Of libraries and learning and luminescent probes...

We're getting properly into the course now at UCL, and with the first assignment due in less than two weeks, I'm planning to spend most of this weekend doing some serious business stuff like deciding on subject headings for books about rabbits! Other assignments include an essay on the possibility of a paperless global information society, and one comparing a digitised item with its real world equivalent. So lots to think about at the moment!

Even though I'm leaving the house at 7am to get to university for 9am, I'm quite enjoying commuting at the moment. The train journeys seem to pass very quickly as I'm racing my way through George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. They are fantastic books, but I end up getting weird looks on the train when he dramatically kills off characters I really like and I go "nooooooo!" Maybe I'll have to switch to reading about collection management instead...

A perfectly justified Sean Bean photo

Meanwhile I'm still popping back up to Cambridge two days a week for work, which has been really nice. I've done a few induction tours for new students, and the last couple of days I've been in I have been typing up a handwritten card catalogue into a big Excel spreadsheet. Apart from a couple of indecipherable bits ("the author's name is....Snail?") this has been quite a nice project to work on. Also, even though I've only been doing my course for three weeks there's already been things we've learnt, especially in Cataloguing classes, that have made me better understand things I do at work. (But of course, having had a bit of practical experience of cataloguing has made the classes so much easier to follow!)

And on that note, it's time to stop procrastinating here and get on with those library school assignments!


PS: If you were wondering about the luminescent probes, we learnt yesterday that this was the first Library of Congress Subject Heading to be suggested by a Brit. Not tea making paraphernalia?

Week One

UCL's main library is just behind the nekkid man

I've just finished my first week at UCL. This week has been an induction week, with introductory lectures for several of our modules, a bit of getting lost, and lots and lots of queueing! I've got my university card with a picture that apparently looks nothing like me (maybe it's actually that other Annie Johnson, the one who's stolen my email alias...) and have managed to make it through this unseasonably hot week without melting either on the tube or in the Freshers' Fayre tents!

As well as having introductions to our modules, we've also had several more general lectures on presentation skills, report writing, and an introduction to CILIP. This last was one of the most interesting, as we were debating the merits of joining CILIP and reasons not to join. I joined CILIP last year and I have blogged before about being a member. While I'm not the most active member, and I know I could get a lot more out of my membership if I put more in, I feel it is easily worth the £38 I currently pay. It was interesting to listen to the other side of the argument though, from Jen for example.

An important decision to make this week has been which optional modules to take. I have decided to sign up for Digital Resources in the Humanities and...dum dum duuuum... Cataloguing and Classification II. I've kind of surprised myself with how my attitude to cataloguing has changed over the last year - a year ago I felt rather like this, but as I've done more of it this has changed. I've especially enjoyed creating some records from scratch for our sheet music collection at Newnham. It's also important to me to get as many practical skills out of this MA, as it is after all a vocational course. When I did my undergraduate degree (which was in music), I ended up choosing lots of philosophical type of modules like Music and Ethics. These may have been very interesting, but yeah...not too useful really.

On Thursday we had a seminar in a room in Gordon Square, which was pretty much directly opposite this house:

Which, it turns out, is now this:

Statue of Newton outside the British Library

Also this week, I signed up for the British Library, which was a lot easier than I was expecting. I had my CILIP membership card all ready to enjoy that particular perk, but turns out they let pretty much anyone in nowadays, what is the world coming to?!*

I also went to my first LIKE event on Thursday night, at a lovely pub in Farringdon. The event was led by John Davies from TFPL and the starting point for the discussion was a TFPL report titled 'Connecting Information with Innovation', which examined the trends emerging in Information and Knowledge Management. My first impressions of LIKE were of a very intelligent group of people, and the debate was very lively. While I probably didn't contribute much of any use to the discussion, I enjoyed the evening and everyone was very welcoming to a first time attendee!

I'm looking forward to starting proper lectures next week, and Library Camp has been rather sneaky and somehow it is now only a week away so I've got that to look forward to too. The only question is will I have enough time this week to bake a cake...?



* In case it isn't obvious, I'm not being serious.