bok-Bok-BOKing in the garden of re-registration:

transforming the process one peck at a time.

Cath Sheard RLIANZA

Have you gained your Professional Registration but are struggling to complete a revalidation journal? The process can seem hard, so we put if off. Then the process seems harder, so we put it off again. Don’t bury your head in the sand! Tackle the problem early on.

Librarians are intelligent, creative people with great organisational skills – not a bunch of headless chickens! Think of the process as like planting a garden; ; prepare the soil, plant the seeds, water over it well, and reap the rewards. It’s really NOT that hard; give stress the bum’s rush.

Prepare the soil. Download the new template from the LIANZA website. Save it to a folder, and create a shortcut on your desktop. Yes, your desktop – you want it accessible all the time. Don’t leave yourself room for excuses. Make it easy to succeed.

Plan your planting. Decide how often you’ll update your journal. Leaving it longer than 3 weeks means relying too much on memory, too little on fact. Besides, it will start to feel hard, and you’ll be tempted to put it off. Set a recurring task in Outlook and make sure it sends you a reminder.

Don’t use Outlook? No problems, just find a way to get an automatic reminder. Smartphone? Set up a reminder on your phone. Giant wall planner? Mark regular tasks on it! One of those super-duper day planner systems? Write the reminders on it. Nagging husband or wife? Just kidding....

How is the garden laid out? You have 4 garden areas; currency of professional knowledge, professional practice, communication & relationships, and leadership. You’re telling the Board what you know, what you do, who you know, and how you share. Decide which one is hardest for you.

What to plant? It’s bok, Bok, BOK time. Yes, Body of Knowledge, all eleven of them. Don’t panic. Read the details on the LIANZA website, and decide which two are going to be hardest for you. Keep them in mind...now you have 1 area and 2 Bodies of Knowledge red flagged.

A poor workman blames his tools but the right tools can make life much easier. Let’s get some tools to help you gather, track and keep information and ideas; think Post It notes, sticky notes on your computer or SmartPhone, EverNote or whatever works for you.

I can hear the groans already – “but I haven’t done anything special”. Unless you live in a vacuum, with no colleagues, never interact with anyone and only go to work to eat your lunch, I bet that simply isn’t true. It’s reality check time...

Have you been to a meeting? Started planning a project? Marketed something your library is doing? Been part of an online discussion? Read a work-related book? Mentored a workmate? All of these have potential for your garden. Learn to crow!

Let’s say you read a blog about about a new library service. Choose a tool; Post-it note, Sticky Note etc. Describe what you did in fewer than 30 words. Write down what you learnt, and what you will do with what you learnt. Write notes, not a book, date, and file in some form.

Now for something a bit more obscure. You’ve been helping a workmate with a staffing issue. Is it usable? Yes, under ‘professional leadership, and BOK ‘management and information in organisations’ which includes managing people. Write down what you did, what you learnt, date and file it.

If you read something and have an “aha!” moment, put it in your journal. Started a new project? Journal it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Better to have more material than you need, than not enough – you can edit down to the best entries if you need to. The Board are looking for quality, not quantity.

You can only grow cabbages if you plant some...so think back to the domain you felt would be the hardest. Have you written anything on this? If not, set yourself a new task to do one thing in this area in the next 6 weeks. What about those two tricky BOKs. Nothing? Set two tasks and get moving!

Still too hard? Break the task down. Select your ‘sticky’ BOK; check what the scope includes, read the examples. Think about your work. Would some research help? If the answer’s yes, you’re under way. Do the research, or find some, write down what you did, what you learnt, date and file it.

We all know there are times when the harvest is lean. If you are going through a lean patch with your journaling, think about why. Is it really that you haven’t done anything, or have you just stopped recording what you have been doing? Revisit your tools, and your schedule – then use them.

By now you have a handful of notes so it’s time to use them if you haven’t already. Remember the shortcut on your desk? Open up the journal and enter the information from each note into the spreadsheet. Check your grammar and spelling, then hit save. Now go reward yourself....

As the seasons pass it’s time to check your garden. Still nothing recorded for the domain ‘professional communication’? Attend a SIG meeting, join an online discussion, present something at a staff meeting. Think baby steps. Write down what you did, what you learnt, date and file it.

By having the right tools, realistic expectations of what you need to produce, breaking down the tasks into smaller chunks, and tackling the job regularly, you can complete your revalidation journal without any tears while learning new skills along the way - and reap the professional rewards.

May the process of revalidation be as stress-free as watching a brood of chickens in your garden, and may your journal be as beautiful, in its own way, as the chooks who’ve been guiding us through the process. Now get BOKing! Happy revalidation everyone.

I’d like to acknowledge the use of photographs by Joanne Dillon and Sandra Robinson