Well, the weather so far this year hasn’t been what we would expect from summer, but here, as usual, is the summer issue of Central Is-sues, jam-packed with information about the CILIP Branch and Group review (see p. 2), a committee profile for the new CSO support (p. 5) and reports from events our members have been busy attending (pp. 4, 6 and 7). There’s even a report from a CILIP member in the US who nevertheless managed to attend one of our Chartership and Certifica-tion workshops (p. 8). There are also plenty of opportunities, as usual, for you to engage with activities to develop your career. New professionals can contact our NPSO, Trudi Pledger (p. 5) or any member is welcome to join the CDG WM committee (see pp. 9 and 10). I hope you enjoy this issue, and that you find plenty of inspiration inside. Georgina Hardy Newsletter Editor

Editorial

Summer Quiz!

What links the following?

Captain William Kidd; Jack Sparrow; Anne Bonny; Bartholomew Sharp

They’re all pirates!

Did you know the answer? If so, see page 3 for full details of how to enter our

“missing links” summer quiz!

Summer 2012 Issue 25

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

CILIP Branch and

Group Review

2

Missing Links

Quiz!

3

Information and

Networking Day

4

Committee Pro-

file: Sue Helm

5

Your NPSO,

Trudi Pledger

5

Applying rocket

boosters to your

career

6

Overseas mem-

ber attends

Chartership &

Certification

Workshop virtu-

ally

8

Vacancy Bulletin 10

You may be aware of the current Branch and Group Review project being conduct-

ed by CILIP. Here, Jo Alcock and Anna Brown explain what’s going on and how

this might affect your region. One of CILIP's current projects is a Branch and Group Review which was revised and ap-proved by CILIP Council in March (CILIP members can view the full project initiation docu-ment from the online Council meetings archive). The main remit of the project is to:

“comprehensively scope the issues experienced by CILIP and the Branches and Groups, ensure these are reviewed to identify what needs to change and deliver the change to ensure that CILIP’s Branches and Groups are supported

in the delivery of this vital and highly regarded Member Benefit.” The following areas will be included in the project: Clear guidance on Branch and Group roles and responsibilities Revised Branch and Group Rules, Regulations, and Guidance Revised licensing agreements/service contracts Fully-functioning centralised banking Fully developed requirements for the revised (and ultimately new) CILIP website and

for the VLE/Toolshed Following consultation with key stakeholders (including committees and members), recom-mendations will be put forward to CILIP Council with a view to getting approval on a way forward to deliver consistency and value for all members. The project board has been established and have had their first meeting. The project has a number of different stages; the overall date for completion is December 2013. If you would like further information on the project, see www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/branch-and-group-review/pages/default.aspx

Pilot mergers between Career Development Group Divisions and Branches CDG and the CILIP local branches are seen as possible candidates for closer collabora-tion for two main reasons: CDG’s divisional structure roughly mirrors that of the branches Overlap in our roles and remits, for example we are both cross-sectoral and support

continuing professional development The synergy between the WM Branch and CDG WM is apparent in the events we organ-ise, for example both often arrange library visits, as well as networking events. Two pilots are currently underway that will explore whether CDG and Branch mergers are a good way of ensuring value and professional support for members: East of England Branch and CDG Eastern Division are organising joint events and

forming cross-branch and CDG ‘task and finish groups’ to deal with individual issues or actions. Current officers on both committees will remain in role, but there will be

CILIP Branch and Group Review

Central Issues Page 2

Issue 25 Page 3

meetings and working together between, for example, the respective Chairs, Secre-taries and Newsletter Editors.

South Western Branch and two CDG divisions (Devon and Cornwall and the West Country) have fully merged, creating a whole new structure with one Chair, Secre-tary, Treasurer, etc. Another interesting feature is the use of Local Events Liaison Officers for four sub-regions, to ensure that all members have the chance to attend events and get involved, no matter where they live in this large region. One-off in-volvement from members (for example helping with events, writing newsletter arti-cles) will be particularly encouraged.

Situation in the West Midlands The possibility of working more closely, or even merging with the Branch has been dis-cussed at both CDG National Council and local West Midlands committee meetings, and we are broadly supportive of this idea. We eagerly await the outcomes of the pilots! The CILIP West Midlands regional branch and the CILIP Career Development Group West Midlands division already have a close working relationship with cross-promotion of events and news, and members sitting on both committees. In order to improve the offer-ing to all members, the committees will continue to develop this relationship, for example by increasing communication between committees and running joint events. Jo Alcock is Chair of CILIP West Midlands and an Evidence Based Researcher at Evi-dence Base in Birmingham City University. You can find Jo on Twitter @joeyanne and at www.joeyanne.co.uk. Anna Brown is Chair of Career Development Group West Mid-lands and CEBIS Specialist at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust.

Give your brain a workout over the Summer months with CDG West Midland Division’s “missing links” quiz, raising funds for CDG International Projects. For more information on CDG International Projects see: http://tinyurl.com/6k49wpy To enter, please: Donate your £2 entry fee via our Charity Choice website: www.charitychoice.co.uk/

cilip-cdg/donate. Alternatively, send a cheque made payable to ‘Career Develop-ment Group International' to, Sabelo Mapasure, CDG International Officer, Shews-bury Health Library, The Learning Centre, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospitals NHS Trust, Mytton Oak Road, Shrewsbury SY3 8XQ

AND send an email to cdgwm.quiz@gmail.com to let us know you have donated, and we will reply with the quiz sheet attached

The closing date is 1st September, after which any entries with the same number of points will go into a draw for the prize of an Amazon voucher. The quiz is open to every-one, you don’t have to live in the West Midlands, you don’t even have to be a CILIP mem-ber – so please tell your friends, as we would like to raise as much money as possible!

Missing Links Quiz!

Information and Networking Day

Central Issues Page 4

CILIP WM Branch Information and Networking Day, including the CDG WM AGM,

was held on Wednesday 18th April 2012. Lisa Basini was there. The day started with a presentation form Caroline Rock who gave an overview of the Cov-entry University Library Service and the Lanchester Library. Coventry University isn’t a typical ‘campus university’; most of the students either commute into Coventry or access the library remotely through the internet. The tour of the library was really good and in-cluded details on the current art exhibition themed around LGBT month.

After a short break we had the CILIP West Midlands Branch and West Midlands Career Development Group AGM’s, which were both very interesting. The committee members who were present were pointed out and it was nice to put faces with some of the names.

The keynote speech from Ayub Khan was about Career Planning. He discussed the wide range of jobs and sectors involved in Library work. He suggests conducting a SWOT analysis of your job role and organisation as well as running a risk analysis. Ayub also spoke about the benefits of joining, and getting involved in, professional organisations.

After lunch we heard from John Dolan, the chair of the CILIP Council, about the profession and its future. He said that our professional future is defined by ‘networking and communi-ty’, Continued Professional Development and ‘advocacy and thought leadership’. John went on to discuss what the Council was doing, including the restructuring of the Branches and Special Interest Groups and the review of the Framework of Qualifications. They have also had help offered to revamp the website, which is promising and long overdue. John also discussed the Council’s proactive approach to advocacy and gave some exam-ples of campaigns such as Speak up for Libraries and Shout about School Libraries.

Jo Alcock (Chair of CILIP West Midlands Branch Committee) gave a brief overview of the CILIP WM’s survey results. They show that most of the Special Interest Groups are being represented, as well as a broad range of sectors. The participants voted on what they think the committee’s priorities should be for next year and the top three were organising training events, networking opportunities, and regular member communication.

We then had an optional tour of the Coventry History Centre, which contains various local studies collections and archives, including maps, building plans and newspapers, all da-ting back to the 1890s when the collection was first started. Rayanne Byatt gave a talk about the history of the centre and its collections, and we were also shown the archives in the basement. To finish the day we had a guided tour of the Herbert Art Gallery, including the History Gallery, a tour of Coventry through its three major time periods, late medieval, Victorian and Modern era and the main art exhibits; the ‘Old Masters’ gallery and the ‘Art Since 1900’ collection, which includes paintings by LS Lowry and work by modern local artists including George Shaw.

The presentations for the day are on the CILIP West Midlands Slideshare page: www.slideshare.net/CILIPWM

Lisa Basini is a Senior Library Assistant at Telford Health Library.

Issue 25 Page 5

Sue Helm Candidate Support Officer (CSO) Support

I have worked in libraries for many years after qualifying in Library & Information Studies at Manchester Polytechnic as it was then. I joined Dudley MBC in 1980 as a trainee li-brarian and although still with Dudley I have worked in many different roles over these years. Following chartership I worked as Reference & Music Librarian which I stayed in for quite a long time and found reference and enquiry work very satisfying. As part of that role I was also involved in managing the local history section of the library, the infor-mation centre and representing the authority on a number of different regional groups in-cluding the West Midlands regional training group.

In 1995 I had the opportunity to complete an MBA qualification through the council’s training programme and I gained my diploma in management services. This gave me a good understanding of management issues and was a step into a secondment post to manage the directorate’s investment in people award. This paved the way into another job which took me away from front line delivery and into management support and staff development. I was responsible for managing the library surveys, collecting statistics, in-vestors in people and other best practice group work - internal and external. Part of my role was also in staff development and training, the biggest project being the ICT NOF funded training for all library staff and getting everyone through the ECDL! This was a big piece of work over 4 years and there were a few more grey hairs at the end of it.

Following a restructure in 2005 I moved into a new team of staff development officers providing support to the whole of a newly formed directorate. I continue to have a link with libraries through my role as their link officer and to keep up to date with qualifications and training required for library staff.

My reason for wanting to assist the CDG in a supporting role is to maintain that level of knowledge on library qualifications and to support the staff in my own authority better as a result.

Committee Profile

Trudi Pledger has recently taken over the post as New Professional Support Officer

(NPSO) for the CILIP Career Development Group (CDG) in the West Midlands. The purpose of the role is to offer support and guidance to those who have joined the LIS profession either through work or study within the last 5 years; it's about raising aware-ness of the opportunities that may be available in terms of professional development but also offering the chance to meet up socially with other new professionals in the area. Trudi would be interested to hear from those LIS students currently in the West Midlands and you can contact her via: npso.cdg.wm@gmail.com

Your NPSO: Trudi Pledger

The latest CDG WM Chartership and Certification Event was held in Dudley Pub-

lic Library on 22nd

May 2012. Here, Hilkka Armston and Jennifer Brother-

ton tell us how this event has helped them on the road to qualification. I had a privilege and good fortune to take part in CILIP Chartership and Certification Event that was held in Dudley library on 22

nd of May. I participated hoping to get a

more focused idea how to build a portfolio for a certification application. During the morning session we had well organised and informative talks by Sabelo Mapasure and Michael Martin. After lunch we split into two groups between Chartership and Certifi-cation candidates and had opportunity to talk to people who had recently written suc-cessful portfolios. The afternoon was finished with more personal accounts. Everyone involved very generously offered their portfolios for viewing. I was also touched how openly people spoke about their careers with all the twists, turns and delays included. I felt that all the advice given on the day was down to earth and very useful. I also got the impression that people running CILIP are serious, systematic and expect hard ef-fort from the applicants. However I was at the same time comforted by finding out that CILIP has mentors across the country and a lot of tools and formats available on-line. Being able to view several accepted portfolios during the day was illuminating and real-ly helped to visualize a goal for the process. Whereas all the practical advice was obviously useful and very important the most meaningful gain for me was in spirit and attitude. I came in hoping for a few hints and tips and left the event feeling thoroughly uplifted. First of all it was enlightening to hear that career is not something that starts from ignorance and climbs through professional qualification to a plateau but a continuous development. So that instead of aiming to a goal one can keep on moving up and up. Secondly I was delighted to feel that I was among people who believe in libraries with unre-lenting and indefatigable passion. That these people don't view this just as a job worth doing but a life's work in the fullest sense that deserves every effort you can put into it. And that these people despite all the doom and gloom thundering around them are resolutely knuckling down, putting extra effort in to make the very most of their careers. I do confess feeling slightly intimidated by going toe to toe with other library and information professionals when it comes to getting serious about annotating and referencing. Even so I am keen to find a mentor and getting my portfolio started.

***

Applying rocket boosters to your career

Central Issues Page 6

Hilkka Armston

Issue 25 Page 7

The day began with an introduction by Sue Helm and Sabelo Mapasure, both CSOs (Candidate Support Officer) for the West Midlands branch of CILIP. Sabelo began by outlining his career progression from becoming qualified to completing Chartership. He spoke of the importance of becoming Chartered and what is available to candidates through the CDG (Career Development Group). Following this, Michael Martin, an advisor for CILIP, gave an overview of CILIPs Frame-work of Qualifications. This was really interesting, especially to somebody who didn’t know much about the process and the importance of a mentor and CSO. Martin outlined the steps to completing Chartership which were as follows: if not already a member of CILIP, join; register for appropriate qualification; find a mentor and complete agreement form (and tell CILIP); devise PPDP with mentor (Personal Professional Development Plan). One of the important pieces of information Michael spoke about was the reasons for the portfolio and a matrix to ensure that all criteria are completed. This can be found in Margaret Wat-son’s Building your portfolio: the CILIP guide, which I found really helpful as it ensures that you don’t miss an important section when creating your portfolio. Also the idea of taking a pause after a piece of work to reflect on what has been completed and how it will help in your future personal and professional life. He used Kolb’s Reflective Practitioner model to describe the process for reflection, which highlighted the importance of on-going reflection for all activities, After breaking for lunch we were able to have a look at completed portfolios which were useful to get an idea of the format used, and to see what different people had included in their work. As I had not seen one before it gave me some ideas of how to organise my own portfolio and what type of evidence to include. The practical exercises run by Sabelo in the afternoon gave everyone an opportunity to really think about examples to choose from our own experiences, which were discussed in a group. It also highlighted the importance of obtaining evidence for any activities that we wanted to record. I found this really useful as I can now look at what I’m doing in de-tail and ensure that I have evidence of my activities and feedback in my portfolio. The day finished with three personal experiences of Certification and Chartership by can-didates who had recently completed their work. For the most part they reiterated the main points of the day, ensuring not too much evidence is collated, taking time out to rec-ord reflection on activities, and the importance of finding a mentor. The event was really well organised and was useful whether you knew nothing about the courses available, or if you had already started. People were on hand to answer any questions and the portfolios available gave you an idea of what to work towards. I really enjoyed the event and would encourage library staff to attend at whatever stage they are at in their professional development.

On the previous two pages, you have read how those who attended in person

found the latest CDG WM Chartership and Certification Event. Kelly Quaye is

an overseas Chartership candidate based in the US who attended the event vir-

tually. Deepak Rana was the local contact. I am grateful to have been able to attend the Chartership & Certification event, held on 22

nd May 2012 at Dudley Public Library, as a virtual attendee. In fact, I believe I might

have been the first overseas candidate to attend this course virtually. My mentor, Ma-ria Cotera, suggested this might be possible as I would be unable to attend the work-shop in person, and set about making enquiries with Sabelo Mapasure, CDG WM’s Candidate Support Officer (CSO), and Sue Helm, CSO Support. She also consulted Michael Martin, Qualifications & Professional Development Adviser at CILIP, and Ka-ren Poole, Honorary Learning Coordinator of CDG, to confirm whether virtual attend-ance would fulfil the CILIP requirement. We were given the all clear to proceed. Sabelo emailed both his own presentation and that of Michael Martin to me before the workshop. Being able to review these documents beforehand was helpful, and offered a back-up in the event of technical trouble on the day. Sabelo outlined the support re-sources and networks available to us, which I believe will be vital to successful com-pletion of Chartership. Our mentor plays a key role in this success and we must as-sume responsibility for initiating regular communication. Sabelo advised us that our mentor would not review our portfolio before submission, but that we may contact our CSO for this purpose. Michael Martin’s presentation followed and outlined the specif-ics of the PPDP, portfolio content and organisation, Chartership criteria, and the Framework matrix. Technical support for the event was coordinated by Deepak Ra-na, fellow Chartership Candi-date, and Development Librari-an at Dudley Libraries. He re-ported, “The internet connection available was via a library public Wi-Fi network. Although a test was carried out to ensure Skype could work through the firewalls, it was unclear whether the sound quality and video connec-tion would be adequate. As a backup, text chat would be used alongside the PowerPoint slides. A laptop was used to connect to the Wi-Fi and an audio/video call was initiated. Running com-

Overseas member attends Chartership & Certification Workshop virtually

Central Issues Page 8

Chartership and Certification candidates talking about their experiences and sharing ideas. Photo credit: Deepak Rana

Issue 25 Page 9

mentary was also typed due to unforeseen events, such as loud construction down-stairs.” Following a short lunch break (breakfast time for me!) Sabelo facilitated group dis-cussions among those in attendance. I was at a disadvantage here, but had been emailed the list of discussion questions so to consider the same issues. Deepak po-sitioned the laptop so I could see and hear the group. I used the chat function to send my comments and questions, and Deepak relayed them as I did not have a microphone. The audio and video quality was generally very good throughout the day. The workshop concluded with short presentations from recently qualified can-didates who offered useful advice and suggestions. Deepak made the following recommenda-tions for future sessions: The power cable for the laptop was too short to allow the webcam to face the pre-

senters. A separate webcam could be positioned more easily. A survey of the room beforehand to check seating, power points and acoustics

would be helpful (an external microphone could be used if acoustics is a problem). Thank you to those who enabled me to attend this informative workshop virtually. Kelly Quaye is Library Service Assistant, at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA and can be found on Twitter at @kcquaye. She also blogs at kellyquaye.wordpress.com Deepak Rana is Development Librarian: ICT & Digital Resources at Dudley Libraries and tweets at @readyourbook.

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 com-mittee meeting will be held in Central Birmingham during October. Contact cdgwm@hotmail.com to be notified when the date is agreed.

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

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. 9). 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 on a Wednes-day 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 attend-ing committee meetings, and are always happy to receive a written report from those unable to attend 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 by correct use and application of the CILIP Seal

of Recognition 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.

Vacancy Bulletin

Central Issues Page 10

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