Anne Johnston’s Library Blog

13th June was the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, Scotland (CILIPS) Branch and Group Day. This day is part of our annual conference and it is attended by people from all different kinds of libraries and other organisations. The day consists of workshops and seminars arranged by the various special interest groups of CILIPS. The day began with the Presidential Address - no, not George Bush but Christopher Phillips, President of CILIPS. My first session after that was on Developing Catalogues for Customers not Cataloguers. It did what it said in the tin, wasn’t overly technical and explained how new international cataloguing standards will improve access to resources for everyone, that is readers, borrowers and customers and not just librarians.

My next seminar was Running Successful Book Groups. We have had a book group for a number of years at DGS but I was hoping for some fresh ideas, which I got. Thanks to CArol Moug from St Saviour’s High School, Dundee for an entertaining and informative presentation.

Last session of the day was Falkirk’s RED Book Award. Again I got lots of ideas form this even though it was dealing with running an award as a whole authority.

Friday afternoon at Knox Academy, I had my mentor hat on. I met three colleagues who are currently working towards their Charter - two School Librarians and the Young People’s Services Librarian. They are all graduates with either a degree in librarianship/information science or a degree in another subject and a PG qualification in librarianship. After a year mentored by a Chartered Librarian, following a personal professional development plan agreed with our professional body CILIPS, they must submit a portfolio for consideration to CILIPs. If this meets the appropriate criteria they will then become Chartered Librarians.

This was our second portfolio meeting. We will get together every few weeks to provide a focus for their work, otherwise it is all too easy to push professional development to the back of the queue of priorities. The purpose of chartering is to demonstrate that we are continuing to develop our managerial skills, keeping our professional skills updated and engaging in effective forward planning. We must demonstrate that we are assessing and evaluating not only our own work but the progress of our service. On reflection this is the way of working and the skills set we are hoping our school students will begin to develop as they engage in Extreme Learning.