Professional Development Reflection -- Referencing

NB: As this is my current workplace, I am choosing to anonymize this information. Given my learning journals, it should be easy to tell the place I am referring to.

My workplace held a meeting and tutorial on how to properly answer queries from users about referencing. We had a person come from another of our workplaces to give the lecture. She explained that while we do point users to places where they can find information on referencing, we do not have an established set of referencing, unlike other workplaces in our field. I raised this with the presenter, and she responded that that’s just how our workplace runs.

As an information professional, I found this perplexing. It leaves us as information professionals unable to fully answer a query. For example, if a user needs a certain APA or Harvard reference style, we can’t ascertain which variety of APA or Harvard style to use. The presentation itself was straight forward, and I was glad to learn about a variety of different reference styles, and in a way look ‘behind the veil’ of how referencing worked, especially given my university education relies so heavily upon them for each assignment.

For me, referencing has always been an awkward task and knowing where to look is crucial for success. Specifically we aren’t allowed to help users with referencing in-text, which is understandable given we can only indicate to different reference types and we work without a set standard.

Then again, I guess it’s the same as at the other workplace in our field, who also did not specifically help with in-text referencing, only to put to where their set standard is. When you have so many queries in the day, you cannot focus your time on only one user.

While the meeting was illuminating, I disagreed with the implementation and voiced so. This is healthy in a workplace, and especially a library workplace. To have discussion and difference of opinion is perfectly valid, we are all humans after all, each different and with a unique point of view. I remember when I started my job, my boss always said to let them know if I thought there could be somewhere to change or improve. I’ve done that in most instances that I’ve seen thought we could improve, and as information professionals, change is something that we should always be doing, as information, and the ways in which information is sent back and forth, is constantly in flux.

I appreciate my workplace taking the time to guide us through these presentations when it becomes clear through multiple queries that something needs to be made concrete. We recently had another presentation for the document delivery system, which proved fruitful too (although the document delivery system is still just as daunting for me!). 

Professional Development Reflection -- How To Deal With Difficult Users

NB: As this is my current workplace, I am choosing to anonymize this information. Given my learning journals, it should be easy to tell the place I am referring to.

My workplace sent me to a half-day presentation run by the Human Resources department on how to deal with difficult clients. I believe this was more of a rite of passage in the workplace, as we rarely have any users come to desk with queries that would be termed a ‘difficult client’. As usual for these special events, I was at least five minutes late with wrangling the proper public transport routes to get there.

The talk itself was illuminating on different strategies for dealing with problematic users. They used an acronym, PROUD, each letter standing for a different element of how you should approach the user. Identifying the Problem, Respect the person, Understanding, Distancing yourself emotionally from the situation if you feel the client’s frustrations are hurting you on an emotional level. As well, we worked in groups that were given specific situations, and told to brainstorm possible ways of dealing with the client. I met many people from different departments that day, and they all had stories to tell of times with difficult clients.

As an information professional, so close to the public, we always have the fear that someone may become angry or unruly, and my workplace isn’t really designed for those situations. A few weeks prior (and really what brought on us being enrolled) was a member of the public coming into the library in a visibly annoyed state, and asking my colleague for the phone. Hesitantly, my colleague gave the phone over, as while not something explicit, it is a service we offer to users if they don’t have a mobile phone. It’s common courtesy. The member of the public called his mother on the phone, and proceeded to have an angry, yelling conversation, leaving my colleague surprised. The climactic moment of this exchange had the user pelting the phone past my colleague’s ear, where it smashed upon the glass behind front desk. Situations like these are why we must be trained in dealing with difficult users.

I’ve taken to jokingly calling that moment the “Russell Crowe Incident” (he found this nickname amusing), but it was at the time quite distressing for my colleague. We have added measures for dealing with possible stresses related to these events, as a colleague will take over desk if one feels they are unable to continue after the stress of such an encounter.

Another thing that struck me was even with our security department being only around the corner, women in our workplace felt unsafe working the single shift days on the weekend. Given the prevalence of misogynistic attacks, whether they be verbal or physical, endemic to society today, this is completely understandable, but to have the fear even in a workplace as nice and accommodating as mine, where 99.9% of users are laid back and kind to staff, was something I didn’t see coming. I guess that speaks to the prevalence of the problem.

Professional Development Event Reflection -- Makerspaces

My time at SLQ's Makerspaces day was very informative for my professional development. I learnt a lot. For one, I learned just how 'on the cusp' we are with the emergence of 3D printing. We had a lecture from someone whose expertise in design may not have been at an academic level, but with access to the resources at the CSIRO, as well as other libraries, he was able to read up on 3D printing, and begin to print his own stuff.

It was inspiring to hear about all the leaps and bounds being made with this technology. We even made little take home robotic toys.

3D printing is a fantastic opportunity for libraries to further integrate themselves into the digital landscape. This is one in action:

I saw the Makerspaces day as an eye-opener to where my career can go in the future. This is of course the far future, but eventually the digital will replace standard printing and scanning, and we'll make our own data and real-life objects organically.