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.
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