Apologies in advance for what may be a very confused post, I’ve had lots of thoughts running through my head that I wanted to write down!

I'm not one of these (though I did use this in my presentation at my first library job interview!)

Well, you’re reading Joeyanne Libraryanne so I’m guessing that after reading the title of the blog post you’re thinking, “erm…. Yes, you’re a librarian! Aren’t you?”. Well I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve been mulling over a few things recently, partly due to the struggle to define what I do whenever I meet anyone, and partly because of some excellent blog posts to do with the CILIP Future Skills project which have really made me think (if you haven’t yet read Tina‘s post, A plea to CILIP, please do so – it’s excellent).

The main argument in Tina’s post is that to be a profession, we need to have skills that set us apart from other professions and define us as librarians. I totally agree. But what are our librarian skills? Well, I guess managing information is one, but isn’t that something most people do in their jobs? Then there’s understanding the needs of our users and delivering appropriate services for them – but again doesn’t that describe many jobs? So what is it that defines us as librarians?

The more I think about it, the more I doubt my identity as a librarian. All my work is involved in some way with library and information services, but does that make me a librarian? I have my qualification, but a qualification doesn’t define someone (I don’t think anyway). It definitely benefits my job that I am a qualified librarian and have worked as a subject librarian in an academic library so I can understand the needs of many of the people we work with, but you could do my job without the qualification or library experience (it’s not a requirement in my job description). Really, my job is a researcher who specialises in supporting library and information services. That’s not a librarian. So I have a slight identity crisis.

I’m heavily involved in professional organisations to support other LIS professionals (and para-professionals), as evident with my committee roles for CILIP and ALA. This year I’m an ALA Emerging Leader and I’m working on my CILIP chartership but is this the right path for me? To highlight the difference between my role and that of a librarian, here are my chosen areas for development which I’m focusing on for CILIP chartership:

• Research skills
• Formal communication skills
• Face-to-face networking
• Presentation skills
• Event organisation
• Project management
• Leadership

All of these are a key part of my job role, and all are skills I develop through my committee involvement too, but when you look at them as a skill set do they say librarian to you? I don’t think so. I think that describes any academic researcher. And even the marking criteria for chartership, again they aren’t really specific to librarians:

• An ability to reflect critically on personal performance and to evaluate service performance
• Active commitment to continuing professional development
• An ability to analyse personal and professional development and progression with reference to experiential and developmental activities
• Breadth of professional knowledge and understanding of the wider professional context

Then we cross the murky waters of an information professional and what defines that. Maybe I’m not currently a librarian but I am an information professional? I’d like to think so, but again that could describe any researcher really – we all collect information, analyse information, and repackage it for our user/client’s needs. I differ from Tina in my views on this topic – I think the commonalities between librarians and information professionals mean that they should be part of one profession, whereas I know Tina feels they should be separate (and I do question whether my views are totally objective!). I think it’s interesting that in the UK we have the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, but in the US it’s still the American Library Association. Where do information professionals fit in the US? Do they still come under ALA?

I’m still figuring out my identity, as well as working out what I want in the future. I love being part of this profession and don’t want to leave it (not for the foreseeable future anyway!), but the things I really enjoy about my job aren’t necessarily specific to this profession. I could do a lot of what I enjoy doing in a different field. I could be a psychology researcher for example, and I could still be working on developing all the areas I’m focusing on for chartership, just with a different subject context. In one sense this is probably a good thing (i.e. the skills I’m developing are transferable), but it does lead me to question where I fit. I can still see a lot of potential for things I can bring to both CILIP and ALA so I don’t plan on leaving either organisation, and I very much hope I can still gain my chartership, but I do think I need to accept that I’m a researcher specialising in library and information services, rather than a librarian.

What do you think? Does it matter?

ETA: As I’ve been drafting this post, Simon has posted on a very similar topic - worth a read.

ETA2: Previous posts of my own on similar topics – What makes a librarian a librarian? and What do I do?

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!

At Online Information 2011, I presented in one of the European Librarians Theatre panel discussions. The discussions are hosted by EBSCO and SLA Europe and bring together librarians from different parts of Europe to discuss a topic and the experiences within their country. My session, ‘Everyone is talking but is anyone listening?’ focused on social media. It was chaired by Sara Batts (see tweet below), and my fellow panelists were Katrin Weller and Dennie Haye.

Last fun duty of my year as SLA Europe president: about to chair today’s #elt2011 with @joeyanne @obnoxiouslibrn @kwelle #online11

— Sara Batts (@Batty_Towers) November 30, 2011

I think the panel discussion flowed well – there was largely agreement across the board on a number of different factors, suggesting that libraries across Europe are at a similar stage with social media (the panel had representatives from UK, Germany and The Netherlands). There were some really interesting examples from my fellow panelists – one example of Yammer being used for internal communication (in an international organisation with staff dispersed geographically), and one example of Facebook being used by a University before students arrived to help answers queries and help them begin to make friends.

The main messages I took from the session were that libraries and librarians should experiment with social media to see what works, and should aim to understand more about their users as no two libraries will use social media in the same way.

You can see the tweets from the session at the #elt2011 hashtag (thanks to @WoodsieGirl and @EBSCOUK for such comprehensive tweeting!) and there is a write up of the session on the SLA Europe website.
As mentioned before, I decided to get  information for my section of the discussion via a brief survey – many thanks to those who gave feedback. The main themes emerging from the results of this are shown below. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been asked to take part in a panel discussion as part of the European Librarians Theatre at Online Information next week titled ‘Everyone is talking but is anyone listening?‘. I’ve got some ideas from my own experience and conversations with others, but as I’ll be representing the views of the UK I wanted to open it out and ask you to help me.

If you work in a UK library, please complete the form below (or complete the online version) to let me know your views. The feedback is anonymous – though if you have something you are particularly proud of which you would like me to mention as an example of good practice – please feel free to include links in your response, leave me a comment on this post, or email me.

EDIT: Thanks for the responses, I have now removed the form as the panel discussion has passed.

Wow, what a day! I really enjoyed Library Camp UK 2011 yesterday, and wanted to jot down some quick thoughts from a personal perspective whilst it’s fresh in my mind.

One of my sessions - really enjoyed the conversation at this one

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Professor Charles Oppenheim with keynote speakers

I recently attended the LIS DREaM launch conference about developing research excellence and methods in library and information science. I wrote a blog post about my experience, but now I’ve had chance to reflect on the day I’m going to share my reflections using the basic method I learnt during 23 Things for Professional Development - what? so what? now what?

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I’m very fortunate to be in the position where I am able to get involved in a number of professional activities – committee work, presenting at conferences, publishing articles etc. I really enjoy these activities and like to be involved in the profession both for my own personal development and to help others; it can be very rewarding.

However, sometimes you have to say no to things. It might be something that you don’t feel capable of doing (or you know someone else could do a far better job); it might be that it’s something you’re not as passionate about as your other commitments (or maybe even something you don’t agree with or have ethical issues with); or it may simply be that you can’t fit everything in. Laura wrote an excellent post recently about prioritising activities and finding time for yourself – something I have recently come to realise is incredibly important. I’ve had to think recently about my priorities to help me manage my time effectively and ensure I have time to do the activities which are important to me, and I thought I’d reflect on this process.
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As a personal member of both CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) based in the UK, and ALA (American Library Association) based in the US, and being involved in a CILIP branch committee and a group committee, I’m always interested to find out about what the professional organisations do and how I, as a member, can keep up-to-date and get involved where appropriate.

So when the opportunity to attend ALA’s first Virtual Town Hall, an online webinar, I was interested to find out more and signed up. I’m a relatively new ALA member so I don’t know much about the structure of ALA yet and I’m still learning about the different groups and round tables, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to find out more about central ALA issues and some of the priorities of the organisation.

It happened tonight (I’m writing this as it happens!) and I am so impressed that I wanted to share some thoughts about the organisation of the session and something we can maybe bear in mind for similar CILIP events. Read the rest of this entry »

CPD23 logo

Many readers are likely to have heard of the 23 Things staff development programmes (also known as Learning 2.0) which have been used in a number of libraries across the world over the last few years. For those not familiar – it’s an online self-discovery learning programme used to introduce library staff to some of the technologies relevant to libraries (particularly social media). It’s achieved via a reflective blog which serves as an introduction to blogging as well as recording progress on each of the 23 ‘Things’ thoughout.

In the UK, a number of public and academic libraries have run the programme, including Cambridge who did it last summer. Some of the Cambridge librarians loved it so much that they’re doing it again – in fact this summer they are running two versions! The first is a repeat of the initial programme, whilst the second is what this blog post is about – 23 Things for Professional Development. So what’s that then? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m fascinated by personality and how it affects the way we work; my Psychology A-level was one of the most interesting courses I’ve taken and my undergraduate dissertation (on Sports Psychology) focused on individual personality differences and their impact on sport participation. I’ve also always loved taking personality tests to try to find out more about myself.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about a book by Devora Zack titled ‘Networking for people who hate networking: a field guide for introverts, the overwhelmed, and the underconnected‘. Now I don’t hate networking, but I do find it difficult so thought this book might be able to help (plus it has pictures on penguins on the cover and within the chapters, which was always going to sway me!). I decided to buy a copy for my Kindle and have really enjoyed reading it.

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