the library january/february/march 2013
DESCRIPTION
Tri monthly newsletter of the library at GoldsmithsTRANSCRIPT
The Library January/February/March 2013
University of Florida Library notice Photo Elizabeth Williams
Contents
January/February/March 2013 The Library, Goldsmiths P
Sian Downes, Lucy Lambe, Cathryn Peppard Camping, Muppets, Libraries
Lucy Lambe FIL@BLDSC, 15TH March 2013
Elizabeth Williams Summer 2012 A library to see during the holidays …. University of Florida
Chris Boone Every Picture Tells a Story
Camping, Muppets, Libraries
On Saturday 2nd March 2013 Sian, Cathryn and Lucy went to Library Camp at Senate House Library. It was a very busy start to the morning for Senate House as they had Hollywood outside filming for the new Muppets movie. Sadly none of us caught a glimpse of Kermit and company!
Library Camp is a free (but competitively ticketed) unconference. This means that at the beginning of
the day if you have something you want to talk about you pitch the idea to the group, and then they chose their favourite pitches to go and take part in. Through a bit of cajoling Cathryn pitched a session on the role of Library Assistants…but more about that later.
The first session we all attended was on Creative CPD. In small groups of about 10 we looked at how we can develop our skills without attending expensive conferences. We discussed the role of Blogs and Twitter and other ways of networking, seeing opportunities in your current role where you can develop new skills and also attending events like Library Camp.
Next Sian attended a talk on displays in Libraries. The majority of the people in the group were from School Libraries where they can do a lot more with displays and have the
opportunities to move items from the shelves to display. But we did talk for a while about the importance of having displays outside of the Library building itself to encourage others to come in.
Cathryn went to a talk about designing your own Library and Information Masters run by the @uklibchat group from twitter. There were participants online and some of the twitter followers included current Library and Information Studies lecturers and academics. The talk discussed the most and least useful aspects of people’s degrees and what they would ideally like to see put on the course. Overwhelmingly everyone identified a need for courses to become more practical and relevant, with a lot of the modules offered needing an update.
Lucy went to a session with the interesting title: “I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords…: technology, digital libraries, and the future of librarianship”, which covered e-books, e-resources and the dangers of information overload! Most people agreed on the overall benefits of digital information, but also acknowledged that the way it is supplied or organised can make it more complicated than opening a book!
Everyone that attended Library Camp was asked to bring something to share for lunch. After previous years where a lot of cake was brought they tried to have a savoury camp lunch this year. This gave us a chance to meet and chat with other professionals and continue conversations that had started during the morning pitches.
After lunch the first session was Cathryn’s on the role of Library Assistants. Cathryn gave an introduction about how many Library Assistants are either qualified or qualifying and are struggling to get the
experience that would allow them to take the next step up. We broke up into small groups to discuss the situation. Very helpfully there were a number of managers in each for the break out groups who could give their perspective on the situation.
The final two sessions of the day were the ‘Sweary Librarian’, ran by a public library’s librarian who discussed facing aggression and unhappy customers on a daily basis. A lot of thought and discussion was centred around the increasing focus on customer service in the frontline of libraries.
Lastly, came the session that a lot of people had been looking forward to: Librarians and Personality. Run by Andrew Preater and Rosie Hare, we were asked to decide if we were introverted or extroverted with a fairly even split. The session then considered the librarian stereotype vs. what people in the profession thought consisted of an ‘ideal’ personality for a librarian.
We would recommend everyone going to Library camp as there is no hierarchal structure which allows conversation between all levels to help come up with new ideas and suggestions.
Sian Downes, Lucy Lambe, Cathryn Peppard
FIL@BLDSC15 March 2013
This was my first FIL event and also my first time at Boston Spa, so I was very excited, although the early start of 5am to get from London to York curbed my enthusiasm a little. There was plenty of coffee on arrival, however, which put a spring back into my step! This event was advertised as an opportunity to hear about updates from the British Library and experience sharing between colleagues. As Ann and I are in a relatively small team, it was a great chance to talk to colleagues about our work.
The day began with a talk from Andrew Booth, from the University of Sheffield, on getting published. He has written four books and numerous journal articles, so there was plenty of advice on how to write, but the most important things I took away from Andrew’s talk were to always think about what the audience needs to know and use that as the starting point for research, and start small! Writing a letter in response to an article, or a book review (or even an article in the FIL newsletter) can be a starting point.
The following talk was on copyright and had the tagline “a librarian’s nightmare”, which I think is often true, from the difficult terminology to the fact that the law is always open to interpretation. But Emily Goodhand presented a clear, concise outline of
copyright as it relates to document supply. She is also on Twitter @copyrightgirl providing regular updates and doing her best to answer questions on copyright for librarians.
The final talk before lunch was from Andy Appleyard, who works for the British Library as Head of Document Supply and Customer Services who told us about the workflow changes that have been made at the BL through “process fixing”. This involves analysing existing processes and removing any extraneous steps, then designing the layout of the workspace based on the new workflow. Andy had previously worked for Toyota and brought a lot of the ideas on efficiency developed in their factories to the BL, which I thought, was interesting as the two do not seem related at first glance. We have already carried out a similar project at Goldsmiths library for our shelving process, but it definitely made me want to look at my own workflows in interlending. Andy’s advice was to make small, regular changes, as they were more likely to stick.
Lunch was a great chance to network and the food was great, but I was eager for the next part of the day, as it was the tour. This was by far my favourite part of the day - actually seeing the people behind the packages that land on my desk every day was fantastic, and we got the opportunity to watch one member of staff dealing with erroneous requests. It is her job to fix any mistakes in requests if the automated system cannot find them, or to send messages back to the requesting library. Due to a lack of time we weren’t able to go to the Additional
Storage Building and see the automated retrieval system there, but I have since watched videos online and have been suitably impressed.
After the tour we had an update from Sam Tilett, a Project Manager, and Richard Ebdon, Business Development Manager, both of whom work at the British Library. It was very pleasing to hear that most people who are in management at the BL started off in retrieval and worked up. It gave the sense that they really knew their stuff! They had more to talk about than I have space, so two key points are firstly that from 7th April 2013 the BL will become an e-legal deposit for the UK. This will be a challenge and an interesting project and I’m excited to see how they implement it. Secondly, the BL are testing a new method of Digital Rights Management for their Secure Electronic Delivery service, meaning users will no longer have to download a plug-in to view their documents. This is very welcome news!
Talk number five came from Chris Hand and was about a project he led called BaseDoc. This is a database and web form that enables users to order documents online at any time and is currently used by NHS libraries in the wider Birmingham area, but Chris is keen for all NHS libraries to use it. Prior to this method the interlending system was entirely paper based. An excel spreadsheet was then used to make things easier for library staff, but it was still not ideal for the library user. Naively, I was unaware that other LMS did not have a form accessible from the OPAC, so I now have a new level of appreciation for Aleph.
FIL Chair Marie Lancaster gave the final talk which was about Twitter. The event had a Twitter hashtag and I was slightly disappointed that more people did not use it on the day. At events like this it is impossible to talk to everyone, so checking out thoughts and comments on Twitter is a great way to get a full picture. Marie helpfully talked us through signing up to Twitter and the professional benefits that can be gained from Tweeting with our interlending colleagues. It is also a great way to promote services such as inter-library loans!
Overall it was a fantastic day and very well organised by FIL and the BL, and I hope to have the chance to attend again.
Lucy Lambe
Summer 2012-A Library to see during the holidays……University of Florida
Basic stats
Academic staff 5,081 (Fall 2011)
Students 49,589 (Fall 2011)
Undergraduates 32,598 (Fall 2011)
Postgraduates 16,991 (Fall 2011
As the state of Florida's largest and oldest university, the University of Florida is one the state's centers for education, medicine, cultural events and athletics. The university offers unrivaled access to world-class facilities and is a nationally
recognized faculty, with a vibrant and diverse campus community. UF is committed to enrolling a student body that includes students from around the world with six thousand plus international students in 2011.
At UF, there are more than 100 undergraduate degree programs and more than 200 graduate degree programs. The campus provides career mentoring, research opportunities, and more than 650 student organizations exist on campus. Sports are also very popular at UF, for spectators and participants, and UF offers one of the most comprehensive intramural and club sport programs in the country. The university is located in Gainesville in North Central Florida, continually ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States. The Libraries of the University of Florida form the largest information resource system in the state of Florida. Collections cover virtually all disciplines and include a wide array of formats from books and journals to manuscripts, maps, and recorded music. Increasingly collections are digital and are accessible on the internet via the library web page or the library catalog. The George A. Smathers Libraries (GAS) provides the primary support to all academic programs except those served by the Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center. To provide an idea of the scope of content, within the GAS the Library West holds collections in the humanities and social sciences, including resources supporting the College of Business, Africana Area Studies, East Asian Area Studies, and the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica. The Smathers Library holds the Latin American Collection and the
Special and Area Studies Collections that include the University Archives, the PK Yonge Library of Florida History, Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature, and the Rare Book Collection. Marston Science Library supports agriculture, engineering, mathematics, and the natural and physical sciences. The building also houses the Government Documents Department and the Map and Imagery Library. Architecture and Fine Arts Library provides collections and services for architecture, fine arts, interior design, building construction, landscape architecture, and urban design. Education Library holds education, child development, higher education, psychology, counseling, and children’s literature collections. The Music Library holds music collections including books, scores, and recorded music. UF Digital Collections comprise a constantly growing collection of digital resources from the University of Florida’s library collections as well as partner institutions. There is also the Health Science Center libraries and the Lawton Chiles legal information Centre.
My tour of Library West came about through meeting Dr Daniel Reboussin at a SCOLMA conference in Oxford University during the early part of the summer. He is Librarian of the African Studies Collections at the University of Florida. So while vacationing in the sunshine Florida State I took a five hour road trip from South to the North to Gainesville and visited the campus the same day as the First Lady-Michelle Obama. Sadly I did not have time to lunch with her! During the course of a sunny and hot afternoon Dr Dan introduced me to a
plethora of colleagues, and took me on a Library and part campus tour to the Special Collections block as well as the African Studies Centre. He was an excellent and enthusiastic guide with plenty of information at his finger tips. I met three subject librarians, the deputy-head of the Africa research centre, other librarians and members of the scanning team.There is quite a lot I could say but for those who are interested just see me and ask questions! What did leave an impression on me was the use of Library SPACE and furniture. Admittedly the library was colossal compared to the Library at Goldsmiths, accommodating their much larger student body. Library West has six floors. Floor one is stacks, floor two accommodates access services and the continuation of book stacks, floor three includes research assistance (reference) and journals, floor four is open study space and floor five host admin and librarian offices. Floor six accommodates graduate student study, with keyed access only. There is general study space on floors one to four and the open space areas particular floors two and three have moveable furniture presumably so students can arrange to their liking. There are study carrels on floor one to four.
New book shelvesThe group study area had its own distinct furniture, in type, colour and arrangement. There were areas for net surfing and this was facilitated by different furniture sets of bar like stools and high tables, elsewhere different styled and coloured furniture accommodated lap-tops and notebooks, e-readers, hand-held tablets etc, There were areas for silent study with partitioned dividers for singular study, then there was an area with soft curvaceous reclining seating in vibrant colours and low tables. There were the more conventional type of seating one would expect to see in the library environment where students could sit at tables side by side studying quietly. You would think these differing styles of furniture and colour schemes would leave an overall impression of a hotch-potch uneven type of environment but this was not the case. Each seating area had a distinct character in terms of furniture colour aesthetics, but nevertheless there seemed to be a seamless linear continuity between study areas that accommodated whatever study tools, and finding aids one might want to use at any one time while in studious
repose. Clusters of online catalogues were everywhere and it was intriguing to see double-computer monitors above desks for each student so one could swing between screens at leisure and the novel way in which the computer bases were affixed neatly under each desk seemingly hovering like sci-fi appendages.
Another thing that struck me was the noise. There was none, no mobile phone or students on mobile phones in the stairwells to trip over, the reading rooms were largely silent, maybe I was just fortunate as I meandered through the floors. The librarian did confirm that mobile phone use is designated in the stairwells; the numbers of compliance is open to debate. According to the librarian and similar to our own library it is not unusual to step over on the stairs students and their laptops in deep Skype conversations in various languages. There are free cell phone charger kiosks on the second floor so the library is not mobile hostile! According to one of the librarians, the noise on the second floor can be quite an issue from the coffee shop music which travels through the floors when
the area gets full as it typically does during mid-term and toward the end of the semester. Of course it begs the question why the music? According to the librarian the students don’t seem to mind strains of music wafting through the floors.
In terms of security staff, there is a campus police department which can be relied upon during day, and from four in the afternoon there is a private security guard on site until eleven at night. There are two guards from this time through the night, one watches the door while the other patrols each floor of the library. The library’s opening times are as follows:Monday to Thursday 24hours, Fri till 10pm, Sat till 6pm, Sun open 10amResearch assistant desk Mon-Thur till 7pm, Fri/Sat/Sun till 5pmRegarding refreshments in the library….the Library’s campus coffee contract is with Starbucks. However the success of the venture is a complex issue. It was explained that the library proposed the idea when the building was renovated, but the campus administration set up the contract without providing any direct income stream to the libraries, so
there's discomfort with the overall arrangement. Unsurprisingly the library was obliged to hire additional cleaning staff to handle the increased volume of wastage generated by the whole enterprise, “especially late at night”. Starbucks the provider considers the trade financially viable and proved by its renewal of the contract at every given opportunity. The knock on effect in terms of library usage is that there is more use of Library West during late hours compared to the Marston Science Library, which has no such outlet during the same night late hours. Starbucks stays open as long as the library is open! Further informationhttp://www.uflib.ufl.edu/librarywest/Those interested in opening hours:http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ps/hours/
Elizabeth Williams
Every Picture Tells a Story
Many of you will remember a painting that hung, until recently, on the wall by the lift on the ground floor of the old part of the library. The watercolour, painted in 1948, is of St Nicholas’ Church Deptford and is the work of John Mansbridge (1901-81) who taught Art at Goldsmiths from 1929 to 1966.The painting (see below) shows the south-west entrance to the church in the foreground, with a somewhat grim adornment to the gates of skull and crossbones. Local legend has it that these may have inspired the original Pirate Flag, but a more probable explanation is that they commemorate the hundreds of locals
struck down by the Great Plague of 1665.
The church does, however, have strong connections with the maritime history of Deptford. Henry VIII commissioned the building of the Royal Docks nearby in 1513, making the area pivotal in the development of the Royal Navy. Admiral Benbow (fans of Treasure Island will know this name!) lived nearby, and two of his sons are buried in the church. On the 4th April 1581 Queen Elizabeth 1st Knighted Captain Francis Drake on board the Golden Hind while it was moored at the docks. She would also visit the church shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 for a thanksgiving ceremony before a more formal celebration at Westminster. If you walk through the south-west entrance with its sinister headpieces (the locals call them Adam and Eve), and follow the path round to the side of the building, you will find the memorial to Christopher Marlowe. This is one of two such commemorations, the other being within the church. Marlowe was killed in Deptford Strand on the night of May 30th 1593 allegedly over an unpaid tavern bill although this explanation has long been the subject of dispute. Each of the parties there that night (there were three others besides
Marlowe) had links to the secretive and dangerous world of Elizabethan espionage, Marlowe included. Indeed he was staying at the estate of Thomas Walsingham, cousin to the late Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s Spymaster Chief, when he was arrested on May 20th (and subsequently bailed) on charges of atheism – a serious charge that could invoke the death penalty. Ingram Frizer, his alleged killer, was Thomas Walsingham’s personal servant and business agent. Whatever the truth of the matter, the world lost on that night, the only serious rival to Shakespeare, as the greatest dramatist of the age. The Marlowe Memorial Plaque with its quotation from Doctor Faustus
Even in Saxon times there was a place of worship here – a small timber church – but the first recorded Vicar of St Nicholas was Guido de Ewar in 1321. The church itself has been repaired, partly destroyed, rebuilt and expanded over the centuries. Shortly after one such major rebuilding in 1698, Tsar Peter the Great came to stay in nearby Sayes Court to learn the craft of shipbuilding. He rented
the local Manor house of the celebrated diarist John Evelyn. Evelyn would come to regret this since the noble Tsar, in the space of a few weeks, caused £350 worth of damage (thousands of pounds in today’s money) to the famous gardens and the Manor house in a series of drunken escapades. Apparently he would on occasion, be so inebriated that he would be wheeled home in a barrow, trashing, in the process, Evelyn’s prized hedgerows. Rank and nobility has its privileges! St Nicholas’ Church too has suffered great damage over the years, though not at the hands of a drunken Tsar. In more recent times the culprit was Hermann Goering’s Luftwaffe. During an air raid in the early 1940’s the roof was destroyed and the building gutted by incendiary bombs. Human nature being what it is the locals took the opportunity to indulge in a spot of grave robbing! Parts of the church were still being plundered by vandals hunting for valuables right up to the restoration and rededication of the Church in 1956 (see picture below and note the news paper cutting with the headline ‘Treasure Hunters Tear Down Church Wall’).
Fortunately the magnificent reredos, believed to be the work of the renowned wood carver Grinling Gibbons and his school of craftsmen, had been removed at the outset of
the war and stored in an underground shelter for the duration. There is a connection here with Goldsmiths because a few years ago some students, probably from the art department, carried out a cleaning and refurbishment of the whole structure. The current Reverend of St Nicholas’ Church, Louise Codrington-Marshall, has asked if more of the same type of work can be carried out by our students.
The Reredos
To complete this brief look at St Nicholas’ Church and bring full circle this largely maritime theme, there are links between Deptford’s naval history and Goldsmiths. One of the four statues on the front of the Deptford Town Hall building (with its galleon weather vane) is that of Sir Francis Drake. And, of course, the Richard Hoggart Building is on the site of the old Royal Naval School. This was founded in 1843 as a boarding school for the sons and officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. When the Naval School
relocated it sold the building to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in 1891.Acknowledgements My thanks to Reverend Louise Codrington-Marshall for her kindness and hospitality in allowing me to take pictures of St Nicholas’ Church and to look at the church archives. For a thought provoking article on the Deptford Town Hall building look online at ‘Charting a new course for Deptford Town Hall’ in Anthropology Matters Vol 10 No 1 (2008) by Goldsmiths’ post-graduate anthropology student the late Paul Hendrich. The article was completed shortly before his untimely death in a road accident. More of the work of John Mansbridge can be seen online at bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings including portraits of prominent Goldsmiths people such as Ian Gulland and Professor E. H. Warmington. Here too can be seen his paintings of Second World War pilots - he was an official war artist attached to the Air Ministry.And, finally, here is a recent photograph of the south-west entrance of St Nicholas’ Church as it is today. I will let you decide which of the skulls is Adam and which is Eve!The South-West Entrance
