Running sessions on Web 2.0 tools for researchers

Edit: This post has been sitting, completed and tagged, in my drafts folder for over a month - it was meant as a direct follow up to a previous post (linked below) but then the gender and digital idenity thing came up (which is now EVERYWHERE in the media - glad the issue is getting proper coverage) and after that my second daughter was born, so it all got pushed back... Anyhow, here it is. I recently ran a suite of 3 workshops, collectively entitled Becoming a Networked Researcher. I've put all the presentation materials elsewhere on the blog, so check them out if you're interested. This post covers the approach, what worked, what didn't, and general stuff about librarians getting involved with running researcher events that cover new online tools.

It's definitely time to do this

I've been wanting to do workshops like these for years... I run workshops for information professionals so I know how valuable it can be to learn about these tools - and blogs like the LSE Impact Blog show that in Higher Education generally, more and more people are finding Web 2.0 essential. As info pros a lot of us have this knowledge, so why not share it with an academic community who will be grateful for it and will benefit from it?

Previously some people may have thought I was something of a stuck record on this topic - just banging on about Twitter because it was what I knew about, when actually the Library should be focusing more on the traditional things we do with Researchers. (No one directly said this to me so I may well just be projecting!) But the thing about stuff like this is it opens doors - it positions the library or librarian as expert, and gains us respect. It means researchers become more open to the other things we have to offer.

Anyhow, demand for these sessions was huge. We're going to be running them twice a year from now on as once isn't enough. So if you have expertise in this area, try and make something happen!

What to cover?

I'd previously run an 'Enhancing your online reputation' workshop for academics which mainly covered blogs and twitter only, due to time constraints - I still see these as the big two. They're arguably the two most important platforms or tools, and they're definitely the right foundations on which to build a useful presence.

I also ran a taster session on online tools for academics which covered no less than 9 different things - interestingly, lots of them put in their feedback forms that of all the tools we covered, they'd want more training on Prezi. So I put Prezi into the collaboration and dissemination session, but actually it needs its own bespoke training really - it's too big to cover as part of something else.

I put in Academia.edu because I think it's actually quite useful, I put in LinkedIn because everyone else TELLS me it's useful, I put in Slideshare because I think it's the great underrated secret weapon of communicating ideas. I left out ResearchGate because I'd heard they're pretty aggressive in emailing people once they sign up, in a way which is annoying.

Anyhow, the Blogging session and Twitter session were much more successful than the other session, so I'd advise starting with these, and adding more if there's demand.

What worked

• Collaborating with RDT. The Researcher Development Team are nothing to do with the library, but thankfully they're open to collaboration. I managed to meet up with Russell Grant, who runs a couple of social media courses anyway, and suggest the suite described above to build on what he'd already done - in theory, an academic could have attended his two workshops and then my three workshops and they'd have all worked together, building knowledge and understanding. I really like working with departments outside the library generally - not least because then the events aren't 'Library events' that no one shows up for, they're University events which happen to be delivered by a librarian
• They What, Why, Examples, How method. I try do this in most of my training. You have to introduce a tool and tell an audience what it is - but it's vital to then go on to why they might want to use it before you go into the detail of how it works... With relevant examples if at all possible. Lots of the feedback suggests people really value this approach.
• Enthusiasm. I'm really enthusiastic about these topics, and that always helps...

What didn't

• Doing the workshops with only one-day gaps between them - I felt like it completely defined my week and didn't leave much room for anything else
• Not enough example - I tried to put loads in (academic examples specifically) but I could always use more
• The Collaboration and Dissemination session tried to fit too much into the time. We're splitting it up in future (see below)
• I can't make LinkedIn sound exciting... I know it's important. Everyone says it's important, researchers particularly. But I can't seem to convey its value well
• Some logisitical stuff to do with rooms and timing, with which I won't bore you now...

Future plans

We're running a tweaked programme in the next academic year, and it's going to be different in a few ways.

• It'll be run twice, once in the Spring and once in the Summer - the Autumn term is just too crazy for everyone concerned
• It'll have one session per week. Last time round I did all three sessions in a week and I'm not sure that really benefited the participants much - it just made me feel like I was having a crazy week
• There'll be a blogging session as before, a Twitter session as before, but the Collaboration and Dissemination session we're splitting up into two. We're doing a Prezi session, and then a 'social networks for researchers' session - I've asked a colleague from the Researcher Development Team if he can do the latter, because I think he'd be better at it than me
• I'm splitting the blogging and Twitter sessions into a 'PhD and Masters researchers' session and an 'academics' session - there's 90% crossover between those two groups, but the other 10% I found it frustrating only giving examples that worked fully for one or other group. Seeing as the sessions were over-subscribed anyhow, we may as well provide targeted workshops for each group
• So what this means is, in consecutive weeks we're offering an Introduction to Social Media (talk, given by my colleague Russell Grant), Enhacing your Online Reputation (workshop by Russell), Blogs (workshops, by me - one for postgrads and one for academics), Twitter (workshop, by me - workshops, by me - one for postgrads and one for academics), Social Networks For Researchers (workshop, by Rusell) and Prezi (workshop, by me). All one and a half hours except the Prezi one which needs to be 3hrs - I've tried teaching Prezi in less but it doesn't really work... .

Exciting stuff!

A letter to a younger me

I've not been blogging for a month or so due to the arrival of baby Grace! But I'm back at work on Monday so I'm gradually easing back in to the world of librarianship, starting with some stuff I meant to blog links to ages ago but never got around to... I was delighted to be asked to write a post on the Letters to a Young Librarian blog run by Jessica Olin. It's a really good blog and one that I read a lot anyway, so it was really nice to do something for it. Here's my post.

I tried to really honestly (and at the risk of embarassing myself a bit) write a letter to the me that was about to start his first day in libraries, aged 25-and-a-half, back in 2006. I also tried to make it as relevant and useful as possible to a new professional today, so check it out and and tell me what you think. It includes a list of things I think we really should be doing in our profession:

• Communicating our value PROPERLY at every opportunity.
• Embracing informality.
• Trying to inspire people rather than placate.
• Understanding that work-life balance is important enough that it should not be considered with reference to what ANYONE ELSE IS DOING. 
• Libraries have always been product orientated, but now they need to be market orientated. .

Each of these is expanded in the post; it was fun to think about this stuff. Thanks to Jessica for asking me and the reader of her blog who requested the post!

I've written quite a lot of stuff on platforms other than here (or the Toolkit blog) in recent months - there's a complete list in the Guest Posts On... section down the right-hand side of the website (you'll need to scroll down!) but here are the most recent:

• Circulating Ideas - l was honoured to be a guest on the Librarian interview podcast. Listen to it here
• Expert tips for marketing your library - interview for LIBER
• Rebranding a Library: how did it all go so right? - for Information Today
• Marketing libraries is like marketing mayonnaise - for Library Journal
• Marketing your library - for American Libraries Magazine
• Marketing with video - my first column for Library Journal
• Six Questions with me about marketing stuff, on the 658.8 blog .

Normal blog service will now be resumed!

#EdTech: 9 useful online tools to share with the academic community

A while back I blogged about a session I'd run for academics on the academic skills and digital literacy we teach at York. The point of blogging was to say that what the academics were really interested in was not what we taught the students, but how they themselves could become digitally literate. With that in mind I decided to put on a session for academics on exactly that. It was to be a taster menu on 9 different EdTech tools that they might find useful in the Higher Education environment, for engaging students, boosting reputation, and their own research.

Importantly it wasn't to be a library session - I wanted people to actually show up, after all... I asked the central Learning & Teaching Forum if I could deliver it as part of their workshop schedule - it just happened to be delivered by a librarian. Recent experiences suggested York was completely ready for this sort of thing (and indeed we had to move the room to a bigger venue as nearly 60 academics signed up for the session) - if you don't read any more of this post my message would be, if you think you could run a Web 2.0 type session for lecturers and / or researchers, do it! They're really enthusiastic about it - it's no longer seen as a fad or a waste of time.

Anyhow, here's the presentation I used:

For anyone really enthusiastic, the full hour and a half session was recorded too; here's where you can watch the presentation and hear my talk at the same time.

So, how did it go? The answer is really well - the group were very enthusiastic, and the feedback forms were extremely positive with only one exception. One lecturer I really like actually left the room almost in a daze, backing away saying 'Ned, I think you've solved something I've been trying to sort for ages, one of these tools is what we need...' and ran off to investigate there and then! :)

What worked

• The focus was on tools that helped solve existing problems - some Web 2.0 stuff seems to create its own problems which it then solves... This was based on tools that already fitted into the fabric of academic life
• It wasn't a hands-on session but I encouraged as much discussion as possible, questions and sharing of experiences, so that it wasn't just me banging on about stuff at the front
• The What, Why, How, Tips type format I use in a lot of my training also worked well here - it's really important to tell people why they'd find a tool useful BEFORE you tell them how to use it
• It was the right thing at the right time - lots of the feedback comments were things like 'This is exactly what I wanted!' - had I tried to do this when I first got to York 2 years ago, for example, I'm not sure that would have been the case
• It was matter of fact and practical. One academic said they'd been attracted by the lack of 'platitudes and concepts' which he said dominated most courses and workshops they were offered... The whole point of the session was to give people things they could DO right away which helped them in their actual real lives .

What didn't

• I think 9 was probably too many tools for the time. I should have done 7 perhaps - I felt like I was really galloping through everything. It was meant to be a taster-menu, but still
• As with every training session ever, a couple of people found some of it too simplistic and a couple of other people found some of it too complicated - I'm not sure there's a silver bullet for this issue, really, I'd love to know if anyone's cracked it
• A couple of people commented that they found Part 2 more useful than Part 1, but Part 1 was the more substantial section. If I run it again (and I probably will) I'll try and put greater emphasis on the teaching tools rather than the social media side of things
• I should have used more academic examples. (I told myself I'd be using loads of examples in the Becoming a Networked Researcher hands-on workshops I'm running at the moment - but much of the audience is different for these, so it's really not relevant to tell myself that!) .

Incidentally, there was a really interesting conversation (which I didn't feel qualified to contribute much to) about the nonsense female academics have to put up with online; or indeed any prominent females have to endure. It seems that as soon as your level of exposure reaches a certain point - my unscientific guess is, when you've been on TV just once - there will be some idiots who will take advantage of the net's relative anonymity to say unpleasant or creepy things. If this is a subject you're interested in, I'd highly recommend reading about Sara Perry's Gender and Digital Culture project, which is looking to tackle the issue.

So as you can probably guess by now, I'm really pleased that we've reached a tipping point and there's enthusiasm in the academic community for the potential applications of Web 2.0 tools. This is an area lots of librarians are interested in, so I really think it's a great time to offer up your knowledge and expertise to a grateful audience in HE. There are a few institutions doing this, and it seems to be working for all of us.

The only way we will definitely be screwed is if we screw CILIP

 

CILIP have been getting flak from the Library community since before I became aware of its existence. I gave out some of the flak myself – my post on CILIP and its lack of media presence remains one of the most commented-upon post this blog has ever had. I spoke up to try and constructively catalyse change – whether by coincidence (almost certainly) or not (it’s a nice thought) CILIP has since addressed the issue and it a much more vocal presence in the media.

The trouble I have with some of the criticism it gets is the level of at best dismissiveness and at worst, bile (or perhaps scorn) that doesn’t seem to be accompanied by much that could be considered constructive. Lots of people are happy to express the opinion that the rebranding process needs halting, but fewer have suggested what we should then do about the fact that CILIP still needs rebranding and (almost certainly) have entered into a legally binding contract with a consultancy firm.

People seem to imagine CILIP is an abstract entity which is perhaps ignorant of or indifferent to the needs of libraries, librarians and information professionals. What CILIP actually is, of course, is a group of individual human beings who care very much about libraries, librarians and information professionals and are doing their best to support all of them. To say otherwise is ignorant. I’ve met a lot of CILIP people and never once have any of them given me even an inkling that they didn’t care, or weren’t working hard, or were not qualified to do their jobs.

CILIP is a big unwieldy company with a royal charter, and it has a lot of armchair critics. A lot of people who’ve never led a massive charity-registered organisation appear to think they’d be awesome at it if given the chance; a chance 99% of them would not take if it actually came down to it, of course. Perhaps because smaller groups have achieved amazing things online, people expect CILIP to be able to do the same – but it has responsibilities and processes which prevent it from being so agile. Rowing a boat is not the same as running a big old paddle-steamer with thousands of paying customers. I know of no big organisations with massive budgetary constraints that consistently do everything right.

Traditionally I’ve supported CILIP. Recently I’ve lazily drifted into the camp of taking easy shots at them, and I was horrified at the thought of £35k (if that figure is indeed correct) being spent on the rebrand. I didn’t renew my membership right away when it lapsed. One of the reasons is that people I respect have tried to work with CILIP and found it untenable.

But I’m a member now and will continue to be one. This is partly because certain individuals previously or currently at CILIP (particularly Kathy Ennis, Biddy Fisher and Phil Bradley) have been really supportive of me and given me confidence and valuable opportunities. It’s partly because the Career Development Group helped me develop my career – in fact they’ve helped me develop my career to a stage where I no longer need them anymore. But it seems a bit callous to just say ‘okay thanks, bye!’ and no longer put any money into the organisation. If CILIP has helped you get just ONE pay-grade higher, then that’s more than a decade’s worth of annual subscriptions in extra salary you earn every year – it only seems fair to reinvest a fraction in the organisation.

But the third reason I’ll continue to support CILIP – even when they do things I don’t agree with – is because the only way we’ll be completely screwed is if we screw CILIP. By supporting them and letting them speak for us, we might be screwed – they might get it wrong. Just doing one’s best is not a guarantee of success. But by withdrawing our support, dismissing them, being scornful of them, bringing up absurd conspiracy theories online – that way we’re definitely screwed. Because like it or not CILIP speaks for the profession in this country – that’s precisely why they’re going through the controversial rebranding in the first place, because they feel (and most of us have felt for a long time) that ‘CILIP’ and 'Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals' are not working for their role as mouthpiece. The way some people talk on social media, you’d think CILIP are quite enjoying this complicated process, and are just doing it as a way to thumb their nose at the members.

I think there’s an undercurrent to all this of ‘If we don’t renew our membership and say how much we hate what CILIP doing, that’ll show them – they’ll HAVE to change then’. But know this – if the personnel at CILIP changes, we’ll be replacing one set of hard-working people doing their best for the profession with (hopefully) another set of hard-working people doing their best for the profession, and they may not make choices you like any better. We are, after all, talking about very difficult choices here. Have you tried trying to change and adapt, move forward without leaving people behind, maintain the responsibilities of being a registered charity and having the royal charter, and trying to include everyone and yet speak with one clear and unambiguous voice, and all that at a time when there’s a hostile government, a public mostly indifferent or steeped in happy but irrelevant nostalgia, and unprecedented threats to the very existence and value of libraries? ME EITHER. I imagine that’s quite hard to do. It is not through lack of effort that these controversial decisions are being arrived at.

By all means criticise CILIP. By all means make your voice heard. But support the organisation at the same time. Criticism and support are NOT mutually exclusive. Make suggestions. (By suggestions I don’t mean ‘stop what you’re doing I hate it I hate it’, I mean suggestions which work towards addressing the problems which CILIP are dealing with in ways not currently to your liking). If half as much energy was put into helping CILIP as was put into slagging it off, it could get a lot more done.

Remember that running a big chartered institute is nothing like running a social media campaign or a pressure group. And above all remember that CILIP is a bunch of humans working all day on our behalf, on the really very tricky problems we face as an industry and a profession.

Libraries are in a bit of a state. I don't want a professional body that keeps everybody happy, I just want a professional body which gets shit done. CILIP can get more done with us, than without us.

The ultimate guide to Prezi, updated and refreshed!

A lot has happened since I wrote this post, complete with a Prezi guide created in Prezi itself, in July 2011. I've been the Technical Reviewer for a successful book on Prezi, I've been twice approached by publishers to write books about Prezi (including the 2nd edition of the one I was reviewer for!), I've used it for loads more training and presentations, and the Prezi guides I've written across various formats have been viewed almost a quarter of a million times. (Clearly I'm wasting my time with all this library stuff. :) ) There's also a deluge of comments on the Prezi, many asking when I'm going to update it - because the other thing that has changed, quite substantially, is Prezi itself. The whole interface has changed completely. So here is the ultimate guide to Prezi, updated and refreshed for 2013, with new screenshots, new instructions, additional examples, and an edited FAQ. I hope it's still useful!

The other change that's happened in this time is that Prezi has gone from a little niche presentation tool to something you see a LOT. And many people really don't like it - admittedly some of this comes from people being too cool to get on board with popular trends, but much of it comes from the majority of Prezis being fairly awful... They are made entirely with the presenter in mind (look what I can do!) and not with the audience in mind - and EVERY presentation should be made with the audience in mind. Bad Prezis get in the way of the messages you're trying to get across, rather than support them - and worse still, can leave the audience feeling motion-sickness. It's up to you as the Prezi creator to ensure this doesn't happen! As you can imagine, the guide above contains tips for doing so.

A lot of people expect me to be this mad Prezi fan-boy because I've written these guides, and I've actually had delegates at conferences express disappointment when I've turned up with slides! But I don't use Prezi all the time by any means - it has its strengths and its limitations, and isn't appropriate for every scenario. These days, I use PowerPoint if I want to talk about one idea - something with a linear thread - and Prezi if I've got lots of disparate ideas or themes within the same presentation. That's why I use it for my full-day training workshops (that and the fact that it's a lot easier to make a nice Prezi than a nice PowerPoint - the thought of making 7 hours worth of slides that aren't terrible fills me with dread...). The important thing is you decide whether or not you can get Prezi to work for you, and if so, when. It can be a fantastic way to get ideas across to an audience.

Also, in case you've not seen it, here's 6 useful things which even experienced Prezi users miss, and if you're interested my Prezi profile is here.

Happy presenting!