Tom Roper's Weblog

Online: Libqual+

I went to Online at Olympia yesterday. The exhibition itself was the usual scrum, but there is nothing like wearing a badge saying Tom Roper, Unemployed, for protecting oneself against people trying to sell you things.
Much more interesting than the exhibition was the Health Libraries Group event, a presentation by Lucy McCaskie of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, entitled From radar to radiant users, a review of a pilot of the Libqual+ survey suite with English health libraries. Lucy's presentation is going up on the HLG website, so I shan't give a full account. But very topically, in the light of the RIN study on researchers and discovery services , which Lorcan Dempsey neatly summarises as "researchers [...]- want discovery services to be supported by effective delivery services. They want to be able to get what they find, " the key finding was that users thought library services bad at making electronic resources available to them from their offices or homes. More positively users had a high opinion of the courtesy and caring attitude of library staff, and their attention to individual users. But being courteous and caring will not get us very far if we don't have the resources our users need to do their jobs.
Lucy told us that Libqual+ was developed in the US by the Association of Research Libraries, covering three areas, affect of service, information control and the library as place. Administered through a webpage, the survey asks users to rate 22 core statements on three different scales, so is time-consuming. Ten libraries took part in the pilot, organised by the National Library of Health (NLH), nine NHS libraries, well-distributed geographically including libraries in acute trust, primary care and mental health services, as well as the Royal College of Nursing Library Services. The participating services e-mailed staff in their organisations to ask them to take part. Only 743 surveys were completed, and 25% of those who started a survey completed it, but 53% added comments to their submissions.
The survey data is offered in radar charts. NLH did not undertake a central analysis, so it was left to individual services to look at their data. In Gloucestershire Lucy and colleagues were able to implement some immediate changes, such as to stock, signs and desk cover, and incorporated other findings into their action plan, such as advertise services better, branding services more distinctively to distinguish them form others. They have also used the data in bargaining for better funding for the service and to manage users' insatiable appetite for resources. Lucy asked if the analysis work should be done by librarians, or by statisticians. Now they have baseline data, the survey need sot be repeated at regular intervals. however NLH seem to be thinking of devising their own customer satisfaction instrument. In discussion Lucy told us that Libqual+ took up approximately 60 staff hours. It is a complex survey, and the importance of using other methods such as focus groups was mentioned.

Technorati Tags: libqual , oi06, onlineinformation2006, RIN

My brilliant career

It's nearly nine months since I worked (apart from some minor consultancy, for which I have yet to be paid, for the National Library of Health, which ceased abruptly; compassionate leave is not a familiar concept in that organisation). I've been doing an analysis of the jobs I've applied for, a total of thirty over that period. Perhaps I should have applied for more, but bear in mind my mother's illness and death ate into the time available.
So here's the data:
Interview strike rate (interviews/applications submitted): 33.3%

Of individual employers, the prize must go to that prestigious national institution, the British Library, who have failed to shortlist me for anything although I have applied for four jobs with them since the summer, all jobs for which I thought I fitted the person specification rather well.

Sectors:

Civil service: 6.6%
Higher education: 33.3%
National organisations: 40%
Private sector: 16.6%

Subjects; not all posts can easily be described as subject specific, but of these:

Health: 35.7%
Law: 14.2%
Art: 7.1%
Development studies: 7.1%
Economics; 7.1%
Literature; 7.1%
Music: 7.1%
Science: 7.1%

46% were conventional library-based jobs. Only four (13%) came through the agencies I'm using, and of these three came from Sue Hill, but only one from InfoMatch.
I am not asking for anything outrageous as a salary. Most of the posts would have paid less than my last one, and the average salary is well below. I do not require any unusual perquisites, such as having my pay cheque delivered in an ocelot-lined envelope by beautiful veiled princesses.
I have more to say, particularly on the parasitic nature of employment agencies and I have some alarming examples of employers' bad practice to offer; they must wait for another post.

Addendum: I haven't mentioned the location of these posts. 63% were in London, 23% in Brighton or other parts of East Sussex and the remainder in the home counties.

Technorati Tags: britishlibrary, employment, jobsearch

CILIP communities

Phil Bradley mentions the CILIP communities and says, rightly, that we should make much more noise about them.
I was part of the pilot, but it's now open to all CILIP members. I think part of the problem is that closed communities like these communities are by their nature more inward-looking than the world of blogs that Phil and I inhabit. While that may allow CILIP members to feel safe, it may also make us less inclined to talk to the world outside.

Technorati Tags: cilipcommunities

Message in a ballad

I have always enjoyed Private Passions, the thinking man or woman's Desert Island Discs, in which the composer Michael Berkeley asks guests about their musical passions. I was very pleased to come across a copy of a book, anthologising guests' selections for all the series so far, and read it as I sat with my mother in hospital. There's now a new series and in today's programme David Gordon, Dean of Manchester medical school was interviewed. Gordon and Berkeley discussed the link between medicine and music, always interesting, and playing a Schoenberg arrangement of Johann Strauss the younger’s waltz Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses from the South), surprising for one hardly expects the austere and cerebral members of the Second Viennese School to trouble themselves with frivolous waltzes.
For the first time I can recall, a guest brought a scientific paper with him. Unfortunately the programme did not give any details, still less a citation, but the paper was about how important musical taste can be in forming relationships; that in itself is not surprising, everyone will remember the significance shared cultural tastes are in the early stages of relationships, and that is doubtless why patrons of internet dating sites go into such detail about their artistic, musical and literary favourites. The interesting thing about this research was that it demonstrated that these judgements were accurate: "observers were able to form consensual and accurate impressions on the basis of targets’ music preferences".
I believe this research to be the following paper:
Psychol Sci. 2006 Mar;17(3):236-42 Message in a ballad: the role of music preferences in interpersonal perception.
Rentfrow PJ, Gosling SD.
PDF here

What, I wonder, does my last.fm profile say about me?

Technorati Tags: internetdating, schoenberg, taste, waltz

Librarians in the Guardian

It's Online next week, so the Guardian Work Supplement has a feature, career focus: Information Professionals. It looks as if they couldn't be bothered to put it on the web site though, which is strange.

Update, Monday 1340: Richard Nelsson of the Guardian comments below that it is now up, at http://money.guardian.co.uk/workweekly/story/0,,1958192,00.html

Technorati Tags: cilip, onlineinformation2006

Hennesey Gold Cup Day

205 Newbury: Inglis Drever
240 Newbury: State of Play
300 Newcastle: Neptune Collonges
315 Newbury: Claymore
330 Newcastle: Desert Quest

I note from the Racing Post that the forty races involved in the HRA's investigation, in which Shane Kelly and eleven others are accused of corruption, thirty-four were at all-weather tracks. The HRA's PR manager is quoted as saying that in all eighty-seven races are under investigation. This vindicates my long-standing belief that all-weather racing is to be avoided.

Technorati Tags: corruption, newbury, racefixing

RIN Workshop: presentations now available

Links to the presentations given at the 14 November workshop on the RIN/DTI/RCUK Evidence-based Analysis of Data on Scholarly Journal Publishing are now at the bottom of the workshop page, along with a crisper and more concise summary of the proceedings than mine (follow these links for parts one, two and three) and the action points. The latter are worth quoting:
" * There is a case for updating the baseline report periodically, so as to chart the development of the evidence base.
* Although there is some knowledge about journal usage, there is much less evidence about usage at the article level – further research would be particularly useful. In this respect, there could be value in analysing how researchers cite material, i.e. whether they read full articles, abstracts, second hand reports or other material as a basis for making citations. This could be interesting in the light of moves towards metrics-based approaches to research evaluation.
* The study pointed to evidence about the difficulties that many researchers experience in accessing material. Therefore there is a case for a detailed analysis about the why researchers experience such difficulties – and as a possible corollary, an examination about whether/how researchers alter their behaviour because of access problems.
* There may be much merit in such further research, but it is important to set up an approach to define an agenda and prioritise the work that is most usefully required. Inevitably, this implies a dialogue and a collaborative approach between all stakeholders. Open sharing of data is also important. Such an approach could be extended to cover the whole of the scholarly communications system, with publishing in the context of this.
* In this respect, identifying the views of researchers themselves poses a big challenge. Who speaks for them? To what extent are they developing new publishing models of their own? And are they interested in the sort of issues raised by the study? Learned societies are likely to have a role in such debates, and the RIN itself can act as a vehicle for highlighting the needs and concerns of the research community."

Technorati Tags: openaccess

Choosing the best children's books of the past seventy years

Next year will be an anniversary for two of the more worthwhile and less commercialised book awards, the fiftieth for the Carnegie Medal for children's books and the seventieth for the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration in a children's books. To mark this CILIP, who appoint a panel of children's librarians to decide on the awards, are asking readers to vote for their favourite books from the list of past winners.
There's a form at http://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegiegreenaway70/nomination70.asp but to use it visitors have to chose from a drop-down list. If, like me, you would prefer to browse a full list before making your choice, there are lists at http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegie/list.html for the Carnegie medal and at http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/green/list.html for the Kate Greenaway. I'm voting for Arthur Ransome's Pigeon Post for the Carnegie and Anthony Browne's Gorilla for the Greenaway.

Technorati Tags: bookawards, carnegie, kategreenaway

FOSL pronounced fossil

I went to the Friends of Seaford Library Annual General Meeting. FOSL, in spite of the advanced age of its members (aged 51 I was the baby of the meeting), is a very active group and as well as raising funds for has been campaigning for a new library for Seaford for some years. Norman Baker reminded the meeting that Seaford is the largest town in the constituency, bigger than Newhaven or Lewes. Why then do we have a library better suited to a village or a suburb?
I was puzzled that they haven't yet linked up with other campaigns around the country. They had a meeting with other East Sussex campaigners, but it would be useful for them to connect with the Library Campaign, and perhaps some of the groups detailed on the Good Library Guide blog. I'm not going to give detail of the meeting. The Sussex Express carried a more-or-less accurate account, though the local news for Seaford on their site is lamentably out of date
A new library is now a possibility. An old Rover car show-room, empty since the collapse of the last of the British automotive industry, could be the site for a new development, This depends on a property speculator, who in return would take a very large site for housing (in other words yet more flats, not affordable housing) and shops, but we were shown plans which seemed quite detailed. I'm worried that the plans will go ahead without any thought for what people might want or need from a 21st century library. There is more to the library than the building itself. I have a nasty suspicion that East Sussex County Council feel that, if they deliver a new building, they have fulfilled their responsibility. To my mind, there needs to be a full public consultation, not only on the buildings but on what the library should contain and do. Here's what I'd suggest:
Radically improved opening hours. Seaford library is never open after 6 pm and closes for a half-day (how quaint), so evening and Sunday opening are vital.
Free wireless access and lots more computers; the public access computers are always in use, better bandwidth would be good too.
Considerable investment in stock: the existing stock simply will not do, and a new library will attract more use. This would be the golden opportunity to add recorded sound. I cannot understand why I have to order CDs from Lewes or Eastbourne, and pay for the privilege.
Increased staffing, including at least one qualified librarian on site
Coffee
A meeting room, bookable by the public, community organisations etc

Thinking more widely, no library is an island. East Sussex need to start investing in their libraries (they are one of the low spenders of English local authorities when it comes to libraries). A new library management system is long overdue, with an up-to-date catalogue, that not only allowed readers to see what East Sussex has, but links out to other library catalogues with a single search interface, links out to Amazon and Google, allows readers to post reviews, delivers RSS feeds and so on. At the moment, if I want to ask for something East Sussex do not have, I have to fill in a paper form and pay a fee. What price Universal Availability of Publications? Why can't I simply fill in a request on the e-library website?

Technorati Tags: seafordlibrary

RIN workshop: the fuller account part 3: Paul Ayris, Astrid Wissenburg, Sally Morris and Richard Woodward, and general debate

After some tea, Paul Ayris, Astrid Wissenburg, Sally Morris and Richard Woodward gave four short presentations.

Technorati Tags: openaccess