Social media talk at NE CILIP AGM

Tuesday 13th March 2012 was a busy day for British libraries. In London, the libraries lobby was taking place, with a rally at Westminster and a call for constituents to come and talk to their MPs.

Up in Newcastle, we had the North-East Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) AGM and a committee meeting of the CILIP Career Development Group (CDG) North-Eastern division.

The NE CILIP AGM took place in the beautiful old lecture theatre of the Mining Institute. To the best of my recollection, Colin Raistrick, chair of NE CILIP, put it this way: "I know you didn't come to hear me addressing the group, but to hear Phil Bradley tell you about social media afterwards"! So I have to be honest: I didn't take any notes during the AGM... but I did fill a few pages during Phil Bradley's talk!

For those of you who have never heard of him, Phil Bradley works as an Internet consultant and is the current president of CILIP. And I have no idea how many ties he owns, but from where I was sitting, the one he was wearing that Tuesday looked a lot like it had both PCs AND books drawn on it... Hehe.

Phil Bradley started by explaining his role as CILIP president. Running for the presidency of CILIP is a 3-years commitment: the first year you are vice-president, the second year president and the last immediate past president. The president is a non-voting member of the CILIP Council. He chairs different committees, works with the CILIP team, represents CILIP at some conferences, talks to the media, etc. Phil Bradley stressed that he was keen to talk to and listen to members. The move of this year's national AGM to the North-East is also part of an effort to be more in contact with members and to have a less London-centered CILIP.

Phil Bradley is focusing his presidency on the following themes:

• Ensure that CILIP as an organisation and individual staff use social media resources to enhance and leverage its position;
• Articulate the importance of social media to individual members and groups;
• Discover and broadcast good library practice and innovation to the membership as a whole.

His goal for the end of the year is to come up with a set of CILIP social media guidelines which would help members use social media and gain access to it as part of their professional lives.

The third theme would also help him give arguments in favour of libraries and librarians in the media and in political debates.

But back to social media. What is it then? Phil Bradley admitted not being keen on definitions but still explained that social media was linked to the notion of user-generated content, which was the focus of what we had come to call "Web 2.0" - or more simply, the way the internet is developing. Nowadays, you do not need an in-depth knowledge of HTML or FTP to make something available on the internet: everything is more simple to create than pre-social media, which also results in easier access to information as more and more things are "cloud-based". As an aside, it is actually something governments are trying to regulate: for example, the American SOPA was designed to control what users can do.

Phil Bradley said that the tool (the PC) is not important anymore: it is the activity that matters. Our society is moving away from the artefact to a frictionless environment, where things are browser-based and the user is not tied to one particular device anymore.

Before social media, everything was on websites. Now, everything is crowd-based and easy to share (via Twitter, blogs, etc.) with many ways available to communicate.

Go to www.theconversationprism.com to view the full image

Institutions restrict access to social media because they are concerned that staff are going to be consumers rather than creators, and also because they are afraid of what their own staff might say about them online! It is important to have access to social media in the workplace because there is now information on it that is not available anywhere else. As an example, news tend to appear on Twitter first: it is almost instantaneous, whereas it would take time for news websites to create articles and then for search engines to index them.

Press departments no longer have control over the message, as people can easily blog, tweet, comment, etc. Where Web 1.0 was about control over the information, social media is about free access to it.

In practice, what does it mean? For a start, there are changes relating to internet search. A lot of search engines are now incorporating Web 2.0 in their results (blogs, wikis, tweets, presentations on websites such as slideshare, etc.) - hence the need to have access to it. The ranking of results on Google is also moving from "the most linked to website at the top" to "the most recommended [via social media] or talked about".

Social media is indeed about people recommending things to other people. Instead of searching for the information on our own, we like to ask people we know or see what they recommend, and we are now used to participation. Having a social media presence is therefore a way of getting involved into people's conversations.

There are several websites or apps helping us pull data back for our use, based on topics pre-set by the user and on recommendations. For example, Zite or Flipboard create your own personalised magazine downloaded straight onto your iPad. Similar things are also possible with websites such as XYDO, Scoop.it or even Netvibes. These tools, as well as other RSS aggregators, wikis, etc., demonstrate an evolution of the Internet away from websites that are too still, too fixed.

At this point, Phil Bradley also recommended Quora, where you can ask questions of people who are experts in their field, and social bookmarking websites Trailfire and Pearltree.

To conclude, social media results are becoming more and more important. Librarians need to go where the conversations are to find the information. Therefore, we need access to social media to allow us to do our job more quickly, cheaply and effectively.

"It's all just information!"

And just to put a bit of drama into this post: thus the presentation ended. Well, not quite; there were a few questions and comments!

Later on that same day, I attended the committee meeting of CDG North-East at Newcastle University Library. And I am proud to announce I am now an ordinary member of this committee!

Copy Party press release

Intellectual property law is slightly different in France and in the UK, but here is an interesting event designed as an awareness campaign for copyright.

The text below is my own quick translation of the press release - please be indulgent! The original text, and more information and links, can be found at: http://blogs.iutlaroche.univ-nantes.fr/copy-party/2012/02/09/communique-presse (in French)

"WHAT IS A COPY-PARTY? It is an event allowing users equipped with scanners, phones or laptops to bring these devices and copy books, CDs and DVDs from library collections!

WHAT ARE THE CONDITIONS TO PARTICIPATE IN A COPY-PARTY?

 - These copies must be for private use only;

 - each person must make their own copies using their own replication devices (camera, mobile phone, etc.);

 - the copies must be made from original documents viewed in a library;

 - the act of copying must not break any technical protection (DRM).

WHAT IS THE AIM OF A COPY-PARTY? Via an act that is symbolic, militant and festive, the aim is to:

 - make users aware of copyright law and the right to a private copy as well as of today's issues related to sharing works;

 - attract attention to the interest and the role of libraries in the diffusion, joint use and access to knowledge in the 21st century;

 - question local and national authorities on the development of criminalization policies of digital practices and on the urgent matter of maintaining a free movement of information within a lawful offer.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO PARTICIPATE?

A bit of equipment. Your choice of a smartphone equipped with a camera and/or an app allowing you to scan documents, and/or a laptop with a scanner and/or a digital camera, some blank DVDs if you wish to copy DVDs.

And a bit of commitment: when you arrive, you will have to sign a document stating that you are committed to only reuse the product of this copy-party in accordance with copyright law, for your strict personal use.

WHAT IS THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF A COPY-PARTY? 100% legal

 - The contracts between libraries and copyright holders, which allow works to be put on public display on the libraries' shelves;

 - the exception for performance within the family circle, set out in paragraph 1 of article L122-5 of the CPI [Intellectual Property law];

 - the new rewrite of paragraph 2 of the same article L122-5 of the CPI on the exception for private copy;

 - the rules and regulations of the library.

WHEN IS THE 1ST COPY-PARTY? On 7th March 2012. At 6pm. At the University Library of La Roche sur Yon (France). A world first, quite simply."

http://bit.ly/copyparty

Presentation time

Things 17 and 18 are on presenting information, using slides or screen/audio capture.

I had never used Prezi or Slideshare - not even to view a presentation! I am glad to say: I have fixed that now, though it was obviously the easy bit!

The harder bit was creating my own Prezi. I decided to do an overview of Newcastle Libraries' online presence... It is only a test, so you might find it rather plain and wordy, but here it is below. (Best viewed in full screen: click on the player, then on "More" when this button appears and select "Full screen")

Newcastle Libraries Online : Turn a new web page on Prezi

I was rather surprised with the use of Slideshare for visual résumés. It is not something I would consider doing (yet?) though I have to admit the example shown at the bottom of the blog post for Thing 17 is quite good!

For Thing 18 I tried Jing, and I was amazed at how easy it is to use. I made a short video for a French friend who was having trouble accessing a Google Document I had shared with her, and I also had fun annotating a group photo... I hope my colleagues will forgive me! (Screen capture of the Newcastle Libraries blog, article posted on 6th October 2011)

I have never created a podcast, but I have "tampered with" an audio file before, though I cannot remember if it was with Audacity or with a different software... I am however familiar with listening to podcasts and podcatching.

Newcastle Libraries use podcasts mainly to interview visiting authors, which I think is great to share with people who could not attend the event and also to keep a record of it. The potential of Prezi and Jing are obvious for tutorials: we could create entertaining online user guides in this way.

Librarians of the world, meet up and speak

Things 15 and 16 are about events and advocacy respectively.

2011 has been a great conference year for me. I have attended the CILIP Umbrella conference for the first time in my young life, as well as making the trip to Library Camp UK and paying a visit to the North East CILIP Mini Umbrella. I decided to go to Umbrella by my own means: I knew it was going to cost a lot, but I wanted to go, I wanted to learn, I wanted something to happen in my professional life, I wanted to see what it was like and I wanted to meet other members of the library and information world. I am only a humble library assistant: I do not get to go to trainings or conferences - however, my institution was kind enough to let me go on my work time. Apart from the learning objective, going to Umbrella was also a way to challenge myself: I was going somewhere I didn't know anyone and where everyone would most likely be more experienced than me! Well, I survived, and I did not regret going at all: I did hear some inspiring talks, I did learn about what colleagues in other fields were doing and I met some great people.

Library Camp UK, in Birmingham, was a different experience: it was smaller, less formal, and I probably enjoyed it more. I especially liked the "discussion" rather than "presentation" format and how good-natured the atmosphere was. I have to admit, all those cakes made it easier to socialise!

Finally, I went to the NE CILIP Mini Umbrella for the second year in a row, and I am already planning to attend again next year...

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the conferences I have been to, but I am not considering speaking at such events just yet. I have nothing against presenting, but I feel I have not done enough (yet!?) in my professional career that would be worth formally speaking about.

I have never organised a conference, but I might contribute a little in organising one in France. My friend Aude (what a coincidence!) is on the committee of the Ile de France (wider Paris) group of the ABF (Association des Bibliothécaires de France, i.e. the French Library Association) which is organising the association's national conference this year. I did offer my services for this if needed, and also more specifically to help organise the Groupe Ile de France's study trip in case they choose to come to England!

Oh, and on my "conference wish list" this year is, obviously, the Congrès ABF 2012... It will focus on showing the authorities how useful libraries are to society - a theme that, incidentally, makes a good transition to Thing 16 and advocacy!

I firmly believe that it is essential - but not always easy - for libraries to show or prove their value, to society in general but more specifically to the authorities, be they local, national or institutional. I am amazed at what is currently happening in the UK: public libraries user groups taking local authorities to court, CILIP's involvement, the support of the WI and of high-profile authors and celebrities, the creation of the Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group, National Libraries Day, etc. I am not aware of as many things happening in France, for example - but maybe it is because the situation is not as bad? The ABF is however working on a manifesto in view of the coming presidential and parliamentary elections, similar to what CILIP did last year. I hope they will be looking to this side of the Channel for ideas, and that we will be able to get support from them too...