Event review by Katharine Schopflin: Internet Librarian International 2014

SLA Europe DigiComms

Katharine Schopflin has a wealth of experience in library and information management in sectors including broadcasting, government and non-profit.  She has recently joined the Board of SLA Europe as joint Chair of Digital Communications and she has kindly accepted to write about her experience at the ILI Conference that was held in London on 21-22 October. 

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Top takeaways from Internet Librarian International 2014

I’ve always enjoyed Internet Librarian International, when I’ve had the opportunity to attend, not least for the networking opportunities and chance to chat with information professionals from across the sectors. I like to take an open mind with me as, at first glance; the major conference themes can seem less relevant to those of us working in the corporate world. This year, I wasn’t sure I would get much from topics such as digital inclusion, open access and discovery search, yet I still came away with useful insights from unexpected places. I won’t say the quality of presentations was universally top rate. Time limitations, organisational restrictions and speaker inexperience mean that some stopped at ‘this was my project’ before getting to ‘this is what I learned from it’ and ‘this is how you can apply it’. But I left the conference feeling refreshed and inspired. Here are some of the things that I learned:

Think small on technology projects

Jennifer Smith’s talk on the agile approach to technology development was convincing. Having worked in many environments where such projects become hungry beasts, sucking up money and expertise from the organisation the advantage of shorter time-cycles to achieve incremental solutions seems clear. Nobody knows everything they need to before embarking on a project, but agile allows us to learn and apply as we go on. If the money suddenly runs out, some benefits should already have been achieved, a marked contrast to panicky overspends on large projects because ‘we’ve come so far and invested so much’. And agile tries to involve users from the outset, a contrast to the often-resented mighty project teams working ‘over there’ in separate project offices.

Standards and certifications are about the journey not the award

Sarah Wolfenden described Brunel University Library’s work towards achieving the Customer Service Excellence Standard. Although at the time of the presentation they still had not yet achieved it, her description of the process showed how valuable it was. It forced the library to examine how they engaged with users and to offer more opportunities for feedback. They learned as much about staff as they did about students and benefited from the opportunity to articulate problems and address them. Too often we think of applying for certifications as an extra chore, to be avoided if not part of our performance measures. But this talk demonstrated that they could be directly aligned to things that we need to achieve in order to be successful.

Don’t count everything

Ben Showers’ refreshing take on organisational metrics warned us to stop counting the easy things and start measuring what really matters. In the library world we tend to count things such as user numbers and budget spend, rather than the outcomes achieved. Ben emphasised that you shouldn’t measure things unless you are prepared to act on them (unless ordered to by higher authorities) – skills, time and effort should be applied to understanding the implications and working on them. If someone else can do the counting and analysis, or it can be automated, so much the better. He added that we should make as many results open as we can. We should respect users’ privacy, but they may be interested in results too – and we won’t know until we ask.

Get involved with enterprise search

Helen Lippell offered some excellent advice for information professionals about implementing of enterprise search. We can bring our experience to engage with users and persuade them to title their documents properly, but we shouldn’t be tempted to leave the technical side to developers. We are in a position to know our intranet’s content and how it is being used, and should be working with them to decide how searches should be configured, how results should be displayed and how best to get users involved. It isn’t always possible for information professionals to ‘own’ search technologies, but they can make themselves accountable for ensuring that colleagues can find what they’re looking for when they use them.

There was much else on offer at ILI and I’d recommend anyone to look out for opportunities to attend. Volunteering may win you a place and why not think about submitting a paper next year?

About the author

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