Paris

Unfortunately this library in Paris was closed when I attended (it was a Sunday November 2nd). More information on French libraries can be found at http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/France.html

Workshop on Web 2.0 -- London

This was a really great workshop. More later. Organised by CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers) this workshop was called Web 2.0: building on the basics. The programme covered: An introduction to the range of Web 2.0 resources available Doing more with blogs – images and audio and more Using storage/filing services and webpage creation tools. What these are, how they can be used and a practical exercise in creating start pages and collaborative websites. Using bookmarking services, web monitoring tools and group search engines, including practical exercise Introduction to wikis and how these can be used to disseminate/alter information within an organisation or group. Social networking services such as Facebook - how do these fit in? Latest developments in the field

Oxford

My final library visit was to The Bodleian Library (the main research library of the University of Oxford, and one of nearly 40 libraries within Oxford University Library Services). Web site - http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley

Outisde Oxford University's Bodleian Law Library

Now this is what our library needs -- bicycle storage at the Law Library



My contact was Ruth Bird (left in the photo) at the Bodleian Law Library (http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law). You can see details of the law library staff at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/about_us/staff. Ruth is a close in law of Peter Bird and an ex colleague of Kerry Vickers. She was asking when Peter Bird would be in Oxford.

Helen Garner (not not the author) and Angela Carritt in the Law Library staff room (yes they have one -- and any staff member who has been on holidays brings back a treat for all to share. I had some chocolate biscuits that Ruth brought from France).
Angela demonstrated some useful web 2.0 applications, as well as Primo and Metalib. You can see a blog at http://lawbod.wordpress.com and see the use of pageflakes at http://www.pageflakes.com/law.library/24255815

Oxford’s libraries are among the most celebrated in the world, not only for their incomparable collections of books and manuscripts, but also for their buildings, some of which have remained in continuous use since the Middle Ages. Among them the Bodleian, the chief among the University’s libraries, has a special place. First opened to scholars in 1602, it incorporates an earlier library erected by the University in the fifteenth century to house books donated by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester. Since 1602 it has expanded, slowly at first but with increasing momentum over the last 150 years, to keep pace with the ever-growing accumulation of books and papers, but the core of the old buildings has remained intact
You can read about the history of the library at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/about/history
The library room was taken over by the Faculty of Medicine in 1556 but it (the library) was rescued by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), . He married a rich widow whose husband had made a fortune from trading in pilchards and, in his retirement from public life, decided, in his own words, to ‘set up my staff at the library door ..."

The Library offers an online "Ask a librarian" service at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/ask
This involves an online form with fields for name, enquiry etc. Enquiries can also be emailed directly to reader.services@bodley.ox.ac.uk
Some online self paced guides for database use have been developed at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/training/database_guides. These tutorials provide instructions on the use of specific databases and the user progresses through them by clicking on a continue button. At the end of the instruction the user clicks on close this unit.
Students are welcome to use their laptops in the Library and are advised to buy a lock to secure their laptop whilst here. The Library has both an ethernet and wireless network so that they can access the WWW -- see http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/computing/laptops
The library specifies some minimum service standards for weekends and evenings. See - http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/service_standards
For example staff are expected to answer catalogue enquiries but are only able to offer help with such things as computers and printing at the discretion of the Assistant Librarian in charge on the day. Term Time Opening Hours are Monday - Friday 9am - 10pm, Saturday 10am - 6pm, Sunday 11am - 6pm.
Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

South Birmingham College

This photo shows South Birmingham College librarian Jan Hillier with myself. Thanks Jan for hosting an interesting visit, the coffee and the map!!

South Birmingham library staff Jan Hillier and Steve Spence.

My latest visit was to South Birmingham College library (website http://gateways.sbc.ac.uk/gateways/index.php?menu=2&submenu=1)

This college library is similar to ours in size and faces similar challenges to us in terms of noise v quiet, computers v social learning, external access to electronic databases, attracting trade apprentices etc. One interesting point I discovered was that disabling a student's computer account had a remarkable affect on the return of overdue books. The client population is much more multicultural than ours and resources for English as a second language are important.

Although now organisationally separated the library and the Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) seem to have a good level of integration.

Uni of Huddersfield

This photo shows Lynn Barrett (Academic Librarian), Dave Worboys (Academic Librarian), myself, Dave Pattern (Systems Manager), and Graham Stone (Electronic Resources Manager) at the University of Huddersfield.

My 6th visit was to The University of Huddersfield West Yorkshire, England. It has around 20,000 students. The Chancellor is the actor Patrick Stewart, who is originally from Mirfield. See photos of Patrick Stewart opening the refurbished library.

The people here gave us a very hospitable welcome and a great gift pack which included a phrase book for Yorkshire English (very useful) -- thanks for everything.

The library has been extensively refurbished. See photos from 2007 and 2008.
The library provides an "ask a librarian" service (online).
The University of Huddersfield Repository is an electronic archive of the University's research output. See http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/
RSS feeds for this are set up.
The library catalogue is at http://webcat.hud.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=cls#focus
This is a Sirsi/Dynix Horizon System. You can subsribe to an RSS feed for a particular search. The most popular keywords are displayed in a "tag cloud". There have been various Web 2.0 add ons to the catalogue.

The Library Systems Manager here is Dave Pattern -- He is well respected in the library world. His blog is at http://www.daveyp.com/blog/ -- See his Library 2.0 ideas.
His "published" works included Are you happy with your OPAC
He was also the bass player in a band "The Headmen"
http://www.daveyp.com/blog/archives/category/the-headmen
Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Finally the weekend

Michael Schack (left) with John Lennon outside the Cavern in Liverpool. John looks a bit darker than I remember.

Facebook symposium

Thanks to the staff at JMU Liverpool I was able to attend a symposium "Facebook -- a network, a research tool, a world". Great presentation by Jane Secker of the LASSIE project (not the dog) --Libraries and social software in education. Tell you more later.



This wasn't on my original schedule but was a great opportunity while in Liverpool (who said I am not seeking out extra work activities?