PPRG Marketing Excellence Conference

The Publicity and Public Relations Group Conference held on the 31st of January at Aston University Library, Birmingham. My attendance was mainly due to the fact that I had been given the task of developing the marketing plan for my service and the workshop on putting together a marketing plan on the programme seemed serendipitous. I also wanted to further my activity in the wider community.  The event was attended by about 50 professionals across a variety of sectors which made for great networking opportunities.

The chair, Davina Omar, welcomed attendees and went through housekeeping. The programme was arranged in an unorthodox format with the keynote at the end to allow for the winners of the 2019 Marketing Excellence Awards give their presentations first and allay anxieties. Something I'm sure they appreciated. It kicked off with the Shetland Libraries eServices Outreach Project by Louise Arcus and Kate Riise. The aim was to increase eService uptake by hard to reach clientele who were digitally, socially or geographically excluded, something I could relate to my work in a Community Trust. They marketed their RBDigital collection of audio books, eBooks, and eMagazines by raising awareness during physical visits. They also made use of the local media, newspapers, radio broadcast, and social media. The success of the campaign also led to promotion by word of mouth and created opportunities to highlight other Library services.

Demonstrating impact of promotion on eservices usage #PPRG20 pic.twitter.com/GYIuAL55HK

— Abi Alayo (@abombolo) January 31, 2020

The next presentation was by Tracey Williams from Solihull Libraries on an exhibition on the self-build revolution in the 1950s where families gave their time and skills to build homes for the Self-build Housing Association and rent the homes back. It was important to bring it to the attention of decision makers to find parallels with current housing issues. The exhibition promotes a sense of place and empowers feeling of belonging. It promotes a sense of time to anchor past events to the present and shape the future. A combination of methods were used to create exhibition panels with more images than text. The exhibition was marketed with promotional flyers and tweets.

Tweets and promotional flyers #PPRG20 pic.twitter.com/Nxk6mTWL0p

— Abi Alayo (@abombolo) January 31, 2020

The final award went to Staffordshire Libraries for their Burton Bedtime Stories. The presentation was by Liz Gardner (Staffordshire Libraries), Kate Thomson-Rayne (East Staffordshire Children's Centre), and Dan Wareing (Volunteer). The team filmed recruited volunteers reading featured bedtime stories and posted the videos on Facebook. Theresulting interest demonstrated the value of the Library service and showcased the service offer. It also supported speech language and communication within the home environment. The featured titles were announced beforehand using a variety of media and there was a corresponding rise in the number of issues of the featured title around the time the video is published. Volunteers went on to champion the service and this led to a more volunteer offers.

After lunch, there was a choice between two workshops. One on creating a marketing plan and the other was a forum on exchanging library marketing experiences. I attended the first session which began with the idea of using the PPRG Marketing Excellence Award criteria as a baseline for a marketing plan. A clear statement of objectives is required with a short description of what you aim to achieve and your target audience. The range of marketing channels to use should be identified - social media, posters, email, leaflets etc. What is most suitable for your campaign. Consider how you'll time the execution of tasks and establish roles and areas of responsibility with expected deadlines. Hints and tips for marketing were supplied.

Some tips for a marketing plan #PPRG20 pic.twitter.com/0EXJXPLPs1

— Abi Alayo (@abombolo) January 31, 2020

Next was the AGM which revealed that the group has been rebranded from its 36 year name and will now be known as the Marketing and Communications Group. A research grant for marketing has also been introduced. It was followed by the Keynote speech by Rachel Van Riel, Director of Opening the book. She discussed what we need to focus on and steer away from when considering marketing a service positively. An attitude of blaming the user when they do not understand what is meant needs to be discouraged. It is your responsibility to be articulate what you mean clearly. We were given several examples of marketing fails and successes.

My day didn't get all my questions answered but it definitely gave me a starting point. It also helped me reflect on where my marketing focus should lie. What I think is most important might not necessarily be the case. I am considering an audit of most asked questions to identify areas in the service that might need clarification in a future plan. In the meantime I have been able to state an objective which I will present to my team and hopefully move forward with it. All in all it was a productive day.

Strategy on a page Workshop

I attended the one day strategy on a page course led by Amanda Stearn. It was held at St. Chad's Court, Birmingham with 16 attendees. I wanted find a way to align the Library service strategy to that of my organisation and present it in a simple format that is succinct. Amanda steered the conversation away from the NHS to give some context to how we look to strategies as a whole. Bringing the session back to healthcare with a host of examples and exercises, she put us through our paces eliciting ideas on what we considered contributing factors from macro drivers such as the HEE, service users, host organisations to SWOT (local and external factors) such as budgets, staffing pressures, technology, and the political climate.

Aligning the vision and mission to that of the organisations ensures that the strategies and operations executed advance those of the organisation. We looked at how different segments of a strategy fit together and what they address.
Why - Vision - Why the service exists
Who - Mission - Who the service is in support of the vision
What - Priorities - What the service intends to accomplish in to meet the mission.
How - Strategies - Outline of how the priorities will be realised
How, where, when - Operational plan - More detailed practical actions that will be executed to realise the strategies.

We practiced on a whole strategy and converting it into a one page document with the use of a very helpful template. We also had the chance to identify enablers which are the things that will impact and make what we want happen such as funding and technology.

Different terminologies are often used to describe the same thing such as mission / purpose or goals / priorities. It is important to avoid the use of passive words like "support" and embrace the use of power words like enrich and strengthen to sell the service as an integral instrument for meeting the overarching goals of the organisation. We were supplied with tips on how to engage team members in the process by supplying the priorities and having them individually give their opinions on post-its on what the operational plans could entail. This gives every team member the chance to voice their thoughts and then collectively work backwards to the core strategies.

The focus of the workshop was generating a strategy on one page but it gave insight into how a template can be used to derive the summary for the service from my organisation strategy and then develop the full strategy for the service thereafter. It was useful to work with others and see how our different organisations and ways of thinking influenced our approaches to writing and structuring catchy sentences to reflect what we want. I had a wealth of ideas which I intend to implement in the hopes of enhancing the content of the service strategy.

Health Literacy Training

I attended this one day train the trainer event on Health Literacy held on the 17th of October 2019 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. My knowledge of health literacy beforehand was vague at best and I attended the event in the hopes of improving my understanding of health literacy levels and how it affects patient care as well as gathering ideas on how to support health literacy within my organization. The event was facilitated by three Librarians, Anita Phul (Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust), Lesley Allen (Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust), and Semanti Chakraborty (University Hospital Birmingham).

It started off with looking at what health literacy is and how issues and challenges surrounding it can be addressed. It was identified as being personal from a patient's point of view with aim of equipping the patient with information on their condition at a level they can understand to make decisions about their care. It was also looked at from a societal point of view which looked at the the accessibility of health information for those in need of it.

We looked at the different types of health literacy, functional - basic skills for everyday lie, Interactive - power to interpret and balance information as well as the confidence to undertake further investigation to inform decision making, Critical - ability to critically appraise and challenge information and make links with economic, social, and cultural factors. We also looked at health literacy levels across regions in England as well as the national and regional literacy of health materials which showed the information generally provided is often at a higher level than the average literacy level of the population. We looked how health literacy levels can be compromised depending on circumstances. I especially liked the activity which helped demonstrate how a professional with a high literacy level can suddenly have a low health literacy level where they or a loved one have been diagnosed with a life changing or life threatening condition.

We had an activity which helped drive home how dealing with health information you don't understand can feel. Comments made by attendees included frustrating, feeling stupid, and this helped stress the importance of providing health information at an understandable level. We looked at the population more likely to have low health literacy and this included people with learning difficulties or learning disabilities, people with low IT skills, older people. there was an activity where attendees were encouraged to discuss examples of when health literacy has had a personal or professional impact on them. The detriments and impact of low health literacy to patients and the NHS were also addressed such as unhealthy habits, high mortality, wrong usage of medication, missed appointments etc.

The areas where librarians and library services can influence health literacy were also covered.This included improving health literacy levels, ensuring information and services are accessible to all, and raising health literacy awareness. This can be done by using techniques such as Teach Back and Chunk and check to empower individuals and ensuring written information provided is at an appropriate level for the audience (i.e. simple, free of jargon, free of acronyms, conversational, use of everyday words, free of needless information etc.). We were also supplied with a list of tools that support creating health information and attendees talked about local initiatives they were aware of. The event ended with some recommendations that should be promoted such as not making assumptions about literacy or ability to speak or hear, and using different media to share health information, use of simple explanations.

The event had a good mix or presentations and activities but I found it a lot to take in and didn't have as much opportunity to share ideas with other attendees as I would have liked. It showed me that there is a varied mix of health literacy support already in place across a range of NHS Libraries and I took away some ideas on how to help my organisation create a patient information register and ensure that the information supplied are at an appropriate level. I also got the idea to support the discharge facilitators with how the information supplied to patients is provided in a way that will enable compliance. I believe the event was suitable for anyone looking to start off a Health Literacy service or looking for more ideas on how to improve an existing service.

Presenting at a conference

It's been a while since my last post. A hectic couple of months but I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I won't bore you with the ins and out outs of what I've been up to but I will try to do better. I've been talking about presenting at a conference for years and tried my hand at it again. I feel it wasn't brilliant but practice makes perfect and you'll never know unless you try. I presented our in-house request management system alongside my colleague at the 2018 Interlend Conference in Birmingham. The original attraction was that the conference was local but it wasn't until our proposal was accepted that I realized I hadn't really expected it to be. The prospect was quite scary. On the 25th June when I attended, there were over 80 delegates and unsurprisingly only one other NHS delegate aside from my colleague and myself. Unfortunately, due to service needs I was only able to stay for the keynote speech and my presentation.

The Keynote speaker was CILIP President, Ayub Khan, and he talked about "Rethinking the Library" address how user needs have changes and the responsiveness of libraries. I especially liked that he discussed the need to demonstrate value based on user benefits and feedback rather than just statistics. What I took away from the conference was priceless especially as I was there for only a short time. By sharing the system with colleagues from other sectors, I was able to see it from their perspective and access other development needs and ways in which the system might be evaluated. I'm grateful for the opportunity to test the waters at Interlend and I can confirm that there is probably nothing more daunting than speaking to a room full of information professionals. I am not quite ready to try conference presenting again but I'm certainly not one to encourage others to do anything I am unwilling to. Now that I have faced the fear and crossed the bridge, I'll see where the road takes me.

I'll have the frog this week. Michael can have it next week @smallwoodlib @FIL_ILL #interlend18 @bhamcommunity pic.twitter.com/KkR3tjZkrw

— Abimbola Alayo (@abombolo) 25 June 2018

Network Day for Band 5 & 6 NHS Librarians

I attended this network day held on the 30th of November, 2017 at St. Chads Court in Birmingham which was originally aimed at Librarians in the Midlands but it was refreshing to see Librarians from as far away as Essex in attendance. I found myself  agreeing to facilitate a Knowledge Cafe which turned out to be a valuable experience because to be frank I had no experience as a participant or a facilitator. Within 24 hours, I read and watched everything I could on Knowledge Cafes and felt confident that I could do justice. Catherine McLaren started off the day with some housekeeping and a run through what the content of the day would be. She also introduced Clare Edwards and myself as co-facilitators for the day. Participants were asked to write their expectations from the session on post-its and put it on a board. These were put together as themes and ranged from gaining insights from others to learning about social media.

Identifying expectations at LKS band 5 and 6 network meeting in Birmingham. Learning from peers and sharing ideas #HEELKS pic.twitter.com/mtfwWCPAPC

— Clare Edwards (@ClareEdwards311) November 30, 2017

The first session was the Knowledge Cafe led by me
What went right
I started off by asking if anyone had ever participated or led a Knowledge Cafe to which I got a few hands up. I then had those with the experience to share what the concept was about and it was pretty much spot on. "A knowledge cafe is an opportunity  to bring a group of people together to have an open, creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest. It is meant to be informal, unstructured, fun, social and time-bound. It gives participants the opportunity to share ideas, observe & reflect, tease out information, and gain a deeper understanding".

With the concept thus explained, I supplied the topic for the Knowledge Cafe "What makes a good library website or intranet page?"

The participants were then asked to split into four groups and with 16 participants, there was an even split of four people per group.

I then requested for 2 volunteers from each group and informed the participants that there will be 3 rounds of 15 minutes each. At the end of each round, my volunteers would move to the next table and begin the conversation again. At the end of the 3rd round all participants would reassemble as one large group for an exchange of ideas. This worked really well and there was a real buzz in the room.

What went wrong
At the end of the first round, it became obvious the volunteers hadn't realized they needed to move in their pairs. I had to clarify this and in hindsight should have mentioned it earlier.

Despite trying to stay in the background (I remained seated as much as I could), the buzz in the room seemed to die once participants reassembled into one big group. I had to intervene and elicit contributions but when the contributions came they seemed to be directed at me rather than the group which was not the intention. In hindsight, when the group reassembled I would have reminded them that the segment was the same discussion as before but as one big group and withdrawn myself to the back of the room.

After a quick break, there was a conversation on actions participants planned to take based on what they had learnt during the Knowledge Cafe, who they might need to discuss it with, areas to be changed or developed for quick wins, and how they planned to review what they had done. Participants shared the intention to follow up on ideas such as having Library staff names and pictures on the site and minimizing discrepancies in information on the intranet and internet pages.

The next session was facilitated by Catherine McLaren and it covered how we might measure the impact of social media. She shared some basic information of the average Twitter account in the West Midlands to give a feel for what the statistics were. A very interesting conversation then ensued on what actually constitutes impact of Twitter, tweets, following, followers, likes etc. I shared that I often link tweets to the Trust Twitter handle in the hope of reaching more staff and considered it a win if it was re-tweeted on the Trust account. Although there was no consensus on what would be the answer, the session definitely got everyone thinking. It got me thinking about how many followers of the Library account were actually Library users and therefore if tweets were reaching as many people as we thought.

At this point, we broke for lunch and an opportunity to network.

Meed a nice hot cup of coffee #HEELKS pic.twitter.com/ljVqIBaITW

— Medical Librarian (@medlibrarian2) November 30, 2017

We returned for a session on Mentoring & Coaching led by Catherine McLaren where the attributes of each one were highlighted and usefulness discussed. There was also a sharing stories session where Liz Askew shared about co-presenting with a student nurse at the library induction for new student nurses. The student nurse shared her positive experience on the benefits of using library services and encouraged the new student cohort to make use of it too. I shared about my experience of professional development as a personal investment. I talked about how I commit personal time to make the most of opportunities, share goals with my line manager so that expectations can be managed, identify support from outside my organization, keep informed by subscribing to blogs and mailing lists, engage in the wider profession especially via Twitter chats, join free groups such as EAHIL & Health Libraries Group and reflect on my experiences which comes in really handy when it is time to revalidate.

After a short break, Clare Edwards facilitated a discussion on what the future holds for Library and Knowledge Services in the NHS. The contributions on this topic resulted in themes such as streamlining services and the effects it would have on demonstrating impact, mergers and more. Participants were asked to feedback on what went well and what could be improved at future events. I thought the day was well put together which gave participants the opportunity to brainstorm away from the hustle and bustle of daily service demands. I learnt a lot and established new relationships.

pic.twitter.com/KH1kS1qSBp

— Sherin Francis (@sherinlibrarian) 30 November 2017

I have also received feedback that my revalidation for 2017 has been approved so I am really looking forward to a relaxed Christmas. Feliz Navidad and see you in the new year.

Midlands & East Health Libraries Summer Conference 2017

This is the first conference in a collaboration between Health Libraries in the East of England and the Midlands. The conference was held at Abax Stadium in Peterborough and my motive for attending was to try and shake off my impostor syndrome. I have been in my current post for almost a year and I still feel like the new professional on the block. I hoped attending this conference would enable me get a greater understanding of services within my region, put faces to names as well as foster new and stronger relationships for future collaborative opportunities. Coincidentally, the theme for the conference was Collaboration & Partnership and there were over a hundred attendees looking to do just that.

It started off with a welcome from Ruth Carlyle, HEE Midlands and East of England Head of Library and Knowledge Services, who went through housekeeping and also requested for Regional LKS Leads who were present to introduce themselves. David Farrelly, Regional Director for the Midlands and East Health Education England, gave the keynote speech. He talked about how far services in the region have come and the need to champion what we do and what we have accomplished. He also talked about the benefits of having the Knowledge for Healthcare framework and stressed that embedded services are the life blood of everything that we do. There are various challenges across the NHS and it is important for Library Services to focus on how to provide support to meet these challenges. He discussed how connections are being made with professional bodies and supportive services as part of the A million decisions campaign and links between Library Services and Technology Enhanced Learning. I found it to be a good introduction to what can be expected from the conference.

Dir for ME talking about closer links between LKS & TEL #MEHLN2017 #lksstaffrock pic.twitter.com/GpAkFEQtp2

— imrana g (@imrana_g) July 12, 2017

The next speaker was Doug Knock, Library & Knowledge Services Manager at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He talked about the Impact Toolkit from the Value and Impact task and finish group. He emphasised that it is essential to show our worth and the value of our services and the need to do this on a regular basis. He went through the content of the Impact Toolkit and the tools available on the KFH Blog. The impact toolkit was created as a metric for success that was generic enough for use by all Library services. He stressed the need to use the questionnaires as they are so that the results can be pulled together nationally. He also talked about the need to know the difference between impact and feedback as well as the importance of not just collecting evidence but making use of them. The impact toolkit is used in my service and is without a doubt one of the most important tasks within the service. I believe it is also necessary to recognise obstacles to its use such as getting service users to participate in case studies and time to collect the evidence. I don't believe this should be a deterrent but it does make it a little bit more difficult.

After a short break where attendees interacted and examined the poster submissions, Mo Hussain, Knowledge and Evidence Specialist, East of England, Public Health England,  gave a session on how they support collaboration between the public health community and NHS libraries. He talked about the difference in the support their Library Services and Evidence Services offer. He also discussed the support they give to local authority public health teams such as access to PHE e-journals, EBSCO Discovery, Annual learning and networking events, practice examples, and searching guides on the Library platform, offering training and organised a mailing list. I intend to join the mailing list as a way of keeping up-to-date with current developments relating to our Public Health counterparts.

Mo Hussain talks about how the PHE Library Service supports collaboration btw the public health community & NHS libraries #mehln2017 #HEELKS pic.twitter.com/aYk25vaJsb

— Abimbola Alayo (@abombolo) July 12, 2017 

Up next, Peter Ransome presented on a collaboration between the Hospital Library services and Dementia teams at James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He talked about the embedded services they offer to the dementia team such as current awareness, research support, promoting Library services within the team and during Dementia Awareness Week. Ali Thayne shared some practical examples on how this service impacted on patient care in practice. The results received from literature searches led to the use of memory dogs for patient care and had a positive impact on staff morale. They also led to introduction of dignity gowns which reduce indecent incidents with patients.

#mehln2017 further lit. Searches for clinical staff that changed practice pic.twitter.com/vGYRUmsKPr

— WilliamHarveyLibrary (@GEHLibrary) July 12, 2017

We broke up for lunch and some networking.

Lunch is being laid out - quite an amazing spread! Shellfish lovers: the prawns are right behind the MedHand stand.😀 #mehln2017 pic.twitter.com/z6TEnSsnnK

— Medhand (@MedhandApps) July 12, 2017

We return from lunch to a session with Ruth Carlyle on working with voluntary sectors and providing public patient information. With growing pressures on NHS services, patients and the public need to be able to access quality information to improve their understanding and support decision making for their care and that of loved ones. She stressed the need for services to work in partnership with other organisations across different sectors. She discussed the Information Standard Kite Mark which identifies organisations certified for generating high quality information and Accessible Information Standard which all NHS and Social Care providers are now required to follow by law.

There were several short breakout sessions. The first I attended was the Best Practice session facilitated by Pip Divall, Clinical Librarian Services Manager, University Hospitals of Leicester.This was very interesting because it was quite interactive rather than just listening to a presentation. Participants discussed whether services were following best practice or even able to identify what is considered to be best practice. This led to a very riveting discussion on whether we as information professionals practice what we preach  which is evidence based practice. There were a lot of reasons mentioned as barriers such as time constraints. Some suggestions made by participants for overcoming obstacles to sharing best practice include blogging about experiences in real-time, setting aside downtime for discussions with colleagues, job shadowing, and tweeting about experiences. Pip has put together a summary from the two sessions she facilitated.

The next breakout session I was at was on Skills modules and led by Preeti Puligari, Deputy Faculty Knowledge Manager/Outreach Librarian, Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust. She talked about a proposed suite of e-learning modules for delivering training for NHS staff called STEP. It is due for launch in the very near future and aims to provide a platform with seven e-learning modules on tpics such as searching principles and HDAS which can be adapted by any Library service for their own use. The modules are aligned to the health sector and incorporate interactive elements e.g. 3-D. It is created in a generic format to suit the needs of staff in all sectors including Public Health and will be centrally located with no requirement for a username or password. There is an absence of screen shots to ensure that it is future-proofed so that if interfaces change, it remains relevant. I look forward to introducing it to our users as a way of refreshing their memory on searching skills. I also wonder if an element of it might be useful for users who are new to searching.

The breakout session on Revalidation for nurses was led by Jane Cooper, Librarian, Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Catherine McLaren, Library & Knowledge Services Manager, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust. Catherine talked about how they support nurses through writing reflective accounts of their practice or literature they have found for their revalidation. It involves small groups being engaged (no more than 4) in a confidential environment to enable positive results from the sessions. They talk to those undertaking revalidation and get them to hear from those who have completed it. The service also gathered information sources for revalidation on the Library website which has proved to be quite popular. The sessions provided by Jane involves showing ways of repackaging of existing knowledge over a two and a half hour period. Participants are required to book ahead and asked to bring a topic from their current practice as a basis of the searching they will do. They are shown how to navigate healthcare databases such as Trip, Cochrane and they conduct a search on the topic they have supplied. It is important to try and get participants to feed up to date evidence back into their day to day practice to garner continued support of the service from the Trust. At the end of each session, the participants fill in the reflective template for their revalidation.

Other sessions I was unable to attend were on CASH, Pop-Up Libraries, and the Technology Jam. The twitter comments proved a good way to catch up on these #mehln2017. The conference ended with presentation of prizes for competitions by Ruth Carlyle and Imrana Ghumra, Professional Advisor, Library & Knowledge Services Health Education England, East of England. On that note, I bid farewell to Peterborough.

No visit to #Peterborough would be complete without a couple of classic photographs of @pborocathedral #melhn2017 pic.twitter.com/mN0zEdp7Be

— Dr Ruth Carlyle (@RuthCarlyle) July 12, 2017

DAY 2: Health Libraries Group (HLG) Conference 2016

Day 2 of the conference promised to be as interesting as Day 1 as it started off with a Keynote speech by CILIP President Nick Poole on championing the role of information professionals in the future of healthcare. He stressed that we are sailing into an era in which evidence is all and we need to keep adapting and cannot afford to be complacent. He highlighted that the representation of information professionals can no longer be defined by job title, something that resonated with me from past experience completing surveys. He rounded up with the view that the future of the healthcare sector depends on harnessing the skills and ethics of Library and information professionals to deliver services that are smart, sustainable and future-proof. It is important to share the good work we do to demonstrate the value of trained professionals in the healthcare sector.

How health librarians contribute to the healthcare sector & the value of trained professionals #hlg2016 pic.twitter.com/Xe8ahZUm5g

— Rachel (@Rachelgiles) September 16, 2016

This was followed by an inspirational keynote speech by Lynn Daniel on how Expert Patient Programme Courses (EPP) helps people with long term conditions self-manage. The programme tutors and volunteers consist of ex-participants with long term condition themselves who can relate to the issues participants are facing. Some of the techniques they teach include distraction from pain, positive thinking/affirmation, action planning, problem solving, healthy eating, relaxation, mind body connection and physical activity. Some of the attributes she reported participants developing include a can do attitude, confidence, coping strategies, self-belief, positive thinking, empathy with others and an understanding that others have the same issues as they do.

David Stewart presented the first parallel session I attended on Knowledge for Healthcare: workforce planning, development and beginning the transformation. He showcased some of the achievements such as key CPD resources like the PKSB for health, Learning Zone, Leadership Programme, Talent Management Toolkit and a national CPD programme in the works. He talked about the existing criteria for the redesign of library and knowledge services and ideas such as a national library management system. I found Philip Barlow's presentation on producing introductory videos for library services interesting. It was useful to get to grasp with the real challenges they present such as finding time to record, a quiet place to do the recording and arranging with those appearing on screen. Philip stressed the need for the videos to be concise, to the point and welcoming. The video he produced covered the nature of the library service and was split into four sections on how to join, that you can borrow, electronic resources and training. It lasted 6 minutes (90 seconds per section) and took 14 weeks to complete. They introduced the video using multiple languages to make it friendly. These videos get NHS users to consider using the Library before they actually need it. It isn't always easy to get a slot for the Library at inductions or part with library staff to attend these inductions so these videos are a very useful alternative. He finished with a reference to a good presentation on online training using screencasting by Jane Cooper.

After a short break, I attended a parallel session on reviewing the NHS Library Quality Assurance Framework (LQAF) by Dominic Gilroy, Clare Edwards, and Linda Ferguson. Linda started off with the history of quality assurance in NHS Libraries and highlighted what past assurance systems have achieved which include new positions, investments, refurbishments, raised profiles, evidence, innovation and service improvement. Clare then talked about issues necessitating a review now such as the constantly changing NHS environment, meeting the KFH aims, and the HEE Quality Strategy and Framework. Dominic talked about the initial work that has been done on the revised LQAF. The emphasis is on a product that is aligned to the HEE Quality Startegy, HEE Quality Framework, and Knowledge for Healthcare. A non-restrictive product which is outcomes focused. Completion time and effort required needs to be minimised and it should be applicable across the NHS in England. They have agreed on the aims of the Task and Finish Group, engaged in a literature review, gathered feedback from library services and are awaiting outputs of the evaluation framework sessions. There was a hands-on exercise requiring attendees to consider a quality assurance exercise they have taken part in and complete the sentence, LQAF would be even better if ..... Recurring themes included the need to be less time intensive, more focussed, less frequent, common understanding, more friendly, also a visual board for the financial year where feedback and evidence collected can be added for collation when LQAF is due.

We broke up for lunch which gave me the opportunity to catch up with members of my project team on the Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Programme. This was followed by the Bishop and LeFanu Memorial Lecture where Triathlon coach Gareth Allen presented on how exercise can have a positive effect on mental health. It linked well with the earlier speech by Lynn Daniel. He talked about the benefits of physical exercise on mental wellbeing and gave case studies with practical examples on how exercise has helped some patients with mental health issues alleviate their condition. Some implemented solutions for mental wellbeing include Fieldhead Fit, Parkrun, Running / Sports Club and Low intensity exercise for those with less mobility.

There was a Question Time panel where thought provoking questions were both asked and answered from the floor and the panel. It was all quite intense. They covered what the single most important priority for Knowledge for Healthcare is (Patient and Public agenda), linking Knowledge for Healthcare to the Higher Education sector, issues with HDAS, succession planning, role reclassification from Admin/Clerical to Scientific/Technical, affordability of accredited courses, loss of the wealth of knowledge and existing skills from NHS Direct and pro-rata CILIP membership fees for part-time staff.

Question Time Panel #hlg2016 pic.twitter.com/OMhHX50bP7

— HLG SIG (@CILIPHLG) September 16, 2016

The last session I attended was on practical tools to collect evidence of impact using the online toolkit by Susan Smith & Doug Knock. There was a great exercise which encouraged us to arrange our evidence in order from feedback to impact as a way of identifying what is most relevant for submission to demonstrate the value of the service being offered. It is also important to consider whom the measures are being done for. The conference closed with Sarah Hennessy thanking speakers, sponsors, attendees and giving out the prizes for competitions including exhibition posters.

A lot of the conversations I had steered me towards how much the conference content centred on NHS work and how attendees from other health sectors would probably feel left out. This is something that would need to be rectified if we are to foster partnerships for Knowledge for Healthcare. I had a great time at my first HLG Conference and learnt a lot that can be implemented in my own service. Looking back, I feel like I could have done more but I was quite wiped out by the end. There was a lot of content and not quite enough time to process them. It left me wondering if an annual one day conference supplemented by frequent workshops might be an option. It would probably make it more affordable for those willing to self-fund and might make it easier to convince organisations to sponsor. It could result in boosted attendance and perhaps more paraprofessional attendees. Food for thought.

DAY 1: Health Libraries Group (HLG) Conference 2016

Following an eventful workshop in Manchester for the Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Programme, I made my way to a very foggy Scarborough for the 2016 HLG Conference This was my first time at the HLG Conference and it was held at the Scarborough Spa. I was amazed by how easily I was able to identify acquaintances from Twitter and finally connect in person. There were lots of tweets from the conference at #hlg2016 and more on the event can be found on the CILIP website.

Sarah Henessey, HLG Co-Chair, started us off with a welcome address and some housekeeping rules. The keynote address was made by Patrick Mitchell & Louise Goswami from Health Education England. It was based on how much of the Knowledge for Healthcare framework has been implemented. Patrick highlighted the need to consider how we can cope with the sheer volume of available knowledge and information. He talked about the many ways in which Librarians have been contributing to the implementation of the framework and called for everyone to get on board with the programme and join the dialogue. Emphasis was placed on the need to mobilise evidence and organise knowledge into practice as well as recognising the age gap in our clientele and getting them the help they need how they want it. The Knowledge Management Toolkit, which contains case studies about what others have done in their organisations to improve patient care, was also launched.

We heard Louise talk about how partnerships are central to the success of the framework. She stressed the need for communication and engagement including how important it is to talk about the direction of travel for all our efforts. She talked about the visual identity of the Knowledge for Healthcare framework that has been developed and highlighted the newly available guidance and ideas bank produced by the Public & Patient Working Group with a focus on a role Librarians need to play in the public and patient agenda. Other areas she covered include extending our reach to commissioners, public health etc through the Service Transformation Group, working with information providers such as Public Libraries, creating best practice guidelines and developing a collaboration portal for current awareness, E-Learning (STEP) - the need to develop resources nationally to be provided locally thereby reducing duplication of effort, an evaluation framework to develop impact objectives and impact indicators, the need to review LQAF by developing guidance, standards, as well as launching a pilot.

Creating a visual identity for Knowledge for Healthcare - @GoswamiLouise #HEELKS #hlg2016 pic.twitter.com/UgpGgmE8Cp

— Ruth Carlyle (@RuthCarlyle) September 15, 2016

Patrick covered the investment needed by the Resource Discovery Working Group to select the best tools available to make resource discovery as agile as possible, optimising funding, the learning zone to allow you look at where you are at in your development, the PKSB for health to give a sense of gap analysis, the Talent Management Toolkit was launched, bespoke development programmes to be developed by the Leadership Academy for Bands 8a and upwards, a joint campaign with CILIP advocating the Librarian as central to manage evidence and knowledge to support the NHS by mobilising evidence to the bedside. He also stressed engaging with Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP) leaders as the only game in town. There is no plan B.

David Stewart took the opportunity to advocate for succession planning and encouraged attendees to consider the next steps in their professional careers and consider applying for the second cohort of the Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Programme which Patrick had mentioned would be open for entries soon. This was followed by a break which led us to the first break out session. I attended the session on Consumer Health Information by Ruth Carlyle from Macmillan Cancer Support. It focused on how the voluntary sector can help health information services provide content and support to help individuals make decisions about their health and treatment. She highlighted the available resources and stressed that it is the responsibility of the Librarian to ensure the information provided is of high quality. She also referred to the British Medical Association criteria as single tangible criteria to use in determining the usability of information found. Medium is important - conversation, hard copy, and digital referencing  however people act more on information they receive in conversation because it is personalised.

Fran Wilkie & Michael Raynor from NICE presented to how to use NICE Evidence Search to help users make better, quicker, evidence based decisions. It is useful for quick information not primary research articles. There was a hands-on workshop based on scenarios which illustrated that the NOT operator cannot be applied because a lot of content contains the phrase "do not use" and applying truncations breaks the relevancy ranking. The exporting function has been reintroduced allowing 250 results at a time. Fran referred us to the training materials and help guides on the NICE communities page for Library and Knowledge Services staff.

I attended the session led by Catherine McLaren and Jane Cooper on how to support nurses and midwives through revalidation. They make use of reflective practice sessions to support those with no recent study experience. They help attendees learn skills that can be fed back into the organisation. They learn to consider events to reflect on, how they can relate it to everyday situations, how to conduct literature searches. These sessions serve as an indirect mechanism for encouraging evidence based practice within the health service. They need to be well marketed to encourage uptake and there should be a clear statement of the aims and objectives of the course.

Gaby Caro from the World Health Organization called for contributions to the Hinari project after describing the changing environment for training in the developing world. She asked attendees to take a look at the materials on the Hinari training portal and make recommendations to support colleagues at hinari@who.int. Next up were Shane Godbolt and Cheryl Twomey with a presentation on Knowledge Management for Health. They stressed the need for co-development among professionals regardless of the continent they are based at. Shared learning will serve to improve health across the globe. Information is only effective when it can be accessed by those who need it where and when it is needed and sadly that is not the case in some developing countries. They mentioned that lack of African initiatives bring driven from within the continent is an impediment. African learning needs to be translated into African development e.g. research on the Ebola virus epidemic. There is a need to identify, strengthen and sustain knowledge management initiatives in Africa to support increased access and use of health information. Some of the challenges currently being faced include infrastructure (electricity, internet), cost of information, knowledge and delivery systems, lack of a reading culture, domination by non-local players.

On that note, the sessions ended but the day did not as attendees returned to the Scarborough Spa later that night for dinner and dancing. The Mayor of Scarborough and his wife also made an appearance and it was a pleasant evening giving way to the second day of the conference.

DAY 2: CILIP Conference 2016 - Bringing the information world together

Following Day 1, Day 2 began with a keynote speech by Sir Nigel Shadbolt on open data. He talked about how the world of information has moved from scarcity to abundance and yet much of the information held by Libraries today are under some perverse and bizarre copyright restrictions. He also illustrated the role of health in the UK open data movement and highlighted ways in which Library and Information professionals could support this movement.

My next event was presented by Liz Jolly and Sue White from Teeside University and University of Huddersfield respectively. They shared about The Northern Collaboration project which provided an avenue for Libraries in the north of England to offer out-of-hours virtual enquiry services to users essentially making them 24-hour services. This was followed a session by Catherine Mann from Staffordshire County Council. She talked about how the Council Libraries and South Staffordshire & Shropshire Foundation Trust worked in partnership to deliver services that reflect local need.

I also attended the Using Technology session by Kate Lomax and Carlos Izsak on developing makerspaces. These are collaborative learning environments where people come together to share materials and learn new skills. They indicated that makerspaces enable knowledgesharing, digital engagement and access to technology. I wizzed across to the Managing Information event on Data stewardship by Philippa Fogarty & Richard Turton from X4 Consulting Limited. They highlighted how to unlock the value of data and key areas where data stewardship can make a difference such as policy development. This was based on the New Zealand story of developing data stewardship standards at the Ministry of Environment.

The closing keynote was made by Lauren Smith, a Research Associate from the University of Strathclyde. She spoke about some difficult home-truths such as the myth of Library neutrality in politics and the hugging of CPD opportunities within the profession. She spoke about the need for a wider representation and diversity within the profession and stressed the need for us to be excellent practitioners and committed members of the society. It was a really thought provoking speech.

There were lots of competitions held and Martin Wade from the CILIP Board picked winners for some such as the Best Exhibition Stand Award won by Demco Interiors. One recurring theme was the need for Librarians to support literacy. Not just information literacy but also data, health, cultural, technology, computer and more. It is important that the conference has highlighted the area in which Librarians are most likely to have to focus on next.

Some HEE Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Programme participants

I was able to do one of my favorite things, networking. I reacquainted myself with Stevie Russell from Book Aid International who I first met at Partnerships in Health Information sponsored Book Launch held in Winchester some months ago. I also met with several participants from the HEE Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Programme. All in all it was an excellent conference and I learnt a lot. Really glad that I was able to attend.

DAY 1: CILIP Conference 2016 - Bringing the information world together

The librarians are coming pic.twitter.com/gWRPFqrP7w

— Chris Keene (@chriskeene) July 9, 2016

The morning of Tuesday, 12th July 2016 saw me in a somewhat sunny Brighton. It was my first time at a CILIP Conference and this year's event was held at the Brighton Dome. With over 500 attendees, it was certainly the largest conference I have ever been to. Many thanks to my employer who sponsored me and to my colleagues who held the fort while I was away. The event saw me posting more tweets in 2 days than I have in 6 months. An account of events throughout the conference can be grasped by going through the tweets that were posted #CILIPConf16 as well as the presentations.

The breakout sessions were based on three themes (Managing Information, Everyday Innovation, and Using Technology. One of the challenges I faced was deciding on which events to attend during the breakout sessions. I was torn between attending sessions within my sector which captured my interest and those from other sectors which intrigued me. In the end, I decided to go for a mix.

The conference was opened with a welcome from Nick Poole, Chief Executive of CILIP. He made reference to the CILIP Action Plan for 2016-2020 and the current consultation on the new membership model for 2018. He also stressed the need for an information literate population and the role Librarians will need to play to facilitate this. The wow moment for me was the opening keynote. I found Scott Bonner, the Director of Ferguson Municipal Public Library, to be such an inspiration who delivered some home truths about the need for us as Librarians to step up to the plate. He narrated how the Library stepped in following the death of an unarmed black man called Mike Brown in 2014. He stated that the mandate Libraries, especially in the public sector should be lifelong learning, cultural literacy and being the center of the community. Many examples were given of instances where the Library can step in when the community needs a hero. It centers around what we often do on a day to day basis. #whatlibrariesdo "Normal in libraryland is pretty darn awesome," his words. He emphasized the need to have faith in ourselves and the Library mission because doing something wrongly is better than doing absolutely nothing at all, especially in a crisis.

I attended the Everyday Innovation breakout session chaired by Alison Wheeler. Here Amy Hearn and Tiffany Haigh from Kirklees Council Libraries presented on Family storywalks organised by the Library as way of taking books and reading out of the Library space and engaging with nontraditional users. The Director of Library and Learning Services at Bath Spa University, Alison Baud, also presented on the Read and rights campaign which crowd-sourced ideas for a digital timeline to encourage reading and debate around diversity and equality. John Vincent from The Network discussed the CILIP Libraries Change Lives Award-winners focusing on some innovations that were recognised in the early stages and are still quite successful today such as the 1995 winner BookStart.

This was followed by a fantastic Lunch after which I discovered a booth for candyfloss and popcorn hidden among the exhibitors. I attended the parallel session Prof. Graeme Dewhurst, Sue Lacey-Bryant and Patrick Mitchell discussed the importance of embedding best evidence in everyday clinical practice and the pivotal role health Librarians play in bringing evidence of best care from around the world to the bedside. The launch of the Professional Knowledge & Skills Base for Health was mentioned as well as The Learning Zone which is open to anyone. I made my way to the Your Career session where the making of the CILIP Leadership Programme was discussed as well as the projects that were completed. Some of the participants also of the first pilot which was just completed and the ongoing HEE Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Development Programme also shared their experiences. The Using Technology session was my next event and Adam Koszary shared about how the Bodleian Libraries make use of social media to engage with users via 4 major platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter). Lara Dodd from Northumbria University also gave a really interesting talk about the importance of data literacy for teenagers. It brought to the forefront of my mind the fact that teenagers are not always equipped to differentiate between good and bad information online.

@abombolo lovely photo of you at #CILIPConf16 https://t.co/xMwiFcXWkY

— Jo Alcock (@joeyanne) July 15, 2016

The conference closed for the day and there was a party on the pier in the evening. There were lots of interesting activities such as Human Bingo and free rides. I was even persuaded to pay a visit to the Horror Hotel. A decision I instantly regretted and will ensure never repeats itself. More than anything else, it was refreshing to socialise with colleagues and suppliers outside a professional setting. Day 2 was sure to be just as eventful.

Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Development Programme

The launch of the Knowledge for Healthcare Leadership Development Programme #kfhleadership was held today at Stewart House in London and I consider myself lucky to have been able to attend as one of the 24 participants for the 2016-17 cohort. The programme is a pilot initiative based on the model of the CILIP Leadership Model with the Knowledge for Healthcare Framework in mind. It is aimed at librarians, information specialists and knowledge specialists in the healthcare sector who wish to develop their leadership skills. The one year programme has been funded by Health Education England and participants will take part in a project and are required to attend four workshops and three action learning sets. We are also encouraged to attend the CILIP and Health Libraries Group conferences (This is not a compulsory component of the programme).

I was glad to see participants from different aspects of healthcare (not just the NHS), different parts of the country and different job roles (not solely managers). Jo Alcock did a good job of mixing everyone up so that we were forced to engage with one another not just people we already knew. We were joined by the Director of National Programmes for the HEE, Patrick Mitchell, and he noted how the launch itself is a testament to how far the Knowledge for Healthcare framework has come. Jo gave an overview of the programme and stressed how candidates are likely to gain as much from it as they are willing to give of themselves. Everyone had the opportunity to introduce themselves and share a bit about their current roles and what they aspired to gain from the programme. We also shared individual hopes and fears with common themes including the desire to build confidence, establish new relationships, learn about leadership skills, tips and tools whilst the most common fear was time constraint.

The next activity involved participants highlighting what they consider as the traits of a good/effective leader and high on the list was being passionate, impartial and inspiring. This led on to participants matching themselves to one of eight leadership quotes provided and then matching the quotes to those who had said it. The exercise made me realize that knowing who said each quote changed what some of the quotes meant to me. Jo also highlighted some of the things we should have noticed during the exercise and what they could mean such as who led the task, was quick to make suggestions or held back. We were introduced to leadership styles/approaches which was quite a bit to process. Some of them I was familiar with, others not so much. Senior Advisor, Knowledge for Healthcare, Sue Lacey Bryant pointed out that the transformational approach forms the basis for the Knowledge for Healthcare Framework due to the need to make a significant change.

We broke for lunch and some networking after which we had a learning from leaders session which involved hearing the leadership stories of others. Patrick Mitchell shared how in a bid to gain power, control and responsibility he realized it can only be gotten by giving it up. He also encouraged us to sell or stories and not to take no for an answer (within the right scenarios of course), stressing that there is always an honest way to achieve your goal. He pointed out that it is difficult to get others enthused about a plan of action when you don't believe in it yourself and stressed the importance of chance meetings and serendipity which was a common theme from all the speakers. National Programme Manager for Library and Knowledge Services at the HEE, Louise Goswami, emphasized the need to be confident in applying skills and lessons learnt in different sectors as well as pursuing opportunities when they arise. Director of Health Libraries North, David Stewart, raised the need to create opportunities, seize opportunities and know one's limitations.

We were then split into our group projects and I am working with my team of the training needs on NHS Library staff. We were able to plan some of the activities needed and identify preferred methods of communication for the project. To conclude the day, Jo told about what the next steps of the programme would be and what the tasks we are expected to do before then one of which is completing the leadership element of the CILIP PKSB. The PKSB was introduced after I obtained Chartership status and to be perfectly honest, I have shied away from it. This programme has forced me to face the gaps in my skill set and consider them by order of priority. I also consider it a useful tool as I complete my Revalidation for this year.

It was a packed workshop and many thanks to Jo for facilitating it. I look forward to communicating with participants especially as my group moves forward with our project. It will be interesting to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others and I look forward to doing just that.

Catching up

The study tour went really well and I am proud to say I have established relationships with librarian colleagues in the States. However the trip really wiped me out. I have spent the last couple of weeks drafting my report which I have now submitted. I have also submitted an article to Focus on Library and Information Work as well as another piece to 23 Librarians England. I am really looking forward to seeing them published. In the spirit of professional development, I have submitted my revalidation portfolio. No point postponing the inevitable.

Life at work has brought about some change. I am doing a lot more presentating at inductions, training, clinical support and the literature search requests seem to have a steady flow. I am thoroughly enjoying interacting with users in the clinical setting. The phrase "library lady" is now considered a term of endearment (by me anyway).

I've also been invited to speak at the next CILIP International Library and Information Group Informal Event themed around Travelling Librarians. It's a free early evening event so save the date, 13th January 2016.

Off I go on a study tour

So I've been lucky enough to be sponsored by The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and The English-Speaking Union (ESU) to conduct a study tour on the Knowledge for Healthcare framework for NHS Library and Knowledge Services in England published by Health Education England. I will be gathering intelligence from health libraries in the Greater Midwest Region of the USA on how service provision is cascaded from national to regional and local levels. I leave next week and my visits, flights and accommodation have been sorted. I will be blogging about my adventures so do follow me. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

In the meantime, I have been busy conducting training and literature searches. I have also been visiting wards to offer support in a clinical setting. I spent the last few days familiarizing myself with our new current awareness system KnowledgeShare. It will allow us to provide users with personalised bulletins on the latest evidence and will be a base for all literature searches. It is web-based which is a relief as it makes working from home easier and it is NHS OpenAthens password protected.

I'll be focusing on my study tour and revalidation so it may be a bit quiet for a while.

Forging ahead - Knowledge for Healthcare

It's been a crazy couple of weeks and I'm still exhausted from it all. Today was the final day of our Knowledge Awareness week which I must admit was a resounding success. I base my comments on the positive feedback the service has received especially when we had our stands on sites with no physical library. There were lots of promotional materials graciously supplied by our providers such as Clinical Key and Virtual Ashridge who also had presentations, resource demonstrations and drop-in sessions at our workshops. We also ran a photo competition and crossword competition which drew quite a lot of interest as it was open to staff and their family and friends. We have been able to refurbish our Whipps Cross Library and Royal London Hospital Knowledge Hub in the run up to Knowledge Awareness Week which I consider an amazing feat.


I applied for the Travelling Librarian award in March and was excited to get shortlisted. Although I did not obtain the award, I found it a very fulfilling experience. Kirsten McCormick won the award in 2013 and was a fountain of knowledge and support through the entire process for which I am extremely grateful. I still hope to secure the funds needed to conduct my study tour in August so fingers crossed. What is it about? How the aims of the Knowledge for Healthcare framework can be met by maximising value for money at the local and regional level. I will be visiting hospital and university health libraries of the National Network of Medical Libraries Greater Midwest Region. The objectives are directed at service development for my organisation and beyond. All this has drawn me into the tweeting scene and if nothing else, thats a positive result.

It's also been busy on the work front with literature searches, training and inductions. Feeling a bit run off my feet and looking forward to the long bank holiday weekend.

Pop-Up Library

One of my targets this year is to set up a pop-up library that travels from site to site. We serve several sites but only have two physical libraries. I believe it is important for staff based where there is no Library to feel there is still a Library presence there. To this end, I reached out to other health librarians to find out if they have done anything similar and how they accomplished their goal. This brought up a lot of ideas as well as interest from others who would like to do the same. I complied a summary of responses for the mailing list (LIS-Medical) and also got a contact from someone who is interested in collaborating as we proceed.

The most important advice to me was to liaise with the telecommunications department of the Trust for publicity. Sending out constant reminders about when the pop-up library will be available and putting up posters.

• Choose prime spots for visibility - there was a recurring theme of receptions and canteens. 
• Put up a banner so that people know immediately who you are and what is going on as they go past. We already have our banner sorted.
• Send out email alerts on the day to drum up business.
• Bring as much of the service with you as possible -Library management system, registrations forms, guides, leaflets etc.
• Supply promotional items if available e.g. pens.
• Be prepared to give quick training sessions on the spot.
• Don't be discouraged if it takes a while to take off.

I think one the advantages of the pop-up library will be gaining customer satisfaction from users knowing the service is physically available to them. It is a profile raiser and will hopefully serve to help busy readers who can't make it to the Library. Throw a couple of literature searches and IT glitches into the mix and you have the general idea of what my week has been like.
(c) Image Creative Commons - Aaron Landry