Welcome to the Spring issue of Central Issues! We had the CDG WM AGM earlier this year, as part of the CILIP WM branch Members’ Day, and you can read all about this excellent event on pp. 2-5, including Cara Clarke’s insightful comments about being the official live-tweeter (from p. 3). The event was followed by the CDG WM Annual Dinner, and you can find out more about this on p. 5. Coming up, we’ve got some great events, including Librarians as Teachers 2013—if you went to the last one, you’ll know this will be worth your time. Find out more on p. 6. There’s also a CILIP Qualifica-tions course in June, and these are always popular, so book your place as soon as possible—details below. If you’re not sure what it might involve, you can read a report on the last one on p. 7. Finally, if you want to get involved on a more regular basis, you can attend a committee meet-ing (see p. 5) or you’ll find our vacancy bulletin in its usual place on the back page. Georgina Hardy, Newsletter Editor.

Editorial

Working towards a CILIP Qualification?

The next Chartership and Certification course will take place

on 24th June, at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital Library.

More information is available via the CILIP Calendar: http://bit.ly/Ws1NwR

Spring 2013 Issue 27

Central Issues

The Newsletter of the West Midlands Division of CILIP’s Career Development Group

The Career Development

Group is a special interest group of

CILIP, The Chartered

Institute of Library & Information Professionals.

Registered Charity Number 313014.

Inside this issue:

Editorial 1

Promoting

your service

and the

profession

2

CDG WM

Annual Dinner

5

Librarians as

Teachers 2013:

Engaging

Learners in the

Digital Age

6

Certification,

Chartership

and Beyond

7

Vacancy

Bulletin

8

On 7th February 2013, the CDG WM Annual General Meeting was held as part of the CILIP West Midlands branch Members’ Day. The full day event was entitled “Promoting your service and the profession” and was held at the Mary Seacole Li-

brary at Birmingham City University.

Jennifer Brotherton tells us about the morning of the event... The event began with an introduction by Jo Alcock from CILIP West Midlands, followed by a welcome from the hosts by Jane Richards.

Two staff from the University Library, Ann and Ann Marie went through the promotional activities they had used at their library. The issues they face are similar to other libraries, in-cluding a limited budget, a diverse population and corporate branding. Ann Marie outlined how the staff are encouraged to promote the service outside of the library by setting up stands at Freshers’ Fairs, and ‘Meet the library’ stalls around the University. They also promoted different zones using posters, and the University’s “iCity” incorporated the library pages to identify key services and improve access. After this, Gill Colbourne, Business development librarian, gave a presentation on promoting Warwickshire library and information service. They advertise using posters in public buildings, community centres, buses, and a book vending machine they have at George Elliot hospital. One of the main things Gill stressed was the importance of staff advoca-cy, encouraging staff to smile at customers, going into the community to create a familiar face which makes people feel welcome.

Following a short break, we were given tours of the Mary Seacole Library where we could see where they had used their promotional materials.

…and Alison Lobo follows with her thoughts...

As a member of both CDG and ARLG I was keen to attend this all day event to partici-pate in their AGMs and follow their progress. Holding these AGMs along with the CILIP

Promoting your service and the profession

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Photo credit: Jennifer Brotherton

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West Midlands AGM and themed talks was a stroke of genius! Not only could I keep abreast of my chosen special interest groups, I was able to listen to some great presentations on ‘Promoting your services and the profession’ as well as being given a tour from the event host, Mary Seacole Library, Birmingham City University and the opportunity to network with CILIP members who I hadn’t met before! The presentations in the morning on promoting library services were given from Mary Seacole Library staff and Gill Colbourne form Warwickshire Library and Information Services. Within their different perspectives both offered some valuable insights of their particular aspects but both emphasised reaching out to your users beyond the library as a building.

The afternoon offered two further speakers. Barbara Band, CILIP Vice President, gave a very inspiring talk on promoting the profession which included her personal and CILIP ex-periences and the session was rounded off with Simon Edwards, Director of Professional Services from CILIP giving us an update on CILIP projects. As I enjoy the aspect of networking as much as informative presenta-tions I also took up the invitation of joining CDG for drinks and a meal in the evening which I can highly rec-ommend if the opportunity is offered

again! I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to get to know fellow Members’ Day at-tendees in the relaxing atmosphere of the Bacchus bar at the Burlington Hotel and the Le Truc restaurant! And I’m very much looking forward to future events!

Alison Lobo is an Information Assistant at Aston University, Birmingham.

...finally, Cara Clarke describes her experience of being the official live-

tweeter for @CILIPWM on the day. I hold the role of branch secretary for CILIP West Midlands branch and during a com-mittee meeting I volunteered to be the ‘official tweeter’ for the day. I’d never attempt-ed live tweeting before but often follow event hashtags and was keen to try it myself. So, what was it like? Short answer: I loved it! Long answer: there’s more to it than you think! Let me elaborate… Access to the venue’s wifi had to be requested in advance so there’d be enough time to arrange login details for all delegates. Another bit of prep involved tracking down

Barbara Band inspiring the audience Photo Credit: Phil Jones

Twitter accounts I may wish to refer to on the day (the venue or speakers etc). Doing this in advance meant they were readily at hand and saved time during the event. This done, I then had to think about what device I would use to tweet. I usually post tweets via my iPhone or iPad. These devices are portable so I decided to take them both to the event. The tablet would be my primary device due to its larger screen, but I wanted a back-up device in case something went wrong. The phone fitted well as an alternative device, should there be wifi problems I could still tweet using the phone’s 3G capability (a feature my iPad lacks). On occasions, the tablet wouldn’t readily update the Twitter feed, so I’d revert to my phone as a back-up. Having a second device to rely on also meant I didn’t have to be concerned about the tablet’s battery depletion. Having two different handsets also allowed me to tweet from two separate accounts with-out fear of getting mixed up. ‘Official’ tweets came from @cilipwm but I also wanted to post the occasional tweet from my own account @caraclarke, which I use for ‘profersonal’ tweets. Tweeting on behalf of a committee means wearing a different hat; I had to be slightly more formal with no typos or swearing etc. I was a little worried I would be busy typing and miss what the presenter said next. I’m glad to say this wasn’t really an issue but I did have to repost several tweets because I’d forgotten to include the hashtag! Jo Alcock (who organised the event) set up a Twijector wall at the venue which allowed the #cwmagm13 con-versation to be viewed in real time. This meant people who don’t use Twit-ter could access the chat and it brought the conversation into the room. In addition, it also added an element of fun! Various people would tweet ‘hello’ to each other and then watch the mes-sage appear instantly on a large screen. I found tweeting from a live event to be addictive. I created a hashtag archive via Eventifier which showed I posted 100+ tweets, with 250+ being posted overall. It was especially exciting when people who weren’t at the event joined in the chat, proving the point that Twit-ter can indeed play a valuable part in event amplification. The #cwmagm13 Twitter archive can be found at: http://t.co/6vRpEnKK Cara Clarke is Systems Librarian at North Warwickshire & Hinckley College. Her person-al twitter username is @CaraClarke.

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The Twijector wall. Photo credit: Cara Clarke

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CDG WM Annual Dinner This year, the CDG WM ‘Christmas’ meal, rebranded the Annual Dinner, was held at Le Truc in the centre of Birmingham on Thursday 7th February 2013.

Hear all about it from Trudi Pledger. Le Truc is the new home for Chez Jules, which was a favourite haunt for previous CDG WM get-togethers. I attended this social gathering with 6 others.

Le Truc has a different feel to Chez Jules. Whereas Chez Jules had rustic charm with dinner by candlelight, Le Truc has opted for chandeliers and cool murals, but both served beautiful food. Everyone plumped for the two course special as this offered the best value and many ordered the Gratin Chez Jules as a side. If you’ve never tried this, do, it is truly scrummy and to be honest I think this was what a few people were most looking forward to.

The Annual Dinner offered the opportunity to socialise after the CILIP Members’ Day. I hadn’t been able to attend the Members’ Day but followed the hashtag (#cwmagm13) on Twitter whilst my 8-month old napped, which she duly did that day, twice, unheard of! Topics of conversation around the dinner table did of course in-clude libraries, people enthusing about the Members’ Day, but also art and exhibi-tions, television programmes and knitting (got to keep up the stereotype). Much time was spent admiring Jo Alcock’s beautiful handmade scarf, the Finding Nemo gloves she’d made her sister as a present, and, um, novelty toilet roll holders(!?).

It was a lovely evening as I was able to catch up with people I’d not seen since my last committee meeting in March 2012, meet some new faces, and to be around adults having sensible(ish) conversations, not surrounded by all things baby (I don’t think I was a baby bore but you’ll have to ask the others!). Thank you to organiser An-na Brown. Trudi Pledger is New Professional Support Officer (NPSO) for the CILIP Career Develop-ment Group (CDG) in the West Midlands. Trudi would love to hear from LIS students currently in the West Midlands and you can contact her via: npso.cdg.wm@gmail.com

Do you want to join the CDG WM Committee? Come along to our next committee meeting to find out what it’s all about! The next committee meeting will be held in Central Birmingham during May. Contact cdgwm@hotmail.com to let us know you’ll be coming.

Date: Thursday 16th May Time: 6 — 8pm Venue: Aston University Library, Birmingham (15 mins walk from New Street Station) — for directions see http://www1.aston.ac.uk/about/directions/

The next “Librarians as Teachers” event will be held in the West Midlands in June.

Lisa Basini gives us a sneak preview. I didn’t get a chance to attend the last West Midlands Librarians as Teachers event in 2010, but I saw a lot about it online afterwards. It’s been described as “motivational and action-packed” as well as having “inspiring speakers” and it’s feedback like this that is making me really excited for this year’s event in June. Clare Langman from the ARLG committee was recently telling me that the 2010 event was “a great event … it had a good balance of the theory and the practical with an inspir-ing talk from Debbi Boden who shared her passion for Information Literacy followed by some practical break out groups looking at how we could use different learning spaces effectively to get the most out of our different learning environments”. The 2010 event was held at Warwick Uni-versity’s Teaching Grid, which one blog-ger described as “pretty aces”, so I was very pleased to hear that this year’s event will be held at Warwick University too – although this year it is being hosted at the Wolfson Research Exchange as there is a bit more room. Confirmed speakers for this year’s event include Jane Secker & Emma Coonan speaking about their involvement in the ‘A New Curriculum for Information Literacy’ (ANCIL) project and David Nicholas from CIBER Research talking about the ways in which people learn and look for information in today’s digital world, which is a session I’m really looking forward to! Other speakers and interactive sessions include Matt Gallon from JISC, Helen Curtis from Warwick University Library, Virginia Power from Bridgwater College on Evaluating Teaching and John Loy & Helene Gorring talking about Cinemeducation: the use of films in medical education; add in the fact that lunch is included in the price and it looks to me like the recipe for a good day out, with lots of opportunity to learn new things and pick up tips for my Information Literacy training sessions. If you want more information about this year’s Librarians as Teachers event you can visit the event website: http://lat2013.wordpress.com or follow the #lat2013 tag on Twitter. Lisa Basini is a Senior Library Assistant at Telford Health Library.

Librarians as Teachers 2013: Engaging Learners in the Digital Age

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For more information, see the #LAT2013 website

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Certification, Chartership and Beyond A Chartership and Certification course was held at Rugby Public Library on the 26th

November 2012. Kerry Grocott was there. As a new Library Assistant at Stratford Library, I have been giving my future career a lot of thought and this involved a lot of confusion! Luckily it is through being a member of CILIP and a follower of CDG WM, that I was invited to attend the event enti-tled ‘Certification, Chartership and Beyond’ and I jumped at the chance to learn more about the op-tions available for CILIP qualifications. I joined CILIP this year but had no idea which path to take - do I complete another higher level qualification or would

a portfolio-building CILIP qualification help me even more?

The event was not just a chance to learn about Certification and Chartership, but was also a chance to network with like-minded people. As soon as I arrived I was made to feel wel-come, helped along by biscuits and many cups of tea! Sabelo Mapasure, the Candidate Support Officer for CDG WM gave a presentation on the Certification and Chartership quali-fications and what exactly is involved with the building of portfolios. We were also shown examples, which was a great chance to view the length and layout and what is expected to meet the criteria. He also instructed us on how to select a mentor which I found very in-formative.

We were then split into groups by those wishing to complete Certification and those going further to Chartership and even further ahead to Fellowship and Revalidation. I am a new starter so I went into the Certification group which was led by Lesley Allen, Deputy Library Services Manager for Birmingham Community Health Care. Lesley was fantastic to talk to and answered all my questions. I had plenty to ask! Our Certification group was very mixed as we had all done lots of different qualifications and had so much experience across both libraries and elsewhere. Because I have moved across different careers it was good to hear that others had done the same. One of my main questions involved the type of evidence we could submit, as I am involved in lots of voluntary work and feel that this is important evi-dence that would help my portfolio. I think the editing process will be the hardest part of the submission and I will need to be ruthless with my evidence selecting.

After our question and answer session we were then brought together as a whole group again and Gill Colbourne, Business Development Librarian for Warwickshire Library and Information Service, gave a short presentation on her own experience submitting her recent portfolio. I found Gill’s talk very informative and it was great to hear a first-hand account.

I am glad I was given the chance to attend the event and it helped me to think seriously about my future career and where I want to progress. I feel a CILIP qualification would be worthwhile in helping to put my career in perspective but also as a tool for personal reflec-tion. There is also the chance to become involved with the CDG committee, which is some-thing I will seriously consider.

Vacancy Bulletin

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Getting involved in your professional organisation is a very rewarding way to contribute to your profession and can provide you with plenty of opportunities to address skills gaps in your CV. CDG WM currently has one vacancy on the committee — if you would like to find out more, e-mail cdgwm@hotmail.com or come along to our next committee meeting (see p. 5). CDG WM committee roles are flexible and can be fitted around your work and home commitments. Committee meetings are usually held four times a year in the evening (6-8pm) but if you would find these difficult to attend, we would still like to hear from you! We believe that committee involvement is about more than attending committee meetings, and are always happy to receive a written report from those unable to at-tend in person.

Events Officer While all CDG WM committee members get involved in organising events, the Events Officer ensures that this is as straight-forward and consistent as possible. There is plenty of scope for someone to make this role their own, but suggestions for what this role might involve are:

Maintaining information about local venues and speakers Ensuring quality and consistency across events Investigating ways to publicise events effectively

This role would particularly suit someone looking to make use of or develop skills in en-suring standards are met, marketing, negotiating with suppliers, team-working, and col-lating, maintaining and communicating information.

Gain valuable experience for your CV or Chartership/Certification port-folio—by getting involved in a friend-ly and welcoming environment!