Theme: Library Management

You’ve seen the gorgeous photos of hand-drawn planners on Instagram and thought, “I would never have time to make my diary look like that.” Or you’ve bought pre-made planners before only to abandon them after a week, but still prefer to have a paper-and-pen backup to your online calendars. Or maybe you’re just curious about what a bullet journal is. Whatever the case, Emma and Kirsten have you covered! With six years of bullet journal experience between them, they’ll talk you through the basics of bullet journaling, show you some of the ways you can customise yours and get you started on planning your life with paper and pen. Participants should bring their favourite pens as well as their appointments and to-do lists for the day of the session and the next day. If you have a notebook you were already going to use as a planner, feel free to bring it. Otherwise, scrap paper will be provided for practice.

• A short interactive session that will focus on hints and tips to help people who Chair meetings do so more effectively.

• Decolonising knowledge is one of the hot topics of the moment, stirring up universities as well as the media. How can we approach this fundamental and much needed change in our libraries while still dealing with our daily workloads?
• Join us to hear diverse perspectives: Eve Lacey (Newnham College), David Rushmer (English Faculty Library), Mehves Dignum (Engineering Faculty Library) and Clara Panozzo (Collections and Academic Liaison, University Library) will share their thoughts and experiences.
• This will be followed by a workshop and an open discussion (with tea and biscuits in the middle!).

This course is aimed at those faculty librarians who purchase their own ebooks and those who may be interested to start purchasing their own. The course will introduce librarians to our ebook suppliers, including ebook license models, how user-friendly they are and how to identify them on the supplier platforms. We will also look at Digital Rights Management (DRM) and ebooks; what are the implications for users, and why we should try to buy DRM-free ebooks where possible. We will demonstrate searching, interpreting results and purchasing ebooks from the main vendor platforms. We will also cover what happens after the ebook order, including creating purchase orders and invoices, cataloguing, and portfolio administration within Alma.

There will be chance to ask questions throughout the session, and an accompanying ebook supplier checklist to take away.

Recruiting staff is becoming an increasingly integral part of our role, so knowing how to interview well is a key skill to have in your toolkit. This session aims to share some best practice in order to help you navigate your way through an interview process, resulting in recruiting the best candidate for the role. The session will be interactive, and will dispel some common myths, as well as sharing with you some practical hints and tips to take away. Topics covered in this session range from what questions to ask a candidate at interview (and those to avoid!), note taking during an interview, scoring the candidates and using the right documentation. There will also be an opportunity to ask any burning questions at the end.

A forum for Library Assistants and assistant staff across Cambridge University libraries with a series of talks and discussions around what the role means and how we can diversify and make the most of it in different library contexts.

This participative workshop will include a discussion of the barriers for students with mental health difficulties using the library, and reminders about the support available outside the library services. Through discussion of case studies we will look at improving practice with students with mental health difficulties and improve the understanding of common diagnostic labels.