NPSIG objectives

  • To empower new professionals to be involved in their national associations and with IFLA to become new local and international leaders.

  • To connect new professionals and new professionals supporters to share experiences, opportunities and make new friends and colleagues from all over the world, mainly through social media and online events.

  • To offer first quality free training and knowledge exchange opportunities through online webinars, open programmes and satellite meetings.

Leadership team

NPSIG official team has changed significantly during the reporting period as follows:

  • Vesna Vuksan, Convenor 2017-2019 (Serbia)
  • Antoine Torrens, Co-convenor 2017-2019 (France)
  • Andres Reinoso, Information Coordinator 2017-2019 (Argentina)
  • Assane Fall, Social media Coordinator 2017-2019 (Senegal)
  • Magdalena Gomulka, Volunteer coordinator 2017-2019 (Poland)

In addition to the leadership team, NPSIG introduced new roles of Associates in August 2017:

  • Andrew Finegan 2017-2019 (Australia)
  • Marija Simunovic 2017-2019 (Croatia)

Maria Violeta Bertolini (former Convenor) joined IFLA HQ while Milan Vasiljevic (former Co-Convenor) and Katia Shklyar (former Information Co-Coordinator) left the team after their two year term.

NPSIG Activities from September 2016 to August 2017

IFLA/ALA New Librarians, Global Connection Webinar Series

NPSIG launched a survey in September 2016 with the aim of crowdsourcing the ideas to identify topics for the 2017 IFLA/ALA free webinars. The most popular topics included Librarians of the Future: (5) Changing scenario of Libraries or Modern Libraries /Role of libraries in a sharing economy, (4) Library Design Tools and Techniques / Design and co-design, (4) Research data management / Altmetrics, (3) Intellectual Freedom for libraries and journalists, (3) Marrakesh Treaty / Access to information for people with disabilities and (3) Introduction to Knowledge Management Systems for libraries.

On October 10th 2016 free IFLA/ALA webinar was held: “Utilizing Partnerships to Expand Professional Development Opportunities Worldwide”. Keynote Sandra Hirsh, Director and Professor, San Jose State University School of Information, USA talked about “Professional Development Outcomes of a Globally Based Virtual Conference Partnership : A Library 2.0 Case Study”. Speakers included Susan Schnuer and Svetlana Gorokhova “20 years of Russian – U.S. partnerships: Lessons learned”, Alyson Dalby “Rethinking mentoring: online, international peer mentoring with the International Librarians Network”, Magdalena Krasowska-Igras “Challenges and benefits of international cooperation for libraries”. Moderator was Matilde Fontanin – IFLA CPDWL and AIB (Italian Librarians’ association).

Recording available at http://ala.adobeconnect.com/p6sau1ex211/.

First webinar in 2017 “​The Sharing Economy and libraries: does “access over ownership” ring a bell?” was held on March 8th, 2017. Keynote speaker was Loida Garcia-Febo who talked about “Librarians building capacity for advocacy through education”. George Needham, Director of the Delaware County District Library in Delaware, Ohio, presented “What I Wish I’d Known Then… and What I Wish I Knew Now” which was dedicated to the sharing economy with a special focus on new library professionals. Moderator was Vesna Vuksan – IFLA NPSIG.

Recording available at http://ala.adobeconnect.com/p4a9ni5ztr3/.

 

The webinar “Design Thinking: The Role of Library Staff in Participatory Design” was held on July 6th, 2017. Keynote Rolf Hapel talked about “New Ways of Working – a Danish approach to Design Thinking and other participatory methods in the libraries”, Steven J. Bell presented “To Adopt Change Be the Change: Opportunities for Staff Engagement with Design Challenges” and Sara Chiessi “The NewLib project: learning, testing and disseminating Design Thinking for libraries throughout Europe”. Moderator was Matilde Fontanin – IFLA CPDWL and AIB (Italian Librarians’ association).

Recording available at http://ala.adobeconnect.com/pn4w9cgu60ge/

 

Interview series

  • Women, information and libraries – an interview with Mathilde Koskas, convenor of WILSIG was published on NPSIG website on February 10th.

  • Contact has been made in Jerusalem and Jericho with Randa Kamal, former president of the Palestinian Library association. Randa Kamal works on setting up a new training structure for librarians in Palestine and New professionals provided her with advice about LIS students and current new librarians’ needs. A written interview is in preparation.

New professionals event preparation in France

NPSIG, together with French association CFIBD (Comité Français International Bibliothèques et Documentation), plans to organise a two-day event in January 2018 with IFLA new president Gloria Pérez-Salmerón as a guest of honour.

A French task force has been set up and some partners have been found. The event will take place on January 11th and 12th 2018 simultaneously at the National school for librarians and information science (Enssib) in Lyon and at the University library for languages and civilizations (Bulac) in Paris.

A website for the event has been created by NPSIG and CFIBD : http://nouveauxbibliothecaires.cfibd.fr

NPSIG in Global Vision Conversation

In July NPSIG participated in the IFLA Global Vision Conversation, producing a survey on our blog that was answered by 34 colleagues from around the world. We prepared a report that was presented to IFLA to join this global initiative.

IFLA WLIC 2017 participation

IFLAcamp #5 “Librarians on the move”, August 17th and 18th, 2017

We created a dedicated website and a teaser.

Day 1: IFLAcamp #5 unconference “Librarians on the Move” was held on August 17th at the heart of Wroclaw on the main market square at the Lower Silesian Library (DolnoÅ›lÄ…ska Biblioteka Publiczna im. Tadeusza Mikulskiego) from 9:00am to 5:00pm. 34 participants from 13 countries joined the event.

Director of the library Andrzej Tyws and IFLA President-elect Gloria Perez-Salmeron opened the event with warm welcome and words of encouragement and support. The event started with Creative Movement workshop by Anna Olkinuora from UtoUto performing arts company and it was about daring to give the body freedom of being an important part of creative processes, provoke mind and connect it with ideas through the different “logic”, also to brush up the ability of alternative from spoken word ways of communication. Afternoon sessions were focused on open space discussions, while topics were chosen by suggesting and voting using mentimeter.com. Participants split in 2 groups with altogether 4 topics:

Loida Garcia-Febo also joined the event as one of the NPSIG founders and great supporter of new professionals.

Day 2: Cycling for libraries was organized as a part of the IFLAcamp on August 18th in Wroclaw city area. The route included a mild road with stops at the points of interest. We have visited the following libraries:

  1. DolnoÅ›lÄ…ska Biblioteka Publiczna im. Tadeusza Mikulskiego (Lower Silesian Public Library). It’s the main regional public library in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship so we visited many interesting places: department working with children, Korean library, tape library and gallery under the plafond.
  2. Municipal Library in Wroclaw No. 12 (brand new Train Station Library). It’s the newest library in WrocÅ‚aw which is situated on the first floor in the Main Train Station. We heard about their amazing activities with children and teenagers (Manga Cafe, Japanese Night and Comics Reading Room on the balcony).
  3. The Ossolineum (The Library of the OssoliÅ„ski National Institute). The Ossolineum is one of the largest scientific libraries in Poland, second to none as far as the collections in the field of the humanities are concerned. Cycling librarians visited the fascinating exhibition “200 years of the Ossolineum 1817-2017”
  4. Library of WrocÅ‚aw University of Science and Technology. During this visit we saw two parts of the Library: traditional library and electronic Bibliotech.  The Traditional Library (with printed sources) remained in building A-1 where the former Library had its seat. The new building D-21 (Bibliotech) houses the Electronic Library (with digital resources), the Center for Science and Economy Cooperation, Contact Point for Technology Transfer and Research Laboratories.

We found sponsors to cover majority of the costs of refreshments/snacks for both days, printing of the vests, unconference materials: OCLC, Springshare, ARFiDO, and supporters for necessary logistics: Polish Librarians’ Association, Comité français international-bibliothèques et documentation (Cfibd), DolnoÅ›lÄ…ska Biblioteka Publiczna im. Tadeusza Mikulskiego, Finnish Library Association, HELMET.

Reading Flashmob, August 19

Announced only one day ahead, this “surprise” event gathered between 40-50 librarians who brought books in their own languages and read out loud on the main square Rynek in front of the library, followed by a short dance and freeze. The word spread quickly, especially thanks to the coverage by the National Library of Poland (Warsaw) which created a short footage.

NPSIG-Flashmob-Wroclaw-2017

Newcomers session, August 20

Convenor of the NPSIG, Vesna Vuksan, held a lightning talk “From first timer to committee member” at the Newcomers session in front of 481 participants and invited them to join NPSIG network and encouraged them to use the amazing opportunities for networking during the conference. Video will be available shortly.

Open Business Meeting, August 20

Our meeting was held unofficially near the conference venue and gathered 30 participants curious to get involved with NPSIG.
We introduced the leadership team and announced updates: Vesna Vuksan, Serbia, is a Convenor (2017-2019), and Antoine Torrens, France, who was Information Coordinator (2015-2017) is now Co-convenor (2017-2019).

Outgoing team members: Milan Vasiljevic, Qatar (Co-Convenor 2015-2017) and Katia Shklyar, Finland (Information Co-Coordinator 2015-2017)
Incoming team members: Andres Reinoso, Argentina (new Information Coordinator), Magdalena Gomulka, Poland (Volunteer Coordinator), Assane Fall, Senegal (Social Media Coordinator).

In addition, we introduced a new role of NPSIG Associate who is not on a leadership team, but works closely and continuously. Marija Simunovic from Croatia and Andrew Finegan from Australia accepted this role.

We introduced our plans during WLIC and until August 2018, and discussed about how new professionals can get involved in NPSIG.

Joint sessions

NPSIG jointly organized an Open session with Library Theory and Research Section:“Engaged Communities: Transforming the Librarian Role”, on August 23, Open session with IT section “Disruptions in library services: change as the new normal”, on August 23 and participated in Open session by NOIR SIG: “How a Focus on International Relations Can Add Value to Your Work – New Insights (Perspectives) on Sustainable Collaboration”, on August 24.

President-elect session “Making change happen: Leaders for United Library Field”, August 24

New Professionals SIG team and volunteers were invited by Gloria Perez Salmeron to participate in the session and facilitate the conversation at the tables. Convenor of NPSIG who is also on the IFLA International Leaders Program gave an introduction speech before the workshop with the topic of Involvement.

NPSIG Convenor participated in MLAS SC meeting I and II, on August 19 and 23.

Social media coverage

Facebook:

For 7 days NPSIG posted 26 times on official facebook page. The average number of people reached is 1512 per post, much higher than the average number. 5 videos were published, which had 7349 reproductions (an average of 1469 reproductions per video). One of the videos that had the biggest impact was the FlashMob, with 1091 views. The response of the people was very good, obtaining a total of 945 likes (almost 36 for each publication), 46 comments and shared 39 times.

Twitter:

During IFLAcamp and WLIC NPSIG tweeted 51 times. The average number of users reached per tweet was 1263. There were 480 likes and 266 retweets received, which gives an average of 9 likes and 6 retweets per post. The most viewed tweets had to do with the summary of IFLAcamp and the FlashMob.

IFLA professional unit communication award jury

Winner of the 2016 award, NPSIG decided not to get nominated again but to take part in the award jury.

A member of NPSIG leadership team read the submission forms, analysed units communication strategy and action, and discussed them with the other members of the jury so that a decision could be made.

Social Media, Mailing Lists and Blog

The NPSIG is connected and reaches out to the global library community regularly using mainly the following tools:

 

The NPSIG Leadership team has been very active in keeping all of these tools updated and communicating news and updates as regularly as possible.

Since August 2016:

  • 19 Blog Posts related to events and campaigns, guest and original content Blog Posts on NPSIG Blog
  • 3 news and 3 event on IFLA NPSIG Webpage

Current figures:

  • NPSIG Blog: 256 posts, 109200 views, 33325 visitors, 186 WordPress followers
  • IFLAcamp #5 website: 1192 views, 399 visitors (April – August 2017)
  • 4950 likes of the NPSIG Facebook Page (772 new since August 2016)
  • 2740 followers in NPSIG Twitter (319 new since August 2016)
  • 71 subscribers, 15489 views on NPSIG YouTube Channel
  • 584 subscribers to New Professionals Discussion Group Mailing List

Communication

We have been using the Zoom platform intensively since April, 2017 (appx. 10 times), WhatsApp daily and emails.

Reports and Action Plans

The NPSIG submitted the Action Plan 2016-2017 and the Annual Report 2015-2016 as requested by IFLA HQ. These documents are available in the NPSIG Wiki.

Respectfully submitted by Vesna Vuksan, NPSIG Convenor, on behalf of the NPSIG Leadership team, August 10, 2017.