Projects
These are the important library things I'm involved with, outside of my job.
the marketing book
I am writing a book for Facet Publishing in 2011, called The Library Marketing Toolkit. It will cover marketing strategy, marketing on no budget at all, web 2, social media, marketing to internal stakeholders, marketing special collections and archives, library advocacy as marketing, and a whole bunch of other stuff. You can read all about it on Facet's website, here. It is aimed at public, academic and special libraries, and archives.
If you'd like to tell me what I should write about in this book to make it useful, or if you have a case study on an aspect of marketing which you'd like to contribute, then please contact me!
Look out for a new website all about marketing libraries, coming in the Autumn.
the Echo Chamber movement
The "Echo Chamber" can be defined as any situation in which information, ideas or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission inside an "enclosed" space. This applies to libraries - we all talk to each other about how great they are, but these ideas often remain inside the enclosed space of the echo chamber rather than reaching the unconverted. Myself and Laura Woods are on a mission to draw attention to this, and so something about it!
You can read more about this, including articles, presentations, and other people's views via blog posts and tweets, via the Echo Chamber Netvibes page. If you want to take part in the conversation, use the hashtag #echolib.
LISNPN
LISNPN stands for Library & Information Services New Professionals Network - you can view the network's web-pages here. I created it in 2010.
LISNPN is designed to help anyone who has joined the library and information professions within the last decade or so. There are forums, blog posts, interviews, competitions, and a Resources page full of useful downloadable stuff, such as guides to getting published, public speaking, and using Twitter; or anonymous reviews of LIS Masters courses to help you make up your mind which to choose. There have also been free face-to-face networking events across the UK.
Some people have called the network 'librarian Facebook'; Biddy Fisher, then CILIP President, called it 'perhaps the most exciting thing to happen to the profession in a long time'.
Please get involved and make the network into whatever you want it to be! At the time of writing we have over 900 members from several different countries, and the whole thing is growing all the time. Please note - this network is NOT only for people who have a library qualification! By new professional we really just mean 'people who are new to the profession',
More info, including other people's blogs and tweets, can be found on the Netvibes page.
the Library Routes Project
The Library Routes Project is something I started with Laura Woods in 2009. It is a Wiki which links to blog posts and articles about how Information Professionals got into this line of work, and has become a useful career's resource for anyone thinking about a career in Information, or just interested in how others got where they are today. If you want to view the Wiki, and / or add details of your own library roots and library routes, you can visit it here - there are now over 150 librarians' career paths documented.
There is more info available on the Library Routes Netvibes page, too.
Buy India a Library
Buy India a Library was a project to crowd-source enough money to build and fund an entire library in a book-free zone of India. We aimed to ask librarians on twitter to donate what they could, to try and raise the (remarkably small, considering) sum of £1,250 needed to purchase the library. In the end the response was so incredible we almost doubled our target amount! The result was a bigger library in India, a book grant to buy more books, a newspaper subscription to spread the word about the new facility, and not one, not two - but FOUR mobile libraries to travel around former war-zones in Africa.
The whole thing was absolutely incredible - you can read the blog (still being updated) here. Thanks so much to all who contributed!
CILIP stuff
I am a New Professionals Support Officer for the Career Development Group (Yorkshire & Humberside); please feel free to contact me with any New Professional related queries, or questions about CDG.