Massive apologies for the lengthy absence from the blog! I am here (still, somewhere) and back to blogging. In the last few weeks I have been applying for jobs and I’m very pleased to be able to say that i have successfully gained a new job for September! I am going to be a School Library Assistant at a private school. I’m really excited about it and can’t wait to start. The job involves running the library and helping with teaching in IT, English and Library lessons, and helping with extra curricular activities too. The school have also given me day release to study at UCL alongside the job. So, that is really good! I think it will be quite challenging at times to juggle both but I think it should be ok. I can feel some late nights coming on!

CPD23…so I’m behind. I have checked the site each week to see what people are blogging about and thinking on it, but haven’t got around to blogging about it myself. Going to try and change that this week!

A little update on the state of affairs at the library I am currently based at – we closed on Friday to users. It was a sad day but we had some lecturers coming in to wish us well and said they would see us “on the other side”! The moves are going ok – the removal company have managed to set off door alarms, fire alarms, damage trolleys and make a mess everywhere, but that aside it is going well and to schedule!

See you in a couple of days for another update!

Firstly, apologies for the lack of posting in the last 10 ten days! It has been so busy at work, then I had a couple of days off (with a lovely trip to Bristol) and then this week has been manic - and it is only Wednesday! 

So, I’m a little behind on CPD (I aim to catch up with that later in the week/this weekend). I’ve also been applying for jobs (regular readers will be aware my current contract comes to an end on 31st August, and as it is a training contract it will not be renewed) but a couple of opportunities have come up that I am applying for (both would be great in different ways) so shall see what happens there!

Yesterday, I had the realisation that my library is closing to users in just less than 3 weeks (I currently work in the small education/ftt library and we are merging with the main university library this summer). It is strange, this feeling of being overwhelmed by everything has hit staff at different times – and it was my time yesterday! It came after I had cleared 3 shelves of withdrawn materials and prepared more items for the store, when I thought “I haven’t really made any progress at all, even though I’ve done loads”. I had made progress, everything at this stage is progress but the work is going to take a lot of time and effort to complete before September. We can and will complete everything. I think it is also the sadness of closing that hit me most yesterday – I wanted to cry yesterday afternoon! It is sad but FTT have a lovely new building on main campus (see previous post – Minghella building) and education have new premises to go to. I’ll be sad to see my little library close as the team of staff I have worked with in the last year have been lovely. I remember thinking when I first knew I had the post that “Oh, it will be so difficult to fit in with everyone, as they know each other” but it wasn’t at all, everyone was so friendly and welcoming, I felt part of the team very quickly. I will miss the library and the people very much. But I feel that more exciting things are ahead of me.

1. The name you have used – Ok, so I have to confess that my name took me a very long time to come up with! I wrote down lots of phrases and tried many different words, seeing what I thought sounded good or looked right. It was one of those things that I would know once I had hit the right phrase then I would know – and sure enough this was accurate. I haven’t attributed my full name to my blog,  mainly for security reasons (see also point 2).

2. A photograph – well, I don’t have a photograph of myself on my blog (yet). This is something I am undecided about. There is something in anonymity that I quite enjoy. That said, I can see the positives of putting a photo of yourself on the blog. I’m still thinking on this one!

3. Professional and Personal Identity – This is an interesting one.  Personally, I like to keep my professional and personal lives quite separate. Whilst attending the NPC’11 last week I  got into a conversation with a small group about Twitter and activism for libraries. I don’t use twitter because when I tried it I simply couldn’t get into it. I think twitter is a great tool and is good for getting information into the world and exchanging thoughts with others. I do like to follow some of the threads on twitter as they do contain lots of interesting thoughts and points. I haven’t been personally involved in any activism for libraries. This is not because I don’t support the cause – because I really do support the campaign for libraries currently. However, I have other things in my life that I like to do. I’m just my job – I am lots of other things too (a musician, a reader) - and it is these that shape me as a person, as well as my job.

4. Visual brand – If you regularly read this blog then you will know that I’ve changed my blog quite a few times and like to play around with the settings on here. I see my blog as something that is constantly changing, not something that needs to be the same forever. Consistancy is important, and if I make changes I don’t make them too drastic.  Visually, I have tried to make my blog easy on the eyes and user-friendly. I hope this has all worked!

I woke up on the monday morning feeling ready for the day. After some breakfast (I usually eat breakfast at work which consists of a banana and yoghurt, so being presented with a full cooked english, toast, cereals, croissants, it was rather overwhelming!) I headed out to find Hulme Hall. Luckily, I found the building with ease and met some people along the way too!

The conference opened with refreshments and mingling – a good chance to network and find out where other people at the event were from. We then went to the lecture hall for the mornings talks.

After the opening speech and housekeeping notices, the first of 3 presentations began. I thought the morning presentations were good. The first was by Helen Murphy, who talked about CPD23’11 and I was amazed to see just how many people present at NPC11 had already signed up to participate. It’s great to see so many people interested in blogging and finding out what others are doing through this social networking medium. From CPD23’11 I hope there comes a real sense of community among librarians and trainees. The second presentation was by Rachel Bickley, who talked about establishing a dialogue between new and old professionals. The talk encompassed results from a survey she had distributed via twitter and LIS-LINK email lists. It has begun to really strike me just how much is achieved through social networking at the moment. I almost wonder what we did before we had such networks. It seems that information is really at our fingertips and we just have to tap into it. As I mentioned when I reviewed NPID11, that whole event was organised pretty much through social networking. It is amazing how many responses one can get to a question by putting it on twitter, facebook, a blog, and get answers or thoughts back so quickly. Social networking seems a really valuable tool and I think we have to use it to our full strength. Anyway, that was a slight tangent! New and old professionals need to engage with one another, to share ideas and practices, to ensure that the profession has direction and a future to it. The third presentation was also really good. Sam Wiggins and Laura Williams, both current LIS students at Sheffield, talked on what makes an Information Professional professional. Their talk was relevant and well researched. I think the challenged some views of librarians from the outside world. So often people sound surprised when I say I work in the library, the usual response being “you scan books and tell people to shh!” – well yes, to an extent, but there is so much more to librarianship than that! (As I hope I am showing through my blog). Sam and Laura came to the conclusions that having qualifications was important to making us professionals, going beyond your job role - networking, engaging with the profession and getting involved with others both in and outside the library meant we could bring so many skills to the profession and we need to showcase these.

After the presentations we went into workshops. I attended a workshop on activism in the library. Whilst this wasn’t my first choice, it was interesting. The presenters were from Voices for the Library and they told us about the campaigns they have been involved in recently to prevent government cuts to libraries. They talked about campaigns such as National Library Day and the new campaign from the Women’s Institute to help in the fight to save libraries. We then went into small groups and discussed any activism we had been involved in and what issues we faced by taking part in activism.

After lunch we attended another workshop. I attended “Raising your professional profile” which focused on skills we had as librarians, both transferable and core/unique skills to the profession. It was a good session and contained quite a few things I hadn’t really thought of – so thanks to the presenters Sue Hornby and Bob Glass for that! I shall definitely be updating my CV with some of those skills.

We then went back to the lecture hall to attend the final session of the day – 3 more presentations. The first of these was about LIS student activism. This was presented by Ka-Ming Pang and Joseph Norwood, both current students at Brighton. Their advice was to be like an octopus and use as many tools as you could to get activism going. The second presentation was from Megan Whiley, a librarian who works in a Careers Information Team. This was actually really interesting. It is one of those roles that doesn’t necessarily involved being in a library, but where the skills of a librarian are needed. She talked about making others aware of the skills you had and what you could bring to a role like this, as a librarian. She emphasized the importance of librarian’s roles in career services and the advice that they could offer to people. It made me think back to the careers service I used when applying for my current position as a graduate trainee. The staff were friendly, encouraging (when I would in they would say “She’s going to be a librarian”) and knowledgable. One of the careers advisers actually gave me her copy of CILIP update that month as she was going to bin it, but she said “Read it, it would look really good if you good quote something from it or talk about one of the articles in the interview” – how right she was! However, it was the final talk that was the best (and won best paper). Naomi Herbert and Katie Birkwood presented on Special Collections work (which of course I am very interested in!) They talked about projects that had happened at Cambridge University and the outreach to the community within these projects. There was great emphasis on getting the community into the library, showing them the collections and getting them to engage in activity. This is just so important if special collections are to survive. It is the emotional and sensory experience that comes from looking at original papers, books and artefacts that we need to get across to the community.

The closing remarks for the conference were given by Biddy Fisher, previous President of Cilip. Her remarks were encouraging and of great excitement at what will come in the next few years for the LIS world. And with that the day was over. I left the conference feeling encouraged, positive and refreshed. I headed back to Manchester Piccadilly Station for my train home. I made some good contacts, networked and learnt a lot. I would definitly recommend going to anyone thinking about it next year. You never know, I may see you there (just hoping it is a little closer to home next year)!

Reading this back, I realise just how long this post is. So, if you are still reading – well done and thankyou!

Ok, so it is the start of CPD23things’11. This week there are two “things” to do. The first “thing” is to do is to start a blog (if you don’t already have one). Well, I’ve achieved the first thing already then, hurrah!

The second thing I must do is to explore some other blogs. On the CPD23things blog there is a list of participants, so I’m going to select some from there to explore in the week. I may even sign up to follow some – big step! I’ll post again later in the week to report on some new blogs I’ve found.

Yesterday, I attended the New Professionals Conference in Manchester. It was a great day and I’m going to post about it later, so watch this space!

http://cpd23.blogspot.com/

Watch this space for further posts for CPD 23 2011!

The day started with a dash to the bus stop (the bus was early, but luckily the driver was nice and stopped after seeing my flailing arm and run to the stop). The train journey in was fine and then tube from Paddington to Tottenham Court Rd for the short walk to Cilip. When I arrived (just after 9am) there was a meet-and-greet session (with free coffee/tea/juice and pastries!). The day consisted of four talks from various professionals from the sector, all of whom gave a different insight to the profession and ways in which new professionals could engage with those. Whilst all the talks were informative, there was four aspects that really struck me and I think these will become ever more prominent over the next few years in the profession:

1. The use of social media for networking and sharing knowledge – Social networking is now a huge thing in our society, I don’t think we can escape this! Whether we use Facebook, Twitter, blogging, linkedin etc, we all engage in social networking in one way or another. We use these sites to share information and knowledge with one another and to make links across the profession. One thing in particular that really struck me was that NPID’11 was organised pretty much entirely through social networking! I think that by the time the advert went into the Cilip bulletin, there were few places left, as through social networks many of the places had been booked. Social networking was certainly how I find out about the day, through Lisnpn and other blogs. There was a live twitter feed going all day, with many delegates tweeting as the conference was happening. I think that whatever social network medium one uses, it is important to use a social network. I use facebook and this blog. One of the speakers said that people should use whatever medium works for them – and I would agree with this.

2. Self development is key – your career has to help you develop you as a person (as well as a professional) and you have to be happy doing what you are doing. I personally couldn’t imagine doing a job that I hated every day. Whilst I was studying for my masters last year, I worked part-time in a local council office and I hated it. I would come home from it in a foul mood, as I simply hadn’t been challenged or stimulated for the day. The job allowed me to do my masters and actually have a life other than uni that year, so I am very grateful for that. But, I am also grateful that I found out what I didn’t want to do with my life – I didn’t want to spend it in an office sat in front of a computer all day. So, self-development and satisfaction are key to our professional and personal lives.

3. The more you give to something, the more you will get out of it. The more you get involved in something the more you can benefit from it. So, get involved with projects at work, shadow others, get social networking – basically, go out there and do things!

4. Very much following on from my previous point, get involved professionally – be on a committee, go to conferences, get on twitter, start blogging – get yourself known in the profession.

Overall, the day was good. It was informative, a great chance to network and something that I learnt from. All that is left now, is to put some of these things into practice!

As soon as you entered the building the smell of “newness” hit you. Our first stop was the 72-seat cinema (complete with real cinema chairs). This will be used for screenings of students work and lectures. We were then taken to the top floor and worked our way down the building.

The top floor consisted of lecturers offices and a communal area. The first floor consisted of rehearsal spaces and editing rooms. The editing rooms had state-of-the-art equipment, used by professionals. The aim of the rooms and equipment being to give students as near an experience as they would get in the FTT industry. There was a room that voiceover could be recorded in and edited on the spot. The new rehearsal spaces were big and full of appropriate lighting and sound equipment.

On the ground floor there were the two theatres - both complete with sound, lighting and seating. The theatres will provide students with space for rehearsal, performance and assessment. There is a keen sense to allow the local community to use the space too.  As well as the theatres, the ground floor housed dressing rooms, prop storage space (lots of it – every corner filled!) and a communal area. There was also a “green room” which allows students to film television sets and film where background is to be added later. The room was complete with working cameras and set pieces ready for use.

We also met some of the students who (unsurprisingly) loved their new building and couldn’t wait to get started. I can’t wait to see some of the work that comes from the students next year!

The first project was yet more measuring! Some of the periodicals in the Stack (closed access materials – so only available on request) had been missed off previous lists for various reasons. Earlier in the week I had received a rather frantic email from one of my colleagues, asking if I could complete the work, ideally by the end of the week. I said this should be doable by then, or Monday afternoon at the latest. So, last Friday afternoon (the first long opportunity I had) I shut myself in the stack armed with the spreadsheet, tape measure, pencil, rubber and tissues (to combat sneezing from the dust)! The job took me all afternoon to complete and then type-up and send to my colleague – but it all got done before 5pm home time!

My second recent involvement in the Collections Project has been to withdraw or send to store (as appropriate) some of the languages books. Having been to the shelves to collect the books for withdrawal, I am now faced with the task of actually withdrawing them from stock! Mostly, this is quite easy and can be done via the computer system that we use. However, some of them aren’t on the system and are still on the old card-catalogue – yes, we have stock that is that old! To withdraw these is slightly more complicated – you have to find the card in the catalogue and manually withdraw it (stamping the book and the card, to show that the item is no longer on the shelf). There are approximately 280,000 cards in the catalogue (the actual number is less as we have been withdrawing stock for the past couple of years) but there are still so many left! I haven’t started the task of the card withdrawals yet – I’m slightly dreading it!

In other news, I am attending the New Professionals Conference in June, at the University of Manchester. I’m really looking forward to a day of networking, meeting other trainees and new professionals and listening to the talks. The conference is centered around the theme of libraries in the current economic downturn. It should be good! I’m also hoping to go to a New Professionals day in London, organised by Cilip (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) but I am yet to see if I can have the day away from work.