EBSLG 2011, HEC Paris: Innovation in Libraries (Part 1)

Graves wine, an endearing robot dog, exploration of the impact of social media and mobile technologies, Pierre Cardin’s priceless art nouveau collection, the Versailles Hall of Mirrors, and a refreshing dip in an inviting hotel pool – just some of my personal highlights of this year’s packed EBSLG (European Business Schools Librarians Group) conference, with the theme of ‘Innovation in Libraries’, which took place at the HEC business school Paris.

Day 1
On Wednesday 22nd June, head librarians and library directors from all over Europe descended on the HEC business school campus at Jouy-en-Josas, just south of Paris.  I ended up travelling with Chris Flegg from Said Business School, Oxford and we made a good team as we journeyed across Paris from Charles De Gaulle Airport by train, with Chris, who was born in France, taking on language duties while I navigated. Arriving late afternoon, there was just time for a quick freshen up and change of clothes before the ’Welcome cocktail’.

The hotel on the HEC campus

This took place in the hotel (which was connected to the HEC MBA building where all the conference sessions took place) and was fronted by our host Agnes Melot, Library Director of HEC and Veronique Malleret, Faculty Dean. It was great to reconnect with colleagues and meet new ones too, including Matthew Kelleher of IMI, Elena Kosareva of St Petersburg University and Elke Parrez of Gent Management School.

Day 2
The next morning we were welcomed to HEC by Laoucine Kerbache, Associate Dean of HEC Paris who offered a memorable story about a student who left a 50 dollar bill in his thesis for anyone to take if they read it, only to return some 25 years later to find that the bill was still there!

The first keynote speaker was Etienne Krieger, Affiliate Professor at HEC who focused on how entrepreneurs need libraries, drawing on the example of the use of the HEC library by HEC’s Centre of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It was affirming to hear him recognise the importance of information to the innovation process and describe us librarians as information architects rather than passive custodians.

Bruno Rives and his robot dog

Next up was Bruno Rives of the Tebaldo Observatory, a Paris-based consulting agency specialising in trends and usage of new technologies. There was common agreement that Bruno’s presentation was the most entertaining and engaging of the entire conference due to its often mind-blowing content and an incredibly cute robot dog. The dog was a static prop to begin with, but he later came to life and responded to his owner by stretching and wagging his tail. Take a closer look at the robot dog.

We were also privy to some other prototype devices such as re-usable electronic paper with obvious application in a library setting as signage, maps, or even wallpaper. The paper can also be used to transmit information to user devices. We went on to watch a video which demonstrated ‘augmented reality’ by presenting us with a cartoon boy called Milo who responded intelligently to a person via a television screen, begging the question whether whole swathes of professionals – not just librarians – are required in person any longer? You can watch the 5 minute Milo video, which I discovered post-session to be regarded by some observers as a fake demonstration, below:

Carolina Sanmartin examines the e-paper

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Bruno described all this technology as disruptive and, interestingly, cited twitter as the most important tool of all when it comes to developing disruptive technologies. He also sagely observed that users don’t know what they want until they see it because technology changes, and disruptions occur, too fast.

Thanh Nghiem

Thanh Nghiem, founder and president of the Angenius Institute presented next on the the concept of collective intelligence and social innovation, with particular reference to sustainable lifestyles. I was particularly intrigued by her description of ‘gateway openers’ in this area and the term “Me 2.0″ for those creative people who are socially aware and see connections and solutions to global problems. I also promised myself that I would check out those ‘social business’ models, which she mentioned, that I haven’t come across before: airbnb (a global network of accommodation offered by locals), letsdoit (a movement of people wanting to make real changes in their countries by tackling illegal waste and other issues), zipcar (car sharing as an alternative to car rental or ownership) and couchsurfing (an international network for making connections between travellers and the communities they visit).

In my next post (Part 2): open innovation; the bazaar of member projects/ideas; our private visit to Versailles and the Gala dinner…

EBSLG Cologne 2010 – Day 1

The European Business School Librarians’ Group (EBSLG) is made up of senior librarians from the top business schools in Europe and its annual conference began today in Cologne (although the weather’s not quite as great as in the pic below).  My twitter followers will remember that I was concerned I might not get here due to ash cloud shenanigans, but thankfully it blew off into the North Sea and I flew out yesterday with no hitches. 

To be honest I was more concerned about missing out on the networking opportunities that the conference provides than the programme itself and thus far I’ve not been disappointed as we’ve begun to catch up with what we’ve each been up to since we last met. A very helpful ‘Year in Review’ document is published just before each conference to which we all contribute and this gives a rundown of news and activities in each of our libraries. Unsurprisingly (and comfortingly) this document tends to reveal that we’re all grappling with the same problems and seeking to institute many of the same initiatives and projects so talking to each other at length makes a lot of sense. This year everyone seems to creating online tutorials, engaging with Web 2.0 (particularly blogs, RSS, Library Twitter accounts and creation of Delicious collections of open web resources), dealing with physical library space moves and changes and exploring issues around repositories and open access.

The venue for the first day and the delegate hotel is the Kolpinghaus in Koln’s boutique shops district. A perfectly pleasant hotel that unfortunately has a bizarre obsession with religious iconography and, in particular, crucifixes. There’s one in every single room staring down at you. Thankfully mine (see left) is rather utilitarian and abstract so I’m ignoring it easily.

The first two presentations this morning focused on library services in Germany. First up Dr Peter Kostadt gave us an entertaining guided tour of the University of Cologne’s OPAC 2.0 which provides unified access to library resources. The presentation included lots of interesting facts and figures relating to: usage of types of resource (ejournals being more popular than databases which are in turn more popular than ebooks); slow take-up of mobile technology due to costs for students; the popularity of online chat with library staff and their ‘Ask Albot’ service. The very clean looking OPAC 2.0 can be viewed here: http://www.ub.uni-koeln.de/ and was judged favourably by EBSLG participants. Matthias Loesch from the University of Bielefield was next up. I was initially put off his presentation due to talk of ’meta-harvesting’ and some too frequently repeated statements about students just wanting to use Google and that search engines aren’t indexed, however, it picked up when he got on to his reason for being there – to talk about BASE – a multidisciplinary search engine for scientific open access documents. BASE can be viewed here: http://www.base-search.com/

Thereafter there was a presentation from Claudia Spengemann of EBSCO on their Discovery service. By all accounts Summon is doing much better than Discovery at the moment, but Claudia certainly knew what she was talking about and made a convincing argument for purchase even though most customers are currently just trialling it. You can find out about Discovery here: http://www.ebscohost.com/discovery/ Gale Cengage were next up and after covering the usual company history stuff (which I always wish every supplier would cut) they presented the results of a survey that had gathered information  through in-depth interviews on the way students searched and what sort of information they wanted. I’m hoping to get my hands on their full findings as this was in many ways the most interesting content of the morning.

After lunch at which they seemed to be serving Findus Crispy Pancakes (chicken and cheese not the sloppy horrible mince that I feared) it was time to visit the supplier stalls (which were in a room which the previous evening had housed a beerfest type event with lots of German men in good voice - I hadn’t gone in but vividly imagined something akin to ‘that’ scene in The Odessa File). Quite honestly Capital IQ I should be on commission for the lovely things I said about you and your database in there today. Perhaps we can have it for free next year? Yes? Great. Useful catch-ups as usual with Sibylle of Euromonitor and Laura of Research for Libraries and a request for info from Bill of Emerald as I currently need more evidence to convince my faculty of the value of the product.

The last business of the day was the Bazaar of Ideas for which four plucky volunteers (including yours truly) presented on a project they were engaged in. I showcased the Cam23 web 2.0 programme which start next Monday. Due to the format of the session I ended up presenting four times to groups of 4-8 people. This actually worked rather well and they responded to what I had to say and the objectives of the programme very favourably, indeed, many EBSLGers have said they will follow the programme even though they won’t be eligible for the certificate or voucher. My presentation slides are now available on SlideShare.

The evening gala dinner at the Wolkenburg was great – especially due to the company - until I had the misfortune, towards the end of the main course, to get the start of a lovely proper geometric shapes migraine which forced me to leave rather suddenly and return to the hotel by taxi. Thankfully its since evaporated. I certainly didn’t expect to be blogging about Day 1 this evening.

Today’s programme has had an interesting added dimension as it saw me tweet during a conference for the first time. I’ll blog about the positives and negatives of that in a separate post I think as I have lots to say. Tomorrow no web as we’re not here in Hotel Crucifix – so no tweets and no chance to feverishly check my email regularly like the work-obssessed freak I am. How will I survive?

Gute Nacht

Open All Hours

In February of this year, Judge Business School Library service went over to 24/7 opening, with members having access outside of staffed hours via swipecard. We decided to try this out for a number of reasons:

• To finally succumb to demand. This had been requested by students for many years via  the staff-student committee and the annual library survey. In fact, in the 2008 survey it was the most requested improvement, cited by 29%  of respondents.
• Because as a business school that considers itself to be world-class, arguably we could no longer justify the limited opening hours  of 9am to 7pm.
• In order to provide a more flexible and customer-focused service to our users.

The main argments against the move to 24/7 were as follows:

• the security of the staff area (specifically the lack of lockable cupboards and shelving at the open Library Desk)
• the fact that we only had a self-issue terminal so users couldn’t return books after hours
• the fear that materials would be removed from the Library without being loaned
• and finally, the possibility of more food and drink debris and the related need for more cleaners

Thankfully the first two points could be easily remedied with a bit of cash injection for furniture modification and a self-return module for our existing 3M terminal, while the second two were always going to be more ‘suck it and see’.

As far as I was concerned, and as I repeated at length to nay-sayers, if a few books did go missing, then in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t too important. What was much more significant was that the overall service would be vastly improved and expectations (particularly of our North American students) would be met. I also wasn’t too interested in exactly how many people would use the library after staffed hours, as the willingness to go 24/7 and the message that would sent about our service was far more important than the reality of use.

So 4 months down the line how has it gone? Well I’m pleased to say that very few books have gone missing, the Library is no dirtier than before and usage has been higher than I imagined, especially between 7 and 9pm and during the pre-lecture 7am-9am slot. As for the praise we’ve received, well, quite frankly its been embarrassingly good. In the annual Library survey, students variously described the new 24/7 opening as fantastic, excellent and even ‘heaven-sent’. To say that 24/7 has proved popular is something of an understatement.

All that and not one mention of Arkwright, Granville and Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. So to put that right:
     Granville: I’ve got the blood of poets and lovers in my veins.
     Arkwright: [as Granville leaves] Yes. And at least one electrician.

Andy

The average academic business librarian

I’ve recently updated and sent out a benchmarking survey to British Business Schools Librarians Group (BBSLG) member institutions with a view to gathering key information on their library services and the roles of the individual librarians that run them. The survey was first distributed in 2007 so it should prove very interesting to see how much has changed since then. The most easily digestible results of the survey will be a picture of the average BBSLG institution and the average BBSLG librarian.

Looking specifically at the latter, last time around the average BBSLG librarian:

• Was a chartered member of CILIP
• Had 23 years experience in libraries
• Has been in their current post for 7.6 years
• Spent most of their time answring ad hoc enquiries, developing and delivering training sessions and producing user support materials
• Spent almost as much time acquiring electronic resources as printed
• Managed and negotiated a budget
• Represented the library on a teaching committee
• Enjoyed a flexible policy when it came to accessing CPD
• Was involved in markting and PR activities
• And earned between 27,000 and 32,000 pa

Whereas the average BBSLG instiution:

• supported 278 MBAs, 1720 undergrads, 66 PhDs and 103 academic staff
• provided access to 32,000 business and management books
• provided access to 212 printed journals
• had 3.5 FTE full-time library staff
• had a ratio of 1 FTE library staff member to 29 academics/79 MBAs
• were either testing or using the following ‘new’ technology the most: blogs, openURLresolvers, fed search
• were giving more standalone lectures or tutorials than ones integrated into the curriculum
• spent most of their budget on databases
• formed the business section of an integrated University Library, rather than being a standalone library within a larger University libary service

The main additions to this year’s survey are some more social media options, as this has moved on a touch in the last 2 years (!), to find out how business librarians are using Facebook, Twitter and blogs and specifically the ratio of professional and social use. In addition there’s a new a section on how motivated individuals feel, the level of support they feel they receive from their institution and how challenging their post is.

The aim of the survey is to gauge the temperature of business librarianship as a whole as well as to assemble some hard data.

I’ll be posting top level (but non-confidential) results here in mid-July. The full report will be available to BBSLG members via the website.

Andy

Enquire within?

Various experiences during my career (mainly negative ones it has to be said) have led me to take stats on almost every aspect of the library service I currently run. One such statistic that is an abolsoute bind to keep, but which is nevertheless hugely significant, is a tally of enquiries received by myself and my team. As of this academic year, beginning September 2008, we have all diligently kept records of each enquiry and specified whether it was received in person, by email or by phone.

Personally I have not found these stats surprising, but it is entirely possible that other stakeholders within the business school might. This is because they clearly point to the fact that library staff at Judge field only 40% of enquiries in person and that the remainder are received via email or phone. Apart from anything else this data supports my efforts over the past 18 months  to shift the emphasis from a rather blinkered focus on physical users of the library (our more obvious clientele, simply because they’re right in front of us) to a more balanced service that equally supports those users who do not regularly, or in some cases never, visit the physical library and choose to communicate with us remotely instead.

What is more, the ‘in person’ stats include 9% that are received within the School but outside the Library itself – in the Common Room, corridors or staff offices. I am passionate about bringing the library to its users and this stat reflects this activity.

What does this mean for the library service going forward? Well it doesn’t mean I’m after getting rid of the physical library (as some of my colleagues in the business school who regularly make jokey references to Farenheit 451 might suspect, because they know I’m essentially an e-librarian), especially as gate totals are actually on the rise, but rather increased recognition that usage is changing and that we cannot and should not be defined by our physical confines any longer.

The validity of this new wider definition of the library service will be neatly and practically demonstrated by our forthcoming support for Judge’s new Executive MBA programme, which we will primarily be supporting remotely, a fact that has led me to plan a summer training day for my team to ensure the provision of truly excellent and professional remote support to these new library users.

It will be fascinating to see this time next year how much further the ‘in person’ enquiries stat has fallen, as fall it will.

Andy

Ungrateful, if deeply realistic, sod

Today I found myself complaining about having to attend a training session having only just got back from a three-day conference. Then I suddenly caught myself and mused on what an ungrateful sod I was. At the Judge Business School, all managers are given the opportunity to attend a year-long management development programme covering all aspects of management, team development and other relevant HR issues. My previous experience had been quite different – you had to chase after training and it certainly wasn’t offered as a matter of course institution-wide. In fact the very idea of this happening at my previous place of employment amuses me no end.

One of the best parts of the Judge training programme apart from the detailed examination of each topic in hand is the opportunity to get to know and catch up with the other managers across the business school – something we wouldn’t have the time or perhaps the inclination to do otherwise. Also I find I can’t help but use it as an opportunity to hopefully subvert a few expectations as to what it means to be a business librarian today, especially in this current climate of rapid technological change.

Today’s session was on assertiveness and threw up some inevitable lightbulb moments because I guess your communication skills can always be improved:

1. Occasionally I still fit the child role in transactional analysis terms (I suspect due to too many years in a deputy role during which I inevitably sought approval and acceptance as I didn’t have the final say)
2. Some more verbal techniques for assertive communication: broken record (importance of repetition and restatement); probing (asking questions rather than stating your case); and, best of all, not always asking how people feel about something (you may mean well but it can invite more problems than it solves).
3. Something which sounds obvious in the cold light of day: simply the fact that you shouldn’t always expect an immediately positive outcome when seeking buy-in for a change of procedure or practive, instead you can gradually work on seeking acceptance. You may only get part of the way there initially – but that’s fine.
4. Finally, I was stunned by the difference of opinion in the group when ticking against a list of items from which we were asked to choose  what we thought were the rights of a manager. I was in the minority by not seeing commanding respect and getting the work done as a given. I only see these as attainable if you fulfil your duties as a good competent manager, not as an automatic (and expected) right of any manager. For me this seems to depend on whether you are idealistic or realistic in your approach. I’m a committed idealist and am driven to unreasonable fury by those people who bang on about how someone should be behaving or how things should be working. Got no time for that!

Thanks to those of you who are following my blogging journey so far. Tomorrow unless something else crops up I’ll return to reviewing the sessions at the EBSLG conference, starting with a fascinating insight into what makes Generation Y tick…

Andy

Exploring tomorrow today

Last week I attended another challenging session at the EBSLG conference at Ashridge , presented by Christine Reid, a member of faculty at the University of Strathclyde as well as its Learning Resource Manager.

Christine presented an incredibly detailed overview of the issues and trends outside the library (and business school) world which will inevitably impact upon what we as librarians will do in the future. She was upfront about the fact that she didn’t pretend to have the answers and was keen to provoke discussion instead.

Highlights:

• The fact that as humans we are conditioned to think that tomorrow will be the same, however, we actually need to expect the unexpected. Christine referred to Bertrand Russell’s turkey: “A turkey is fed evey day. Every single feeding firms up the bird’s belief thta it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race. On the afternoon before Christmas Day, however, the turkey is surprised by not being fed. Instead if itself now becomes the food for the Christmas activities.” We as librarians must not suddenly become the equivalent of Christmas dinner!
• Keynes notion that: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, an in escpaing from old ones.
• Facts about today’s youth: younger than the Internet; never known a mobile-less world; have friends around the world; and one electronic device for everything. 9 out of 10 teenagers have a PC, a mobile phone and a games console. These ‘digital natives’: just do it; like to feel in control; have a short attention span, and are comfortable with media multi-tasking. When they enter higher education they’ll want diferent services to those currently being offered and when they enter the world of work they’ll want the workplace to adapt to them not the other way round.
• Computing power is still doubling every 18 months (Moore’s Law). Technology is key to the development of our library services, but will it ensnare us or free us?
• Significance of the growth of social media. We can now all be publishers, movie makers, artists and storytellers. And we can all influence what happens e.g. return of the Wispa bar. Also directly helping companies to make money – Threadless. The media revolution focuses on the individual – ‘You’ (Time Magazines’ ‘Person of the Year’ in 2006)
• Education is changing – now embracing different types of learning: blended; personalised; participative and activity-based; collaborative; problem-based; and not just in the classroom.
• Business Education/Business School issues: budgets; globalization; partnerships; corporate universities; publish or perish; research assessment; rankings and accreditation; eLearning – the fact that emerging technologies are transforming teaching and learning.
• Relevance of our services is absolutely key.

Closing Thoughts:

• Are we prepared for technological change?
• How much are our future visions based upon invalid assumptions?
• How open are we to having our worldview challenged?
• Are we ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities?

Christine’s session was backed up with some very detailed stats on current trends ensuring that the audience  felt the momentum of the changes she described more keenly. This also helped to make the session specific rather than generic as is so often the case.

After the session I found myself particualrly questioning how open I really am to having my worldview challenged and also how many libraries and librarians in the UK (especially in the business school sector) may become that Christmas Turkey over the next few years.

I like to think that the service I head up is relevant and embracing of change, but will that be enough for us?  Do faculty truly recognise the value of the many services we offer? If it came to the crunch would they rally round and support the cost of the service?

Andy

Not just reacting (or why I’m finally blogging)

OK so I’ve finally taken the plunge and begun a blog. Why? Well, for two simple reasons that I could no longer ignore…

For one thing I’ve become a Twitter-addict and wanted to examine some of the fascinating debates that have arisen from that activity in more detail than the 140 characters will allow. For another I wanted to start exploring the many issues that are currently affecting academic business librarianship through a blog format, as my awareness of  the instant – and global - publishing of my words SHOULD ensure that I don’t simply react (a natural tendency of mine) but truly absorb and process before taking action.

So if you’re interested in reading about the challenges faced by a hard-working and enthusiastic Head Librarian at a UK business school (Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) this blog may be for you…

Andy