Firstly, thanks to all the mentors out there - your support is much appreciated!
I'm glad that mentoring is part of the chartership process, as without a mentor, it would be so much harder to keep on track. My mentor and I agreed to email once a month and meet quarterly. As a person who quite likes structure, having these 'deadlines' to work to helps me set myself targets so that I have something to say in each email and meeting! Opinions vary on which is better: to have a mentor who you already know and get on well with, or somone you don't know. I deliberately contacted someone who I didn't know at all, and who worked in a different sector to me, so I could benefit from their different perspective. 6 months into the mentoring relationship, and I really appreciate the advice from my mentor and the questions asked that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of asking. It was interesting to visit my mentor's library, and see how completely different it is from the one I work in!
Mentor meetings usually involve something like this:
I've also been lucky with my jobs in that those in more senior positions have been very supportive and I've learnt a lot from their experience and advice in more informal ways, about my career path and personal/professional development as well as more directly relating to my roles.
When I am more senior and experienced, I hope I'll be able to help someone by mentoring them, either formally or informally.
Showing posts with label chartership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chartership. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Routes into librarianship
The beginning
I'm one of those people who has always loved libraries. You know the sort. I volunteered as a library prefect at my school library while I was in sixth form. During my undergraduate degree in History and French, I was on the committee for the student-run history duplicates library. The experience gained from these voluntary positions helped me obtain holiday work as an Archive Administration Assistant at a local government agency library, where I helped out with a project to reclassify some of the library stock. This involved a lot of fetching, relabelling and reshelving, but I also got to do some work on the thesaurus.
Graduate trainee year, but no formal graduate trainee scheme
After finishing my undergraduate degree, I was lucky enough to find work as a Library and Enquiries Administrator in the same government agency library for 12 months. The librarian there was very supportive and since I was working in a small team of 4, I got to do a bit of everything and learnt a great deal about different aspects of a library service. It was here I learnt that I really enjoyed enquiry work, although I found it daunting at first! While it wasn't possible to follow a programme of visits, like a formal graduate traineeship, I did meet people at training courses and events. Since the agency I worked for was about to merge with another agency, it was an interesting time. I was involved in some of the preparation work before the merger, such as creating FAQs and other documentation that could be shared between the two agencies. Graduate traineeships can be very competitive, but other experience is useful too and I'd also recommend small libraries for gaining a broad experience.
Masters course
I enjoyed my time at Loughborough University, doing the full-time MA in Information and Library Management. The modules covered a wide range of topics and skills, including marketing for information professions and cataloguing and classification. One of my favourite modules was the web design course, and my interest in this led me to a dissertation on public library websites.
Next steps
After this, I worked part-time for a year as Library Assistant in the Digital Resources Area of a university library, supporting users with electronic resources and computers. Then I successfully applied for the part-time position of Senior Library Assistant. This is another user-focused role, supervising a reading room, dealing with enquiries about official publications, inter-library loans and microfilms, and maintaining the department's website amongst other things.
Full-time library work
I recently started an additional part-time post as eBooks Assistant based in the same library, but providing a university-wide service. This is a great opportunity to meet new people, and new developments make ebooks an exciting area to work in. Four years after graduating, I am finally full time in library work, albeit in two different jobs. I love the variety of experience this gives me, and the opportunity to use different skills.
Chartership and the future
I started working towards chartership nearly 6 months ago, so one future aim is to become chartered. I will probably write more about my chartership experiences on this blog in future, so watch this space! I aim to continue developing professionally and learning new things, and am looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities that I'm sure the future will bring.
I'm one of those people who has always loved libraries. You know the sort. I volunteered as a library prefect at my school library while I was in sixth form. During my undergraduate degree in History and French, I was on the committee for the student-run history duplicates library. The experience gained from these voluntary positions helped me obtain holiday work as an Archive Administration Assistant at a local government agency library, where I helped out with a project to reclassify some of the library stock. This involved a lot of fetching, relabelling and reshelving, but I also got to do some work on the thesaurus.
Graduate trainee year, but no formal graduate trainee scheme
After finishing my undergraduate degree, I was lucky enough to find work as a Library and Enquiries Administrator in the same government agency library for 12 months. The librarian there was very supportive and since I was working in a small team of 4, I got to do a bit of everything and learnt a great deal about different aspects of a library service. It was here I learnt that I really enjoyed enquiry work, although I found it daunting at first! While it wasn't possible to follow a programme of visits, like a formal graduate traineeship, I did meet people at training courses and events. Since the agency I worked for was about to merge with another agency, it was an interesting time. I was involved in some of the preparation work before the merger, such as creating FAQs and other documentation that could be shared between the two agencies. Graduate traineeships can be very competitive, but other experience is useful too and I'd also recommend small libraries for gaining a broad experience.
Masters course
I enjoyed my time at Loughborough University, doing the full-time MA in Information and Library Management. The modules covered a wide range of topics and skills, including marketing for information professions and cataloguing and classification. One of my favourite modules was the web design course, and my interest in this led me to a dissertation on public library websites.
Next steps
After this, I worked part-time for a year as Library Assistant in the Digital Resources Area of a university library, supporting users with electronic resources and computers. Then I successfully applied for the part-time position of Senior Library Assistant. This is another user-focused role, supervising a reading room, dealing with enquiries about official publications, inter-library loans and microfilms, and maintaining the department's website amongst other things.
Full-time library work
I recently started an additional part-time post as eBooks Assistant based in the same library, but providing a university-wide service. This is a great opportunity to meet new people, and new developments make ebooks an exciting area to work in. Four years after graduating, I am finally full time in library work, albeit in two different jobs. I love the variety of experience this gives me, and the opportunity to use different skills.
Chartership and the future
I started working towards chartership nearly 6 months ago, so one future aim is to become chartered. I will probably write more about my chartership experiences on this blog in future, so watch this space! I aim to continue developing professionally and learning new things, and am looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities that I'm sure the future will bring.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Reflecting - #cpd23 and #cam23
Now I've started on the Chartership journey, I need to work on my reflecting skills. The reflective writing chapter in Margaret Chapman's Building your portfolio book was a good starting point and kept me busy on a recent train journey! I found Random musings of a librarian, almost's post on reflective writing really helpful. I have been thinking about attending a reflective writing workshop but couldn't make the recent one in my area, so it is useful to read a summary of one, and how participants found it.
So, how have cpd23 and cam23 things been going so far? Well, I'm still behind and playing catch up, mostly due to generally being busy and doing both 23 things programmes at the same time. There is some overlap with the things, which is always a nice surprise - it feels like getting to tick off two thngs in one (and I'm a big fan of ticking things off to-do lists!) Sometimes it's hard to fit reflection in, so thanks 23 things for making sure I do this.
Networking
I attended both cam23 and cpd23 networking events in Cambridge and enjoyed putting names and faces to blogs, and meeting people whose blogs I hadn't read but now follow. For me, this is one of the key benefits of 23 things.
Cam23
Things I like (or These are a few of my favourite things):
Twitter, but mostly to follow people and tweet my blog posts. I don't log in regularly enough to really join in conversations, so this is something I might work on.
Screencasting - both useful and fun!
Doodle
Google calendar
What I have learnt: Cambridge Libraries widget is really useful! Also that Google documents can generate forms that can be embedded in websites, and that there are some creative bloggers out there!
What will I use most in my working life? Hard to say at the moment, but perhaps Twitter. Currently many of the things are more useful for my general professional development than directly relevant to my day to day job, but this of course may change.
Cpd23
What have I learnt and how can I apply it? So far, the most useful thing for me has been finding time to think about my online presence so it's not just accidental but has a little more thought to it, even if more work is needed on it! I'm looking forward to a lot of catching up and many new things to explore over the next few weeks.
This was actually quite a hard post to write, so I must need some more practise at reflecting - roll on cpd23 things 19 and 23, and cam23 things 18 and 23!
So, how have cpd23 and cam23 things been going so far? Well, I'm still behind and playing catch up, mostly due to generally being busy and doing both 23 things programmes at the same time. There is some overlap with the things, which is always a nice surprise - it feels like getting to tick off two thngs in one (and I'm a big fan of ticking things off to-do lists!) Sometimes it's hard to fit reflection in, so thanks 23 things for making sure I do this.
Networking
I attended both cam23 and cpd23 networking events in Cambridge and enjoyed putting names and faces to blogs, and meeting people whose blogs I hadn't read but now follow. For me, this is one of the key benefits of 23 things.
Cam23
Things I like (or These are a few of my favourite things):
Twitter, but mostly to follow people and tweet my blog posts. I don't log in regularly enough to really join in conversations, so this is something I might work on.
Screencasting - both useful and fun!
Doodle
Google calendar
What I have learnt: Cambridge Libraries widget is really useful! Also that Google documents can generate forms that can be embedded in websites, and that there are some creative bloggers out there!
What will I use most in my working life? Hard to say at the moment, but perhaps Twitter. Currently many of the things are more useful for my general professional development than directly relevant to my day to day job, but this of course may change.
Cpd23
What have I learnt and how can I apply it? So far, the most useful thing for me has been finding time to think about my online presence so it's not just accidental but has a little more thought to it, even if more work is needed on it! I'm looking forward to a lot of catching up and many new things to explore over the next few weeks.
This was actually quite a hard post to write, so I must need some more practise at reflecting - roll on cpd23 things 19 and 23, and cam23 things 18 and 23!
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