Things 10 and 11 on the CPD23 programme are all about paths into librarianship and progression once you’re there. Two years ago I blogged about my route into librarianship – please go and read that post before continuing here, if only because it’s got my best ever opening line.

So now you’ll know that I fell into the profession. When I set out I didn’t know about the graduate trainee scheme, but I sure wish I had. I first heard about it when I started working at the University of Oxford; each year they have a cohort of around 20 trainees. From the outside it seems like a really valuable experience and a great way to learn some new skills and work out if librarianship is the career for you. While I was at Oxford Laura Wilkinson was responsible for the trainee programme and she set up the graduate trainee blog. In its second year it’s still going strong and is worth a read for an insight into what the trainees get up to.

  by  bbsc30 

I did a full-time Masters in Information and Library Management at the University of Northumbria. In the last few weeks I’ve learnt that this course is no longer running in this format and can only be done now by distance learning. On the whole I think that this is a good thing. While there were some great benefits of doing the course full-time – it only took a year and had face-to-face lectures through which a community was built up – I feel that I would have got much more out of it had I been working in a library at the same time. Some people on the course did work throughout but I think they would admit that managing the two was often a stretch. By far and away the best part of the course therefore was the placement where we actually got to put into prtactice the theory we had learnt.

Since taking on my first professional post I have toyed with the idea of Chartership. However I just can’t see the benefit for me. It’s a lot of work and these days I rarely see it as a prerequisite for jobs I might apply for. If I were to do any additional qualifications I think it would be in something more practical and useful to my career progression such as teaching or marketing.

Throughout my career I have had what I would consider to be two informal mentors; Andy Priestner and the aforementioned Laura Wilkinson. Whether they are aware of this I’m not sure. I respect both of them professionally and have sought advice from them on a variety of different topics. Where I feel they have helped me most though is as sounding boards. I will often go to them just to bounce ideas around and inevitably come away clear in my mind about how I will progress.

Today, like a lot of other UK based librarians I participated in the CILIP Council Open Session on the use of Web2.0 via Twitter (tag #cilip2). The live session included presentations from Phil Bradley and Brian Kelly and a Q&A/discussion. It was also live blogged on the Library & Information Update blog.

My initial intention had been to just monitor the event just to keep up with what was happening. The experience however drew me in and at one point this morning (before the event started) I was up in the top 10 list of tweeters. If this event does nothing else it will have brought together a group of librarians professionally and geographically diverse.

I have high hopes however that something more will come out of it. I am not a member of CILIP and haven’t been since I graduated from library school. My personal feeling is that CILIP doesn’t engage me enough to warrant my membership fee. Depending on the outcome of today I may change my mind.

Anyway, what I really wanted to write about in this post were some thoughts I had on my cycle ride home as I was digesting the comments from the event. It’s one thing to ask how CILIP are using web 2.0 tools and what their role is in leading the profession in their use but I also wonder how these tools are being used in teaching future professionals and whether they are being taught how these tools can be used in libraries and by librarians.

I graduated from library school nearly 3 years ago. We did a module called Hypermedia in which we had to create a website but there was no mention of the new technologies that were creeping on to the scene. My cohort were just beginning to use Facebook socially but there was no thought that it might have a place professionally. We used or perhaps it’s better to say were forced to use Blackboard to communicate with the group and participate in group assignments. I wonder if today this is still the case or are people using tools like Ning to create social networks specific to their course?

Are future professionals being encouraged to experiment with new technologies and think of new ways to use them in libraries? Are they being asked to think about the potential drawbacks or legal issues? Are they being taught best practice? Are they debating where to draw the line between personal and professional or, if indeed there needs to be a line? Or are they teaching themselves?