It was great to attend the STEMM Mini Away Day this morning. It was good to get the opportunity to speak with colleagues who I’ve never met before and to hear their ideas and what is working well in their libraries but also the challenges that they are facing too. It was quite a relaxed event, beginning with some group discussions which were then followed by some lightening talks.
Communication and collaboration came out as quite a key topic with much discussion around the new STEMM SharePoint, including its advantages and the issues associated with it. Access for users from the Medical Library and from the Judge is problematic but hopefully is now/will be resolved. Although colleagues were very much agreed that communication and collaboration is a good thing, colleagues sometimes feel bombarded with the amount of emails they receive and then having to check SharePoint etc. on top of this can be quite overwhelming. John Clarke has asked for any suggestions regarding how to make the STEMM SharePoint better. There was also a suggestion there was a suggestion that the Medical Library CPD blog could flow into the STEMM SharePoint and then colleagues from other libraries could benefit from this.
Veronica and Charlotte Smith (Engineering) gave great lightening talks on different ways to present training including ‘pick and mix’ training to suit NHS employees that doesn’t rely on the use of technology, but a card sorting exercise instead. Whereas Charlotte made use of Lego when she carried out some co-teaching in her session, to provide a foundation for the concept of data which can sometimes feel quite abstract.
Lynne is collating all of the feedback and suggestions from both of the away days and will be disseminating this in due course.
Medical Library Staff CPD 