What have you been reading on the Vable blog in 2020?

I recently took a holiday to catch my breath, and on my return I thought I'd look at the figures behind the Vable current awareness strategy blog. I was interested to see which posts were the most popular between January - June 2020, and find out if there were any common themes. 

Where can I find online library courses?

This popular blogpost was sparked by a Twitter discussion about the challenges information professionals faced when accessing continuing professional development (CPD). In January, I wrote about the many library and information conferences being held, although in reality I assumed I'd only get to two of them. 

My friend and I agreed that there were many legitimate reasons why you might be physically unable to attend talks, seminars, conferences, and other local and international networking events. Then suddenly nobody was able to attend anything and by June we were already accustomed to travelling all over the world - virtually! 

Why librarians are amazing in a time of crisis?

Depending on where you are in the world, you may or may not be back in your place of work. I suspect that there will be a lot of false starts as governments attempt to keep pace with scientific developments. As I stated in this blog, we still need to keep working as best we can because our organisations are relying on us. 

And we are working hard. Information people have demonstrated flexibility, creativity, and continue to offer library services remotely. Those information people who work in legal, commercial or financial industries have moved beyond the immediate logistical challenges, and have used their considerable library management skills to learn and strike out into a brave new world.

A labour of love: How to build a wiki from scratch?

I'm grateful to all Vable's guest bloggers; they offer fresh ideas and an interesting perspective on a variety of topics. You can’t navigate the web without coming across a wiki of some sort which offers the answer you’re looking for in some form – text, image, link, citation, reference, or even open-access works. Julia Bhojoo discussed her exploration of wikis, and what it takes to build one.  Read her wiki story here.

How can I deliver training and inductions in a post-COVID-19 world?

This popular post came out of an online panel discussion hosted by City Legal Information Professionals (CLIG). The broad theme was how library services were handling the challenges posed by COVID-19. Although the agenda was wide ranging, the issue that got me thinking was training and on-boarding.

As September looms, and a fresh intake of trainee lawyers commence their training contracts, your plans for online inductions should be taking shape. I’ve written about training and trainee lawyer inductions previously, but coronavirus means we need a new approach. Where are we now, and what can we do?

What are people buying during this pandemic?

Another Vable guest blogger was creating popular posts between January and June 2020. Roberto Rivero explored some ideas sparked by the economic ups and downs caused by COVID-19. In this piece he explored what people were buying, and he made use of the business press, current awareness alerts, and Google to assess the market.

As he stated, it’s unrealistic for most of us to come up with a Netflix or Zoom in the short-term but his research made for inspiring reading. Here at Vable we are proud to have enabled remote working library and information teams to supply current awareness to legal, financial, academic, government and health professionals.

As these blogposts show, regular Vable readers are interested in learning and finding out how they can improve their skills. You all enjoy sharing stories about facing and overcoming adversity - and you want the best outcome possible for your end-users. And this makes me optimistic about the future of the library and information profession. 

What did you enjoy reading on the blog; what did you find most useful; what have you learned?