Travels

Attended a recent workshop in Doha, Qatar, entitled: Library Trends: Leading into the Future. This workshop was organized by LIAQ (Library and Information Association, Qatar) and the Mortenson Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My takeaways:

I enjoyed the workshop thoroughly. Covered interesting topics such as examining current trends in the library field (such as mobile computing, makerspaces, open access, MOOCs etc), conducting personal SWOT analysis, various evolving roles of librarians and libraries in the future among others.

Doing my personal SWOT analysis is an eye opener. I realized that there are several points for me to improve and seek opportunities that would be beneficial for me. A stark reminder that I’m so absorbed in work that I didn’t had the time to take a step back and retrospect and introspect. This personal knowledge audit allowed me to be critical of myself while keeping the findings private 🙂 The workshop also touched on creating a personal Personal Development Plan (PDP). This plan outlines the short, mid and long term plans for area and activities for my career development.

Groupwork included identifying library audiences, their expectations, role and outcome. For example, in a Graduate Research University Library, one of our important stakeholders is the faculty members. We need to be able to identify their expectations, for example, accessing scholarly electronic resources without hassles. In this instance, the role of the library is to provide access to electronic resources whether they are available as a subscription or open access via various devices such as computers, handheld devices, laptop, mobile devices and so forth. (without any geographical restrictions). The outcome would be higher level of usage of our electronic resources, justifying the subscription expenses. Hopefully, this would assist our faculty members to produce high quality research.

We also discussed the top trends identified in the IFLA Trend Report:

New technologies
Online Education
Privacy and Data Protection
Hyper-connected societies
Global Information Environment

(Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide?)

In addition to that, we reflected on United Nations Agenda 2030 and how libraries can align their contributions to this agenda. Thought about reducing the carbon footprints, energy saving initiatives (like auto-off for computer monitors and so forth.

UNAgenda2013
United Nations Agenda 2030 (Taken from website)

Dr Clara Chu (Director of Mortenson Center) mentioned that the future roles of librarians would be:

Sentry: Ensuring that information available is of highest quality
Evaluator: Assist users to make better decisions by recommending relevant information
Filter: Sieve the good information from the bad information.
Certifier: Be truthful in providing the data for users.
Aggregator / Synthesizer: Combine the various sources for users to see the bigger picture
Organizer: Organize information to make more meaningful sense
Network Node: Connect dots. Facilitate networking opportunities for our users.
Facilitator: Make users to understand their objectives and help them achieve their targets.

(taken from prentation slides)

Useful Links:

Library Trend Reports:

Doha Reloaded 2016 (Drinking water while diving, “Sambil menyelam minum air”)

11 May 201611 May 2016rindraramli1 Comment

Whirlwind business trip to Doha, Qatar. Attended workshop organized by LIAQ, (Library and Information Association, Qatar) on “Library trends: leading into the future” in collaboration with Mortenson center for international library programs.

Had a good discussion with Dr Clara Chu, Director and Distinguished Professor of the Mortenson Center.

Stayed at the Torch Doha. Wonderful place, plus it’s beside Villagio 🙂

The room is controlled by an ‘intelligent ipad’. It controls all the room functions: from drawing curtains, the room lights, launching the internet, TV, movies, etc etc. Cool.

At the same, I visited my brother whose wife had just given birth: baby Boy. (his third). My parents were there too and I celebrated Mother’s day there as well.

Met up with an ol’ buddy.

Airport scenes:

Study Visit: Technical Services, Duke University Libraries (USA) 2015

1 May 20161 May 2016rindraramliLeave a comment

I spent a week of ‘attachment’ with the Tech Services at Duke Uni Libraries (Oct 2015). (Thanks to my superiors for their approval). Met a lot of wonderful people. Thank you Beverly, Jacqui and Will for your kind hospitality. It was a pleasure getting to know all of you as well as the other library staff. (just too many to recall their names).

Stayed at this neat hotel:

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It used to be a hospital once. Historical Information about the hotel:

The hotel was a 10 minute walk to the Library Technical Services offices.

The Library Office’s name: Smith Warehouse. It used to be a tobacco warehouse but converted into offices. (Pictures Below).

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Whenever I have the time, especially in the morning, I’ll scoot off to get some food at the cafe:

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And best of all, they gave me a little office 🙂

During my one week attachment, I had the chance to learn more about Duke Libraries’ Tech Services handling of their electronic resources. It was an eye-opener for me. They have a huge collection of electronic resources. How they are handling this is amazing.

One of my areas of interest: Troubleshooting electronic resources. Asked a lot of questions on the common e-resources problems, how they ‘triage’ the issues, main root causes and how to resolve them. I got to know the systems that they are using, the procedures and so forth.

All in all, it was a worthwhile trip.

** By the way, while exploring the bookstore downtown, I saw this on the shelves:

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TRLN Management Academy, Chapel Hill, NC 2015

20 Apr 2016rindraramliLeave a comment

I was fortunate to be given the chance to attend the TRLN (Triangle Research Libraries Network – Duke Uni, North Carolina Central Uni, North Carolina State Uni, UNC Chapel Hill) Management Academy. It was held at the Paul J Rizzo Conference Center (Chapel Hill, NC, USA) from 26 – 30 Oct 2015.

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TRLN 2015 participants

This course was very beneficial to me as it opened up new insights, ideas and knowledge on leadership and management in the field of librarianship. On top of that, it provided me with the platform to network with library professionals from North America and Canada. (I discovered that I was the only one from outside the States).

Some of the learning objectives include:

budgetary processes and practices
leadership values as applied to library financial management
Leading and influencing others
Building effective working relationships
Change management
Project Management

Our trainers include:

Bob Dugan, Dean of Libraries, Uni of West Florida
Roger Mayer, Prof, Graduate Faculty, Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, North Carolina State Uni
Pat Wagner, Educator and Instructional Producer, Pattern Research Inc
Richard Blackburn, Assoc Prof, Org Behavior, Uni of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Me and some of the important people of TRLN

There was a panel session where participants have the chance to interact with the 4 big-wigs (directors) from the 4 uni libraries. They include:

Panel session with 4 library directors

Carolyn Argentati, NCSU
Deborah Jakubs, Duke Uni
Sarah Michalak, UNC
Theodosia Shields, NC Central Uni

We were also given a tour of the majestic James B Hunt Jr Library, NCSU.

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NCSU, Hunt Library
Hunt Library – Book Bot

Random pictures of TRLN

Special thanks to my library director and manager for their continuous support.

Participants List and Alumni. This was the 2015 information and application process.

When I got here …

19 Apr 201619 Apr 2016rindraramliLeave a comment

This is a continuation from my previous blog: Flashback: Time to leave home ….

My flight from Dubai – Jeddah was delayed by more than 2 hours (if I’m not mistaken) due to some technical issues. I was too tired to roam around Dubai Airport. On hindsight, I should have done that, given the variety of stores and food restaurants that are available. All I did was to find a nice spot to land my butt and catch some sleep.

Source: https://flic.kr/p/qBGu2z

Source: https://flic.kr/p/7SUQMY
(One of them is NOT me)

Source: https://flic.kr/p/7Z65dV

The flight took off from Dubai late in the evening, around 6pm or so. Reached Jeddah airport some 3 hours later (sometime past 9pm). Went past immigration and baggage check. Met up with the Uni Meet and Greet Team. The rep gave me a temp ID and they brought me over to my Jeddah ‘residence’ – Crowne Plaza. This was my place of stay for a few weeks before I moved into my permanent home in the University Town.

Loved the food in Crowne Plaza. They really served excellent dishes and were generous in their servings. Too generous even; I had to request for them to reduce the servings so as not to waste the food. Like to thank the University for providing me a great accommodation even though it was a temporary one.

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This was the start of my adventure in the Kingdom. Stay tune for more updates 🙂

Did you know that I can ….

18 Apr 201617 Apr 2016rindraramliLeave a comment

fly a plane?? Nah, Just kidding 🙂 But my brother bought me a ticket (Thank you bro) to check out the Boeing Flight Simulator located at the Singapore Flyer, Singapore. He probably wanted me to know a bit more about his work.

Back to the story: The day was downcast. But, it didn’t dampen my spirit and enthusiasm to take the controls of a Boeing plane. Never had a chance to do this before. (Never touched Microsoft Flight Simulator game as well). Got to the place and waited for my turn. We were allotted specific timings to try out the simulator. (I cannot remember how long the flight simulator session lasted).

My turn came up and off i went into the ‘cockpit’. I was briefed by a pilot (he went through an actual pilot school and passed out) on all the controls, knobs, display panels etc. My head went ‘dizzy’. There were just too many things to absorb in such a short time span. But I noted that there were several important ones that I needed to know. To cut the long story short, I had the chance to ‘take off’ from several airports and ‘landed’ the plane safely as well; though I’m not sure whether we had any major turbulence during the simulation 😛 One thing for certain: I’m not making any switch to the aviation industry anytime soon 🙂

My flight experience in pictures:

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Why did you tear my boarding pass?

12 Apr 201612 Apr 2016rindraramliLeave a comment

DXB – JED: I approached Emirates boarding desk in Dubai Airport and presented my boarding pass. The lady took one glance at me, smiled and tore it up. I was aghast. Was about to question her … just then saw her punched a few keys into the computer, looked up at me and smiled. “Sir, we’re upgrading you to Business Class”. OMG. I thanked her, smiled gleefully and proceeded to the departure lounge. Thank you, Emirates.

Rain D Librarian

Library Stuff and Beyond

Library Trends: Leading into the Future Workshop

My takeaways:

Useful Links:

Library Trend Reports:

Doha Reloaded 2016 (Drinking water while diving, “Sambil menyelam minum air”)

Study Visit: Technical Services, Duke University Libraries (USA) 2015

TRLN Management Academy, Chapel Hill, NC 2015

When I got here …

Did you know that I can ….

Why did you tear my boarding pass?