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.

All change @ Highbury College

Highbury College Library service is changing; with the Head of service departing in June, we were quickly merged with the IT Services Dept which has been a fantastic move. I have now been appointed to a new role of College Librarian and we have recently moved into our new library on the brilliant rebuilt premises @ Cosham. Earlier this year I received the College Star Award for e-learning in teaching and learning.

Apologies for the blog stopping for so long; the twins @ home, Samuel and Oliver, don't apologise for the delay that they caused in regular updates from me.

I am also on Twitter, just as an experiment, so if you are interested read my tweets (I believe that's the phrase) on http://twitter.com/hantslibrarian

More soon.

SE Branch AGM & HIOW AGM

South East Branch AGM 2008
The South East Branch AGM will be held as part of a joint meeting with the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Sub-Branch on Monday 19th May 2008 from 13.00-16.00.

Refreshments will be available from 13.00 and the business meetings will begin at 13.45. These will be followed by a talk by Nicola Franklin, Head of Recruitment at Sue Hill Recruitment, who will be speaking on "Marketing your Skills - Getting that Promotion".

The venue is the Barn, Church Cottage, St Michaels’ Church, Basingstoke.

The event is free, but those wishing to attend should register by emailing lisa.jeffery@port.ac.uk by 30 April 2008

HIOW forthcoming event

The Chief Executive of the Museums and Libraries Association, Chris Batt, is giving a talk on October 11th on whether we need libraries. If you are interested in going, please use the link above for further details and to post a booking request.

For a summary about his impact with the MLA, please click for the press release about Chris Batt.