IN DEPTH
Librarianship in a digital world
Taking the skills learned as a librarian and applying them to digital projects has provided a space to learn and develop for Denice Penrose. Here she explains how she has embraced these digital opportunities and put her knowledge to good use.
I LOVE the slogan “Librarian – the original Google”. It refers to a time when librarians were the gatekeepers of knowledge. The internet has made information ubiquitous, but as any librarian knows, access alone doesn’t equal effective information retrieval, or the ability to evaluate the results. Some might suggest that librarians are a dying breed – and we often field the ques- tion “what does a librarian do?” – but the skills developed in information storage and retrieval are universal, and translate readily from physical to digital information. If you doubt this, ask yourself how often friends and family (and clients/users) tell you the information is not online, but using your skill in phrasing search terms, you find it quickly. Information retrieval is only one facet of information science, although perhaps the most public facing. But organising and storing information, understanding informa- tion structures is perhaps the most useful. It allows us to take a disorganised mess and turn it into something structured, searchable and therefore useful. It is this skill that is vital in working with data and digitisation projects.
I used to manage multiple libraries in FE. Ultimately, endless budget cuts made the task almost impossible, and I left the field. I found my skills translated readily to organisational roles, and then into working on academic research projects in the digital humanities, which satiate a drive to learn and work with
46 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Denice Penrose, Director, Technically Minded, is an Information Professional and Learning Technologist. She has worked extensively in library management, implementing digital solutions within educational settings.
information, and also provide the challenge of developing new skills. It is fascinating how the skills gained in libraries translate to this sector. My roles are fixed-term, as the research is funded by money from the research councils. This may not suit everyone, but I particularly love the flexibility, and take on multiple contracts at the same time, as well as work in other sectors. I love the freedom, independence, and ability to shape my working life as I want. Most recently, I worked on the Connected His- tories of the BBC, (CHBBC) a project based at the University of Sussex and partnering with the BBC. A team of academics worked together to digitise and connect seven oral history collections by and about the BBC and to join them in a free, publicly searchable catalogue. Initially, I worked on project admin but ultimately took responsibility for the
October-November 2023
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