Andy Tattersall at Internet Librarian International

Andy Tattersall

As with the previous six years (it might be longer), I attended the popular and exciting conference Internet Librarian International. I've given numerous talks there over the last few years and had a year off last year to moderate a really superb session titled 'Come and feel the love'. This year I returned to the speakers lectern, not to deliver one, two, but three talks. I had pitched two in which were accepted and had an invite by the conference organisers to make it a trio. This put me in the brackets as such luminaries Phil Bradley and Marydee Ojala by giving multiple talks this year.

The first was at the end of day one where I talked about the video collections I have created as part of my role using tools like Adobe Spark and Videoscribe. I was alongside a really good presentation on content creation by The King's Fund by Hong-Anh Nguyen (a member of Sheffield's iSchool Alumni) and Deena Maggs. With three presentations, I felt like I was going into a sporting tournament where I was keen to get my first fixture under my belt. 

The next one followed after hearing David White from The University of Arts deliver a superb keynote. David is a very engaging speaker who I've had the pleasure of delivering a webinar alongside him for Jobs.ac.uk a couple of years ago. His talk was on the opportunities to be had for librarians in a world of misinformation and people looking for quick and agreeable answers. I then gave my talk on the future or research support and potential roles that could appear in the future to deliver them at the coal face of research. I was introduced by Phil Bradley which was a real pleasure and was fortunate to have quite a packed room for the session. At the the end there was some useful debate as to where we might be going with this.

Finally, to finish on a high note I presented in the same session as four wonderful Irish librarians who between them have created two really informative and entertaining podcast series for their institutions - pretty much in their own time. The first of the talks was delivered by the team who the produce LibrariansAloud Podcast which regularly interviews professionals from within the library and information sector. I was also pleased to be in the same session as colleagues who deliver the enjoyable Shush Radio Podcast who spoke about their work making podcasts to promote their library service at University College Cork. My talk was about the work that myself and fellow ScHARR information specialist Mark Clowes undertakes each year to run a 24 hour pop up radio station to support the Inspiration for Life event to raise funds for local cancer charities. As a result of the session I was taken off to a quiet spot to be interviewed by Laura Rooney Ferris from LibrariansAloud for a future podcast, where you will hear us solve most of the world's problems with the aid of good quality information.

As always Internet Librarian International is a well run conference with lots of energy that brings together regular faces as well as new ones. There was even a session for new professionals to help them on the right track career-wise. Another bonus of a really enjoyable conference was hearing that my book had sold out on the Facet Publisher's table, although I'm fairly certain they will have only packed one. Below are all my slides from the conference, the 24 Hour Inspire set seem to have gone strange after being imported into Slideshare, apologies for that. Seriously, who would want to work with technology?

App hacks – how to curate educational apps from Andy Tattersall

Supporting the modern research cycle from Andy Tattersall

24 Hour Inspire pop-up radio station - Internet Librarian International 2017 from Andy Tattersall

24 Hour Inspire and the Pop up Radio Station

Mark Clowes

Andy Tattersall

For the last five years the University of Sheffield have hosted 24 hours of back to back 30 minute lectures in aid of local cancer charities. The event was started in 2012 by Tim Richardson who delivered 48 lectures over the course of 24 hours. Sadly Tim passed away in the following year due to the condition he was raising money to fight against. The event has continued with the support of many of Tim's colleagues and friends under the stewardship of Catherine Annabel. This year Andy Tattersall and Mark Clowes brought with them a pop up radio station to compliment this wonderful event.

Still standing after no/little sleep

The idea was simple, create a pop up radio station that played virtually nothing but vinyl records (well they are trendy again according to the young folks). Andy approached Catherine Annabel over a coffee some months earlier and she was instantly behind it. The idea was to use the student radio stream from Forge FM and take it over with staff playing tracks from their own collections, the only rule being 'vinyl playlists' or thereabouts. Mark and Andy are no strangers to playing on the radio and in clubs, both have a secret (well until now) hobby of collecting vinyl and playing on the airwaves and in clubs. Andy spent six years on the pirate radio stations overlooking Sheffield and playing up and down the country in underground clubs over a 12 year period, and currently hosts his own monthly radio show on the disco balearic station Purple Radio. Whilst Mark has also played at many parties and nights and releases a monthly podcast via his Mixcloud page under the guide of The Vinyl Librarian.

Dr Chris Sexton picks tracks for her Desert Island Disco

All of this could not be achieved without the support of many colleagues who were encouraged to come along and play their own records. We had Hadrian Cawthorne dropping some quality jazz-funk and Matt Robson playing indie classics from Journalism Studies. Whilst Chella Quint played a varied selection, busting out a few dance moves in the process. Whilst Chris Howett from the Student Union took listeners on a memory trip back to when he ran the seminal NY Sushi Night. Recently retired Stuart Barkworth from CiCS dusted down his trusty records in his attic to take listeners on an early morning journey through the late sixties and early seventies. Finally Graham McEleanery went post punk and electronic on the Thursday evening. All of this was made possible by Ian Knowles from CiCS who did all the fancy technical work and made sure the station ran well with support from colleagues. The Director of CiCS, Chris Sexton was always on hand, as an avid supporter of Inspiration for Life, bringing in food and snacks and listening to the live broadcasts as they happened.

Andy Interviewing Tony Ryan OBE

In addition we had various guests pop in to see us and chat whilst the real highlights were the five Desert Island Discos where guests picked six tracks, a book and luxury item to take to a desert island. The guests included, Dr Chris Sexton, Dr Mike Weir, Professor Tony Ryan OBE, Chella Quint and Catherine Annabel. 

Mark Clowes ran his own Sheffield pop music quiz which Pete Mella from CiCS won after a very tense tie-break. The manager of Forge FM, Luke Wilson (who provided us with the radio stream and licence) brought in his own records for a roundtable review. Being a student and liking new popular beat combos, his choices reviewed by a panel of four 'experts' with our own Artic Monkeys coming out on top, everything else was trashed.

The roundtable review panel

On top of that, Andy delivered a lecture as part of the proceedings in the main room on 'How to be a Digital Academic'. Already plans are afoot to run the radio station again with everyone who was involved last year to be part of the 2017 radio station. Whilst there are no shortage of potential candidates for the Desert Island Disco, so watch this space. It's not too late to donate, so if you want to help local teenage cancer charities, please go to the link below. Many thanks.

http://www.inspirationforlife.co.uk/ 

We hope to get audio feeds of the shows, which ran from 3pm on Thursday till 5pm on Friday, but for now enjoy Mark Clowes very early morning shows.