The Government Libraries Section of the Library Association of Ireland is made up of members working across government departments, semi-state agencies, and other support organisations. Many of these librarians are working as solo librarians or within small teams, making a big impact on their wider organisations while building up vast knowledge over decades of public service. We believe this knowledge is a precious resource and wanted to capture the wisdom of our members. Instead of hoarding these gems of insight among our own group with hope that librarians across other sectors can also learn from our collective knowledge.
To help give structure to our expertise we leveraged the framework of CILIP’s Professional Knowledge and Skills Base wheel, organising our tips around the pillars falling under professional expertise and generic skills. You can learn more about this tool on the CILIP website here.
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Collection Management and Development
Develop collections your users really want and align
development to strategic priorities. Ensure you measure the value and impact of
your collection annually. Collect quantitative and qualitative proof points to
ensure that it’s fit for purpose.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Ensure collections are easily accessible in available
formats for increased engagement.
Lauren Sneyd - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
Consult regularly with your users to ensure that collections
meet current needs and make sure they know how to access resources.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
If working in a smaller organisation, find ways to be clever
with limited resources. Work closely with users to make sure that the resources
you are providing access to are meeting their needs and providing good value.
Look at what useful resources out there may be available for free or open
access.
GLS Member
Review your collection regularly to ensure the material is
relevant and current. Ensure resources are available in accessible formats for
all users.
GLS Member
Data management
Leverage technology to mine your data for causation insights
and once you find the so what in your data use it to tell engaging stories.
E.g. Our Librarians save library users xxx amount of time, xxx amount of money,
we help inform xxx decisions etc.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Utilise data to tailor collections and activities to areas
of interest
Lauren Sneyd - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
Monitor usage of resources and services and use the data to
drive decision making and show the impact of your service.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Use evidence-based decision making in your management and
development of both print and electronic collections. Query the data to ensure
it's offering a clear picture of use of resources.
GLS Member
Information exploitation and use
There are up to five generations in today's workforce, build
an understanding of their information needs and consumption preferences and
exploit information so they can search for and use it in the right formats for
their needs.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Keep up to date with what projects are going on in your
organisation or key areas of interest and highlight information resources that
may be beneficial to them.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
I am working on curating our offering of platforms and
defining more closely what should go into each platform, making data easier to
find.
GLS Member
Information governance and compliance
Ensure your governance and compliance policies are well
developed, up to date and widely communicated, taking into account privacy,
copyright, IP and licensing, ownership and accountability. If you're not
responsible for creating governance policies in your organisation, offer to get
involved and share your expertise in relation to information governance and
compliance.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Ensure that users are aware of information governance
policies, such as copyright, data protection through in-person/online
briefings, intranet posts or posters at copying machines.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Ensure policies for different information areas such as
collection development, copyright and records management reinforce each other
and that your expertise provides input into the review and development of
policies (if not under your ownership).
GLS Member
Policies, while important, can be lengthy and cumbersome to
reference. I am working on creating a "quick reference" checklist to
ensure the integrity of information.
GLS Member
Information management
Organise your information in a way that makes it easily
accessible, ensure professional standards in cataloguing classification,
metadata and thesauri and subject indexing are practiced.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Be a leader in information management, ensuring information
is easy to find, up to date and reliable.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
I am working through de-mystifying the process and removing
the fear associated with "getting rid" of information, re-aligning
the focus to easily finding relevant documentation
GLS Member
Review access from the perspective of a new library
user. Ensure resources are accessible.
GLS Member
Knowledge management
Build Knowledge Management Strategies that help:
1. Convert
tacit to explicit knowledge
2. Demonstrate the value of KM
3. Make knowledge
easily discoverable
4. Foster collaboration
5. Take account of culture,
people, processes and technology as an enabler, NOT the solution.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Share learnings from training courses or conferences with
all staff.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Seek ways to support staff in your organisation to share
their knowledge. E.g. facilitate 'knowledge share' sessions for different
business areas to share their expertise, or for projects to feedback to staff
on key learnings. Another example may be to facilitate staff members to share
learnings from conferences and seminars.
GLS Member
Taking opportunities for Micro-learning at Staff Meetings,
Innovation Seminars, Newsletters and Intranet leverage.
GLS Member
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Literacies and learning
Always lean into Bloom's taxonomy when designing the
objectives and outcomes of your learning and literacy programmes. As new technologies emerge use what you already
know and transfer it to new literacies, information literacy, meets digital and
AI literacy.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Constantly evolve to meet user needs in a variety of
learning styles and keep up to date with the latest trends.
Lauren Sneyd - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
When trying to engage users in information literacy
training, always try to tie it to some real part of their life, whether that's
professional, academic, or personal, so that they can see immediate tangible
benefits to these skills.
Amy Bond, Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
Running a journal club is a great way to get staff reading
and critically appraising literature.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Our organisation has started to assign time to research and
development in the company of a senior staff member, utilising our library
space and online resources.
GLS Member
Records management and archiving
1. Create - Understand why you're creating a record and use
that to drive how you manage it; choose concise, objective, meaningful and
standardised naming conventions; use version control to avoid duplication and
review schedules to manage timeliness.
2. Organise - classify in a systematic way and store in secure or
collaborative digital paces depending on who needs access.
3. Dispose - review
your retention schedule and archive or dispose in a secure manner as per
policy.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
When trying to improve records management within a team or
organisation it is not enough to understand the records themselves, but you
need to understand the workflow behind them, and why these records are being
created. For this reason, it needs to be a deeply collaborative process.
Amy Bond, Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
Records management is a team effort. Get a representative
from each team in the organisation to be a champion for records management.
They should have a good understanding of their records, how they are stored and
the retention periods. The representatives can meet regularly to share
experiences.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Gaining buy-in from senior management is key to successfully
embedding good Records Management practices. If a particular business area or
team is experiencing issues implementing good practice, sit down with them to
explore why this is so, and help them to come up with a process that works for
their needs. Often good practice is about navigating organisational culture and
human behaviour, rather than just developing good policies and procedures.
GLS Member
Simplify records management, relevant to your own
organisation. Make it section specific in relevance. General guidance causes
confusion.
GLS Member
Research
Follow Bord Bia’s Seven steps of Knowing how to best use information to deliver maximum business value:
1. Start with a good research question
2. Understand the best sources
available to meet your needs
3. Execute good search strategies/prompts to
retrieve the best search results
4. Evaluate your sources
5. Manage your
sources for easy retrieval
6. Develop insights and implications
7. Reflect,
conduct a lessons learned to drive continuous research improvement.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Use the CRAAP test to evaluate the quality of information -
Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.
Lauren Sneyd - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
When conducting desk research on behalf of library users,
don't get started until you have a clear understanding of the purpose of the
search request. Without this, it will be difficult to deliver resources to
answer the information need. Spending time clarifying goals upfront will save
time on follow up searches.
Amy Bond - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
The librarian/information specialist can play a key part in
the research process by carrying out or assisting in the design of a research
question, conducting literature searches or peer reviewing literature searches.
Ensure your users are aware of your skills in this area.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
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Customer focus, service design and marketing
Gather library, knowledge management impact stories and use
this authentic user content to market and promote your services. Design new
services your users want, so understand their pain points and needs, then pilot
new services with a small group of users to test before launching, act on
feedback launch and continue to measure and evolve.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Create engaging visual content to market and promote your
services and, if possible, carve out distinct brand assets so your content will
be instantly recognisable to users.
Lauren Sneyd - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
To deliver strong marketing you need to take time to develop
a plan that sets out who are your target audiences, what are the goals and
objectives of your marketing efforts, and what are the key messages that you
want to deliver through your marketing. Only when this work has been done can
you create effective strategies and tactics, and understand what success looks
like for these.
Amy Bond - Assistant Librarian, Bord Bia
Get regular feedback from your users through surveys or
focus groups. Focus groups can be really useful for getting more in-depth views
of users and you can gain a better understanding of their needs.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Make it simple to pick up and put down. Reduce barriers to
entry as much as possible.
GLS Member
Use cross-promotion strategies to market your library.
Collaborate with colleagues across your organisation and contribute to
different projects and initiatives.
GLS Member
Leadership advocacy influencing and personal
effectiveness
Practice a growth mindset, that of a lifelong learner, who
provides strong visible leadership of self, community, team, and the unknown.
If you want to instil a growth mindset culture in your people, role model the
behaviours you wish to see and always keep an eye to external forces which help
you to see the bigger picture of what's on the horizon. Practice the ability to
influence key stakeholders in line with an increasingly complex and rapidly
changing world. Practice gratitude and
appreciation for human potential and use the power of conversation to bring
diverse groups of people together to make sense of complex issues and those of
strategic importance. Join Library and Professional associations like the LAI,
CILIP, ALA, IFLA and seek out professional development opportunities and
networks that help you hone your leadership skills. Consider applying for the
LAI Fellowship award to display your CPD at this level.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Get involved in different committees/working groups either
within or outside of your organisation and show how valuable your information
skills are to others.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Create space for learning. Physical and mental space. We are
a time-poor society of convenience. It requires a culture shift return to
thirst for knowledge that is not as instant as a google search. Managers and
Boards need to put a focus back on time carve out for continuous learning.
GLS Member
Strategy planning and management
Adopt a stop, start, evolve practice to ensure you plan,
execute and measure according to strategic priorities. Remain attuned to rapid external changes to
ensure you manage uncertainty and pivot as needed.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Set clear, achievable goals and be willing to be flexible.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Strategy is a start point. Too often we hear "It is in
the strategy" but the strategy is a framework to create more meaningful
content. Strategy is a start not a stop. It can change and evolve. It does not
need to be static. A static strategy will cause a static organisation mindset.
GLS Member
Technology
and communication
Keeping up to date with advances in technology and
communication will come easier to those who practice lifelong learning.
Adaptability is key, so be open to on the job, self-directed and formal
learning, reverse mentoring and experimentation to keep up to date with
advances that can elevate how your collections and services are developed,
managed and made more accessible to more people in more ways possible.
Mairéad McKeown - Knowledge Manager, Bord Bia
Join librarian networks and groups to keep up to date and
learn practical strategies for managing resource acquisitions. Take
opportunities for formal training e.g. in negotiations and informal learning
opportunities eg. from colleagues and at relevant conferences.
Jill Corish - Assistant Librarian, Houses of the
Oireachtas
Make time to explore new technologies. The tools we use are
constantly changing so make sure you are signed up to relevant newsletters or
journals to keep yourself up to date.
Noeleen Murtagh - Information Management Executive, FSAI
Find different ways to get your message across - you may
reach more people if the message is delivered through different mediums. E.g.
email to staff, a piece in the internal staff newsletter, and verbal updates at
staff meetings.
GLS Member
Leverage what you have and add additional technologies with
scepticism. Too often we have too many platforms, and not enough development of
each one to cater to the needs of the staff.
GLS Member
Keep up to date with tech developments and take time to
trial new features. Seek feedback on new or enhanced products from colleagues.
LIS networking groups offer the opportunity to discuss resources, best
practice, strategies and ideas with other LIS professionals.
GLS Member
You can learn more about the work of the GLS and how to
become a member on the LAI website here. You can also follow us on X, Instagram,
and LinkedIn.
References:
www.cilip.org.uk. (n.d.). Accessing the Professional
Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB). [online] Available at:
https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/PKSB.
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