West Midlands Member Network
March 2016 Volume 3, Issue 1
Network News
WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR This issue is mostly reflecting on our recent Member’s Day, held at The Hive in Worcester on the 11th February. I want to say thank you to Verity and Rayanne for agreeing to write up their reflections on the day for me to share. During our Member’s Day we held our Annual General Meeting, where we said goodbye to three committee member’s who have all served both on the Member Network committee and on one of the predecessor committees. I’m sure you all join me in wishing Georgina Hardy, Anna Brown and Angel Egbuji the best of luck. The currently vacant positions are listed on page 3. The AGM also saw the Committee launch a Conference Bursary. Full details are on page 6, but it applies to all levels of the profession to attend any conference of their choosing. All you need to do is tell us which conference you want to attend and why. All you need to do in return is write it up for our newsletter! (I’m sure Verity and Rayanne will confirm that this is a painless process!) If you have any comments about the newsletter, or would like to contribute to future issues,
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Member’s Day 2016: My take on the day ........................................ 2 Committee Vacancies ................ 3 Dates for your Diary .................. 4 Annual Member’s Day and AGM .................................................... 4 Blog spotting! ............................. 5 Conference Bursaries ................. 6 ILIG Copyright Course .............. 6
CONTACT US Email: cilipwmmn@gmail.com
please let me know: cilipwmmn@gmail.com
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Lisa
Twitter: www.twitter.com/cilipwm Flickr: www.flickr.com/cilipwm SlideShare: www.slideshare.net/cilipwm
MEMBER’S DAY 2016: MY TAKE ON THE DAY BY VERITY RELVES, LIBRARIAN, ARUP
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
If you would like to know more about our Committee Members you can view individual profiles of members on our webpages: www.cilip.org.uk/westmidlands-branch/ committee
If you would like to get involved in the committee, in any capacity, please get in touch: cilipwmmn@gmail.com
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Thank you so much to the organisers and hosts for this enjoyable and invaluable day. Based on the themes of social media / communication / marketing we heard from four entertaining and informative speakers. The day started with a warm welcome from our hosts at The Hive – an innovative joint university and public library. We then moved on to the presentations. Neil Infield’s talk concentrated on social media in all its many forms with his hints and tips on what works and which ones to target. Pros and cons and simple examples of how to use them were invaluable Get out there and blog was one of his main suggestions! Make sure too you have a social media strategy – don’t concentrate all your efforts on one platform. You may not reach all your target audience and in a quick changing environment even market leaders in social media are not always resilient. A consistent brand image across your chosen platforms was paramount – and don’t use your messages as a sales pitch See his presentation at http://www.slideshare.net/infield - lots of slides but packed with content. Check out slide 82 (yes there were that many!) for a pithy guide to social media! Adam Koszary’s wry observations on his work and his gentle presentation style led to an entertaining talk. He splits his time between 2 roles and started with his tale of the mouse caught in the 155 year old mouse trap as an example of how a story can go viral. The importance of making sure that your posts properly reflect your organisation proved paramount – before posting anything ask yourself would you be happy if this went viral? https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/merl/2016/02/03/155-year-old-mouse-trapclaims-its-latest-victim/ Turning then to his role at the Bodleian, key themes emerged:
Tone
Reflecting the message your organisation wants to convey
Copyright – the bane……. Importance of images and headings in making sure your message is read Connecting your posts to your website and your collections Andy Ryan of Stellar Libraries spoke passionately about her work with CityRead London – an amazing annual event to get London talking and reading 1 book. Her enthusiasm and the publicity events around CityRead were inspiring – I did feel rather dull by comparison! The CityRead events involve actors, videos, public li
Credit: www.stellarlibraries.co.uk
brary events, parking a 1960s Jaguar in Covent Garden to name but a few….and this year take on a whole new slant with digital technology and a more controversial theme of riots. http://www.cityread.london/ And finally Nick Poole, CEO of CILIP………… Could this be the man who finally makes CILIP a force to be reckoned with? Coming from a commercial library background I have often struggled with CILIP and its value but this talk actually made me take notice. He spoke with honesty about the current situation with CILIP – its political isolation and its struggle to overcome internal wrangling to make its voice heard at a time when our profession needs support more than ever in this time of transition. He looked at how to take CILIP forward – its Shape the future campaign for a new strategic plan and how we as its members should be its advocates. He talked about convincing the power players – politicians, employers, industry – of our importance to the economic future of the country. http://www.cilip.org.uk/blog/help-us-shape-cilip-s-future http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole On a more formal note - We also had the CILIP WM AGM and the Academic & Research Libraries Group West Midlands AGM. Both put out an appeal for new committee members – maybe it’s your turn to become that CILIP Advocate? And an offer of money…. Not for being on the committee but in the form of available bursaries and funding for conference places. [Editor’s Note: more information about the CILIP West Midlands Conference Bursaries are on page 6]
Image Credit: Lisa Basini
CILIP WEST MIDLANDS MEMBER NETWORK
We represent library and information professionals living and or working in the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. We also serve the metropolitan districts of Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton, as
More information can be found at:
well as the non-
http://www.cilip.org.uk/about/regional-networks/west-midlands http://www.cilip.org.uk/academic-research-libraries-group/westmidlands-division-academic-research-libraries-group-committee
metropolitan districts of Stoke-on-Trent and Telford & Wrekin.
COMMITTEE VACANCIES On behalf of the committee we would like to welcome Masha Garibyan as our new SIG Liaison Officer, who takes over from Georgina Hardy. We would like to thank Georgina for her hard work in various roles over the years, both in the West Midlands Member Network and in it’s predecessor, the Career Development Group, West Midlands Division. We currently have two vacancies for CANDIDATE SUPPORT OFFICER NEWSLETTER EDITOR
For more information about our vacancies, please contact the committee at cilipwmmn@gmail.com 3
ANNUAL MEMBER’S DAY AND AGM BY RAYANNE BYATT, LIBRARY ASSISTANT, BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL MENTAL HEALTH NHS FOUNDATION TRUST
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY Due to the vacant CSO position we currently have no Professional Registration Events or Revalidation Drop In sessions planned. But if you would like to host one, even as a one-off event, please get in touch.
23rd March ‘16 Committee Meeting in Birmingham
For more details visit: http://www.cilip.org.uk/ west-midlands-branch/ events
This year’s West Midlands CILIP Member’s networking event was held at The Hive, Worcester. I had previously visited The Hive so was looking forward to both returning to this amazing building and attending my first regional networking event along with my colleague Karen. The theme of the day was marketing with an emphasis on social media. We are currently in the process of changing our library website so the programme was particularly pertinent to us. After a brief but warm welcome from Judith Keene and Laura Worsfold of The Hive it was time for the first speaker of the day, Neil Infield , Business and IP Services Manager of the British Library & IP Centre. I’ve been aware of Neil and the work of the IP Centre since writing an assignment about business information resources so was looking forward to his presentation. Neil began with an overview of the advantages of social media as a marketing tool and the importance of having a social media strategy. For me the influence of social media really hit home when Neil showed us a website displaying the world wide activity of the internet in real time. It was scary to witness the number of new accounts, posts and purchases increasing on different social media platforms and internet companies. Blogging was strongly advocated by Nick for two main reasons; Google promotes blogs over other websites thus increasing a blog’s retrievability and whilst other social media platforms may be suddenly shut down a blog will remain available. Neil shared some useful tips for maintaining a successful blog and discussed features of some of the main social media platforms. This included the age profile of the users of different platforms, useful information when considering which would be the most appropriate for your audience. Adam Koszary, Communications and Social Media Officer for the Bodleian Libraries, then gave an entertaining presentation about how social media is used to promote the work of their libraries, the discoverability of their collections and to engage with the wider public. Adam helped to write the social media strategy for the Bodleian Libraries and stressed how useful the strategy was in helping to manage their social media activity level and to ensure posts/tweets etc. remained on message. Adam spoke about the challenges of engaging with such a diverse audience and of taking advantage of anniversaries and topical events to promote specific collections and increase traffic to their websites. Adam also works at the Museum of English Rural Life and made us all laugh telling us about how a blog post about the discovery of the death of an intrepid mouse in one of their Victorian mousetraps had gone viral. Whilst the speakers were from different library sectors for me the following themes stood out from the morning session: Develop a social marketing strategy to ensure a consistent approach Don’t rely on a single social media platform
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Take advantage of topical events (but apply sensitivity when necessary) Understand your audience (avoid the LOLcat route) Learn from your mistakes but don’t be risk adverse
During lunch my colleague took advantage of the opportunity to join a tour of The Hive but having previously done this I instead used the break to chat to other members (honestly it wasn’t to eat more of the lovely wraps). Although I’m quite shy in these situations I enjoyed meeting members from different sectors and putting faces to people I have been in contact with through work. The afternoon began with the AGMs of the WMMN and ARLG West Midlands. Not having observed a CILIP AGM before it was interesting to learn more about the work of both groups and how much they manage to achieve despite committee vacancies. Nick Poole, Chief Executive, CILIP then spoke about CILIP’s Shape the Future strategic plan, political advocacy and other issues such as compulsory revalidation. Nick spoke about the challenges ahead for CILP with 45% of the current CILIP membership reaching retirement age between 2021 and 2026. I was shocked by the low level of CILIP membership within our profession but many professions are apparently seeing a similar decline in membership of their professional body. The day was rounded off by an upbeat and candid presentation by Andy Ryan of Stellar Libraries about the development of the innovative Cityread London initiative which aims to get the whole of London reading the same book for a month. Andy explained how a different audience is targeted via each book choice and how the campaign is creatively marketed through events in public spaces and libraries. Not wanting to miss out just because I live in the Midlands I’ve already started this year’s choice, Ten Days by Gillian Slovo! I came away thinking that the day had totally exceeded my expectations so thank you to the committee for putting together such an enjoyable and useful programme. Presentations from the morning sessions are available to view on SlideShare: Neil Infield - Marketing your library using social media - Feb 2016 http:// www.slideshare.net/infield/cilip-day-marketing-your-library-using-social-media -feb-2016 Adam Koszary –The Bodleian Libraries CILIP Social Media http:// www.slideshare.net/AdamKoszary/the-bodleian-libraries-cilip-social-mediatalk
BLOG SPOTTING! I spotted this blog post by Laura at BCU about our Member’s Day: http://blogs.bcu.ac.uk/eresource/2016/02/16/cilip-west-midlands-membersday-2016/ via Twitter, but let us know if you’ve written one, about the Member’s Day or any of our other events.
Lisa
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CONFERENCE BURSARIES WANT TO ATTEND A CONFERENCE AND CAN’T GET FUNDING? We’re offering our Members the chance to attend conferences and training events anywhere, at home or abroad, for free*, just send us an email at the address below telling us what conference you want to attend and why. We will accept applications for any Librarian focussed conference and will even include money towards travel and accommodation*. All applications will be considered, but please apply early to allow us time to discuss your application. All we ask in exchange is for you to write an article for our newsletter Network News telling our members all about it. International Conference attendees may also be asked to speak about their experiences at our Annual Member’s Day, or other similar event. If you have any questions, or would like further details, please email cilipwmmn@gmail.com *CILIP West Midlands Member Network reserves the right to set a budget for funding depending on a variety of factors. All expenses claimed will need to meet CILIP criteria, and a copy of the expenses policy can be requested by emailing cilipwmmn@gmail.com
ILIG ONE-DAY COPYRIGHT COURSE OUR COLLEAGUES AT THE ILIG SPRECIAL INTEREST GROUP HAVE ASKED US TO ADVERTISE THIS COURSE TO YOU. One day course on copyright is being offered, you will learn about the latest developments in copyright both in the UK and in the EU and how the information can and can’t be used. Date 31st May 9.30am-4.00pm Place: CILIP HQ,, 7 Ridgmount Street, WC1E 7 AE By the end of the day delegates will have covered Feedback
Current copyright legislation and up-coming developments affecting UK and EU information professionals
If you have any comments regarding the content of this newsletter, or if you would like to contribute to the next issue, please contact:
Will receive guidance on how to overcome challenges experienced in the use of content in social media.
Lisa Basini Newsletter Editor cilipwmmn@gmail.com
Problems of copyright and licensing in the provision of resources to students based overseas Better understanding of how the text and data mining exception can be applied or overridden by contract terms. To book a place please complete the enclosed form: http://tinyurl.com/gksph92 Cost includes lunch and refreshment: ILIG members: £60 + £12 VAT total £72 CILIP members: £80 + £16 total £96 Non CILIP member: £100 + £20 VAT total £120 Unwaged CILIP members: £50 + £10 VAT total £60 Closing date for all applications is 23rd May 2016, but booking early is advisable as spaces are limited