Anybook - a Work of Genius

So my first task in my role as supervisor of a College Learning Resource Centre was to deal with Withdrawn Stock.
The Manager had been through the collection like the proverbial dose of salts and extracted anything 'old' and anything that had not been checked out for the last five years.  This turned out to be several thousand items.
Firstly these had to be checked by the Tutors to ensure we didn't throw away valuable reference items.
Most Tutors had been through the mountain of books before my arrival and the process of removing their records from the catalogue had begun.
In my first week, I worked with my new colleague to review the remaining items and begin removing these from the catalogue too.  Using the Heritage system for the first time I logged a query with them about the quickest way to change the status of scanned items. I was surprised to learn that there was no quick and definitive way to do this.  Using Dynix in my last role I was able to ask the system to change the status of scanned items and then go through scanning one after another. This meant that if something was not recognised in the scan it was identified immediately and set to one side.  In Heritage, the method was to scan everything to a list and then run this list through a report that would change the status. Any items that had not been recognised by the scan had to be sifted out via a second report.
Not ideal.
However, eventually all the books were withdrawn from the system and the question remained about how to get rid of them.
There were more than would fit in the municipal bins, and only a third would have been easily recycled.  It was clear the college were not keen on arranging a skip or any other method of disposal.
I began to dispair until I noticed an advert in the CILIP Update about a company called Anybook.
Basically, Anybook will take any book off your hands and will either try and sell it, or recycle it humanely.  Understandably, Anybook are very busy and couldn't come immediately, but when they did come and collect, they took everything we had withdrawn.
Do you know, even if they don't sell a single item I'll be pleased as it was a no-hassle solution to my immediate problem. I'll keep you informed if they do manage to sell anything!

So, next task, getting the Tutors interested in electronic books...

Boxing clever

I have just finished my last week in the public library and this week I have been mostly boxing up the entire collection in preparation for a refurbishment project.  Not that the library is getting refurbished as such. A new lift and a ramp, some council offices, a couple of new doors. I suspect that customers will expect new carpets and a lick of paint but may be disappointed. Unless they are wheelchair users in which case they will be pleased they can finally get into the library.

The hope is that while all this work is going on, they might finally discover why the power keeps going off!

The packing was extremely well managed and was completed inside a week ready for the removal team to take it all away.  It was made slightly easier by the fact that the stock is not going to be made accessible while off-site. Some carefully selected tomes have made it to the temporary facility (situated across the road from Mary Portas' knicker factory) but customers will be using other branches in the interim.

I have really enjoyed working in this environment which has been very different from my previous roles.  Now I'm looking for the next challenge. But first, the application forms...

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has undertaken a project where they have had to pack a library, and what were the associated challenges.

Catch 22 for the job seeker

 So I recently went through a set of interviews for an Educational establishment and also for a Legal firm. In both cases I was asked to prepare a 10 minute presentation on a topic, and in one case was recalled for a second interview.  In both cases I was very up-front about my previous experience and was happy to see that having not worked in the particular niche previously was no barrier to gaining an interview.  However, in both cases I was told afterwards that the role had gone to someone with previous experience that exactly matched the role.

So this has set me thinking about how an Information Professional with significant experience can make the leap from one sector to another.  We hear about transferable skills, but how realistic is the hope of crossing over from commercial to education, or from financial to legal roles?  I would be interested to hear from anyone who has made that transition, and how they gained the confidence of the employer, or how they gained the experience.  

Review First Draft sent to VIP Editor

I finished my first draft of the S&P Capital IQ review this weekend. Sent it off with screen shots and then almost instantly realised I hadn't even looked at the Charting features on the system.   Just checked it out on my son's PC and it seems very easy. Compile your lists and screens in the platform then select them in the charting module. My experience of creating charts from data like this is limited, as I relied on Think-Cell in the past - or sent the raw data for the end-user to massage, but it was very straightforward in Capital IQ.

Overall I really liked the product. I got some very positive feedback from users that I asked about it, particularly the Excel plug-in.

With regards the review, I know there will be lots of editing and I'm not able to include all the detail I would have liked to add, but I do have a lot of notes and a Quick Reference Guide to the plug-in so I will be happy to answer any additional questions about the functionality and my observations.

Capital Markets Brain Frazzle

So it has been a while since I last had to deal with the concept of PE ratios or Market Capitalisation, but I feel like my brain is fried. I have just finished having a whirlwind tour of Capital IQ with the Standard & Poor's marketing department, and the volume of data, and the many ways of accessing and applying it  have boggled my mind temporarily.  I'm going to have to think hard about how to structure this review.  And I have just over a week!
I'm a bit disappointed (but not surprised) that the whizzy excel plug-in doesn't work with excel for the Mac OSX. Curse you Microsoft/PC dominators!
Right, time to begin testing the system.

View from the other side of the product review

For a long time the VIP product reviews from Freepint have been a key tool in my campaign against being bamboozled by vendors. Now for the first time I have been asked to review a product for VIP and so I am having to approach it from the other side.  Trying to bear in mind what I wanted to know when I was considering my information product options.

I'm going to be looking at Capital IQ, hopefully for the April edition, but there have been a few minor delays so fingers crossed.  I am going to be attending a webex session tomorrow which will get me started on my mission.  I also plan to grill a couple of information managers that I know are regular users of the product and see what their opinions are. What might be improved? What are the real winning features?
Right now I am going to have a play on the system and see what happens.  That is if I can get the cat off my chair.

A brief return to Character-based LMS and the inevitable Public library staff consultation processes

The end of week one in the public library service.  I have to admit a certain fondness for the old Dynix system that is currently used to circulate materials around the Borough.  It looks so 'institutional' with its DOS-style interface. Thinking about it, it had probably been at least 10 years since I typed my last 'dot command'.  The planned upgrade is currently out to tender and my contract will have ended well before they select a new system but it is clear that they have a need for more flexibility in the system they choose.  Being able to access any record from any module rather than having to be at a particular screen being a major gripe for staff users.  The fact that every system on the market has conquered this issue, as well as including features the staff will never have time to develop, means that the decision is likely to come down to cost and ease of migration, rather than user needs.

The branch of the library where I spent my first week is a fine old building and of course it has accessibility issues. There are plans to carry out refurbishment works, but the date is yet to be confirmed.  The organisation of stock is interesting, and I would venture that it is not intuitive to the customers.  I realise it is down to best use of the space, but searching for an author, the book may be in the general fiction alphabetically, or in the paperback racks (loosely alphabetical), or in the Crime, Horror, or SciFi/Fantasy shelves (alphabetical again) or the crime paperback racks (organised by the Tasmanian Devil).  Unless it is Junior Fiction which could be on a different shelf downstairs, or possibly anywhere upstairs.  I consider myself to be able to master a class scheme same-day, but I admit defeat when searching for items  in these collections!

As with almost every other Borough, this one is making cuts to services, and is looking to reduce the library staff significantly.  Redundancy offers have been made and withdrawn and staff have been told to apply for whatever jobs exist after consultation and a restructuring exercise (which coincides with the end of my contract, so thankfully I am not viewed as a threat).
The team are stoically professional and there is very little evidence of the stress that they are all under.  It is unfortunate that staff who have dedicated time and effort to maintaining a useful service will more or less have to compete with each other for what remains of their jobs.  It is also sad to see that collections of materials on local history will no longer be updated. Photographs in the current collection are being scanned and presumably they will need to rely on independent local history groups to collect new data or have no new data at all.

I have met a great team in my first week and have been thoroughly trained up.  Next week I go to a different branch, with a very different customer base....

5 sites from my bookmarks bar

I was recently asked if I had any recommendations for 5 sites that I used regularly. At the moment my most frequently used sites are all careers-based job sites and I will write some thoughts on those shortly.  However, as a librarian in the commercial sector, I have had to research some bizarre questions where the only stipulation was that the sources should be free. I found myself doing a lot of macroeconomic statistics research and regularly monitoring the UK political landscape  and in doing so, I discovered sites that I still visit regularly out of personal interest in the topic.

Housepricecrash  Great for real estate or banking projects in the UK.  Collating statistics on the housing market from a number of sources. Having recently moved house, I made great use of the resources section with links on buying/selling, neighbours from hell, etc...

The World Bank  made their data freely available a while ago so this is the source I recommended most frequently to staff. The World Bank DataFinder app for iPhone/android, lets you access fifty years of World Bank data on global economic indicators, chart and visualize that data, and share those charts.

Health Policy Insight  is a great place to go for insider commentary on policies and news in the UK public health sector. Every time the UK government go through a phase of 'change' for the NHS it is essential reading.  It has frequently cut through the jargon in White Papers and commented with authority. 

Politicshome The re-branded epolitix site filters parliament, press releases, radio, TV, newspapers, websites, blogs and Twitter. They also write many newswire articles making this a very comprehensive site for UK political current awareness.

 Phil Bradley’s Blog  is a must-read for me. He covers themes such as search engine developments and applications that do clever things on the web which saves me the time researching them myself.

My Blog is a Blank

Happily, my mind is not a blank anymore. 

As I am currently a 'freelance' Librarian I have been pondering ways to keep on top of the information mountain and not be left behind by the latest developments.  In the working environment while researching the answer to an enquiry it is part of the process to find the websites that provide the best data coverage, the applications that help organise that data and the tips and tricks to presenting results to their best advantage. Outside that environment, the queries are not forthcoming and the process stops.  There is much Current Awareness to be gleaned from reading industry journals and blogs, such as can be found at Freepint, CILIP, SLA et al. But without the need to answer a question, it is hard to establish the value of a resource.

I intend to begin a review of the sites and applications that I have used over the years. Inevitably some of the sites will have shut down and some of the applications will no longer function, but I will begin looking at their replacements, and I will be seeking Interesting Questions that I can use to test these resources. 

Additionally, I will look at resources mentioned by other bloggers or by the industry specialist media such as those mentioned above.

I might also be moved to write about my efforts in looking for the right role/next step in my career. Or possibly about my garden.  The two are fighting for my attention at the moment. The information world is currently winning because it is raining.