Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal October 2006 Volume 4(5)

CILIPS Branch and Group Day

This could not have been exemplified more than by Jane Milne, Team Leader of the library that won the CILIP/LiS Libraries Change Lives Award earlier this year, Sighthill in Edinburgh. Once heard Jane is never forgotten, for her enthusiasm and for her passionate advocacy of developing new approaches with young people regarding reading and libraries. “You have to change your way of working and become proactive in the community. If the young people say your services are rubbish, that’s a useful bit of customer feedback…” she said. She acknowledged that some library staff would be wary if a group of 20 teenagers descended on their library at once, “…but don’t think, ‘Oh no!’, think, ‘Great, 20 new members!’” said Jane.
Jane’s story of turning around a vandalised library and combating anti-social behaviour has been told in many places before. Things are going amazingly well and the violence has not returned. If your library adds value to the community, “Let the policy-makers know,” said Jane, “For too long we have not been telling people what we do – we can change lives!”

The CILIP Award (and a few others) has led to funding opportunities. Of course, not all services have the advantage of such kudos. However, among a list of key points, consultation came first, followed by working with partners, such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme, the police and community organisations. Not only do they bring experience but they may also qualify to apply for funding that libraries don’t. Recruitment and training were also key: “There should be more courses about working with young people – or you’re not going to have people using your services in the future.”

It is as stark as that, and voices such as Jane’s need to be heard above the ubiquitous soundbites from Tim Coates and Richard Charkin, who may know about selling books but not about service delivery in libraries, as Elaine Fulton, Director of SLIC/CILIPS, had said earlier.

The Branch and Group sessions
The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI Millennium Institute) is a fascinating venture to bring education to a huge geographical area containing dispersed communities, from the Isle of Bute to the Shetland Islands. In the CILIPS North Branch session, Gillian Anderson, Librarian of the Institute, told us about providing information services to this ‘distributed federal HE institution’ with 15 academic partners and 6,000 students. Gillian is the first such post-holder, and her job is to set standards, and to get the library/information partners to work together as a devolved university.
The library service will be integral to UHI, she is adamant about this. Gillian gave an example of how it works. Struan lives in Ardnamurchan, studying accountancy part-time. He accesses learning resources in a tiny, local learning centre. Resource management is led at Lews Castle in Stornoway; videoconferencing is co-ordinated from the Executive Office in Inverness; and the data warehouse is in Oban. Other elements were organised from Shetland. “Geographically challenging” is putting it mildly. UHI is at the forefront of harnessing new technology for educational provision, the library services strives for equivalence of access, and it is a role model for other countries dealing with vast distances. Gillian is currently wrestling with the procurement of a new generation Library Management System – it will be some contract.

The SHINE (Scottish Health Information Network) session focused on two invaluable services. Sandra Wilson of the Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association described providing information for patients and carers, and Eileen Richardson, Dementia Services Development Centre, University of Stirling, explained how the library and information service underpins most of the work of the Centre.

Setting up the library service, Sandra was horrified at how little information there was. Patients (and carers) sometimes experience great shock, anger and denial about the disease, but this is usually followed by a great rush for information. Sandra made an important point relevant to all types of health information service: “Patients are at the mercy of the media which only presents the worst aspects of the disease, such as going abroad to seek euthanasia. There is also a lot of misinformation on the internet. Our mission is to offer good, downloadable information from our own website.”

The Dementia information service is open to the public with a UK-wide lending service. Being university staff, they have access to a wide journal base. The Centre premises, the Iris Murdoch Building, is purpose-built, opened in 2002 and attracts visits from designers and architects as it is considered a very good design for that type of service.

During discussions it was suggested that we need a generic promotional banner on web-based reference services. To combat the lack of awareness of the input of professional librarians into these facilities, this could read, “Brought to you by librarians in partnership with...”.

The School Libraries Group session on new approaches to Information Literacy had us all out of our seats experiencing ‘co-operative learning techniques’. We felt we were back at school at times, but Helen Melone and Hilary Tomney (North Lanarkshire Education Resource Service) didn’t invoke any of the dread of teachers past. Some amazing statistics on information retention rates suggest that we learn 95% of what we teach someone else, and only 10% of what we read.

That’s why co-operative learning works. In one of the exercises we had to tell a partner how we teach information literacy at work, then that person had to relate this information to the group. So, after you’ve read all of this journal, go and tell somebody else about it, immediately.

Debby Raven is Editor of Information Scotland.

Information Scotland Vol. 4(5) October 2006

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