All entries for Monday 21 May 2007

Research conference

Jess, Jen, Sharon and I staffed a PR stand at the Warwick Uni Research Staff Conference today.

It was much better than the one we did at the Staff Induction earlier in the year because we were better prepared and knew more about what to expect and how to target the audience.

Sharon had been in touch with CAPD who organised the event and so was aware of the research areas that the delegates were interested in, this allowed us to target those subjects and ensure we had relevant material on hand to give out and knew who all the appropriate contact people were to refer delegates to.

I had spoken to relevant Subject Librarians to find out what they were working on in related areas and what services they particularly wanted hi-lighted.

We also had better facilities arranged at the stand, with 2 laptops, 1 showing a rolling powerpoint on a larger screen and one logged into the Support for Research pages of the Library web site available for demonstrations. We also had a targeted leaflet made up specifically for Researchers and Sharon organised for this to be included in all the delegate packs for the day. We had also prepared forms to complete for delegate enquiries which made it much easier to refer queries on to relevant staff when we got back.

MRC were also there, but this time we had separate stands, which had 2 main advantages:

• more space for publicity materials so we could each have better laid out stands and less cramped space to work in

• it effectively doubled the presence of Library Services so potentially increasing the awareness of delegates much more than a single stand would have done

I am really enjoying the exhibition work we are doing and hope to continue to be involved. I think it is vital that the Library is represented at such events, as we need to raise our profile within the University. It also has the obvious benefits for delegates at such events who would other wise not have had that contact and may have never found what or who they needed.

There is a follow up meeting planned, which I will write an entry on.

Has anyone else  been involved in similar exhibitions etc?

Does anyone have any tips? 

Katharine Widdows : 21 May 2007 17:37 |  Tags: Marketing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I'm angry.

Writing about web page http://havemercia.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/personal-researchers-in-northants/

Following on from the post on Pete's blog I have to have a minor rant of my own! Please see this article published a few days ago in the Northants Evening Telegraph.

Do we really need to reinforce the idea that all Librarians do is sit about stamping books and saying "Shhhh!"??????

I was under the impression that a decent enquiry service where people could be pointed in the direction of, oh, I dont know, lets say books and web sites about lace making? was a basic part of Library provision??? 

What on earth would that poor woman have been told if she had come in with the same question 2 weeks earlier?? "Basic research?? no, I'm sorry, we're a Library and we dont do that sort of thing."?!?!

I'm very angry and more than a little confused.

Do any Public Librarians have a view on this?

Am I really being unfair in my reaction to this?

Katharine Widdows : 21 May 2007 17:09 |  Tags: Serviceprovision Usereducation |  Comments (8) |  Close comments |  Report a problem