Thing 10 - Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

I originally wrote a really long post for this, but didn't feel any better afterwards.Basically, I have a non-LIS degree; no Masters; no Chartership; but the job title 'Librarian'. I am aware of the discussions surrounding the use of the term and believe it should mean something, but am not sure what and realise I could easily sound hypocritical. With the recent news stories about surgeons trying to protect their title and teachers in academies not needing teaching qualifications, I think such discussions will increase and would like to have something to 'prove' my worth.

A lot of people follow the graduate trainee/Masters route in order to get a job. I have a job I'm happy in, so these aren't suitable (currently).

I've decided (and said as much in my appraisal) that I will aim to get CILIP certification, and then work for Chartership.

I have some concerns about needing to retain CILIP membership in order to retain Chartership- surely if you've evidenced you've done something, you'll always have done it? I think it's I important to keep up CPD and be aware of changes in your profession, but perhaps CILIP could have a different way of certifying that annually?

Thing 9 - Evernote

I'm glossing over this one a bit since I have tried Evernote, have it on PC and iPad, but despite the best intentions am not very good at using it. I therefore don't want to form any firm conclusions yet.

Thing 8 - Google Calendar

At work we use Outlook, which works well enough for organising meetings and keeping track of holidays. I don't have a lot of appointments to keep track of so tend to remember things of importance. At home we just have a bog standard paper calendar (this year it's Klimt). However, I have experimented with syncing my work Outlook with Google Calendar. This isn't because I intend to use GC in itself, but so that I can then sync it with the calendar app (Saisuke) on my iPad. It's an exercise in trying new things rather than a necessity, but seems to work well.

I can see the usefulness of using GC as an institutional public calendar, but currently we don't have many events to publicise!

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Thing 7 - real-life networks

The one one thing I told myself I wouldn't do is get behind on the Things. Oh, well.

I'm a member of CILIP, primarily since I want to get a qualification and therefore need to be, but haven't yet been to any events. I'm awful with meeting new people and so tend to shy away from instances where I might have to talk to others informally.

I do attend regular meetings within my college's university network, and have attended a couple of JISC events, and I do find these beneficial. Mostly since, being part of a small team with library-specific management, I find it useful to see what similar institutions are doing and how others cope with the same issues we might be having.

 

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