Photo by finchlake2000 on Flickr

I was lucky enough to attend yesterday’s South and Mid Wales Partnership Staff Conference 2010 (Twitter hashtag #swamp) which brought together all varieties of librarians from the region to the distinctly swampy-green Hotel Metropole in Llandrindod Wells. Days out like this are great for networking and staff development but the real value is the ideas and nuggets you can take back and incorporate into your own work. I came away with my head buzzing. A day’s reflection later and my thoughts had simmered down as follows…

Much of what we heard and discussed comes back to librarians feeling threatened, both by financial cuts and by a lack of understanding of the value we bring. Rather than being a negative, this generated a huge amount of positive and innovative ways of tackling this. The following is a high-speed, subjective round-up of the highlights for me:

Keep doing things better = often means do things differently.

1. 

   Image by Waka Jawaka on Flickr

   Balls! Recent years have seen the growing use of the “clicker” (or Voting System) to take rough-and-ready surveys and to increase participation in a teaching session. This was all swept aside yesterday by the triumphant return of the plastic balls in a bucket system: Powerpoint slides with a 30 second timer to give you the questions, colour-coded answers, grab a ball and put it in the corresponding bucket. Lots of movement, fast-paced, thought-provoking questions and lots of fun! Courtesy of the Swansea Public Libraries team.

2. Embrace Web 2.0 = “web pages you can do things with”. Key tips from Swansea Public Libraries: “Do it anyway and apologise later!”, find libraries that are already doing it well and learn from them, crowd-source so constant updating does not fall on one person. Not sure about the relevance of Web 2.0? It’s our job! Mark Hughes pointed out this CILIP statement: “As a library and information professional you will develop the ability to design, create, identify, locate, retrieve and exploit information in all formats.”

Information Literacy has never been more needed!

• New Information Literacy Officer for Wales, Joy Head, re-iterated the timely comparison that giving Wales 21st Century broadband without supporting digital literacy training is like being given a Porsche without having a driving licence. She put it much better than that but you get the gist!
• A quote from Martin Bean, the Vice Chancellor of the OU: “In my mind now the digital divide is much more about those that actually understand how to use and apply technology in their lives and their work as a necessity, rather than simply getting access to the technology per se,” (another one from Mark Hughes’ presentation)
• Discussion amongst the sectors present showed so much of what librarians do meets these needs but we are not good at pointing it out. This moves swiftly on to….

Making External Partnerships is Essential

This came out of both the Information Literacy strategy and Christine Clarke’s “Libraries Changing Lives” document. It was also fresh in my mind from the trending “Escaping the Echo Chamber” Prezi presentation by WoodsieGirl and theWikiMan which has been stirring up librarians all over the place.

Christine Clarke had a great set of “lessons learned” on how to do this effectively which could be applied to so many scenarios:

1. Talk the language of your partner: tailoring material to suit the audience is essential to get attention.
2. Put the impact on people first, not the library perspective.
3. External information adds value: quote non-library sources to support your case.
4. Try and quantify what you do in appropriate ways (e.g. generic social outcomes).
5. Use numbers people can visualise.
6. Get a fresh pair of eyes to look something over.
7. Use “for you this means….” and always bear in mind the “So what?” test.

Unfortunately I only have one link to share from the day so far but hopefully more will follow! Mark Hughes’ presentation on Twitter can be found on Slideshare.

Below are some cards I have been playing with, based on my Twitter friends.

I am disappointed that I was only given a grammar score of 95. Sam beats me with her perfect 100. Sharon Crossan (funkylibrarian, Mid-Wales Regional Development Officer) also beat me. Grrr. I must have missed out a verb somewhere in my tweets.

I do 0.28 tweets per day, this time just beating Sharon. Whereas Christine Davies does around 1 a day; Helen Hodges does one and a half.

I follow 44 people. Almost everyone beats me there. But I like to think that I am selective. Only Lis Parcell is more selective than me.

My average word length in a tweet is 4.8 characters. Paul Jeorrett of Glyndwr University manages 5.02, which is impressive.

I have 79 followers, which seems to be an average score. RSCWales has 168, which is expected; Vashti from Bangor University is extremely popular with 219 (recognition of her Web 2.0 knowledge – she will be speaking at Gregynog 2010 about Web 2.0).

Yes, it is all silly and pointless, but it is Friday afternoon… And is a good example of how Web 2.0 services allow their data to be remixed in new and original ways. The JISC MOSAIC competition looked at what could be done to reuse library data. One example is Aberystwyth University’s entry, which – among many other things – returns library lending data for any course along with the value of those loans (i.e. if the library hadn’t existed and students had been forced to buy the books or do without access). It also draws in links to related articles from the Guardian and New York Times websites. Have a play with it here.

What else could be done with library data? Could we combine a list of the subjects a student studies with the classmarks of new additions to library stock to create personal recommendations when they log into the VLE? Or scan the subject keywords of books borrowed by students, mix it with headings from an online news resource, and list the results when the students click on a ‘News’ link in the library portal? Not particularly great examples, but the age of mashup is becoming a reality.

I thought I would bring together a few tools or sites that I had played with over the last year:

• QR codes
• Cartoons
• Animoto
  
• Crosswords
• Quizzes

QR codes

The basics of these have already been covered by Sam. I have been following examples of use, from US studies of their potential, to commercial uses such as Google’s ‘Favorite Places’. I also tried things out using my work mobile phone, and was impressed at how easy it was. You just have to download some software to your phone if it isn’t already on there (I used QuickMark software but I have also heard good things about the Kaywa Reader). Then you can point your phone camera at QR codes and in a fraction of a second the code is deciphered and displayed on the screen. You can make your own (e.g. try here or here), or point at the code below.

How might libraries use QR codes? Below are a few ideas:

• QR code on textbooks in the library – scan to get a subject guide to resources that area (e.g. catering), including classmarks to look at, core texts, useful magazines, websites etc.
• Fiction collections – scan the code to get the e-book version, e.g. from
  Project Gutenberg if it is a classic text.
• Reference collection book – scan the code to go through to a reference
  website on that subject (e.g. online dictionary or style guide), or the library’s own virtual reference collection.
• Posters linking to the relevant web pages. Or notice boards could have
  QR codes next to headlines, which when scanned take the user through to a blog entry on that subject.
• Used as part of induction, for an innovative quiz where there are blocks of QR code information around the library, with a sort of treasure hunt following QR code clues on signs and hidden in some books. Students would be lent a phone if they don’t have their own. The hunt would involve using library resources such as the OPAC, and only if things are done in the correct order will they get the correct final code (which might open a safe; be a classmark for a book with a voucher in; it could be a map reference; or something more imaginative).
• Library cards could have QR codes with user information on, or to take the user to their library account on their phone so they can renew books etc (after some other form of authentication too, of course).
• Other uses for QR codes on a physical item, enabling users to see the
  catalogue record, reviews, similar items etc.
• On the OPAC so users can get locations, classmarks and item details onto their phone for finding item on shelves, or adding to bibliographies. This was done at Aberystwyth University as one of the mobile phone enhancements (the OPAC also has the ability to send an SMS with item details to a mobile phone). To view the QR code function, search the OPAC then click on the “QR code” link in the “Availability” section when viewing a record.
• To provide context specific help and information in the library, as
  at Huddersfield University.

Will any of this be commonplace in LRCs in 5 years? Let me know if you are
using them yourself!

Update 27 April 2010: I have just become aware of this article by Andrew Walsh, ‘Quick response codes and libraries’ (2009).

Cartoons

Librarians are always looking for ways to get information across to users. Pictorial methods are attractive, but not many of us have any artistic talent. That is where sites like Bitstrips come in, since with Bitstrips it is easy and quick to create a cartoon. You can design your own characters to appear in it, or use the hundreds that are provided on the site already. The system is easy to use – pose the figure, choose a facial expression, stick some props in the background, and add a text or speech bubble; then tweak until you are happy with it. The end result is that you can link to the cartoon on Bitstrips, or download it as an image to use in newsletters and on notice boards. Bitstrips are obviously aware of educational uses, since they have recently launched ‘Bitstrips for Schools‘.

I created a few for my RSC Wales job, see the RSC Wales LR Netvibes account. Also in my other role at Aberystwyth University, to promote our federated search tool. The fact that it is so easy to edit the cartoons means it is simple to go back in and create a Welsh version.

Animoto

I have always been a fan of Animoto. It is a site that lets you upload images and select music, and they get mixed together into a video slideshow which can then be viewed online, embedded on a webpage, or downloaded. In the early days you had to add words to an image yourself if you wanted text, but nowadays there are options to include titles and subtitles, and even to incorporate video clips. The basic version which creates short 60 second clips is free to use; however I took out a subscription so that I can create videos of any length.

I have used Animoto in various ways.

• Sometimes when I am doing a teaching session I like to have looped music and video playing as people come in and settle down: to help create an informal atmosphere, act as a border between the ‘outside world’ and the session proper, and possibly to raise some questions in advance of the session. This is an example I used in a session I ran on using multimedia resources.
• An attractive way of getting a simple message across.
• To promote a new service (ac yn Saesneg)
• As an ‘attract mode’ running on a laptop when you are on a stall e.g. a recent stall I ran demonstrating e-book readers had this animation playing to pull people over.
• A fun way of introducing people with photos and names.
• For your own projects outside of work e.g. presenting a poem, holiday snapshots.

Crosswords

LRCs often like to offer quizzes as ways of summarising information or reinforcing it later. Crosswords are an easy way to do this, something some users might enjoy (though they shouldn’t be over-used, and many students will hate them – it is just an alternative way of giving information). Creating a crossword by hand is a daunting task, and thankfully unnecessary! Lots of software is available. My favourite is Eclipse Crossword, which is free and simple to use, yet powerful and fast. If you haven’t tried it before, why not incorporate a quick crossword into one of your information literacy sessions, leaflets, inductions or competitions, or use one as part of a promotion of resources and services?

Quizzes

At the end of a teaching session it is good to include some way of reviewing the content. Institutions with voting systems or interactive whiteboards can use those, but there are many other options for running a quiz. One of my favourites at the moment is ‘Multiple Choice Quiz Creator‘, which resembles ‘Who Want To Be A Millionaire?’ in format and sounds. I like the fact that you only need a laptop/PC, speakers, and (ideally) a projector. Sometimes I get a student to take part, helped by the rest of the people at the session; sometimes I get people to call out answers; other times I put the lecturer on the hotspot (depending on the vibe of the session and how relaxed people are!) It has proven to be a fun way to finish off with a laugh, with a prize of some sort for the winner (e.g. a USB memory stick or some pens). The quizzes are free to play (since the display software has no limits), but the quiz creator programme itself is only free for thirty days. You can download sample quizzes here if you want to try it out.

Another reason for my lack of time for blogs is that I only work for RSC Wales on Mondays and Tuesdays (for the rest of the week I work as a librarian for Aberystwyth University), normally job-sharing with Sam who covers the RSC role Wednesdays to Fridays. Sam is on maternity leave (and is doing really well!), so I’ve been on my own for a while, but now there is now extra learning resources support because Owen Phillips is providing maternity cover until Sam returns. LRC staff will no doubt be hearing from him soon!

Newport, Tuesday 13th – Wednesday 14th October

Ironically (considering I hadn’t had time to blog here for a while), I was in Newport on these days, teaching librarians how to blog! I ran a number of workshops which gave the background on Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and blogging, before looking at examples of library blogs from Wales. The librarians who came to the sessions were all great, and we had some thought-provoking discussions about how and why blogs can be used, as well as a hands-on where many trial blogs were created.

Getting to the fun part of the workshop...

Cardiff, Thursday 15th October

I was in Cardiff to visit Coleg Glan-Hafren with other RSC Wales staff. We discussed a range of e-learning topics, including technologies like voting systems, and ways of assessing the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. Then I got to do my favourite thing – have a tour of the LRC! Carolyn Howe, the LRC Manager, showed me round. I enjoyed their Online Book Club displays, and took samples of the colourful leaflets and bookmarks that go with them. Students are encouraged to read the books, post reviews, read other students’ reviews and discuss them online via Moodle. This is a good way of encouraging reader development even when a group is unable to meet at regular times. Students can even write short reviews on the bookmark, and the data will be uploaded by LRC staff – a good example of making things easier for students! Another example of LRC staff going out of their way to be helpful is that some of the most relevant journal articles are indexed and records are added to the OPAC. This increases the use of the valuable print journals and aids resource discovery for students.

Coleg Glan-Hafren uses a PC booking system to ensure fair use of the PCs (which had the pleasant side-effect of  improving LRC staff and student relationships!). The LRC takes the innovative (and successful) line of not having fines for overdue books – instead they use the PC booking system to block the offending student’s access to the workstations until the items are returned, which ensures that the books do get returned – quickly! The system is also used for room bookings. There is a kiosk for students to book things themselves which frees up staff time for more valuable work, as well as encouraging student independence in the allocation of their own time.

Coleg Glan-Hafren is promoting the E-books for FE project, and even has a search box on every PC desktop that takes users straight through to relevant books. Currently Coleg Glan-Hafren uses OpenAthens and IP to provide students with access, but the college is considering moving to Federated Access Management in the future.

Aberystwyth, Friday 16th October

I made one of my rare appearances at CyMAL on that date, for a Libraries for Life meeting. I made suggestions concerning improving information dissemination about regional courses in Wales, and the importance of documenting library refurbishments funded by CyMAL in order to benefit other libraries. The truth is that the notion of new build as a cure-all is flawed, partly due to: the expense; the all or nothing nature and dangers when things go wrong (see here, here, here and here); and the environment/resource issues. However renovation and innovation are much more interesting, and there are a huge number of libraries in the position of being based in a building that they consider to be unsuitable, and looking for ideas. So what is needed is more imaginative focus on what can be done with existing estate. Refurbishments can have a stepped approach e.g. lower level funding for furniture, wi-fi, flexible learning and teaching spaces; but with more ambitious plans for if funding is available (restucturing, replace walls, moving entrances and staircases etc.) which avoids the ‘all or nothing’ danger inherent in new build projects. Fully documenting and promoting this kind of work is important for making people aware of the options.

Deeside, Tuesday 20th October

A visit to Deeside College with other RSC Wales staff (Owen Phillips, Helen Hodges, and Christine Davies). Deeside College has now merged with the Welsh College of Horticulture, so it was interesting to discuss the ways in which the best practices of both institutions can be combined. We also discussed a topic dear to many librarians’ hearts – the blocking of Web 2.0 resources. YouTube and other video sites have now been unblocked at Deeside College, since they are relevant to teaching (e.g. the catering courses use lots of clips from professional chefs). However some social networking sites such as FaceBook remain blocked. The debate about the educational utility of Web 2.0 continues! Where do you stand? Frivolous use of resources and time, or invaluable tools for education? I imagine most people fall between the two extremes, which is why the debate is so important so that policies can achieve the best balance.

The Learning Zone (LRC) is a two-floor open space which acts as a one-stop shop for many services. Patrick Cox (the LRC and E-learning Manager) told us that the Learning Zone is wi-fi enabled and students can bring their own laptops, or borrow a laptop from LRC bank of laptops. LRCs lead the way in providing flexible options like this, catering for different student learning styles and needs.

Wrexham, Wednesday 21st October

While in the North we visited Yale College, as the final leg of our tour! Owen and I spent time with Joanne Stewart and Maria Lewis, finding out more about the LRC.  The multi-floor LRC is heavily used, spacious and welcoming, with great use of exhibition space and displays of student art. There was also an interactive whiteboard in an open teaching area of the library, used during induction and information skills sessions – a great way of taking information out of closed rooms and into the relevant spaces and showing the teaching that LRC staff do.

There is also wi-fi in the Yale College LRC – users register their MAC addresses and can then use laptops, iPod Touches etc. There are more access points being added around the college, and also a trolley of rechargeable laptops for flexible access.

The LRC promotes reader development in many ways, from displays expanding on topics near the relevant book stock, to an ‘LRC Book of the Week’ on the staff intranet. The LRC is also hoping to embed resources within the relevant course areas on the VLE, which can be a great way to increase the visibility of quality resources and weaken the grip of Google! The LRC is keen on using Web 2.0 tools to communicate with users – there ia a blog and accounts for Twitter, Flickr and Netvibes (I’ll add links here once I have them).

Visiting all three college LRCs (Glan-Hafren Deeside, Yale) was great, you can see how popular and central to the college they all are by the buzz of use. If I was an FE student again I’d love to use any of them for my research.

Swansea, Friday 23rd – Monday 26th October

Across Wales again – but not for work this time! A long weekend in Swansea to enjoy one of my favourite eating places, my new hobby of kayaking, and a chance to do a bit of creative writing.

Windblown sand on Swansea beach

Morning view on holiday

At the same time libraries are watching their budgets carefully, and are not keen to undergo the major project that changing their LMS would be.

This is where a number of companies and products step in, offering to revitalise the OPAC. The recent JISC report ‘Library Management Systems: Investing wisely in a period of disruptive change’ pointed towards this raft of options as a way of solving some LMS problems:

“Others have gained valuable experience through implementing Vertical Search products. The market for complementary products is widening as the LMS vendors have realised it is to their advantage that their ‘add-ons’ work with the LMS from other vendors.”

Commercial discovery tools like Aquabrowser and Primo aim to provide intuitive search interfaces so users can access all resources from within one interface. Not all the options are commercial though – there are many open source projects such as Vufind.

It is also possible to jazz up the OPAC using OPAC enrichment services such as the services offered by Syndetic Solutions. Or you could incorporate virtual shelf browsing i.e. seeing images of books next to each other – see the University of Huddersfield OPAC for an example – scroll down for the shelf browser. (See here for some information on how it was done.)

Aquabrowser demo

Last week I attended a demonstration of one of the commercial product suppliers, Aquabrowser.

To get an idea of what the OPAC may look like if parsed by Aquabrowser go to the list of customers here and follow some of the OPAC links. For an FE option, have a look at the Croydon College implementation. Bear in mind that many libraries have also purchased OPAC enrichment services, so some of the features may not be part of Aquabrowser.

Click to enlarge – a basic results screen with subliminal messages

In the screenshot above you can see the three main features.

1. Search box and results in the centre.
2. A ‘Refine’ box on the right to narrow down results.
3. A ‘Discover’ box on the left which provides alternative terms (synonyms, related terms, variant spellings and so on) which can also be used to refine the results, or to begin a whole new search. Note that this can show up flaws and inconsistencies in the institution’s cataloguing – hopefully an opportunity to correct them!

I’ll just post my immediate thoughts after using Aquabrowser for a while.

The good

• RSS: Aquabrowser generates flexible RSS feeds with no fuss. It is possible to generate a feed for a particular simple search, or a refined search; and for the feed to include all items or just new ones.
• Accessibility: The ‘Discover’ box is animated, and therefore not suitable for screen readers. However Aquabrowser has an alternative URL which generates an interface suitable for screen-readers, due to being text-based and with a revised box order. Click to enlarge the screenshot below to see what it looks like.

Possible concerns:

• Admin: Aquabrowser does not work live from the bibliographic data – every night you have to do a bulk upload. Aquabrowser works from that, though communicates live with the LMS regarding circulation data and status. Obviously this can be automated, but is another procedure.
• Stats and reports: Aquabrowser generates its own usage statistics. However because it is working off a database dump none of those statistics will have been recorded by the LMS – apart from circulation statistics etc where AquaBrowser transfers to the host LMS. So if you offer Aquabrowser AND the traditional native OPAC to users, as some institutions do, then your search and access statistics will be split between the two systems. Even if you don’t offer a native interface to the OPAC, the lending statistics will be in one system (the LMS) and the search statistics elsewhere (Aquabrowser) so it will be difficult to run reports combining the two.
• My Discoveries is a social networking add-on for Aquabrowser, enabling reviews, book lists and tagging. The idea is good, and it can be used as a system for reading lists. However the data and accounts are not hosted by the subscribing institution; and the system is not Shibboleth compliant. Users have to create an extra account (on the system seller’s database), which is an inconvenience for users and system administrators. Increasingly libraries are looking to the future with single sign-on systems, so it is a shame that the idea here is good, but the implementation is flawed.
• Powered By: It may just be me, but I find overt publicity of brand names to be a distraction. Aquabrowser says ‘Powered by Aquabrowser’ on most screens, which is something I find irritating. If I am paying a company for something I shouldn’t have to advertise their products on my institutional screens and systems as well. The only brand that I want to show is the brand of my library service, but the person demonstrating Aquabrowser said it is not possible to remove it.

Below is an image of the tags used in the account (click to enlarge) – as you can tell, there are a lot of subjects covered!

My second visit to Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor, but with sunnier weather this time!

[The walk to Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor 1]

[The walk to Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor 2]

My colleague Paul Richardson led heroically on a number of sessions on mind-mapping, and enriching teaching and learning with learning objects.

[Paul directing us to useful resources]

My contribution was a hands-on session on the importance of three things: information literacy, quality learning resources, and close liaison between the teaching staff and the LRC, which ended with evaluating various copyright-free image banks for use in teaching or mindmaps. The attendees were a mix of teaching and library staff, which helped to reinforce my central message of working together. Some of the materials used in the event can be seen here.

‘RSC Wales Annual Conference for Further Education’
Wed 14th and Thu 15th May, Gregynog Hall

[Gregynog Hall - photo by Lis Parcell]

Further details here. This year’s themes were Learning Space Design and Green Computing, and Social Networking and Web 2.0 technologies from both technical and pedagogical angles. I was there for the first day, and in the afternoon I chaired the sessions on ‘Expectations of Space: Comparing Public and FE Libraries’ by Alan Clark, Designing Libraries (Alan was my line manager for many years, so it was an interesting situation to be introducing him!), and on ‘Space Design for Videoconferencing’ by Phil Davison, Manager of the Welsh Video Network. I will pay more attention to the Videoconference Studio the next time I am using one.

[Introducing a session - photo by Lis Parcell]

The final session of the day involved working in groups to design learning resource centres for different college scenarios – then comparing the results with what learners themselves came up with when given the same tasks. It was interesting to note that the learners’ designs were often very similar to the ones designed by library and technical staff. The only real difference was that the student designs were more likely to include ‘chill out’ areas with plasma TVs and a PS3/Wii, or a jacuzzi, or a board-table where the top can be inverted to become a pool table. All of which get my vote.

It was good to meet LRC staff at the conference, my second since joining the RSC, and talk went on until late into the night in the cellar bar. The next morning I was replaced by Sam, ensuring that there was fresh LRC support (so we were a bit like a WWF tag-team but wearing more clothes).

Welsh Libraries Conference
Friday 16th May, Llandrindod Wells

I only attended for the second day of this two-day event, in order to give a talk. The morning sessions were all on the subject of leadership, and gave much useful advice based on the experiences of the speakers (including an illustration of why laptops and water don’t mix well).

I was the last speaker of the day in the HE/FE libraries seminar – the death slot! It was good to have a familiar and friendly face as chair in the form of Donald Mitchell, Coleg Morgannwg, and I enjoyed both previous talks on RFID at Cardiff University and on the Virtual Academic Library project.

My title was ‘Social networking: making it work for you’, intended to encourage people to think about the possibilities and uses of social networking in HE and FE. The talk went well thanks to the responsive audience. I have linked to a form of the presentation below – feel free to contact me if you want clarification on any of the points.

['Social Networking: What is all the fuss about?' - photo by Lis Parcell]

For any FaceBook users reading this, there are a number of library-related groups. A selection includes:

• Information Literacy instruction through social software
• Library 2.0 Interest Group
• Libraries and Librarians
• Libraries Using Facebook Pages
• Support Public Libraries
• Love Libraries
• Librarians and Facebook
• NextGen Librarians

Note that many are global, rather than UK or Wales-based.

The event proper began with a welcome and introduction from Dr Andrew Eynon, Chair of the NWLTG, and LRC manager at Coleg Llandrillo Cymru. I then gave an overview of Web 2.0 technologies before Paul Jeorrett from NEWI spoke about Web 2.0 in Higher Education – the NEWI experience. It was good to see that the three of us were in agreement on many of the uses and implications of Web 2.0 for libraries.

After coffee Siona Murray, Coleg Llandrillo Cymru, spoke about LibeRaCe – the Coleg Llandrillo library service blog, covered in a previous post by me. Siona is co-writing an article on blogging at the moment with myself and Mark Ludlam (Gorseinon College LRC Manager).

Pam Wilson then told us about the Deeside College experiences of text message overdue notices, which were all positive. Deeside College uses Txttools.

Lunch arrived and then there were two workshops before the day closed. The first was chaired by Andrew and looked at how can we use web 2.0 to improve our library services. Then I ran an hour’s workshop where participants got to create a blog or wiki to play with, to understand how they worked; get experience of new tools; and if already familiar with them, to try different hosts and compare services.

It was an enjoyable day and a good chance to meet library staff from different sectors, so the journey was worth it!