And I need your help! I’m looking for answers to the following three questions:

1. What do you think is the biggest challenge we (as a profession) are facing today?
2. What do you think are the three most important skills, knowledge or characteristics graduate information professionals?
3. What do you think LIS education should start, stop and continue doing/teaching? (Just one thing for each.)

I want a strong professional voice to set the scene for this workshop with LIS academics, so have your say here!

Please indicate in your comment whether you are okay with having your response in the video and how (or if) you would like to be credited (ie will I use your name? Your Twitter handle?).

This post has been sitting in draft since *last* #blogjune, and since I’m about to embark on a whole load of marking, I figured it was timely that I post this now.

Have you read Fifty shades of grey yet? It’s a good example of formal language gone wrong. The dialogue is stilted because it’s unnecessarily and unrealistically formal.

Just as the dialogue in Fifty shades clunks because of its formality, some words commonly used in academic and business writing are archaic, wanky and off-putting. For me, these words fall into two categories: unnecessarily formal, and clunky joiners.

Here are some of my (least) favourites.

Unnecessarily formal

These are a bunch of words that people tend to use instead of simple language when they’re writing something formal or academic. There’s a common misconception that ‘academic’ means ‘verbose’, ‘complex’ or ‘not everyday’. Stick a couple of extra letters at the end of a common word and you’ve elevated your writing to a different level of quality, right? Uh, wrong.

There is never, ever any need to use these words. Unless you’re the Queen.

• Whilst: while we *always* do. I hate this word more than any other in the English language.
• Utilise (even worse if it uses a ‘z’): what’s wrong with ‘use’?
• Thus: often used in really complex sentence structures and it just doesn’t work for me at all.
• Therefore: so?

Clunky joiners

These are words people use to link sentences together and they are most annoying when they are used in a completely arbitrary way. An old friend of mine uses these words at random, without any recognition of the fact they actually have a meaning and need to be carefully selected. A few that really frustrate me:

• Furthermore
• Moreover
• Heretofore

Used correctly and very sparingly, these words are okay. But there are much more elegant ways to craft separate sentences into paragraphs that flow. It’s just a little more work to pull them off.

Simple is beautiful

Writing economically is a bit of an art and it’s also a bit risky, I guess. If your language is simple, your content is on display. Some people attempt to hide less-than-perfect content with verbose sentence structures. For other people it’s less deliberate. They just think they have to use formal words in certain types of writing. But if you use these ugly, unnecessary words, you’re causing extra work for the reader. They have to dig through your language to access the content. This means you’re stopping your readers from understanding what you’re saying. And that’s never a good thing.

Does anyone else have a problem with these words? Or others? Please share yours in the comments!

On top of that, I didn’t clear today’s to do list. And, worst of all, I discovered a series of what I like to call #lifefails. In short, every now and then, my habits of not opening my personal mail and using filters on my personal email to reduce noise come back to bite me.

It’s kind of amusing that I pay so little attention to keeping my life in order because I’m a pedant when it comes to work. It’s amusing, but not surprising, because the two are related. Sometimes I just use up all my #win on work.

Anyway, to get me out of my bad mood, I decided a grateful post was in order today. Here it is.

I’m grateful for the efficient and personable police officer who helped me lodge the mandatory report to allow me to make an insurance claim on my phone.

I’m grateful for loud speaker letting me work while I’m on hold for long periods.

I’m grateful for the shortest ever wait time on a Vodafone customer service line.

I’m grateful for the app Find my iPhone, but I’d be evn more grateful for it if I’d set my phone p to be found *before* I lost it.

I’m thankful for cold nights and potato bake.

I’m grateful that I’m finally feeling a bit better after being out sick for a week. And I’m grateful for getting my voice back a bit.

I’m grateful for Pinterest and all the pretty things I see there.

And I’m most grateful for the little cherubs who make me laugh all my cranky away.

It’s day 2, and I’m already a day behind. Well, sort of. I blogged yesterday over at the NLS6 blog, but I didn’t get round to doing my first post here. But here’s what I meant to say yesterday:

When I read smart, thoughtful posts like Hugh Rundle’s latest over at It’s not about the books, I get inspired to blog. Usually, I have a lot of trouble converting that inspiration into action. I’m not short on ideas, and I’m definitely not short on opinions. But I am short on time and I’m also the kind of crazy perfectionist who labours over every post before hitting send. So I see these awesome posts on topics that really interest me, and I want to respond… or I just get inspired to blog in general… but then, you know. Life happens.

This time round, though, Hugh’s post came just before #blogjune. Inspiration doubled. So here I am.

In other years, I’ve done this #blogjune thing to kickstart my blogging. This year, I’m just doing it for a bit of fun, because I’ve learned from experience that blogging every day for a month isn’t going to turn me into a regular blogger after the month is out.

So over the next month, I’ll be blogging here and over at the NLS6 blog, and hopefully a bit at my totally neglected food blog, fodmapfriendly.com. And the NLS6 crew are going to be blogging almost every day this month too, so make sure you head over to the site and subscribe! </end shameless plug>

* * * * *

In 2013, ALIA’s New Librarians’ Symposium is heading back to where it all began!

NLS6
Brisbane
Sunday 10 & Monday 11 February 2013

Information Online 2013
Brisbane
Tuesday 12, Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 February 2013

Be different. Do different.

A different partnership

In 2012, NLS6 will be aligned with ALIA’s Information Online conference to bring you an action-packed week of professional development in Brisbane.

A different approach

We know NLS is an important event on the new graduate professional development calendar. Over the past few months, ALIA has undertaken extensive consultation with ALIA members, groups, the ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee and the Information Online Program Committee. ALIA and the Board of Directors understand the needs of NLS delegates: NLS6 needs to be an affordable event with a strong focus on a high quality program.

A different model

With this in mind, the Board have endorsed a new model for NLS6. The 2013 Symposium will be organised by a committee of volunteers with support from ALIA National Office staff. Kate Davis of Queensland University of Technology has been appointed co-chair of the Organising Committee and she will be joined in the chairing role by Vanessa Warren of Macquarie University and current Chair of the New Generation Advisory Committee.

NLS6 will be an event in its own right – not a satellite of Information Online 2013 – but aligning the two events will allow them to complement each other in many ways. NLS6 delegates will be provided with free admission to the trade and exhibitions space at Online on Tuesday 12 February and have a unique opportunity to capitalise on the proximity of the two events to attend both with reduced travel costs.

Help us ‘do different’!

If you’re interested in finding out how you can help with organising NLS6, Vanessa and Kate invite you to attend an online information session next Thursday 8 March at 6pm AEST (Brisbane – please convert for other regions). This session will be recorded for those who are interested in getting involved but unable to attend at this time. A call for expressions of interest in joining the Organising Committee will be announced at this online session. Please RSVP to k3.davis@qut.edu.au.

If you have any questions regarding NLS6 or Information Online 2013, please contact Christina Granata, ALIA’s Events Manager at events@alia.org.au. Watch out for updates on

• The ALIA website: www.alia.org.au
• ALIA’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ALIANational
• New Grads News Online: http://alianewgrad.blogspot.com.au/

Kate Davis and Vanessa Warren
NLS6 Co-chairs

To accommodate as many people as possible, there will be two meetups:

• Tuesday 6 March at 6pm AEST (Brisbane)
• Wednesday 7 March at 7pm AEST (Brisbane)

Because I’m more than a little ditsy, I managed to get on of the dates wrong on the survey. A number of you indicated you could make Tuesday 7 March at 7pm, but of course, 7 March is a Wednesday. So hopefully this will work out for some people.

If you can’t make these dates and times, never fear! We’ll take lots of notes and there’ll be opportunities to volunteer to help out down the track, as well as opportunities to participate in the journal club itself.

I’ll post a short agenda closer to the meeting.

We’ll use Skype for this first call, as that was by far the most popular option.

If you’re planning on coming along to one of the meetups, please indicate which one by choosing an option on the form below, and also enter your Skype username so I can be sure to add you to the correct call.

Every project is an opportunity for research

Starting out a new project with clear, measurable objectives is not only good project management, but it also provides you with an opportunity to publish. Setting objectives and putting strategies in place to collect the data you need to measure achievement of those objectives sets you up to evaluate the success of your project once you hit the finish line. Publishing on the results of your project and your evaluation of its success is a great way to help build the evidence base.

Collaborate

If you’re new to research (or even if you’re not!), collaborating with your colleagues can be a great way to break down some of the fear you might have about doing research and getting published. Collaborate within your institution and beyond it. Connect with people that have similar professional interests and just start talking about what interests you. You’ll be surprised by how many ideas you come up with. Also consider collaborating with academics – we’re always looking for opportunities to work with practitioners on real world projects. Your professional expertise and their methodological expertise will complement each other.

Get a mentor

There are many, many active practitioner-researchers in the library and information professions. Find someone whose work you admire and ask them if they’ll mentor you through the process of undertaking your first research project and looking for publication opportunities. You might already have a professional mentor, but your research mentor is probably a different person: someone who has experience in designing and seeing through research projects and getting published.

Can’t find a research mentor? Drop a comment here and I’ll see if I can help you.

Look at alternative channels

Journals and conferences are probably the two most obvious places to publish the results of your research, but have you thought beyond that? Blogging is a great way to document your research journey and a really valuable way to disseminate your research. Academic publishing timelines are laggy and can mean that your cutting edge project isn’t so cutting edge any more by the time your journal article gets published. A series of blog posts on your findings can help you disseminate any time-critical aspects of your research as you progress.

Get lots of traction out of a single project

Remember, one project does not necessarily equal one publication. You can get much more traction than that out of your research! By publishing some of your findings on a blog, for example, you don’t preclude yourself from publishing about that research in a journal or presenting at a conference. There are always a variety of angles you can use for publications about a single research project. A project I led last year has so far resulted in three publications, and I’ll be publishing again out of this project this year (more than once). Each of these publications focuses on a different aspect of the research and was designed for a different audience. Even after five or so publications, there will still be data (and different views of the data) that I haven’t published on.

But that’s okay, because the other thing you need to remember about research is your data has a longer shelf life than you might imagine. When I first made the switch to academia, I was always in a rush to publish while my data was fresh, but I learned very quickly that I actually have quite a big window of time to disseminate the results of my research. Don’t publish one surface-level view of your research in your haste to get your findings out there. Instead, take a narrower but deeper view of your research in a series of publications over a longer period of time. You’ll do your research more justice this way and your publications will be more useful to others.

Start with a literature review

We’re librarians. We know how important it is to review the literature before we start a project. But instead of just writing up a short literature review in a publication on your findings, consider writing a more holistic literature review before you get started on your research, and publish it independently. Our professional literature could definitely use more of this type of publication. The process will help you focus your research on the gaps in the literature and your review will benefit other researchers. You might consider, for example, publishing a literature review in the new review section of the EBLIP journal.

Do a research degree

If you’re keen to get involved in research, you might like to consider getting a research degree. As librarians and information professionals move into research support, research training is going to be increasingly relevant for practitioners. At VALA a couple of weeks back, research support was probably the hottest topic on the program. Increasingly, information professionals are taking a really practical approach to research support and contributing to research in really tangible ways, through activities like literature searching, grant writing, and advising on publication opportunities.

If your professional qualification is a Graduate Diploma, you might be thinking about upgrading to a Masters. Instead of upgrading by completing more coursework, consider a research degree. The benefits of this in terms of your skills and knowledge are obvious, but the benefits for your wallet shouldn’t be discounted. Masters by research programs are fee-free.

We have an awesome research community at QUT… Come and play with us!

Just do it!

Stop thinking about it, and just do it! You’ve probably got at least one project on the go right now that you could be publishing about. So do it! The Research Applications in Information and Library Studies seminar is a perfect venue to publish research in practice, because the focus of this event is on connecting researchers and practitioners and fostering a culture of research in the profession.

Abstract submission for RAILS8 closes this Thursday, 23 February. You’ve got plenty of time between now and then to prepare and submit a 300 word abstract! The Organising Committee eagerly await your contribution!

Please respond by 5pm AEST (Brisbane) on Thursday 23 February, so I can confirm a time the following day.

What I had in mind was something like this…

• We establish some shared topics of interest in the literature – some topics that a whole bunch of us across the sectors are interested in – and work with these as reading topics. Alternatively, we could have sector-based groups, but I do see a lot of value in cross-pollinating and reading literatures related to other sectors, as well as our own.
• Each month, we choose one academic reading (or one academic reading per topic, if we want to break into groups).
• Once a month, we get together in an online space like a Google+ Hangout and discuss that reading. As journal club discussions work best with medium sized groups, I would suggest this happens more than once a month, at various times. Individuals can nominate to lead the discussion, say once a year each.
• On an ongoing basis, we could all share information about other professional reading we’re doing – including ‘non-academic’ literature, like blog posts or news articles. This could be done via Twitter with a hash tag, or we could consider setting up a WordPress site and use BuddyPress to turn it into a social network where we can share our reading.

This might be something we do just for this year, the National Year of Reading, to profile professional reading, or it could be something that continues into the future.

Ultimately, this should be a lightweight initiative. I’m sure none of us want to get bogged down in administrivia and extra work.

Is anyone interested in joining me in a Google+ Hangout in the next two weeks or so to talk this through further?

Recently, I was at a friend’s house with a number of other library-types for what is becoming an annual craft and catching up day. Someone asked about what had happened since we all met up the year before. My response was unequivocally negative: 2011 was a year I will be glad to put behind me. When I read a blog post by one of my fellow crafters in the days after our catch up, I was challenged by her philosophy that how we feel about things depends significantly on how we choose to handle them. I was instantly defensive. I *did* have a terrible 2011; it ‘happened to me’ and was not of my making!

But on further reflection, I can see that’s not entirely true. 2011 was a tough year for me personally, but professionally, it was an incredibly successful year. Some of that was down to chance and some of it was about hard work and making things happen. It was a challenging year professionally – and not always in a good way – but on the whole, a very positive year.

So why was my reaction to the question about what had happened in the last 12 months so negative? I guess my overall perception of 2011 is clouded by many things, not the least of which is the fact that I got sick again and again. And again. To the point where I’m sure my Twitter buddies and colleagues think I’m a hypochondriac! It started in January when I was in Sydney for Information Online and it just kept going through the year. A few colds later, I got quite sick again in June and lost my voice for a week; I left to go to the UK before I was completely better and got worse on the way up there; I got sick in Perth in September and took half the attendees of the 5th New Librarians’ Symposium out with me… Basically, I just got sick over and over and over, with some bouts worse than others. I estimate I had about 15 cold/flu things in 2011. And the year’s parting gift was a bout of sinusitis and tonsillitis that started on New Year’s Eve. I am most cranky about starting the new year sick, because 2012 is a year in which I plan to be well.

On a personal level, 2011 saw me adjusting to lots of change and more responsibility. I’m not going to go into all the details, but you can trust me when I say that there is just no positive way to approach some things! I’m not really a negative person. Though I do love a good whinge, when it comes to the crunch, I tend to just make stuff work. But making the best of a bad situation does not always mean you can turn it into a positive – and doing too much ‘making the best’ is really exhausting. Regardless of how I approached what the year threw at me, there was a lot of not-fun stuff to deal with, and much of it was completely outside my control. (And much of it was dealt with while I was sick. Doubly not fun.) Those things sucked. I tried to make them into positives where possible and dealt with the things that couldn’t be turned around.

And it’s those things I was reacting to when I said 2011 had been a crappy year for me.

But amongst all of that, there were many great things about 2011 that I’d essentially written off in my mind – or that I’d forgotten about amongst the not-fun stuff.

So what were those good things? I thought I’d blog about a few of the highlights, to keep myself honest and to document them for myself. Here are a few of the the brightest happenings of 2011:

• In January I watched the social media storm following the Brisbane floods and generated a whole lot of nervous energy doing so, which I put to use by helping a public library in the Lockyer Valley clean up after flooding. My friend Gluten Free Lissy, her husband and sister and I headed out to a friend’s place near Laidley (she had flooded) and from there we went on to the library, spending a day crawling around, cleaning up gross mud, pulling up the carpet, and knocking nails into floorboards. I also baked a few hundred cakes and muffins to take to the SES at Laidley. This was a highlight of the year for me because it allowed me to see people at their most generous: while we were cleaning up the library, people stopped by with food for us – platters of fruit and things, a brick of water bottles – and other people, who had lost everything, pulled together and turned up at the library to help us clean up. It was also a devastating experience. Throughout the region, people had their whole lives packed up and put out on the curb for rubbish collection. And when I hopped in my car to head home, I heard a breaking news story about the death of a family in Grantham. What a crazy time we had at the start of this year. I hope to never witness anything like it again.
• My divine niece and nephew grew from babies to amazing little people… My favourite milestone in the last year was their learning to sing. I love that they love to sing!
• I worked on the Information Online conference committee, which was a fantastic opportunity to see how a big conference runs.
• You know the saying ‘publish or perish’? Well, it definitely wasn’t lack of publishing that threatened my health in 2011 (more the bazillion colds I had!). I spoke around the place, personally presenting at five conferences and a couple of professional events (and co authored papers that others presented elsewhere); wrote a few conference papers; had a couple of articles published in inCite; gave my first keynote at the fifth New Librarians’ Symposium; and co-authored a conceptual article for the Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) journal. If you’re interested, you can see a list of my publications and most of my presentations on my other site, katedavis.info.
• I went to the UK for a couple of weeks. While I’m not the world’s best traveler (I like my creature comforts and I’m a bit of a homebody! – and I was, of course, sick while I was away), I had a great time and appreciate the experiences I had while I was away.
• I presented on behalf of Zaana Howard and myself at the Sixth International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference in Manchester, and we won both the Delegates’ Choice and International Program Committee Choice awards for best presentation.
• While I was in the UK, I had an awesome few days catching up with old friends who would probably now be considered London-locals, so I got to have some insider exclusive experiences!
• Shopping the Harrods sales in June would have to be a highlight of the year too. I bought my favourite pair of shoes ever (Jimmy Choo sandals that I live in – I should have bought more!) and stacks and stacks of kids’ clothes for my niece and nephew… Juicy Couture dresses, insanely cheap Polos, Dolce and Gabbana jeans, Armani tshirts… And most importantly, Fireman Sam paraphernalia that has given my nephew hours of firefighting pleasure… I had to buy a suitcase early in my trip to accommodate my shopping (which I’ve already blogged about here)!
• I collaborated with the aforementioned Zaana Howard on a couple of projects, and working with Zaana was definitely a highlight for me. As was working collaboratively with my fabulous colleagues, including Helen Partridge, Katherine Howard and Christine Yates on various different things.
• In addition to London, Aberdeen and Manchester, I also traveled locally, to Sydney, Canberra and Perth. In Canberra, I saw one of my lovely friends get married in the rose gardens at Old Parliament House in autumn, which is my absolute favourite time of year in Canberra… When I returned later in the year, I got to catch up with my lovely friend and her new husband.
• In April I submitted my Stage 2 research proposal for my PhD and had it approved. First milestone done and dusted!
• I collected data for my PhD pilot project and was reminded of why this topic is right for me.
• By the time I went on my Christmas holidays, I had a solid first draft of my methods chapter for my PhD Confirmation of Candidature. We won’t talk about the literature review I’m yet to write a single word of…
• I worked with amazing students on projects and course work. I had numerous goosebump moments when I saw my students realise their potential. And I got to cheer a number of them on as they crossed the stage at graduation.
• I got to give several of my awesome students references for jobs. This is one of my very favourite parts of teaching.
• I co-chaired the very successful RAILS7 conference in May.
• I worked with a project student to produce a series of YouTube clips to support National and State Libraries Australasia’s LibraryHack initiative, which involved speaking to a bunch of awesome people.
• I wrapped up a collaborative faculty funded teaching and learning project that was designed to develop a framework for blended learning across a whole of course environment. Well, that’s kind of true. I wrapped up the work we were funded to do (and then some) but the research and its application is ongoing – I’m currently working with a project student to survey our students about how our breed of blended experiences works for them.
• I got back to reading fiction! I started the year with an aim of reading the equivalent of a fiction book a week. In the end, I made it to 35, which – considering the year I had! – was no mean feat. I read some fantastic books, particularly young adult novels.
• I did some fun stuff with my teaching, like gamify my unit site for our gamification week and present on my use of social media in teaching and learning at a QUT innovation event.
• I worked with Dr Gill Hallam who delivered one of the units I teach to a cohort of German students studying in Stuttgart. My students were finishing the unit as Gill’s started and they mentored their German peers as they undertook the unit. Half a dozen students, Gill and I coauthored a conference paper on our collaborations, and we’re currently preparing the presentation which will be delivered in Amsterdam at the BOBCATSSS 2012 conference at the end of January.
• I won the Faculty of Science and Technology Teaching Excellence Award (individual). Working on the application for this award was a highlight in itself because I got to revisit all the lovely emails students have sent me and student feedback on the teaching and learning experience survey. Winning the award was an added perk – and not one I expected!
• I also received a Vice Chancellor’s Award for Performance – another lovely surprise!
• I had a fantastic Christmas with my family. It was a casual, lovely day. We opened presents, played with new toys, ate a lunch that should of been lovely (except I was too busy supervising present opening and burned it to cinders!), jumped on the trampoline that Santa brought… It was a great day and a perfect end to the year.

So that’s a big long list of highlights, and there were quite a few more lovely little things that happened, too. And I’m grateful for every one.

A friend of mine posted on Facebook about one thing she was grateful for every day in 2011. It was refreshing and inspiring to read these reflections during the year. Those statements of gratitude and my own reflections on the last year were what made me want to write this post.

Despite still being glad to see the back of 2011, I am grateful for all the challenges and the triumphs. No, I’m not grateful for all the sickness – but I am grateful for the renewed, proactive focus on my health that this has prompted. Am I grateful for some of the challenges in my personal life? No, not really, but I am grateful for being stretched and for having opportunities to grow. I’m grateful to be part of a quirky but amazing little family and willing to work with whatever that brings. And I am decidedly grateful for all the wonderful things that happened in 2011.

Most of all I’m grateful for my amazing supportive friends, fantastic colleagues, and my beautiful family. Both new friends and old, those who are far away and those who are around the corner, have been so important in the last year – more so than ever before. Some have saved my sanity by talking me off the PhD ledge (that’s the ledge of panic and doom where you think you just can’t do it); some have looked after me like surrogate mothers; and others have put up with me being a distant, always preoccupied and constantly unavailable friend with no complaint, amazing patience and an understanding of where I’m at. You all know who you are, and I am grateful for you.

I’m grateful for 2011, but yes, I’m still grateful that it came to an end.