I thought I’d continue the tradition I started last year and end 2009 by posting a reflective blog post about the year.

It’s been a year full of ups and downs, mainly ups thankfully – although at times it’s been difficult to focus on the positives, I’ve learnt a lot this year about myself.

This time last year I had recently started my first professional librarian job, and one year in I’m really enjoying it – it was definitely worth all the hard work completing my Diploma. I’ve had the opportunity to work on projects such as improving the way we manage inductions, sharing information about our information literacy provision via an online shared calendar, communicating with our users via online technologies such as social media, and an evaluation of a collection leading to a lot of weeding and rearrangement of one of our rooms. It’s a part time position which has also given me the opportunity to also develop other areas.

I’ve learnt a lot more about marketing thanks to my work with my boyfriend at Cookies and Java, and this has given me inspiration for my MSc Dissertation. I had hoped I’d complete it this year to be honest, but life took over and my new target is the end of next year (this may also be too ambitious, we’ll see!).

I’ve also been able to spend time focusing my efforts on researching areas which really interest me, and I’ve done a heck of a lot of professional reading this year – books, journal articles, conference papers and blog posts. I’ve also attended conferences (highlights include the CoFHE Conference, New Professionals Conference, The Library Show and Middlemash – which I still need to write up!), training events, and participated in a number of other events online.

One major achievement for me this year is that I have spoken at two events, the New Professionals Conference and the CILIP Graduate Open Day. I was incredibly nervous but must have enjoyed it since I’ve volunteered myself for more! I’m really glad I decided to give it a go and am particularly thankful to my boss who encouraged me to go for it, and to role models such as Meredith Farkas for their inspiration and advice to push yourself that little bit further.

I’ve authored and co-authored more journal articles and it’s been really exciting to see my name in print. I’ve also continued to write posts for this blog, and really enjoy sharing my ideas and particularly getting comments back from readers. As I touched on last year, blogging has become integrated into my routine and is a really useful avenue for reflection or sharing ideas; it’s something I have also encouraged others to do this year.

My professional network has grown so much in 2009, particularly with other UK librarians and new professionals, and I think this is a massive highlight of 2009. The growth of popularity of Twitter has contributed enormously to this, and there are a number of new UK librarian bloggers too. I’ve also been able to meet a number of these people face to face this year which has been great (I was particularly starstruck when I met Phil Bradley at the Library Show), and I hope to meet more in 2010.

Being more connected with the librarian network in the UK has made me excited about what the future might bring for the profession, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to be a part of that change. The New Professionals Conference was a really positive event – there was so much enthusiasm and energy and it was great to meet other new professionals. Many of these, including myself, are now becoming more active in the future of the profession by becoming CILIP activists or even just making sure their voice is heard – the CILIP 2.0 event earlier in the year showed just how much people evidently have to say. CILIP’s Big Conversation in 2010 will hopefully bring some exciting ideas (although I share other’s worries that the initial invitation seems elitist).

I’m looking forward to the challenges of 2010 – for me personally that will include my MSc Dissertation, marketing responsibility for CILIP West Midlands, speaking at the CoFHE/UC&R conference, and possibly starting my Chartership. There will also be new challenges within my job role due to a restructure, and within the library profession as a whole with the changes in society, the economy and education. All I can say is bring it on, here’s to 2010! Happy New Year everyone

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Firstly, I hope any readers who celebrate have had a wonderful Christmas season and enjoyed the break – I certainly have. It’s given me chance to see family, spend time at home relaxing with my boyfriend and our kittens, catch up on sleep, do some cross-stitching (for next year’s Christmas cards!) and learn a bit of Photoshop.

As it’s the last day of the year I thought I’d take the opportunity to reflect back on the year and look forward to 2009.

2008 has been quite a big year for me professionally; I’ve worked on my qualification and completed my Diploma in October, and started my first professional post as a Resources Librarian in November.

I’ve also been to a number of events and met a lot of great people in the profession. Particular highlights include a COfHE event The Terrible 2.0s? Web 2.0 without tears, Internet Librarian International 2008, and the recent Mashed Library Unconference.

One of my main projects this year has been the Facebook Page for our Learning Centres. Although it has so far only been a fairly small-scale pilot project, we have almost 250 fans and it has been a very interesting experience. I’ve been able to help others with their Facebook Pages too which has been very rewarding. The Facebook Page was featured as a case study in a recent presentation about Librarians, Libraries and Facebook, and I’ve recently submitted a paper to ALISS Quarterly about our experiences (more on that in the New Year hopefully).

I was also invited to co-author a conference paper for the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference in Singapore, and wrote about the Library 2.0 initiatives and barriers at University of Wolverhampton as a guest blog post for the UK Web Focus blog.

I have particularly enjoyed blogging this year, I often find myself thinking about possible blog posts in my spare time. I enjoy sharing ideas via the blog and hearing about other experiences/points of view through the comments. Blogging also seems to have become more popular in academic libraries this year, and I hope to help develop that further this coming year.

All in all, it’s been a very exciting year and I hope to continue developing projects at work, and share our experiences through conferences, papers and blogging. I’ve enjoyed spreading the word about new technologies and ideas for developing services both in my department and externally and I hope to continue doing so next year.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and a happy and healthy 2009.

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It really doesn’t seem very long at all since we were all stressing about the Millennium bug! Thought I’d write a quick post to wish everyone a Happy New Year and think forward to 2008. I’m not really one for specific resolutions but I do like to try to think about my main aims in life and how I’m going to get there.

By then end of 2008 I hope to have completed my Diploma in Information and Library Studies and become that all important “qualified information professional” – better get back to the studying really as I’ve done none over the Christmas period! I’ll hopefully be working on my dissertation this time next year if all goes well.

I’m also quite excited about the next year at work, I’m getting involved in more project based work and really hope to help improve our service by using some more up-to-date tools. We’ll hopefully be improving our OPAC, and I’ll be working on our presence in FaceBook. I think our department in particularly needs to really up the marketing this year, we have some great services that our users (both students and staff) just aren’t aware of which is a shame.

I’m sure I’ll continue blogging throughout 2008, so we’ll have to see where I’m at this time next year and whether or not I’ve achieved what I wanted to!

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