Last Friday was CILIP’s Graduate Open Day where I spoke about Realising your potential: marketing yourself using online tools.

Emma Illingsworth and Ned Potter have written posts about the day, but I thought I’d add my own views too.There seemed to be a lot of people there; I spoke to Kathy Ennis and Lindsay Rees-Jones (nice to put a face to the name!) who were really pleased with the number of people at the event. It was great to catch up with Emma, Ned and Chris Rhodes who were also speaking – all of whom I met earlier at the New Professionals Conference. There were a wide range of students and graduates there – some who were only really beginning to consider librarianship as a career option, others who had finished their librarianship degree and were now looking for work.

The day was very relaxed, and gave the opportunity for the delegates to do what they needed to do – whether it was just to find out more information about librarianship, come along to some of the talks, or whether they needed tailored 1:1 careers or CV advice. The speed networking sessions seemed very popular and the buzz from the room was incredible! There were a number of “networkers” from various different fields of librarianship/information profession and the “networkees” moved around and spent 3 minutes chatting to each one. It’s a great idea and hopefully they will have got a lot out of the session about the variety of different jobs you can go into within the information profession.

I did a very similar talk to the one at the New Professionals Conference earlier in this year (see below for presentation), although expanded a little bit more on some of the areas as I had more time allocated.

I also tried to use Twitter in the first talk by posting a message before the session asking people to say hi and include the tag #grad09, and then checking it at the end to see who was around. Unfortunately only one person replied in time, but it still showed that there are librarians out there using Twitter. In hindsight, I would have liked to make my sessions more interactive, but I had expected larger numbers – I was expecting maybe 50 in each group, but in reality both groups had around 20-25, a much more manageable number for interactive tasks. One of my talks sparked an interesting discussion about privacy issues on social networking, where the general consensus was that it is the role of educators (including librarians) to discuss these issues when advocating the use of them. This has also been touched on recently in the UK press regarding the controversial decision to include social networking in the primary curriculum. Personally, I think it’s more important to teach the principles of the communication tools and how to use (and not to use) them rather than the tools themselves, but that’s a whole other blog post.

In between my sessions I had a look round CILIP HQ as it was my first visit, and was pleased to find the Information Centre – which is open to all CILIP members Mon-Fri 9-5 (sadly not at weekends or evenings due to the position of the centre). Even more exciting was seeing my name in print in a copy of the latest issue of the Program journal in there, and also a mention in the latest issue of Impact, the Career Development Group journal. Hopefully, my articles in Open Access and Refer (will post about this when it is published) will also join them soon.

I had a quick nosy at the materials in there which may be useful for researching my MSc dissertation, but they didn’t have some of the books I’m looking for – the CILIPInfo team have since been in touch asking for suggestions of new additions to stock though, great service! It’s a good information centre for information professionals; latest copies of LIS journals (including the local branch and CILIP group journals), a collection of books and reports, a reference section, as well as PCs with database access, and of course a photocopier. For anyone living in or near London it’s a great resource, and worth a visit by anyone else if they’re visiting CILIP at any point. I also discovered that CILIP members are now entitled to two free careers advice sessions per year with qualified careers professionals, and these can be taken at a distance by phone or email.

Whilst I had the opportunity, I also had a chat with Michael Martin about qualifications as I’m interested in chartering and wanted to find out more. It certainly seems like a good thing for me to do, I just need to decide whether to tackle it at the same time as my dissertation or not. Part of me is inclined to do it now as I’m at the beginning of my professional career and will probably find it of most use. I’m also already doing a lot of the activities that I could do for my chartership, and am already reflecting by blogging. Having said that, I’ve already put off my dissertation for almost a year and don’t really want it to drag too much (as it’s a flexible course I have until September 2011 to complete the MSc). I’m still at the early research stage of my dissertation but will be posting some thoughts soon and would really appreciate advice!

All in all it was a great event – both as a speaker talking to potential future information professionals, and as an excuse to visit CILIP HQ and find out more about the organisation.

In my last post, I mentioned that I would be writing a post about how I got into librarianship, following a meme going round. Ned Potter has now set up a Library Routes wiki to record all these posts, in a similar way to the Day in the Life wiki. It’s really interesting reading everyone’s posts and I also think it could be very useful for anyone considering entering the profession to see how others got there. Here’s my story anyway…

I always wanted to be a primary school teacher – from as far back as I can remember that’s what I wanted to do. Throughout my time at school, the curriculum changed with more and more emphasis on performance in tests/exams and less importance on the child’s learning experience as a whole. The amount of planning and standards to adhere to also seem to restrict creativity in teaching and I just didn’t think it was for me.

I’m a qualified gymnastics coach (I used to compete in Sports Acrobatics until I left University) and had been coaching through my teenage years; I loved coaching but found it difficult to turn off afterwards, particularly when there were kids I was coaching who had problems at home. This confirmed teaching wasn’t right for me – I admire those who teach but for me I don’t think I’m mentally strong enough.

I finished my A-levels and because I wasn’t 100% sure about teaching I decided to do a regular degree and then I could always do a PGCE if teaching was the route I wanted to take. I really enjoyed the theory side of my PE A-level, so decided to apply for courses in Sports Science. I was also contemplating doing Maths (yes, I’m one of those weirdos who loves Maths), and I did consider a joint degree but in the end settled on doing Sports Science at University of Wales, Bangor. I loved my degree, and focused on Sports Psychology which fascinates me (I also did Psychology at A level and am really interested in studying people). I got a first in my degree (yay me!), then wondered what on earth to do next. I’d definitely ruled out teaching for the time being, and I didn’t fancy being a sports psychologist (although was tempted by an MSc/PhD route to lecturing).

However, we then moved to Wolverhampton (due to job prospects for my boyfriend), so I started looking for a job. I’d begun to try to look into librarianship (not really sure why, think it was suggested to me on an online test, and the idea of staying within education in some way appealed to me). I struggled to find any information in my careers library at Bangor or on the net (plenty of American information, not much in the UK), so I went to a jobcentre in Wolverhampton where I was told that they wouldn’t help me find a job because I lived with my boyfriend rather than my parents.

Feeling a bit deflated, I decided to get some voluntary library experience and a local friend came with me to the libraries she knew. I asked at the University and was told they don’t take people for voluntary experience, then tried the public library where I spent a day being told about the dodgy visitors to the library, scary experiences in the evening, and that there weren’t any jobs and I’d just have to wait until someone retired. It was all looking a bit bleak but a library assistant job came up in two of my local libraries, and my friend managed to get some work experience for me in the local high school too. I absolutely loved working in the school library, and the librarian there is fabulous – I still keep in touch when I can.

I was successful in one of the library assistant jobs, and was waiting for a CRB check to start working every Sunday for 3 hours – a whole £50/month! I spent a few weeks at the school in the meantime and then0 a graduate traineeship came up at the University library. The school librarian I was with used to work at the University too so she gave me an inytroduction to what it was like and I decided to go for it. I waited ages after I’d sent in my application and thought I hadn’t got an interview – but then on the last day I got a letter inviting me to interview. The interview was pretty intense – I had to do a presentation followed by a panel interview, and I have to admit I didn’t have a clue about some of it – I was asked about journal database providers and the librarian situation in Bangor (as an undergrad I don’t even know if we had a librarian and I did use Sports Discus but had no idea what platform it was on!). I didn’t think I stood much of a chance but got a call that evening to say that they hadn’t made a decision yet but that I was in the shortlist. The following morning I got the call to say I’d got the job and could I start the following week!

The job was a one year contract, and since then I’ve shifted campuses and worked different contracts, usually for a year each time, whilst I studied for my Information and Library Studies course via distance learning (Aberystwyth). I worked at the public library on Sundays for just over a year, but gave that up when I started my course. Last year I finished the Diploma section of my course, and shortly after I applied for a Resources Librarian post at yet another campus. I got the job, and am now almost a year into my first professional librarian post. I still need to complete my dissertation to get the MSc, but I am really loving librarianship – it’s the perfect career for someone like me who enjoys a variety (with the exception of Art and History I loved all school subjects), likes flexibility and different job tasks, and wants to help people. It really is the best combination for me – I still get to teach but I get to do so much more too!

If you’re working in the information profession, it would be great to hear your story – you can write a blog post if you have a blog and link to it from the Library Routes wiki, or if you don’t have a blog you can write a page on the wiki (there are instructions on the home page). Looking forward to hearing other’s stories!

There’ve been a couple of blog memes going round the UK biblioblogosphere ( library bloggers!), so I thought I’d join in.

The first is a post about how you got into librarianship, which I’ll write later this week, and today’s is Reading Habits (so far completed by WoodsieGirl, Jaffne, stupidgirl_no1, iOverlord and infobunny). I’m writing this one first as Infobunny asked us all to write it and I must obey Bunny – as should you, so please feel free to carry the meme on with your own reading habits.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?

Not usually, no. If I’m reading on the sofa or outside during a nice relaxing day I may snack on sweets (Haribo Tangfastics are my sweet of choice), but I usually read in bed or on the bus – not really prime snacking locations.

Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?

I don’t think I’ve ever written in a book, but I do sometimes use those annoying sticky markers. If it’s a borrowed book I always remove them before returning though, good librarian that I am. Writing in books doesn’t horrify me, but I do think you should only write in a book you own.

How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?

I usually use one of those boring clip bookmarks, I do have a couple of nice bookmarks that I use occasionally though. I can’t stand it when people leave a paperback book open, my books tend to look almost brand new after I’ve read them. In all fairness though I think this probably stems from when I used to sell my books on after reading them rather than because the books are sacred and it might hurt their feelings.

Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?

Bit of both, but usually fiction in my own time. Having said that, I read a lot on my commute which currently takes 60-90mins each way, and that reading is usually non-fiction – journal articles, textbooks, reading for work etc. I did a lot of my course reading for my distance learning MSc whilst on the bus.

Hard copy or audiobooks?

Hard copy, I downloaded an audiobook once to try but kept getting distracted when I was listening to it. I’m not very good at doing just one thing at a time as I get distracted (when listening to music it’s normally as background music), so I find it very difficult to concentrate on an audiobook.

Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?

I prefer to read to the end of a chapter (one reason I love short chapters like James Patterson!). The book I’m reading at the moment doesn’t have chapters and I’m finding it annoying having to leave it midway through a page.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?

No, I don’t think I’ve ever looked a word up unless it’s something I’m reading for a course. Usually though I can figure out what it means from the context.

What are you currently reading?

“This Charming Man” – bought as a holiday read but didn’t get chance to read it, struggling to read it now as I’m not enjoying it. Also Paco Underhill’s “How We Buy: The Science of Shopping” which I’ve only just started but is really fascinating.

What is the last book you bought?

Holidays reads from Amazon – A Spring Affair, Rumour Has It, and This Charming Man.

Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?

I usually have one fiction book at a time (which I tend to read each night in bed), and at least one non-fiction (usually relating to work or studies).

Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?

I actually enjoy reading the work related stuff on my journey to and from work – I use that time as reflection and it’s quite good to have some theory to read about and relate it to work. As for fiction, I only really tend to read it in bed as I’m drifting off to sleep, but if it is a particularly good book I may read it at weekends/evenings and during the commute.

Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?

No real preference. I tend to read stand alone books, but I enjoy James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club crime series, and also the Harry Potter and Twilight series (shameful I know but I loved the Twilight books!).

Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?

Not really. You may have noticed I don’t tend to read many serious books, in the same way my TV choices are mainly trashy; I like to not have to think much when I read fiction. Sophie Kinsella books fit the bill perfectly, and I have recommended the Shopaholic series to people in the past. I recently really enjoyed Mike Gayle’s To Do List (non-fiction) and recommended that to people – I also saw him at the Library Show just after I read it and was all starstruck!

How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)

I don’t organise them apart from into piles of to-be-read and those I’ve already read. I don’t tend to keep many books – most go to the local charity shop, so there’s no real need to organise them. I did used to organise my CDs though, they were all alphabetical (in the loft now as they’re all on my PC!).

I met Kathy Ennis from CILIP at the New Professionals Conference earlier in summer and she asked a few of us from the day if we could also speak at the CILIP Graduate Open Day. The theme of the day is marketing yourself, which was also the message in my talk at New Professionals Conference, so I was happy to accept the invitation to speak. I’ll be presenting a similar presentation to before, and will be focusing on using blogging, microblogging and social networking to market yourself and your skills online. As well as a series of presentations, the day also includes the opportunity to speak to CILIP themselves to get career advice, and also a speed networking event which I’m informed was very popular last year!

The day is open to anyone (you don’t have to be a CILIP member) but is particularly aimed at students, graduates and those new to the profession. It’s a free event at CILIP HQ in London, although registration is necessary. You can see a full timetable of the day and register a place from the CILIP Graduate Open Day website.

I’m looking forward to another speaking engagement, and I’m really looking forward to meeting up with some of the people I met at the New Professionals Conference, such as Emma Illingsworth and Ned Potter who are both now blogging too.

The latest issue of CILIP West Midlands journal, Open Access, is a special edition on Web 2.0. It contains articles from librarians throughout the region,and I was pleased to be asked to contribute. The editor, David Viner, asked if I could write about professional networking using Web 2.0 tools and I was happy to oblige – a similar article from the viewpoint of Amelia Luzzi, an information professional currently working outside a library is also presented which gives an interesting comparison. There are also practical guides for using Web 2.0, overviews of Web 2.0 projects within the region, and a look at the Semantic Web and Web 3.0.

CILIP members living in the West Midlands will receive a print copy of Open Access soon with their CILIP Update, but it is also available online for anyone to read from today. You can visit the website (previous editions of Open Access are also available from the Issuu account), or view the embedded version on here (trying out a new plugin!). Comments on the issue are welcome, although you do need an Issuu account first.

Hope you enjoy the special edition, I found the other articles really interesting and it’s great to highlight work going on in the region.

We’re coming to the end of Fresher’s Week and as the title says I am feeling shattered! We’ve spent a long time preparing for inductions over summer, and this week has been really hectic (with staff illness, last minute sessions, and general running around like a headless chicken!), so I can’t wait until I finish work today so that I can rest!

I always look forward to the students coming back though, and this year is no exception. The University seems so empty without them, and one of the most rewarding aspects of the job for me is working with the students.

This year is the first year I’ve done the induction week as a librarian (last year I was still in my old post), and I did my first big lecture group (approx. 180) which I was really apprehensive about. I needn’t have worried though, it was nowhere near as scary as I had thought it would be thankfully.

I think it’s all the extra stuff that tires me, during Freshers Week you are pretty much always on the go and spend so much time helping lost students, managing and organising unexpected groups of students (who always come at the worst times!), and going over the induction process over and over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, I love it – but I feel like I need to hibernate for a while to catch up on sleep/rest!

This year I’ve had a really busy summer vacation too including conferences (and my first time speaking at a conference), visits to other academic libraries (hopefully a post on these soon), establishing a department wide shared calendar for information skills sessions, major weeding and rearrangement of the Teaching Practice collection, and a re-vamp of our induction process and materials. Oh, and an actual holiday away too, which was lovely.

It’s a busy time of year for an academic librarian but I’m looking forward to the rest of the year – we have some really enthusiastic new students.

The UK newspaper Guardian occasionally have articles on academic libraries. Normally they’re not too favourable, but last week there was a really interesting article about how academic libraries are undergoing a quiet revolution.

The article talks about how the information environment is changing and with that the role of the academic librarian must adapt from one of a keeper of information to one of a marketer of services and teacher/trainer to help students (and academics) use the right services with the appropriate tools and techniques to get the best information.

The article features insights from academic librarians in the UK and gives examples of the sorts of activities and skills required for an academic librarian today. A lot of the article really resonates with me – I’ve always been a strong believer in improving communication and marketing services (I even plan to complete my MSc dissertation on this topic), and agree that even in the short space of time I’ve worked in UK University libraries the climate has changed. Particular interesting quotes from the article for me include:

people recruited to work in them have to be willing to embrace new technologies and customer service

tuition in research skills and how to use online library services is crucial

[f]lexibility and willingness to adapt to new ideas is key

It’s really worth a read for those already working in the profession, those considering entering it, and those who wonder what life as an academic librarian is really like!

I’ve been busy busy busy recently – academic librarians always seem to have so much they hope to achieve in summer and then you blink and suddenly it’s almost time for the students to return!

Anyway, just a short post to share some exciting news – my first peer reviewed article has been published in Program.

I mentioned a while ago that I had contributed to a paper for Bridging Worlds 2008 conference, and Program have run a special edition featuring selected papers from the conference. It seems like such a long time ago when I first wrote my contribution (almost a year ago now – just shows how long the publication process can take!) but it’s really exciting to have my name in print in such a great publication.

Brian Kelly from UKOLN was the main author of the paper, which examines the use of Library 2.0 in different types of libraries (national library, research library, and university library – my contribution) and outlines a risk management approach to minimise potential risks whilst gaining the benefits of Library 2.0 initiatives.

The full reference is:

Kelly, B., Bevan, P., Akerman, R., Alcock, J., and Fraser, J. (2009) Library 2.0: balancing the risks and benefits to maximise the dividends. Program: Electronic Library & Information Systems, 43 (3), pp. 311-327.

You can read a copy in Program, or you can view a copy at University of Bath’s repository.

Interesting day today, lots seemed to happen – some good, some not so good.

The day started with a lazy morning, although I did manage to get to work for 9am despite not leaving the house until 7.45am. Result!

I hadn’t seen my manager for a while (he’s been on leave and then I was at Warwick yesterday) so caught up on a few things and spoke to him about the progress of the inductions work. Caught up on emails and planned my priorities for the day – although they changed during the course of the day!

I had my appraisal at 11am and was in there until 12.40pm – didn’t seem that long but I always seem to have loads to discuss! Discussed my progress since our last meeting at the end of my probation, and spoke about different areas of work I’ve been doing. We set some personal targets to focus on for the time being, but will also review those and add more specific targets when the new strategic plan is in place.

1pm Departmental strategic plan for next three years was launched and emailed to all staff. I printed a copy to read with my lunch – had a lovely jacket potato in the staff room today (along with a fat free chocolate brownie baked by a colleague!).

1.45pm Returned to office and joined in conversation about the plan (there has been quite a build up to the plan so it was a fairly big deal).

2pm Another important email, this time to all University staff about the financial situation. Until now we’ve been fortunate in that all savings have been made through natural wastage (i.e. retirement, people leaving) but sadly this is no longer the case. Been expecting it for a while really, but still came as a bit of a shock. Obviously it’s still early stages so we don’t know much about what will happen yet, but as you can imagine it was all most people talked about for the afternoon.

3pm onwards I did manage to get a little bit of weeding done and we also tried some furniture rearranging (manager is keen to better utilise space now we’ve withdrawn quite a bit of stock), but then moved everything back when we realised our plans didn’t quite work. Took a (very blurry!) picture of the amusing sight of trying to fit our new books stand into the lift! Finished the afternoon in Teaching Practice with a chat to a colleague about weeding progress. She’s offered to provide some assistance from her team which is great as we should hopefully work through it a lot quicker. Emailed her my spreadsheet of items which haven’t been borrowed much in recent years so they can pull the items off and I can then just review the stock to ensure we’re not withdrawing anything I want to keep.

Colleague kindly offered me a lift part of the way home so got the earlier bus home. Now waiting for a friend to arrive who’s visiting for the weekend.

WordPress iPhone app is clearly not the way to go, just crashed again whilst trying to publish and now I can’t get to my post!

Anyway, today’s activities:

Similar morning routine to yesterday with more snoozing of the alarm, a whiney attention-seeking Cookie cat, and minus the winter coat (too much hassle!). I’m off to Warwick today so a slightly later start as I don’t need to be there until 10.30am.

Got the 7.44am bus to get to the station. There seem to be plenty of trains to Coventry ( nearest station to Warwick Uni). Bought my ticket at the station and managed to get a direct train which left at 8.45am. Bought a magazine at the station as couldn’t get internet on my phone to read my RSS feeds but then realised 3G was turned off! Turned it back on and all fine now.

Got to Coventry at 9.40ish and managed to navigate to the bus stop (albeit an unconventional route!). Bought a daysaver ticket (blimey they’re expensive now, glad I have my travel card for travel to work). Nice bus driver told me which stop to get off at, didn’t realise how big the campus was – there were loads of different bus stops!

Got to the library at 10.20ish and waited for Katharine. Unsure of timings for rest of day but included:

- tour of Warwick’s library facilities including the Schools collection, Teaching Grid, Research Grid and Learning Grid
- caught up with Katharine on various work-related stuff
- chatted with Chris, the Education librarian, about our roles and the Schools collection in particular
- learnt all about Warwick’s restructuring
- lunched with Katharine, Chris, and Adrienne who will soon be starting a graduate trainee post at Oxford.

As always with visits, there were some great things (I love the Teaching Grid for encouraging innovative teaching methods) and other things I couldn’t get my head around (such as the lack of enquiry service).

I left the campus just before 4pm and got a bus back to Coventry. I just managed to make it in time for the direct train back to Wolverhampton. On the journey I got up to speed on my work emails from the day, and wrote this post.

I’ve got the house to myself tonight as my boyfriend is going out for dinner with clients, so I think I might nip to Sainsbury’s on my way home and get something nice for tea. Looking forward to an evening with the cats, cross stitch and trashy TV.