I’ve been accepted into UCL’s Masters programme!
To make a stand against proposed changes to New Zealand copyright, which would make anyone a criminal who is accused of copyright infringement three times, I am supporting the Internet Blackout. For more information please click the banner.
I’ve been quite slow in applying for my Master’s degree, but one of the universities had an extremely early deadline. So, mid-January, I boarded a train out of Colchester North and, having arrived in London, wandered around Bloomsbury a bit.
The campus was alright – it’s in the heart of London, right opposite the British Museum, quite compact, yet with enough space and several cafés and relaxed areas and the like.
Hey people! I know I haven’t updated in forever. What with one thing and another, I’ve been fairly busy. I’ve adopted a goal of one post per week – we shall see how this pans out.
My graduate traineeship includes visits to other libraries. The first of those was to Colchester Institute Library and took place in December. I did a short write-up with photos which also appeared in our internal newsletter. I’ve adapted it a bit for the net. Enjoy!
An aisle in Colchester Institute Library
Since the graduate traineeship is intended to be preparation for a Master’s degree, this is the time of year where people start thinking about their applications and applying to various universities. My experience of this so far is that it is about five times harder to do this for an international applicant, as I am, than it is for a person who did their previous degree(s) in the UK.
My colleagues and I will be going to the Graduate Open Day in London on Monday!
And I’m planning the next event already – the Leadership talk, and an event in the East of England in November. The library is a bit mental these days, but hopefully, I will get around to writing some more at the weekend.
Registered on extremely short notice, I attended the CILIP Members’ Day and AGM in London yesterday. CILIP is the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, a professional body representing – as it says on the tin – Library and Information professionals in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Members’ Day and AGM took place at CILIP London in Ridgmount Street and at SOAS, just around the corner.
For me, it was a pivotal event, and also the kickstart I needed to get involved with the profession.
I had my first Enquiries Desk shift today! Most of the questions were fairly basic, like, “Which floor is *insert classmark* on?” or “Do you have a stapler?” Surprisingly though, a fair number of people were not aware of the existence of the library website and assumed they were going to be able to access online resources throught their myEssex page (the student portal which has personalised pages, e.g. for their class schedule and other study-related stuff). And some enquiries were so vague that I had to ask a couple of times and was still not sure what exactly the people were after – maybe they themselves weren’t so sure either…
Anyway, it is good to be out on the desk and actually interact with people, because strangely enough, that is the side of librarianship that appeals most to me. I did some library tours over the past weeks, which went well enough. Only the first one was kind of silly – ten people had signed up, but only four showed up and one went to the loo in the middle of it! Way to go to show your keen interest.
We (that is, me and my partners in crime, the two other trainees) have also been asked to put together a library newsletter. I am curious as to how that will go. Have to keep on top of CILIP news to find things to put in there!
Banned Books Week starts today, and runs until October 4.
What is it all about?
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 420 challenges last year. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each reported, four or five remain unreported.
If you have ever watched Donnie Darko, you have an idea of the implications of this.
Why should I care? I don’t even live in the US.
Banning books is a form of censorship. It limits free access to information and the freedom of speech. Thereby, it limits the expression of opinions that are not the banner’s, and also potentially the formation of opinions. If you’re only ever allowed to read books that express a certain view of the world, you might not be aware that there are others, so forming an opinion and expressing it become more difficult.
Banning books is dangerous because if done in one country, say, the US, and found to be a good thing, other countries might imitate it and before we know, there will be books people don’t even know exist because they’re banned everywhere.
The world is paranoid these days, and threats to intellectual freedom lurk around every corner. You don’t have to go far to see them. For instance, I live in England, a free and democratic country, and am a librarian in training. Earlier this year, a Nottingham University library worker and the student he was helping got arrested and threatened with deportation because they had downloaded an Al Qaeda training manual from a public US government website. As a result, a new guidance for libraries was published, encouraging them not to stock “material that might be useful for terrorists.” Some of the unwanted side effects here, and also, more info about Clause 28 since it’s mentioned in the article.
Do not take free access to information for granted, and be aware of the threats to it. If you are a reader, a writer, a library user, a library worker, a parent, or a student, you should care about books getting banned and access to information being restricted. No matter where you are.
The 10 Most Challenged Books of 2007
The new Graduate Trainees arrived yesterday! They were shown around the library and their respective workplaces in Interlibrary Loans and Accessions. One is a recent History graduate of Essex University, while the other studied American and English Literature at Hull. I hope they will settle in well!
