First experience giving a talk - UC&R group/University of Leicester

I gave a talk at a Careers Development Day for Library Assistants at the University of Leicester on the 8th December.

Back in the summer in the weeks leading up to starting my first qualified role there was an email on the LIS list asking for thoughts on topics to be covered at a careers development day for library assistants looking to make the transition to professional roles. In a moment of bravery/madness I responded and offered to be a case study whilst pointing out that I can't necessarily claim to have successfully made the transition successfully as I wasn't yet in post! When I was asked if I would speak I was surprised, but pleased.

My talk started with mentioning my background (briefly) and pointing out that I had only recently made the transition. I then spoke about the MSc process: the importance of building a network particularly with those in other sectors, pursuing scholarship money, and what a great opportunity the dissertation is to gain other skills (interviewing etc) and to research something related to your future career.

I went on to speak about how to research roles that would interest you, and to identify gaps in your own experience, skill set or education that are preventing you from being in that role already. I suggested: cataloguing, budget management, staff management and teaching/presentation skills. Once these gaps have been identified, one can look for creative ways to gain these types of skills and experience - I described how I was given the opportunity to develop a Student Volunteer programme which gave me staff management experience and suggested looking for similar projects that benefit your organisation and service users as well as give you the opportunity to develop. I also suggested asking to join committees, steering groups etc and take extra responsibilites such as health and safety or first aid.

I then spoke about the importance of professional networking; being involved with CILIP, UC&R, blogging, tweeting, going to lectures, training courses, conferences, doing professional reading and looking at chartering. All the fun things that you don't have time to do once you get a professional role!

I went on to speak about being ambitious in applying for jobs, and giving it a go even if you don't have all the criteria on the Person Spec. I spoke about the importance of being sure you actually want the job before you apply or interview to save wasting everyone's time, and to think of your USP and reiterate it to yourself. I then spoke briefly about interviews: being honest and saying 'I would..' when asked a question where you can't speak from experience, thinking of good examples from managers that you have had and always being positive. I spoke about the types of experience that you may have at interview: tasks with groups, being with the other candidates all day and doing presentations.

Finally, I gave a few thoughts on when you do find yourself in your first professional role: working on your networks, asking for support both internally and externally, asking questions and showing interest and understanding in other departments, being the manager that got the best out of you and inspiring others.

I think the talk went fairly well. The feedback forms for the whole day were positive. I stayed for the rest of the day to join in with some of the workshop sessions which I feel was productive in terms of getting people talking rather than giving my own opinions/experiences.

On the whole it was a really good experience and I'm glad I did it. I think that having done induction sessions at the start of term I wasn't so phased by speaking to a roomful of people as I would have been a year ago.

Learning Resource Managers meeting for East of England FE colleges

Held at ACER on 19 November 2010

We started by each Learning Resource Centre Manager giving a brief report on what is happening in their college. The common themes were:

• restructuring/redundancies/doing more with less staff
• budget freezes
• increase in delivering/supervising classes
• promoting e-books and e-resources
• library refurbishments
• safeguarding and encouraging student to wear ID cards

It was really useful and reassuring to see that my experiences are mirrored by other LRC Managers and to discuss ideas and strategies both formally as a group and in small groups during tea and lunch.

Elaine Salter from the University of Westminster gave a talk about how they have established roving. It was interesting to hear how roving combats feelings of library anxiety in students. It was also interesting to hear the process of how roving was introduced to staff and how not all staff were required to rove, as some staff are better suited to back room tasks. I'd like to see how roving works in practice. I've heard of there being two seperate teams on the floor - one roving and one behaviour managing - signified by different coloured t-shirts. Unfortunately I don't have anything like the amount of staff to achieve this.