The January Challenge: bringing creativity to WCS Libraries
Ahead of CILIP Scotland’s collaboration with 64 Million Artists, Joy McLean, CILIPS Board member and Senior Librarian at West College Scotland, shares her reflections as a participant of the January Challenge.
Does January feel like a new beginning, or a bit of a ‘nothing’ month? Do you feel refreshed and invigorated? Or are you less than motivated, finding it difficult to get going?
Often finding winter a difficult season to navigate, at a low ebb and feeling less resilient, I stumbled upon The January Challenge on Twitter a few years ago. Initially, I was intrigued by the concept: thirty-one creative challenges, one for each day of January, that were easily achievable. A vibrant mix of arts, crafts, creative writing, dancing, and other challenges, provided a much-needed escape from the real world for a few moments. Posting to social media using #TheJanuaryChallenge hashtag and viewing other participants’ creations spawned a sense of community and connection. However, there was never any pressure to share, or to attempt every single challenge. The beauty of The January Challenge is that how you participate is up to you.
“But I’m not creative!” The January Challenge has taught me that creativity doesn’t mean being good at art, writing or music but rather how you approach, think about, and respond to challenges or problems. Creativity can simply be trying something different. Personally, my favourite challenges do tend to involve arts and crafts, but the variety of challenges ensures that there is something to appeal to everyone.
Puppet pals
During the pandemic, 2021’s January Challenge became important to me as respite from everything going on around us. I attempted a lot of challenges outside, taking inspiration from nature and the local environment. That year my daughter and I made snow sculptures, found rainbows, wore our happy puppet pals, created blackout poems and patches in time.
A patch in time
Light as a feather
Blackout Poetry
Blackout poem
From there, I realized that The January Challenge was a fantastic initiative to promote within West College Scotland, especially with an increased focus on student and staff wellbeing. Prior to 2022, I had posted each day’s challenges on our Library social media accounts, along with our responses to them, and displayed challenges in our campus libraries. After speaking with Jemima Frankel of 64 Million Artists, who facilitate The January Challenge and other creative initiatives, we arranged training for staff who had shown interest in promoting the challenge more widely. This included members from the Library Team, Student Experience, the Student Association and Wellbeing. During the training, Jemima encouraged us to try some challenges, and we discussed how we could best facilitate 2022’s challenge. We continued to post challenges on social media but also set up creation stations in each campus library with materials to aid participation in challenges, and created a Wakelet collection where responses to challenges could be posted. Additionally, we organized some online drop-in sessions where attendees could participate in group challenges.
Screenshot from group Story Time challenge delivered online.
Running The January Challenge within the college does present challenges itself. Engaging students and staff with the challenge can be difficult. In January 2022, a considerable proportion of teaching and learning was delivered online, and physical presence on campus was limited, so the opportunity to promote the challenge through word of mouth did not easily present itself. Deadlines for coursework, and heavy workloads discouraged people from participating in optional activities. However, we did build the core foundations to continue actively promoting the January Challenge across West College Scotland in the future. In January 2023, with more students and staff back on campus, we began to have participation and engagement from our Learner Development department and students using the library, as seen from this year’s collection of creations.
Libraries and library staff are inherently creative. Throughout CILIPS23, a recurrent theme was finding new ways to deliver services despite cuts to staffing and resources. David Michie’s session on Tabletop Gaming in Dundee City Libraries brilliantly demonstrated the possibility of delivering gaming sessions through Dundee’s library network despite having little or no budget. Similarly, The January Challenge can be delivered with little expense, often requiring no more than pen, paper, and curiosity. Easily adapted to suit individual organizations’ requirements, it provides a perfect opportunity to bring communities together, and where better to do that than libraries?