The University of the workplace

While scanning the daily newspapers (I usually do the Guardian and Daily Telegraph) I found an article in The Guardian of today (23rd September 2008) about on the job training which is increasing and according to the article it brings the best out of employees: "We've always argued that the workplace is somewhere people learn rather than go and vegetate," says Liz Smith, director of unionlearn, the body that oversees the network. "The more people are engaged in learning, the more they will contribute to an organisation. They are more motivated, confident and adaptable."

I can't understand why some companies would not want to invest in training for their employees, I would say staff (like me) feel valued and feel they can progres in their professional careers, it can make them feel more motivated and do their job in a better way, so at the end of the it can increase staff retention as well.

Sure it costs money to train staff, but it is an investment because happier staff means they are happier to work for you and if they are happier to work for you they will make improvements and increase productivity. As a company you will end up with a skilled workforce making your company more competitive and that will show on bottom line.

Hmm, my witty colleague (Umm... let's just call him Mark) next to me just said "that is a bold statement, they would probably get all the training they can and then leave for a better job......" :s HMM!

Anyway, my organisation is a "training organisation" to begin with, we offer training and qualifications for marketers, so it would be appropriate for the staff here to be given a lot of free training. Personally I think I do get a lot of training, I am not sure if it is because I am doing the chartership only, but when I find an interesting course I do bring it up with my line manager and for some reason I feel this eagerness to learn and I actually enjoy going on courses and be trained in new things. I believe it is because I feel there is just so much out there happening and I want to become part of it and make sure that my organisation is aware and following the new changes. Besides I just love studying and learning new things...... so much more fun and valuable that sitting behind closed doors....... :)

Beyond Google....

In the 22 August - 4 September 2008 edition of Gazette from CILIP there was a little piece on how academic library and information professionals can educate students about searching beyond Google.

I ordered a DVD from University of Brighton as we do not have access to YouTube here at work (!) Had a look at it the other day, hmm not really for me/us here. As it said on the description it offers advice on developing training sessions, e.g. make sure you have eye contact, make sure you set up this and this.

But I am just pleased I had a chance to look at it and it just makes me more aware of how important it is not to think of Google as a universal library catalogue, I have learnt that that is far from the truth. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Google as a brand as anyone else does (after all it is the most loved brand according Marketing's annual league table), I love the fun of Google, the colours, their new ideas (Google Labs), the changing banners (Which brand do you know of that changes its looks almost every week, successfully?) but because I have now realised that for information retrieval purposes Google is not a solution, but merely a tool out of thousands of tools, I am looking at Google with new pair of glasses (pardon my poor translation of a Danish phrase).

Doing the customer service thing

My initial thoughts on customer service are:

• good customer service is something people remember you by
• good customer service is so important it can increase your profits
• customer service isn't about a one off experience, good service delivery has to be consistent

The reason I am looking into this now is because I have put customer service on my PPDP as something I want to see how I can improve my customer service skills. Recently I found a book on our "New Books Added to the Library Catalogue" about customer service. It's called "Wow! that's what i call service", its by Don Hales and Derek Williams and has some really good examples of how some employees in different industries have gone the extra mile to help somebody (customer). It is inspiring, and when I get positive feedback, I am always willing to go even further the next time.

Thinking about it, when have I offered good customer service? Hmm, I can think of examples of situations where I got really positive feedback from customers which means that I must have done something to impress them. We tend to get good feedback on our email enquiries and get many "thank you for your prompt response" emails. That is one way of measuring our service. We had a student who was visually impaired and needed a long list of publications in format that her software could read out for her so I made an extra effort to request the books through the publishers (and as many may know, publishers aren't the easiest people to deal with on this planet.....) and I gathered articles and changed their format and copy and pasted things to make all these document readable for her. It was a task that took a couple of months and although there was one book which I just could not get hold of in electronic copy, she was happy for the fact I put so much effort in for her. Another time, I hand delivered some photocopies to a student who needed these papers for an important conference she was leaving for at 5am the day after. Her office was only 2 minutes walk from my house and I would have to drive past it anyway, so I arranged with her to drop by after work and deliver the documents myself. She was a happy customer, telling me how much she appreciated my dedication and she was very amazed the my organisation would go this far for it's members. Doesn't that just make you smile dear reader? :)

I do feel that everything I do when speaking or emailing or talking to a customer/member/visitor/participant can become a positive experience. There are the unhappy members who are misrable from the time you say hello to them, but you can turn that around and even though you may not be able to help them, you can change their mood and make them leave happier than when they phoned. It is important to try, it is not only my job to dig out things a provide people information, it's to hand over a document with a smile on my face. Moods are contagious you know......

Just now, while writing this, I have taken a call from a member and I ended the conversation with a "thank you, that is very kind of you", because he said to me:

"You know what, you are a star, you have been a great help, I did not know about that source, thank you very much, what is your name?"

"My name is Maninder, that is spelled M-A-N-I-N-D-E-R" I said

"Thank you very much Maninder, it has been a absolute pleasure speaking to you".

Hopefully he will remember that I provided him good service with a smile and he will know he can contact us when he needs help in the future.

Going home now with a smile on my face :o)

Crome? Croming?

I've downloaded Google's new browser Crome, was really exited, but the only thing I have managed to figure out is that your search box is same as your url box, which is great because you do not have to open Google's page. But this also means that you are using Google without realising u are using it! ...... hmmm

Non-Google Day link

Some weeks ago (or was it months?) I mentioned my commitment to non-google day, and since then I have using different search engines on Wednesdays. If there is a week where I can't think of a new search engine to use, or I do not have time to look for one (usually I find them on Karen Blakeman or Phil Bradley's website) then I just continue using any of the previous search engines I've tried. But this one is new for the list of search engines to try: http://www.cluuz.com/

I found a reference to it in Karen Blakeman's Tales from the Terminal Room newsletter of August 2008.

I could also use these, which I've got in my favourites list in my browser:

Ask.com
Canuckster.com
Exalead.com
Live.com (used on 17/09/08)
Yahoo.com (used on 10/09/08)
Graball to compare search engine results side by side
Copernic Agent to search multiple search engines
www.intelways.com
www.zuula.com
www.akacrawiki.com

This will be an opportunity to learn the features and weaknesses of these search engines. It will be an opportunity to get out of the Google rut.

A visit to the CILIP Library - after the visit

Although the CILIP library is the size of one of our bookshelves in my organisation's library, it was a grrrreat experience to visit the team! I would say that it is something everyone ought to do once in a while (visit a library that is), chartership or no chartership.

Today I was the member who knew only the average 10% of the services offered by the membership organisation! It was very eye opening because usually I explain our members about all the services that they may never have heard about even though they have been members for a decade! I was basically the lacking-knowledge-of-membership-organisation's-services-type-of-member this time :) Which was a good thing, because now I know what it feels like. There were two good things about this visit:


1) I became aware of a lot of the things my membership organisation can offer me and I am now going back with a bunch of ideas and knowledge in my bag. Things like the CILIP blog, the CILIP forum, the type of questions CILIP can advise me on etc.


2) I have visited another library "behind the scenes" for the first time, and it was an eye opener to see how the same things can work differently and how different things can work the same way.


I will now see if I can visit a public library, I have a feeling I will enjoy that too!


This is what I have learnt/experienced today:

• I was asked if this blog can be aggregated by the CILIP Members Blog Landscape: I was informed that a lot of people underestimate how useful a blog can be and been offered to make it available as a CILIP BLOGGER as they call it here. Sounds good to me, as it will get me motivated to write more, more properly and it will mean that my thoughts might be useful to someone else.
• Because this was not a library at the same scale that we are, the way the department was organised was completely different, less library like and more like a academic/corporate organisation.
• Some of the tools used to promote CILIP and LIS were more advanced than my organisation's, this includes things like:
  1) Staff have created a FAQ database accessible for all staff at CILIP, it is continuously maintained and can be time saving when you have to answer the same sort of questions, e.g. where can I find information on data protection etc, but it also gives more consistency in answers and it is a way of sharing resources.
  2) The Information and Advice team has got their own blog (http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/informationadvice/default.aspx) and update it with new websites they encounter while answering the enquiries from their members or information that may be useful to LIS people like me from news and e-newsletters. It's a good initiative and I generally like anything that shares information with others. I am not sure such a blog would work for my information and library team; if we have a website we like we send it around so staff can bookmark it, or we can choose to add it to our catalogue or website. Kinda simple, but with our current website design, I don't see a blog happening.
• Some people actually complain about the CILIP Salary Guides saying that they earn alot more than the average and that the average salaries presented by CILIP are too low!?! :s (Team Leader Jill Duffin told me and I was chocked, wish it was me!)
• Generally the CILIP Information and Advice is different than us because they also offer advice on for example copyright or career, while here things like enquiries take up most of our time.

Sometimes you don't walk away thinking, oh I must go home and do this, this and this, while other times, like this, you go you home thinking, it was good I came, at least now I know. :o)

A visit to the CILIP Library - before the visit

I have arranged a visit to the CILIP library at the CILIP headquaters tomorrow. This is one of the good things about doing chartership, you get a good excuse to get out there and peak into the LIS world. I dont know if I will get such opportunities later on, so I want to explore as much as possible now when I have the chance! :o)

I will see how it goes tomorrow, and if "needed" I might consider going to another library and see how things work there, maybe a public library? When will I get the chance to visit a public library "behind the scenes"? :)

As it is a membership body such as my own organisationI am planning on looking into the following areas tomorrow:

• Number of members
• How many work in the library and how many are actually librarians and chartered?
• Type and number of enquiries received
• Sources, in house, alternatives
• Software used
• How do they market themselves
• What is their policy on

Oh and while I am there I must ask them about the changes being made to the CPD scheme and on behalf of my manager ask about the revalidation scheme, maybe they could need some tips from us?

Generally: to pick up ideas about how another professional membership bodies' library works compared to ours and to liase with other professionals about current issues in CPD, LIS and the general status of the library world!

Let's see!

I Like!

How you work – not what you do – makes you an information professional!

THE CILIP CPD PROGRAM

After seeing the CPD programme that my organisation offers, the CILIP one seems very primitive! Is primitive too harsh a word to use? might be, but that is the first word that came to mind.

I know CILIP is currently changing their website, so it may be that they will do something for the CPD as well, but during the presentation it did strike me that there is so much help given by my organisation, while CILIP still seems to follow some old and boring model.

I am sitting here hoping that someone has already given this a thought and while writing this someone is actually working on it already. I will find out when I visit the CILIP library in two weeks time.

I made a couple of notes of the changes to our CPD portal and so on, but the one thing that I made sure to write down was this:

"CPD is not only about being chartered - it's about becoming aware of the developments in my profession and to find out where I fit into these changes"

Writing For The Web...... one day workshop

Activity:
On a gloomy Monday morning the in house training for how to write on the web began.
This was a more hands on update of corporate websites' usability, structure and basically how it should be done and how it shouldn't be done. Our talker of the day was from an agency called AI Digital (http://www.ai-digital.com/) as knew how our organisation works and has worked for a number of organisations. Did I mention it was a Monday morning??

Learned:
We covered things like:

• Difference between online and off line content; why you can't just upload the same info that you published in your leaflets and so on.
• Structure, how do people actually read a page; it is not from left to right as we do when reading something in hard copy, its a more zig zag approach - like when women do shopping during sale season, we scan left, right and centre instead of looking at each item in chronological order. A lot of psychology there.
• How does Google work in terms of search results, ranking, ad words and how to promote our site rating in the search results. SEO basically.
• Creative writing which is consistent, user focused and in compliance with our brand guidelines and style guide.

In the exercises we trashed our own website which makes one realise how much work there needs to be doing. Even after the launch of our new website, the things we learnt will be good as a checklist for what is good practise.

Applied:
So far it has been a real eye opener for a lot of people who did the course, but as I said to my manager, a lot of it is something I learnt while doing my LIS degree and something I am quite aware of, but it was very beneficial because it was hands on, it was only concerning our organisation's website and it was information that was up-to-date. Keeping in mind I finished my studies in 2005, a lot changes in 3 years.
For the time being, it doesn't seem that I will be updating anything on the website as these responsibilities have not been passed on to me. But my manager is aware of my interest and promised she would make sure to involve me so I can put my interest and knowledge to work.
It would be a pity if, despite doing all the web 2.0 courses and reading up and testing and with the background I have, not to have any responsibilities in the IT/web area at work.

The ideas and tasks from this workshops are as followed:

• Everytime we write an article, for example a factfile or any heading on our websites and so on, we should keep ranking in mind and keep the way the Google spider works in mind.
• DDA: I need to work on guidelines for disabled visitors, not the facilities part of things, but the accessability of our information. Apparently 17% of users are affected by some sort of disability e.g. visual impairment. For this the www.w3c.org guidelines and the DDA which is based on this, are good sources along with gathering information on how other corporate libraries deal with this.

uPdAte

PPDP found...... and am now adding more interesting items on it after being inspired!

Aargh!

I can't find my PPDP! ......... :O

Focus!

The mentor meeting was very successful! It was very relieving to know that I am doing everything right, except that I am doing it at snail speed :)

1. Blog - is it any use? and if so, what to change?

This blog is not to be submitted as evidence, but will be used as a reference in the portfolio. It is used as a a selv-development log, instead of a hard copy diary, this is my tool to track my development and progress. Its the modern diary in other words.
My mentor said it was interesting to read, so if nothing else, it will give me blogging experience and at the same time also experience in reflecting.

2. PPDP - still in process of being updated (this is the 6 months review meeting! Argh!), will show changes next time......

My mentor was kind to actually give a list of suggestions for additions to the PPDP! So now I will complete the PPDP and look at it as a complete document (very soon!),

3. Take out a day (or just an afternoon) of the month for CPD, ask manager

I have actually asked my colleague as it affects him more than anyone else. Every Tuesday after lunch, I will work on my CPD with the phones being off and not replying to emails. UNLESS, there is a call waiting, as agreed with my colleague. That is one of the great things about my job, my colleague and I can cover for each other and out of everyone in the library we are the ones who can really do teamwork and take on each others tasks! Its a great feeling as you can rely on each other and help each other if you are getting snowed under.

I will be working on the actual putting together of the portfolio on Tuesdays, things like:

Getting the documents together (sorting out evidence - what I got and what I need to get)
Making a list of contents for the portfolio
Sorting out organisation chart, CV and so on

4. Chance to work on Intranet (ask manager)

Or internet for that matter. But for some reason things have been sidelined and I have not been envolved in the development in a way I had hoped. My mentor will look into this and guide on what can be done.

5. Criteria of assessment - am I still on the right track?

Everytime we have a meeting we will go through the criteria - just to make sure we stick to the criteria!

6. Does my portfolio have room for creation of a disability guidelines for the library document?

Yes. This is something that will go on my PPDP and will need to be started soon as it has been in the pipeline for too long.

7. I would like to try and make statistics for how much the library is used, eg. number of emails received in a month, number of book loans, number of enquiries (phone, face to face, email), but I am not sure what the information can be used for? (the monthly update??)

My mentor will try and think of an idea and so will I ......

8. What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? Please enlighten me?

Nothing in particular wrong with what I do, but personally I think I should get some work done, LESS TALK MORE WORK! (......and even though my mentor never says so, and probably never will, I am sure she feels the same! :)

This meeting was also the 6 months review of the mentor agreement, and my mentor and I looked at what we had promised (and signed) and the only thing that seemed very unrealistic was the "meet up once a month to discuss progress". So we changed that to once every two months, everyone knows how quickly a month goes by! According to this "new" agreement our next meeting should be in August, but let's see if I can work a bit harder and organise things better.

Mission number one is to sort out the PPDP!

Moments before......

..... my mentor meeting is about to begin. Why does this feeling of guilt keep coming up? ....... could it be related to the fact that I have hardly managed to do any work on my CPD for the last oh say 6 months or so? Hmm....

The things on the agenda for today's mentor meeting are:

1. Blog - is it any use? and if so, what to change?
2. PPDP - still in process of being updated (this is the 6 months review meeting! Argh!), will show changes next time......
3. Take out a day (or just an afternoon) of the month for CPD, ask manager
4. Chance to work on Intranet (ask manager)
5. Criteria of assessment - am I still on the right track?
6. Does my portfolio have room for creation of a disability guidelines for the library document?
7. I would like to try and make statistics for how much the library is used, eg. number of emails received in a month, number of book loans, number of enquiries (phone, face to face, email), but I am not sure what the information can be used for? (the monthly update??)
8. What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong? Please enlighten me?

At least things are slightly more clear in my head!

I will come back in half an hour and write down the outcome......... fingers crossed! Arrgh why am I so nervous!!! I doesn't make sense....... :s

Wordle.net

I am not sure what I can use it for, but I am sure I like it! Its dynamic and fun tool, if only I knew what people use it for??

I copy and pasted text from my company's website, and this is the wonderful word cloud that came out. You can change the words, colours, font, cloud shape and so on......... but what for? beats me! :)

Search Engines: Is Google really white bread for the mind?

"Google is white bread for the mind"

said lecturer Tara Brabazon (Update magazine March 2008, p10)

There has been a lot of discussion on this topic and obviously these words became quite controversial. There were the loyal googlers (According to Wikipedia a "Googler may refer to:
1) A person who uses Google's features very efficiently 2) Fan of Google 3) An expert online searcher 4) A full-time Google employee.) and the hardcore librarians on the other side.

Even thought I am not a hardcore librarian (yet!) the white bread part did make sense to me instantly. Google has changed the way we search and our expectations of our searches. Put in a couple of words which you know by experience that will come up with a number of useful links, and wupti your information is presented to you after a few clicks!

That is how the Google world works, but that is not how searching really works. We do not charge people money for doing a couple of "quick and dirty" (that what we used to call them in uniy) searches and present to our users. Do we? No really, we don't: First of all we will be aware of the limitations of the source (in this case Google), we will combine terms according to our experience and the way the source is catalogued, we will consider searching for either separate words or phrase we will use search operators such as Boolean, truncation, limiters and so on. Once the search results appear we will carefully look at the sources before looking at the information on the link and after checking the credibility of the source we will select the article and rank its relevancy compared to other articles available. This can take anything from 1 minute to much longer.

I think it is clear in everyone's mind that the pros of Google is the simple search option, the listing of results and the speed of retrieving information. The downside is at times its credibility and ranking (most popular first) and the "clutter" of information that you get with your search results. I guess Google has affected the information world in such a way that it is changing the way we and our users search. When it comes to Google we librarians seem to be a bit redundant (or on the positive side, we can almost always assume that users who approach us have already tried to Google their results and now come to us in desperation!). There was a time when our academic theory of how to search and where to search was the practise, but now we are being told by new technology where to go and how to get there. It's as if we are adapting to the technology, and not the technology adapting to us any longer. That is probably the story in every industry.
I have a feeling that Google can only rely on this sort of behavior for a limited time, I am sure something will change for the poor websites which are on page 9.568 on Google search results. If they got the proper indexing terms, and we searched using a Google thesaurus, they would be given justice too, popular or not!

I wouldn't say that Google is database, such as a library database, it is more a dumpyard for information and although Google's techonology works on the same priciples as citation indexing, I do, along with other of my kind, feel that the future of IS in is doubt, because people's understanding of information retrieval is changing.

Last week I was in the local Gurdwara with my hubby, we were having langar, the "free meal", and a friend of my in laws came and sat with us. He is a very nice person no doubt, very jolly and very loving. He asked me if I was still working in Uxbridge, and I answered no no I am in Maidenhead now, working as a information professional. I often don't expect people to understand right away what it means to be a information professional, but his reply was "oh, so you find a document on the shelf and give it to people, here you go"?
I was left a bit shocked but jolly as he is, he started laughing and made me laugh too. But truth is that it is people's perception of information retrieval that has changed and we do not seem to have become part of that change. Maybe that is not so bad, because at the end of the day, when people fail to find the information they need on their beloved Google...... eventually they will turn to us won't they? Gives me hope :) We have to know the sources that go beyond Google and also look at Google's competitors.

This may be my thoughts presentend in a very messy way, but I have been inspired by something I read on a blog:

http://zerotwozero.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/non-google-day/ :

Here is a suggestion for something that I reckon, would prove a hit in any academic library. A ‘Non Google Day’. Google is now a verb in itself, to ‘Google‘ something is the act of looking up information on the internet, “What’s a multi faceted information architecture?” ”I don’t know, why don’t you google it!“ etc.
So here is the challenge. Make every student that you comes to you with an information query look for the information through another web based search engine other then Google, or even in a book/journal/magazine. This excersise should prove to students that there are other resources other then Google such as www.ask.co.uk, infotrac/other online journal database, hard copy journals, the list is endless.
Pros: Increases and promotes greater information literacy, fun to do, will help lecturers who find students increasingly rely on Google for information.
Cons: Needs promotion, needs understanding and support from lecturers, not enforcable without blocking Google from whole institution (through firewall).
Although we haven’t actually done this yet at our library, it would be interesting to see if anyone has done anything similiar and the results from that excersise!

and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/14/altsearch_google_boycott/

So from now on, every Wednesday, I will try different search engines, so I can learn what I miss out on when using Google or what I do not miss out on. It will broaden my knowledge of new and old search engines, and I feel that is the least a librarian can do!

I have made a note in my Outlook calender saying "Non-Google Day" and also made my colleagues aware of my new activity.

I will try and update this blog on the search engines I have used, also it will remind me of what I have used and still have to try.

Karen Blankeman's list on search engines will be quite useful: ttp://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/index.php

I would also like to try this one which I heard about at the Online Information conference in 2008: http://www.exalead.co.uk/search

Labels......

I probably should already know this...... but you do not actually get an insight into the classification system of the library (for books in this instance) if you only take books off the shelves or put books on the shelves which is what you do to books when you are a researcher. But after having taking on responsibilities of our missing library admins, one of them re-labelling the library books collection, I have realised that I am not very familiar with the indexing system we use (which is London Business School in case I forget later on....). So when looking at which sections needed new labels I realised how the system is actually put together! Now for the usability and design......

The fox and the explorer

I've got permission from my IT department to install Firefox on my pc (not sure if I really needed permission.....). I can now tick one of the things on my "to do list": to explore an alternative browser and not just the standard Internet Explorer *yawn*.

Firefox is fun because it is open source software and I feel like I am exploring a new world which my colleagues are *maybe* not using ( I like to be different!). I noticed how accustomed I have become to using IE (I vaguely remember using Mozilla as a browser back in 1998??!).
I have transferred all my bookmarks and customized the layout and added a couple of interesting add-ons such as visual search. I have not thought about switching for the time being I am just having fun by choosing the one I am in the mood for. I have read that IE has a add on functionality which I only found out when searching for Firefox add ons, so at least I know that now!
I shall continue my mission to explore the strange new worlds of Firebox, to seek out new functionalities and add-ons, to boldly go where I have never gone before.

Text Works by Soutron - Applied

Applied:
Looking back at what I learned on level one, I have actually applied the shortcuts into my daily searching routine, particularly the Alt+U and spell check. It saves me time and I am pleased that the training session has not been a repeat of what I already know and given me confidence that the way I am using the system is correct and optimal, but it also pleases me that I can integrate new routines which gives a bit of change and improvement.

How I use Textworks:
Creating a new user/updating user information
Logging enquiries
Searching for information
Catalouging newspaper articles/checking for duplicated etc.
Checking books in and out/renewing books
Sending overdue letters
Importing from Ms Word

British Library workshop and CILIP Library

Yesterday was a full CPD day for me. This was my plan:
9am to 1pm to work on chartership using the CILIP "library" in London.
1pm to 2pm: Walk from CILIP to BL and grab lunch on the way and make sure to get a reader pass made so I had to bring the necessary proof.
2pm-4pm: BL workshop "Knowing your market" in the Business and IP Centre.

Working on the chartership is harder than I initially thought, I am not going to deny that. I think the fact that the current workload in the Library is at its maximum as we do not have any admins (sigh!) has given me lots of opportunities no doubt. But one thing is to do a lot of work which is not part of your job, its another thing to actually take notes, think, reflect, learn and write down your reflection! When are you ever going to find the time when your 9-5 job is fully packed? This is what has left me rather behind in my 'reflection' process. So the purpose of going to the CILIP library to actually study was a good idea! I did get to sort out my papers, actually read some of my notes and locate notes which I feared I had lost forever. I also got a chance to see how another membership body's library could look like - yes it did make our library look like the superior, but that is a different matter anyway. I learnt that I need to learn to dedicate time for my CPD if I ever wish to finish it, it is far too easy to come with the excuse of never having time to write.....I've done enough of that. So just like all the other reminders in my Outlook diary at work, I am going to create a reminder of reflecting at least once a week!


I was keen on visiting the British Libary. Although I have been there before while doing my degree (2004 I think it was....) - it was a very brief visit and all I seem to remember is the public bench looking like an open book. To get to the point, the workshop I chose as Knowing Your Market at the Business & IP Centre. It was a workshop on the resources the British Library could offer (which was completely mind blowing!). They mentioned some of the sources which I am already aware of e.g. Mintel, Key Note, LexisNexis and so on. But I got hold of a list of the many other databases the centre subscribes to, for example FAME and Verdict, I am sure this will come in handy at some stage. I also grabbed some industry guides they publish, for example on different industries, I am sure these can be used when we update our links collection later this year: http://www.bl.uk/collections/business/bisheets.html
The centre has access to databases which I have used, heard of and never ever heard of: http://www.bl.uk/collections/cd-busin.html

To use the newly aquired skills, we would need to have a reader pass which I sorted out with my CILIP card quite quickly (it lasts 3 years!) and got a chance to play with the new tools introduced to me.

It has given me another thing to put on my list of "alternative options" when I cant seem to locate the information I need for an enquiry and I know many members as well as non-members who ask for more information than we can provide (particulary free information) who I can direct to the BL B&IP Centre. So this has helped me in knowing more resources for specific problems.

I am not to do a review of the BL or anything, but I guess I left the place feeling impressed and glad I got the chance to go there. Come to think of it, if it wasnt for this chartership I am doing, I would have staying in my own little world.....but now, I am looking for opportunities to continuesly explore the LIS world..................... I think my manager has realised that too! :)