I have good news to share. After three job interviews over the last two months since returning from Australia, I have now accepted my first professional role as LRC manager at an FE college in Cambridgeshire! I will be starting in early August. I'm not sure how this will impact my Chartership as my proposed hand in date is now looking a bit ambitious, especially as I'll have a bit of a commute until we are able to move house.
The college I'm moving to is going through a major library refurb this summer, in order to put in a lot more computers. From September there will be classes in the library at all times which will be supervised and motivated by LRC staff. This will be great in terms of promoting Information Skills by stealth! The pay off is that they've decided to put all of their books into rolling stacks to make space for these computers. I'm a little concerned that this may marginalise the use of the books, so I'm going to have to work hard and get creative to promote them. They have a very well developed VLE and e-book collection which is part of the reason they are doing this.
I'm really going to miss my current workplace. I really like the students and couldn't be happier with my manager. She's been a real mentor to me and I'll definitely be keeping in touch. But unfortunately the downside of working in a small school is that there are less opportunities for progression which is why I'm moving on.
The job interviews I had were really fun actually. I've delivered classes, done presentations and roleplays, and been interviewed by a student council who wanted to know what piece of cutlery I'd be and who I would be in Stars in their Eyes! (A spoon and Edith Piaf, for those curious).
All of the interviews were whole day events, where you spend a lot of time with the other candidates. This was interesting. At best I was meeting other professionals (I ended swapped email addresses with someone I was meant to be competing with!), at worst I saw the lousy side of human nature (another candidate trying to psyche me out with 'gosh aren't you young to be here?' comments).
This week I delivered two Information Skills lessons to AS English Literature classes as part of their progression to A2. It was for the module War and the Individual which was ideal as I read a lot of history and war fiction. It went really well and I'm pretty pleased with myself as my new job will involve a lot more working with classes than my current role. However, it made me realise how much I'm really going to miss some of the teachers and the strong links I've made with departments.
Today is BTEC hand in day, and I've spent quite a bit of time one-on-one with students helping them finish their work. The amount of cut and pasting is worrying. I wish there was more uptake from the departments for Information Skills sessions during the year. I feel like what I'm doing today is just making sure that they don't get done for plagiarism rather than giving them skills.
In other good news, my colleague that I've been tutoring who is doing the same MSc that I did has passed her second semester. I'm really happy for her as I know she was worried, and I hope that my efforts have helped. I'm quite jealous of her at the moment because her dissertation is really interesting.
Friday 25 June 2010
Friday 18 June 2010
CILIP Professional Futures and Newsnight
It's rubbish being so busy because I keep drafting blog posts and not finishing them and by the time I get back to them the 'latest debate' is a bit stale! Anyway, here's a few things that have been on my mind the last few weeks...
Last week I finally completed the CILIP Defining Our Professional Future Survey. I was a bit late doing it because I've been busy out and about defining my personal professional future (more of that soon).
What will the knowledge and information sector look like in 2020?I agree with most of what has already been blogged on the subject, specifically from Joeyanne and Bethan. I agree with Bethan's thoughts on increased convergence. As information professionals we are already converged, for example the convergence between subject specific knowledge and information skills. In my sector I am seeing more job descriptions that require not only a library qualification but also a teaching qualification, and ideally a careers guidance qualification. In terms of my professional development I look both at library organisations and education organisations (such as Institute for Learning), my professional reading reflects both of these things as does where I look at job vacancies.
On the whole I don't feel too convinced with CILIP's advocacy and representation of the profession and that really was my conclusion to the Big Conversation. The Newsnight business was concerning, especially when I read on Ned Potter's blog that CILIP were unable to send someone on to Newsnight at short notice. For me a big part of The Big Conversation, my chartership and my professional future is focussed around developing teaching and presentation skills, something that is daunting but I know that I must be able to get up and speak to a group of people. Going up against Paxman is nothing compared to putting yourself in front of a classful of disinterested 17 year olds! Anyway, I've come to the debate late so I won't say anymore but I hope that lessons have been learnt from it.
My own experiences of CILIP have been very positive. I loved Umbrella and feel quite passionate about being part of a professional body. That said, my colleague who is currently at library school is very negative about joining, as are much of her cohort. Maybe CILIP is getting a bit complacent about attracting members who are joining the profession especially as job descriptions get wider and they face steeper competition from other organisations (IFL, SLA, BCS etc).
Last week I finally completed the CILIP Defining Our Professional Future Survey. I was a bit late doing it because I've been busy out and about defining my personal professional future (more of that soon).
What will the knowledge and information sector look like in 2020?I agree with most of what has already been blogged on the subject, specifically from Joeyanne and Bethan. I agree with Bethan's thoughts on increased convergence. As information professionals we are already converged, for example the convergence between subject specific knowledge and information skills. In my sector I am seeing more job descriptions that require not only a library qualification but also a teaching qualification, and ideally a careers guidance qualification. In terms of my professional development I look both at library organisations and education organisations (such as Institute for Learning), my professional reading reflects both of these things as does where I look at job vacancies.
On the whole I don't feel too convinced with CILIP's advocacy and representation of the profession and that really was my conclusion to the Big Conversation. The Newsnight business was concerning, especially when I read on Ned Potter's blog that CILIP were unable to send someone on to Newsnight at short notice. For me a big part of The Big Conversation, my chartership and my professional future is focussed around developing teaching and presentation skills, something that is daunting but I know that I must be able to get up and speak to a group of people. Going up against Paxman is nothing compared to putting yourself in front of a classful of disinterested 17 year olds! Anyway, I've come to the debate late so I won't say anymore but I hope that lessons have been learnt from it.
My own experiences of CILIP have been very positive. I loved Umbrella and feel quite passionate about being part of a professional body. That said, my colleague who is currently at library school is very negative about joining, as are much of her cohort. Maybe CILIP is getting a bit complacent about attracting members who are joining the profession especially as job descriptions get wider and they face steeper competition from other organisations (IFL, SLA, BCS etc).
Wednesday 2 June 2010
A rather reticent reflection on my current job situation
I have been encouraged by both my Chartership mentor and my manager to reflect and blog about my current job title/description situation. I am somewhat reluctant about doing this.
I completed my MSc in September 2009 and began looking for qualified jobs a few months before completing the course. The job market was pretty flat at the time. I interviewed for a Library Manager role but didn't get it as I didn't have enough experience. However, they offered me an LRC Assistant role which I accepted.
I've been extremely lucky in this role because my manager has been a mentor to me. She always looks for ways to expand my role, allows me to develop my own ideas and champions CPD. I'm so grateful for this as it's allowed me to improve my skills and to learn about effective management styles. My day to day work resembles that of an Assistant Librarian/Deputy Manager. In a lot of respects I am very happy in my role. Our students are great, the organisation as a whole is great, my manager is great, I feel appreciated and valued... thus my reticence to blog about this as I certainly don't want to seem ungrateful!
However, the cold hard fact remains that on my CV I am in effectively the same role (LRC Assistant) that I have been in since 2005. Almost a year after qualifying this is not ideal for me.
Regrading me in my current role would be difficult. Firstly the climate of cutbacks at the moment has affected our institute, secondly it would leave a top heavy team structure of Manager - Assistant Manager - LRC Assistant. Also, I'm not sure if regrading would be just to improve my own situation rather than reflect what the organisation needs which is why I'm not keen to ask for it as I don't want to be selfish!
Speaking to other librarians, some have said that it doesn't really matter what you are called rather it is what you do and that this shouldn't affect my chances of getting a professional role in the future. The fact that I am chartering at the moment also supports the fact that I am doing professional work in a para-professional role. Having completed the MSc there is certainly a pressure to find a qualified job to justify the time, sweat and expense of the course. But that said, we all see management jobs that don't require a LIS qualification anyway and wonder if this is the future?
I completed my MSc in September 2009 and began looking for qualified jobs a few months before completing the course. The job market was pretty flat at the time. I interviewed for a Library Manager role but didn't get it as I didn't have enough experience. However, they offered me an LRC Assistant role which I accepted.
I've been extremely lucky in this role because my manager has been a mentor to me. She always looks for ways to expand my role, allows me to develop my own ideas and champions CPD. I'm so grateful for this as it's allowed me to improve my skills and to learn about effective management styles. My day to day work resembles that of an Assistant Librarian/Deputy Manager. In a lot of respects I am very happy in my role. Our students are great, the organisation as a whole is great, my manager is great, I feel appreciated and valued... thus my reticence to blog about this as I certainly don't want to seem ungrateful!
However, the cold hard fact remains that on my CV I am in effectively the same role (LRC Assistant) that I have been in since 2005. Almost a year after qualifying this is not ideal for me.
Regrading me in my current role would be difficult. Firstly the climate of cutbacks at the moment has affected our institute, secondly it would leave a top heavy team structure of Manager - Assistant Manager - LRC Assistant. Also, I'm not sure if regrading would be just to improve my own situation rather than reflect what the organisation needs which is why I'm not keen to ask for it as I don't want to be selfish!
Speaking to other librarians, some have said that it doesn't really matter what you are called rather it is what you do and that this shouldn't affect my chances of getting a professional role in the future. The fact that I am chartering at the moment also supports the fact that I am doing professional work in a para-professional role. Having completed the MSc there is certainly a pressure to find a qualified job to justify the time, sweat and expense of the course. But that said, we all see management jobs that don't require a LIS qualification anyway and wonder if this is the future?
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