by Sathnam Sanghera, who was splendidly led by Kate Robinson’s considerate chairing, that literacy helps escape the poverty trap. Now a celebrated British journalist and best-selling author, Sanghera, the son of an illiterate dad and a mum who doesn’t speak English, did not own a single book un􀆟l the age of 10. Lamen􀆟ng the lack of funding for public libraries and the general apathy towards some of the truly shocking statistics on the percentage of children in the UK not owing a single book due to poverty (18%, or close to 1 in 8 children, according to the findings from a 2019 survey conducted by the National Literacy Trust on over 56,000 children aged 9 to 18 across the UK), Sanghera joked that “maybe we need a footballer in the room”.

And perhaps this very last point was the one that tied us all together: the irrefutable truth that, as justly put across by Nick Poole in his welcome note on the morning of that same day, “We love libraries not just for what they are, but what they represent: an opportunity for everyone”. And to end on this note which, I am sure, will ring true for many, I would like to comment on what a privilege it was to attend the Conference, hear so many thought-provoking reflections, and rejoice in the fact that libraries are indeed the backbone of humanity. Thank you CILIP South West Members Network for having given me the great pleasure to partake in such an illuminating, joyful and ultimately, unforgettable occasion.

On the topic of Fellowship, by Donna Gundry

Donna Gundry, author

I joined what was then called Plymouth College of Art and Design in 2009 as the assistant manager, in a job share role. Spending the first two years working full time and simultaneously completing my Post Graduate via distance learning in Information and Library Studies, moving to the position of Library manager. In 2012 the institution changed its name to Plymouth College of Art and the following year having moved line managers I completed my CILIP chartership. In 2013 with the completion of my chartership, the institution was awarded Taught degree Awarding powers (2019) and I had changed line management twice during this time as well as become the Head of Library Services. With each new line manager, though the role has fundamentally stayed the same, the lens at which my role has been looked at, has altered and shifted. This has coincided with the institution developing and strengthening its position within Higher Education. Having been a mentor with CILIP, then a PRSO, I realised in speaking to other librarians, that I had accrued a mass of experience and expertise that would support my application for Fellowship. Having started the process in 2017, I was able to submit my application in 2019, just prior to Covid Lockdowns. During this time, I received the support from the Senior Leadership Team in completing my portfolio. Hopefully this conveys the changes within the institution, and my role and has been a backdrop for me wanting to complete my fellowship. All which I feel reflects the changes within Higher education as a sector, as the institution has grown as has my skill set.

There were several reasons why I wished to undertake my fellowship, notwithstanding the changes to the institution and role.  Also working in education, means that every year you are seeing students grow and learn, pushing themselves to succeed, and part of me wanted to have that same experience and with that receive acknowledgment for my achievements. Alongside this, I wanted to challenge myself, to see if I could achieve my fellowship. From my work as PRSO I knew that there was a significant step up between chartership and fellowship, in particular addressing the wider context in which the profession sits.

On the whole, the experience was very rewarding and enjoyable, being given time to reflect on projects and my experiences. In my everyday role, there might not be the time to do this. Having completed my chartership, I knew that I needed to be strict with my timings, from the outset I set myself a personal target of having to submit in under two years, so the process was reflective of a moment in time and didn’t spill into several academic years. Though at times it did feel like hard work, especially when I was short of time, during particular pinch points in the year. Having created a strong template for my chartership, I knew from the start I wanted to replicate that through my fellowship, providing structure to the portfolio and enabling me to link the PKSB, with my reflection and CILIPs criteria.

I feel, my CILIP Fellowship provides myself with a greater standing with both the library and academic communities, as for alongside academics it provides me with a compatible professional recognition. My CILIP fellowship also compliments my HEA Senior Fellowship, which I completed in 2022.

I am not sure if having my CILIP fellowship has automatically provided me with more professional opportunities or it has made me seek out more opportunities. Either way, completing my Fellowship has put me in a stronger position, professionally speaking. This has been reflected in being the PRSO for CILIP SW as well as the chair of SWRLS. I am definitely an advocate for the profession and supporting others to achieve their professional goals and potential.

My tips for anyone considering fellowship would be:

If you have the experience then I would do it – it’s rare to find time to reflect on yourself and completing your fellowship is an excellent way to work out a future direction and drive.

Find a mentor, though this is not essential, having a professional friend as a sounding board, proof reader and jargon buster can be highly useful. This can support your confidence and make it less isolating.

Completing your fellowship gives you time to strengthen your role in areas that you might not previously have the opportunity to. Though using the PKSB, this might invigour new projects or working methods. It provides an opportunity to show your knowledge and skills within a specialist area.

During a competitive job market, this might provide the edge over another person, landing that dream job. If not changing jobs, it shows your employer that you have the determination to achieve your goals.

Also likely to have yourself feel more motivated and empowered within your career, pushing boundaries with your role.