Library News

My name is Lakshmi Banner and I’m the Library Team Leader at Bradford College. I have been in this post for four years – before that I was an Academic Liaison Librarian and I still have subject responsibilities alongside my team leader role. The library team includes librarians, library assistants and the senior library assistant, and we have recently appointed two Library and Academic Coaches which is a hugely exciting development.

I’m delighted to win this award, knowing as I do how many dedicated and creative professionals are working in our sector. It really is an honour to be nominated by my peers, reading some of the wonderful things that were said about me, and then actually being selected by the awards team. I would like to thank CoLRiC for organising annual national awards which allow us to celebrate library staff and services. As a new team leader in 2019, they certainly inspired me to aim higher and nominate some of our projects and people. Four years later and we are award winners of both awards (The Jeff Cooper Award and the CoLRiC Innovative Practice Award), which is an achievement I am very proud of.

I get inspired by other college and university libraries and find it useful to attend webinars, online training sessions and discussions where possible, listening to other approaches and chatting with colleagues. Recent free webinars about ChatGPT and decolonising the curriculum were particularly useful and have helped inform our own projects. I am of course inspired by my own colleagues both in the library and the wider college. I would have to mention the ESOL and Progression to Learning and Work departments, who work closely with us and embody the college’s commitment to Transforming Lives. Working with students and teaching staff to co-deliver meaningful activities and services really is the highlight of my role, and I learn so much from them. I think the key to a successful library team is collaboration and communication. We collaborate with our teaching staff, other support teams – particularly Student Services - and of course our students, all of whom give us ideas and feedback which challenge us to keep improving and innovating. I think communication and consultation within the team is essential to make sure that the service is harnessing our varied interests and talents. In our library we have colleagues who are amazing at engaging students, others who are great at social media, our resident film expert, our web designer, those good with data and IT systems. If I have a strategy, it is to encourage involvement, listen to all ideas, give confidence to the team to get involved, and try and facilitate where I can.

The obvious answer is the legacy of the move to online learning and teaching that took place during lockdown. The library could really demonstrate our value as we already had a strong online presence in the form of e-books, e-journals and online guidance. We were able to develop our website to become the primary online source of library services and we introduced a Chat function which was hugely popular. Post-pandemic we have found that many students prefer to use online resources and continue to request support via Teams. This particularly benefits those who find it difficult to meet on campus due to family or work commitments, or who are on campus just one or two days a week. Using Teams, particularly with the camera switched on, allows us to retain that sense of personal support. I’ve also found that when students use the share screen function while using their own computer and while in their own study environment, their confidence improves. They can follow our guidance while doing the clicks and searches themselves, and then can continue once our chat has ended. It also lets us see the challenges that students have when off-campus and reminds us of some of the distractions that they cope with. Many of these sessions have been interrupted by small children, cats, knocks at the door… ! Other positive changes include the use of Teams for internal communications as it allows groups to meet and collaborate without having to find a shared time and space to meet. In the Library we still have a lively informal Teams chat, while our various library channels allow us to discuss work issues or ask questions with everyone having an opportunity to contribute. There are also various cross-college Teams which have really improved communication and engagement across the institution, such as the Bradford College Microsoft Educator community which aims to improve digital competencies and includes webinars, Q&As and celebrations of individual achievements.

What I value most in our library is empathy towards our students. Further Education colleges welcome an incredible diversity of people every year who attend for various reasons, but all come with the desire to develop their potential. Those of us who work in libraries are in the privileged position of supporting them at all stages of their education, from entry level through to masters. We must be sensitive to their different backgrounds and experiences of education; many will never have used libraries before and may feel anxiety when using them. Libraries are the spaces where people come to learn how to learn, to direct their own study and to learn outside of the classroom. I feel that our staff need to be knowledgeable in print and electronic resources, but also have the skills to coach, encourage and support. We are lucky to have access to a range of training within college such as on trauma-informed practice, which aims to increase our understanding of how personal circumstances can impact on the behaviour of some of our students. As a team, we have received training from our SEND colleagues on working with students with Autism and Dyslexia, and it would be great to develop that knowledge further. I would also love to have some staff trained on BSL and Makaton.

If I had a limitless budget, I would encourage all staff to continue to study, whether to progress in their careers or to further their own interests and knowledge. I believe that a Level 7 Apprenticeship in Librarianship is in development; this could be a chance for library assistants to move into librarianship. There are also teaching, guidance and advice qualifications that would really benefit the service. Any form of study is a useful reminder of what it is like to be a student, and I also believe strongly in life-long learning. If you work in a college, why not benefit from all it has to offer!

The aspect of AI/Machine Learning that is having the most impact on education currently seems to be ChatGPT. Obviously, there are huge concerns around cheating, and it appears that Turnitin isn’t completely able to spot its use. Some lecturers I’ve spoken to feel they will be able to identify the discrepancies in student work, but others are concerned – particularly if students are new and lecturers haven’t been able to check any written work. Some feel we may have to go back to paper for at least some assessments or use vivas which can be stressful for students. Despite the challenges, it does seem that if we are willing to embrace the technology and encourage students to use ChatGPT ethically, there are huge possibilities. Students can use it at the start of their research to generate ideas and decide on which aspects of their topic to focus on. They can ask for more detail on sections they don’t understand or are more interested in, and they might also request examples, which they would be expected to research further themselves. They may also learn about academic writing – ChatGPT usually provides an introduction and conclusion, while paragraphs are structured clearly and logically. However, regardless of how good these technologies seem, the same fundamental challenges exist as we saw with Google as far as authenticating the veracity of the information. ChatGPT does produce ‘fake news’. When asked for a list of resources on a certain topic, I found that book titles were completely made up, but it wasn’t until I checked on the publishers’ websites that I realised. It’s also important to note that ChatGPT is using data only up to September 2021 to form its language model, so there are already two years of information since then which will not be included in the results. In addition, the same biases existing on the Internet will be replicated in ChatGPT results. When a PGCE lecturer and I used ChatGPT for lesson planning, asking for a list of key educators in the UK and worldwide, all the results were European white men and further questions needed to be entered to elicit a more diverse list (we did end up with a pretty impressive resource in the end). Students will need to be aware that they must test and check all the information provided – they cannot take ChatGPT as an authoritative source but should find evidence to evaluate each point. Educators will need to ensure that this message is communicated successfully, training students to recognise the importance of critiquing information and using reliable sources in their work.

Of course, librarians have always had these conversations, but while access to information becomes more democratised, and with the proliferation of polarised and inaccurate information all over social media and the Internet, it becomes ever more vital that we teach the value of critical thinking. With all this in mind, it is clear that teachers, librarians and academic skills staff need to have a lot more cross-college conversations on the best way to manage ChatGPT in our institutions.