The library team started working from home in March 2020 and have had to adapt quickly to the new environment the pandemic has brought. For example, our library trainee Sonia started cataloguing books from home.…
There’s been a big turnaround of staff at Bradford! The physical library space was closed to readers at the beginning of the pandemic and we also said goodbye to Lead Librarian Federica Bianchini, who moved on to Bradford Care trust. After a nine month period where the service was delivered by library assistants Louise and Caroline, I was appointed as Knowledge and Resources Librarian at the start of January. It’s been a steep learning curve, never having worked in an NHS library before, and I’m grateful to everyone, both at Bradford and in the wider network of librarians in the North, who have been there to answer all my questions.…
I have recently completed a Libraries, Archives and Information Services Level 3 Apprenticeship. As I started my apprenticeship in late 2019, it was delivered as a Framework; however the course has recently been replaced by a Library, Information and Archive Services Assistant apprenticeship standard. Due to the change this post will focus on my experience of completing an apprenticeship, rather than the content of the course itself.…
The library team is much depleted and currently consists of me at the moment as both my library assistants have moved on recently. Linda retired and went to live in Spain and Sam found another job outside the NHS. I hope to appoint a new assistant librarian shortly.…
2020 has been a difficult year for the Library at Blackpool, with 2 members of staff (including the Manager) on long term sick leave since June 2019 and of course the COVID-19 Pandemic. However, it has not diminished our attempts to provide service to our patrons, the Trust and Education Centre. The year of 2020 saw the Library actively involved in a number of initiatives and developments including the running of a Staff Crèche, preparing and packing Gift Packs for “first-line staff as part of the Blue Skies Charity Office and being involved in NHS promotions. We also in December 2020 welcomed our new LKS Manager Linda Kalinda.…
In March this year, a long established senior library assistant in my team is due to retire. We are a Trust in financial special measures, the site libraries in our Trust only have the capacity to hold one staff member behind the counter areas and ensure social distancing. The question is, how am I going to induct and train a new staff member if there can only be one person on site at any one time?…
During 2020 many LKS staff across the North rapidly mobilised into a variety of roles across their organisations to support the response to the Covid-19 Pandemic. In the second of 2 articles, 9 of these staff reflect upon their experiences and share their advice for anyone considering redeployment.…
The article below is the first of two in which LKS staff from across the north reflect upon their redeployment experiences. “I went in as ops manager and have never done that before and [it] wasn’t library related. We looked after the whole patient journey from an admin point of view from admission, discharge, and the patient flow.” Steve Glover: redeployed as Duty Ops Manager, NHS Nightingale North West…
Organising accommodation bookings for the hospital, coordinating, and distributing donations, operating a COVID-19 hotline, screening staff and patients on arrival to protect those at high risk, fit mask testing, working in the Nightingale hospital, or supporting staff welfare efforts managing bids to improve staff spaces were some of the roles our library and knowledge service (LKS) colleagues from across the North took on in 2020.…
In the year 2000, thankfully, we all survived the ‘millennium bug’ that was going to see off Y2K (as it was called). The World Wide Web was about 10 years old and becoming known as the internet; Internet Explorer was about to launch as version 6.…
