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).

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?

A Week In the Life - Thursday

Opened up at 8.30am. Started with my usual tasks: stats, journals.

Spent the morning on the Circ Desk, inbetween serving users I got some admin jobs done. Contacted The Reading Agency about ordering more diaries, certificates and bookmarks for the Six Book Challenge - we've got 50 places and after 4 days of registration we've got 30 participants already! Looks like my publicity campaign has worked. Sent round my weekly All Students email bulletin about the week's new journals and newspapers.

One of the English teachers sent round an All Staff and Students email about getting more contributors to the college blog. After speaking with my manager I contacted her about the LRC putting up blog entries on new stock, events, promotions and book reviews. I'm quite keen to push some of our 6 Book Challenge participants to write book reviews that we can put up, I'm also going to speak to some of our keen readers that come in - that's something to work on next week.

Today's Student Assistant came in at 1.15, I sent her to strict shelf tidy in the study centre next door. From the library I kept hearing a lot of noise coming from the study centre and popping in to check she's okay - I think she thinks I'm a bit odd! Also spent time on the desk with her shadowing me.

Sorted out next week's Student Assistant rota after checking that other LRC staff don't have any tasks to add to it, and discussed with my manager what jobs to give the assistant who'll be in tomorrow as I won't be in.

Typed up a set of Till Procedures to go in our new staff shared drive. Adapted one of the info skills powerpoints to make it specific to science for a session we are running next week. Started work on procedure/training notes on cataloguing as there is nothing in place already!

In the evening I had a meeting with the other owners at my block of flats as myself and another owner manage the flats. Stressful stuff. In the midst of it received a text from my boss, the Info Skills USB is missing. Hardly slept for worry.

CILIP Graduate Day 1st October 2009

I would really recommend the next one of these for people who are considering entering the profession, considering qualifying or possibly are in the process of qualifying. CILIP possibly could have been clearer about what type of graduate this was aimed after - first degree grad not library school grad - but nonetheless.
I attended two talks. Emma Illingsworth gave an interesting talk about the different skills required for librarianship, the different types of users in different sectors and how to market your services to those user groups. It involved lots of brainstorming and discussion in small groups.
The second talk was by Jo Alcock about promoting yourself and networking through microblogging, blogging and social networking. Again this was really interesting. At the moment I'm spending a lot of time thinking about micro/blogging and the netiquette involved. As a novice twitterer I'm always concerned about replying promptly, RTing without plagiarising, being friendly without being overfamiliar etc. I'm also wracked with e-shyness. Jo said some interesting things about branding yourself - I'm going to do some work on customising this.