Friday 18 November 2011

Events - attending, presenting and organising

Well, mostly attending anyway as that's what I've had more experience at! Events that combine a variety of sessions and plenty of time to network or otherwise engage with other participants get my vote. Discussions and activities in small groups are useful for making you reflect on what is being taught/presented. I feel lucky that my university has a library conference every year. This usually has a great mix of guest speakers and of presentations from library staff, so it's great for keeping up to date with projects and developments that are happening in other libraries within the university.

I would like to attend a national conference like the New Professionals Conference or Umbrella, as I've never been to one before, and think they would be great opportunity to meet other information professionals and hear about what others are doing. One day I think it would be beneficial to attend an IFLA conference to get more of an international perspective.

Small informal events such as Teachmeets may be just as inspiring and useful for attendees, and probably cheaper and involve less travelling. I'm not a confident public speaker, so informal events like this would be the most likely way to get me to start presenting. I was sorry to miss Library Camp, as it sounded like a fun and interesting day.
So far the only experience I've had at organising events has been organising social trips for library staff, but now I've joined the CDG East of England committee, I may be getting some experience of organising an event with a committee in the near future!

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