Thing 7 Face to face networks and professional organisations

At a relatively early stage in my career as a Law Librarian I joined BIALL and became involved as a committee member of the staff development committee.  This experience provided opportunities for networking, observing committee work and experience in organising visits on behalf of the committee.  I was subsequently elected onto BIALL Council which again provided many learning experiences.  Looking back now I was a very young and relatively inexperienced Law Librarian but at the time I learnt so much by having the opportunity to mix with more experienced professionals.  My interest in staff development probably started whilst I was in BIALL and I have continued that interest throughout my career.

I am a chartered member of CILIP and am a member of the following specialist groups: UC&R Wales, COFHE Wales, CDG and the Information Literacy Group.  I am also a fellow of the HEA.  I use these groups for updating and CPD.

The most useful group that I am involved with at present is a network of senior library staff from other higher education institutions across the UK under the auspices of SCONUL.  The group has an active email discussion list and we meet once a year.  This group is invaluable for benchmarking services and for networking on any topic or issue.  An interesting reflection is that this group came into being outside of any of the online networking or face to face networks that have been discussed in Thing 6 and Thing 7 which in a way is reassuring that more traditional routes to networking are  still just as valuable.

Thing 6 Online Networks

Just returning to cpd23 after a gap and some hols so am trying to catch up again!

My main problem with looking at so many things all at once is that it is difficult to really evaluate each of the online networks properly.  I managed to join LinkedIn but need to return to it to add a profile.  I figured this would take some time to devise properly so did not want to rush into it.  I have not fully worked out the making connections bit yet or how to use the network successfully.  However having received some emails from various colleagues people are finding me and I can see I now have some connections – note to self to try to get my head around how LinkedIn works!

I am still a bit wary of Facebook at the moment so have decided not to join until I fully understand all the privacy issues.

I had a quick look at LISNPN and have noted this online network as potentially being useful to my CILIP Mentees but one network at a time is probably all that I can cope with joining myself at the moment.  The Librarians as Teachers network looks a useful source of information and one that I might potentially join at some point.

I discovered that I had previously joined CILIP Communities but have not really made use of it.  In looking around in the CILIP Members blog landscape I found  a post which led to a very relevant article about the use of ipads for roving enquiry support which we are currently planning ourselves at Glamorgan.  I will probably return to CILIP Communities more regularly from now on.