Musings on selective memory…

I was watching a lot of tennis at the weekend.

General applicability of advice re what works in tennis?

One of the things one of the commentators said interested me about selective memory.

He was basically saying selective memory could be very useful for sportspeople as a way to focus on the good things they’d done rather than the bad times.

Listening idly to various commentators doing pre-match scrutiny there was also a lot about the need to focus on ‘now’ point by point, think process not outcomes or consequences, stay relaxed and zone out inessentials etc. etc.

Listening to all of this it occurred to me bits of it would appear in many management training contexts. It also got me wondering more generally about how memory impacts on us and if selective memory would actually help people achieve things more generally though.

Types of memory

For instance. I have a fairly bad memory for some things. It rarely pinpoint what was 2002 as opposed to 2003 for example. It forgets  the details of holidays and outings.  Actually, it’s almost capable of forgetting entire holidays depending how far back. I know people who have just about total recall and can pinpoint anything in time very exactly. This is somewhere between an amazing magic trick and rather irritating - because it’s not me alas.

I also know people who have what I would call ‘zoned’ memories of different depth and capacity.  They’re incredibly good at retaining anything relating to subjects that actually interest them, but a lot fuzzier on other things that they pay less concentration on. That information often goes in one ear and come out the other. Because it doesn't interest them, they see no need for it.

I also know folk whose memories are very much in the 'now' and recent past.  Folk who don't much tend to spend time rethinking  or remembering the more distant past. They just prefer to get on with now and look ahead.

So what would a selective memory be? It sounds kind of attractive.  Bit like a sieve you can control and tweak? Keep the good, park and semi-forget the bad.

Purpose of memory

The good memories that stand out probably propel us on faster and further on a chosen direction. Which is excellent if what you require is focus and belief and drive.

The bad that stand out though are probably the ones we learn, adapt, and change from more. They might keep us back in some ways, but they’re also the ones if we forgot why we’d discovered that ‘x’ wasn’t such  a good idea we’d probably just repeat time and again.

The good, bad, and indifferent, hopefully balance each other out.

So on the whole I'm content with the memory I’ve got.

I suspect overall that memories that stand out from the general background, for good or ill, are useful, even if sometimes they help to keep us back and at other times to propel us forward. ‘Selective memory’ sounds more attractive than it’d be in practice methinks (though in tennis practice perhaps it indeed works superbly!).

Cartoons and Career Planning

Sometimes you just have to grin.

The instant joys of a picture

I’m looking at the cartoon on page 60 of the June 2012 issue of Harvard Business Review.

If you have a copy to hand in your holdings or happen across one somewhere then have a look at it.  As with the best cartoons it’s instant, and funny, but it also makes quite a lot of points.

An employee is being asked that perennial much-loved question from everything from interview panels to development discussions to career planning days. You know, the one that goes "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

In his thought bubble is the employee’s mental answer to that question.

Where he sees himself is precisely where he is now and as he is now.  Even the coffee cup on his desk hasn’t moved a centimetre. Oddly that’s the bit that concerns me (anal or what!).

So it’s kind of a negative portrayal you might think.

What we don’t see is precisely WHY he’s thinking that though. I’m wondering about the why.

Positive Choices can be either ‘to do’ or ‘not to do’

Lots of people choose to be doing the same things in five years time and for all kinds of reason.  It’s not instantly a bad thing. It could be they simply really enjoy it and feel it’s what they should be doing. It could be because it’s convenient. Perhaps it makes sense under a number of headings that could be anything and everything from finances to fitting in well with commitments like family caring responsibilities. Jobs don’t exist in an abyss, there are other factors that we all have to consider in integrating job and life.

So if it’s been thought through and chosen and works it’s utterly fine.

But there is also the maxim that life is what happens while we’re making other plans. 

Sometimes five years pass in a flash and nothing has changed not because it’s been positively chosen, but because it was okay and attention was elsewhere on other aspects of life.  Or perhaps something was meant to be done about it and wasn’t.  Or perhaps folk don’t always see a clear path forward or way of achieving the change they want and delay things waiting for the miraculous bolt from the blue of total self-knowledge, or decide to just wait ‘until’ some specified other event has happened first. Or perhaps they just resign themselves and forget to try.

There is choice in everything. To do is a choice. Not to do is equally a choice. Some are easy and some are hard. But being aware of and exercising choice is important. 

Moments of Clarity

Where folk often stall is in choosing specifically ‘what’ it is they want and putting structures in place that will get them there. Not knowing ‘what’ leaves them feeling unable to make changes.

I suspect moments of real clarity are actually rare. Clarity is not necessarily more likely or frequent just because you’re on holiday half a continent away than it would be in the mid-morning rush.

So perhaps the answer is to think ‘hurrah, there is no ‘one right’ answer’, and just experiment a bit, somewhere between the Exact Status Quo and the Great Explorer. Worst case scenario you’ve given yourself more information to go on re what does and doesn’t work / appeal to you. Even if it would just move the hypothetical coffee cup...

Having fun with the perennial question

So if you fancy a grin while considering the above, shut your eyes and consider asking "Where do you see yourself in five years?" – not of a subordinate, or yourself even if you don’t want to, but of someone higher up your organisation.  Can you picture that?  It would certainly change the conversation. Could be a funny cartoon…

Piping the (Library) Tradition - the National Piping Centre Library

Right, it occurs to me I never did finish #GLTU4 write-up by covering professional visit number two of the afternoon to The National Piping Centre Library, which is the Highland Library.

Inside the exhibition

The National Piping Centre

The National Piping Centre in Glasgow is concerned with teaching, studying and promotion of the Highland Bagpipe playing and cultural tradition.  It does this through wide ranging instrument tuition options up to degree level and also the likes of the Piping Museum and reference library. It’s a rehearsal and performance space, but one incorporating other elements up to and including a hotel and a lovely bar / restaurant.

A librarian victim in front of shelves

The Tour and Library

James Beaton, the Librarian, gave us a tour round the building itself, talked us through the history and work of the institution, gave an expert tour of the museum, and showed us the library. This has just been totally refurbished with work beginning on populating the shelves from the boxes and getting the collection catalogued.

The Collection

The collection is made up of a whole range of types of items from runs of subject specific periodical material to pamphlets to sheet music and cd’s of pipe music. 


Contextual items are also held that relate to the place of the Highland Bagpipe within the wider culture and history of Scotland. Many items are donations or items long out of print and otherwise difficult to source.

As the overall written knowledge base is fairly small there is a project on-going to try to capture the experiences of people well-known in piping through e.g. audio interviews to increase knowledge available.

Supporting the work of the Centre

The Library collection supports the teaching work of the Piping Centre and is used as part of the resources to support various courses it runs (e.g. that concentrate on the historical or cultural impact of the pipes) or runs in association with other bodies.

Practice what you teach!




The Pipes and after...

As part of the visit we even got James to play his own Pipes for us. I did take a sound recording of this but having problems figuring out where it's been stored to, so an audio file may (or may not) get attached into this to accompany if I ever figure it out. Many thanks to James for looking after us very well.

James playing his Pipes

After which many of us went to the restaurant for an extremely nice meal.

black puding potatoes are divine!

Musings

I suppose three things occurred to me as part of the visit.

The first was the pleasure of seeing vistas of shelf space. Somehow I always see the potential of that. In my own reality trying to find a bit of expansion space and then move stock till it’s in the right place in the classified sequence for where I need it is often a bit of a battle. Law tends to expand fast!

The second was the utter wonderfulness of subject specialists, folk with an expert in-depth knowledge of the discipline that they work in and who are passionate about it and exponents of it. Subject specialists who work in their own areas of interest are very wonderful things. Doesn’t matter what the subject is, you can spot one a mile of once they’re talking about their own discipline. We all share the same characteristics though the subject interests will differ.

The third is very simply I need to remember the Centre is there more often as a place. I’ve been to concerts there, but not for a good while. It is very civilised simply as a drop-in for a coffee for example.

Revalidation Submission - The joys of off, off, and away

Last Friday (the 22^nd of June) a glorious thing happened. Yes, I posted off my latest CILIP Revalidation portfolio. 

This is generally accompanied by a sense of profound relief by that point.

Simply because various parts of it are somewhat time-consuming and / or require a lot of thinking through. So it’s quite a long process overall in thinking terms, but with very intense periods in compilation and completion terms right at the end. So it’s nice to know it’s off and away, nothing else to be done to it in my terms.

So where does the time and effort go?

Thinking through approach 

This is otherwise primarily known for me as the content of the Personal Statement. I always think this is far and away the core the portfolio, think it through correctly and it gives the structure of the work, the detail of which will then be the Table of Contents as stage 2 of working the portfolio through. From the Table of Contents it’s then just a compilation job of the evidence items listed in it.

My personal statements always start with a reflection on the three-year period as a whole, then they’ll break down into further paragraphs on the key types of activities / learning I’ve been involved in and how it went, and then there’ll be an end paragraph kind going back into overview mode saying what I envisage doing next and why.  So I kind of end up with about six or seven headings each in total in the Personal Statement with a paragraph under each discussing what I did and why and that I know I can link to evidence items giving fuller picture, discussion, evaluation.

Usually evidence will be things I already have that were done for a specific purpose at the time, mostly by me, sometimes by other people. Occasionally I won’t have anything that really covers what I want to discuss and I’ll do a separate reflective piece on it just for the portfolio. But 90% of it is things that already existed.

But for me the ethos / approach of what I’m creating is encapsulated in the Personal Statement. The Table of Contents will flow on from that  as a fuller working out of that as a distinct spine broken into the various area’s and with different illustrative examples for each heading. I’ll usually also annotate the Table of Contents just giving a quick note on why each evidence piece is there / what purpose it fulfils, who it’s by etc.

Sifting and selecting

The basic problem here is I do enough CPD of all shapes to cheerfully reach Portugal several times over without trying one iota. Which is its own headache in then trying to hone down three years worth of material at once. Which things do you use as evidence examples out of the mass of possible?  I had limited success on this time round. 

It comes down to what are the key aspects of what I do that I want to use that fulfil the assessment criteria, how best do I approach and illustrate each of those, and which particular examples do I use for them in evidence.

That I only succeeded to a very certain point is amply illustrated by fact I didn’t tick the box allowing anyone to keep a copy of my Portfolio.  Because my mentor side says it’s far too long and there is no way I’m perpetuating the myth that submitting a brick is expected or needful. Not useful! Or good for the health of Qualifications Board!

Leaving out most of reality is still big. In the end I decided to call 'halt' and just go with what I had put together even though it was bigger than I'd realised once I'd actually printed it all out and put it in a pile together (see below). Because it was going to be really time-consuming to change track on at that point and other things I needed to get done this month.

Compilation

Compilation is more logistical complexity than anything else.  It’s about having decided what you want to use and why and in what order already, but you still have to actually bring it all together in one place and format as per the submission rules.  I half-thought about electronic submission this time round.  Because the end point is time-consuming and finicky doing a paper-based submission.

In the end I decided paper-based. Mostly because for me it’s quite useful to actually be able to physically look at everything together.

Paper-based means an awful lot of pretending to have a damp towel on brow and that I’m going ‘omm’ while trying to remember exactly which file or pile all the different bits of paper are in I need and in what physical locations. I do kind of keep everything together, but some is in work, some is at home… Then there’s exactly on which pc or device or blog or internet site are all the things in non-paper format. Some of which may have delightfully ceased to exist since last you looked at it if not under your control. 

The finicky bit

It is a delightful rule that photocopiers will decide to jam with parts of your work inside them, printers will decide for some reason to print 5 files meekly but throw a fit on no. 6 as you take out more and more formatting in mystified fashion trying to make it accept it. Toner will suddenly decide to give up life and produce faded patches down the middle of pages.

Then there’s the true evil which is called taking lots of things some internally paginated and some not, in lots of different formats, and trying to uniformly paginate them all and label them in relation to the Table of Contents so that someone can actually navigate it all as ‘one’ cohesive work instead of a lucky dip.  My portfolio is lop-sided, over the years I’ve come to the conclusion it makes my life far simpler to just do lots of label sheets of pagination and stick those on at the end.  Ideally you can print off one full copy, attach all the labels, and re-photocopy to avoid the lops-sided corner and run off three of those.  The photocopiers hated me last week so I didn’t risk it and went for lop-sided as more conducive to retaining my sanity and making the Friday post.

By this point a nice portfolio theory has turned into a mountain of paper all over the floor, desk, and any other bit of space surrounding as you try and get 3 ordered copies of everything. Actually I went for four, I was determined to have one complete copy for myself now rather than when it comes back. Mostly to prove to myself I had finished!

It is a truth, even if not universally acknowledged, that it’s always bigger that you supposed when you print it all out, that’s when you can count it all in order, and you actually see what size it is.

The End is Nigh

Thus you end up with ordered bundles of copies that now look like you’re getting ready to roast the chicken for Christmas (it’s all the elastic bands holding it in order somehow).  So, are all the pages there and in order as they should be, are they all the right way round.  If so, hurrah, it all together, put in the divider cards, and comb-bind it with covers and it’s done.

Then it’s just forms, cheque, packaging, posting. Major slump of relief to recover. Possibly for a week judging by it’s taken me a week to blog this, but actually just lots of other things going on that needed to be prioritised instead.

So what was different this time?

Down the years I’ve done Chartership portfolio, Fellowship portfolio, this is my second Revalidation portfolio since my Fellowship…  I’ve always done them, regular as clockwork!

The reasons I do them don’t change – it’s a really useful exercise every three years just looking back at what you’ve done and why and how it went and figuring out from it what you want to do next.  A way of getting perspective, being able to stand outside the day-to-day working life, of clarifying things for yourself. I learned that way back doing my Chartership portfolio, and it becomes more valuable, not less, with the years.

But every time I do one it also changes, because I will have changed, what I’m doing, the wider world around me.  So if I consider what I’ve just submitted, there’s a lot of blogs in it, there’s tweets, there’s photos. None of which would have been there before.

Crossing Things Off The List

This month seems to have been about trying to finish various things that have been going on for a while. Always a nice feeling…

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Library

I have yet to blog on #GLTU4 which was a visit to The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Library and the Library of the Scottish Piping Centre.  So consider this part one on RCS, part two to follow over the weekend hopefully!

I am reminded of this somewhat by the fact that next week is #GLTU5 (as in Glasgow Librarians Tweet Up 5) whereby we descend on long-suffering members of the profession en masse and wander enthusiastically about their libraries and hear about their services before heading off to the pub to muse some more! Theme of #GLTU5 is health information.

I suspect there are still places going, so if you fancy joining the amusement the booking information is here

 But for the moment I'll concentrate on catching up on blogging the last one!



Image from the current exhibition from the Archives





the new logo



The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Library

The Royal Conservatoire is the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dance as was which re-named itself recently to move to a title that better described the range and subject-matter of courses and training it offers to its students.

Collection Scope

We were given a tour round the Whittaker Library.

That it is the library to a performance arts institution (music, dance, drama) is immediately clear, not just from the stock types and content, but also the study spaces and the uses made of them. As we passed it the ‘quiet study’ room had a student in it with earphones in and his conductors baton out as he rehearsed his conducting to whatever piece of music he was listening to. Whereas passing the comfy seating area prompted discussion of it being in practical terms the only place in the building a student could have a quiet nap on a sofa as long as they didn’t disturb everyone else.

Layout

 

In actual library layout terms broadly music is shelved down one side of the room and drama on the other side.  Music involves anything from sheet music, to collections based on different themes or composers, to orchestral scores for specific instruments.  As such there are items of all different sizes and shapes from very small pamphlets to very large consolidated works in many volumes.

Down the centre of the room are a host of open study desks, at the bottom the comfy seating area and access to the quiet study room.

On the other side of the room is ‘drama’, but this is a very broad definition, it includes dramatic works, but also a host of literature on related subjects from everything from set design to geography. Anything that could be relevant and helpful in informing the performance of a specific piece.  The drama side has been reclassified recently to DDC as a major summer project, the music is on Library of Congress if I recall correctly.

The drama side also includes the dvd collection to help students studying production techniques, acting type skills, look at things like narration… Lots of cd’s of audio versions of plays and a very small audio tape collection thereof too still…  As such has a wide selection of different genres and styles.  There is also a vast collection of cd’s and LPs reflecting all musical styles and periods and the section of musical theatre scores.. A student studying a particular piece of music doesn’t want one version of it if they can flick between and compare ten different interpretations and performances instead. 

To the left of the musical theatre section is the computer bank giving access to a range of electronic products and all the normal IT functions and just inside the main library door the issue desk and staff area.

Staffing

In terms of staffing there is the head librarian, librarians each with specific remits to music, performance, drama, and library assistants. The library serves the staff and students of the institution but is open to the public more generally for reference purposes only if they first sign in at Reception.

Revisiting times past...

I was interested to go in because I’ve used the library for reference purposes myself back in my students days when it was still RSAMD, so that’s going back fifteen years!  So really I wanted to see if any of it was as I remembered it and how much had changed. As expected, an awful lot!  I naturally remember the days of an absolutely gigantic card catalogue long before the days of banks of student pc’s and an electronic library catalogue available over the internet. Though library stacks don't change much, has to be said!

Music section stack



Karen with Whittaker library bag



So many thanks to Karen, the extremely knowledgeable music and academic services librarian.

Karen showed us around and talked us through and also showed us various other parts of the building from the opera centre to a walk past rehearsal rooms full of practicing musicians. Huge interesting experience.



Education, training, trainees, and legal research

The SLLG (Scottish Law Librarians Group) AGM talk this year concerned recent changes to the professional education and training of Trainees in Scotland, the changes to the overall CPD rules affecting the Scottish legal profession, and how this impacted on training in legal research skills and other areas.

PEAT1 and 2 and CPD regulation.

For students with an LLB who wish to enter the legal profession postgraduate training is first required from one of the accredited universities offering the course. This now takes the form of PEAT (Professional Education and Training) 1.

PEAT 1 (formerly the Diploma in Legal Practice) is essentially made up of a mixture of core modules and electives, is compulsory and lasts a year. Precisely what is available subject-wise depends on individual legal education providers (currently six). One university includes work-based learning as an elective whereby students go into firms and work under supervision for a period of time.

PEAT 2 is the traineeship within a firm, lasts two years, and is an outcomes-based traineeship against 60 / 80 different measures. It involves continuous appraisal.

The new CPD Regulations revolve around verifiable CPD – proving why did it, that it fulfilled a need, be able to show outcomes from, record that they did it adequately, justify the need for it and show what they learned from doing it.  Emphasis on people doing CPD that matters and commenting on said. Linked to person, job, level, career – not just done for the sake of it. Freer methods are allowed than before, but have to be justified.

Effects discussion

There was discussion among the audience about:-

Training providers and content

May allow new providers to enter the training market  giving better provision and choice overall. Problems sometimes caused by Scotland being a small legal market in sourcing appropriate material at correct level. Trainers don’t always understand the legal market to the same extent as the product they train on. Could allow for new methods of training. Opportunity in licensing. Training tends to be weaker for more advanced levels. Awful lot of very organised effort goes into the LLB, Diploma as was (now PEAT 1) and traineeship (now PEAT 2) level, rather more ad hoc as lawyers move further up their career.

Research methodology and expectations

Difference between existing research skills standard of people entering a traineeship and the expectation and needs of the firm in transacting client business. Discussion of how to better instill research skills at university stage, through any PEAT 1 work-based elective, through PEAT 2. Discussion of e-learning methods and face to face and differences between and relative strengths and weaknesses. Discussion about need for research to be mindful of commerciality aspects, what the client is seeking to achieve, time and billing issues, focusing in on precise points at issue rather than generalities, phrasing things in language that lay people can understand.

Training methods

There was discussion about approaches and training methods and learning styles and whether what is offered by trainers and in-house matches the needs of individuals and of the firms in terms of developing their people appropriately.

Licensing

There was discussion about firms who applied for this and fulfilled the criteria being licenced by the Law Society of Scotland to deliver CPD and PEAT 2 internally. This would last for a  fixed period of time and be monitored to ensure overall standards could be ensured and results verified. Also about whether firms with specific subject coverage needs would seek to carve out exclusivity deals with a particular legal education provider to ensure their key subjects were represented in the programme of study undertaken to give them better potential trainee candidates.

Differences between Scots model and England

Significantly different system in England so difficult to compare and contrast.

Carneige Medal Shortlist Reading finished for another year..

I finished last week actually and up-dated the Shadowing Sight for the group I'm in. 

However didn't get around to mentioning it here.


What I enjoyed reading most of this years Shortlist were:-

Patrick Ness

Whose books I love and had never read any of before I started Carnegie Shdowing three years ago.  So wasn't any great surprise to me that I utterly adore this.

David Almond

Never read Skellig (his previous one to this that follows on from Mina) or any by him before. I will definitely be reading Skellig over the summer now.  Really loved this and want to know what happened after.

Lissa Evans

Again, really enjoyed this one. I love sci-fi / fantasy style books anyway, but this one is clever as clockwork and a highly enjoyable read.

A Good Read is a Good Read

Carnegie is a childrens reading prize.

But if any adults feel like casting off the joys of linear time that have made them adults for a few hours, I would definitely recommend all of these. Highly enjoyable for adults and children alike!

Tomorrow is only a day away (but I still really dislike Annie the Musical and film)

Looking forward to seeing who wins tomorrow on the Carnegie judging criteria!

And then roll on next year...

Addendum -

And the winner was indeed announced and I'm delighted it was Patrick Ness.  Even more delighted the illustrator won the Greenaway Prize for illustration for the same book.  So, a double win for A Monster Calls for the first time in Carnegie history. Not bad going...!!!