Fieldwork placement journal

Queensland University of Technology

Science and Engineering Faculty
IFN620 Professional Practice

For any questions regarding your fieldwork placement, please contact:

Kathleen Smeaton
Associate Lecturer
Information Systems School
Science and Engineering Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
k.smeaton@qut.edu.au

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1.How to use the fieldwork journal

Please complete one fieldwork journal for each of your placements.

1.1. Structure of the journal

The fieldwork journal is structured as follows:
Section 2: About you
Section 3: Details of work placement
Section 4: An overview of your host organisation
Section 5: Your reflections on your placement
Section 6: Your evaluation of the placement
Section 7: Your evaluation of your own performance

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2.About you
Name
Student number
Email address
Year of enrolment in
Professional Practice
Expected graduation
date

Neray McBride
n9036954
neray.mcbride@connect.qut.edu.au
2014
December 2016

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3.Details of work placement

Please provide details of your placement.
Organisation
Address of work
location
Manager/ team leader
Industry supervisor
Email
Phone
Dates of placement
Hours

James Cook University

PO Box 6811, Cairns QLD 4870 AUSTRALIA
Kate Wanchap
kate.wanchap@jcu.edu.au
0742321033
23-26 August 2016
25 hours

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4.Host organisation
4.1. Overview

Provide details about organisation you have been working in. What are its goals? Is it part
of a larger organization? What is the relationship to the parent organization, if it is a
subordinate body?
James Cook University Library Cairns Campus aims to provide knowledge services to
support the university in having access to resources, collections, learning facilities and
service both on/offline

4.2. Your role

List the main activities you worked on during the placement and the area/s you worked
in.

Information was gained on various roles:

o Liaison Librarian
o Client Service Librarian
o Library Technology Specialist
o Client Service Assistants
Participated in training on:
o AGLC Referencing
o Pexip
o Library Carpentry
Assisted with EndNote workshop and InfoHelp Desk
Worked on a project to find Libguides on Thesis in Australia & Internationally.
Noted information on the style/layout of the libguides and how the information
was presented (text, screenshot or interactive)
Attended a webinar on Gamification engagement with digital literacies

4.3. Clients
Think about the range of clients who use the information centre in person on through
remote access. Who are the clients? What are their needs? Do different groups have their
own specific individual needs? How well do you think their needs are being met? How is
the service promoted to clients? Is this promotion effective?
Clients are primarily JCU students and staff. Other groups accessing the library include
other libraries, prospective students and staff; JCU alumni; the community; the
Universitys partners and other stake holders

4.4. Legislative and policy requirements

Are there any legislative or external policy requirements that must be applied? List these
here and comment if you wish.
For example, privacy, copyright, FOI, purchasing, budgeting, contracts, design
Policies in place are Client Services Charter, Copyright, Collection Development
Guidelines and Library use policy

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4.5. Standards

What information standards are used in this information centre? Explain how and where
they are applied. Examples may include standards for document delivery, MARC, AS4390,
XML, RDA, ISO11620, Z39.50. Has the organisation developed any of its own in-house
standards?
N/A

4.6. Promotion and marketing

Provide details on the techniques and programs used to market the service: how are
users informed about services? Do you think these methods are effective - how good is
the marketing and promotion? Do you think it could be improved? How?
JCU Library does multiple things to promote and market their service. Use of social
media such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogspot is utilized to promote events and activities.
On campus the library has a small window display near administration. In the library,
displays or information are posted near the main entry, desk and major thorough fares to
gain attention. The methods cover online and offline promotion to inform staff and
students.
Information literacy initiatives
Discuss the initiatives taken by the organisation to support their clients information
literacy, including development of information skills. Are there special needs amongst
clients? How well do you think this organisation is addressing this issue? Do you think it
could be improved? How?
The JCU library in Cairns provides workshops on referencing and searching to support
students with development of literacy skills. The library staff also work with lecturers in
and out of class to help students develop their skills. Support in the library for people
with special needs with having a room for students to access equipment to assist in their
studies.

4.7. Performance measure

How is the performance of the information centre measured? Are certain evaluation
measures used for services, products, programs or staff, 4eg statistics, key performance
indicators (KPIs), benchmarking? What happens to the data that is collected? Does it feed
into the budgeting or planning processes?
Is there any way to determine the value of this service to the parent organisation? What
contribution do you think it makes to the productivity or profitability of the parent
organisation?
JCU library gathers data about performance from client surveys and catalogue statistics.
The data collected is shared with Clients using an infographic.

4.8. Professional development

Think about the staffing structure in your host organisation. Do the staff have different
qualifications? Why? How important is the concept of professional development in the

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organisation? Do you think that there is support for professional development within the
organisation? What do the staff do about their own professional development? Are the
staff members of ALIA or networking in different spaces (Twitter, elists etc).
Professional development is important at JCU library Cairns. During my placement there
were many opportunities for staff to do their own PD but also conduct it for other staff in
the library. The first day had the majority of the librarians on a video conference to
Townsville campus library to get some tips and advice around AGLC referencing. The
next day I sat in on a PD around the Pexip program and how it works/advantages that
one of the librarians presented to the team.

4.9. The future

Provide a summary of the issues that you think will confront the organisation within the
next 2-3 years. Some of these issues may include staffing levels, the need for skills and
training, system replacement, customer change, legislation, funding... How is the service
facing these issues? Can you identify specific strengths and weaknesses, opportunities or
threats that may have a significant impact? How are they going about planning for the
future? Do you think they are responding appropriately to the challenges placed before
them? Do you feel they are proactive or reactive? Is there anything that you feel could be
approached in a different way?
JCU Cairns library has had a staffing restructure to clearly define the two levels of
classification. The separation of roles to liaison and client service librarian is also a new
change to their system. These changes are recent so it will be interesting to see how it
continues in two years time. The restructure has made the roles more clearly defined
which should help the clients get more support from the librarians.
The library staff are being proactive with keeping up with technology and supporting
other staff with Open Data. By ensuring their knowledge and skills around technology
are current they are better able to assist and support their clients.

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5.Your reflections
5.1. Your objectives for this placement

What did you gain from this placement both in terms of professional knowledge and
skills and personal development opportunities?
My placement enabled JCU staff to pass on expertise and strategies used for their clients
and some PD opportunities. Working with the client services librarian and using some of
the resources (Libguides) in place for clients inspired me to utilize some of the resources
back at my workplace. Understanding the projects that are carried out by staff made me
reflect on the skills I have that are similar when doing units with staff back at school. The
Gamification webinar I attended helped to develop and inspire more ideas for orientation
for libraries and activities for students. Overall, JCU experience provided me with the
knowledge and encouragement on how to support my staff and students to prepare them
for university or to improve their literacy skills.

5.2. Activities
Were there activities you saw being performed during the period that you have not been
introduced to previously at QUT? If so, please describe them and your reactions, etc.
All activities that were sighted were familiar and had been introduced in some form
during the course.

5.3. What it means to be an information professional

Did any incidents or responsibilities help you to understand what it means to be an
information professional?
The amount of help with technology that was given by JCU LIS staff has shown how
information professional responsibilities have changed. The questions asked around how
to use a device or where to find things online were regularly asked with referencing or
resource questions only a minority. These questions have shown to me that an
information professional role has expanded with technology and clients need more help
in accessing information and skills around technology.

5.4. Your performance

Were there areas where you were expected to perform, but in which you encountered
difficulties? How did you try to resolve these?
The only area I found difficult in was assisting in an EndNote workshop since I hadnt
used the program before. However, I was able to assist a technology question in
general. Providing information on LibGuides about Theses was something I felt I did
well in the time I had and met the expectations set.

5.5. Your reflections

Write a reflection of 300-500 words about how the fieldwork placement has influenced
your appreciation of yourself and your approach to being a professional.
The following questions may help you explore this:

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1. What did you hope to achieve during this placement? Did you achieve it?
2. What questions arise for you about yourself or the profession?
3. Is there any aspect of the fieldwork that you experienced or observed that you wish
to explore further?
4. Were there any emotional reaction/ hunches that you had during the placement?
5. Did you experience any confusion?
6. Could you analyse any disagreements you encountered?
One important area that you should consider as you reflect is the importance of generic
capabilities in the workplace. Generic capabilities include the skills, attitudes and
attributes which are integral to your own self-development, so extend beyond the
discipline knowledge you have gained through the academic units you have studied
during the course. They encompass capabilities such as oral and written communication,
teamwork skills, critical thinking and problem solving, information literacy, ethical
behaviour, social responsibility, understanding of the corporate and political environment
in the workplace and personal self-management.
You might like to think about your impressions about the current level of your own
generic capabilities and whether your workplace experiences led to you drawing on, and
developing some of these generic capabilities?
By selecting an academic library for placement I was wanting to understand the role and
expectations of a university librarian. The splitting of the roles into liaison and client
services librarian does seem to summarise the roles carried out at the university library.
It was interesting to see how much technology knowledge and skill was required across
both roles. Listening to the liaison librarian discuss how they help researchers to set up
ORCID profiles and using altimetry to provide a visual of online activity on research was
interesting. The client service librarian is available for online info help and regularly gets
called to the desk to help students connect to the Wi-Fi or download EndNote.
During my fieldwork, I couldnt help comparing the academic librarian role to my Teacher
Librarian role and wondering what I could do further to prepare my students for the
academic library. The expected increase in technology and the skills and knowledge
involved were similar when comparing roles, however, I am more interested in
technology and its use than some librarians were at JCU. Supporting lecturers with
resources and students with referencing was something that was similar. The difference
was the clients/students are older and the library had some self-help features like
laminated handouts or LibGuides where students could increase their skills/knowledge
without librarian support. Using some of these ideas at school could help better prepare
students in the senior school for university study.
There were two areas that the field work brought forward that I would be interested in
exploring further. The Open Data idea where researchers are having to share their
research data and how liaison librarians support this is very interesting. The liaison
librarian role will change further as Open Data becomes more important for researchers,
definitely an area to keep investigating. Similar to this area was Open Refine brought up
in the Library Carpentry session. While briefly discussed, it seemed like an area to
explore further as Open Refine is an easy clean up data tool which most of the librarians
were excited about. However, some basic coding is needed to control the software which
interested me but not some of the other librarians.

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6.Your evaluation of your performance

6.1. My development

Knowledge, skills or attitudes that I believe have improved through fieldwork:

Knowledge of the broad context of the information environment
Information seeking
Information organisation and access
Information services, sources and products
Generation of Knowledge
Knowledge, skills or attitudes that I would like to develop further: (in particular, any
comments arising from exit interview with supervisor)
Information architecture
Information management

6.2. Self-evaluation
The quality of my work has been:
Excellent

Good

Fair

Poor

Fair

Poor

The quantity of my work has been:

Excellent

Good

Therefore, overall I would evaluate my work performance at this time:

Excellent

Good

Fair

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Poor

7.Your evaluation of your fieldwork placement

This evaluation should be completed at the conclusion of your placement.
Please complete each of the statements set out below by checking one of the boxes. Add
any comments or explanation beneath if necessary.
1. The knowledge and skills learned during fieldwork with the agency was:
Outstanding

Moderate

Average

Adequate

Inadequate

2. In relation to my own goals/accomplishments the fieldwork was:

Highly relevant

Moderately
relevant

Average

Moderately
irrelevant

Totally
irrelevant

3. Work supervision (i.e. support & feedback) provided in this organisation was:
Extremely
helpful

Quite helpful

Moderately
helpful

Not very helpful

Unsatisfactory

4. The level of job satisfaction of the fieldwork experiences provided was:

Excellent

Very good

Good

Not very good

5. The period I spent on the fieldwork placement was:

Too long
About right

Not good at all

Too short

6. The features of my fieldwork that I considered most valuable were:

Understanding the structure of the academic library field and the role descriptions
7. The features of my fieldwork that I considered least valuable were:
None
8. Fieldwork might be improved for me (e.g. academic/career relevance, potential for
professional growth, degree of challenge etc.) by:
Having career relevance

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