I’m Andrew Walsh, and this site pulls together some of the things I do outside of my “normal” work at the University of Huddersfield, relating to innovative practice within libraries, including my writing, delivering Keynote speeches, workshops and consultancy.
I’ve now gone part-time in my “day” job at Huddersfield, so have more time to dedicate to these projects.
Together with Gary Green from Voices for the Library, we ran a Kickstarter to create a visual A-Z of libraries and a range of advocacy materials for public libraries. There is a book available and a range of other materials that are free to download and re-use from the dedicated website.
I’ve set up a low cost publisher for professional development books for LIS professionals and students which will publish a small number of books a year.
I’m currently running various workshops and can run these at your own institution as well as organising my own. These include making games for libraries; making educational escape rooms; using Lego in teaching; and creative information literacy teaching. Details of workshop options and topics for Keynote and invited talks are listed on the workshops & talks page.
I’ve made games for teaching information skills, SEEK! and Sources, and would like to create more in future.
One of my more recent obsessions is whether we can use ideas from escape rooms to teach in a more playful way, and I’ve been blogging my progress with escape room teaching as I’ve developed an escape room induction thanks to winning the Lagadothon at LILAC in Dublin, 2016.
Seeing as I mentioned my other books, I’d better mention my mobile technologies one! Designed to be easy to read and as jargon free as possible, Using Mobile Technology to Deliver Library Services is published by Facet.