“Don’t get it right, just get it written”

I recently stumbled across an academic writing group set up and run by PhD students here in the University, and went along to see how it works.

We began with a 5-minute warm-up exercise, getting into pairs and swapping plans verbally of what we wanted to write about. It’s a gentle, non-threatening way of getting into your topic by explaining it to someone else. In my session we were put into pairs consisting of one more experienced participant (in terms of writing group attendance) and one less so, which was thoughtful.

After the 5-minute exchange of plans – and two and a half minutes is really not a lot of time to say what you want to do! – we had 8 minutes of free writing. The rules for this section are:

• you must use complete sentences, but not necessarily “academic” language
• you can’t go back over anything you’ve written: no edits, and no spellchecking
• you can’t stop writing until the timer goes!

What you write in this segment is for your own eyes only – not for supervisors, colleagues or anyone else to see and criticize (unless you decide otherwise afterwards). And what you write can vary tremendously. Some participants use the 8 minutes to outline what they’ll work on in the main section of the time; some use it to reflect on how they feel about their research that day. But what happens when you get stuck, or are blank to start off with, and yet you must write and keep writing? That’s what’s so interesting about this approach. The session leader described a participant who, in utter frustration, wrote “I hate this, I hate this” repeatedly for 8 minutes. Yet the action of writing, even the writing of negative or emotional sentences, brings its own release – that’s the point of the free writing.

This is very reminiscent of how Maya Angelou describes the writing process:

What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’

After the 8 minutes’ sandbox time, the final section is 45 minutes of ‘real’ writing, intended for consumption by a real audience. By this time everyone in the group was physically settled, writing materials arranged comfortably, and grounded by our earlier discussion and by the fact that we were no longer face to face with a blank page. I found it remarkably easy to focus: ideas flowed as my writing flowed, and yet – because I was writing in full sentences and with one eye on future readers – I was forced to fit the ideas into the rhythm of the writing and develop them in an orderly way. And the astonishing thing was that I was able to do this. I didn’t lose track of anything, and I ended up with a piece of coherent, well-developed writing that I could type up* and (with minor amendments) present to colleagues. Magically, I was getting it written and getting it right – pretty much; and that’s a first for me.

Rowena Murray, whose work on academic writing techniques was the inspiration for this choice of format, describes how writing can become “part of the researcher’s thinking process” (‘What can I write about?: The rhetorical question for PhD students and their supervisors‘). Yet, as she also points out, in most UK universities writing is not perceived in this way, and a dislocation between the thinking and writing processes results.

This idea of “dislocation” encapsulates my PhD experience perfectly. I was the student who couldn’t write. It seemed to me that until I had something definitive and irreproachable to say, I couldn’t go near a pen. The sight of blank pages in my research diary gave me hysterics. I read and took notes compulsively and wrote nothing – until my final year, when breaking through the barrier that I’d so painstakingly constructed was a slow and anguished business. The Muse did come, of course – in the end. But incorporating writing/thinking time on a weekly basis from the start seems a much saner way of summoning her.

* Yes, my writing is an analogue affair. Interestingly, the majority of the participants present also used pen and paper.

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Writing group structure

In the writing group I attended sessions take place weekly and last an hour and a quarter. Have one person who can explain how each part of the session works and act as timekeeper (setting the timer on your phone is the easiest way).

• 5 minutes’ discussion in pairs of what you plan to write about in the session
• 8 minutes of free writing – complete sentences, no stopping, no editing
• 45 minutes’ writing for an audience

The time in between is used for taking breath, stretching, and thinking about how to approach the next section.

The session finished with tea and biscuits (brought by participants) and an informal debrief where each participant described to the rest how the session went for him/her.

Title quotation: James Thurber

Here be dragons: of libraries and the information landscape

I was invited to give a presentation on libraries and information to new undergraduates at Clare College back in the beginning of October (you remember, all that time ago when term started). It was the 09:30 slot in a day of study skills sessions, and the last thing I wanted was to bore the students to tears from the get-go with a catalogue demonstration. Thinking about the transition from school to HE gave me a different focus for the talk – one that revolved around the students’ own experiences and expectations of libraries.

Image credit: Adib Roy, flickr.com

First up: challenge the concept of libraries as temples of deathly quiet, defended by shushing librarians – just in case that one’s still out there.

The dragons I’m talking about are not librarians, but the kind that inhabit unknown territory on old maps: the ones that might possibly lurk in the new landscape of knowledge across whose border, in entering university, you step. Some of this landscape has already been explored and charted, and is only new to you; but at some point, in some hitherto overlooked corner, it’s your viewpoint – your mapping of the terrain – that will count.

How do you become informed about your landscape? What acts as your compass? The library is a good place to start – because while the library’s physical manifestation is finite, libraries link to whole worlds of information.

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries …. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors …
I say that the Library is unending.

(Borges, ‘The Library of Babel’)

From this perspective the library’s resources – the catalogue, the eresources portal – become tools that scholars can use to orientate themselves in the knowledge landscape and discover new territory. Yet no resource comes close to be as important as the scholar’s built-in compass: critical vision. It is the ability to analyse and evaluate information, whatever its source or format, for accuracy, reliability and scholarly worth that ultimately enables the academic endeavour – whether you’re an eminent researcher or a fresher undergrad.

Oh, and the dragons? They were vanquished by some scholarly research by Erin C. Blake: there has never existed a map bearing the words “Here be dragons”.

Here be dragons

Research Skills Programme: a year in numbers

Highlights of the Research Skills Programme, 2010-11 …

1178 participants on sessions provided by Cambridge University Library Training

128 taught sessions

57 orientation tours

30 trainers and tour leaders

16 bespoke courses for departments and colleges

15 subject resource courses

9 information skills courses

7 special collections courses

2 conference papers

1 article in press

1 Arcadia project

The genius of Laura J, or, what does a stage manager keep in her pockets?

Pockets have long been a trial to me. Oh yes, I’m totally serious. Men’s clothes have functional pockets: deep, roomy, useful containers designed for safe harbour and porterage of the symbols of Western society’s material security: wallets, keys, phone, small change; iPods, train tickets, Swiss Army knives, bits of string … Women’s pockets, on the other hand, are designed to be entirely decorative and non-functional. Honestly, have you ever tried putting your purse in your pocket?

Of course the failure of the pocket is also the raison d’etre of the handbag – one of the most gloriously silly and delectably desirable accessories in existence. But there are some situations in which you just can’t carry a handbag. The Krypton Factor assault course is probably one such. Backstage in a theatre while a show’s going on is another. Here’s a small sample of what I need to have about my person and immediately accessible during a show …

Some months ago I indulged in a pocket rant to another librarian, bemoaning the uselessness of the feminine version even in combats or cargo pants, with a side whinge about the annoyance of having to buy men’s combats in order to carry all the stuff I need backstage. Unbeknownst to me, however, Laura J can sew … and what’s more, being a librarian, she can recognise that sometimes what the reader asks for isn’t exactly what the reader needs.

The solution? Portable pockets! A short apron – black, naturally, to be invisible backstage; and short enough to climb the ladder to the fly gallery in.

Laura not only came up with the idea; she actually made me the apron too. Here it is in action, backstage at the ADC Theatre during a performance of The Producers. And yes, all the items pictured above (and more) fit in the pockets.

Strangely enough, I know another Laura J who’s also a genius … but that’s another story.

Cloudburst: thoughts on interface usability

Much as I hate to say it so soon in the programme, I really struggled with Thing 2, Cloudworks. As another blogger has noted, it’s quite a bitty site: fundamentally I can’t get a handle on what I’m looking at. Is it a resource store? A forum? A social networking site? I can see that the answer may be “(d) All of the above”, but a clearer steer on function and navigation would be great.

However, I’m finding it very interesting to reflect on my frustrations with the site, as they seem to me to be caused by issues that are universal and perennial – and therefore presumably avoidable?

Issue 1: what the heck is it?
As noted above, I can’t work out what I’m looking at: the site’s function isn’t clear to me. As a result – and far more significantly for learning designers – I can’t devise any criteria for evaluating what to investigate. If I click on a link will it take me to a discussion, or to a resource? If the latter, will that be a graphic, an eXe file, or a pdf document? And if it’s a document – is that a published article, a draft version, or a page from somebody’s notebook?

One link took me to a 404 Not Found page, which raises another issue: how old are these links, and who is maintaining them?

HistoricLOLs.com

 

Issue 2: how do I use it?
So, I can see that there’s tons of potentially useful stuff in here, but I can’t make out how to find and get to it. I love the idea of an online community of LD practitioners, but I can’t work out an easy way to communicate with them. Now, I know that helpful posters will probably comment and let me know various ways in which I can do these things, but this gives rise to another, subtler point about our expectations and use of online material: I don’t want to be told, or taught, or shown how to use this site. I want it to be laid out in a way that’s intuitive enough for me to plunge in and start using it.

I’m used to interfaces that come and meet me halfway; sites that have a single aim and purpose that can be simply expressed – meet friends! share photos! tell the world what you’re doing in 140 characters! – and that have clear narrative or navigational pathways. I’m so used to intuitive interfaces, in fact, that I can no longer be bothered to work hard at decoding a non-intuitive site: I get bored and cross, and go back on Twitter to moan about it.

This wouldn’t be relevant except for the fact that I’d bet everything I own that all my students behave in exactly the same manner. Yes, I know this is deplorable. But stop and ask yourself: don’t you do the same? Don’t we all?

In 1989 Thomas Peters wrote a great article analysing OPAC transaction logs. Towards the end he lets the mask slip a little, writing in exasperation:

“It is amazing that some OPAC users willingly spend hours learning the intricacies of software they want to use on their personal computers, but they grow impatient spending five minutes learning the basic commands and structure of an online catalogue in the library” (Peters 1989, p.272).

I adore this quotation, and have used it often. I love the sheer exasperation in his tone of voice, and I love how his argument almost sounds convincing. Except of course it’s fallacious: the interface isn’t something you should ever have to ‘learn’. If you do, the interface itself becomes a barrier between you and the information it’s designed to make available. Like the best theatre lighting designs, you should only notice it when something’s gone wrong.

So I’m sorry for raining on Cloudworks’ parade, but I’m grateful for the thoughts it has inspired about online behaviour and expectations. And I promise I will go back and spend some time exploring in a less haphazard way: for the sake of this blog post, I owe it that : )

The world is so full of a number of Things

Yes, it’s another programme of interesting online Cambridge Things! I loved being involved with running the Cam23 programme last year, so when I discovered that CARET was going to run a 13 Things for Curriculum Design programme, I eschewed all feelings of deja vu, stopped myself from wondering how many of these Things I’d actually manage to complete, and dived straight in … and here I am.

Thing 1 asks that we blog about our experiences are with curriculum design, and what we’d like to get out of the programme. Simples -

I have no experience with curriculum design, so that’s exactly what I want to get out of the programme.

Perhaps I should moderate that stark statement a bit. I have very little formal experience of curriculum design, because it’s still unusual for librarians – even those who, like me, are here to offer training – to be required to hold a teaching qualification or demonstrate an understanding of pedagogic principles. Please don’t get me wrong on this point. There are plenty of librarians who are passionate and informed about their teaching, and many do hold teaching qualifications. They’re the people who have taught and inspired me to think about course design – but my job description stipulates a library qualification, not a teaching one, and this is the case (I believe) for many librarian trainers out there.

But while I’m not formally required to know about the principles of good course and curriculum design, the past two years in my diverse, knackering and amazing job have brought me to the inexorable realisation of this huge gap in my own information skills. So like a good librarian, I’m going to see if I can start to bridge it by way of 13 Things – and like a good mongoose, I’ll also enjoy indulging my inquisitive streak and finding out.

Tune in next time for Cloudworks!

Writer’s blog

A taste of fame! I’ve just been live-blogged by a roomful of people. Please form an orderly line for autographs …

Back in the real world: yes, 9 incredibly hard-working people spent a total of 30 minutes this afternoon trying to capture the vagaries of  conversation on information literacy between Niamh, Helen and myself – but it was a practice session for the all-day live blogging they’ll be doing on Monday at the Internet-Informed Patient Symposium, which is the culmination of Isla Kuhn‘s Arcadia Project research. Doug Clow of the OU led the session and had some great insights on the art of live-blogging.

The conversation itself was very enjoyable and stimulating, but even more interesting was the variety of reactions to the blogging experience. It’s pretty tough listening and typing at the same time, particularly when you’re not an expert in the subject under discussion, and even more so when all three participants are talkative, engaged and passionate, delving eagerly into the theoretical as well as the practical aspects of their topic.

So what was hardest about it? Here’s the interesting thing: everyone had a different issue. One participant wanted to process and filter the information before outputting it: ideally she’d like to make notes on paper, then create a minutes-style document setting out the discussion. Another wanted the time to be able to categorise and apply a hierarchy. Yet another was concerned about maintaining writing quality and readability. The variety of ways in which writer’s (or blogger’s) block can strike was not something I’d foreseen!

In research skills terms this is particularly interesting for me because finding a way to break loose from the constraints of ‘proper’ academic writing is one of the toughest things about doing a PhD. In the ‘Managing Your Information’ course we’ve looked at techniques like messy writing and tools like 750 words, but “what makes it hard for you?” is something I’ll be asking class participants more in future.

Save Our Libraries – flyers and handouts

 

Image by Phil Bradley

All in .pdf format, with CC images. Please feel free to print, guillotine and distribute!

• Girl in the Moon’s excellent handout about the cuts (A4, text and image)

• Tremendous ‘Borrow a book’ poster (A4)

• ‘Libraries change lives’ flyer (A5 – 2 to a page)

• ‘When in doubt’ flyer (A6 – 4 to a page)

• ‘Use libraries and learn stuff’ flyer (A6 – 4 to a page)

• Arbury Court Read-In flyer (A5 – 2 to a page)

Save Our Libraries: resources

Some context for the Save Our Libraries flashmob …

• This Guardian article gives some useful background. There’s also a very funky ‘Find your nearest protest‘ map!

• You can keep an eye on which UK libraries are under threat, and see a list of cuts by local authority, at Public Libraries News.

• Voices for the Library has a great post about read-ins, where they’re happening and how to set one up.

• In local terms, here’s what Cambridgeshire County Council has to say in its latest press release, but I’d also recommend reading the release from August 2010, which has a little more meat in it.

Best of all, here’s a great piece of writing by Girl in the Moon that we’ll be distributing on Saturday.

Librarians being the zany, creative people they are, there’s no shortage of great advocacy resources already available. I’ve been inspired by, and borrowed from, the following sources today …

• WalkYouHome’s round-up of library advocacy posters (image above shamelessly pinched …)

• John Kirriemuir’s perennially brilliant Use Libraries and Learn Stuff image;

• and, of course, Phil Bradley’s wartime images poster set.

Thank you all, not just for the images but for inspiration and encouragement.

Edit: For more flashmob action, there’s a read-in at Arbury Court Library from 2-3pm.

Save Our Libraries, 5 February

23 hours ago on Facebook, I shared a link about ‘Save Our Libraries’ Day, that had originally been posted by both Girl in the Moon and Lottie.

19 hours ago on Facebook, I set the following as my status:

and started a 21-comment-long thread of great ideas and enthuasiasm.

6 hours ago on Facebook, I created a group called “Save Our Libraries flashmob” and contacted the police, the library, the council and the shopping centre that houses the library …

… what’s it going to be like in 42 hours’ time? Come along and find out : )