I mentioned some software training, last Thursday.

At TheOldPlace we had some mindmapping software called Inspiration (and MindManager as well, but Inspiration was what was on the network for all staff and students).

Here we have something called MindGenius which I've struggled to use as flexibly as Inspiration although it does produce more TonyBuzanish mindmaps. I just don't seem to be able to move things on a page as I might wish. A couple of weeks ago I'd been to see someone across the road who was apparently an expert on the software in the hopes that he might be able to help.

Turns out I don't need to worry, the lot who now inhabit the remaining new bit of extension (dealing with those working up to a real degree) were just about to buy Inspiration for the uni network. Better yet it was a much newer version that is much whizzier!

Great news. Though the downside was, of course, that when it did appear on the network last week, I was the 'instant' expert and volunteered to lead the training on it.

Oh dear.

My diary has had, writ large for some time, that today was supposed to a late night. Here till 2045.

So I came in at lunchtime as is traditional (and yes, felt guilty about missing the team meeting), only to find that another colleague had left a message after my 'apologies' at the meeting saying she was doing the late night.

Turns out I'm on in a fortnight. I shall probably do my penance by coming it at 9 and doing 12 hours (maybe with a long lunch break).

Still, I'd rather think I was on only to find I'm not, than to miss being there when I should have been. And in that vein, the Head told me that when he'd been a junior member of staff, he'd managed to completely fail to turn up for a Saturday duty once. C'est la vie.

Desperately busy week with lots of training and preparing for such sessions. I'm not going to try and catch up the whole week I'm afraid. Suffice to say, there's not been enough time to fit everything and for once I've actually taken work home.

Partly because there always seems to be so much to fit into the tiny gaps that might remain in my diary, partly because I get a fair number of 'interruptions' from students knocking on the door with shorter or longer requests, and partly because at least two of the sessions this week have been new topics for me which is always stretching.

One was a lunchtime and then an evening session on 'Good Googling'. Not many signed up for the slots but then quite a few came as a drop in. Must have 25 all told which wasn't bad for something that isn't assessed. Seemed to go well as well - but I did spend a fair bit of time preparing. I may use Google a lot, but I'm not an expert.

Another session involved training colleagues on a new bit of software. Inspiration - a mindmapping tool. I'll save the longer story behind that for another day, but scary though it is doing anything in front of colleagues this seemed to go down reasonably well and managed to be vaguely inspirational as well as merely informational. I even managed to use the software itself to present the presentation - if you see what I mean - which may be worth exploring for student training.

Attended some in house training all morning about higher level abilities of students. Not merely about their learning but about how they learn.

Good external speaker but quite a 'high level' approach which meant that although the content was fine, I didn't find it an easy morning.

On the other hand, things he said or got us doing kept sparking off ideas of ways of engaging students and I made a list of at least three things I intend trying out with some post-graduate students on Monday. So despite work piling up faster than I feel I can get rid of it or through it, it was a valuable morning.

Ahhhhh!

Valentine's Day and some thoughtful (student?) had decided to hide chocolates amongst the shelves with heart shaped notes attached. Fortunately my office colleagues were happy with the caramel so I could enjoy a rather nice dark chocolate. Although it provoked an interesting debate on the safety of such gifts, we all decided we'd take the risk!

If I'm not here tomorrow - you know why!

Back in October I spoke to a group of computing students who were directly entering the 3rd year from other universities.

Another lot has their induction today. When I say a 'lot', I'd been told up to 30. In the event it was only half a dozen. What I'd also not been told or realized myself was that the half dozen were all amongst the international students I saw yesterday. There goes the first 10 minutes of my talk.

Still, it meant I could directly to the 'meat' of what I was showing them and finish a bit earlier without having to feel rushed. But note to self: next year expect the international students!

Back at TheOldPlace we had a marvellous whiteboard that could do some clever things (when the software worked) but I was vaguely aware we weren't using it to its full potential. I kept hearing from people who worked in schools and even kindergarten that they did whizzy things with theirs).

I was amused to learn when I arrived here that our library training room has an identical whiteboard. And identical software. So I became the instant expert on it and could demonstrate what little I knew it could do. (Touch typing on a giant virtual keyboard perhaps a foot wide always seems to amuse).

Fortunately a colleague here however was also aware they could do more and did some investigation. As a result we had some training this morning from the whiteboard company and the trainer also downloaded/installed [1] updated software that owners of the boards are entitled to.

Well, we'd expected no more than an hour if that, but were completely blown away by a morning of him showing us not just what it could do and applying it to our own teaching; but also by his enthusiasm for that and the pedagogy of why and what we were doing. He was one of those trainers that inspires you about the topic at hand but also about so much more. If only all teachers were like that.


[1] Naturally requiring the onsite presence of an IS guy to get round the blocks etc.

Next Monday I'll be speaking to some research students in the faculty. 30 of them as part of their 'research skills' course.

To see how I fitted in and what they were like and what they'd be expecting, I thought I'd go to the first of the sessions which was today. Chinese academic, K, with a most beautiful voice is responsible for them all, so I could have listened to her all day. But it was well worth going to find out what was in store and be much better armed for next Monday.

Back at TheOldPlace I rarely spoke to students at this level in numbers greater than 1, so it was encouraging to see K demonstrating I didn't need to be talking to them at too high a level. She even showed me around some workshops in the faculty after the session so I learned a bit more about where everyone is (and what they're doing) which was also useful.

Saw some international students today. About 30 of them - from all over the world. They were getting their uni induction and I was the library segment of that. 5-10 minutes I'd been told. I was last after a student told them about student life, a study skills promotion, the chaplaincy etc.

Not often I get a chance to do greetings in a dozen languages and it's both useful and appropriate! Just about managed to do it without any critical errors. (Though I did manage to mistake the German "cat jump" for a "duck jump" - don't know where that came from. I can't even recall why I was trying to say something was a "stone's throw away" anyway.)

As no one else is likely to blow my trumpet for me, I'd just like it noted that I (uniquely) got a round of applause after my presentation. I'd been particularly pleased with a nicely building/fading PowerPoint slide with the different floors of the library, and a photo that showed an iceberg only for a 'reveal' to then show the underwater extent of the 'berg. (The point being that the physical resources you can see in the library are only a fraction of what we have if you include electronic material.)

I wish them well in their time here.

Visit with the VC seemed to go off well enough.

Not entirely sure we ever moved beyond spin and soundbite answers, but I was able - and felt brave enough - to ask some questions I'd not have had a chance to ask otherwise (for example, why the library's name had been removed, and how he obtains his information needs). I got a quote or two and some information that might be useful for the article I'm completely failing to write at present.

Great office though. His PA had three times the room I do and I reckon you could live in the space he occupies. Great wall of bookshelves that weren't jam packed but full enough. The rest of the room fairly uncluttered. A large conference table and views of the city from a fourth floor.

He seemed affable enough, it's just weird how similar in both looks and mannerisms he is to my old boss (who's now retired to the sun I hear).

Oh and the answers to the questions above?
- better branding for the library and uni as a whole (greater visibility in the city)
- "I have people who do that"

Disappointing email this morning from the computer folk.

It wasn't so much the content: "no there are no university plans for a migration to Vista", no "immediate plans" for Office 2007, and Internet Explorer's not on the cards either.

It was more the tone of it with "must not be installed" peppering it's content, clear 'advice' that students doing their own thing wouldn't be supported, and so on. I know that 'words' (see previous post!) aren't IT people's thing but just for once some 'spin' might have been welcome.

Day off today, thanks to a late night following a theater trip last night.

Gives me a chance to muse on the subject of muses. Having struggled to write six sentences yesterday that I was very unhappy with, and then two sentences which I was much happier with, I was aware of two things:

First a voice in the back of my head telling me the rubbish sentences were rubbish. I'm sure the voice was one I recognized: S a former colleague from TheOldPlace who was good at pointing out where words/phrases/sentences could be much improved.

Second a realization regarding the lack of S, who - if not likeminded [1] - was at least one of those people you've learned to work with in a particular way. I've not located someone similar who I can bat ideas around with until we've beaten them into submission and got something on the page that is respectable.

So here's to muses, past and future, with gratitude. Long may your wordmastery continue!




[1] Probably fairer to say we could disagree about almost anything!

Some time ago I suggested an article on our library extension should be written for our professional magazine. I didn't feel qualified to write it but could suggest a few things it might cover.

Eventually I produced a mindmap of what it might contain, dug out several old issues of the magazine containing articles that covered the same kind of ground as this one might, spotted (and cited) quotes that might be useful, and passed everything on to the senior librarian who'd been volunteered to do it (he's on a level with my boss).

Today I got it all back as nothing had happened and it was now down to me to try to write something for which "details would be filled in afterwards". A kind of 'lorum ipsum' text that DTP workers might be familiar with.

It's proving harder than I imagined - or I have writer's block - after a fair stab at it today.

As displacement activity, however, one corner of the mindmap suggested an interview with the VC on the new extension might provide a quote or two (and give me the chance to ask with a bit more subtlety why the library name was removed and we're just "the university library" now.) Anyway, it was easy enough to fire off an email asking whether this was possible, without thinking through the reality of doing such a thing. I'm not sure I really expected a positive response in any case.

No such luck. Wednesday afternoon. Better bring my best tie to work.

Another long team meeting today. I still can't get the hang of Friday afternoons. Not my best time. Never mind after a drink at lunchtime. And then to get back to the office to find a ton of email piled up. No chance of leaving at 5pm so (thanks to buses) might as well do another half hour. And this after staying till 6 last night. Still morning break in the new cafe with sister was good.

Team meeting included what will probably be us postponing federated searching for a bit. We had a detailed demonstration yesterday of three possible products and none of them quite seemed to do what we wanted them to do. It really feels like a technology that hasn't quite arrived yet. I wondered aloud why Google wasn't offering something to libraries that would do the trick. I think we're going to ask them now!

Random thoughts:

trolleys:
I don't know how many there are here - 40 something? But it seems to be on a completely different scale to TheOldPlace where there might have been half a dozen, 8? The upside is that there's always one when you want one; the downside is that when - as now - not many are in use there's a vast trolley park under the stairs (just visible from where I sit actually) that looks like a breakers' yard for unwanted cars!

shelving:
I had a go at this the other day for the first time (shame on me! but it is a bit uncultural here for the likes of me to go anywhere near it). I don't plan on doing a lot, but it is helpful and therapeutic at the same time. Helpful in getting to know the stock and it's usage; therapy in being a fairly undemanding job mentally when your brain can have a chance to process other thoughts and your body can get a bit of much needed physical exercise. And it's NOT in front of a computer!

shelves:
I may not love (it's ok to be honest) the green shelving we have here in the old part of the library, but I do like the book ends we have which are attached to the bottom of the shelf above; can be easily moved, don't fall over if the books are too heavy and just seem to work well. See - I wouldn't have even noticed these if I hadn't done some shelving.

shelvers:
I don't have numbers to hand but I think there are more of these employed (as well as loans team and floor team people working on it) so books waiting to be shelved never seem to get quite as badly stacked up as I recall at TheOldPlace. Of course, I just may not have seen busy time yet.

Dewey order:
what *is* good when you have a trolley load of books to shelve is that they've already been put in Dewey order by the shelving fairies. Very nice.

interruptions:
if I get interrupted (particularly by a certain unnamed colleague who just doesn't seem to stop or know when to even think about stopping) as badly as I have been this afternoon, I just might possibly go mad.

Well that's that. I'm officially exhausted. But we're officially opened.

Everything went well. Great speech from our crime writing novelist up on the podium. Despite being 80 odd I understand she was very coherent and spritely.

All the tours seemed to go off without a hitch. I even had my former bosses' boss on my tour. Made for some interesting asides and a bit tacked on at the end where I showed her more 'behind the scenes'.

But now I've deflated and am way past ready to go home...