Anyway, to the winners! The public librarian winner was Bethan Hughes from Denbighshire, and the academic sector librarian winner was Lori Havard of Swansea University. Lori was also awarded overall Welsh Librarian of the Year award. Llongyfarchiadau (congratulations) to Lori and Bethan, and to the other candidates (Preeti Pathak from Cardiff public libraries, Carole Morgans from Cardiff public libraries, and Rebecca Mogg from Cardiff University.) There was also a long list, which you can see here.

The award was kindly sponsored by SirsiDynix. I overheard people saying it was a great way to end the first day of the conference and several said they had a ‘warm and fuzzy feeling’ after hearing about the nominees and what they achieve, and hearing from Lori about her passion for libraries.

I shall ask the winners if they’d like to do a guest blog post on here, so hopefully you’ll hear from Lori and Bethan in the future. (Pics were taken by CILIP Wales – I shall seek to borrow one or link to it when they’re available.)

Me!

My job title is Libraries Development Adviser, but what does that actually mean? Hopefully by the end of this post you’ll have a clearer idea of what I do and how I can maybe help you, especially (particularly) if you work in a library in Wales.

So, my job role is pretty varied, and that’s probably one of the reasons I’ve been in post for 7.5 years (and counting). It has four main elements:

• Advice and support
• Ministerial work
• Policy work 
• Networking, current awareness, research, presentations etc

Plus, for reasons not relevant to this post, I am also the editor of the CyMAL magazine, of which two issues are published a year.

For library staff in Wales, the advice and support role may be the most relevant of my tasks. Any member of library staff can contact me about any library issue and I will do my best to provide the advice and support needed to answer the query. The most common queries relate to bursaries, qualifications or cataloguing and library management systems for small specialist libraries. The inner reference librarian in me loves answering a good query and finding out the answer. 

I’m also really enjoying blogging, which I see as part of my advice and support role – blogging about things I find out or which I think might be useful to library staff in Wales.

In order to be able to answer any questions I need to keep on top of library matters, so that’s where current awareness comes in. I find my RSS feeds on my Netvibes (public) dashboard really helpful for keeping up to date, along with Twitter, library email mailing lists and catching up with colleagues at events. 

Ministerial work plays an important part in my job and can involve work on ministerial correspondence, briefings, diary cases (for events), and briefing for questions in the Senedd. It’s vital the minister has the most up to date information on a range of topics and can make informed decisions. The nature of this work means that there’s often short turnaround times, which keeps us on our toes!

Alongside the ministerial work is the longer term policy work, developing and delivering the Welsh Government’s strategy for libraries. We are now into year two of Libraries Inspire, which is the third library strategy for Wales. We worked closely with the library sector to produce the library strategy and I act as the nominal programme manager for the strategy (chairing meetings, overseeing the budget, keeping the delivery plan up to date, making sure we’re on track to achieve things etc).

There are also a lot of grants associated with the library strategy and each grant has a key contact in CyMAL who keeps track of the project, ensures they’re working to budget and to proposed milestones etc and ensures the claims are completed successfully in Feb-March. I have quite a few grants that I am the lead for, so that keeps me in touch with library staff in Wales. And I’m the strand leader for a couple of the work strands of Libraries Inspire, working with a small team in the National Library of Wales, and also the Libraries Inspire marketing team based at Wrexham.

I’m also the lead for the evaluation of Libraries Inspire. The evaluation is being carried out by Scotinform – you can read the evaluation of Libraries for Life on the CyMAL website.

New for this year I’m also going to be shadowing a colleague on the Welsh Public Library Standards, and from 2014 will be leading on this piece of work.

My job also entails networking, giving presentations/lectures, attending events etc. I also try to get some articles published each year about successful Welsh library projects because I know that we’re doing lots but that it isn’t well-known outside of Wales. However, when there’s a squeeze on time that’s often the thing that falls off the list. A piece of research work I’m involved with is working with colleagues in Scotland and Northern Ireland on a return on investment toolkit for public libraries. Public libraries in Wales will hear more about that soon!

My job is therefore both front-facing (as a lot of us in CyMAL are, which is unusual for civil servants but we’re a ‘new’ division set up in 2004) in that I work directly with the sector, and also internal within the Welsh Government.

I’ll see some of you at the CILIP Wales conference in a few days where various parts of my job come together (keeping up to date, attending events and networking) – maybe see some of you there?

One of the brief summaries about the research said “Parents of minor children have a special relationship with libraries. Most believe libraries are very important for their children and provide extra resources that are not available at home.”

The report is available in full, or by chapter. Some of the summary findings are:

• Half of parents of children under age 12 (50%) read to their child every day and an additional 26% do so a few times a week.
• 94% of parents say libraries are important for their children and 79% describe libraries as “very important.” That is especially true of parents of young children (those under 6), some 84% of whom describe libraries as very important.
• 81% say a major reason libraries are important is that libraries provide their children with information and resources not available at home.
• 71% also say a major reason libraries are important is that libraries are a safe place for children.

There are also lots of useful graphs on library usage, library activities etc. It’s worth a quick skim at the least, although it is based on telephone interviews with only 2,252 adults.

The awards celebrate the valuable work that library staff do to bring their services to new audiences and to develop new activities for existing users. The awards give library staff at all levels the chance to win national recognition for their work in promoting their service. The entries were judged independently by Dr Jonathan Deacon from Newport Business School. Jonathan commented that all entries achieved marks of over 70% and the standard was extremely high, with very little to choose between the top few.

The results were announced a few weeeks ago so some of you may have picked this up already. Apologies for my tardiness. And the winners are:

Public Libraries

1. Breakfast Club – Cardiff Central Library
2. Big Scary Stories – Bridgend CBC
3. Work Club Abertillery – Blaenau Gwent
4. Highly Commended ‘The Kids Take Over the Library’ - Flintshire 

FE Libraries

1. Treasure Hunt Challenge - Coleg Sir Gar

HE Libraries

1. ‘Parrots plagiarise…do you?’ - Swansea University 

Highly Commended – ‘Step in, Step up to Success… and Stress less!’ - Aberystwyth University

To read more about each of the campaigns, read their evaluations and the judge’s comments, log into the staff tooklit in the librarywales.org portal and click on the Marketing Awards section. (If you’ve forgotten how to log into the toolkit, let me know or ask Jane & Bethan in Wrexham.) All the entries are on there, not just the winners, and it’s great to read of all the interesting and sometimes unusual marketing going on in Welsh libraries. Entries from previous years are in the toolkit too – why not have a look through them and pick up some ideas!

Well done everyone!

CC from Open Clip Art, by Nicubunu

As in previous years, library staff in Wales are able to apply for funding to undertake a range of qualifications and training/career development needs. The bursaries are available for qualifications from Level 2 upwards (i.e. from the Certificate in LAIS) to Level 7 (Masters) and include the Foundation Degree and its conversion to a BSc and the PDA in ICTL (Professional Development Award in ICT in Libraries).

There are also bursaries for people wishing to undertake the Assessor and Verifier award training, and leadership development. These bursaries are one element of the workforce strand of the Libraries Inspire strategy, the Welsh Government’s strategy for libraries 2012-16. The funding allocated to this each year is finite, so once it’s gone it’s gone  (i.e. don’t dilly-dally around, speak to your employer and the course provider and get an application in!)

If you currently work in a Welsh library you are eligible. How you apply depends on what qualification you are interested in. Read the Library Workforce Development Grants 2013-14 document on the CyMAL website for more information.

If you have any queries get in touch with myself or my colleague Velma Hather – contact details are in the document.

CyMAL also runs a cross-sector (i.e. museums, archives and libraries) free training programme. Upcoming courses and dates are listed on the training pages of the CyMAL website. Some of these may be of interest to library staff in Wales.

To find out who the 12 wonderful librarians are, read the CILIP in Wales blog post. The winner will be announced in the CILIP Wales conference on Thur 16th May. Good luck everyone!

Newspapers
The current contract with NewsBank ended on 31 March after 3 years of service. Following a full European procurement Cengage Learning have been awarded the contract and the new service is now available to all Welsh public, HE, FE and health libraries, for Welsh Government and for the National Library of Wales from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014. The resource is for on-site and remote access. Messages and further information have been sent to the relevant libraries by the National Library of Wales team leading on this work. If you have any queries please contact them on librariesforlife@llgc.org.uk and see the librarywales portal for more information.

Family History
The service for 2013-14 will be provided by Ancestry.com. Access to Ancestry.com is on-site in public libraries and archive record offices only – see the librarywales portal for information. Additionally, libraries can pay for their own subscription with Find My Past at a slightly discounted rate. Please contact the NLW team on librariesforlife@llgc.org.uk to arrange this.

E-books in public libraries
We’ve been able to support the expansion of e-book provision in public library services to cover 21 authorities with the remaining authority providing e-books via an existing contract with an alternative supplier. Information about the scheme is available on the  librarywales portal.

Other reference resources
Based on a review of usage and consultation, the subscriptions to Groves Art and Music for public libraries, and ESO (European Sources Online) have been discontinued from 1 April 2013. The ESO developers are providing the service free for current subscribers in Wales, and are looking to make it a fully free information service for all from 2014. We apologise for the inconvenience the loss of Groves will cause you and your library members but are sure you will appreciate the need to review and develop new resources.

If you have any queries about the central all-Wales subscriptions please contact the NLW team on librariesforlife@llgc.org.uk or Alyson Tyler, Libraries Inspire programme manager at CyMAL on alyson.tyler@wales.gsi.gov.uk or 0300 062 2103.

[NB this text was also sent to various library mailing lists in Wales. If you didn't see it, do let me know.]

With a new vision, new direction, new staff structure, a new brand was required to appeal to the breadth of the information profession and to reflect the new organisation that has taken shape, as well as to address “problems with the current brand” including the name being long and the acronym difficult to pronounce. The latter is true as in Wales it could be pronounced SIL-ip with a soft C, or in or Welsh KIL-ip with a hard C. Hopefully the new name will have a good Welsh translation to go with it.

CILIP hopes the new brand will be ready in a year’s time (April 2014), allowing time for consultation through workshops and an online survey, with members voting on it at the AGM in September 2013. They have stated that a budget of £35,000 has been allocated for this work. 

There is more about it in an article by Annie Mauger (Chief Executive) which can be viewed here. She says “To us, it is increasingly clear that the CILIP brand does not accurately reflect the changes that have taken place and the new organisation that has taken shape. The brand needs to catch up and reflect the type of organisation that CILIP has become and the ambitions we hold; with a working culture that is more open and collaborative with you, and a strong voice externally in advocacy and the media.”

Some of her other comments are interesting from a marketing perspective, in terms of what the ‘brand’ can do. I’ve been working with the marketing team in Wales looking at the library brand, so this is all relevant.

“We need to clearly articulate our personality through brand values. The new brand needs to be able to work across a range of media, and for branches, groups and devolved nations. We have a strong overseas profile and the brand needs to build on this. The brand needs to work and have impact with a range of people and organisations, including those outside our profession – the media and politicians, members, potential members and employers. But most of all, it needs to feel right to you. That means an identity that fits all of us no matter what sector we work in, what qualifications we have or what our interests are.”

I’ll be interested to see what they come up with!

Courtesy of: CityTownInfo.com