Finding the passion – New Professionals Information Day 2010

It’s been over a week since I started to write this post – got waylaid by the snow – but better late than never…

Yesterday On November 23rd I attended the New Professionals Information Day at Newcastle City Library. It was an excellent day; even better as it was right on my doorstep. As a ‘not so new’ professional I sometimes feel like a bit of an interloper at events like this but it was reassuring to see a good mix of people – from those only considering going into librarianship to those, like me, a few years into their library careers. In a way I’m starting to feel more like a new professional again. Since rejoining CILIP at the start of this year I’ve begun to feel more involved professionally, just by being more aware what is going on in the profession. And I find that Twitter certainly helps me to feel more connected too. There was an interesting discussion at the end of the first talk I went to (from Katie Fraser) about the benefits of CILIP membership and I think the most significant point raised was that you get more out if you put more in – for me this means becoming more actively engaged with CILIP than I have before. Getting involved with the special interest groups locally has been something I have been carefully considering since I rejoined so now I think it’s time to take the plunge and follow Katie’s advice to “feel the fear and do it anyway” or, more pertinently, to “say yes and worry about things later”. Sound advice; especially for someone like me who has a propensity for procrastination.

Nicolas Robinson Garcia’s presentation ‘The Global Profession: the overseas perspective’ gave an interesting insight into librarianship in Spain, as he described the route to the profession in Spain and how different levels of qualification lead to different job roles within the library profession. It seems much more rigid than in the UK, where people often seem to come into the profession after trying other careers, or undertaking non-related first degrees. The main focus of the talk was around non-traditional roles that librarians and information professionals can become involved in; specifically the concept of the ‘embedded librarian’, who works outside the library within the users’ environment. Their work often focuses on a small community of users, often researchers. In particular Nicolas discussed the concept of bibliometrics and the benefits of using bibliometric tools to support researchers in both finding the relevant information and the appropriate publications to approach for article submission. Although I am aware of the use of citation searching and impact factors, this is an area I definitely need to learn more about, especially to support the increasing number of researchers at the academic library where I work.

The keynote speeches in the middle of day provided a break from the presentation sessions. First Maxine Miller (Library Collections Manager, Tate Library and Archive) spoke about personal development within a library & information career, stressing that is important to look after “number one” and focus on what is best for you personally in order to get the best out of your career. She spoke about her own career and professional experiences in relation to this and highlighted that it is important that the job you are doing works for your own professional development. It is therefore very important to get to know the organisation you will be working really well for before you take a job. Working environment has a great impact on personal and professional development, and consequently successful career progression. Another key point she raised was the importance of self-promotion, to “sell what you do”. This is something that is so important but so difficult to do in reality. Hopefully it gets better with practice. Phil Bradley’s keynote speech followed on perfectly from this as he stressed the importance of selling librarianship as a profession especially at this current time when libraries are under pressure of cuts and closures. Referring to the ‘echo chamber phenomenon’ that Laura Woods and Ned Potter have been speaking about at many events (more on that in a later post) he urged us to get involved in library advocacy to promote what libraries and librarians do to the wider public. We need to challenge the misconceptions for the profession to survive. Inspirational stuff.

After this I attended Lex Rigby’s presentation ‘The Ronseal Effect: online personal marketing for career growth’. I really enjoyed this session as, although I already have some sort of online presence, on Twitter and this blog for example, I’m never sure I’m using this to such a great effect. Lex’s talk highlighted the importance of managing your online presence with an awareness of your professional reputation. Social media is becoming so widely used that it’s not surprising that many organisations are starting look to Google to find more information on potential employees. Social media is also important for professional networking – immediacy and convenience make this simpler and more far-reaching than networking at events and conferences, whilst also providing a great ice-breaker for when real-life, face to face networking does take place. And anything that can help get over the awkwardness is a good thing for me

Attending events like NPID and meeting up with other new(ish) professionals fuels my passion for the profession and reminds me why I decided to get into librarianship in the first place. I’m determined to use that momentum to continue my professional development when I’m back in the day job. And I’m not even going to let the snow stop me….well not for longer than a week or so anyway!