Reference and information services working group meeting
Marrickville Library 20 February 2020 Participants
Abir El-Lahib, City of Sydney Library Network; Amanda Burke, Tamworth City, Ania Milczarczyk, Campbelltown City Library Service, Annetta Kucharska, Cumberland Council, Britta Mortensen, State Library of NSW, Cat Thomas, Campbelltown City Library Service, Cheryl Woodward, Willoughby City Library, Ita Hanssens online participation, Tamworth City Library, James Cruz, Waverley Library, John Taggart, Randwick City Library, Kate Stewart, Stanton Library - North Sydney Council, Kathryn Joss, City of Sydney, Katina Tsouglis, Inner West Council, Kelly Woods, Shoalhaven Libraries, Lisa Zanetti, Shellharbour City Libraries, Maria Allue, Northern Beaches Council, Megan Tolnay, Stanton Library - North Sydney Council, Melissa Arriola, Campbelltown City Library Service, Nada Antoun, City of Parramatta Library, Natasha Aldrich, Waverley Library, Nicola d'Alpuget, Randwick City Library Service, Rachel Carr - online participation, Mid-Western Regional Council Library, Rebecca Cook, Kiama Library, Suzanne Spencer, Northern Beaches Council - Library Services, Suzy Small, Burwood Library, Shobana Paniker, Melanie Mutch, Hornsby, Jacinta Craine, Sutherland, Carolyn McLeod, Inner West, Louise Kopecny, Inner West, Maidur Rahman, Inner West
Apologies
Kylie Vella, The Hills
1. Welcome 10.00
2. Acknowledgement of Country 10.05 Carolyn McLeod of Inner West Libraries welcomed us to Marrickville Library and Pavilion, highlighting that Patyegarang was the name for the area, for local grey kangaroos and also for a women who provided information so that the local language was recorded.
3. Changing nature of reference, what has changed at your library in the last 5 years what have your observed and what have you changed? Why have you changed it? including Cat Thomas from Campbelltown on how they are roving and Melanie Mutch on Hornsby’s community connections program 10.05 - 10.40
Cat Thomas used floor plans to show the change from the big service desk, to a small pod with roving. The library has rfid and self check. The old reference desk was replaced by a small pod and public seating which can be reconfigured and easily moved. They put glass doors on the reference area, and this has turned into a quiet place in the library, which is largely self managed in terms of noise level. 4 staff cover the library, and rotate between returns, pod, roving and reference during a four hour shift, but they can adjust the location of staff as needed. The library staff wear vests with ‘library staff’ across the back, the vests are black with grey writing. The calls to the library go to the returns area. The roving is proactive for readers’ advisory services. All staff do reference. They were provided training in a range of key areas including referencing as they have a lot of questions about how to do that. They have also had training in the staff leader roles, and they use the online webinar training (Ebsco) which the State Library sends out alerts about.
These changes also involved the formation of a roster review committee and they developed a new roster with four hour shifts rather than two hour shifts. They had focus groups for feedback. A key aspect of the roving is to be present in the space. some patrons still like to go to a desk rather than find the roving staff, so Campbelltown has both.
The pdf of Cat's presentation is here roster_roving_presentation.pdf
Melanie Mutch talked about the community connections service at Hornsby Library. This is where community partners use a service desk in the library and came as a result of community groups wanting the library to provide information nights where they could present about their group or organisation. The desk is for community groups and not for profit organisations. The provides consistent branding and visibility as well as free one on one appointments. It is great for organisations which don’t have a shop front. Other parts of council also use the community connections desk in the library to increase the visibility of some of their services. Some groups provide regular sessions, others, like the Men’s shed did two (and were overwhelmed by the response). There was a multiweek ATO pop up which was very popular. They are just starting a partnership with the Western Sydney Community Legal Centre. Important to manage the expectations of the community partners as all organisations are not equally popular. Bookings vary, usually two hours, but this can be changed. A library staff member manages the bookings, there is a minimum of three sessions a month. There was a question asked about privacy, and for groups which need this, there is a private study room booked at the same time. You can meet with an expert to get your questions answered. It has included Life line, NSW government, Legal centre, Gambling help, SES, Ability Links and ATO presentation here
4. Marrickville Library and changes to reference and information services in the new library Louise Kopecny, Branch Manager, Inner West Council 10.40 - 11.05
Carolyn McLeod presented about the changes at Marrickville Library. This was set in the wider context of council amalgamations, as they needed to move to one LMS, and implement rfid at Leichhardt, as well as the streamline a whole lot of work processes. There was also a staff restructure and technology changes. The art collection has been shelved in a public area rather than in stack. There is no security system in the library. Staff have had change fatigue. There are at least three service desks through the library, but mostly people are using the one on the ground floor. Staff on service points wear apron identifying they are library staff, but there are also plans for badged with different prompts on them. Staff have phones to call each other as there are difficult sight lines in the building. Marrickville Library is cashless, eft only. Heavy usage of library by people 16 – 40.
5. Staff training, and training of the public, engagement – around the room on how people are doing reference and information training at their libraries, possibly leading to a ref-ex revision Rebecca Cook from Kiama on their reference training and Facebook promotion. 11.05 - 11.30 Rebecca Cook provided a detailed presentation on the different ways they provide a wide range of information based services to their communities, including social media (website, facebook, Instagram, twitter). They are using the #learnsomethingnew hashtag (is it redundant to say this after showing the hashtag) to connect a range of information based services including the information provided to new parents (Born to read). Also using competitions, school visits, brochures, storytime at the markets, displays. Have a look at the slides to see the wide range of information services covered. Kiama Library has a staff intranet where they promote the webinars for various databases (like EBSCO or Novelist). They encourage all staff to register so they can either attend or watch it later. They also have elibrary training resources on here. presentation here
Group discussion of staff training
- North Sydney Tick tock talks (15 – 20 minutes). Two training sessions on the same topic each month. Topics are staff nominated and based around customer service, staff newsletter, ipad app for statistics (ipads attached to service desk), daily tallies on questions asked – fed into quarterly report
- Shoalhaven – email training, they provide database training once a month via email. It’s like a mini-training per database with a few questions to really get to know how to use that database. It is compulsory to do and staff get one month to hand in their answers. One of the questions is always “who would you promote this database to?”.
- Ready refreshers – talk to staff at all branches
6. Promotion of information resources, to staff, and to the public – round the room discussion 11.30 - 11.45
7. What are your big ideas for reference? 11.45 - 12.00
This was an area which it was difficult for discussion, one of the ideas was to make sure that people knew they could ask the library for assistance with a question on a wide range of topics
8. round the room discussion of professional development resources used, come along prepared to share your favourite professional development resources (the ones you usually use), including a presentation from Suzy Small about her use of podcasts for professional development. Importance of professional skills and expertise Suzy Small encouraged people to consider podcasts for professional development as you can listen while you are doing something else, and can tailor the podcast to the time of day. Please look at Suzy’s slides as they have links to the podcasts they discussed.
Have a look at some of the information from Stanton Library here stanton_library_staff_training_feb2020.pdf
Ellen asked people to consider being involved in updating ref-ex. It would probably be a two day commitment (not consecutive) plus some emails. It will be group editing in the room, you can do it remotely but it works better if you are in the same room. It’s all about positive staff training. This will probably take place in May or June.
Please contact Ellen by 1 May if you are interested in helping to update the ref-ex wiki.
Around the room on professional development
- ALIA workshops
- ALIA newsletters (this was mentioned by several people)
- Twitter
- Ebsco webinars (information about these is sent to PLN)
- Webinars from other unspecified providers
- Talking to people (other library staff, friends who work in libraries)
- Library Journal
- Libraries overseas
- RSS updates
- Good ereader
- Bookshop emails
- Working group meetings (mentioned by a few people) and working group seminars
- Database articles (not further described)
- Twitter and Instagram (because brief and fast)
- Searching for specific ideas
- Yammer for sharing ideas
- Webjunction – blog posts and webinars
- State Library of NSW newsletters
- Library Juice books (can ILL from State Library of NSW)
- ALA publications (available from Indyreads)
- Goodreading magazine
- Mudgee Readers Festival
- AIM – Certificate in project management – AIM also has a stream of courses targeted at Local Government which are worth a look. https://www.aim.com.au/public-sector
- IAP2- Institute of Public Participation- Certificate in Engagement- Very professional courses on community engagement and consultation- great to hear ideas from across different sectors and hear examples of good/bad/extravagant consultation. https://iap2.org.au/training/
- Marigold Library System newsletter
- Local libraries on facebook and instagram
9. The new public library wiki,how can you add to it plus updates to Ref-ex 12.00 - 12.10 People were encouraged to join the wiki by going to http://wiki-beta.libraries.nsw.gov.au/doku.php?id=about_this_wiki and filling in the information to join
Staff were also encourage to read the information about editing the wiki on the same page.
10. Next meeting date and location 12.10 - 12.20 It is likely there will be a fully online session in August and people were invited to nominate to host a meeting later in the year.
People were also encouraged to watch out for the promotion of the May reference seminar.
11. Points for communication (what summary of the meeting goes out with the minutes the minutes will be combined) 12.20 - 12.30
- Professional development tips (from presentation as well as all staff in the meeting)
- How other libraries train their staff in information services
- Satisfy your library envy by looking at Marrickville Library and Pavilion
- Apron, vest or badge – visual identification of library staff
There was a tour of Marrickville Library after the meeting.
Minutes thanks to Rachel Carr, Ita Hanssens and Ellen Forsyth
Aprons worn by staff on service points at Marrickville
Aprons worn by Hornsby staff for events
Aprons worn by Oran Park staff
