Show and Share

We are holding our second 'Show and Share' week in school at the moment. And no, before you ask, this does not involve any risque activities! The idea of the week is to give staff (both teaching and support) the opportunity to experience aspects of good practice around the school or find out more about areas of practice in school that they may not necessarily be overly familiar with. A number of staff have been put forward by their heads of department to be observed. Sessions are varied and include: demonstrations of laser (and other) technology used in DT, HLTA's leading a session on their role in the classroom, how to create a positive learning environment (English lesson) and pupil engagement in music (music lesson).

All staff members receive a prospectus which includes a timetable of the sessions which are up for observation and observers must complete a proforma detailing: what they will take away from their observation; any questions they'd like to ask the member of staff they observed and, a response from the staff member who was observed. Staff also use the proforma to explain what they will do next (or, how they will use the information/practice they have observed). I have the task of putting together said prospectus (from the head's text), timetable and proforma and then disseminating it to all staff (which means uploading it to our VLE as well as providing printed copies).  I also look after the booking system - which is great because it means that I get to chat to staff about their plans for their sessions and also to 'sell' the sessions to their colleagues.


It's a great idea which received some great feedback in a 'debriefing' session following our first Show and Share week back in January. Staff responded extremely positively and enjoyed the opportunity to show what  they could do and share their ideas with their colleagues. Everyone agreed that the school was positively buzzing with great ideas and good feeling (even more than usual). (In fact here's a link to one of the Show and Share sessions from January and also our head's blog about the week)

It got me thinking about a few things.

• How lucky I am to work in a school which values the contribution of all of its staff and encourages all of them to share good practice, regardless of whether they QTS or not.
• How schools work so much better when staff feel comfortable and confident enough to share their classrooms, ideas, feedback and criticisms freely with each other.
• While I know my colleagues pretty well there's still lots I don't know about what they do and I could do my job even more effectively if I did!
• Librarians are already quite good at doing this kind of thing!

Yes, indeedy.

Since I joined the school nearly 5 years ago, with no library or information background, I have had brilliant support from my fellow librarians, in particular Gill (recently retired from Durham Learning Resources), my fellow LIDS (Librarians in Durham Schools) and, more recently, my colleagues in the Youth Libraries Group. Without their openness, their willingness to show me what I needed to know and their willingness to share their knowledge I would have been lost.

For anyone out their in the library-verse, particularly the school library-verse where I know a great deal of people are lone information professionals,  I can heartily recommend getting involved with your local network of librarians. If you are new to the profession, perhaps from a different background (as I was), don't be scared.

We're a very giving bunch!

Library Management software

I'm ashamed to admit that I do not use our library management software to its full potential. In fact, I have nowhere near got to grips with it! 

We've had it for about 3 years and have had more than a few niggles with it.  We paid a fairly decent chunk of cash to our provider for the set-up - one of their staff came out and installed it and the day they spent with us included (very) basic training as to how to use the system - unfortunately, the day of the installation we had a few technical probs with the internet and a couple of the functions didn't work properly - and took a while to sort out (try 6 months!).
 
A few of the niggles have been:

• the auto-update from SIMS (our school's student info database) has inexplicably collapsed on more than one occasion - our provider's help desk has indeed helped us to sort this on each occasion , but it's a pain. I can't sort it from my desk (our IT manager has that dubious honour) and, until it's fixed, any new starters who don't happen to be on the system have to be issued books manually which leads to greater inaccuracies and more opportunities for things to go missing.
• The 'auto-cataloguing' function (e.g. you can search for records in other library catalogues, such as the Library of Congress, and import the information into the database so as to avoid having to manually fill in the fields) is extremely patchy. Sometimes it works, other times...no chance! 
• When our ICT guys had to get a new server (the old one simply died a horrible and painful death) our provider helpfully informed us that we'd have to pay £150 in order for them to get things back up and running again. £150! For a fix that didn't require anyone visiting our office and physically sorting things out (it was all done electronically). Anyways, I managed to 'negotiate' a lower fee for this privilege in the end.

Enough whining already!

Touch wood - - - things seem to be running along a lot more smoothly as of late and I recognise that it's my responsibility to grab the bull by the horns and actually get the software working for me. I must make the library management software my friend!


I can add resources. I can issue, return and reserve resources and I can run basic reports but there's a whole bunch of functions that I still have to get myself familiar with. I have got a folder with some handy hints and tips as to the basic functions of the software which is a useful starting point but I want to know more.

I don't have a lot of time just to play around with the system - our library is pretty busy (and can be noisy) during the day (classes, one-to-one tutorials, group work, lunch/break time activities). However, it's been a much quieter day than usual today so I've taken the opportunity to have a bit of a look at what more my library management software can do. For instance, I had no idea that I could set up reading lists! This is something that would be of great interest and use to both staff and students. So, needless-to-say, I've spent some time this afternoon tagging resources and setting some reading lists up.

Tomorrow should also be a reasonably quiet day so who knows what I will find out about my new best  friend.

Expanding my blogiverse

After actually managing to set up this blog myself last night (it was so easy that I don't know why I didn't do it ages ago!) I took my enthusiasm into work today and, thanks to our most excellent director of ICT (check him out @jeff_moorside on Twitter), our school library now also has its own blog!

A lot of our departments (English, Technology, ICT, iPad/iPod trials) already had blogs so, I'm ashamed to say that we've been a bit slow on the uptake! There's not much on our library blog ...yet. However, we do so much that we thought it was about time that we got it out there.

CPD23

...forgot to mention this in my last post.

CPD23 was brought to my attention by a fellow LIDS member (thanks Angela!) earlier today I've already signed up! It is a free, online CPD course designed specifically for information professionals. Definitely worth a look.

To quote directly from their site '"23 Things for Professional Development is a free online programme open to information professionals at all stages of their career, in all types of role, and anywhere across the world. Inspired by the 23 Things programmes for social media, this new programme will consist of a mixture of social media "Things" and "Things" to do with professional development. The programme starts on 20 June and will run until early October 2011. Each week the CPD23 blog will be updated with details of the next thing to be explored'.

I really like the way it allows you to have a look at the other participants' blogs - really useful insights.

The topics covered on a week-by-week basis are relevant, interesting and easy-to-follow.

Make do and mend

Crumbs. Well, I guess this is it then...my first blog entry.

It's been a long time coming and today, following a really interesting meeting with my fellow librarians in Durham schools (LIDS), I decided to take the plunge into the world of blogdom. LIDS' members are a resilient and resourceful bunch, and all different types, shapes and sizes of schools are represented. Some members are lone information professionals whilst others are fortunate to work within a team.

The topic of the meeting was one that I'm sure many librarians (school or otherwise) are grappling with - how do we 'make do and mend' in this time of budget constraints, cuts and, in some cases, disappearances! It became clear from LIDS members' feedback that the keys to succeeding are - communication, collaboration, conviction and conveyance of your worth. Oh and a bit of creativity helps too.

1. Communication - talk to staff and students. Find out what's going on around school, what students/staff want from their library and act on their feedback. You can't run your library effectively without knowing what peoples' priorities are. Go to as many meetings as you can. Spend time in the staff room when you can. Email your line manager or school's senior leadership team and let them know what you are doing/have done. Survey opinions of staff and students regularly and use their feedback to improve what you do.

2. Collaboration - this comes from communication! Once you know what's going on, what people want and when things are happening around school you can get involved! Offer to help out staff out with projects - this could be anything from organising a group of students who use your library to produce resources for an event that's happening  in school, to going to classrooms with a box of useful resources from your library and staying with the class and working with the teacher whilst the students complete the project.

Once you've proved that you're a useful ally and that you can make their lives easier staff will be more willing to support initiatives you plan in your library. Staff will also be more likely to send students your way.

3. Conviction - you have to believe in your library and be prepared to sell its benefits to staff and students. If you don't think you're making a difference then they won't believe it either!

Keep up-to-date with the latest trends, technology and developments in all things library. Where possible, undertake relevant, quality CPD. This will ensure that you can keep up your conviction and be able to 'move with the times'.

4. Conveyance of your worth - or, blow your own trumpet! Link the work you do to the school's development plan and Ofsted priorities. Keep records of everything you do in your library (photos, posters, student/staff feedback etc) and show how this links into the school's priorities. As I said before, keep your line manager and school SLT involved and aware of what you have achieved. Contribute library-specific information to the school newsletter (if your school has one!), create a library blog...

There is loads of evidence linking library usage with student attainment and literacy levels. Check out Ofsted's recent 'Excellence in English' research, in which 12 schools (all of whom achieved outstanding standards in English) all "gave a high profile to reading for pleasure" and includes evidence about the impact of effective school libraries on this achievement.

5. Creativity - we all have to be a little bit creative in order to make resources go that little bit further! If you need additional resources that your library budget just won't cover then ask if there are other 'funding streams'. For example, your school may have an 'extra-curricular activities' budget that you could bid for funds from for after school library activities (even after school reading groups have been known to successfully get funds for books this way). Join forces with your Extended Services/Community liaison team (again, if you have one) to see if there is any grant money you could bid for.

As they say here in the North East - shy bairns get nowt!