Thing 15 - Participate!

Not long back from holiday so i am going slightly out of order and skipping to thing 15. I will go back to 14 & 13 once i get a catchup moment!

I have never been a speaker or organiser of an event, but i have certainly attended plenty, of all kinds. I fall into the category of people who really enjoy attending library or learning events of any kind. On some occasions the information is not directly relevant to my post, but it is amazing how having an understanding of what else is out there can enhance your work.

It is always useful to hear about other projects, concerns or just differing points of views about library work. Just because some one is speaking about a university library doesn't mean it wont be relevant to a public library in some way. As some one who works in cataloguing and acquisitions, i find learning about reader development or new library builds refreshing, not necessarily directly relevant but knowledge is power and at the end of the day libraries are all about learning and expanding the mind. We should practise what we preach and embrace the event experience.

On the down side although i am a perfectly sociable human being and after a number of years on the front line i can talk to just about anybody about anything. If introduced to some one again i find it perfectly easy to have a normal conversation. BUT i find it incredibly difficult to socialise at conferences and similar events. If attending with colleagues i find myself falling into the trap of hanging out in a little clique. If on my own then i end up keeping myself to myself, like some shrinking violet - who is this person? Not the me of everyday that's for sure. Is it perhaps a psychological condition?

Well, at the last event i attended i decided it was time for me to show the world that i am no wall flower. I set myself the challenge of speaking to one person who was also on their own. I scanned the room during a coffee break and looked for the friendliest face i could find. I had a plan, start with simple questions like did you have to travel far? , where do you work? Basic but a start and see where the conversation goes from there. Off i went deep breath and best foot forward. In retrospect, i probably should have kept to the basics and then said something like 'it was nice meeting you' and wandered off looking like i had some place i needed to be. I got the feeling that i had struck up a conversation with the one person in the room who didn't actually want to talk to anybody! In the end i decided that these things happen and so that i didn't end the experience on a sour note made sure i spoke to some one else before the end of the event. This went much better, and next time i attend one of these things i will be making the effort to step off the side lines and strike up a conversation. The important bit is not to give up and know when to move on!

Thing 10 and 11 - Career experience

Like a lot of people i took the postgraduate route to Librarianship. Having spent four years studying Art History and enjoying it very much, i felt i needed something more solid for a career path. i spent a year getting a computing qualification and during that time i came across libraries and catalogues. The amusing part of all this was that being a librarian, for me, was one of those childhood careers, you know along with i want to be a vet, an explorer, the first woman in space... But my interest was sparked and i could see that being a librarian could offer me an endless variety of different working environments.

It was at that point i consulted the Cilips website and learnt about graduate traineeships. I was lucky to be offered a trainee ship at the Templeman Library in Cantebury. Who had at that time a great programme for their trainees. the opportunity to work in various different departments and a half day a week at the Cathedral library. The staff there were friendly and wanted nothing more than for their trainees to feel comfortable and enjoy their experience. By the end of my year with them i was sold on being a librarian. (Big thank you to all the people i met there!)

I chose the postgraduate course at Strathclyde University. Again an excellent experience and very interesting topics to study. the hard part was when i had finished - finding a job. I was unfortunately under a barrier of location. Having a partner who was unable to move their location. Still this is the practicalities of life, i ended up getting work as a library Assistant with Fife libraries and loved the job so much that i really made little effort to progress. However i was luck enough to have a boss who knew when to apply a foot up bum, he encouraged me to apply for various temporary positions and after doing a bit of this and a bit of that all over Fife libraries, I finally got my oppertunity for a permanent professional post. Mine has been, i think a rather unusually relaxed and perhaps lazy progression, but i wouldn't change it for the world. I have had the pleasure to work with so many experienced members of staff who have expertise in so many different areas of public libraries. It has given me a very rounded education in what public libraries are all about.

Now i face the next phase of chartership which is begining to come close to the deadline! I have had a very good mentor, who has given me enough of her time and advise to help me but still leaving me room to come to my own conclusions about my journey. Chartering as it is now is a very personal thing, it is about your development, although everyone chartering is following the same guidlines and have to meet the same criteria, everyone's experiences are different. You are reflecting on how you as a person have developed, what conclusions you have drawn about your experiences and how you need to proceed. This means that you are looking at your own strengths and weaknesses and deciding where you have gaps in your knowledge that could be improved. It is all about you.

In some ways i think there is a sense of pride in belonging to a profession that takes professional development seriously. Although i am chartering at a time when libraries are looking cuts in the face, it is also an exciting time to be part of the profession, we are changing and evolving all the time to meet the challenges of modern life and to try and keep our profession pertinent and useful. I would also add to our credit, that on the whole the library profession attracts friendly and helpful people, so no matter where i have have worked it has always been a sharing and enjoyable experience.