Librarians in Training course timetable

This course will look at how to create metadata for online catalogues and digital libraries, concentrating on special collections material. We will be using TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) as the most suitable metadata standard for the description and presentation of manuscripts and rare books in a digital environment. The course will focus on the descriptive element of TEI, but will also touch on the possibilities for transcription, translation, and the presentation of digital images. There will be a taught element (1 hour) followed by the opportunity to have a go at creating a description in TEI yourself.

This session will provide you with a brief introduction to some of those technologies and highlight how you can delve deeper with them. We will look at the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), text and data mining, and the International Image Interoperability Framework (iiif).

NB: A short break will be included during the session.

• A training session for all library staff who are currently registered to edit a libguide, or for those who are considering the possibility of setting up a libguide.

Most institutions are now using Instagram as way to connect to their readers. However, keeping your feed full of exciting content can be difficult. Luckily, we have a brand new class to help manage your Institution's page. Barney Brown from the University's central Communications Office and Naomi Polonsky of the New Hall Art Collection at Murray Edwards have kindly offered to host a workshop demonstrating how effective Instagram can be as a social platform. As well as talking about the basics they will be delving into why we use Instagram, what makes Instagram a good platform to connect with readers, what tips and tricks they have to maintain a healthy feed, what mistakes they have made and what to avoid as well as deciding on an institution style.

Impact and sustainability are very important to researchers. Social media brings with it the advantage of making outputs easy to share but can also be a minefield. Whilst the new tools and methods utilised by the digital humanities provide exciting new ways of working, we also need to bear in mind their limitations and be able to understand the results. Attention is also being turned towards sustaining digital outputs, so we will also explore developments in this area as well.

NB: A short break will be included during the session.

Chartership portfolios rely on candidates displaying a range of evidence of their development but it can be hard to know where to start. What counts as evidence? How many pieces can I include? How do I choose what to include in my submission? This session will answer these questions and offer attendees tips, tricks and the chance to work on compiling their evidence. You are also more than welcome to just use the session for as a quiet time to get some work done on whichever aspect of your Chartership portfolio you choose.

• Have you started an application for HEA fellowship but have no time to write?

Would you like a day to work on your application with no disruptions?

• Alternatively, have you heard about HEA Fellowship and are considering applying? Are you curious about the benefits of Fellowship and which level (AFHEA, FHEA, SFHEA) best suits your experience? Would you like help brainstorming evidence for your application?

• On 10 December, Librarians in Training are sponsoring a day-long writing retreat to work on applications for HEA fellowship. Come be in a room with others experiencing the same pain and just write. We will have writing sprints of about an hour and then a short break. Repeat until the end of the day!

• The retreat will be held at the Institute for Manufacturing on the West Cambridge site in a lovely seminar room with lots of natural light. Coffee/tea/biscuits and will be served in the morning and afternoon (but you’ll need to bring your own lunch or purchase food in the common room or in a nearby café).

• The IfM is large, so if you’d like to discuss HEA fellowship generally or brainstorm aspects of it, we can easily meet up in the common room. Or if there is interest from everyone at the beginning of the day for a short plenary session, we can do that as well.

• You can sign up for just a half-day or both the morning and afternoon sessions. Numbers are limited to 10 people per session.

• You will need to bring your own laptop. Please come a bit early so that we can start at 1.00pm sharp. If you need to arrive later, that is fine. Just please tip toe in and get set up quietly.

Can’t come on December 10th? There will be two more writing retreats for HEA applications in 2019: 22 March and 21 June. Bookings for those sessions will open approximately a month before the date.

• Are you completely new to Twitter and struggling to start? Or are you already on Twitter but know you could be making better use of it to promote yourself and your library? Join Librarians In Training for an interactive workshop aimed at helping librarians to make the most of their time online.

• This interactive session will give you the chance to enhance your Twitter skills. For those new to the platform there will be guidance on what Twitter can be used for and how to get started whilst those already using Twitter will benefit from learning how to engage library users, promote their service and enhance their own professional network.

• The session will include both advice and practical exercises so you can put your new knowledge to the test.

In order to be successful all Chartership portfolios must include a reflective statement linking together the record of professional development and the evidence. Most submissions fail as they are too descriptive rather than reflecting on experiences and this can be daunting to those not used to producing reflective writing. This session will offer some tips and tricks to get you started as well as how to add more reflection to your portfolio and then offer attendees a chance to put this into practice. You are also more than welcome to just use the session for as a quiet time to get some work done on whichever aspect of your Chartership portfolio you choose.

The role of liaison librarian is common in UK academic libraries and is changing with shifts in digital technologies and universities’ research agendas. What are the key practices of academic liaison librarianship? Do we embody them at Cambridge? What challenges do we face and how can we improve and overcome them?

In this class, we will explore the nature of academic liaison librarianship through discussion and small-group activities. By the end of the class, you will have an understanding of the practices associated with being a liaison and key areas or services you would like to improve.

The following short articles give different perspectives on academic liaison librarianship. Please read them before the class so that we have a base of shared knowledge to build our discussion on.

Crawford, A. (2009). Academic liaison librarians-where do we stand? SCONUL Focus (45).

Parsons, A. (2010). Academic liaison librarianship: Curatorial pedagogy or pedagogical curation?

Woods, L., & Dunn P. (2016). Relationship management as a tool for engaging with the academic community. SCONUL Focus (67).

Recruiting staff is becoming an increasingly integral part of our role, so knowing how to interview well is a key skill to have in your toolkit. This session aims to share some best practice in order to help you navigate your way through an interview process, resulting in recruiting the best candidate for the role. The session will be interactive, and will dispel some common myths, as well as sharing with you some practical hints and tips to take away. Topics covered in this session range from what questions to ask a candidate at interview (and those to avoid!), note taking during an interview, scoring the candidates and using the right documentation. There will also be an opportunity to ask any burning questions at the end.

This participative workshop will include a discussion of the barriers for students with mental health difficulties using the library, and reminders about the support available outside the library services. Through discussion of case studies we will look at improving practice with students with mental health difficulties and improve the understanding of common diagnostic labels.

Everyone wants their teaching to be as engaging and successful as possible, right? But how often have we found ourselves talking to a group of students from behind a podium and thinking “there must be a better way to get this group more involved?” but aren’t sure where to start? Active learning is an approach that makes the traditional, passive approach to teaching more active and this session will explore how to harness good active teaching techniques in any educational scenario, whether you’re doing a 1-2-1 with a student or teaching a big group of people in one go. The session will be built around active learning principles so be prepared to get involved and get engaged in your own learning and teaching practices.

Please bring an internet-enabled device (phone, tablet, laptop etc.) to help with engaging in some of the activities.

Please note: Since this session was last offered, web accessibility has become increasingly important. The session has been revised to cover both usability testing and assessing the accessibility of websites.

This session will help you get started with website usability testing. The session will be interactive and activity-based, which will give you a chance to try out some testing and to reflect as a group on the experience. It will also provide you with some tips and tricks that can be used to help you conduct your own usability testing. If you’ve ever wondered how people actually use your library website, or are currently thinking about how to best revamp your Libguides to match the approaches and needs of your users, this one’s for you!

This course will look at how to create metadata for online catalogues and digital libraries, concentrating on special collections material. We will be using TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) as the most suitable metadata standard for the description and presentation of manuscripts and rare books in a digital environment. The course will focus on the descriptive element of TEI, but will also touch on the possibilities for transcription, translation, and the presentation of digital images. There will be a taught element (1 hour) followed by the opportunity to have a go at creating a description in TEI yourself.

You’ve seen the gorgeous photos of hand-drawn planners on Instagram and thought, “I would never have time to make my diary look like that.” Or you’ve bought pre-made planners before only to abandon them after a week, but still prefer to have a paper-and-pen backup to your online calendars. Or maybe you’re just curious about what a bullet journal is. Whatever the case, Emma and Kirsten have you covered! With six years of bullet journal experience between them, they’ll talk you through the basics of bullet journaling, show you some of the ways you can customise yours and get you started on planning your life with paper and pen. Participants should bring their favourite pens as well as their appointments and to-do lists for the day of the session and the next day. If you have a notebook you were already going to use as a planner, feel free to bring it. Otherwise, scrap paper will be provided for practice.

In 1906, Melvil Dewey wrote that ‘what we call books have no exclusive rights in a library. The name “library” has lost its etymologic meaning and means not a collection of books, but the central agency for disseminating information, innocent recreation or, best of all, inspiration among the people.’ Most libraries contain mostly books. But most libraries have other things in them too. Some of these things – films, musical recordings, maps, sheet music – have standard cataloguing practices. But what about flashcards, skeletons, jigsaws, bookstands, postage stamps, DVD players, and the many other odds and ends we collate, curate and circulate. Should they be catalogued? Perhaps. Can they be catalogued? Certainly. This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of cataloguing ‘realia.’ Examples will be provided for group cataloguing activities, but feel free to bring along your own unusual library materials too.

A two-hour session designed to introduce you to the skill of compiling back-of-the-book type indexes. Indexing is a useful skill for anyone working in a library or information environment and also provides opportunities for self-employment and working from home. We will touch on the basic processes, standards and conventions, the Society of Indexers’ course, and embedded indexing, and we will have a go at creating a basic index. Feel free to bring a laptop but they are not essential.

A growing number of images from cultural heritage institutions around the world are available for use and re-use by scholars through IIIF (the International Image Interoperability Framework http://iiif.io). This framework and community facilitate comparison of materials across repositories through a common protocol. It also allows for the use of a number of lightweight tools that can be hosted at your institution, or on your laptop, for viewing, annotation, transcription, and collection-building.

No previous experience with IIIF is required. The workshop will be led by Dr Anne McLaughlin, Sub-Librarian of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, and Andy Corrigan, Cambridge Digital Library Co-ordinator.

Please note: This course will be cancelled if booking numbers are insufficient.

Led by members of the UL Reference team, this course will explore the varied reasons why readers struggle to find items they need on iDiscover. There will be a chance for you to solve some of the enquiries which are handled by Reference Staff, brush up your own searching skills and discover some lesser known functions of iDiscover.

The UL Reference team will be answering participant questions submitted prior to the course.

Information about the UL’s iDiscover training for readers will also be available.