The PPT Of Gabbing Forth By Day – Talking careers in legal information down the years

GUEST LECTURE’ING

I tend to give an annual guest lecture on law librarianship and careers in legal information to Masters students. Done quite a few down the years at various institutions. So this Wednesday found me gabbing away at Glasgow University. It’s something I enjoy, I fully realise being me all the hassle will be in finding the right venue (I have no sense of direction), but then it’ll be fun.

PREPARATION BECOMES AN OLD FRIEND

Because of this there is The Spiel on ppt and memory stick and a Bibliography that goes with it. Every year I end up hurriedly up-dating said ppt and bibliog a few times a year (it may also come out for new placement students from university LIS courses I take, visits from other Mentors Chartership Mentees etc) and I tend to keep the different principal versions. It’s a useful document to have sitting by.

CHANGES IN EMPHASIS AND NUANCE

It’s interesting just looking at the changes in emphasis and nuance between versions only a few years apart. Whole approaches to aspects of a subject can change fundamentally very rapidly (e.g. traditional approach to training by type of product or by online service gradually giving way to a  wider legal information literacy approach). New aspects entirely appear also, the last couple of years has seen a lot of interest in the post lecture discussion of outsourcing for instance, not a word that would have appeared in it at all five years ago. The overall context has changed a lot, discussions of new forms of business structures coming in and changes in emphasis  brought by the change from the boom years to a much slower economy upon the sector.

THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL STYLES

I’m  conscious of how my ppts reflect my personality and style recently. I view a ppt as a spine – a structure for Gabbing Forth By Day Or Eventide and then I just casually gab around it bearing in mind when I  need to start and finish and how many slides I have to get through. I realise however I’m very text-based, somehow I think text, and images get a look in if there’s time which there never is. 

COMPARING

My presentations are minimalist to put it mildly when I look at others in the same programmes.  On my magical to do list is to have a bit of a look at Powerpoint and all the image options on that I currently don’t utilise. I have a friend in another profession who is the opposite of me, she’s hugely image-based in her presentations, and I admire the skill that requires and every time it triggers an urge in me to try more myself. I was at one of hers on Monday and comparing our styles in amusement.

LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

I tend to go for lowest common denominator in my PPTs simply so I know it will work on any IT infrastructure anywhere using any version of Powerpoint. Because I have seen things go horribly wrong. Which is certainly practical. But I am trying to add in more images this year to all sorts of things.  Admittedly not to this as I’m away on holiday typing it from a friends living-room…

I suspect all the same next time I give this particular presentation it will have some photo's!

Musings on ‘The Library Book’

To finish off NLD12 musing a quick post on some of the thoughts and concepts within ‘The Library Book’.

‘The Library Book’

The Library book is made up of numerous fairly short pieces of writing from different authors on the subject of libraries or in some way associated with libraries. It’s an initiative from The Reading Agency aligned for publication around National Libraries Day 2012 and with the proceeds going to various Reading Challenges.

I feel I should perhaps have borrowed it from my local library(!!), but truth to tell I bought it (well, the cause was good!). So I’d been reading it in miscellaneous gaps over the last couple of weeks.

Most of the pieces are opinion pieces and standalone works and are public-library orientated. Some pieces are extracts from longer fictional works or look at other contexts (e.g. historical) or consider other types of library as well (e.g. academic, research). 

Bringing Different Perspectives Together

Somehow the more contributors you bring together at times the more intriguing idea’s can be found, either alone, or by cross-referencing against other material in the same volume.

The Joy of Reading Short Pieces

There are times when a couple of minutes to read a small self-contained chapter is a very beguiling thing.



Langside Library Entrance

 The Amusement of Finding Your Own Local Library centrestage in one...

The Hardeep Singh Kohli title is called The Punk and Langside Library. So in case anyone is wondering what Langside Library looks like...

So, to some quotes...

As to what idea’s interested me most within 'The Library Book' or struck a chord, and from who...



Alan Bennett discusses the libraries he's frequented over life at different times for different purposes

One of my favourite chapters in the book. I specifically liked:-

"... libraries are facilities; a library has no honours board and takes no credit for what its readers go on to do..."
[i.e. that readers in libraries often go on to have august careers but we don't note or promote it the way their school would]

"... someone's working library has a particular tone..."
[i.e. that one look at a library tells you a lot about the owner, not just from the titles but the whole look of it]

"... a library needs to be handy and local; it shouldn't require an expedition..."
[i.e. no matter how brilliant and shiny that new central library is, something local is easier to get to]

Val McDermid does the same

"I read everywhere....  The adult library was awesome..."

I liked this piece a lot because it centred upon the need to read constantly and on that great conundrum - how to get access to the Adult Library when you're not old enough and have read your way merrily through most other things!

Caitlin Moran

Talking about the importance of libraries to communities and the individuals within them

"A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit,  a life raft and a festival..."

"... public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead... with a brain and a heart..."


My other favourites chapter is the ancient historian Tom Holland discussing the birth of the Library in ancient Mesopotamia and the famous ancient libraries that followed it.

He notes they were often under threat or destroyed even then.

No matter how big or glorious often they were assembled for very powerful rulers and thus  destroyed, broken up, or appropriated when their power wanes.  What we have of the writings of the times left often comes from the margins of those societies, small collections, rather than the grandest libraries in consequence.

"... the library has never existed that was not shadowed by an apprehension of its own mortality..."

"To look at a library is to know that its volumes can be burned, its shelves cleared and emptied, its walls left an empty shell. It is to feel - even in this age of digital abundance - a sense of the precariousness and the preciousness of human knowledge."

"Knowledge was power - and power was barely worth having without knowledge."

"A civilisation must be judged as well by the books it keeps in institutions far removed from the centres of power. Its very surivial, after all, may depend upon it."

Susan Hill I really like simply because she's talking about The London Library rather than a public library, a rather different subscription-based library that I've never managed to get into and always really fancied...

To finish off...

Some final quotes about the importance of libraries...

Zadie Smith

"We all learned a lot of things in Willesden Green Library, and we learned how to learn things, which is more important."

Karin Slaughter

"We need to shift our national view of libraries not as luxuries, but as necessities."

"Libraries are the backbone of our educational infrastructure..."

And Langside Library from the the front on a Glasgow winter's morning...

In The Loop - The Glasgow Librariton for National Libraries Day

Assembly Point GoMA!

For National Libraries Day lovely idea had been come up with by Anabel Marsh about a group of librarians using the Glasgow underground route (essentially a loop) to visit public libraries on route for the day. With the help of CILIPS and of Glasgow City Libraries a tour was put together and promoted and various librarians signed up and converged to spend the day visiting libraries, networking, and improving their knowledge of public libraries. It started as a Librarithon, went In The Loop and became a Shoogle (as you do).

Convergence and Resusitation



Converging for coffee!

 The Glasgow Librariton contingent met up at a slightly harrowing for some (especially those non-locals attending!) 10am on Saturday morning downstairs in GoMA library coffee area. GoMA Library is one of Glasgow’s newest libraries, in the middle of the city centre, housed in the basement of Glasgow Museum of Modern Art.

There was much yawning, exchanging greetings, making introductions, and having coffee while we were efficiently sorted for the day as to schedule by Myra (our Guide for the day giving up her Saturday off to take us round), talked through how to access WiFi, non-locals got issued with Glasgow City Libraries membership cards…

For the locals this quickly became a ‘compare and contrast Glasgow City Library Membership Cards Down The Ages’ session. Naturally having the oldest most hardest-used looking one present I feel I won this. Though the new ones are very swish!

The Assembled Contingent

There were around ten of us in all, mostly from the West and East of Scotland, and from a hugely varied amount of library and information settings – academic librarians, school librarian, charity health sector information worker, law firm librarian, auction house librarian, public librarian… Somehow I don't quite seem to have managed to catch everyone in one photo though...

GoMA Library

We started the official programme with a tour of GoMA Library just talking through all the different area’s and some of the services. It was very apparent that it was one space but which had been zoned very cleverly for different categories of stock and types of service, e.g. the computer ranks, the children’s section, the café and had a very relaxed atmosphere.

GoMA is one of busiest libraries but has a distinctive user base in that many users are e.g. workers who find it more convenient to use the library near work than at home, it’s under an art gallery, so it has a good art section and may do exhibitions that link up with what’s on upstairs…

The other most notable thing about GoMA is that for a library physically in a basement it is extremely well lit and zoned you don’t feel like you’re underground at all.

Visiting GoMA really reminded me that it’s 5mins from my work so very useful for lunchtime potentially, and that it’s also open on a Sunday afternoon if I’m in town. I have used it occasionally down the years, but never regularly. I will use it more now.

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Various librarians paying full attention (!?) with Myra, our lovely Guide in the middle.

 So we all had a browse about and started borrowing out some books ready to go to Glasgow Underground and collect our Glasgow Underground Shoogle Bags to put them in! Hillhead Library was our next visit via our first quick Underground trip away.

In The Loop...

Hillhead Library

Now Hillhead Library (in the middle of the busy West End of Glasgow with all of its shops, restaurants, bars and cultural places and right inbetween two universities) is one I tend to pass by while shopping rather than use. I mean to go in for a look but don’t quite get there. When I think of Hillhead Library I also think of the Taggart episode where the member of library staff from it turned out to be the murderer! It was particuarly satisfying to be in the workroom part of the library for part of the tour - can't resist library crates!

We had a very thorough and comprehensive tour around Hillhead Library during which we exchanged knowledge and discussed common issues that affect different sectors and developing area’s as well as getting a lot of information on Glasgow City Libraries overall and on Hillhead in particular.

View  downwards from upper level

Hillhead is a large and highly used library on two levels which delivers a lot of different services. We talked through some of the changes coming to the Library in terms of refurbishment and re-design of the internal space (from removal of the central issue desk for islands instead through to lift installation to get around the stairs problem) and new service provision in the near future (e.g. MacMillan Cancer Care area) and the issues around delivering substantial change while maintaining existing service levels also.

Hillhead like various Glasgow libraries has very successful bounce and rhyme sessions, storytelling, and is involved with facilitating a number of book groups. As part of the visit I got given the new Aye Write book festival programme (hurrah!) and we were shown the latest Glasgow City Libraries initiative called Scotland's Bookshelf around this which involved choosing two books to represent each decade that the 100 year old Mitchell Library had been operational. So off the intriguing book display of the various titles I chose Greenvoe to borrow.

It was particularly amusing when we all gathered round a new promotional poster re Glasgow City Libraries and tried to see if our various smartphones were equipped to scan the QR code on it. So on my list for this week is to see if I can download an app that will enable me to scan them successfully. Something that occurs to me to do routinely about once a fortnight while gazing at a QR code, but which I’ve not done anything about yet. Its time has come!

And then we were off into the West End to collapse convivially around eating lunch before sauntering out Undergrounds-ward again.

Partick Library



Trees ahoy





Blocks of colour on display

 My over-whelming memory of Partick Library is of splashes of colour  throughout.  

Partick was a fairly quick visit as we were running behind schedule (all that gossiping together at lunch!) and the weather had turned on us a bit so we were slightly bedraggled.

Once within the Library however we were much entertained that Myra, our Guide for the day, ended up behind the issue desk serving a customer (we cheerfully stood and helpfully took photos of her doing this!!).  We then got a tour round the library and talk through some of the services by one of the staff based in Partick Library.

Partick is a fairly old building, somewhat worn in places, with huge rooms, a lovely ceiling and big windows. But the old and the new still manage to combine within it as the MP-3 collection shows.



An almost stained glass look...



My chief memory is of the displays, rugs and posters. Between them they conjured up warm colours and a bright atmosphere. Publisher-themed book displays giving a block of colour, the book display on film icons… Some of the rugs in the children’s section were lovely. The really clever posters in the children’s section (basically large posters printed off as individual A4 sheets and placed carefully together, gave an almost subliminal feel of stained glass to them).

Not Quite The Gorbals (this time)

Next and last on the tour and last stop for our intrepid tour was The Gorbals Library but, alas, I never made it that far having another appointment I had to run for instead so I left the tour after Partick and progressed towards my next appointment (by Underground, naturally).

Overall

I had a really interesting and informative day getting into lots of local public libraries I don’t normally (being a lucky person with Langside Library, my own local, 5 min walk from my front door). All libraries, even within one system in one sector, are substantially different – because of the design and age of the building, where it’s situated, different communities it serves, different pressures on them and hence needs, some being the locus for specific types of activity or use…

What comes over in a tour around several is diversity and individualism, but in a linked-up agenda and service ethos with the roll-out of different initiatives to different places depending on suitability, resource, cost on-going. Pressures and challenges that folk in any sector could relate to, but also thriving used services and lots of new developments in the pipeline. Mostly it was about the importance of the local community and their needs and the sheer variety of those and what the service could do to meet them within existing operational restraints.

Children's section has the best rugs in Partick Library!

Many thanks to all involved in planning and organizing who made it such an interesting day. Great way to celebrate the diversity of libraries for National Libraries Day.

For other blog's and write-up's about the day see Annabel's and Scottish Libaries

LIBDAY8 - Themes Of The Week

The Approach

Having cast my eyes down my running list of activities from each day of last week I’ve decided that as I’m just doing one post for the whole week I might as well do this thematically. That way I get rid of lots of repetition.

I am basically being somewhat general and generic re a lot of this so that I give a flavour of the types of activity but without being specific.  I’m a corporate sector law firm librarian and that basically means anything client related or business development related it would be inappropriate to go into. 

Themes Re-occur But There Is No ‘Standard’ Pattern To A Week

The below list isn’t ‘typical’ as such of a week as certain things I may concentrate on in one

Week but not another (e.g. spending a day a week working from all our other offices the week before whereas I was in my own ‘base’ office all last week).

There is also the fact that fulfilling research and other client and business related needs that arise is obviously the priority for my department and can come in from any part of the firm at any time.  Everything else is necessarily fitted in around those re more on-going activity that is either important (e.g. medium-term projects) or still needs done regularly to maintain the wider service overall but is not urgent per se.

So, what I do depends to a large degree on the in-coming enquiry stream across the week and what is needed and how urgent. Law is a knowledge-based business.

Themes of This Week

Internal Meetings -

On various subjects across the week.

In-Depth Research Topic Enquiries -

Now on these I’m obviously not going to say what I researched, for who, or why. Suffice to say enquiries tend to be very specific, often urgent, and can be on a very wide range of different things, but mostly legal or commercial subjects.

Sourcing and retrieving and providing required items  -

This involves utilising in-house resources, subscription and other databases, memberships of other organisations with information services, and document delivery services. Law firms will tend to hold the ‘core’ materials related to their main subject area’s of interest and sectors but source and bring in more esoteric or rarely needed items from elsewhere when the need arises.

Current Awareness Service activities -

Various discussions with others internally involved in and about potential re-jigs of specific aspects. Being up-to-date and knowing what is in-coming and when in terms of new law and likely impact is, of course, hugely important in a law firm.

Training session -

Small very specific refresher training sessions are useful ways to embed knowledge. Small amounts of actual time take people away from their desks for minimal periods and can be a lot quicker and easier to fit into busy schedules.

Physical Collection Management -

Cataloguing new stock, weeding of existing physical stock, bit of a re-jig of parts of the shelving area in result. Essentially law expands exponentially week by week and space to put it all in does not! Plus certain superseded items may need to be retained for ‘point in time’ research so it’s not just retaining current state of knowledge items on a subject, it can also be about archiving and deciding what to keep and for how long re previous states of knowledge at times.

Publisher interactions -

The usual – accessioning new material, doing renewals, discussion of forthcoming materials, talking to various of my suppliers, exploring new developments re databases subscribed to.

Finance –

This comes down to doing the required internal processes to track spend, budget, and get things paid. It’s also about looking for trends and considering service and user impacts.

The Week’s Project –

Well fortnight’s to be honest!  This is basically about choosing and prioritising something from the Miscellaneous Things Not Done That Are Now Annoying Me List so that it does finally get done and hence ceases to annoy me!  In this case determinedly reading a new text in my area and compiling a book review for it I promised somewhere last year. See previous proper post on.

Wider Professional Activities -

Various things come under this. I’m a CILIP Trustee and member of the current CILIP Future Skills Project Board so various to do with both of those this week.  I followed the Guardian Evolving Role of HE Librarians live chat, attended the photo session to promote the Glasgow National Libraries Day initiative called In The Loop (visiting and touring various public libraries on the Glasgow Underground route) and participated in that for National Libraries Day on Saturday – see separate (forthcoming!) blog post on all of that. And the normal lots of Twitter and blogs reading on various professional subjects and blogging myself. I also ordered myself a copy of ‘The Library Book’ (published for National Libraries Day) which I’m much looking forward to thumping through my letterbox sometime this week.

Camping In Style at #libcampnw

The Rise of the Unconference 'format'

Now, unconferences, teachmeets, mashed sessions… these have all been gaining in popularity in recent years as an alternative to traditionally scheduled and arranged conferences, seminars and events.

They tend to be free (though donations gratefully accepted as is baking) and may take place at the weekend. And I’ve never been to any so I had a hankering…

Last year I had an ‘almost’ moment with librarycamp11 in that my schedule finally overcame me at the last and I ended up pulling out to write up something I had due on the Monday instead. Reading all the blogs and tweets from it I really regretted this.

Thus I was determined to put this near miss right at the next obvious opportunity.

Fun and Frolics in the Madlab

And hence last Saturday afternoon found me in Manchester for #libcampnw in the wonderfully named venue of the Madlab.

All afternoon a group of very diverse library, archives and information workers cheerily cantered up and down stairs to different sessions only stopping to grab more sumptuous cake and gossip on the way (and to look at the Board Of All Knowledge on what session was taking place where when). An extremely informal and very convivial time was had by all.

The Session Content

Sessions you say? What were the sessions on? Well, on whatever anyone put forward basically that attracted an audience that wanted to gather together in a huddle and discuss it! Some sessions attracted very large enthusiastic numbers of the available punters (e.g. on marketing in libraries, on the development work on the new CILIP Body of Professional Knowledge), others were far more petite (e.g. on equality issues or happiness in libraries or all the ‘small but still important things’ like toilets that don’t usually get discussed).

Quick write-up of the sessions I attended

Personally I went to equality issues, cross sectoral working, staff training.

Equality issues

Now we were a petite group, and we started in the same conversation and then I hold my hand up that we ended up having two separate conversations as three folk had one and two of us drifted into another. But they were both highly stimulating conversations that had folk exchanging contact details at the end.

So as I remember it we started all together with the results of the recent CILIP Equalities Audit looking at equalities findings within the organisation about the membership profile, and then it broadened out to discussing the sector and whether the results would differ at all and re how you defined the sector.

And then two of us kind of hived off into a discussion about how to promote LIS work as a career option in places we don’t perhaps reach very well and how to reach into schools to promote it as an option and all the different kinds of jobs, promote more within our own libraries, promote through other related places with cross-societal footfall and strong education and learning programmes such as museums. We discussed uses of positive discrimination to try to change the profile of the profession to one more akin to that of broader society and whether that gave a more welcoming image or pigeonholed people in a way they would not wish. We discussed collecting statistics and uses made of…

Helpfully the 'other' parallel converation going on next to me on the subject has been written up since too by thebradfordlibrarian and Theatregrad has also blogged about the sessions she attended so I now know bits that I slightly half-missed at the time about things I was in and things I wasn't (grins!).

Cross sector working

This was a combined session on cross sector working and working in non library jobs.

We had a diverse membership for the discussion ranging from public and private sector library folk to consultants to archivists to Wikipedia to library systems supplier to student.

A lot of it was about what opportunities existed to work collaboratively to e.g. source content or systems re procurement and to work in a lot closer way instead of everyone in their respective silos. Various initiatives between different bodies were discussed.

It kind of came down to many have very similar concerns and goals but very few of us are directly connected, all working in different systems and sectors, and thus it is immensely difficult to make national or global offers which would have instant recognition in a brand manner as an out-facing profile to help illustrate the worth and value of what we do. We need to work on this harder.

There are collaborative projects, but often they’re not known widely outwith a certain sector never mind to an external audience, and they may be very localised, or they may be time constrained, or they might have been going a long time and be fairly large and wide-ranging but not have a huge profile outwith their own communities.

Staff training

This was another combined session I think (where there were too many sessions pitched to run some were combined) on staff training and internal communication – though to be fair we didn’t really get to internal communication!

A lot of it ranged about creative solutions to training budgets that did not exist or were perhaps extremely small and how to go about getting the training you felt you or your staff needed.

How to sell the need and benefit for it internally to get it agreed, ways of going about that didn’t necessarily involve time away or expensive courses where there were issues around budget or cover or getting rest of work done.

So we covered all the usual from job shadowing and visits, running in-house, developing yourself, having external trainer in to run, doing half hour very focused sessions at certain times, blended learning, electronic options, discussion with colleagues, getting it written into your appraisal objectives for organisational buy-in, pitching it to boss…

It was useful having a mixture of people there who were themselves trainers as well and getting their viewpoint that generally they love invites from places with defined ready-made communities e.g. professional groups so they don’t have to try and find their own audiences and do all the practical arrangements too as well as deliver the content. The other thing that came across was the difficulty where there is impasses between someone wanting training in x to happen and someone in more authority disagreeing on the need.

Outcomes Beyond The Day?

Concrete things do come out of it. Two of my colleagues also on the Project Board for it who were there proposed a session on the CILIP Body of Professional Knowledge which attracted a good turnout and a lot of debate – the feedback from that session has been disseminated to the Project Board already to help formulate our work.

And I had a few idea’s on various things triggered by all the debate and sessions on other things too which I know I’ll explore.

In conclusion…

I’m afraid I whizzed off early before the last sessions as the only very cheap train back to Glasgow meant I needed to leave early. But it was a really good afternoon of lots of enthusiastic people who would not normally meet from lots of different environments discussing whatever they personally felt like discussing on the day. Definitely energising.

Blogs are starting to appear from folk who attended totally different sessions to me so that's a good way of seeing what happened in the sessions I missed too.

So, many thanks to all the individuals who organised the event and to those cheery souls who turned up for it from all points of the compass on a Saturday afternoon and made it such fun.  Really glad I got and roll on the next one...

And now I've got around to doing the blog entry for it (hurrah) I must do something with that pocket of scribbled telephone numbers, business cards, event notifications, Twitter names etc. that I picked up.

The cake wrappers I can confirm are safely binned though! Promise!

The Joys of Networking

Law Librarian Networking

Last Thursday was the annual Scottish Law Librarians’ Group networking meeting.

Format

Traditionally this involves members suggesting topics in advance and the participants being split into rotating groups to discuss each topic and compare and contrast views, knowledge and practice with each other. All the views will then be consolidated together for an SLLG Newsletter article later in the year. After the topics have been discussed (strict time limit of six minutes each!) everyone hits the nibbles and socialises for a bit so it’s a good chance to catch up with people you don’t actually see often.

SLLG Membership

The information practitioners who comprise the membership of SLLG are drawn from a variety of places – lots from law firms, academic subject librarians whose remit includes law, various from government and the courts, and also individuals from the likes of police, oil and health who have legal interests and may operate in niche areas. Various suppliers to the sector are also members e.g. representing bookshops or publishers.

Topics

At the meeting last Thursday (seems way back in time already!) there was lively discussion on such issues as competitive intelligence (more of a law firm issue), social media use, introducing and integrating ebooks into service provision (practical issues and concerns, who’s offering what, platforms for, licensing issues, what other sectors do), outsourcing, and impending changes in law firm governance north and south of the border such as Alternative Business Structures.

Acronyms ahoy - LIBDAY8 and NLD12

LIBDAY8 and NLD12

The Library Day In A Life Project allows librarians and information workers in a huge variety of contexts to share a snapshot of a day, or a week, in their working lives.

As such it promotes the diversity of the sector, gives insight into available jobs, and gives those considering entering the profession a flavour of the types of work it can entail.  It started as a 'day' but generally it's now become a 'week'!  And for #libday8 within the week also falls National Libraries Day 2012 on 4th February handily enough which promotes the value of all kinds of libraries.

Dealing With (relative!) 'calm'

The last couple of weeks for me have been full-on diving around the UK for lots of different purposes, so in a way better suited to Library Day in A Life as that is more normal for me.

LIBDAY8 however falls on a much calmer week when I'm largely in one place and at my own desk (minor miracles of life!) catching up on more regular activity.

Participation...

I've never partcipated in this before as I usually end up meaning to and listing activity till about (coughs) Tuesday and then the week passes in a flash and I realise I don't have the content to do it. I've simply forgotten precisely what I did when and the bus has passed and the sector is onto the next thing.

Scheduling and Approach

So what I’m going to do at the end of this week is one very general post of the key activities of each ‘day’ of this week rather than do daily entries or tweet it as I go. Because there's huge amounts of #libday8 content this week from huge numbers of people and I know I prefer blogs as structure for it to TweetAMinute which gets overwhelming quickly. 

Therefore I'm deciding on participation but with some volume control works best for me. I'm building up a list each day of the key activities in draft format so come end of week I will know what I did when.

And if it all works to plan this time (grins) I'll even link myself to the LibDay8 webpage in celebration!

Diversity Is A Glorious Thing

But I will  also add a few separate blog posts on some of the specific things I’ve been involved in over the last couple of weeks. Simply because if everyone is concentrating on #libday8 content at the same time it gets a bit same-y perhaps.