Thing 22: Reflective Practice (Applying for Engaged Professional Badge)

Some people are happy to stay as they are throughout their careers and do what they are asked to do without worrying too much about the bigger picture.  Others are keen to stretch their boundaries, explore new ideas, and make a contribution to their profession.  Yet others seek to become beacons of their profession, break boundaries, and create change as they move along illuminating the way ahead for others.  The Engaged Professional segment made us think where in this continuum each of us exists and reminded us that - to paraphrase John F. Kennedy - it's not just about what our profession can do for us but what we can do for our profession.  To my mind, this segment bore a certain parallel to Critical Thinker, particularly Thing 16 Your Digital Footprint (which highlighted the professional profile that exists of us on the internet) and Thing 17 Sharing Your Work, and I am wondering if perhaps they would work better grouped together.  Then again, there are many ways to skin a cat and equally many to group Things together!

Thing 19 introduced us to podcasts and how they could be harnessed to promote our work and place of work.  Whilst I am a great fan of podcasts and love listening to them, including library-related ones such as Metric, I have some misgivings about using them as an advocacy tool.  My main reason for saying that is that I have a notion podcasts are quite time consuming to put together, particularly if one aims for a weekly or monthly serial.  On the other hand, they require no complex equipment or software to produce, and people who are easy going, good at ad-libbing, and not inclined to sweat the small stuff would probably throw one together in no time!

Thing 20 focused on advocacy and engagement, and was one of the most important and thought-provoking Things on this course.  My first thought on reading through it was that not everybody who works in a library has an opportunity to engage in advocacy.  Then I stopped dead in my tracks as I realized what a foolish notion that was.  The way we interact (or fail to interact) with our patrons, the way we provide (or fail to provide) a service, and the way we conduct ourselves daily at work, are all forms of advocacy and contribute to the way archives and libraries are perceived by the wider society.  It reminded me of the public library where I worked for some years.  We were joined by a new staff member who had never worked in a library before and felt nervous about her new role.  However, she had great people skills and a genuine love of books, and very quickly she learnt to combine these two assets.  I have no idea how she did it but she was able to match anyone struggling to find something to read with just the right book.  Her popularity rating among the library users shot through the roof and with it so did the positive image the users had of the library.  It really brought home to me how being an advocate of one's profession doesn't require a lot more than the right attitude.  A big smile and willingness to help can do as much as if not more than an infographic or a podcast.

Having said that, reaching beyond the local library service and advocating the seminal role libraries and archives play in society requires a bit more than a friendly smile.  Here, advocacy campaigns and the work of professional organizations such as those discussed in Thing 21 pay a key role.  Joining a professional group adds weight to this work and is something that every information professional should consider doing.  These organizations also provide an ideal platform for anyone interested in continued professional development as they arrange training courses and development programmes, organize conferences, and can provide funding for research projects.  I was encouraged by my course leaders to join the Archives and Records Association on the first day of starting my degree course in archive administration, and I think it was the best advice they could have given me.  Joining this group has made me feel part of a wider community of people in the same profession, enabled me to continue my professional development in a structured way, and kept me up to date with news and current issues affecting the archival world.  It has also made me think more about what I referred to at the start of this blog - what can I do for my profession?  At the end of the day, libraries and archives are fragile institutions and dependent on support from the wider community.  Should not each of us contribute in our own way, no matter how small, to ensure that these institutions have a future and that we as a profession have a future?

Two months ago I didn't think I had a hope of getting this far but by some miracle this is my last post and I'm still within the deadline!  I would like to thank the Rudaí 23-team for yet another invigorating and thought-provoking course, and for the many interesting, challenging, creative, frustrating and frightening assignments you devised to keep us on our toes!

Images:

Image 1: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff on Flickr by Lectionary under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0

Image 2: Wikimedia Commons

Thing 21: Professional Groups

For Thing 21, I have selected Option 4 as my task.  I joined the Archives and Records Association (ARA for short) as a student member in 2006, when it was still called the Society of Archivists, became a full member when I graduated in 2011, and a registered member in 2017.  ARA is the lead professional body for archivists, archive conservators, and records managers across the UK and Ireland, and has about 2,500 members.  On its website, ARA lists its main functions as follows:

1. To represent the interests of the profession nationally in discussions with central and local government, with allied information professionals, and with the archive user community.
2. To set standards of professional conduct.
3. To provide, monitor, and develop training for the profession.
4. To promote the exchange of expertise and experience among its members.
5. To market the skills of its members to potential employers.

Among other things, ARA organizes an annual conference for its members, provides research funding, runs accreditation schemes, runs and supports campaigns to raise the profile of archives, and distributes awards to teams and individuals who deserve recognition in their achievements.

Strength in Numbers!

I have nothing but good things to say about joining ARA.  It makes me feel part of a professional community (particularly important in a profession where you often work alone or as part of a very small team); keeps me informed about job opportunities, upcoming conferences, and current issues; offers training opportunities; and provides the chance to promote projects and share news through its magazine and newsletters.  In 2012, I signed up for ARA's Continued Professional Development Programme (then called Registration Scheme) in order to become a registered or 'chartered' member of the association.  It was quite a tough experience, as it meant I had to undertake twelve different projects which had to fit into one of four different categories - training courses, study and research, work achievement, and contribution to profession - so that each category was represented by at least one project.  It took me five years to complete the process but it was worth every minute.  I learnt a huge amount and spent much of the time totally out of my comfort zone which is always a good thing!  I might add that completion of the 2015 Rudaí 23-course was one of the projects I undertook, and I had no difficulty in having it accepted as part of my accreditation portfolio.

I should very much like to be more involved in the activities of ARA's Ireland Region but the fact that these are mostly centred around Dublin makes it complicated for somebody living in County Cork!


Image from Pixabay under Creative Commons Licence CC0 1.0.

Thing 20: Advocacy and Engagement

This Thing dealt with advocacy for libraries however the issue is no less relevant to archives. In fact, public libraries have the advantage of being public and familiar, whereas archives are generally perceived as something more mysterious or less easily accessible.  Advocacy is an important tool for breaking down such misconceptions and presenting archives in an approachable and visitor-friendly light. Few people know what archivists do, and raising general awareness of this, and of the vital contribution archives make to the preservation of and access to information, is another thing advocacy can enhance.  Elsie Freeman Finch, a prominent figure in the promotion of archives, has gone as far as to suggest that marketing and customer relations should supersede the traditional functions of acquiring, describing and preserving records as the core activities of archives.  It makes sense, for what is the point of preserving records if nobody uses them?

I confess I broke out in a cold sweat when I saw the exercise for Thing 20!  I am not sure if I can complete every section, but I'll give it my best shot.

Exercise 1: Name three detrimental effects to a local community when a public library is closed.

1. The community loses a safe space where children and teenagers can relax, engage in learning activities, and learn to enjoy reading

2. The community loses access to free resources such as computers, internet, wifi, and opportunities for training and further education which these resources facilitate

3. Senior citizens and people with special needs lose an important space for social interaction and recreation, and access to special resources such as free newspapers, large print books, and audio books

Exercise 2: Find a Library Strategic Plan in Ireland or beyond for a library of any size.  Identify three ways in which the strategic plan also advocates for the Library Service.

I have taken a look at the 2016-2012 strategic plan for the National Library.  The plan acknowledges the financial constraints which affect libraries throughout Europe and seeks to develop innovative solutions to enable them to continue delivering public services.  Advocacy plays an essential role in the strategic plan and is woven seamlessly through every aspect of it.  Here are three strategic aims listed in the plan which demonstrate this:

1. Provide equal and safe access for everyone
2. Build on the research and educational strengths of collections
3. Trial innovative forms of engagement with online and physical collections

Exercise 3: Name three ways in which you can demonstrate the impact and value of the library service that you work in or use.

1. Collecting statistics through surveys and footfall counts, and distributing this information or making sure that it gets into annual reports
2. Circulating positive feedback received from patrons
3. For archives and academic libraries in particular, keeping track of theses, books and articles which cite material held in your repository and sharing this information with management

Exercise 4: Identify three key people (name their role) outside of the library in the wider organisation/community that you need to network with in order to advance the development of the Library Service.

1. Local politician, ideally one who has shown demonstrable interest in or support for libraries and archives; and/ or the local county or city manager
2. Prominent writer or journalist who hails from the area
3. Heads of other libraries in the area/ region - there is strength in numbers!

Exercise 5: Write down in 200 words or less an idea for Library Ireland Week for a library you work in or use.

Archives have a similar week called Explore your Archive which takes place at the end of November each year.  For a couple of years now we have run a very successful event during this week called Attics to Archives.  It's a hands-on workshop for people who have photographs and family documents at home and are looking for advice on how to organize and preserve these.  In addition to low-cost archival preservation tricks, the workshop teaches participants how to digitize and share records.  We have held workshops in our reading room and in the city, and find it a wonderful advocacy tool: people get to see what we do, and gain personal benefit from our knowledge.

Exercise 6: In your opinion what are the three best features of the My Library, By Right Campaign and why?

1. It raises public awareness of the importance of a quality library service and gives people an opportunity to lend their support; mass pressure from the grassroots level is the one thing politicians are apt to listen to and act upon
2. It brings together national and local government, library users, and professional bodies; this encourages open dialogue, creates momentum, and opens the way for working together towards a common goal
3.  It highlights the role libraries play in society, and the false economy of library cuts, which may in turn invigorate libraries by encouraging people who don't normally use them to become patrons

'What do libraries mean to you?'

Exercise 7: In 200 words or less, describe a new area of librarianship that you are passionate about. How would you go about promoting it within the library that you work in and/or the wider library profession?

Speaking as an archivist, I have become passionate about engaging with people who don't normally use archives and encouraging them to participate.  Considering the increasing popularity of social media and other forms of online activity, making collections available on the internet is one way of approaching this challenge.  Finding new and imaginative ways of communicating with potential new patrons is one of the reasons I participated in this course.  Engaging with existing users and inviting them to comment on the existing service is also important in order to find out what the service is doing well and what it could be doing better.  I try to promote this idea by highlighting that making holdings easier to discover and access is the best way to increase physical and digital footfall in the Library.  I also point to the fact that in the age where e-books are becoming the norm and the role of books as physical objects is diminishing, a library with unique archival holdings has a distinct advantage in attracting users and keeping up visitor numbers.

Exercise 8: Choose an area of library practice that you feels requires debate.

Again speaking as an archivist, the issue I would like to debate is whether the training currently offered to prospective archivists is fit for purpose.  When I graduated six years ago, my modules focused on collection development, description, management of archive services, and specialist skills such as paleography.  These are all valuable and worthwhile skills to possess yet my work revolves more and more around digitization, online exhibitions, and digital curation.  The only part of my course that in any way touched upon these subjects was a module on electronic records.  The situation has not changed.  Although modules on digital information and digital preservation have been added, they are not compulsory but can be selected as optional extras.  I often feel that anyone wishing to become an archivist in today's world would be better off acquiring a degree in IT than traditional archive administration.  The work archivists do and the way in which they do it has changed dramatically in the past ten to fifteen years yet archivists are still trained within the old framework.  A small example: my five-year course included about two hours's training on archival management software, yet it is a tool I have to use almost daily in my work.  I understand that the fundamental building blocks of archival principles have not changed - nor should they - and learning them is important, but I feel a bit hard done by the fact that virtually everything I know about digitization, content management systems, social media, and archival management software, I have learnt outside of college through my own initiative.  There is nothing wrong with that either but I do feel that archival training should not exclude these issues or make them optional.

Exercise 9: Open up the ALA Frontline Advocacy Plan. Complete the plan for a real/fictional advocacy campaign.

I am going to give this last exercise a miss as time is running short.  Apologies!!!

Image: 'What do Libraries Mean to You' by ijclark on Flickr under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC 2.0

Thing 19: Podcasts

I am a big fan of podcasts!  They come in every size and topic, they can be informative or entertaining or both, they are portable and easy to use, and make great listening on long journeys or while doing boring stuff like housework.  I am always on the lookout for new podcasts to listen to and was thrilled with the long list of recommendations at the end of this Thing.  I can't wait to check them out!

That said, I am not sure about using podcasts as an engagement tool in a library or archives environment.  For one thing, people tend to listen to podcasts for entertainment rather than professional development.  If you want to direct your podcast at fellow information professionals, are you sure you have enough new or interesting content or can add a new twist to familiar topics?  If the podcast targets library or archives users, how can you promote your service in an entertaining and captivating way?  This leads to the second issue, and that is that it takes time and effort to create a good podcast, let alone a regular serial, and not many institutions would have the time or manpower to commit to such an undertaking with any regularity.  I had a look at the list of library-related podcasts on LisWiki and of the 30 links provided, eleven had become defunct or contained no podcasts, three had not posted a new podcast in the last six months, ten had not posted new content since at least 2015, and only six were active and had posted new content within the last 30 days.  It goes to show how much time and commitment podcasts take.

For those keen to experiment with podcasts but struggling with limited resources, there is one option that might be worth exploring.  Podcasts are effectively blogs with sound, and technology is available to do just that - to turn your blog into a podcast.  Terry Ballard experimented with this on his blog Librarian on the Edge and had nothing but good things to say about the experience.

I was struggling a bit with the two options given for this Thing.  As I already subscribe to several podcasts, Option 1 wasn't really for me.  I was tempted to go with Option 2, and make use of the detailed instructions we were given on how to put together and publish a podcast.  However, knowing me I don't think it is something that I could throw together in an hour, and as I am already a month behind schedule and struggling to complete the course on time I couldn't very well opt for this either.  As a compromise, I have decided to review the first ever podcast that I subscribed to, called Thinking Sideways.  It was created in 2013 by two American guys and a gal, Steve, Joe and Devan, to discuss and debate unsolved mysteries of all kinds - murders, disappearances, strange natural phenomena, ciphers, ancient myths, and so on.  Each episode lasts for about an hour to an hour and a half and follows the same formula: presentation of the case and various theories that have been put forward, followed by discussion.  The three participants take turns to host the episodes.  The first one was published on 1 August 2013 and the podcast is still going strong, with 243 episodes released to date.

I started following the podcast in 2015 and was initially completely hooked.  I like the length of the episodes, besides which the topics are really interesting and the interaction between the three hosts is entertaining.  The discussion is in-depth but lighthearted and not too intense so that even when the topic is quite macabre you don't run the risk of losing sleep!  On the downside, the show is poorly edited and the hosts either keep interrupting each other incessantly or wander off topic on all sorts of weird and irrelevant tangents and take ages to get back on track.  This can be funny at times, but in the long run it becomes irritating.  Some of their jokes can be quite offensive (like laughing at the way someone has died).  There are also often serious flaws in their logical reasoning, sometimes to the point of utter ignorance, they make sweeping judgments, and their analyses of the cases seem to lead nowhere.  My biggest beef is with Devan who is the most vocal and opinionated of the three hosts but unfortunately also the least informed.  Her tendency to hijack each episode and shout down the two guys with uninformed inanities has gotten on my nerves to such a degree that I have taken a break from listening for about a year now.  However if true crime and unsolved mysteries are your thing, this podcast is worth checking out.  Others in this genre that I have enjoyed include The Trail Went Cold, Unsolved Murders, The Generation Why, True Crime Garage, Trace Evidence, and In Sight.


Image from Flickr by Casey Fiesler under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0