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April 2001
BBC Television Centre, White City. February 12 2001 Susan Wright
When I went to the graduate trainee day organised by AUKML I did not quite know what to expect. What I was not expecting was a day that could easily have been re-titled, "Why I like being a librarian". The majority of speakers were there to talk about how much they enjoyed their jobs, and as I, and indeed everyone else in the room, were already trainees in that field, it was a case of preaching to the converted. The various speeches were entertaining and enjoyable, but I would have liked more practical advice on applying to university and future career choices. After a short talk by Annabel Colley on the AUKML and about her role at the BBC we had our first guest speaker, Norman Boyd of Barking College. He seemed somewhat confused as to why he had been asked to talk to us that day as he works in a further education college and all those attending wanted to work in the media. Despite this he got on with his slide show chatting and joking his way through as everyone present (or perhaps just me) swore quietly that they would never work in further education. Perhaps this was his true purpose there, a plant by AUKML to keep us on the straight and narrow path aimed firmly towards media librarianship, or perhaps they were just short of speakers and he owed someone a favour. I guess I will never know. Next on the list was Sue Hill who runs a recruitment agency. The most practical advice we got all day came from her. She told us when to register to find work, how long on average it took to get employed, and most importantly of all how much we could expect to get paid. This was the reason we were here after all. If the day did nothing else at least after this we all believed that our skills were needed and that we would find work and that it might even pay enough to live on. When Sue had finished we it was time for our lunch break which went on a bit longer than planned. This was because they wanted to make sure we all got a tour of the BBC Information and Archives department during it. It's a very large department and there were people from various specialist sections dotted around explaining their role. Directly after this Katherine Whiting and Hazel Simpson, both of who work for the BBC, demonstrated its Library databases. I will admit to suffering database envy as they showed us all the information they have at their fingertips, but as interesting as it was I didn't go there to hear how great being a librarian at the BBC was: I wanted to know how I can become one! Amanda Green, one of last year's graduates was up next. She now works for the Foreign Office and as she has only just entered the job market her speech was probably one of the most relevant to us. She was able to provide us with some handy hints on work placements, employment and even applying to university. Although she may not have been in everyone's dream job her advice applied to all. If only there had been more information like this throughout the day. Jill Tulip, who is Head of Information at IPC, immediately impressed me when she handed out free magazines. This is what you want from a conference, free gifts (other speakers please take note). After the usual preamble about how great it was to be a librarian she explained the practicalities of her job, which must have been of interest to those not already working in a media based library. She also brought along celebrity cuttings files dating back to the 1950s which even managed to interest me, and I thought I had seen enough cuttings files to last me a lifetime. Next up was Neil Edward who spoke to us about his work at News International and the problems associated with dealing with journalists who are working to strict deadlines. He shared with us some of the stupidest requests he had received, which I will not repeat here. Then it was time for the final speaker of the day, Professor Charles Oppenheim from Loughborough University. He talked about the future of information technology and our role in the ever- evolving field of internet and intranet searching, asking if we would still have one and, fortunately for me, answering yes. I would have liked him to speak a little more about the course he teaches at Loughborough, but despite that it was still a fascinating lecture. After the day was over I left feeling reassured that there was work out there for all of us, that there would continue to be work in the future and that there are a lot of very happy librarians out in the world of work. What I was not given was help or advice on how best to become one of them. For future conferences perhaps they could look into getting more universities involved to answer our questions on which courses we should be applying to, as well as having professionals talk about their individual experiences. Susan Wright is a graduate trainee at the Guardian and Observer MY INTERNET:ANDREW RAWNSLEY Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator on the Observer. He was recently voted Columnist of the Year in the What the Papers say awards. His book Servants of the People: the Inside Story of New Labour (Hamish Hamilton, £17.99), which was published last year, has been described as one of the most damaging contemporary accounts of a British government ever. He presents BBC Radio 4 's Westminster Hour and for many years co-presented Channel 4's A Week in Politics with the late Vincent Hanna. When did you first go on the web and what did you find? About two years ago. I found it enormously useful once I'd grasped that the way to avoid wasting oceans of time is to go surfing. Much better to know in advance where you want to dip How often do you go online? Five times a week What has the web improved more, the quality of your work or the quality of your life? Both. My work: access to vast amounts of home and foreign news material. Believe it or not, the Number 10 and other Whitehall websites are genuinely useful. Say I want to access a speech by the Prime Minister; I can have it the moment he's delivered it, or grab it from the archive a year later. Has the internet had any detrimental effects on your work (specifically), or your life (in general)? No, I'd say not because I try to be rationed about it. If you are not careful with your time, I can see the danger that you could be sucked into cyber-space and emerge to find that your family left you several months earlier. Do you search the internet yourself or do you prefer to delegate searches to intermediaries? Nearly always myself. Name a few of your favourite sites and a few you dislike (or in your view, what's the best and the worst of the web?) BBC sites are brilliant and ad free. Say I miss that crucial skewering of minister X on Today or say I want to hear again whether minister Y has been prudent with the truth on the World at one, I can replay the interviews at my leisure. Thank God for public service broadcasting. Worst: any of the too many sites featuring the likes of singing hamsters which some colleagues seem to find strangely addictive. Which statement to do you agree with? The web: a) constitutes a triumph of style over substance b) is the greatest thing since Caxton brought the printing press to Britain c) was once a revolutionary medium but has been corrupted by sell-out dot-coms and corporate money. d) really helps me stick it to the MAN, man! I'm a less hyperbolic (b). Not the greatest thing since Caxton, but probably on a par with the invention of the telephone or radio. Can you recommend one brilliant site that might enhance another person's life? I'd always have the BBC sites - and of course Guardian Unlimited - marked as favourites Do you use any of the web's more interactive features: chat rooms, discussion groups, or forums? No, though I have done some interactive interviews, for instance for Aol and Amazon, which suggested intelligent users on their sites. When you chuck your name into a search engine, what comes out? A guy who composes music in California and a canon who founded the National Trust. What has been your most pleasurable experience while on the 'net? Being told by my wife that it's time to log off and go to bed A DAY IN THE LIFE Deadline has revived A day in the life, the column where members keep a diary of a typical day in the office. Alison Green writes about the library at the recently launched Scottish paper, Business a.m.
Starting from scratch. The creation of a Newspaper Library Business a.m. is the first new daily newspaper in Scotland for 100 years. Our aim is to provide coverage of business, finance and politics from a Scottish perspective. We launched the newspaper on September 20 2000. I joined Business a.m. at the beginning of July last year with the task of creating a library service for the whole company. We were keen to ensure that the library would be seen as a centralised resource for the whole company and not only as an editorial tool, therefore the library comes under Marketing & Information Services, not Editorial! I found myself in the fortunate and unusual position of having all my resource requests fulfilled. We have a wide selection of reference books, periodicals, newspapers, access to both Reuters Business Briefing and Lexis Nexis, as well as access to company information through ICC Juniper. We also have an electronic text and picture archiving system. The library's duties include research, text archiving, picture archiving, photo-sales, compiling a monthly newsletter for journalists, on-line systems training, distributing daily newspapers and magazines and maintaining a press cuttings service. Initially it was thought that I would be the sole member of library staff! In my first couple of weeks with the company I quickly realised more resources would be necessary. Just before the newspaper launched we recruited a Researcher followed by a part-time Assistant. A typical day (if such a thing exists) 9.00 - 9.30am - Arrive in the office to a massive pile of newspapers, magazines and journals which we distribute throughout the company. 9.30 -11.00am - Kept busy dealing with enquiries. There is only one member of staff working between 9.00am and 11.00am so it can be fairly hectic. 11.00-12.45pm - The daily archiving of the text begins at 11am. This coincides with our researcher, Catherine, starting her shift. She can then take care of all the incoming enquiries. The archiving normally takes just under two hours. We need to have the archiving completed by early afternoon so that the text can be available on our website. 12.45-1.30pm - Lunch. 1.30pm-2pm - While Catherine disappears for lunch I just about manage to keep on top of the enquiries. Enquiries are generally related to the business community due to the nature of the newspaper we publish. Although I don't come from a business background I found my skills were fairly easily transferable, though I am constantly learning. 2.30-3.30pm - Early afternoon is a time for responding to e-mails, tackling long-term projects, catching up on the backlog with the text archive, picture archiving, sourcing information and working on long- term research projects. 3.30pm-5.30pm - Late afternoon and the enquiries start to flood in again. Our most heavily used tools are Lexis-Nexis and ICC Juniper. Our journalists have access to Lexis-Nexis and we provide training when needed, however they often like us to do their research especially if it is going to be time consuming. 5.30pm-7pm - In the run-up to deadline we only have one member of staff covering the enquiries so it can be a fairly busy time. We have a relatively early deadline that enables the library to close at 7pm. Building a newspaper library from scratch has been a huge challenge. Although it has been stressful and there have been problems along the way, the experience on the whole has been educational and enjoyable. The working environment at Business a.m. is very different from anything I have experienced before. The atmosphere is great and we have established good communication links with all the other departments. The library has a lot of challenges ahead including developing more complex search facilities for the text and picture archive, raising the profile of the photo-sales operation and building on our existing resources. And on that note I had better get back to it!
Alison Green is the Library Manager, Business a.m. CONFERENCE 2000 The theme was 'Work Smarter, Not harder' at last year's conference. Was it a success or did delegates merely play harder? AUKML members report. AUKML Conference 2000 - Leicester - Work Smarter, not Harder. by Katherine Scholpflin The title of last year's Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML) annual conference was "Work Smarter; Not Harder", an aim which seems particularly apposite given the dramatic changes new technology has brought to our way of working. An exercise on the first evening, designed to articulate our shared concerns for the future, demonstrated an overwhelming interest in its effects. Can it help us to work more efficiently and quickly in meeting our users' needs? And what threats does it pose to our status, skills, job satisfaction, or even jobs? This theme remained under the surface of many of the activities and speakers at the conference, which was, as a whole, a fascinating and highly enjoyable way of putting what we do on a daily basis into a larger context. The keynote speaker, Karen Beesley, a consultant with her own company Keep Informed, opened the conference with a rousing talk on achieving personal goals. Although the title of her presentation, "Keeping Ahead of the Pack" could have seemed inconsistent with the goals of research librarians, that is, to provide excellence to the customer, rather than simply to be competitive, she made it clear that self-belief and aiming high can also be a means to this end. If the "Pack" in question is our customers, then there really cannot be enough encouragement to us to aim high, in order for us to keep up with their needs and, more importantly, to ensure we are not overtaken by them in technological skills. Her philosophical and provocative talk was followed by a purely practical one by the BBC's Matthew Mcdonnell. Matt gave some excellent tips, mostly new to me, on how to add value to our internet searches. In particular, he focused on the need to use more than Google, certainly the favourite search engine where I work. His recommendation, that an information researcher should regularly use five or six different search engines was enlightening (and a little frightening!). His talk seemed to have impressed everyone, as several people spontaneously mentioned to me how good they thought it was in the coffee break which followed. The final section of the morning gave the us opportunity to hear the experiences of other media librarians. In this case, it was Jan Holliday, Barbara Thompson and Elizabeth Weightman, all of whom have run small (even solo) information units for regional newspapers. They all talked about the introduction of new technologies and how this affected their jobs. Coming from a very large organisation, it was fascinating to hear not only their very different experiences, coping with small resources, few staff and a good deal less procedure than we face from day to day, but also what we share as media librarians. Like us they collect and provide information against tight deadlines and have experienced similar benefits and failures from new technologies. What was humbling, given the sometimes ambivalent attitude to change some have in the BBC's Information and Archives, was their struggles to obtain more technology as the only thing to allow them the time to do their jobs properly, a struggle in Jan Holliday's words involving "having to beg, borrow and sometimes steal". In the afternoon we split into four separate workshop groups after an initial presentation from each of the guest coordinators, all discussing skills which can improve the way we work. In "Networking for Virtual Communities", William Hann of Free Pint chaired a discussion on the benefits of email discussion lists, bulletin boards, internets and intranets to our professional life and relationship with our customers. One delegate, a manager in an Indian multimedia corporation, shared the staggering statistic that five million hits are received per day on her company website. Will gave us some suggestions on managing and promoting bulletin boards and introduced into my vocabulary the handy, if unpleasant term "viral marketing". I now know that links and banners on emails can spread the word about new websites like a bad cold in January. The afternoon finished with a round-up of the hopes and fears of media librarians, as they appeared on the first night. Having, in the intervening time, had my drive to excellence boosted, picked up some very useful searching tips and heard some enlightening experiences, the same themes seemed to me somehow more optimistic than they were on Friday night. The profession may be threatened by technological changes, in particular that of the web revolution, but I somehow felt better able to meet the challenge. As a conference first- timer AUKML 2000 achieved much for me. I gained new skills, new contacts, an insight into the working lives of others and a much broader picture of the concerns of the industry as a whole. And I really enjoyed the sauna and jacuzzi. Katherine Scholpflin works at the BBC's Information and Archives
Keeping ahead of the pack Keynote speech, Karen Beasley I found the talk a little like the Curate's Egg (good in parts). A lot of this talk was stating the obvious and used an awful lot of buzzwords. I disagree with statements such as "You need a degree of effort and also luck." I would phrase this as "You need 98% effort and 2% luck". "No such thing as failure - only feedback." I think failure is a far more descriptive word than feedback and have completely different definitions. Sentences such as "Dream the dream and step into it" and "Feel the fear" sound like passages written on a psychedelic 1960s record sleeve.
Smart Ways With Search Engines:
Matthew McDonnell, BBC Research Central Google would usually be my first port of call and often the only place I would consider looking for information. Google ranks its results based on a relevancy algorithm that looks at how many links point to a given page. So the websites it displays have been given a vote of confidence by other websites linking to them. It has the biggest index on the web. However Matthew came up with lots of reasons to use other search engines and not totally rely on Google. He felt it was important to be aware of what is available on the web. He recommended operating a "three strikes and you're out" policy. If information could not be found after three search engines it might well not be available. He also pointed out some flaws in Google. The fact that it ranks sites by links, means that new sites which have not built up a lot of links, will not appear. Google does not allow any complex searching and it is impossible for it to index some sites. More complex field searching can be conducted using Alta Vista which allows you to search for terms in specific fields. So when looking for someone who is incredibly popular on the web such as Pamela Anderson it's possible to look for her name only in the website's title. This cuts out some of the irrelevant sites or 'noise' which often makes searching the internet so laborious. It is also possible to find hidden sites, which might not appear using a conventional search. By bringing up a list of sites that link to a website you can look at groups of similar sites. I've used this since the conference while researching far right organisations. Looking at a list of sites which linked to the British National Party, revealed lots of useful WebPages which didn't appear when using a Google search. Matthew also explained that search engines couldn't search database driven sites such as Britannica, only static sites. Matthew thought that due to websites vanishing for various reasons we should save a copy of every site we used and keep it to refer back to. I think this would be totally impractical for us (at News International) due to the number of enquiries we handle and websites we use. He also pointed out that we always need to be aware of when a site was updated and who owns the site before relying on the information it provides. All in all the speech was interesting and made me realise that there's A lot of information on the internet which I might possibly be missing. I think it's very important to develop sophisticated internet searching skills so that we can keep our research skills ahead of the journalists who all have internet access.
Recommended websites:
Saturday afternoon session There were four speakers allocated 10-15 minutes each. Following the talks, delegates split into four workshops. The one slight annoyance was that the delegates had to decide which workshop to attend before they heard the speakers. Peter Griffiths from the Home Office gave some very useful pointers on Time Management. He used his 10 minutes very well and gave reference material for delegates to follow up. Most of it was quite obvious, interruption diaries, managing time wasters, dangers of procrastination, avoiding junk etc, but he did offer some solutions. He gave good reference points for those who were not attending his workshop. William Hann, Free Pint. This speaker had a very big build up as the European Special Librarian of the Year. He was supposed to speak on Networking with Virtual Communities but managed to say nothing other than "in my workshop..." No pointers, nothing. I am none the wiser now about what he had to say. Very poor. I made a point of speaking to some of the people who attended his workshop to find out what it was all about and was informed, rightly or wrongly, that he had used the session as a selling tool for his company and that it was disappointing. Janet Rowlands, Regional Training Manager for Northcliffe Newspapers, spoke about Negotiating Skills. She asked delegates what they felt successful negotiating meant. She offered four alternatives and 80% of the delegates were non-successful negotiators. She offered a very succinct talk and, as with the first speaker, she gave very useful pointers for those not attending her workshop, including the standard negotiating phrase "if? then". She outlined potential problems and stressed the importance of body language and active listening. Mark Hepworth, Loughborough University, spoke on Training the Trainer. He was quite dry but did outline all issues with training and provided a framework for thinking about what makes a good training programme. He pointed out that for people to resist training there has to be a good reason such as fear of the unknown etc.
Workshop overview
Conference Dinner The after dinner speaker was Nick Carter of the Leicester Mercury who began well with a funny story about asking a rather ferocious newspaper librarian for cuts on George VI. "What's his surname?" she asked apparently (well it was funny at the time). The speech did rather meander in the middle but finished strongly with another anecdote. There was a perceptible atmosphere of unease however as Steve England proudly announced The Sisters Of Murphy as the evening's entertainment. Apparently discovered by him in one of the bars of Leicester he frequently visits, we had already been entertained by various members of their entourage lurching back and forth into the dining room loudly saying, "he's still talking and they're not finished yet". Obviously eager to get on they bounded on stage and pounded out reasonable covers of Irish type folky rock like Van Morrison; The Waterboys; the Pogues etc. Cue much frenetic dancing from those present.
AUKML Library Conference - A first timer's view For years librarians had come back from these conferences saying how good they were and how useful so, while I was unsure what to expect, I decided the programme sounded promising. I had visions of scores of Librarians sitting on wooden benches wearing brown cords and out of date shirts and when we arrived I thought my worst fears had been confirmed. Funny little people wondering around wearing name badges looking for direction. Once we had registered I really felt like one of the gang and was looking forward to dinner. A chap called Justin (Arundale) had devised a plan which involved everyone jotting down their thoughts on the topic " What is the future for a Media Librarian". Between us we came up with a lot of good stuff, although many of the suggestions were being duplicated - the main ones being that we should be finding ways of working along side journalists, offering more training, developing intranets and advertising the Library better. I feel I have come away from the conference with a few new ideas, but they didn't really talk about, or show me, anything I wasn't already aware of. However, I did thoroughly enjoy it. Dave Webb, Lynda Iley, Hatty Oliver, Neil Edward and Paul King work at News International library. Longer versions of these reports originally appeared in IS?, their internal newsletter.
Conference report A theme with universal appeal gave the Conference lift off even before the start date. "Work Smarter Not Harder " - irresistible! I, like many other delegates, came impelled with curiosity and fervent hope. Would it deliver? All would soon be revealed. The man who has grown to be the icon of AUKML conferences assumed the chair. Charles Oppenheim's dexterity at introductions, summations, catching the eye of slotting in jostling questioners and above all at illuminating a discussion is legendary. The keynote speaker, Karen Beesley was a role model par excellence. Some ups, a few downs and she was out there, "Keeping ahead of the pack". So concrete were her examples and advice, she soon had us believing we could do it too. Definitely inspirational in a down-to- earth, 'success is just around the corner so get off your rear end fashion'. I became a born again achiever. How does the economic cycle go? Inflation then deflation. Casting my eye at the next speaker's subject "Smart ways with search engines", I felt sure I would be scrabbling about rock bottom. Matthew McDonnell was brilliant! Lucid, breaking down the complex with illuminating clarity. This what the AUKML conference excels at - enlightening dark areas other conferences don't reach. Great stuff Matthew and you did it with the same laid back style you put the wine away at dinner! Speaking from the head was followed by speaking from the heart. Jan Holliday, Barbara Thompson and Elizabeth Weightman have totalled more than half a century working at the rock face with blunt pick-axes. Years of frustration ignored pleas and persistent but un-rewarded endeavour flowed round the hall as we listened to these Voices from the Wilderness. Here was the poverty of unrecognised effort and the richness of lifelong dedication. This was the slot that was very close to my own heart. I too battle with being sidelined merely because there is no direct link between profit and the services provided by the library. It is no fun being a technological dinosaur in a building humming with electronic gadgetry. The situation is self-perpetuating as each speaker demonstrated. Being under-resourced means it is difficult, if not well nigh impossible to smarten up, market or expand the library from its grotty cuttings in cardboard boxes image. Each one of these committed librarians worked either alone or with part-time help, to provide manually an irreplaceable service to deadline ridden journalists with a way with words but not facts. The positive news was that light was creeping in, albeit slowly into this dark ages environment. Some degree of automation was happening. I wish I could say the same for myself, still rooted as I am in printers ink, date stamps, scissors and jammed filing cabinets. This is where AUKML is a life saver, not only with meetings, conferences and Deadline, but also by the networking it provides where I find time and time again much needed information provided promptly and willingly. The vocal debate that ensued after the Voices threw up shock, horror, suggestions and a much needed feeling of camaraderie between big and little brothers. I hope this continues and that each subsequent AUKML conference will in some way touch upon small libraries as long as the need remains. I can't end without a vote of thanks to the hard sloggers who made it all happen; Steve England, conference organiser, shaping sorting and activation the Leicester end and Annabel Colley the dynamo in London who kept the wheels whirling. Thanks to you both for a highly successful conference. I returned enlivened and enlightened. Roll on AUKML 2001. Indranee de Silva is Chief librarian for the Newsquest (Wiltshire) newspaper group
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