Category: SLLG

Thing 15 – oh lordy, I’m behind

Oh, Thing 14 was the last thing I did, back in August! Life and busyness in work got in the way, but I’m aiming for a full-on assault of lots of Things now, while I have a moment!

Ok, so this was about attending, presenting at, and organising events. Now – two of those activities I’m perfectly happy with, and one puts the fear of God into me.

Attending events
I love doing this: I get to meet lots of interesting people, learn new things, and generally go away from them having gained lots of useful tips or contacts. The only problems for me attending events are:

Time
Time out of work to attend events is time that I’m not available to deal with enquiries, or do my day-to-day tasks, so it’s got to be something relevant enough to my duties that being away from them will be recompensed by better skills to do those duties afterwards.

Distance
Often the most relevant courses and seminars for me are nowhere near me, usually in London. Attending a course in London would involve me getting a 3.5/4 hour train each way, and usually need an overnight stay the night before, to get me there for a 9am start. That’s not cheap – at least £100 for the train usually, and approx £60 for a room, even before the cost of the training. Which brings me on to the third problem…

Money
I don’t know about you lot, but my workplace isn’t in the habit of throwing money at me to allow me to attend any random event I feel like (as interesting as lots of them may look). I need to be able to justify the business relevance and cost-effectiveness of the events I wish to attend, and quite often, it’s just not worth it as the event is only marginally work related.

So, what I do is…keep an eye out in various places for all sorts of free events, and evening events, which have an interest for me, either law, or library, or technology related. The Society for Computers and Law do some seminars, The Royal Society of Edinburgh too, Mashlibs pop up here and there, and mailing lists and Twitter feeds publicise events, and archives and other libraries often offer tours. I may end up attending some random stuff, but it’s all free! And local!

Organising events
Through my involvement in the Scottish Law Librarians Group, I regularly help out with co-organising formal and informal events, or even organising an entire event myself, in order to get the sort of events and training the group members need, without having to go to London to get it. I’m currently taking bookings for the most complex thing I’ve run yet: an all-day event with a Big Important Person (who, through the power of inane emails, I have managed to get to deteriorate into taking about jelly babies with scarves), with catering (and all sorts of non-meat/non-wheat/non-nuts options), and so far, I think I’m coping quite well with it.

It does involve lots of elements – defining the requirements for the event for the trainer, finding potential venues, getting estimates from them, working out the best value, booking the best venue, setting pricing, publicising the event, taking bookings, noting special requirements, liaising with the trainer…

And I live in constant fear, when things are going smoothly, that they’re only going smoothly because I’ve missed out some Very Important Element by mistake, and everything will collapse at any second. Thankfully, so far, that’s not been true, but you never know…

And now…the horrible one…

Presenting at events
No. Nonononononono. I hate it! HATE IT! Even the thought of standing up in front of people and speaking makes me feel sick. I am a bit shaky and have a racing heart when I do have to do this – as Convenor of my professional group I must speak at the AGM to give the report on the groups activities for the year, which I just about manage to do without doing it at a full gallop – I sometimes even stop for breath, or to take votes. Lets just say our AGMs can be very quick, when I’m speaking at them!
I also introduce the trainer at any events I’ve organised, or our annual festive networking meeting, which is slightly less traumatic as it’s often a smaller group than the AGM, but can still get me in a minor panic.

I have always had a phobia of speaking in front of groups (because I hated doing this, in secondary school, my genius English teacher forced me to go and stand up in front of the class and make (thankfully unanswered) phone calls with everyone listening, to his wife and the school office, thus not only reinforcing my phobia of speaking in front of groups, but also giving me a new one about using the phone when anyone can hear me. Great.), and I just don’t think it’s worth me putting myself through the stress and terror of having to do any sort of presentation, especially when I don’t have anything to present about, so this is one activity I’m scoring off my list, for good!

What do I get from these activities?
Well, I get either (depending on whether I’m attending, organising or presenting), fun interactions with interesting people, a headful of details and a lurking feeling of not doing things right, or a huge dose of extreme stress and mild terror.

I think that I get most out of attending an event – it’s the easy option. I turn up, I enjoy, I go home (and write a blog post or newsletter article about it). The organising is far harder, goes on for much longer, and has so many more elements to tie up. It is however, the most beneficial, both for my professional group, and for me too. Yes, it can be hard, but it’s quite an achievement to pull it off, and satisfying when an event goes well and people go away happy and feeling that their time was well spent.

What more could there be? 
What I do keep coming back to is the thought that it’s difficult to find an affordable event that people from different library sectors can go to here in Scotland. I’m going to Library Camp in Birmingham because it’ll allow me to meet and speak to a lot of people I know online, but who work in different library sectors and who I therefore would not be able to meet in a professional capacity or event, because we simply wouldn’t be at the same events. And it’s at the weekend, so there’s no need to justify my attendance to work. It’s free to attend, but I’m paying the travel and accommodation costs myself, so no need to ask for funding fromt he training budget.

At the back of my mind is the thought that perhaps people would want to come to a Scottish Library Camp event, perhaps pay a nominal fee per person in order to enable a venue hire, and just have a day of mingling and informal presentations from other library professionals across all fields, along the same lines as the Birmingham Library Camp.

What I think it would really need is an academic venue to host it at, as they’re usually large, easy to get to, and not extortionate to hire, but I don’t know the right people to look into that. Maybe someone else would like to create a Haggis Camp? Or help me to do it?

Thing numero seveno – professional networky stuff

So, for this Thing, I’m looking at my professional networks and organisations.

CILIP / CILIPS
I was never a student member, and only joined in the first place because 1) my employer paid the fees, and 2) my line manager at that time was heavily involved in the Scottish branch. The same pretty much applies now as the reasons for me maintaining my membership! Oh, and also because I’m Chartered now, and if you leave CILIP, you lose the Charter (which is fair enough – there’s no point having a qualification that shows your commitment to your own and others professional development if there’s no-one checking you’re doing what you say you’re doing) .

What do I get from CILIP/CILIPS? Well, currently, not much. As a Chartership candidate, I attended a session on the process, and I’ve attended occasional events organised by CILIP, where I could squidge them to kind-of fit with my internal Appraisal goals. I get the CILIP info email on library related news, but as my job involves keeping up to date on most news, I’ve usually already read the articles that are linked to by the time it comes in, and the journal is almost always of no interest to me, as it’s seems to be just about public and academic libraries. I know they do lots of good things, but none of them are currently of any real use to me. I think the lack of relevance of CILIP for me at the moment is because I work in a specialised sector, and other groups already fill the role for me that CILIP seem to do for public and academic librarians.

However, I’m planning to register as a Mentor for Chartership candidates soon, so by being involved in that process I may feel that I’m both more useful to CILIP, and that they are to me. As Loopy says, CILIP’s one of those things that you get back what you put in. For me, I’ve mainly not been putting anything in with CILIP.

BIALL
BIALL (British and Irish Association of Law Librarians) is an excellent and very active group.  I’m a member because my workplace pays for my professional fees, which is great, as it allows me access to the Journal of Legal Information Management (lots of articles relevant to legal information professionals), the newsletter (updates on BIALL and supplier activities), salary surveys (great to pass to Higher Ups, to show where your salary sits when compared to other professionals with similar responsibilities and experience), and there’s also an email list. The email list does often seem to be the backup plan for people posting initially on lis-law, in order to try and get as many responses as possible to queries, rather than the first port of call, but this is probably because not all legal information professionals are BIALL members. Finance issues mean I’ve not been able to attend a conference since 2008, but when I have been able to attend, the conferences have been informative, fun, and given me a great chance to make contacts outside the Scots law field, and to put names to the faces of the people whose names I’ve seen around the internet.

Hopefully, I might be able to attend the next conference…or is it my boss’ turn? I may have to suggest a game of Stone, Paper, Scissors to settle matters…

SLLG
The SLLG (Scottish Law Librarians Group) group is, for me, the most useful of the professional groups that I’m a member of. Plus, I’m on the Committee, so I have no choice but to be heavily involved*! Again, my employer pays my memberships fees for this group, but seeing as it’s only £15, I would be a member of this group regardless of who paid the fees.
It’s aimed at trying to fill the need for legal-sector specific training for information professionals in Scotland, has a quarterly newsletter, a members email list, and additional regular social events to encourage face-to-face meetings. Which is lovely – letting you put a face to a name….as long as you’re better than me, and can remember which face goes with which name. This is not my strong point! Name badges are often my salvation.
Since it’s a small group, it feels quite friendly and approachable, and the email list allows members to ask each other for help on topics which may be specific only to Scots law.

Side Points
According to a Twitter post from CILIP Info earlier this week, my CILIP membership also means I’m a member of IFLA. I had no idea! I think I’m also a member of some CILIP Special Interest groups, but they can’t have made a big impact on me, as I can’t remember which ones they are!

What Do I Get From It?
So, those are my “formal” professional groups, and I definitely get different things from the membership of each one. I suppose it just shows that no professional group can ever be able to do “everything”.

I’m quite happy to be a member of all of these, although my involvement level varies significantly between none with BIALL, some (and soon to be increasing) with CILIP, and total with SLLG. I also see that, as I have progressed in my career, I’ve become more involved in the organisations I feel I can be useful in: first, with the SLLG, and now also with CILIP as a Mentor.

It’s also meant that my CV, which might otherwise just have shown very little other than the work I do in my firm, could now show me with extra professional qualifications (yay for gaining extra bits of the alphabet after my name!), the skills to organise training events, lots of great contacts throughout the legal and general information profession, and a commitment to helping others develop the skills they need to progress in their careers. Quite a change from “I do this at my desk all day” I think.

*Also, I’m therefore contractually obliged to report that it is The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread. And actually, I do pretty much think that. Apart from the fact that we don’t usually have any home baking activities in the SLLG. Yet.

My Library Route

So, I’ve previously blogged my Library Roots, and added it to the wiki of the Library Routes project (and if you haven’t done yours yet, get adding – it’s fascinating!).

I thought I’d now add info on my Library Route, i.e. how I ended up doing what I do today.
Well…it all started off a bit randomly. I’d qualified, and now I needed a job. I was scouring the CILIP Gazette job section, and the library recruitment agencies, and the local authority job sites here in Edinburgh, hoping to find something, anything, that would let me work! But it’s not easy, even in the Capital of the country, to find a job when you don’t have any official experience. So really, after a couple of months, and with the savings going down fast, I needed a job.
I saw a post for a part-time library assistant at a private members society library within the Scottish courts complex at Parliament Square. I had no idea what a librarian would do in a court library, but I got the job, and soon found out. Mainly, the library dealt with the research enquiries of its members, who were all qualified Scottish solicitors. The society owned the building it was situated in, and let out various areas to other groups, and hired out a room for functions. The role involved doing anything from accounts for photocopier use, posting books to out of town members, to helping members find the information they needed, whatever that may be. I was on my own one day a week, and on the other day I had the company of the lovely lady who dealt with the members coffee area, and general bits and bobs.
Having had no experience with Scots law, or researching it, lets just say it was a steep learning curve! OPSI, HMSO, SIs, SSIs, Acts, Acts of Sederunt, differences between UK-wide law and Scots-only laws…every day was quite an education! The previous edition of this book was my saviour! As were the librarians at various other libraries within the complex: I could often be seen sidling into on, with a hopeful look on my face!
A while after starting there, a part time post came up at another solicitors library in the court complex, where I’d got to know staff via my regular visits to ask for help with some obscure reference, or borrow a book to consult. The hours of the post were able to be organised to fit around my first position, and equivalently (and boy did my bank balance thank me for this!) I now had a full time, Monday to Friday, 9-5 job.
I worked both jobs together for about a year, until a full time position became available at the second library, which I was offered and accepted. And now I began what was effectively an apprenticeship. Every enquiry could now be discussed with, or referred to, people with far more experience than me. We all kept track of the progress of each others enquiries, so even if I had passed a tough one on, I could still find out how it had been resolved, and learn from that. We had an indexed book of frequently asked unusual enquiries for reference. The library was a large, long established one, so there were lots of materials, systems and rooms to get acquainted with, and I’d say it took at least a year of full-time work there before I could say I was able to deal with the bulk of enquiries that came my way, and know where things were.
In between enquiries there was of course the general administrative work needed to keep things going – yup, the eternal joy of compiling and issuing of accounts for photocopying and research! 🙂 Also, since the library had held various large book-stock sales in its history, but the card catalogues still held the records for these sold books in with the current books, it seemed like a good idea to get those card files out, and into their own catalogue. That project took about six (dirty – these cards were old!) months, of sorting through each file drawer and removing the records marked as sold when I had a free moment. Finally, we had accurate online, card and bound catalogues, yay! Then I moved onto cataloguing the older editions of textbooks (and some hidden gems) onto the online catalogue, a task that was only 50% completed when I left.
We pushed to get the best technology and resources possible, working with the restrictions of doing so in a listed building. I think the biggest advance was my boss managing to get wi-fi installed! We could be showing members how to best use web tools one moment, and then later on, bringing up case reports from the 1800s from the basement for academic researchers who needed access to our collections for their studies. Quite a varied sort of workplace!
But after 4 years it was definitely time to move on, and I found myself working for my current employer, a commercial law firm. Once again, it was a pretty steep learning curve. Yes, I knew about Scots law, where to find things, where to look and who to ask if I didn’t understand things, but the difference was that this time, I was dealing directly with the people giving me the enquiries. Previously, those questions had usually been filtered by the librarians of the firms using the library, and the core points had been teased out, leaving me free to go straight to what they want, whether that was a book, case, or anything else. Here, I was getting people who weren’t quite sure what they were looking for, and needed my help to work it out. It’s certainly helped develop my “asking people questions until they decide what the important point is” skills! Actually, it’s helped me developed my telepathy and mind reading skills too! The time pressure’s pretty different as well – everything’s always needed yesterday! But it’s nice to be in the same place as my users, to be able to see them, chat, socialise etc. and get to know their information needs better. Here too, as in my previous workplace, I’m encouraged to explore technology, and see what tools could be useful for either staff, or library staff. We have an in-house Current Awareness service, so I’m always aware of news and developments, and feeding them back into the firms systems.
Another big difference is that I work solo here – I’m in charge of one office, and my boss is in charge of another. Multiple daily phone calls and emails help us keep track of what’s going on, with a wiki for shared information / in case of emergencies, and regular face to face meetings fill in anything else, and help remind each other that we really exist! When I first started I felt like such a pest – being on my own, and being technically a department of my own in this office too meant I had no team members around me – I was never off the phone asking daft questions, not only about the library, but about things like how do I get a document scanned, and what the email shortcut was for the IT department! The patience of my boss was verging on saintly! Now, I know everyone here, and who does what, and have seen multiple waves of trainees pass through the door…I feel almost like an old hand.
The firm and my boss have also encouraged me into anything and everything that will benefit me professionally, so I’ve attended conferences, joined committees, edited newsletters, blogged, chartered, written articles…I’m certainly not allowed to isolate myself into the world of law and hide out!
So, not quite the career path I had thought of…in fact, law librarianship isn’t actually a career path that I even knew existed! Luckily though, I love working in this sector, and am glad that I saw that advert for my first, part-time post!
Oh yes – the books up the top are from a little sprinkler accident at one of the libraries – amazing sight to see halls, rooms and corridors filled with ranks and ranks of splayed open books! I couldn’t resist taking some photos!

Scottish Law Librarians Group Book Festival event

From BBC News website: “Members of staff at the National Library of Scotland point to an extract taken from one of the first books printed in Scotland, which forms part of the 500 years of the Scottish Printed Word exhibition. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.”

If you’re a member of the Scottish Law Librarians Group (SLLG), you’ll have already been sent your invite to this years event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
The SLLG likes to try and ensure that members get the maximum benefit from the group, and as last years Book Festival visit proved so popular, it’s been decided that this should become an annual jaunt.

So, this year, we’ve selected the following as (hopefully) being of interest to as many members as possible, and at a good time to allow everyone the chance to attend:

“Bill Bell, David Finkelstein & Alistair McCleery: Books and Society
Tue 19/08/2008
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
As Scotland celebrates 500 years of printing, editors David Finkelstein, Bill Bell and Alistair McCleery reveal the remarkable contribution to publishing and literary culture made by Scotland over the last 120 years – a period covering momentous change in writing, publishing technology, bookselling, readership and, of course, book festivals.”

Tickets for this event for SLLG members will be paid for by the group, so it’s free, free, free!
The image above (I think) relates to this event too, as this talk supports the exhibition referred to.

You can download the Festival Brochure from the website.