CILIP 2020 Conference RE:Imagined – a report from MmIT’s bursary winner

AJ Mackenzie, Library and Student IT Advisor, Leeds Beckett University

AJ Mackenzie

I would like to start this blog post by thanking CILIP’s MmIT (Multimedia Information and Technology Group) for the bursary place that enabled me to attend the CILIP Conference 2020 – Reimagined.

As a frontline staff member dealing with IT and Library support and researching the impact of digital literacy in Higher Education, the conference held lots of exciting possibilities for discussion around the developments and issues in our sector. It was my first CILIP event, so I was excited to be part of event with a plethora of impressive speakers and hear the experiences of my colleagues facing the unique challenges of our situation currently.

As with many of the other attendees it was the first time I had partaken in a digital conference and was intrigued what the experience would entail, hoping that none of the networking and discussions would be hampered by the reality of non-physical attendance. I needn’t have been worried as the whole event was fantastic and the Pheedloop platform that it ran on really facilitated feeling connected and present. It allowed engagement with both delegates and attendees easily, and brought that bustling excitement of an in-person event (with none of the commuting, bonus!).

The first talk attended by all of us was Richard Ovenden OBE talking on the social importance of the preservation of knowledge, a duty historically fulfilled by libraries. One of the most interesting points raised by Richard, in response to a question, was how Librarians are creating knowledge and can’t ever be entirely neutral. We hold a responsibility to the community we serve and society we live in to defend those communities that are marginalised and to combat the silences in our own archives. The talk was a rousing start to the day that really highlighted how we as Library and Information professionals have the ability to help shape future history for the generations that come after us.

Empowered digital citizens

Following this I attended the ‘Empowered Digital Citizens’ which talked practically on the realities of applying digital literacy and accessibility to the healthcare sector. It was very insightful to see how this challenge is tackled on such a large scale in the UK healthcare sector and is broadening the options and supporting grassroots empowerment. I found conversation on the Digital Inclusion Scale and the UK government’s facilitatory measures very interesting and potentially applicable to the Higher Education sector, and by extension, my own personal research.

Professional growth

Jo Cornish, CILIP’s Head of Sector Development, then offered us a guided tour of the new vision on the connection between professional recognition, excellence and impact. The talk was uplifting and inspiring for a newer professional to the sector to see conscious effort and time being invested into improving the pathway of professional growth to create ‘united, proud and strong’ library professionals. CILIP’s vision for the future is exciting and the profession looks to be in safe hands to continue to develop in the face of new challenges.

Slide image from Professional Recognition – CILIP’s Revitalised approach – Jo Cornish

‘A change in strategy without a change in vision is what a pivot is’ – Claire McGuinness

Following an excellent presentation from Jo, the next session I chose was ‘The ‘Digital Pivot’ – the role of librarians and knowledge specialists in moving teaching and learning online.

This is a topic that I have been embroiled in personally since the start of the pandemic as we at Leeds Beckett, alongside the whole sector, rapidly transitioned online and revolutionised our processes to deal with the new reality in which we work. The highlight of this for me was discussion on whether the current provision meets the expectations of students who perceive themselves to be digitally literate. Being able to hear my fellow professionals talking about my area of investigation and, coupled with practical examples from our present reality, really helped me to place myself and my experiences in a wider context. We are all in the same situation together students, staff, sector professionals and governing bodies and we must all work united to provide a successful outcome.  We can overcome this challenge if we work and develop cohesively for a shared future.

Slide image from The ‘Digital Pivot’ – the role of librarians and knowledge specialists in moving teaching and learning online – Claire McGuiness

After lunch it was time for the keynote by Tracie D Hall and presidential address by Judy Broady- Preston. This was the highlight of an excellent day with some brilliant quotes and an overall incredibly rousing call to action from two fantastic speakers.

‘Information agencies are service organisations involving social realities and individuals who work within those realities; they are places rich in meaning created by these individuals..’ – Prof Judy Broady-Preston. Judy offered some unique insights into the professionalism as well as the changing landscape and cultural context of our profession in the light of external factors such as the pandemic.

Information poverty

Tracie’s presentation was a unique insight into what is going on across the pond with our North American counterparts and the role that libraries are playing as bastions of knowledge and social progression with a significant role to play in combatting ‘information poverty’.

Slide image from Information Redlining: The Urgency to Close the Socioeconomic Divide and the Role of Libraries as Lead Interveners – Tracie D Hall

‘The fight against Information Poverty is one of the key fights of our time…. We must rise to this occasion’ – Tracie D Hall.  The wide overview of the state of libraries in the USA that Tracie holds as Executive Director of the American Libraries Association meant that the insights into the issues and fights around social justice, access to information, and universal broadband that were given really painted a vivid picture of the scale of the struggle for progress that is underway. “I want to identify information poverty, call it out, describe it as what it is. People don’t have the skills, ability or material means to access, interpret or apply information”.

I personally found the facts and figures, presented alongside real-world examples, quite moving due to the incredible disparities documented.  It made me proud to be an information professional and prompted me to examine what I could do to contribute more to fighting against ‘information poverty’ in my professional role, and as a member of society that is privileged enough to have never had to worry being left behind by information technology advancement.

Slide image from Information Redlining: The Urgency to Close the Socioeconomic Divide and the Role of Libraries as Lead Interveners – Tracie D Hall

Future-proof yourself

Finally, to round off the day I finished by attending the panel ‘Future-proof Yourself: how Professional Registration can help you get ahead’. As a relatively new member to the profession it was eye-opening to be able to ask questions around professional registration, how it can benefit you and develop your career. Having such knowledgeable presenters and equally enthusiastic attendees helped answer numerous questions that I had and inspired me to take the plunge and start my own journey to chartership.

In closing, the 2020 Re:Imagined conference was a fantastic event to attend and created a real atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm I wasn’t sure was going to translate over to a virtual event. However, it ended up being one of the best days I have had since the start of the nationwide lockdown and a welcome chance to interact with so many other brilliant colleagues in the sector, all of whom are doing their best to carry on vital work in an ever-changing world. I would like to finish again by thanking CILIP’s MmIT (Multimedia Information and Technology Group) for the bursary place and all who spoke at and attended the event for a fantastically enjoyable, uplifting and inspiring day.

AJ Mackenzie @AJMackenz

Read AJ’s article on ‘Breaking the perception of digital literacy, the contemporary conceptualisation of information technology.’ Addressing information and communications technology knowledge in HE students and staff’ published by NAG UK here – https://bit.ly/2NpLvYA

Research(er) Workflows in the Real World – A guest review from our bursary winner.

At the start of December I was lucky enough to be granted a bursary by CILIP’s MmIT (Multimedia Information and Technology Group) to attend the above event, which was organized jointly by MmIT and ARLG.

This was very relevant for my work as part of my role is supporting PGR students.

After a quick update from the British Library about the new Shared Research Repository https://bl.iro.bl.uk/  which will bring together their current repositories (EthOS, BL Research Repository, etc.), Alison McNab from Huddersfield University introduced the day by talking us through the array of tools that researchers have at their disposal during their research workflow lifecycle, for writing, citing and submitting.

This was followed by Andy Tattersall from Sheffield University, with a presentation about how researchers can own their research communications so that the media do not misrepresent their research. He recommended that, as librarians, we should promote Open Access, highlight the importance of good engagement with the media, promote the use of ORCID IDs and train academics on the use of social media.

In my opinion, one of the most interesting presentations was by Dr Gabrielle Neher, an academic from Nottingham University, who explained the role of the librarians in her institution as co-creators for her research.

Jeroen Bosman and Bianca Cramer from Utretch University Library advocated the use of open infrastructures for research.

They have researched and mapped all the tools currently available and created the diagram below.

For them, the main reasons for supporting common infrastructures were:

• For collaborating
• To support researchers when they move to other institutions
• To prevent vendor lock-in
• As an exit plan (disaster recovery)
• To support community-based development and innovation
• To contribute to common infrastructure

However, they admitted that institutional policies mean that open source will not always be the preferred option. To find out the best option within these constraints, they have created a tool that compares all the available options and helps researchers decide which one is the most appropriate.

They finished by giving examples of closed vs. open source tools and encouraged all librarians to promote the open source tools.

After lunch, Andy Appleyard and Alison Selina from the British Library focused on the UKRR (UK Research Reserve) which has freed up huge amounts of space in academic libraries through co-ordinated de-duplication, while preserving a national collection and continued access for researchers.

For the British Library, document supply peaked in the mid-90s. Demand has dropped since, mostly due to Google, big deals with publishers and declining acquisition budgets. The British Library has responded to these challenges by sourcing from third parties, concentrating on niche areas and building on their brand and trust.

Their current strategy focuses on four strands:

• Customer retention
• Diversification
• Open Access
• Living Knowledge

Unfortunately, one of the presenters, Jez Cope, could not attend because of illness. Luckily, Sally Halper from the British Library filled the gap with an excellent presentation on their recent research with users and non-users, which found that most people want instant access to information, free WiFi, quietness, bookable rooms for collaborative working and subject-specific search.

The last session of the day was an excellent UX activity facilitated by James Rennie.

First we had to do an individual sketching exercise when we had to draw what “Research” means to our users.

My superhero angel librarian was a success!

After that, in groups, we had to map the experience of a new user in our library, what their goals are, their feelings and the services that they encounter.

All the slides from the day are available at https://www.cilip.org.uk/members/group_content_view.asp?group=201297&id=844743

Thanks to the MmIT for sponsoring me to attend this event. I met lots of interesting people, learnt lots and I am already applying what I learnt to my job.

Eva Dann

@EvaDannG

Information Consultant for the School of Engineering, Physical and Mathematical Sciences Royal Holloway, University of London

 

Looking forward to #ILI2019

MmIT really appreciates our partnership with Internet Librarian International: the library innovation conference. With just over a month until it opens, here are some highlights:

• The MmIT stand: join us to learn about our forthcoming events and participate in our latest competition.
• Three keynote speakers who will talk about accelerating innovation, harnessing the power of community and collaboration and celebrating the love of libraries.
• We think Track C (Digital, diverse, disrupted) on Day 1 and Track B (The Rebooted Librarian) on Day 2 will particularly appeal to MmIT members, but there are fascinating talks in all the tracks.
• Committee member presentations: Antony Groves is discussing Library Code Camp in session B203: Delicious digital skills and Alison McNab will give a lightning talk on How to be heard as part of session C204: The rebranded librarian.
• There’s a 25% discount on the cost of registration if you are a member of MmIT or another supporting organisation. Please note that the Early Bird discount closes on Friday 13 September.
• We’re awarding the Most Intriguing Presentation Title award to David Bennet for his talk on Smile for the thesaurus!

Are you a first-time delegate? Read our advice on getting the most out of your conference experience.

Unable to attend this year? Follow along on Twitter at #ILI2019 and consider submitting an abstract for next year….

Below: Video from our MmIT stand at #CilipConf19 in July 2019.

#CILIPConf2019 lunch break is still going on. Come & see us on our stand. We’re playing with #ozobots today as well as #microbits. The #rockpaperscissors competition is still going on. The score is Delegates 3 MmIT 2. Win a #free MmIT torch. #lovetech #lovelibraries. pic.twitter.com/O6STAiA2Qv

— MmIT group (@MultiMediaIT) July 4, 2019

CILIP Conference 2019 : reflections on #CilipConf19

Earlier this year we publicised our bursary to attend the 2019 Cilip Conference. We were delighted to award it to Claire Back, Development Manager with Plymouth Libraries. In her winning blog entry Claire discussed her favourite tech tool Canva. Claire has now blogged her impressions from the conference and highlighted those themes which she found most significant.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a month since the CILIP Conference in Manchester. Rather than a chronological write up, this blog post is more a reflection of my thoughts on the conference; what I enjoyed the most, what I took away from attending and what I’m still thinking about one month later.

Major themes

For me there were two major themes that came up repeatedly. The first, diversity and inclusion ran throughout the two days. From Kriti Sharma’s excellent opening keynote on bias and ethics in AI to Hong-Anh Nguyen’s powerful day two keynote Questioning Diversity: A call to action for everyone working in the profession to make a positive change. There was also the BAME Network allies’ breakfast which unfortunately I couldn’t attend but I have since signed up as an ally on the website.

Demonstrating impact was the second major theme for me, probably because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. It was clear listening to stories from 25 years of Libraries Change Lives that being able to demonstrate the difference these initiatives made was a key to their success and recognition. In Glasgow’s Mitchell Library we saw the positive impact that moving the Citizens Advice Bureau into the library had on both users and staff. Jan Holden from Norfolk Libraries shared their vision for ensuring that libraries change lives every day through a range of health and wellbeing activities. I liked their plan on a page which was simple and effective. It was also good to hear Jan say that it’s sometimes hard to get people to listen and understand what libraries can do, and how important it is to have confidence in the service and be willing to have the same conversations again and again.

It was also interesting to hear Kay Grieves from the University of Sunderland describe how they are using an engagement and impact model to drive service design and I enjoyed seeing their experiments with data visualisation, something I’m keen to do more of.

Public Libraries are awesome

I know this, I work for one, but it’s good to be reminded sometimes and the Innovation in Public Libraries highlighted some of the great work going on. This included Archives+ at Manchester Central Library who have been documenting the history and stories of the LBQT community in the city and I loved that they invited a couple of the volunteers, a vital part of the project, along to hear the talk. I’m always slightly in awe of the work being done by Leeds Libraries on 100% Digital Leeds, ensuring that everyone in the city has the same options and choices when it comes to digital inclusion, so it was useful to pick up some tips on how they are doing it from Amy Hearn.

Best slides

A special mention to Dave Rowe from Libraries Hacked who illustrated his talk on open geographic intelligence with library data solely with images of dogs (and a single cat) on mobile libraries.  Dave’s current project to improve the state of mobile library data makes me wish we had a mobile so we could get involved.

What I missed

There will always be the problem of clashing sessions at a conference, but I was really sorry to miss the Diversity in the Profession Panel.

Overall I really enjoyed my couple of days in Manchester. I felt it helped me to reconnect with the wider profession and I’m very grateful to MMIT for the bursary.

• Many of the #CilipConf19 presentations are now online at http://cilipconference.org.uk/whats-on/programme/
• A selection of photos from the Conference (taken by martynhicks) are available at photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPq

How Libraries can support Digital Humanities: reflections on #GaleDHDay

By Antony Groves (Learning and Teaching Librarian at the University of Sussex) @AntonyGroves

At the beginning of May, Gale organised their first Digital Humanities Day at the British Library. The event brought together a diverse range of speakers from around the world who spoke about different aspects of Digital Humanities (DH) scholarship; from infrastructure through to research and teaching. This post will draw out three themes from the day in an effort to better understand how we can support this growing area of work:

1. Collaboration in DH research is key and libraries can play a role within these collaborations. 
2. There are many different datasets, techniques and tools being used yet a common approach we can take to developing training.
3. We should work on our own data projects if we wish to really understand what is needed to support the academic community.

Collaboration in DH research is key and libraries can play a role within these collaborations.

In the afternoon session, Dr Sarah Ketchley stressed that “Digital Humanities projects are inherently a collaborative undertaking” and the earlier presentations of Professors Mark Algee-Hewitt and Joris Van Eijnatten highlighted this. The work done by Prof Algee-Hewitt and others at the Stanford Literary Lab has involved a number of ‘distant reading’ projects where participants have used a variety of computational techniques to analyse large collections of digital texts. Looking at grammar and language respectively, Prof Algee-Hewitt’s research involved digital novels whereas Prof Van Eijnatten focused on newspapers using The Times Digital Archive; both resources that libraries can provide.

Throughout the day, flags such as these indicated potential roles for libraries in DH collaborations. For example, Dr Julianne Nyhan reflected on infrastructure and the challenges to researchers of obtaining data in a format that can be ‘mined’ – in one case having to obtain a hard drive from a provider. This is somewhere librarians can help and Lisa Mcintosh, Director of Access Services at the University of Sydney Library, shared an impressive list of services offered by their library in support of digital research:

• Provide content for text and data mining
• License permission and copyright support
• Recommending tools and TDM (Text and Data Mining) resources
• Integrating text mining into Information Literacy classes in the Humanities
• Assisting humanities teaching staff to integrate text mining in the classroom
• Getting started with data visualisation training • Data analysis and visualisation guide

There are many different datasets, techniques and tools being used yet a common approach we can take to developing training.

For those wondering which students this area of scholarship might appeal to; the answer is all of them. In an inspiring talk about introducing DH in the Undergraduate Classroom, Dr Sarah Ketchley showed that her 2018 ‘Introduction to Digital Humanities’ module was full, with 35 students from 21 different departments across campus. Not only is this type of scholarship appealing to students but it is also invaluable to them. For one reason, as explained by Dr Melodee Beals, “evidence is merely data with a direction”. If we want students to critically engage with evidence-based research, helping them to analyse the underlying data is of great importance.

The tools that students use in Dr Ketchley’s class have included OpenRefine, Voyant Tools and more recently the Gale Digital Scholar Lab – a cloud based platform containing a range of software that can be used with Gale databases to which the institution subscribes. This cloud based approach avoided issues encountered by previous cohorts where a whole lesson had to be dedicated to downloading and installing the required programs. Dr. Tomoji Tabata also introduced an open source tool called Stylo to be used for ‘rolling stylometry’, a technique to detect stylistic changes in passages of text.

Throughout the day, reference was made to many different techniques (e.g. topic modelling, named entity recognition, sentiment analysis); tools (e.g. Gephi, Google Fusion Tables, MALLET); and data sources (e.g. TROVE, Hathitrust, Gale Historical Newspapers). With so much out there, it can be hard to know how best to start providing support. Thankfully, Associate Professor Ryan Cordell brought clarity to this undertaking by proposing four steps to teaching humanities data analysis:

• Start with creativity 
• Teach using domain specific data 
• Foreground corpus over method
• Foreground mind-set over method (‘programmatic’ thinking more important that programming’)

We take a similar approach to developing our Information Literacy training sessions and find that it works well. In the short amount of time that we often get to see students in workshop, making the content of the session as relevant to a given cohort as possible increases engagement. In addition, focusing on how to approach searching (as opposed to how to use a particular tool) means that they can apply this learning to a range of tools that they may encounter not just the one or two included in the session.

“Work on your own data projects to understand what is really needed to support your academic community”.

This is a direct quote from the final presentation by Lisa Mcintosh, which was the perfect way to finish the day. While listening to the research presented throughout the day was fascinating and certainly highlighted areas where we can support this scholarship, managing our own data projects and facing the same barriers that our researchers encounter is what will really help us to understand the support that is most needed.

This may sound daunting but hopefully this post has shared at least a few resources that can be explored further, and take encouragement from Prof Van Eijnatten who asserted that “if I can write a few lines of code anyone can”.

MmIT bursary for Cilip Conference 2019 #CilipConf19

 

The CILIP Conference takes place in Manchester from 3-4 July. It’s the annual flagship event for CILIP, the library and information association and one of the biggest events in the calendar for UK library and information professionals. The conference brings together delegates from across the sector to meet, learn and share knowledge. It’s a great chance to catch up with colleagues and make new connections. The conference aims to leave you feeling inspired and passionate about the work that we do as professionals.

MmIT are delighted to be able to offer a bursary place. If you haven’t attended the CILIP conference before, this is a great opportunity to listen to the excellent key note speakers and to network. To apply, please email treasurer.mmit@cilip.org.uk by end of day Friday 19th April 2019. Please tell us who you are, where you work/study, and provide us with a draft blog post about your favourite technology (between 400-1,000 words). We will confirm who the bursary will be awarded to by end of day Friday 3rd May 2019, and subsequently publish the winning blog post (we appreciate that the application time is limited so we will give the winner the opportunity to edit the final version of their blog post during the month of May).

Travel expenses are not provided with the bursary place but accommodation is included. This bursary place includes access to both days of the conference, lunch, refreshments and all sessions. We would expect the bursary winner to proactively promote both the conference and MmIT before, during and after the conference using social media.

To keep up to date on conference developments, follow @CILIPConf19 and #CILIPConf19 and visit the website cilipconference.org.uk.

You can also register for the conference. Don’t worry – if you receive a bursary place, CILIP will refund you. You can still book delegate places at the Early Bird discount until 17th May 2019.

Conference tech: the hardware

MmIT Committee member Alison McNab writes:

I’m looking forward to attending #ILI2018 next month (if you are a member of MmIT you can claim a 25% discount – see our blog post for details of how to claim it).  We will be staffing an MmIT stand with giveaways and a competition.

I’m giving a lightning talk at ILI on using social media to promote and amplify events and thought it might be helpful to talk about the tech that helps me do so.  The two devices I use are an iPad and mobile phone.  I find a tablet much lighter and easier than a laptop when balanced on my knees but I do know other people who prefer having the full keyboard on a laptop for rapid tweeting or blogging.

A spare power supply is essential if you wish to keep tweeting after lunch! You can’t guarantee having access to a power point at a conference, but it is probably worth taking your charger plug and lead along just in case.  Delegates who bring and share access to a multi-USB adaptor and/or an extension lead are true digital citizens!

• Entry-level power banks (left) are low cost and often feature as a “high value” giveaway  from library suppliers and publishers.  They should help you top-up your phone charge to last out the day.
• The more powerful high-capacity power banks (centre) can carry enough charge to keep your laptop or tablet topped up throughout the conference or a transantlantic flight.
• My most recent purchase has been a battery phone case (right), which gives me four times the battery life (YMMV), and the some newer versions even offer wireless charging.

My final tip is to charge all your devices and chargers the night before the event starts, and top up the charge whenever possible.  I’ve found an article that advises that shallow discharges and recharges are better than full ones, which mentions the new-to-me  Battery University as an authority!

[Note: my “tech” was purchased personally, apart from the entry-level power bank which was a publisher giveaway.  Obviously other brands of tablets, power banks and phone cases are available….]

#ILI2018 : register now for the library innovation conference

MmIT is delighted to be again supporting Internet Librarian International: the library innovation conference, which this year takes place in London Olympia on 16-17 October 2018.  Follow #ILI2018 on Twitter for the latest updates.

Registration is now open – take advantage of the early bird discount or (if you are a member of MmIT) we have a special discount code* just for you.

Themes at ILI 2018 include: new roles, skillsets and tools for librarians; looking at user-driven change; how libraries and info pros are supporting social inclusion, engagement and equality; content: working with new formats and new audiences; marketing: influencing use and expanding audiences; and changes in the scholarly communications landscape.  Check out the ILI at 20 infographic for more about one of our favourite conferences.

MmIT members will be speaking during the conference, and we’ll also be staffing an MmIT stand with giveaways and a competition.

* Members of MmIT should enter priority code MMIT25 during online registration to receive a 25% discount on the conference fee.