Tuesday 9 August 2011

CPD23 Things 5-7: reflecting, networking and professional organisations

I completed my chartership last year so became a dab hand at reflection.  However, as soon as I handed in my portfolio it seemed to fly out of the window.  It doesn't seem to come very naturally.  I'm pretty good at describing, but, in the words of the many school essays I had marked, I lack evaluation!  I really like the 1970 Borton model posted on the information for Thing 5 so my task now is to make sure I think 'So What?' and 'Now What?'.  Hopefully having a blog will help me to do this - I want to fill it with postings so I shall have to be reflective about something!

I like things simple.  Therefore I have a Facebook profile for my personal presence and a LinkedIn profile (thanks to CPD23) for my professional presence.  And I'm happy with that.  I may be tempted to join another network if it's for something specific, i.e. librarians or family historians, so I shall have a look at LISPN and CILIP Communities and see what I find!  I do however subscribe to some of JISC's mailing lists, for example LisLink and CoFHE.  These are a great way of networking with other librarians, getting help and sharing good practice.

I remember during my university course we had tutorial whereby CILIP came in to get us all to sign up there and then.  I can't remember if I did at the time or whether it was a little bit later but I have been a fully fledged CILIPer for a few years now.  What do I get out of it?  I find the training programme beneficial as not only a way of developing skills but a good networking tool.  Also, during my chartership year I attended most of the CoFHE LASEC meetings and got to meet other local College librarians.  I receive Update (although I do have to force myself to read through it) and have signed up to their blog and LISJOBNET alerts.  That's about it though.  I would be very interested to hear from anyone who finds other benefits from being a CILIP member.

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