What I have learn at the college

As of October 2014, I have left the North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. Just before that, I was approached by a colleague from another college to share my ideas on the college library service development. This is my reply which I have edited slightly. Though it is not a well-polished text, I believe it may be of use to a reflection on what a good college library should or may look like.

The library has to be an integral part of the college. If the college management don't see the library as the key service for developing digital literacy or promoting use of ILT/ICT in teaching and learning, there won't be much librarians can do about it. If e-learning isn't explicitly planted into the LRS structure, the best way of moving forward would be developing partnerships; for example, introducing blogging into learning practice, bidding for funding for purchasing iPads etc. Partnerships allow involving others into the library's concerns, making them co-responsible, as well as benefiting from successes.

Over the years, I have increasingly started valuing working with tutors. Certainly, there is a scope for direct involvement with students, but my experience suggests that unless such involvement relates to the course content directly, students are reluctant to make use of our best offers. To make our work relevant, we have to work with tutors.

Collection development on a shoestring

Not sure whether this may become a series of posts, Collection Development On A Shoestring. For now, just a couple of ideas.

I have been thinking about the implications of the forthcoming funding cut on learning resources in my college; I expect 40-45% drop in comparison to the last year. Two immediate ideas regarding book collection development: (1) reducing the variety of titles we purchase and (2) moving more copies to short loan and reference-only status.

1.
Collection development will have to become more focused on the most essential and only best titles. The number of their copies may stay the same or even increase. Anything additional, optional will have to go. Eventually, this may lead to better utilisation of the collection.

Last year I noticed a huge increase in enquiries for books on Marx. We’ve immediately purchased a good selection of them. Almost all were snapped by a couple of students: each could borrow up to ten different titles. If we bought just two carefully selected books, six copies each, then six students could have them at the same time. This, of course, poses a question about how strong the library’s links with tutors are and how much of help tutors can be.

The only exception I can think of is Access to HE students: they often research unusual and polemical topics, and therefore they may suffer from a too prescriptive collection development practice. E-books may be the best solution for addressing their needs. It’s easier with HE students: they normally get detailed reading lists and universities expect college libraries to provide access to the titles on those lists. Most of FE-specific programmes rely heavily or even exclusively on one textbook. Providing those textbooks may be of more importance to learners than books purchased “just in case”.

2.
More reference-only copies will be disappointing to students who don’t have time or desire to study in the library. Librarians should promote copying and scanning services the CLA licence affords us with to address – at least partially – this problem.

Libraries: from providing access to enabling and organising

Today, a college colleague of mine working on PhD asked me to help her access an article she identified on Google Scholar. My first thought was to check her university’s e-journal collection... That was a daunting task – the interface was pretty unusable; students’ reluctance to use peer-reviewed journals is not groundless, I thought.

To speed up the process, I repeated the search on Google Scholar, found six places the article was available from, one of those places was academia.edu – a social platform for research paper exchange. (The rest were paid-for platforms, we ignored them).

This made me to think that in the world were the published research becomes available free at the point of use more often, the role of libraries and librarians will be moving further towards enabling, research community organising, facilitation, advice and curation – away from offering access to the paid-for resources as their central function. Saying that, I am surprised that academia.edu was invented not by librarians – we’ve been in the business of institutional research publishing and archiving for years.

That, of course, relates to HE. For the FE sector, the picture is murky. I have just completed the last year SAR; most of the traditional KPIs (active borrowers, number of loans, even ebook usage etc.) are flat, growth happened in use of ILT/ICT equipment, PCs and learning space utilisation. If we logged IT- and study/research skills-related enquiries last year, those numbers would go through the roof too. And so, the murky picture starts getting shapes... One of my forthcoming posts will be on that.

A small reflection on budget news

Today, I sent an email to my library team. It's full of questions; I am sure the answers will start coming soon too. Slightly edited, here it is:

Last night, I went to bed thinking about cuts: additional £11,5 billion the government shaves off the public sector (1/2 billion will come off education, i.e. you and me) and – I have been told – £xx,000 of our college library budget (after licences, travel and photocopying, this means the “book budget” will be half of what we’ve had this year).

Next year will not be disastrous for the service – we’ll be leveraging on the collection built in previous years. However, we’ll have to cut magazine subscriptions and purchasing (e)books straight away.

The service will eventually become irrelevant *if we continue focusing mainly on providing learning resources* – we’ll have not enough them to satisfy the demand anyway + I think, in the situation of very limited resources, mass unemployment (i.e. many students will not be able to afford even a textbook already costing almost half of the weekly jobseeker’s allowance) etc., teaching will be moving towards freely available resources, printouts, handouts on Moodle etc.

I am both sad with the cuts and hopeful that this will prompt us, the library team, to a radical reflection. We should spend some time thinking where the future for the library service in the college may be. Here is a blog post which has stayed with me for over a month now - http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2013/05/envisioning-the-future.html Please look through it – long; read carefully the last three paragraphs. It’s talking about public libraries, but many thoughts are applicable to us as well.

The college’s mission is Transforming Lives and Unlocking Potential (I hope I remember it well) – how can the library, i.e. us, the team, be in the centre of that?

So, we need lots of creative thinking, engaged talking, supporting each other and going an extra mile where it makes sense (as well as surrendering anything that is just unnecessary balance).

Skills v. resources

For last few years I have been including elements of searching techniques (applicable to any search tools, and those techniques which are specific to Google) into my information skills sessions. I also sometimes run Google Inside-Out sessions for students and staff and the response was positive. Recently I started having doubts whether I wasn't wasting time and should have concentrated instead completely on quality resources offered by the library, especially as often I have only one chance to see learners. An article on university students' online research behaviour didn't resolve my doubts, but made me to think that the dilemma is not going to go away and that perhaps there is no easy answer to it. If we, FE librarians, positioned ourselves as those whose main role is developing traditional and digital literacies - and were perceived as such by our employers - then the answer would be easy: sure, Google should also be one of our main concerns. My colleague teaching on HE programme is adamant: HE curriculum implicitly requires librarian's input into teaching, as the expected outcomes of any course include being able to find and use relevant and appropriate information. This is not so clear with vocational programmes. I think, a distinction between an induction and information skills session is helpful: the first assumes showing available resources and services, the second - developing competencies. However, when a librarian has only one chance of seeing students, particularly FE students, what should be the priority? I am tempted to say skills, but I think the reality is not so straightforward in our sector.

In the article mentioned above I loved the point on students disguising their readings from tutors. Bring Turitin! - perhaps, would be my answer. And seminars as book clubs - it works.

And another point - students and researchers being not aware of using libraries while accessing databases, e-journals etc. The article's recipe for that: seamless access requires branding.

User-driven acquisition practice

Involving learners in shaping their college experience, including learning itself, has become an important aspect of educational process. This has affected libraries too.

A few years ago it was almost an axiom in my library that stock acquisition was driven by curriculum and tutors. The librarians kept some funding aside for replenishing the lost and damaged stock and subsidising collections for new programmes. We also kept a note of unresolved enquiries – to purchase the resources on the topics which were not covered in the library collection sufficiently enough.

On the surface, this is still mostly the same: the library allocates 2/3 of its budget to curriculum areas to spend on tutors' requests. However, the emphasis has moved heavily towards active observation of what learners borrow and enquire about. On that basis, I research available publications.  While we rarely receive requests for particular titles from learners (despite encouraging that), I keep my eyes wide open to what is borrowed. Usually this observation takes place while I am at the enquiry/issue desk or talk to users in the library. Often I check bibliographical databases (Nielsen BookData is particularly good for that) what else has been published by the same author or in the same series. It is not unusual for the library to have superseding editions of the titles on reading lists provided by tutors.

Being at the issue desk has become for me an exciting time of listening to learners: what they borrow and what they enquire about, even – sometimes – what they talk to each other about. From all that I deduce what’s in demand now and what will be in demand soon.

This all will be impossible when we - hopefully, next year - introduce a self-issue station. Interaction with users will decrease, and with that - an immediate knowledge of what they borrow and why. This is unavoidable: what I described above is not cost-effective in a middle size college library as ours. Usage reports from the LMS in universities can be informative taking into account that those libraries can employ subject libraries who can make sound judgements based on those reports. Unfortunately, this is not the case in a FE college library employing one or two librarians. Therefore, a radically new acquisition model for FE is badly needed.

Professional development and progression opportunities in FE libraries

My CoFHE Conference 2010 paper.

A year ago, when I was acting College Librarian, I had to look at the recruitment practice in my College and I was somewhat puzzled: only "good GCSEs/O-Levels" were expected from candidates for posts as Learning Resources Assistant (LRA). A minimal library-related qualification was expected from Senior LRAs.

I was puzzled because the vast number of learners coming to the library with enquiries were on programmes exceeding GCSE level. An apparent discrepancy in qualifications and skills of library support staff on the one hand, and learners’ needs – as I understood them – has bothered me. Our employers would not dream of allowing the same to happen in classrooms.

Another issue I got concerned with was the virtual impossibility for support staff to move up the ladder to professional posts in a library.

This paper is an attempt to look critically at the current situation with recruitment practice and professional progression and development opportunities in FE libraries.

Library as a means of social change

Access to learning resources will be an important issue in education in the context of addressing the socio-economic inequality that a recently passed Equality Act is talking about. I hope libraries in FE colleges will have a chance to contribute hugely to giving free and equal access to learning resources, information and IT facilities to learners from all the backgrounds.

Library in virtual learning spaces

Although academic libraries have been highly effective in supporting research, Professor McKnight said that they needed to prove equally adept at supporting learning and teaching.

This should include offering their resources to students in "virtual learning spaces" and via mobile phone as well as on site, she said.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409797&c=1

Lessons from last year

Someone on LinkedIn asked what processes have been affecting the information profession most recently. This is my immidiate impression shaped by the experience of working in FE.

Information professionals' presence in FE colleges is still valuable, but the accents are changing; the last year taught me quite a lot.

Students on lower level courses almost disappeared from the library - those on vocational programmes like construction, hairdressing, catering used to use the library quite a lot for textbooks and as a learning space. Now a lot of the content of their courses is delivered on-screen as video and interactive products become cheaper and easier to use. I do not really see a place for librarians in that context.

Sure, many of those students would benefit from reader development and literacy programmes – that’s where librarians could offer their expertise, but funding for FE programmes is restrictive in what learners can get from colleges. I have entertained myself with an idea of a book club in the College until the recession brought me back to reality.

On the positive side, HE provision is developing in FE colleges and HE students are heavy users of learning resource services – both for content and support. Also Access students come often, ask many questions and spend a lot of time in our library. The level of literacy in general and digital literacy in particular among many students is low. Even the younger ones, who are supposed to be digital natives, seriously struggle with ALL information sources. Most often I see myself as an educator who teaches and guides people to find their way in the fragmented information landscape.

Many FE libraries would benefit from diverting some money to employing professionally educated librarians. Arrival of e-books has already made a serious impact – I have never seen so many requests for Athens access and questions about referencing online sources as since E-Books for FE was launched. Somehow, people grasp the concept of e-books very quickly and (my evidence is anecdotal at the moment) use them well. The majority of other e-resources we are subscribing to now are not likely to be in use next year – they can’t compete either in quality of content or usability with e-books. I will not be surprised if part of our printed resources budget is diverted to e-books provision next year too.

This leads me to thinking about a pressing need for developing new (at least - new for FE) ways of offering enquiry services. Obviously, these will be online ones. All our students are entitled to using learning resources; the proportion of online ones will be growing steadily. Consequently, there will be fewer reasons for learners to come to the college for accessing them - they can be accessed from anywhere. They still will require support and guidance... which will be offered online in the future.

Image: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/493668

Virtual enquiry service

Time for pupils to take screen tests, says watchdog - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article6959746.ece

It is logical to assume that on-screen tests will not be the end of the story. Why not to offer on-screen GCSE and A-Level programmes - as other highel level degrees were offered as distance courses?

This poses a question for libraries: what is the place for information professionals and learning resources services in such a world? An online enquiry service comes to my mind immediately - a chat room staffed with library staff for helping and guiding learners.

It's not exactly a new idea both for education and business (when I was buying my last computer online, a member of the Apple Store team from somewhere far away guided me through the process on a virtual chat - on deciding on configuration, warranty options, cables etc. - until my payment went through; it was the best online shopping experience I've had), but it has never been - as far as I know - tested in Further Education... while the majority of our learners are already on distance courses!