Thing 10 - CPD and other things

I'm warning you now, this is a bit of a monster post

It's 17 years (gulp!) since I qualified as a librarian. I fell into it completely by accident. I'd just graduated in Welsh and had applied unsuccessfully for a number of jobs – one of which was in a library. In the interview I was told about the MLib (as it was then) course at DILS (now DIS) at Aberystwyth University, and since I seemed to be virtually unemployable as I was, I persuaded my poor parents to put me through yet another year in Higher Education.

I remember very little of the course by now. A quarter of it was dedicated to management, a quarter to reference tools, and I remember one session on teaching us to use card catalogues. How useful was it? Well, I've hardly used a card catalogue in my life, and for the first 5-6 years in my profession, the information on management was completely superfluous. My first job was on a reference desk, so that bit came in slightly useful, but I think I learnt more in a month on the job than I did in a year of studying it at masters level. I also managed to submit my dissertation within the year.

Of course, the course would have offered me so much more if I'd worked in a library for a period of six months to a year beforehand. I'm envious of our library graduate trainees as they get an unique opportunity to explore nearly all aspects of library work, and gain a far greater understanding of the workflows and the interactions between teams in the library. To be fair, the year I studied seemed to be a year of transition from paper-based materials to huge computerised databases, and the year I started working was when the institution I worked in suscribed to their first bibliographic database – remember BIDS? - but it did mean that lots of what I'd learnt about were out-of-date almost immediately.

I did finally get a job where I spent morning in a sectional library and afternoons on the reference desk in the main university library. This was great as I got the opportunity to learn to do a little of everything in the sectional library, while I really enjoyed (and still do) working on the reference desk.

Opportunities for promotion or advancement were few and far between where I was, so I moved to Leeds and ran the Education Library at the School of Education, University of Leeds. I've never wanted to be pigeonholed in library work – I never wanted to be just a cataloguer or reference librarian or desk manager, but rather have opportunities to do different things, and being a Solo Librarian at the School of Education Library provided me again with this. The library was part of the academic department, rather than the University Library, so this gave me an insight into how academic departments worked, especially as I was kindly invited onto all the Advisory Groups covering policy, research and teaching. I also got a gentle introduction into management, as I was mentored by one of the lecturers and also received a great deal of support and advice from other librarians on the campus.

After a few years I joined RSC Wales – no, not a Shakespearean acting troupe but the JISC Regional Support Centre for FE. My work here was to support library staff, and later teaching staff, in FE in using ILT. Again this was extremely varied, and challenging. However it was also a fabulous opportunity and all the RSC staff were expected to attend various national conferences and training events, as well as our own events.

Family life interrupted and after 4 years I gave up my job. That lasted 12 months, before I went back to work part-time for the Welsh Video Network as a Learning and Teaching Advisor. After the RSC, it was a relief to be only working with one technology, and by working alongside an ex-PGCE lecturer, I learnt a huge amount about creating effective lesson plans and reinforcing learning. We also had lots of fun arranging events – my favorite was probably a “Question Time” type event involving 4 AMs (Assembly Members in Welsh Senate) and a number of FE Colleges.

The travelling was getting too much with 3 small children (Oh, the irony, when I was promoting videoconferencing!) so when a full-time job came up as Customer Services Manager in the University Library I jumped at the opportunity, but only after persuading a colleague to apply with me as a job-share. We fortunately were offered the post and nearly 5 years later, we're still here.

During those years I'd done quite a bit of CPD, from a translating diploma, to a LeTTOL course, and attended a huge number (during my RSC time especially) of conferences. In my present role, I need to focus far more on generic management skills. The JISC infoNet resources and courses have been really useful, and if you haven't seen them, then they are worth a look. I would find the management aspect of my MLib course of far more interest and value now then I did at the time.

Apart from formal qualifications and courses, I should make far more of an effort to keep up with current literature, and attend more conferences – but again, it's hard to fit everything in.

I can see from looking back at the CPD23 post that my route has not been straightforward. I did start an attempt at Chartering but only half-heartedly as I was never convinced of the benefits, and I can honestly say that not Chartering has never hindered me.

I believe the benefits of a good Graduate Trainee programme are unsurpassed for a thorough grounding in all (or at least most) aspects of library work, and can see that it would have helped me enormously over the years.

As for formal masters or undergraduate degrees in librarianship – I'm not convinved that my degree gave me the best skills for the job, but I don't know how things have changed over the years. I do know that these academic departments don't seem to be concentrating their research on issues that I find all important in librarianship these days – impact being one of the main ones, and if anyone wants to prove me wrong and point me in the direction of research in impact or value of academic libraries, I'd be grateful.

It's been a bit of a ramble, so if you've got this far, thanks for reading. I'll try not to be so long-winded next time.