The Framework Five - Managing Information

Learners engage with relevant information in their disciplines, develop workflows and strategically handle many information formats, demonstrating identification, collection and collation. When creating and using information, learners will understand value and ethics. Learners should appropriately attribute, citing their sources and develop practical skills to manage their range and variety.

Personal
I collect Beatrix Potter figures; it's a tradition started by my Granny who gave me a figurine as a present when I was young knowing I loved the books. After she died, my family has continued to give them to me as presents. I have more than 70 now and when it became difficult for my family to keep track of the ones I have, I started to create a list. When I learned my cousin had an accident where some of hers fell off her shelf and got damaged, I thought for insurance purposes I should document them. So I took two photos of each figure: one of the figure itself and one of the bottom where the maker's mark is stamped. Then I input the information into an Excel spreadsheet. When I was given a published collector's guide, I used it to identify the stamps, the variations in age and style and how much each figure is worth. It was also useful to work out which figures I didn't have already and which I would like. I looked at the pictures to see which I prefer and made a wish list. However that guide book quickly became out of date and a new one wasn't published. So I discovered a more recent list which has updated prices for the figures on the internet. So the Excel spreadsheet holds all the information on the figures I have, plus the ones I still need, their age, make, stamp and of course value. I have put it on the cloud as well for insurance purposes in case I lose the hard copy on my computer. It has been very successful for myself, my family has appreciated it as well because they know how much they should pay and it has meant I have been receiving far more figures!

Professional
Like many librarians, I use bibliographic software such as Mendeley or Zotero. I prefer Zotero as it was what I used during my library degree and I taught it during my time at Cambridge Judge Business School in 1-2-1s with students, during live demos in lecture theatres and small group teaching at Homerton College. We always made sure to emphasise that students should get familiar with the software and set it up as early as possible because it would be too late when it came to writing the first essay or assignment. The best work flow is to save everything you look at as you're doing your readings, your research and your searches. Creating folders for subjects, courses or assignments helps organise the sources better and it's easier to find what you need. I also used a Word document alongside it, typing or copying and pasting useful quotes, making sure to add the page numbers with them. This meant I had readymade citations and bibliographies when it came to writing my essays and projects. At Cambridge Judge Business School, we also had a team account and we saved interesting articles, books and electronic resources into it, such as for our Harry Potter themed teaching sessions.

It was as successful as it could be depending on the limitations of the software; it's good practice to check Zotero once you save the item that it had saved properly and make any edits to the information to make sure it was correct, had all the information that was needed and there weren't any weird errors or capitalisation. It also doesn't always recognise the item type, so you save it as a webpage and make the changes yourself manually. Then, when it came to adding the citations and bibliographies from Zotero into Word, they would be accurate. It has been very useful both personally and professionally for me, the teams I worked with and for the students.

In reading this all for thing four and writing this piece, it has made me realise I am equally at home managing information professionally and personally, in all aspects of my life. My examples demonstrate how I have worked with everyone in my life in a professional context and at home. Managing information in an ethical way comes naturally to me as I am a perfectionist, wanting to have all the information possible to hand, giving credit where it's due and needing to know where the information has come from. I feel this part of information literacy is where I'm strongest.

Re-Offender

The word wiki always reminds me of that Will Smith song: Wild Wild West. The song is good, but the film is bad.



My experience of wikis is pretty extensive as I’ve used them in practically every job I’ve had, except for my paper round, retail jobs and when I processed cheques for a bank. My typing skills come from that job, but it felt like I was working in a stereotypical movie office with the cubicles, alienation and looking at the back of someone’s head all the time, only without Steve Carell, less people going berserk and no water cooler moments. We even had a David Brent-alike boss, a Mackenzie Crook weirdo and an office romance.

Anyway, each of my workplaces used wikis in different ways. I’m going to have to remember them chronologically, which may also highlight how the use of wikis progressed. When I first left university, I had a temporary job doing data entry at the police station. I managed to make myself indispensable which lead me to become an admin assistant. I helped out in all different departments, had my own paper round and everything. I also got to meet criminals, process stop and search forms, see the things they seize/save in the property office including the armoury, cycle and drugs store, experience the darker side of life and discover that policemen are only human which is actually quite scary, unsurprising and altered the way I looked at life. The wiki was used so we could all access the databases, update the website and share documents. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had; the people, the varied work and the atmosphere of the place was so gratifying. I had real job satisfaction, which I know I'll never have on the same level again. Cambridge 2000

My next position was as a content editor for a hotel reservations company. There was a wiki as part of the website, which included a content editing section and a customer review section. We used the former to publish our hotel descriptions, edit profiles and process change requests, sending the proposed text to each other and to the hotels themselves. The latter we used to translate customer reviews into different languages, alter mistakes, though never changing the score or text of the actual review, and deleting any obscene remarks. I could tell you some stories, not as dramatic as the ones from the police station though, but I'm sworn to secrecy.

Lastly, I was a researcher. Here's where I worked, a lovely location, but not a lovely job:

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Now we didn’t use a wiki in that place, but we should’ve done as it would’ve made our jobs so much easier. It would’ve meant less work, less misunderstandings and a more efficient system. We received a lot of similar research requests and there wasn’t a search function in place showing what we’d already done; it meant hunting through folders which we often gave up on. There were also several requests from different people for the same project; the lack of communication was soul-destroying. A wiki would not only have meant less emails shooting around the office, but also have made it a more sociable and nicer environment. That’s one of the reasons why I left that place; there was a very intense sense of isolation, even within our small team, let alone the wider office. People even sent each other emails and instant messages, even when they were sitting next to each other. It really got to me and I felt like a deaf mute by the end! Idiotically, I changed jobs at the height of the financial crisis, I don't know how I got away with that; it could've gone horribly wrong.

That leads me to now. In our library, there is a wiki on our website; our internet portal where you can access our eBook library, electronic resources, book sale list, guides and tutorials, as well as lots of other information. The wiki ensures the whole team can update the website, add files and post announcements. The entire Judge Business School uses the platform and each course has its own website and therefore wiki. We are actually changing this platform soon to use Microsoft’s SharePoint software, thanks to a lot of hard work from our superb IT team, which means everything will be integrated, searchable and hopefully lead to better interdepartmental communication within the whole building. That last photo is mine