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!