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#libday8 – Friday

By uczcjcu, on 3 February 2012

I’m James, a full-time student on the MA Library and Information Studies course. Friday would normally be something of a day off for me, however today it appears to have become the busiest of the week. What follows is a photoblog not only of today, but of this week. I hope it gives some idea of an average(ish) day for me at UCL…

Cathedral Square, Peterborough

Monday, 7:20am: Cathedral Square, Peterborough, on my way to the station.

Endsleigh Street

Monday, 8:50am: Walking to UCL

First stop the Science Library (far right-hand side) then the DIS Common Room (left)

DIS Common Room

The DIS Common Room - rather empty pre-10am.

Information Sources lecture

10:00am: Information Sources & Retrieval lecture.

Information lecture notes

10:45am: Information Sources lecture notes - historical examples of bibliographic control.

Publishing notes

Tuesday, 4:00pm: Publishing Today lecture notes - an interesting talk on copyright (and the hefty problems of the digital age) and the legal issues of publishing. Conclusion: don't publish anything by a character from Cluedo - they're clueless.

Senate House

Friday: Spending today (as I did Wednesday) ensconsed in the Book Studies collection of the Senate House Library. Took this shot on an almost-too-beautiful for Historical Bibliography Wednesday.

 

Senate House, Book Studies

Friday, 10:00am: Making use of the Book studies collection of Senate House Library - brilliant collection housed in an amazing space. I even got some work done.

 

Private Press notes

Friday, 12:30: I decamp from Senate House to the DIS Common Room for a quick lunch then back to working on my Historical Bibliography essay. As you might be able to tell it's on the subject of Private Presses, a pretty fascinating (if complex) field.

And so my week ends with a 3:30pm train back to Peterborough.

A special thanks to my fellow MA LIS students for putting up with my camera for the week, letting me photograph them and add the photos here.

#libday8 – Thursday

By uczcwae, on 2 February 2012

This blog entry is part of a series of posts by DIS students for the Library Day in the Life Project.

I’m a full time student on the Library and Information Studies MA. As compatriots Jennifer and Annie mention below, one of our modules for the spring term is Management. For one assignment, we are to examine the legal issues surrounding an imagined scenario encountered by a library. So this morning I have spent my time trying to get to grips with the Data Protection, Freedom of Information, and Copyright acts and how, if at all, these legislations apply to unpublished material authored by deceased persons.

These acts of Parliament embody core liberal values such as rights to ownership, privacy and freedom. Over the past months, we have seen a conflict between these important values exposed and most upsettingly abused to justify private gain by some press. The pursuance of freedom at all costs compromises privacy and vice versa. The key is striking a balance, and for the information professional, weighing up the risks under the constraints of limited time and resources.

For this assignment and others my tutors need not be worried; I don’t attend adopt the ‘lob it in’ method as demonstrated by one distinguished tabloid editor. I can sympathise though, although not wholeheartedly. From my little experience so far working in two high-profile organisations both scrutinised and regulated extensively, important decisions concerning the management of information are made daily. I have been afforded the time for this assignment to research the legal issues surrounding an imagined scenario, but in the real world time is of the essence and there is often little of it to go around. I am beginning to understand that knowledge of the law on these matters and the nouse to weigh risks appropriate to the size and type of the organisation are vital skills for the information professional, especially with fewer barriers to access information and greater expectation than ever before.

From legislation to ligature: students on the MA course are required to choose two optional modules and for one of which I chose Manuscripts Studies. This is unlike anything I’ve studied before and that’s why chose it.  So this evening and to end my #libday8 I will spend it distinguishing minuscule from majuscules, uncial from cursive, the quire from its inserted singleton and appreciating the finer aspects of the medieval Insular script.

#libday8 – Wednesday

By Ellen Allardice, on 1 February 2012

This blog entry is part of a series of posts by DIS students for the Library Day in the Life Project.

I’m a third year modular student on the MA Library and Information Studies course at UCL. This year I am working on my dissertation, having completed the taught part of the course over the past two years.  For the dissertation, I have chosen a topic area that I found particularly interesting – Bibliography.  My choice of the Historical Bibliography module as an option was unexpected, as I had intended to focus on IT related topics.  However a visit to the National Art Library at the V&A (recommended by a librarian at work) inspired me to change at the start of my second year.    I remember being enthralled by the display of the early manuscripts and various editions of Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

For my dissertation, I am exploring the history and development of bibliography as a field of study, and will be looking at its major achievements, for example the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC).  Also, I want to investigate if and how the discipline has influenced contemporary digital age projects, to see if bibliography is still relevant today.  This involves a lot of reading!

 

I start the morning by listening to a podcast of  ‘The Scientific Method’, a programme in the In Our Time series broadcasted on Radio 4 last Thursday (recommended by Lyn Robinson from City University via twitter).  This interested me as it was in the early 20th century that bibliography was first promoted as a distinct scholarly field focusing on a rigorous, scientific approach.   I found the broadcast useful as it was apparent that there are parallels between the evolution of ‘the scientific method’ and changes to approaches in bibliography.  When this has finished, I continue reading up on the history of bibliography until it is time for lunch and then work.

I work part-time for Hertfordshire Public Library Service, and today is my late shift at Hatfield library.  On Wednesday, we hold a Story and Rhyme Session for the under-fives, so the early afternoon is always very busy but rewarding!  Today I also spend time with a colleague that I am supervising for the Frontline online course by Opening the Book Ltd.  The course is designed to “embed the reader-centred approach in the everyday thinking of staff who work directly with books and readers in public libraries”. Today we discuss how best to recommend and promote books that we do not like reading ourselves!

#libday8 – Tuesday

By uczcjye, on 31 January 2012

This blog entry is part of a series of posts by DIS students for the Library Day in the Life Project.

My day at library school began with my usual commute into London from Watford, which is a quick and easy train journey into Euston station, followed by a short walk to UCL. On Tuesday mornings, everyone who is taking the MA in Library and Information Studies attends lectures on Management, and during the first half of today’s lecture we were looking specifically at strategic planning. We learned about the various processes which are necessary for the creation and implementation of a strategic plan, and we identified the ways in which the current economic and political climate was likely to have an impact on strategic planning within libraries.

The second half of our Management lecture usually takes place in a different room, which today meant that we had to brave the cold and snowy conditions in order to make our way to the other side of campus. Once seated again in the lecture theatre, we were given a lecture on professional ethics and on our responsibility as librarians to ensure that concern for the public good underpinned all of our planning and policy-making activities.

During the final part of the lecture, we were set a group work assignment to write a mission statement and a strategic plan for the imaginary libraries that we had created as part of the Collection Management module last term. Each group will eventually have to produce an assessed portfolio on these libraries, which will include details on budget, service planning, recruitment and management structures.

After the lecture, most of us retreated to the DIS common room for lunch and hot drinks as it was still extremely cold outside! I have a free afternoon on Tuesdays because I take my optional module in Web Publishing on a Friday, so I decided to spend the rest of the day in the Library reading up on copyright law in preparation for my Management essay on legal issues in libraries.

Today was a longer day than usual for me because I attended a workshop in the evening on how to run a school book club. The UCL Schools Book Club is a volunteering group which runs lunchtime book discussions at secondary schools in and around London and I have decided to take part in this in order to gain some additional experience of working with young people. At the meeting tonight we were each assigned to a school which had requested volunteers, and so it looks like I will soon be co-running a book club for A-Level English Literature students, which should be both exciting and challenging!

 

#libday8 – Monday

By Annie Johnson, on 30 January 2012

This is the first in a series of posts by DIS students for the Library Day in the Life Project.

I’m Annie, a full time student on the MA Library and Information Studies course. Full time LIS students have just got back from a two week work placement, and we’ve just handed in all of last term’s coursework, and started a new set of modules. This term for me consists of Information Sources and Retrieval, Management, Publishing Today and Cataloguing and Classification II (which follows on from the introductory module last term).

I don’t live in London so my day started with a train journey in from Hertfordshire. It’s not a bad commute, and I usually while away the time quite happily reading or checking emails etc.  Today I came into UCL an hour before my first lecture in order to get some books out from the Science Library and make a start reading for an essay on legal issues facing libraries.

Foster Court and Science Library

Our department is on the left, and the Science Library over on the right.

I had two lectures today. This morning’s was with Lyn Robinson from City University on the history of information retrieval tools, from ancient Mesopotamia to the present day. The people on our course come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and those with previous degrees in archaeology, history, and English literature were all at times called upon to add to the discussion. Alas, my music degree didn’t do me much good in this situation!

After lunch I had one of my optional modules this term, Cat & Class II.

At the moment we are doing the classification part of the course with Vanda Broughton, looking at thesaurus construction and controlled vocabulary. I’m finding this quite interesting and after today’s lecture I think I might do one of my assignments for this module on this topic.

And that was the end of my #libday8, time to get on the train again and go home. Other DIS students will be taking turns to blog each day this week, so watch this space!

Library [School] Day in the Life

By Anne Welsh, on 29 January 2012

This week is the eighth round of Library Day in the Life, a blogging and microblogging communal diary initiative started in July 2008 by Bobbi Newman.

As it says on the project wiki, “It’s a great way for students who are interested in the library profession to see what we really do.” I thought that prospective librarians might be just as interested to see what happens at library school, and, now that our student blog is fully operational, several of this year’s cohort have agreed to blog some of their activities here.

Look out for posts this week from Ellen Allardice, James Curtis, Karina de la Garza Gil, Annie Johnson, William Earp and Jennifer Yellin.

If you want an idea of the sort of things they might have to say, take a look at Helen Doyle’s ‘My Week’ column in Library & Information Update, February 2011 (close-up of cutting here) and Sarah Maule’s blogging for libday6 (week commencing 24 January 2011). Sarah also blogged libday7 in July 2011, when she was completing her MA LIS dissertation and working full time.

 

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Image: UCL Portico on graduation day 2011.

 

#uklibchat – Libraries in 2012

By Annie Johnson, on 27 January 2012

One of the more brilliant things about Twitter is the hashtag. Not only can you see all tweets tagged with a certain hashtag, but these tweets are displayed in chronological order, as a timeline. This allows you to chat in real time with other people using the same hashtag.

#uklibchat is a fortnightly Twitter chat for librarians. An agenda is created in a Google Doc before each session, and anyone can add questions to it. During the actual chat, a moderator will ask the questions to lead the discussion.

The first #uklibchat this year was on the subject of “Libraries in 2012”. It was a really positive discussion, with the first question asking everyone to share their greatest achievement in 2011. We keep hearing so much about library cuts and closures that it can be easy to forget all of the positive things that librarians are doing!

@uklibchat Probably going from Saturday Public Library Assistant to Graduate Trainee. It’s given me so much more experience! #uklibchat

— Adam M (@adamm1988) January 12, 2012

Other questions focused on library-related resolutions for 2012, challenges facing libraries in future, and technological developments we expected to see in the coming year. While the first resolution I thought of was a simple “pass this degree!”, other participants had quite a variety of wishes and goals, some of which is very wise advice which I will be attempting to follow.

I have found #uklibchat a great way to meet other information professionals. A lot of the people tweeting are new professionals, graduate trainees or students, and so it is very easy to join in the conversation.

The next chat will be on Thursday 9th February from 6.30-8.30pm. The topic hasn’t been announced yet, but will be posted on the #uklibchat blog, together with the link to the agenda.

Best Paper

By Anne Welsh, on 11 July 2011

Thanks to Sue Hill Recruitment for pointing out that Katie Birkwood (MA LIS 2008) and Naomi Herbert won the prize for best paper at this year’s New Professionals Conference.

The slides for paper, ‘Teaching old books new tricks: how special collections outreach can help you, your career, and your library’ are available from Katie’s blog. Naomi Herbert has also posted them, along with the interesting observation that “Despite a marked emphasis on Twitter throughout the conference, the presentations that got the audience vote were those that put emphasis on engaging people face to face or building a network outside of your usual ‘followers.'”

 

If you are an alumnus of one of our courses and have news to share, please send an email, including your course and year of graduation to the address on our ‘About’ page.

 

Photo: Biddy Fisher presenting Katie and Naomi with their award, by Sarah Ison.

Out of Bounds

By Anne Welsh, on 4 July 2011

Tomorrow MA LIS student Sian Prosser is presenting a paper at the Early Book Society and York Manuscripts Conference Out of Bounds: Mobility, Movement and Use of Manuscripts and Printed Books, 1350-1550. Sian’s paper is entitled ‘Used treasure: manuscript waste in the bindings of Ripon Cathedral Library, including a newly-discovered fragment of Brunetto Latini’s Livres dou tresor‘. She is continuing her research into the Ripon Cathedral binding fragments this summer for her Masters dissertation.

 

Image: from the Playing the Margins tumblog.

 

 

Learning to Catalogue

By Anne Welsh, on 2 July 2011

MA LIS student Jennifer Howard has had an article published in the latest issue of Catalogue & Index, the main practitioner journal for cataloguing in the UK:

Jennifer Howard. ‘Learning to catalogue in 2010-11’. Catalogue & Index 163: 10-11.

Given the topic, it may be of interest to students enrolling for this year’s MA LIS, alongside Genny Grim’s and Sarah Maule’s accounts in Catalogue & Index 162.

SLAIS alumnus Lorraine Mariner also has an article in the current issue:

Lorraine Mariner. ‘RDA and the small, specialist library’. Catalogue & Index 163: 12-13.

The current year’s issues of Catalogue & Index can be accessed online by members of Cilip’s Cataloguing and Indexing Group. (Previous years are open access). UCL subscribes to Catalogue & Index, and registered users can access issues from 1998 to date via the UCL ejournals service.

 

Image: Cataloguing and Indexing Group