A black day in my career

I think it is time to reflect on the blip on my career which occured this year; and I will be posting several articles on life in the bleak opportunities here in the south. I have thought a lot in the past weeks and while my comments may anger, confuse, or cause me to be ridiculed, these opinions are mine, generated at the sharp end of recent experience. I used to keep a paper diary in the past but the intert interface of a keyboard and screen seems a logical place to record things - how times have changed.

So my career came to a grinding halt on the 30th June 2011? I think not, and perhaps I have been watching too many episodes of the X-FIles, as there is a path emerging in my thoughts my redundancy is nothing more than a usurping of my role by a lecturer who only knows a library from a user perspective rather than a qualified career professional, and openly declared war in a meeting on 17th March 2011. At this meeting he presented a highly negative portrayal of the library service without prior notice, I would like to think, to either myself or our line manager. Fortunately my blood pressure is excellent and though this made me at my angriest for some years at Highbury, the paper was withdrawn until the required discussions had been completed, which of course they never were.

Then on the 6th April the department of IT & Library Services were called to a compulsory meeting about the state of the College finances and all present heard the department manager declare in his view no redundancies were to occur in the team. A colleague from elsewhere in Highbury had a similar assurance from a more senior figure at a discussion the same week. Strange then two days later, I came into work on Friday 8th, to a concerned library team who had read an email sent the previous night, naming my post redundant. So in my view my employment ended there, in April, and not later in June. As I played the game of being pliant and smiling through gritted teeth, I prepared my battleground against insurmoutable odds, knowing the outcome was already fixed, though legally this is not possible, but the result was as written, and more disappointments, unexpected ones, followed.

Next instalment will be a brief tirade about the redundancy announcing email. Don't get me wrong, I love libraries, it is my career and training, but my redundancy was also an attack on my wife and twin boys. Libraries are always the soft target in challenging economic times, but now removing or downgrading professionals, this business is getting personal. I have been able to resume a great voluntary library role with spare time between job hunting, but the employment market has changed since I was last in it back in 1996 and am having to change with it.

In the race for e-services

Saw the link via Twitter for this delightful, and timely reminder, of the value of librarians in the digital age from the CILIP VP, Phil Bradley. I have sent this to my team in case there are some who might want to reflect on what they are doing the job for. In the last round robin email to my team at Highbury I also added this quote which surfaced on Twitter too; "Google will bring you back 100,000,000 answers. A librarian will bring you back the right answer." - Neil Gaiman.

Perhaps in the race to adopt and adapt to e-services, much of which is brilliant for breaking down accessibility barriers and making people information rich, there is a blinkered vision of forgetting the core skills of managing knowledge, which starts with a skilled professionall librarian, not a computer.

cpd23; engage

First web 2, then the concept of librarian 2.0, and somewhere I heard of, or read, web 3, but perhaps I was imagining things.

So why participate in CPD23?
With time and cost pressure on CPD from the workplace, web2 is ideal; librarians are gatekeepers to information, now the gate posts have moved into the clouds where more work is developing and we need to keep up. So participation in CPD23 will help underpin what I know, and help develop new areas to develop. As a mentor for, and member of  CILIP, I have to keep up with current trends to help my CPD and those of my mentees.

My career?
I have been in libraries now since 1978, when I was a small lad selling books from the school library, and 12 years later I graduated with a library degree and went into my first job building a museum library from scratch. 21 years later, I am about to be made redundant because of skewed data and the economic crunch. I have been a solo librarian in commercial libraries, a three year stint using transferable skills in mortgage processing, and in a further education college since 1999. So at the moment I am looking at the end of library work here in Hampshire because of local authority cuts on professionals, a freeze on MOD library jobs, and not enough experience to enter University Libraries. So once again transferrable skills will take me on a new path in the local job market.

What am I hoping to learn from CPD23?
New ways of managing, and communicating information; where to find new web 2 tools, and present perhaps a new way of showing my image in the virtual world.

Most or least looking forward to with CPD23?
Most looking forward to gaining new contacts; there are no negatives about taking part in CPD23.

What do I feel about blogging?
Just a place to reflect and record on events either of personal or public in nature which I feel are worthy of mention, and the possible hope others may find comments useful. I have restarted my blogging activity in the light of my redundancy to record events, focus my thoughts, share information to the world who want to listen, and show the interconnectedness of knowledge.

Library Assistants Day

The headline for this year's training was Ready for the next step? Develop your library potential. Themed around the promotion of Certification from CILIP, the day had three presentations about options for developing in a library career, and was the Circle's first full day for library assistants; previous events only lasted for half a day.

First on the programme was Michael Martin, CILIP Qualifications Adviser, who gave a comprehensive presentation on the benefits of Certification, with hints of Revalidation and Chartership. Certification is the CILIP recognition for paraprofessionals who wish to make a start towards a professional library career, and it is easy to achieve by creating porfolio of evidence and other specified documentation. Still largely in paper format, CILIP recognises the value of electronic media and allows an electronic copy to be submitted alongside the paper versions. Mention was also made of e-portfolios using the Mahara open source software, and there is a website which is free to use on creating an account at http://foliofor.me/.

Following Certification, Linda Jones, Law & Criminology Librarian, University of Portsmouth, developed the career theme with the trendy buzz of mashup. Linda commenced her presentation by explaining her background and progression into Librarianship as a comparison to the options now available. An NVQ verifier and CILIP mentor, Linda set a practical exercise for the participants who were mixed into three groups. The aim was to review three documents from NVQ, Certification & Chartership and note the style and content of each, from which Linda showed the progression of each stage in a group discussion.

Breaking for lunch, delegates were able to eat, network, and visit the library service of the host, Queen Mary's College, Basingstoke.
The concluding presentation was by Paula Thompson, Senior Library Assistant at the University of Portsmouth. Paula has recently qualified with a Library NVQ Level 3 and gave an illuminating insight into her plans for achieving the ultimate goal of becoming a librarian which has not been a straight path as first thought. Delgates were given examples of her work at the University and her reflection on elements of completing the NVQ and was a really good conclusion to the day's theme of developing a career in librarianship.

This is the second Library Assistants day which I have chaired and the longer programme seemed to be appreciated - note to self must arrange a proper feedback channel in future. By a show of hands the delegates agreed the day had met their expectations generated by the programme. Thank you to all who contributed to the planning and especially those who provided the presentations.

All change, again

Well, this blog has been dormant long enough and it is ironic the last blog entry was my promotion, and now I am reflecting on the redundancy within two weeks at Highbury due to financial squeeze and questionable benchmarking evidence of how many librarians are needed at College. Sufficient to say COLRIC and COFHE data has been rejected in favour of something which can not be produced after waiting two weeks of asking. However, cannot say any more at the moment in case the traitor who reported an email to my College Principal hoping to get me in trouble, tracks this down for a second attempt. More information after the 21st June and I will start publishing my thoughts on the work of coming back to the labour market for the first time since August 1999.