Library Camp

Library Camp 7^th September 2013 (CILIP East of England, Harlow, Essex)

I’ll be honest, I was quite nervous about attending this. I signed up immediately when it was first advertised, thinking to myself “well, I can always duck out if it’s too far beyond my comfort zone.” Because the thing is, I’m awful at networking. I can’t just stroll up to a random person and say hi; it’s just not me. If they stroll up to me, and strike up a conversation, that’s fine, I won’t act like a rabbit in headlights and freeze, or make excuses and scurry off. I will attempt to engage in entertaining and interesting debate, I promise. But essentially, I was there to listen. And learn. Not to contribute.

So Saturday dawned, and my partner has been away for a week, leaving me alone at home, with the prospect of him being away another week still. At work, my colleague has spent the last week in Wales, and was spending another week there before coming back to work. I was therefore facing a weekend alone, having spent the best part of the last week alone, and knowing that I was going to be spending the best part of next week alone too. I realised that if I didn’t go to Library Camp, I would be spending Saturday at home, alone, talking to myself and gradually going mad. “Fair enough,” I thought, “It can’t be worse than this. Let’s go.”

Harlow College

I ran into slight issues when I realised that the postcode was so new that my satnav didn’t recognise it. However, I do have a rather swanky smartphone, which successfully navigated me the whole way from Cambridge to Harlow. I found where I was going fairly easily, and ended up being just a few minutes late. I was greeted warmly by the organisers, and deposited my chocolate flapjacks on the lunch table, which was groaning under the weight of the food people had brought. The number of people who had come surprised me; I’d only had what I’d seen on the wiki to guide me, and I was unsettled at the lack of movement on there. A few names (many of which I recognised) had announced their presence, and I assumed there were going to be a few more than that who – like me – had not felt brave enough to add themselves to the wiki conversations. But the camp was well-attended; probably more than 70 librarians (and at least one non-librarian) were listening to the introduction when I entered the hall.

Relaxing during the introduction

Immediately, I was struck by how relaxed and informal it was. There were people standing, some sitting on chairs, and a fair few who were lounging on the floor while the organisers talked. Then the people who had pitched ideas for discussion came forward to talk a little about what they had suggested, why they had suggested it and what they were hoping to get out of it. These ideas were written on post-its and plonked into timeslots on the schedule, juggled around to make sure that no one who’d pitched more than one idea was double-booked, and then the whole thing began!

The first session I attended was one on solo librarianship. I guess I’m not so much of a solo librarian, in that I do have a part-time colleague (12 hrs/w) and also am very fortunate to have a volunteer who puts in a full day every now and then. However, I spend huge portions of my time working alone, so I figured there was going to be something I could gain from this. And there was. Even though we all came from very disparate working backgrounds, there were lots of issues and challenges common to us all. However, sharing problems meant that we could also share solutions, and I came away feeling like there was action I could take to cope with the situation, which was a surprisingly positive outcome. And if there is a solo librarians support group set up, I think it would be really useful to get involved. [Separate solo librarians article here.]

Our schedule for the day

There was a little break while we all shifted round, so I took the opportunity to help myself to a drink; it was nice that there was always something to hand, and we weren’t constricted by a “10.20-10.25: Coffee time” deadline. If you got hungry or thirsty, you could simply get up and walk out of your discussion group, help yourself, and come back. I very much appreciated this, since in my haste I’d skipped breakfast that morning. So I moved on to the next group, which was “What’s so good about libraries?”. What do we offer that’s unobtainable anywhere else? I found this had rather a public library bent, particularly towards children, given the demographic of the audience, but it was interesting finding out a bit more about what public libraries offer, and how they justify themselves to their councillors.

Lunchtime, and some delicious home-made and not-so-home-made items, and then it was time for the next session. This was a CV/interview surgery session, which was well-attended. I found myself sharing a lot of information, but there were lots of people talking about good interview they’d had, bad interviews, awkward questions, things that had gone well, things that hadn’t…again I came away with some useful ideas, but hopefully I contributed a few too. [Separate CV/interview notes here.]

My contribution to the write-in

I wasn’t sure what to go for after that, but when the person who’d pitched the idea of a creative write-in expanded it to include all things creative, I got out my handy ball of wool and my size 5 crochet hook, and just sat for a while, thinking, listening to the scritching of pens and taking the opportunity to relax and do some guilt-free rows of crochet. Afterwards people talked about what they were working on, and I was so impressed at the novel ideas coming out. Several people had had a go at NaNoWriMo and were preparing for the next one happening in a couple of months’ time. Librarians really are quite a creative bunch!

The perils of unconferencing: last-minute changes

Last session, and I went for the A-Z of libraries, which in hindsight, was a bit of a waste of time for me, inasmuch as it was nearly identical to “What’s so good about libraries?” except for the fact that it was now in alphabetical order. Voices for the Library is generally only for public libraries, so again there was a heavy public library bias in the group demographic, and in the results. It was interesting, but not terribly relevant to my work, but I was beginning to feel the effects of information overload anyway, so I was content to sit back and let the discussion flow around me.

There was no plenary, as insufficient time had been scheduled for one (as it turned out), but I didn’t mind; I felt like I’d had as much library stuff as I could take, and I’ve never really seen the point in plenaries beyond thanking the organisers anyway, so it was a matter of picking up the remains of the lunch I’d brought with me, and heading off home. I left some positive feedback, and I shall be eagerly awaiting the next library camp!