Saturday 28 May 2011

The future of CILIP

On 16th May I attended an engaging talk on 'Our professional future' by Annie Mauger, the new CEO of CILIP.  Annie's explanation of changes and challenges affecting different library sectors was interesting and easy to follow. While proposed public library cuts and closures have been all over the news, I hadn't realised that the Schools Library Services were facing similar closures.

The direction that CILIP is heading in seems like a positive step to me. The focus will be on three areas: advocacy, communities and continuing professional development. I hadn't been involved in the 'Defining our professional future' conversation as I wasn't a CILIP member at the time. I was interested to learn that co-operation with the Women's Institute is planned, and CILIP members are talking at WI meetings to get the WI on board to campaign for libraries. Annie explained that CILIP is relatively new to campaigning, while the WI are experienced at this.

CILIP will have a new structure from July and there are likely to be changes to branch and special interest groups. Some special interest groups may merge. Hopefully these changes will allow CILIP to provide better value for money to its members.

I was particularly struck by one of the comments Annie made. She had asked a colleague whether they were nervous attending their first board meeting at a new job, and they had replied 'no' because they knew that they would already know some of the people there. Annie used this to highlight the power of networking. I was inspired to attend the East of England CDG AGM on 18th May. It was useful to meet people from different libraries and sectors working in the region and to find out more about the East of England CDG. Hopefully I'll be seeing more of them in the future!

Friday 27 May 2011

April round up

My plan is to write regular updates in order to reflect on my learning. Since it has been a few weeks, I thought I'd round up the main news from April in one (very delayed!) post. Must get better at blogging straight away rather than trying to remember things from a while back! April was a busy month...

I attended a presentation given by the British Library on the upcoming changes to their document supply service. It's useful to know what's in store for inter-library loans. They outlined the challenges, both positive and negative, for document supply, and then introduced their new IRMDS (Integrated Request Management Delivery System) which will go live from July-September. Responses will apparently be faster and colour will be standard, which is good news for many library users. The ability to track orders online sounds like good news for us librarians too. The new system will allow the option for end users to search the BL catalogue and request items. This has potential to save users' time as they can instantly make a request remotely if they are searching the BL catalogue from home at a time when the library is closed, for example. Libraries can choose different levels of control, for example the system can be set up so that librarians have to approve/reject all end user requests. It looks as though there will be scope for quite a bit of customisation. For libraries who decide to allow this option, there will be things to work out, such as how to process payments/refunds. Whether or not my library decides to enable the end user request option, I look forward to seeing the other functions when it all goes live.

I've been getting on with the cataloguing practice. This time I'm cataloguing bought books, which already have minimal level bib records and need checking and upgrading. I dug out my notes from my university course and found the bookmark to MARC online, which had been feeling neglected in my favourites list, as a useful reference for when I need reminder. This brought back memories... The cataloguing has been slower than I'd hoped, mainly because the enquiry work side of things has been busy with exams approaching. It's nice to see the library so full of people working hard, let's hope it continues!