Things 6 and 7 revisited: #RiLIES

On Tuesday morning I attended Research into Practice: LIS Research Resources Briefing. This was a free course held at CILIP HQ. I chose to attend this training to give me a broader understanding of issues facing nursing researchers while at the same time increasing my knowledge of research in the LIS field. It also gave me an opportunity to practice real life networking (thing 7) and I even tweeted to include online networking (thing 6.)

I thought the morning was a fascinating opportunity to discover more about the resources that are already out there for librarians as well as offering a tantalizing look at the opportunities for building an online community that can have a real impact on the profession (and other researchers.)

Here are some notes I made about the day..........

LIS RiLIES aims to facilitate a co-ordinated and strategic approach to LIS research across the UK by:

a)    Creating a network of LIS researchers

b)    1)  exploring the extent LIS research influences LIS practitioners

b)   2) creating outputs to support the use and execution of research.

Investment in research should deliver a socio-economic impact. Those applying for funding need to be able to provide an evidence base. The new system for assessing the quality of research will be the Research Excellence Framework (2014.) RiLIES have printed a handout with advice for writing applications for funding, including free examples of sentences that could be used. These sentences also cunningly commit the research into making an impact with their results!  One of LIS research’s web pages also lists possible places that researchers can apply for funding. 

Practitioners need to move from ‘heard of it’ to ‘tried it.’ Research should aim to lead to organisational change and progress.

Once you have completed the research you should disseminate it to all audiences- academic peer reviewed journals but also the literature read by practitioners. (If the people on the ground do not know what you have learned they will be unable to put it into practice.)

The best way of disseminating information is face to face because what you’re saying is tailored to your audience and you can explain further if there is confusion.

If publishing the information, this should be in an accessible language. Teaching and community support materials are the most effective [e.g. the RCN’s The Learning Zone]  Put a ‘creative commons’ mark on your materials to make it copyright free so others can also use the research in their work.

Social media is a key tool for informing people about the results of your research. People are also more likely to exploit research if they have been involved in its creation e.g The DREaM project has a large profile because people have attended its events and then blogged/ talked about them.

Prof. Hall said at this juncture that their research had shown that social media works best if people have already met in real life. However, I think that this is already starting to change and so tweeted....

 ‏@hipporebecca 10 Jul

Didn't voices4the library show that now lib profs don't have to meet before building social media networks. ‪#rilies ‪#changingtimes

Medical/ healthcare librarians are “ahead of the game” when it comes to successfully disseminating research information which is lovely information to learn when you work in a healthcare library!

There are a number of different platforms that can be used for sharing information. It should always be remembered that, if the platform belongs to another organisation, the company could make changes in the future e.g. start charging.  The platforms include:

·         wikis

·         RSS tagging e.g. Delicious, DeGo

·         Google Drive (formerly Google Docs)

·         ALISS (it looks like this platform for Scottish people with long term conditions will also be effectively used by RiLIES)

Information is often needed in two ways: Facts – need quality assurance

                                                                       Support- information is that is personal/ local

The most appreciated resources for LIS professionals are:

·         JISC mailing lists

·         LIRG

·         Evidence Based Library and Information Journal

·         Blogs (Jo Alcock’s list of UK library blogs and bloggers)  and twitter

·         DReAM resources.

There are other online resources that are available but people don’t know about  them(e.g. Knowledge Hub for the UK public sector.) These are all listed at www.lisresearch.org/links/

For no linked reason- today’s sad librarian photo was taken on the island of Aegina, Greece.

Thing 7: Real Life Networking.

As previously stated, I recently moved out of public libraries to experience more avenues of the profession.  Throwing myself into real life networking will be one of the ways that I will build up my awareness of what other people (with similar job titles) are doing.

 Ironically, you really need to be good at virtual networking in order to discover many of the opportunities available for real life networking. In a few weeks I’m going to be going to CILIP HQ for a free session run by LIRG about Research Into Practice. I found out about this after it was advertised on LIS-LINK JISC email. Since registering with this email list I have been able to see a number of interesting opportunities and ideas. I was also able to ask (and receive) advice from other libraries about member privileges and communication for the RCN’s upcoming refurbishment.

I have joined LIKE through LinkedIn. Although I’m unable to attend either of their upcoming events, they both look promisingly interesting.

In real life I am now also the RCN representative for the CHILL (for independent health libraries in London) CPD group. At the moment I’ve only been to one meeting and their upcoming planned training has been postponed, but the potential is there!  

August is traditionally a quiet time for the RCN Library, Archives and Information Services. Nurses are either on placement, finishing their course or looking after their children (or just on tenterhooks waiting for the sunshine!) As a result, I’m going to be allowed to go on a number of library visits around London during this month. The main focus will obviously be healthcare and medical libraries but does anyone have any others they would recommend?

In honour of the tennis (not that I’m a fan but it’s always good to have a reason behind each photo!) Here I am outside Wimbledon Library (just the public one not the tennis library talked about here in the cpd blogpost by the Wandering Librarian. )

Thing 6: Virtual Networking

Linked In.

I joined LinkedIn a few years ago but have never been very good at using it professionally. Most of my connections are friends and even former colleagues insisted on referring to themselves as friends (despite my best attempts at being nasty to them all the time to stop this happening!) However, thanks to my time recently spent playing around with the website I have discovered that these relationships can be re-edited to make my profile more professional.  I have now also edited the URL to my name and changed my headline so it is no longer just a repeat of my current job title.

I have always been unsure about how LinkedIn could help my career. I have yet to hear of a librarian being headhunted or any examples of high level nepotism (please let me know if you’ve heard differently!)  However, as librarians have to justify themselves more and more to an economically minded world, you never know when our industry will be become as cut throat as businesses in the City. It is not thinking optimistically, but in such a climate I can see LinkedIn being a positive statement about my career.  I therefore asked a former colleague for a recommendation in order to make my profile stand out and show some of my personality. She wrote lovely words so even if her recommendation is never needed professionally; it has been a great confidence boost!

LISPN

Sadly, in September it will be ten years since I became a librarian so the description of ‘new professional’ would have to be extremely loose to be applied to me!  I was interested in going undercover and looking at the downloadable resources on offer. However LISPN had obviously sussed me out as, despite two attempts, the confirmation code was miraculously never emailed to me!

LibrariansAsTeachers Network

My work in public libraries included a lot of teaching (from computer skills to pensioners to local history to children. I always felt that it would be really useful to have somewhere to share ‘best practice’ information and methods so that fifty librarians around the country weren’t all trying to come up with an idea to link Easter to the Dewey Decimal Code (for example!) At the moment there isn’t much in the ‘resources’ section of this site but hopefully promoting this network through schemes such as cpd23 will encourage more librarians to share their worksheets, lesson plans and crazy ideas with others. Sadly all my resources stayed with Wandsworth when I left.

CILIP communities.

I actually left CILIP a couple of years ago in frustration with their lack of action about the library closures. While I am still slightly wary of the vagueness of some of their recent activities (such as the ongoing debate about volunteers in libraries ) it is clear that librarians do need a formal organisation to maintain their profession. Plus, it made me feel clever when they posted me materials because they used all my academic qualifications on my address label!  I am, therefore, thinking of rejoining.

While browsing through the CILIP communities website, it seemed as though their forums are not overly popular (three posts so far for June.) Their member’s blogs landscapes is a useful, focussed version of Google Reader gathering together…erm…..the blogs of their members?! I’m not sure how often I would check back here once I am a member but it is good to see the potential of this area.

As someone who is attempting to complete a career development course online, I can obviously see the positive effects of virtual working.  For me the power of online networking became clear a couple of years ago as Councils started announcing huge swathes of public library cuts. CILIP seemed mired in bureaucracy and (to me) it seemed that without disparate people joining forces as ‘Voices for the Library’  the campaign would not have been given the organised push needed to save some branches.

There is huge potential within these resources (not including LinkedIn) to really help those in the profession to spread ‘best practice’ but in order to achieve this more interaction in these networks is needed.

In honour of the ‘virtual’ theme of this week’s thing, today’s photo was taken outside Hiroshima Library- somewhere that had to be completely rebuilt and reorganised from scratch and where technology is incredibly advanced.