Reflections on CONUL 2017 (Athlone)

Guest post by Jesse Waters,  Library Assistant, John Stearne Medical Library, Trinity College Dublin

I recently attended the CONUL Conference at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone. I highly recommend attending the conference to anyone in the profession. There was a wide variety of library staff present, from directors and senior management to those who have graduated in recent years. As a library assistant, it was very beneficial to get a higher perspective on the issues and dangers currently looming over libraries. Discussions focussed on the potential for these issues to swallow the profession whole in the future, and the solutions that could be put in place to prevent this from occurring. It was also an opportunity to gain a better understanding of current topics such as Open Access and Research Data Management. Furthermore, it provided a platform to meet friends and past-colleagues from other libraries that I have not seen for a while, and to meet some very interesting librarians for the first time. With that in mind I would like to comment on some of the presentations which struck a chord with me, the majority of which were focused on the theme of change and adaptation.

Dr. Danny Kingsley, Head of Scholarly Communication at the University of Cambridge, delivered the keynote address, or warning, ‘Emerging from the chrysalis – transforming libraries for the future’ on the second day of the conference using a children’s story- Tadpole`s Promise, to great effect. She bounced back and forth between the story and her slides to deliver a compelling and entertaining analogy on the evolving relationship between libraries and publishers. A relationship which evolved in symbiosis until a certain point, after which libraries were overtaken. The narrative depicted a once smitten, but now disgruntled caterpillar, unhappy with its partner because they were transforming from a tadpole into a frog. One day, the caterpillar had enough and left the tadpole, only to evolve itself and return later. Alas, at this stage it was too late and the now-frog simply ate the butterfly. The caterpillar represented the library, the tadpole was the publisher. Clearly, there is a need for libraries to catch up to the fast-changing landscape caused by publishing companies, who are already migrating into other research support services outside making available and providing access to content. She questioned the role- “are librarians support staff or research partners?”, and advised that we should be collaborating more within the research communities that we currently provide for.

In the presentation “The network reshapes the research library collection”, Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC spoke about modern academic libraries and how they have changed. Historically, libraries were defined by their collections. Nowadays, the physical and digital collection has transitioned from the core of what libraries do to a service that they offer. As such, academic libraries are no longer the only “information space”, but have become a part of a much greater and easily-accessible information space. He spoke about the concept of the “inside-out library”, collective collections, and how libraries have begun to market their unique individual identities by highlighting special collections in their possession, citing “Label This” a wine label transcription project at the UC Davis Library in California. Interestingly, this is something which has already risen to prominence in Irish university libraries such as Trinity College with the long-established Book of Kells exhibition, University of Limerick with its recent investments into the Kate O`Brien letters, and UCD renovating their special collections space last year.

Simon Bains, Head of Research Services and Deputy Librarian at the University of Manchester University Library, delivered a poignant reflection on a project undertaken titled ‘A journey of discovery: investigating student publishing at the University of Manchester’. He described how the Library set out to collaborate with, whilst providing for, their student community more effectively as part of a University initiative to develop its pedagogy. The initial aim of the project was to establish a publishing platform for taught students of the university, responding to the University’s commitment that taught students should develop research skills as part of their experience at Manchester. However, their research revealed that demand was unconvincing and sustainability was a concern given the costs and the transitional nature of student editorial teams. They recognised an opportunity (or necessity) to adapt, and opted to invest in publishing training materials which would benefit more students and be less resource intensive to manage. It was inspiring to hear how the library changed the scope of the project in such a radical fashion in response to its findings. It was interesting to hear how this was set within the context of an organisational structure which has moved entirely away from subject librarians to a “functional librarians” model in the wider areas of research services, teaching and learning, and academic engagement. This meant that these new publishing materials slotted neatly into an existing set of services encompassing bibliometrics, management of research data, and Open Access scholarly communications. The online modules produced by the project can be found here.

The presentations delivered by Kingsley and Bains highlighted the severe need for a radical change in academic libraries, whilst Dempsey articulated external changes that have already occurred. The adaptation they advocated needs to occur in regards to staffing, the relationship of libraries and their wider institutions and publishers, and the role that librarians occupy in the research process. I think this is most definitely the case as students and researchers have become self-sufficient, and there is a need to market our resourcefulness and to upskill into new avenues. The depth and breadth of presentations at the conference highlighted that library staff can most-definitely help our communities to maximise their research through our existing services and training sessions, or in the case of functional librarians described by Simon Bains by modifying the services we offer to meet the changing needs of our users.

As I was reflecting on the conference whilst travelling back to Dublin on the train, a passage from a Rage Against the Machine track from their self-titled debut popped into my head that I think summarised the overall theme of CONUL 2017:

“The rage is relentless
We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change
And to counteract
We gotta take the power back”

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Review of the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC), 10-12 April 2017

Guest post by Caitríona Honohan (MSc ILM MA BMus ALAI ) is a Subject Librarian at Trinity College Dublin and Secretary of the Academic & Special Libraries Section (A&SL) of the Library Association of Ireland (LAI). Her email address is: caitriona.honohan@tcd.ie

I attended LILAC for the first time this year at Swansea University Bay Campus in its beautiful setting right beside the beach. When I submitted a proposal for the Call for Papers back in October, it seemed like a distant possibility. I had recently received a Bursary from the Cataloguing & Metadata Group (CMG) of the (LAI) to disseminate the research from my Dissertation The Information-Seeking Behaviour of Advisers to Policy-Makers for Homelessness in Ireland and so I was delighted when the proposal was accepted for a Short Paper, details of which can be found here. The Bursary and the support of the Library of Trinity College Dublin enabled me to attend and present at this great conference, and I’d like to acknowledge both for this opportunity.

The conference was very well-attended, with over 270 delegates from all over the world. In each Parallel Session slot there were six choices, so some quite difficult decisions had to be made. After a plane, bus, two trains and a taxi, we arrived at the venue. The food was excellent, and the Conference Team couldn’t have been more friendly and approachable, easy to spot in their Conference T-shirts. And so to the content - below is a brief snapshot of the key points which I took away from the sessions I attended. For a more comprehensive overview, I recommend the video recordings of the Keynote Speakers and the slides from all presentations, which can be found here.

Josie Fraser is a Social and Educational Technologist, and her Keynote The library is open:  librarians and information professionals as open practitioners presented a brief history of Open Educational Resources, a term adopted by UNESCO in 2002, the same year as the first Creative Commons licenses were released. 2017 is the Year of Open. She discussed the concepts of Free versus Open, and outlined the definition of Open Educational Resources: free learning resources that have been openly licensed or are in the public domain and can be used or reused for free. OER formats can include text (print or digital), audio, video or multimedia. The key is that resources should be as open as possible. She gave the example that all TED Talks have CC BY licenses so that they can be freely used as long as credit is given. She encouraged us to investigate the website of Right Copyright, a recent campaign calling for “freedom to teach without breaking the law” and calling for “a law that recognises museums, libraries and NGOs as having an educational function”.

Barbara Allan is an Independent Consultant and her Keynote Making an impact beyond the library and information service encouraged us as librarians to think beyond the usual networks and expand our circles beyond the library. She discussed decision making in universities, highlighting that different universities have different power structures and different groups have different priorities, so the more we think beyond our own department the more effective we can be. She encouraged librarians to make an impact in these ways: Link our work to strategy; Enhance our skills and techniques; Join boards and volunteer to chair committees; Make an impact on small scale projects working with range of stakeholders; Publicise projects internally and externally and Apply for external funding and national awards.

Alan Carbery is Associate Library Director at Champlain College, Vermont, and his Keynote was entitled Authentic information literacy in a post-truth era. At Champlain College, there is embedded information literacy instruction reaching every student seven times throughout their undergraduate studies. This programme of instruction relies on fifteen unique separate information literacy classes. Alan encouraged us to think about how we can introduce authentic information literacy to our own students, considering the real-world context of information today for students’ lifelong learning. He illustrated examples of showing historical documents to students to highlight ideas of power in gender and issues of social justice as expressed through information. He referenced Eli Pariser's TED Talk on Filter Bubbles, and said that 2017 is the year the filter bubble chicken came home to roost! He recommended IFLA's Guide to Spotting Fake News, and encouraged us to encourage students to ask more questions to enable them to become more informed global citizens.

Jess Haigh’s Parallel Session Embedding interventions for better critical writing and reading described her research with Jane Mullen on the difficulties some undergraduate students have in reading and thinking critically. She highlighted the "vocational" backgrounds of some university students, and the fact that some students have very little experience of academic sources. She described how these issues often become apparent with final year students, and so they have created interventions placed into the second year curriculum at the University of Huddersfield. She described various technologies that she has investigated, eg Kahoot!, Videoscribe for creating whiteboard-style animation videos and the interactive presentation software Mentimeter. She demonstrated the interactive classroom tool Nearpod for an exercise on finding resources using keywords, synonyms and related terms, focussing on enabling students to think about language in context. She stressed the importance of using subject specific examples that students can relate to.

Lorna Dawes’ Parallel Session Dissecting informed learning: a birds-eye vew of information literacy in first year college courses outlined her research investigating how faculty members experience the teaching of information literacy. Her interviews included asking faculty members to think of key concepts or big ideas that they think their students struggle to understand, and to describe their approach to teaching and how they evaluate their teaching. She believes that we as librarians need to facilitate students to make the connection that authors write in different formats e.g. in journals and also in blogs, explaining that her research showed that faculty members are generally more interested in content than format. She also found that faculty members evaluate information literacy teaching by assessing how the students demonstrate what they’ve learned in their papers.

Assessing first-year medical students’ information-seeking behaviors: implications for instruction was presented by Sa’ad Laws. He and his colleagues Ross MacDonald and Liam Ferneyhough are based at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, and teach Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) Instruction on the Medicine, Patients and Society course for first-year medical students. Their recent research has focussed on the types of resources that students are using for Background Questions, enquiring if they use online resources that are aimed at patients/consumers, at medical students or at medical professionals. They also investigated the quality of resources as measured by Information Literacy standards and by clinical standards, and discussed how the two correlate. Preliminary findings have shown that 57% of their students are using Medical Consumer resources, 24% are using Medical Professional resources and only 19% are using Medical Educational resources.

Charity Dove’s workshop The instrumental instrument was completely different from all the others that I attended as we were on our feet for most of the session, practicing vocal exercises and moving around. There was a lot of laughter, and I think everybody enjoyed it as much as I did! Having had singing lessons in the past I was familiar with most of the vocal techniques as practiced for singing purposes, but using them to maintain the speaking voice as a teaching librarian was a very interesting concept to me and I learned a lot from the session.

Melody Chin’s Parallel Session Do faculty and librarians see information literacy in the same way? A study of alignment described her research in the Singapore Management University in a collaborative project with Daniel Walker at Bond University, Australia. 63 Faculty and 22 Librarians with a teaching role took part in the study investigating how faculty and librarians perceive the concept of Information Literacy. Their survey was structured around the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, and the results showed that faculty members placed Research as Inquiry as the most important Frame, while librarians placed Searching as Strategic Exploration on top. Authority is Constructed and Contextual was ranked as being least important by both groups. When asked about the ways that Information Literacy training has impacted on student performance, academics responded that improved references, more thorough research and better quality assignments have been noted. Librarians have noted better reference questions.

Pip Divall’s Writing for Publication: using training and blogs to promote publishing in a hospital trust discussed a Writing Club at the University Hospice in North Wales, set up by Pip Divall some years ago and revived recently. The Writing Club consists of sessions on a number of topics, e.g. Writing up Case Reports, Statistics, Systematic Reviews and How to make best use of Social Media. There are also informal peer review sessions for people to share experiences about their writing. She holds two-hour workshops on Writing for Publication, sharing tips such as having friends/colleagues write an abstract for your paper, to ensure clarity. The recent Write Case Reports sessions were aimed at junior doctors but were actually attended by more senior researchers also, e.g. clinical chemists, pharmacists and biochemists.

Lorna Dodd’s Parallel Session Embedding information literacy through critical skills and a new curriculum focussed on the new undergraduate curriculum at Maynooth University and how the library has been instrumental in embedding Information Literacy within it. She described the process of how the library designed three critical skills modules for the new curriculum and explained that librarians not only deliver sessions themselves but also train the other tutors who deliver the sessions, working closely with the Critical Skills Co-ordinator Dr Brian McKenzie. The curriculum thus has a key focus on critical skills to prepare students for work, life and citizenship, including problem solving, critical thinking, analysis, reflection, communication skills, understanding academic standards and ethical responsibility. Information Literacy has become the centre of the critical skills modules and thus has become truly embedded in the curriculum.

Syrian New Scots information literacy wayfinding practices: phase 1 research findings was presented by Konstantina Martzoukou. Her research with Simon Burnett has investigated the information needs of "Syrian New Scots" (the preferred name for refugees in Scotland), their information literacy practices and the barriers and drivers they encounter. The research included holding focus groups and focussed on the Information Literacy dimensions in Health, Employability and Welfare Rights, Education, Communities and Social Connections and Housing. Preliminary results have shown that concepts of a shared rhetoric / common communication space are very important and that interpersonal encounters are generally preferred over technology-based information. Konstantina facilitated a discussion on how public libraries can help, and directed us to the report Ambition and Opportunity : A Strategy for Public Libraries in Scotland.

The final Parallel Session I attended was Russell Hall’s “The real world”: information in the workplace versus information in college. His research focussed on workplace information literacy, specifically how recent graduates use information in their daily work lives. He conducted interviews with 35 alumni of Penn State Erie, The Behrend College (PSB) and investigated the information techniques/mindsets that they brought with them from their undergraduate studies to the workplace. His research showed that people-based information is more important than text-based information in the workplaces of the participants. Several of his interviewees also reported that peer-reviewed research is often not available in the workplace because of the high cost of access, a point that also came across in my own Dissertation research.

After the three days, I returned home with my head buzzing with ideas, and it wasn’t until I came to prepare this review that I had the time to fully reflect on the learning, from memory and my combination of typed and handwritten notes. I also followed the Twitter feed at various points during and after the conference. All in all it was a very positive experience, many thanks to the Conference Team and I definitely hope to attend LILAC 2018 in Liverpool!

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Universities, Research and Public Engagement

Guest post by Dr. Richard Scriven. Richard is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography, UCC, researching pilgrimage in Ireland.

In his post he uses an exhibition he curated as a platform to examine the idea that public engagement is fundamental to both research and universities


My exhibition, Journeys of Belief and Belonging: Modern Irish Pilgrimage in the UCC Library, explores the pilgrimage tradition and how it is manifest in contemporary Ireland. It illustrates how pilgrimage is a vibrant cultural phenomenon that inspires millions of people annually to leave home, go on a journey, and try to connect with the more meaningful aspects of life. An evocative account of the activity is presented through quotations from research participants and images from some of Ireland’s main sites Lough Derg, Co Donegal; Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo; Knock, Co. Mayo; and, a holy wells in Munster. I am also running public seminars on the topic to encourage public discussion and further conversations about the role of pilgrimage. The project is funded by the Irish Research Council and UCC Library.

The exhibition is a form of ‘public engagement’. This is the idea that researchers need to communicate their work not only to others in their field – usually through peer-reviewed journal articles and conference presentations - but also to a broader range of audiences. My public engagement programme aims to inform and educate the public about the role of pilgrimage, while also highlighting the importance of socially and culturally relevant research. It uses several platforms to present fieldwork images and the experiences of pilgrims, with context and commentary added to prompt new considerations.

The idea of public engagement is fundamental to both research and universities. As Moseley (2010, p.109) points out ‘although producing knowledge for its own sake is good, many commentators would argue that information should also be produced for the betterment of the human condition’. This speaks to the role of research more generally as a means of contributing to society. Comparably, universities, as public educational and knowledge-based institutions, have underlying purposes to communicate ideas and to add to civic discourses. Indeed, UCC’s motto of ‘Where Finbarr Taught, let Munster Learn’ captures this sentiment, referring to the people of the region as a whole. Within my field, this approach is sometimes called ‘public geographies’ which is ‘about bringing a disciplinary perspective into a broader conversation with the public’ (Moseley 2010, p.109). It highlights the importance of good research which studies relevant and significant issues, and then ensuring that the findings enter public discussions, and where applicable lead to policy and societal change.

There is, however, a gap between these ideals and the realities of research and university life. Furco (2010, p.375) contends that ‘community-focused public engagement activities are not typically found at the forefront of the academy’s work’. The combined pressures of the research and university environment, which prioritise peer-reviewed publications and quantifiable impacts tend to down-grade the role of public engagement.  Instead, institutions and funders need to ensure that civic engagement projects are recognised as valuable activities in funding and job applications. We need to strive toward more active approaches in which ‘community engagement is integrated into the research, teaching and service mission of higher education institutions’ (Furco 2010, p.387). It is only from such a position that findings and discussions will reach general audiences and flow towards societal change.

Fortunately, my emphasis on public geographies was seen as being an important component of my work by the Irish Research Council and UCC. I included a strong public engagement programme as part of my funding application for my fellowship. UCC prioritises external engagement as one of its strategic goals.  In addition, the UCC Library were extremely enthusiastic about my idea for an exhibition, which is being run as part of their regular exhibitions for the general public. This type of institutional support is essential to nurture an environment that prompts and furthers community engagement practices.

Consideration has to be given to how researchers communicate with the public. It is not just a matter of agree on the value of civic engagement, it is also about the form and effectiveness of these programmes (Stilgoe, Lock & Wilsdon 2014). Academics are used to writing and talking in certain ways, drawing on concepts and acronyms which are unfamiliar to those outside their fields. The challenge is to learn to ‘to focus on presenting, or "framing," their messages in ways that connect with diverse audiences’ (Nisbet & Scheufele 2007, p.39). In effect, we must ‘translate’ our work, using everyday language to ensure to reaches a broad range of people. For example, the UCC Postgraduate Showcase is an annual event that encourages researcher students to ‘develop innovative ways to communicate their research to non-specialists, and to present a compelling story around their thesis topic’. As part of this process, we must be conscious of our target audiences and how best to effectively make an impact (Stilgoe, Lock & Wilsdon 2014).

Public engagement will continue to become an important part of the research and university landscape. Institutionally, it requires support, while researchers need to meet this challenge to communicate to public as well as their peers. For me, the exhibition and public seminar are an integrated part of my postdoctoral fellowship. They are one of the main pillars on which I centre and assess my work. Hopefully, this will encourage others to reflect on how they can communicate their research to broader audiences to help improve society.

Furco, A., 2010. The Engaged Campus: Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Public Engagement. British Journal of Educational Studies 58, 375–390.

Moseley, W., 2010. Engaging the Public Imagination: geographers in the op-ed pages. Geographical Review 100, 109–121.

Nisbet, M., Scheufele, D., 2007. The Future of Public Engagement, The Scientist 21, 38–44.

Stilgoe, J., Lock, S.J., Wilsdon, J., 2014. Why should we promote public engagement with science? Public Understanding of Science 23, 4–15.

The exhibition Journeys of Belief and Belonging: Modern Irish Pilgrimage is running until the 24 June 2017

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Review of an Exchange

Guest post by Lisa Spinder. Following her receiving of an MA in American Cultural History and German as a Foreign Language Lisa started as a student of Library & Information Services, at  University of Applied Sciences for Administration and Legal Affairs in Munich 

In March 2017 I had the opportunity to spend an entire 4 weeks at the Boole Library of University College Cork. Everyone at the library was very welcoming and made sure I would gain as much insight into their work as possible.

My schedule had emphases on three main areas, which were Archives, Special Collections and the Online Repository. Additionally, I got to spend a few hours in most of the other departments of the library, thus getting a pretty good picture of how the library functions as a whole, what the current challenges are and how the library is integrated into the library system and into academia nationally and internationally. I learned a lot about libraries and librarianship in Ireland in general, which was great because this made it possible for me to see similarities as well as differences to libraries in Germany.

In the Archives and Special Collections departments of Boole, archivist Emma Horgan and Special Collections Librarian Elaine Harrington introduced me to their unique collections and made sure I became familiar with a variety of their materials.

Working my way through quite a few old plans, maps and other outsizes from the Bantry collection, I discovered how the holdings of the Bantry estate changed during the first half of the twentieth century and learned of fishing restrictions that were marked in sea and river charts of West Cork. Depending on the state they were in, the maps had to be wrapped in mylar and/or acid-free paper to ensure their conservation. Due to their sizes, the flattening of some of the maps before they could be wrapped provided quite a challenge that could only be met with the help of lead snakes and weights.
In addition to the landed estates that make up quite a few of the Archives’ collections, the library holds a number of collections by scientists, scholars and authors that are in any way connected to Boole Library, most notably George Boole himself, the inventor of Boolean Algebra. He is responsible for the Boolean operators that form one of the bases of every library catalogue or database search.

A challenge every library faces today is the shortage of storage space. One of my tasks was to check the printed holdings of serials in the reference collection of the Special Collections reading room against their online availability. Whichever serial is available online would be a candidate to be moved to the closed stacks, thus gaining some space on the shelves in the reading room.
Elaine also showed me how she introduces students to Special Collections. Depending on the focus of the class, she chooses fitting examples from the various collections. Using these examples as props, she familiarizes the students with the extra care in handling some of the material requires, and makes them see how they can make use of the many resources in Special Collections.

The emphasis the library puts on the services it provides for the students is great. Talking to the liaison librarians I learned of their work in teaching classes on information literacy, always making sure to cater to the specific needs the students of particular subjects might have. In addition to that they are responsible for all sorts of online content that helps the students improve their research skills. I especially liked the libguides that make it easy for students to get started with their research. For each field, there is a libguide online that brings together the most important resources for that field, such as the major databases and online journals. I liked the role of the liaison librarians a lot. Liaising with the academic staff is important to any academic or research library and it seems to me many libraries ought to put a little more effort into it. It also makes sense to me to put a great emphasis on teaching information literacy in classes and individually, since it is one of the core skills an academic (or pretty much everyone) should have and the effort will definitely improve research output sustainably.

Boole Library has taken it upon itself to promote (green) open access among their researchers and scholars. Breeda Herlihy introduced me to the department of Research & Digital Services and the workflows in getting open access content into their online repository CORA. I was able to learn hands-on how to handle metadata and how to feed it into the repository as well as getting more familiar with the Dublin Core standard and the handling of csv-files.

I also had the opportunity to spend some time with the librarians working in acquisitions, in cataloguing and in collection development & management. The workflows there reminded me a lot of those I know from German libraries. The only major difference is that Germany integrated their acquisitions and cataloguing workflows a few years ago.

The challenges libraries face with the high prices for journal subscriptions and consequently most of their budget going into serials seem to be the same everywhere. Processing purchased as well as donated books and keeping track of legal deposit copies also works rather similarly. It is interesting to see the close link to the UK – the Irish Copyright Act entitles the British Library as well as four other libraries in the UK to receive one copy of every book published in Ireland.

A highlight was when Martin O’Connor and Ronan Madden let me sit in on their radio show Shush! – Sounds from UCC Library on UCC radio during my last week. Even though they didn’t make me talk into the microphone (which I was very thankful for!), I was able to engage via Twitter, learning a little bit of social media use hands-on. A library radio show is definitely something more libraries should consider. Shush! is on every Monday from 11-12 and a podcast of the show is available afterwards.

I want to thank everyone I met from the Boole UCC Library staff, especially Martin, Emma, Elaine and Breeda, for making my four weeks in Cork an insightful and rewarding experience.

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Four librarian seminars in May and June

Once again I trawled the Web for some free Webinars that might be of interest to you too. The first of the four listed below considers the possible impact of artificial intelligence, shopping trends and live game streaming on library services. Number two discusses case studies in academic libraries that have highly impacted service provision and patron outreach. The third Webinar reports on innovation initiatives of public libraries driven by their constituent communities. The last online event is a mini-conference on Fake News within the context of digital literacy competencies.

High-impact library services & outreach: student success to systematic reviews
Thursday, 18th May, 4pm – 5pm IST
In this Webinar librarians share their inspiration and process for developing high-impact library services. The head of research and instructional services at a university library will discuss how she and her team are aligning library instruction with high-impact educational practices to increase engagement and retention. The head of a medical library serving a spectrum of healthcare professionals will describe the development and evolution of a systematic review service. And a law librarian shares how he helps faculty increase productivity and get published faster using an open access repository of abstracts and preprints/working papers.

Emerging Tech Trends in Libraries
Tuesday, 23rd May, 10am 8pm – 9pm IST
Topics for this part 7 webinar include:

• How Artificial Intelligence continues to surprise us (Corporate audits, corporate directors, Pinterest, Humanitarian use, Legal and health care, Predicting what you’ll buy)
• Shopping trends (Omni and multi-channel shopping, Even more mobile, Uber-ization of deliveries, Goodbye wallets)
• Live game streaming, Video is the new blogging, Sensors, Data storage gets really, really cheap, 3D printing is exploding

This webinar will be of interest to staff in all types of libraries interested in emerging technology trends and how they might affect libraries and/or their patrons.

Libraries as Innovation Hubs: Community Driven Design
Wednesday, 31st May, 11am – 12pm IST
Public libraries are hubs for innovation and community engagement. Library workers must listen closely to community needs to design programs and services responsive to continuous changes in technology and fluctuations in funding. This free webinar will showcase two examples of collaborative design events used in public libraries to generate ideas, build community, and solve problems.

Library 2.017: Digital Literacy & Fake News
Thursday, 1st June, 20pm – 23pm IST
In this Library 2.107 mini-conference, we start with the foundational relationship of libraries and librarians to media, information, and now digital literacy, and then we ask some pointed questions. How should library and information professionals address the issues of fake news, propaganda, and biased research? What technical skills are required for critical thinking in the digital age? As learners increasingly move from just consuming information to also socially producing it, what are the new requisite skills of critical thinking and decision-making? What are appropriate uses for social media when conducting research? What is digital citizenship in a global, globally-diverse, and often globally-fragmented world? What work on digital literacy is available, what frameworks already support these efforts, what are the perspectives of the leading thinkers?

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Learning, Teaching and Student Experience (LTSE) conference - Review

Guest post by Sarah-Anne Kennedy, Dublin Institute of Technology. Sarah-Anne holds a BA (Hons) from the National University of Ireland Maynooth (MU) in English and History and a Masters of Library and Information Science from University College Dublin (UCD). She has been with the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) since 2006 and is currently supporting the College of Business, the School of Media and the School of Law. Sarah is interested in engaging and supporting students through blended learning and looking at new ways of bringing the Library to the student.

The 6th annual Learning, Teaching and Student Experience (LTSE) conference took place in Bristol, the UK on the 25-26th April. The conference is organised by the Chartered Association of Business Schools who are also based and operate across the UK acting as the “voice of the UK’s business and management education sector”. This conference offered a great opportunity to learn how our academic peers in the UK are engaging with students. It also offered an opportunity for me to learn what the similarities and differences are between the Irish and UK higher education landscape.

      

I had an opportunity to present a poster on ‘Bringing the Library to the Student using an Online Marketing Tool’. (see images attached) So, with my poster in hand, I travelled to Bristol for the day to attend day two of the conference.

The opening session, by keynote speaker Phil Race, set the tone for the day and was one of the most interactive, engaging and funniest keynotes I have ever attended. Phil’s biography is distinguished and long but he introduced himself as an author, scientist and educational developer.

Phil’s keynote focused on Making Learning Happen. He advised on not focusing on old or traditional methods of teaching but encouraging new ways to teach in the classroom or lecture hall. He advised us not to exclude mobile phones and laptops from the classroom. However, he reminded us that in the exam hall students are on their own, with no internet access (for the time being anyway) so we have to teach them to stand on their own and be confident in their learning. Phil does not support the idea of learning styles, however he agrees that one size of assessment does not fit all. So how do we tackle this? How do we get students to engage?

Phil argued that teaching and learning don't really work on paper alone or online alone. Students also want to see evidence. “What does a good assignment look like? What does a bad assignment look like?” Students also learn by doing so learners need to have room to make mistakes. We need to create a constructive environment for them to do this. Feelings are important so students need praise to gain confidence. Feedback needs to be timely and they need to see what’s in it for them. If they can see the benefit they will invest.

Great interactive session by @RacePhil to kick off day 2 of #LTSE2017! pic.twitter.com/5eX2laAYQZ

— Chartered ABS (@CharteredABS) April 26, 2017

Phil presented us with five of the seven factors that underpin learning:

• Learn by doing
• Learn from feedback
• Learn from wanting to learn
• Learn from needing to learn.
• Making sense –‘getting one’s head round it’

What are the remaining two factors? We ran out of time so you can visit Phil’s slides from the keynote to find out. Thus, Phil provided an opportunity for our own learning after the conference.

The conference offered a large range of themes which can be viewed in more detail here. Over the two days 80 plus sessions were delivered, each of which reflected one of the 13 conference themes. As you can imagine from that long list, it was difficult to choose which breakout sessions or workshops I wanted to attend. In the end, I decided to focus on the following themes: Employability, Employer Engagement and the Practice based Curriculum and Student Engagement.

Employability is well established in the UK and this was evident from the range of breakout sessions offered on this theme as well as the number of posters that included this topic in their content. The first breakout session (‘Supporting business schools to drive learning gain & employability’) outlined how in partnering with academic institutions, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) are tackling the notion of a student becoming an accidental manager for example. Engaging with future employers allows the institutions to enrich the curriculum. Master classes are offered to students online from leaders of industry. Mentoring programmes allow students to build relationships with professionals. CMI offers free employability support to students upon graduation and they are aligning their partnership to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

The second breakout session (‘User experience (UX) design and employer involvement that improves student engagement’) also looked at employability. The University of East London (UEL) have partnered with Pearson to develop an online platform called ‘Your Way’. This partnership allows UEL to offer a sophisticated online platform that provides students with an opportunity for self-directed learning. Competencies are developed with employers. Students choose their competencies based on their needs, which in turn allows for a personalised journey.

It was evident from the sessions that partnering with employers had allowed the institutions to provide sophisticated and student-centred online spaces to support employability and teaching and learning. Employability, in its current UK state is new to Ireland. DIT Library Services recently collaborated with our Career Development Centre in developing Job Space. The Library’s contribution is showing students how they can transfer their existing IL skills to research companies and potential employers. In turn giving them the edge over other candidates who may not have these skills or resources. Is there scope for growth in this area in Ireland? I left the sessions wondering would partnering with industry leaders encourage our own students to engage with IL? Would master classes delivered by industry leaders and professionals allow students to see the importance of IL in their learning journey?

The third breakout session (‘‘Student engagement: active learners through the co-creation of content’) looked at how the teacher can become the facilitator of student learning. Students are provided with the freedom to explore materials independently. While it was agreed that not all students like this degree of freedom or lack of defined structure, in the end students could see the value of the process. Their learning wasn’t just about the end result but the learning process. The benefits included job satisfaction for teachers, making students more responsible for their own learning and seeing students learning and not just attending. This type of learning environment was offered to postgraduate students with an average age of 30. I struggled to see how it could work with our undergraduate students or indeed international students where rote or directed learning is the norm in their home country.

So so true @LTSE2017 @garypackham pic.twitter.com/UnBh416aSG

— Sally Everett (@DeputyDeanARU) April 26, 2017

The fourth breakout session (‘How can we integrate students’ use of mobile phones and interactive technology within the lecture lesson plan in order to improve engagement?’) tackled the frustrating issue of the ‘distracted generation’. Phones are in the classroom so instead of asking for them to be put away we should harness mobile technology. Some of the technology mentioned was nothing new to me, Socrative, Office 365, Pole Everywhere, Twitter. However, it was interesting to learn how students were enthusiastic about the use of phones in the classroom. They did not see it as an encroachment on their personal space and it allowed for the opportunity to mix things up and provide an interactive learning environment. One takeaway that I felt was important was that by embracing technologies that are used in industry and using them in the classroom, students’ digital skills were developed and they could see the benefit in getting to grips with this technology in a safe environment.

The last session of the day was a panel discussion on Getting Published in Teaching and Learning. The panellists were experienced editors and authors with lots of practical advice to offer. Their tips included:

• Never write anything without a publication aim in mind, be it slides, a presentation, a report etc.
• Any publication is better than no publication so don’t be snobby or choosy
• Collaboration can help
• Getting published is hard so critique and support can be a motivator
• Time can help improve your writing and knowledge
• Don’t let inexperience deter you
• Small scale evaluative case-studies are more likely to be published in Teaching and Learning journals
• Hot topics are sometimes helpful in getting you published but is this the right way to approach it? Look at the trajectory on previous conversations on a topic. The top themes can lead but ultimately you should go for what interests you.
• Writing allows you to connect with your students -you can identify with their struggle to write their assignments.

My ultimate takeaway from the day was how employability is well established in the UK. While it does have its detractors, e.g. are we simply creating workers instead of learners? Is education simply to provide a workforce? It was impossible not to see how partnering with industry had allowed academic institutions to enhance their own curricula and teaching and learning resources. Is there scope for partnering with industry to demonstrate to students the importance of engaging with IL? Overall, I was pleased to see that our some of our teaching and learning practices and experiences weren’t too different from what was happening in the UK. My other take-away was that, to the best of my knowledge, I was the only Librarian with a poster presentation or even in attendance on the day. What does this say about our role in teaching and learning and how we, as a profession, see ourselves in the higher education landscape? Hopefully the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s funded project L2L: Librarians Learning to Support Learners Learning will work towards addressing this issue and show us that, as Librarians, we have a place at the teaching and learning table.

The full 2017 LTSE programme is available here

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