The two main speakers
were Anne Rowlands (co-Chair of the national ARLG committee) and Annie Mauger
(Chief Executive of CILIP). Both spoke about the background to the merger –
Anne from the CoFHE/UC&R view and Annie from the CILIP view.
Anne spoke of the
increasing overlap between the work of the two groups, especially now that
Colleges are being given the opportunity to offer their own foundation degrees.
Anne also highlighted the process that has been involved in creating the merger
and the next stages that are required in consolidating the committee and
regional groups. Alongside this she highlighted some of the current concerns
with members. The national ARLG committee is split with an equal representation from FE
and HE. My concern is how this translates into the regional committees and
whether there will be any monitoring to ensure equal representation at local
level. Anne also introduced the group’s mission: To engage with “professional” issues of interest to information
professionals working in Further Education, Higher Education and Research Libraries
and to shape all levels of academic libraries of the future. I have a
slight problem with the end of the statement when it refers to all levels as this implies some form of
influence over school libraries as well.
Annie spoke about the
background of the merger in the context of the changes CILIP is going through.
She praised both CoFHE and UC&R for taking the leap and being the ‘pilot’
on what she hopes will be a series of changes to the special interest groups to
ensure that they are up to date and relevant.
The remainder of the
evening consisted of two lightning talks highlighting examples of success
stories from both the FE and HE sector. Genevieve Clarke from The Reading
Agency and Stephen Wickens from Westminster Kingsway College began by
showcasing the success of The Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge with a group
of the College’s ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students. We
have run the Challenge in the past with ESOL students and a group with learning
differences. Both have been very successful with the students enthusiastically
engaging with the Challenge – it’s something we hope to run again. Genevieve
and Stephen were followed by Ella Mitchell from the University of East London
(UEL). Ella presented the award winning Info Skills site at UEL which supports
undergraduates through identifying, finding, evaluating and referencing
information. I think it’s an excellent site, not only visually, but also the
way in which they support differing learning preferences by providing guides, videos,
demonstrations and quizzes.
Overall I was a little disappointed
by the first half of the event as I seemed to have different expectations to
the actual purpose of the meeting. I was hoping to find out more about how the
London and South East area of ARLG would be going forward but it seems that
there still needs some work done on a national level before we can see what
will be happening locally. I was also surprised by the low number of attendees.
17 attendees were listed and only 7 of them (myself included) weren’t a speaker
or already involved on the ARLG London and South East Committee. It may have
been the start time (5.30 may have been an awkward time for some), or lack of
communication (although it was advertised on mailing lists), or simply lack of
interest which would be sad.
I used to be a fairly
regular attendee of the CoFHE LASEC (London and South East Circle) in 2008/2009
but for various reasons stopped going. With the merger I see a good opportunity
to get involved again and look forward to seeing how ARLG develops in this
region.
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