What?

Wow, what an experience! I thought there might be a few of us interested in the #chartership chat myself and Tina had organised (a Twitter chat to support those working on CILIP Chartership), and had already had positive messages from people who were hoping to join in, but I certainly wasn’t expecting this…

Um...#chartership is 4th in the UK trending topics right now!

February 16, 2012 7:05 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@rachel_s_b

Rachel Bickley

That’s right – we were the number 4 trending topic on Twitter in UK – imagine that!

Chartership chat trending in UK (thanks Katy)

Chartership chat trending in UK (thanks Tina)

It was all a bit frantic so apologies if people were struggling to follow the conversation at times. Great that so many people were able to join in though – thanks to all of you who joined us.

I set up a TAGS archive for #chartership to collect all the tweets and made sure it was all working just before we started the chat this evening. Fortunately it has captured all the tweets so if you want to see the full list you can view all the tweets on the public archive.

Tina and I originally thought an hour would be plenty so we scheduled 6.30-7.30GMT but much of the conversation continued until 8pm. During the time, there were around 90 tweeters participating and a total of around 500 tweets were posted. Ever likely it trended, us librarians are clearly a chatty lot!

We decided not to set an agenda and let people discuss whatever they wanted to, though Tina and I did have some backup questions in case people needed something to respond to. This wasn’t needed though as a number of common topics arose and lots of spin off conversations started to happen. The tweet below warmed the cockles of my heart and there were plenty of others like it:

@katy_bird I think we need to become new best friends! #chartership

February 16, 2012 7:02 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@greebstreebling

Mobeena Khan

The conversation

A number of people have asked for a summary of the conversation. I couldn’t possibly cover everything that was discussed but below are a few of the topics that were raised during the chat and some of the advice that was offered. (EDIT: @ellyob has also shared her own version of the conversation using Storify).

Choosing a mentor

Some people are currently looking for mentors due to starting the process now or because their previous mentor has left. Advice included whether to choose someone within your organisation or outside, within your sector or outside, and how to use the lists on the CILIP website. It was pointed out that these are not always totally up-to-date so even if it says someone is full it doesn’t hurt to contact them as they may no longer be. Also discussed was the location of your mentor – some prefer to be very close so that regular face-to-face meetings can be arranged, some prefer a more virtual relationship with fewer face-to-face meetings.

Finding time (and money) for CPD activities

Some people were concerned that they didn’t have time or money for CPD activities, particularly as budgets tighten and employers can no longer support these activities to the extent they once did. However, there are loads of very low cost ways to develop skills and knowledge (including one everyone was using – Twitter!). Fortunately, there was an excellent blog post on a similar topic earlier this week – see Katy Wrathall’s You can’t continue to develop professionally when unemployed – or can you? which has lots of tips for professional development opportunities without breaking the bank. Time is more of an issue, though I think everyone agreed that it’s more a matter or prioritising activities and doing little bits each week if possible, but that as it is a personal experience it’s fine to go at a pace that suits you.

Reflective practice

I know for many people the reflective focus of the chartership puts them off (for me personally, I like it, but still…). Different options for reflection were discussed including the very private (only things you see like personal learning logs) to the very public (like a public blog). Some mentors mentioned that reflection had been something they weren’t keen on when they started the chartership process themselves but by the end of it they really appreciated it.

Linking your professional development to your day job

Something that I know a lot of people can find tricky is linking the extra professional activities together with the day job (particularly applicable to those working in para-professional roles or for whom the majority of professional development is outside the scope of employment). Advice was given by experienced professionals who recommended trying to get management support, speaking to your manager about how you can work together to align your work activities and professional development, and linking PPDP elements to your work (e.g. in appraisals).

Collecting and organising evidence during the process

A number of different tools were discussed to help organise evidence. Some prefer to use paper copies of documents, whilst others suggested using online tools such as a wiki (see Wiki-ing for chartership for more information), Google Docs, or an e-portfolio tool such as FolioForMe (using Maraha). Different techniques were discussed for organising the information – by area of PPDP, by criteria, or starting to think about the structure of the final portfolio.

Selecting evidence for your portfolio

The consensus here (confirmed by a number of mentors, thank you!) was definitely quality over quantity. There are no strict guidelines over the number or type of evidence to collect as it varies for each individual portfolio. The main thing to bear in mind is to ensure that each piece of evidence shows how you are meeting the criteria for assessment – if they don’t show that then they shouldn’t be in your portfolio.

Common pitfalls

Common pitfalls in submitted portfolios include lack of information on organisational aspects (linking to organisational strategies etc.) – many people commented that they do not currently have these or cannot link their work to them as they are too broad. Advice around this included speaking to your manager about developing strategic aims for your own department/area and possibly working on this together. Another pitfall is a lack of breadth of professional knowledge. It was great to see people starting to set up partnerships to support this element – some of the ways it can be achieved are by visiting other libraries, interviewing librarians to find out about their jobs, or just having conversations with them. Hopefully #chartership chat will help form links to support this aspect.

Support from CILIP

I was delighted to see many CILIP staff involved in the conversation and keen to listen to conversations and hear how they could help support us. Simon Edwards mentioned that CILIP are currently scoping requirements for a VLE which would clearly be of interest to anyone studying for a CILIP professional qualification:

gathering requirements for CILIP VLE this year. Suggestions for what tools we can provide to support candidates will be welcome #chartership

February 16, 2012 7:02 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimonEdwards75

Simon Edwards

I’m sure Simon would welcome any further feedback if you have thoughts on this. @CILIPcpd was also joining in with the conversation, and Annie Mauger (CILIP CEO) was keeping an eye on the discussion to see how CILIP might be able to help support chartership candidates (and she is also going through the fellowship process herself at the moment so can relate to what we’re all going through and shared some tips!).

What next?

I think we can definitely say that #chartership chat was a success – I never expected so many people to join in sharing so much useful information. I certainly made some new connections and have lots of ideas to follow up, and I hope others got the same. We’ll definitely be holding another #chartership chat, so the next one will be two weeks from now at 6.30pm GMT on Thursday March 1st (if anyone wants to request a different time, please let me know or feel free to organise something – I’m not precious about it!).  I think we’ll do the same again in keeping it unstructured – that way people can bring their own questions and discussions and the conversation will depend on who is there. If anyone has any feedback/suggestions or thinks there is a better way please let me know, or jump in there and sort it.

Just one final note – a huge thank you to those of you who joined in and made it such a success, and those who helped spread the word to let people know about it.

  by  mnadi 

I didn’t actually think I’d be writing a blog post about this yet – chairing meetings was on my list of things I’d be doing later this year (in my role as chair of CILIP West Midlands) but there was confusion over the date of the committee changeover. Seeing as the current chair couldn’t attend the committee meeting earlier this week at the last minute, the rest of the committee decided I should chair the meeting (which left the Vice Chair very confused as the current Chair had asked him to stand in). Unfortunately I got lost on my way to the meeting room and arrived a couple of minutes late so receiving the news I was chairing the meeting after that made for a flustered start! We also had no agenda so the meeting was a little haphazard to say the least.

I’ve attended numerous meetings so tried to stick to some sort of structure similar to what I knew we usually do although I did miss out some crucial elements like welcoming our new committee members and checking the previous meeting’s minutes for accuracy.

I have also been doing some reading about successful chairing of meetings as I’m keen to change the structure of the agenda (at present I don’t feel it is an effective use of our time) and am interested in different approaches and best practice. This may well be the subject for another blog post if I manage to get something better put in place. I’ve been reading some of Facilitating Meetings and Chairing Discussions and Meetings That Give Results: How to Plan and Chair Productive Meetings.

Here are some things I learnt from my reading and my first experience of chairing a meeting.

Before the meeting (sadly on this occasion I didn’t have the luxury of this, but next time I hope to!)

• Plan an agenda and circulate it beforehand so everyone knows what will be discussed at the meeting (if appropriate, invite attendees to request items to be added to the agenda by a specified date – probably at least a week before the meeting).
• Ensure the secretary has all the relevant information including the agenda, previous meeting minutes, and any documentation you need to discuss at the meeting well in advance so that they can pass the relevant documents to attendees or print for distribution at the meeting.
• Ensure each attendee has any relevant documentation including the agenda in advance of the meeting (preferably by email so that they can choose whether they wish to print or not).
• Make sure you arrive at the meeting in plenty of time to ensure the room is set up correctly, you have all the materials you need, and you can welcome people as they arrive.

During the meeting

• Remember to welcome everyone to the meeting and aim to start on time.
• Facilitate the discussion rather than dominating it – ensure everyone gets their chance to express their views (if appropriate).
• Keep an eye on time throughout so that you don’t overrun (you may need to ask people to keep their points brief).
• Ensure the minute taker is following throughout  - check with them at key points, or write down any actions yourself so that you can check afterwards that all were recorded. This is particularly important if the minute taker is new to the group and may not know attendees (and therefore who is responsible for what) or if they are unfamiliar with meeting content.
• Stick to the agenda as much as possible – sometimes discussion will creep but try to keep it on topic and put discussions on hold until later if they are on the agenda but are mentioned earlier on (unless it makes sense to move them).

After the meeting

• Thank everyone for attending.
• Follow up on any actions you have – there’s nothing worse than reviewing the actions at the next meeting and the chair repeatedly having to say, “Oh, yes, I haven’t done that yet”.
• Assist the minute taker with minutes if needed.
• Set a date for the next meeting and start the process all over again!

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to chairing meetings. Being thrown in at the deep end was probably a good thing though as it made me realise which areas I really need to improve on. For the next meeting I’m hoping to set an agenda based on current activities rather than the standard set agenda that we have used in the past for everyone to report back (sometimes not everyone has anything to report and others have a lot of items to report back on). I’d also like to set approximate times for each item, even if that’s only for my own time management. I don’t want to be too rigid so that people have chance to discuss each item but I do think it’s important to ensure adequate time to discuss everything that needs to be discussed – in the past we have overrun and not covered elements we wanted to discuss.

Are there any other useful tips for chairing meetings? All advice greatly appreciated!

Studying?! by J.Salmoral

When I should have been writing my dissertation in 2009 I wrote a few articles for publication, but in the last 12-18 months my writing has pretty much stalled apart from blogging which I continue to do on a regular basis, and occasional articles for regional newsletters (because I’m on committees and sometimes get asked to write something up for the newsletter). Most of my publications have been in newsletter and magazines – I’ve only been through the peer-review process once and it was an event report so not as rigorous as a research article.

Writing is one of my focus areas for my Chartership, and something I’d like to improve, particularly with publishing my research in peer-reviewed journals (or professional journals). There have been some interesting discussions on the value of peer-review recently on Twitter and blogs, and it’s something I am still deciding my view on – I see the value in sharing via a blog (mainly for the currency and immediacy factor), but for research articles the longevity and kudos of a peer-reviewed journal make it far more appealing. I’m keen to support Open Access and would rather publish in an open access publication that I could also link to via my blog, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

In order to try to get back on track with writing, last week I attended the first of a two-part workshop on Writing for Publication. Below are my notes from the day (probably only of use to others who use lists – sorry!):

Twitter Chat (image from Iconfinder)

A little while ago, Rachel mentioned the idea of having a scheduled chat on Twitter for anyone doing CILIP Chartership. I liked the idea and thought it was something I would probably like to do to help me when I’m chartering. It’s something I mentioned when I first starting thinking about Chartership, and was pleased to see others would like to join in too.

Well, I registered for my Chartership in December, and Tina reminded me recently that we haven’t had a Twitter chat on Chartership. I’ve been using the #chartership tag on Twitter to record thoughts and activities relating to Chartership and have it set as a saved search so I can follow conversations on there, but not many people seem to use it at the moment. Since we initially discussed this idea, #uklibchat has been gaining popularity and now runs every other Thursday evening. We decided to make it easy for people to remember by holding a scheduled Chartership chat on Twitter every other Thursday if there is interest (each week between #uklibchat). So…..

CILIP Chartership candidate or mentor? Please join us on Twitter for a #chartership chat on Thursday 16th February 2012 at 6.30-7.30pm GMT.

Hopefully it will help focus some discussions, be an opportunity to share advice, and act as encouragement/motivation. Please join us – all you need to do is start tweeting using the #chartership tag on Thursday 16th Feb any time between 6.30pm and 7.30pm (GMT). If you know anyone else who might be interested, please pass on the information. Hope to chat to some of you next week!

As I’m currently working on my CILIP Chartership, I’m getting into the habit of reflecting on any professional activities. I also think it’s good practice after a conference to reflect on what you learnt (in terms of the conference content and also the logistics and organisational aspects), and had an interesting conversation last night at dinner about how useful it was to record the lessons learned after each conference (we also discussed how at a conference it was common to have more showers than meals!*). So here are a few points I have been mulling over after ALA Midwinter 2012 – things that I hope will help improve my future conferences (and may help others so I thought would be worth sharing).

• It really is all about the connections you make and the experiences you have at a conference. Yes, I attended some interesting sessions, but I took the most from the ad hoc conversations I had, often at the social occasions or just when a group of us happened to meet up over drinks/dinner. It will be interesting to see how this might change in future if the trend for shrinking numbers of attendees at conferences continues.
• Don’t let finances be the only reason not to do something. I almost didn’t apply for Emerging Leaders in case I couldn’t get funding, but I decided to apply anyway to see what happened and I’m so glad I did. I was fortunate enough to have been awarded an EBSCO Scholarship to support my attendance, which really helped. I’d strongly recommend applying for funding opportunities, there are many options out there and they really do want to help support people who want to attend professional development events but may not have the funds to do so. 
• The ALA Emerging Leaders program really is as good as everyone told me, if not better. Not only do you get excellent leadership training and an insight into the way ALA works, you also get to be part of an incredibly exciting and dynamic cohort of librarians. I’m so looking forward to both my group project (which I’ll blog about separately some time) and communicating with the wider group of Emerging Leaders. It also opens a number of doors for you – people are interested in hearing more about your project, and current leaders are interested to hear your ideas. I have also heard about a similar model being used at a regional level, and it’s something I am hoping we might be able to adopt in the UK (adding yet another thing to my ‘I want to make this happen’ list).
• Plan your expected schedule ahead of the conference, but don’t be too rigid – have some backup sessions and don’t worry about sticking to your planned schedule. If you’re having a great conversation or someone invites you to something outside your schedule which you think would be interesting, then go for it (except for sessions you have paid to attend, you are speaking at/organising, or are required to attend of course!). 
• Attend some sessions outside your immediate area of work, or just things that sound interesting. I went to Susan Cain’s auditorium session which was fantastic (and even went to the book signing afterwards), and really enjoyed Lisa Loeb at the wrap up party. 
• Schedule some down time for yourself, especially if you’re an introvert and need to recharge away from other people. Head back to your hotel for a while or just take a walk outside, you’ll feel so much better afterwards. This time I learnt from my mistakes at ALA Annual 2011 and made sure that every day I took a break, usually between the daytime activities and the evening activities. I also spent quite a bit of time in the Networking Uncommons area in the conference – I learnt how to play Apples to Apples (an ALA version even!) and really enjoyed CraftCon which I helped organise. 
• This one is specific to ALA conferences (or maybe US conferences, I’m not sure), but don’t worry if you aren’t at the *whole* session. Be kind and courteous to others at the session (sit near the back and keep quiet when arriving/leaving), but people really don’t mind as they understand there are numerous clashes and so much to fit in. Also sometimes something isn’t what you hoped it would be – if that’s the case, go somewhere else. The conference experience is what you make it and it’s a waste of your time to attend a session you’re not enjoying. 
• Find out if anyone you know is staying at the same hotel as you and attending any of the same sessions/events, especially in the evening. I don’t like to walk on my own in cities I am unfamiliar with, but cab rides can be expensive, so it’s useful for me to find someone I can walk with. This is one I need to get better at!
• Use the conference shuttle buses. Not only does this save some of your energy (and your feet!) but you also meet some really interesting people on the bus. I need to get better at this more informal networking – I tended to wait until people spoke to me. 
• Don’t be afraid to speak to people you consider role models or ‘library superstars’. They’re usually very nice and will be glad you made the effort to say hello. I still need to work on this as am often too starstruck and kick myself afterwards for missing the opportunity to speak to them. 
• Take things to last you at least 36hrs or more in your carry on luggage when flying. One friend this year didn’t get her luggage for a couple of days, and I’m currently sitting in DFW airport for goodness knows how long (they keep delaying my flight further – in fact this sentence was interrupted with news of yet another delay!). Fortunately I packed an international charger in my carry on and have found a socket so I have plenty of power for keeping my occupied on my iPad, and have lots of gluten free snacks with me (though they are rapidly depleting, I’m hungry!). I don’t have spare clothes but seeing as I’m flying home that’s not too much of an issue. I have some toiletries with me to freshen up too so shouldn’t be too smelly!

ALA Midwinter was really enjoyable – it seemed much more manageable in terms of size and organisation of my schedule, partly I think due to the smaller scale compared to ALA Annual, and partly I think (well, I hope!) because I’m getting better at organising myself before and during a conference. ALA conferences are so tiring, and because they are over a weekend it essentially means you pretty much work for two weeks with no breaks. I’m really looking forward to this coming weekend when I am planning to sleep and very little else! Having said that, I am also feeling invigorated – I have lots of actions to follow up and ideas to pursue thanks to some awesome library colleagues. Roll on ALA Annual in June! 

*We were discussing the quota of drinks, showers and meals – I think I may have had more showers than meals, though I had problems with having no hot water in my room at times so the scale may be tilted towards drinks! If you are wondering, the frozen mango tequila cocktail on my final night was my favourite.

Last week I gave my first ever webinar as part of the American Library Association (ALA) Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Mobile Computing Interest Group (MCIG) virtual meeting.* It took place instead of a physical meeting at ALA Midwinter to enable more people to attend and present. There were five presentations in 90 minutes so we each had 10 minutes to present and 5 minutes of Q&A. If you’re interested in the topic, you can watch a recording of the webinar – see the blog post I wrote for our m-library community support project blog.

I thought it would be useful to reflect on my experiences of presenting a webinar – I’m noticing more and more webinars set up to enable more people to attend virtually across different time zones and without the expense of travelling, so I imagine presenting at webinars is something we’ll be seeing a lot more of in future.This is my setup – home office with laptop for webinar software, headset for listening/speaking, iPhone for timing, and iPad and notepad for presentation prompts (and all important glass of Ribena!):

Webinar setup

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I get asked this question a lot, and I often struggle to answer it. My job is pretty unique so there’s not really much to easily compare it to. I’m part of an academic library but rarely set foot into the library. I have an office on a University campus but don’t visit it very often as I regularly work from home or on the go (the train is a favourite of mine!). My job title is Evidence Based Researcher; if you asked me I would probably tell you I’m an academic researcher/librarian, but my partner would probably say he wasn’t really sure how to describe it but I’m a sort of information consultant. So what do I actually do?

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) have organised an Alternative Careers webinar to help introduce some of the more alternative jobs out there in the information profession. Bethan Ruddock, who is the webinar host, asked me if I’d be able to answer some questions about my job to help her research for the webinar (Bethan also has a pretty unique job but wants to get some other examples to share). I was happy to oblige and am reproducing what I sent her. So if you’re not sure what I actually do, this might give you more of an idea… Read the rest of this entry »

I found last year’s resolutions useful in helping keep me on the right track last year, and am pleased to say I kept most of them – here’s a review:

• Complete my MSc dissertation – finished in July
• Attend more conferences – I attended lots of great conferences and events in 2011
• Implement the Getting Things Done system at home and work – I seem to have this sorted for electronic information, though need to work on physical organisation of paperwork and notes
• Participate in Library Day in the Life – I took part in both rounds of Library Day in the Life in 2011
• Continue to blog – I posted 44 times on this blog in 2011, and also blogged for Evidence Base and for projects I’m involved in

As it was a useful exercise for helping me focus last year, so I’ve decided to set myself more resolutions/goals for this year. In common with Erin, these are general aims so cover all areas of my life.

1. To work on CILIP Chartership (reflecting on achievements and updating wiki on at least a monthly basis)
2. To improve physical organisation, particularly in home office – notes and paperwork etc.
3. To achieve a more productive balance between different parts of my life ensuring I make time for professional, personal, and social activities
4. To continue to blog about professional issues and ideas as well as reflection on activities
5. To publish at least one paper (preferably peer-reviewed)

Bring it on!

What?

As I mentioned at the beginning of summer, I’ve been participating in and helping organise the 23 Things for Professional Development (CPD23) programme. The programme was slightly different to other 23 Things in that it focused on both tools and also techniques and strategies for professional development (rather than just web tools as in many previous 23 Things courses). I authored two of the ‘things’ – Thing 3 on Consider your personal brand, and Thing 19 on Integrating the Things. I’ve also helped encourage conversation on Twitter and have contributed some of the @cpd23 account tweets as well as looking out for queries on the #cpd23 hashtag. As a participant I blogged at Joeyanne’s 23 Things for Professional Development and have recently completed all 23 things.

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CILIP AGM 2011

I recently attended my first CILIP AGM. I helped organise the CILIP West Midlands AGM earlier this year but this was a much more formal affair. I learnt a lot about CILIP and its governance, so thought I’d reflect on my experience and share my thoughts (well, actually it was my soon-to-be mentor for CILIP Chartership who prodded me to record my thoughts and gave me some starter questions whilst it’s still fresh in my mind).

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