Upload
cilipscotland
View
27
Download
6
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Slide 1:
Intro:
Hello we’re two of the founders of NLPN; I’m Amy and I’m Helen. Thank you all for attending our
session, if you have any questions please feel free to ask at any point.
This presentation will focus on the network we have set up for new professionals and will cover the
following: who we are, why we set it up the network, what we do, the tools we use to help us and
the lessons we have learnt. We hope this will provide you with a toolkit on how to organise events
as individuals or on behalf of an organisation as well as collaboratively.
Slide 2: who are we? NLPN stands for New Library Professionals Network. NLPN is a completely non‐
profit initiative that seeks to provide training and knowledge for Library and Information Studies
students and newly qualified/early career professionals, however anyone is welcome to attend our
events! To date we have held eight events, one teach meet session at the LILAC conference, three
informal quizzes, two visits and collaborated with #uklibchat on a Twitter chat. Our events have
covered many topics including information literacy, open access, tech skills etc. and have focused on
the varied sectors within our profession for instance HE, health, public, schools etc. We are
constantly trying to evolve and offer development opportunities for our members – as such our
events have included workshops, teachmeets, talks and slots to provide presenting experience to
our members. As the collage shows NLPN isn’t just about the co‐founders it’s about everyone who
contributes to the network.
Questions: I’m going to ask a few questions– If you could raise your hand if you identify with the
question:
How many of you have had a training need that was not fulfilled by your institution or within
your local area?
How many of you have had to travel out of your local area for training?
Thanks for participating we will come back to this shortly.
Slide 3: why we set up the network? NLPN was founded by four former MMU Library and
Information Management students. We were inspired by the CILIP New Professionals Day held in
London in 2012 where the key message was to get involved and be proactive about your own
professional development. The day highlighted a number of others things such as meeting new LIS
students and being aware of the knowledge gaps between newly qualified librarians. This coupled
with the lack of free skill based events held outside of London led to the formation of NLPN.
Referring back to the questions before we, the founders, all answered yes to these questions and
decided to try to rectify this ourselves. We have continued to develop the network as we recognise
that the information sector is constantly evolving and that skills development opportunities are
often out of reach for most professionals due to costs or travel.
Slide 4: so what do we do In an nutshell, we tweet, blog and organise events. The image in this slide
is one of the posters from a past event. So what are our events? Our events offer interactive
workshops and presentations delivered by speakers from across sectors who draw from their own
professional experiences and day‐to‐day working practices in order for our attendees to benefit.
How do we create these events? We take an initial idea (influenced by current trends and
evaluation feedback from attendees), we then plan what role each founder will play for instance
who will identify speakers and communicate with them, finding a venue, liaising with the
collaborators to ensure the events run smoothly and promotion via our social media platforms.
We are keen on developing the format of our events and are consciously trying to actively involve
our members for instance at our last event we offered five of our members the opportunity to
deliver a teachmeet session discussing the sector they work in and answering any questions. In
addition, we opened up a call for papers offering three of our members the opportunity to present
at our event. This was an original idea and provided a developmental opportunity for those who
took part. In this way, we are contributing to the profession by aiding others' professional
development.
Three of our events have been collaborative endeavours with other networks and organisations. So
if you’re thinking of hosting an event this is a great way to combine resources and reach a wider
audience.
Slide 5: These are the four areas we focus on:
Planning – As we have held a number of events we have gained experience in what can go wrong
and therefore try to mitigate this by making sure we are planned and prepared for all outcomes. As
such we have created a checklist for events which covers the following:
Deciding on a theme
Suitable dates
A list of potential speakers and how many we need for the day
A list of potential venues
A list of potential funders (we are non‐profit)
Marketing
Prep for the event
We contact venues first in order to check availability, we then contact speakers with a list of dates &
check their availability. At this point we have an idea of cost which includes the travel expenses for
the speakers. We then contact potential funders. We normally approach funders that have links to
the topic e.g. the Information Literacy Group funded our Information Literacy themed event.
Marketing – We aim to get interest in the event prior to releasing tickets, thus marketing is very
important. In order to generate this interest we create posters and flyers which we distribute
electronically, and we also take print copies to any events we attend. We create blog posts which
summarise the format of the day and use social media to signpost people to the event. We also
contact all of the UK Universities that currently run a degree in Library and Information Management
and email these groups prior to tickets being released to give them time to circulate this
information. We have identified Universities as one of our target audiences.
Preparation – As mentioned the events checklist we created has a section on preparation for the
day. This covers everything you need, as an organiser, to bring on the day. This can range from
material you need to create in advance e.g. slides that will display the running order of the day to
any physical items you need to bring e.g. a laptop and stationary.
Evaluation – Prepare in advance a tailored evaluation form. We opt for paper as people complete
them on the day. Also, don’t forget to refresh these for each event.
Slide 6: This is a Vine we created to summarise the process of planning an event. So going back to
the questions we asked earlier about training this video breaks down how we have planned an
organised an event in order to show that it is achievable. It might be useful to think of a training
need toy have as we go through in order to see how this could be applied.
• 00.00.69 The co‐founders – having four founder helps as work can be spread evenly so it’s
not overwhelming and you are there to motivate each other and stay determined.
• 00.01.61 Planning: meetings, delegating tasks
• 00.02.48 Promotion: Facebook, Twitter, emails, mailing lists, blog posts, Eventbrite
• 00.03.29 Tickets: free, released 1 month before event and reminders sent both 2 weeks and
a week before the event.
• 00.04.04 The day: organise the room, greet and registering attendees, chair the day ensuring
it is kept to time, disseminating and collected completed evaluation forms and bringing
baked goods!
• 00.04.79 Post event: evaluating feedback ‐ this enables us to focus on what went well and
what could be improved on, using suggestions from attendees to think about our next event,
creating a storify and producing a blog post evaluating the event.
• 00.05.42 Repeat!
Slide 7: The tools we use So we’ve spoke about the types of events we hold and how we prepare for
them now we are going to focus on the tools we use to sustain and promote the network. Our social
media output focuses on providing a current awareness service alerting our members to useful
resources, training events and developments in the profession. We use the following free tools:
Twitter, without it we would have struggled to get our first event of the ground so quickly as it
allows us to reach a wider audience and since then it has definitely helped to supplement and
provide a good alternative to face‐to‐face networking in between events.
How do we manage this? Within NLPN, we have a system of allocated Twitter weeks, where one of
us is assigned to tweet daily ‐ this keeps us proactive and professionally aware because we are
always on the lookout for something that will be useful to other new profs that we can flag up. You
don’t have to emulate our use of Twitter but we have found a presence on Twitter has been very
useful to us.
Twitter is also very valuable to our other main tool – our blog, Twitter is one of the best ways to
direct traffic there, as shown by stats from our blog. Click link to Twitter and point out followers, lists
etc.
Our blog allows us to express more fully, and demonstrate our expertise and the expertise of our
members. The content ranges from reflective reviews of training events, member interviews where
we asked other professionals to share their insights and advice for example we contacted Gary
Green to ask his opinion on the Sieghart report as he is one of the key founders of Voices for the
Library. We strongly encourage other people to have a presence on our blog.
With social media there is two sides, the front facing side which our members see and the behind
the scenes element which provides us with statistics in order to inform our use of these tools.
We have a Facebook group, which has been a good way to connect with other existing Facebook
groups, e.g. the CILIP graduate trainee page where attendees have gone to spread the word about
us. This is also useful for targeting those who may have missed out Twitter posts about new blog
posts or events. We don’t use this tool as much as the previous tool but have found that it is useful
as it is a space where our members can contribute and reach out to each other. We also use it for
our informal events such as visits or quizzes so we can invite people to these events.
As mentioned we use Eventbrite to “sell our tickets” and Gmail for our email account.
It is important to note that we share these responsibilities as it stops us from being personally
overwhelmed but ensure that we sustain an online presence.
Slide 8: Lessons learnt & tips: When we first started out we had no real idea of what starting and
running a network involved – a lot of it we have learnt by trial and error. We’ve learnt a lot, made
countless professional contacts, and are continuing developing plans for future events and
collaboration.
Don’t be afraid to ask people for help – it is a sharing profession and we haven’t been turned
down by anyone!
Funding – think about relevant funding bodies and make a good case showing how your
event benefits the funder. Have backups in case one is unable to sponsor you or if you need
to spread the costs between two funders.
Timing of the event is important – you can’t please everyone but see what else is happening
e.g. conferences, essay deadlines etc. as this will impact turnout at your event. Our events
are held at the weekend as we have found this more beneficial to our members as (in most
cases) they don’t have to take a day off work.
You can repeat the same concept if it works – we have found that our audience is constantly
evolving and we are asked to repeat events for the newer audience.
Learn from your mistakes – room booking, items you need e.g. laptops, stationery, wifi etc.
Try out different things to see what suits you and don’t be afraid to stop using them if they
don’t suit e.g. Google +, wikis.
Branding can be changed. We have changed our logos and name in order to make us more
accessible.
Be flexible – when we set up the network we didn’t know we would still be going in 3 years;
our flexibility as a team and honesty with regards to what we can commit to has made this
possible. Therefore it is important to be flexible but also not take on too much – think about
what you want to do and how much time you have e.g. events, Twitter chat etc.
Slide 9 : Our contact details. Is there anything you’d like to ask us?