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.