The encouragement you need to submit your article!

If I can do it...
After attending Umbrella 2011, I was asked to write an article on it for the Directions newsletter. While advocacy and conference attendance have been discussed with fire and wit elsewhere, this post should serve a double duty by encouraging you to submit an article for publication. The bar is not so high! Do share a draft of articles with your manager, for politeness if not for political reasons.

The article is included here with permission from CILIP's London and Southeast Career Development Group.

First-Timer’s Report from Umbrella 2011

CILIP’s Umbrella 2011 conference in July offered two days of seminar sessions on a wide range of topics, an exhibitor area with library vendors and time set aside for refuelling and networking. Based on my university memories, I supposed seminars would be the most valuable part of the conference. The reality was different to my expectations, as I learned as much from informal conversations as in the sessions. Reflecting on my Umbrella experience, my advice is to make opportunities to talk with practitioners from a wide range of libraries, whether at conferences, online or during library tours. Although effort and bravery are needed to reach out to strangers, library types are helpful and informative.

I was delighted to receive Umbrella sponsorship from the London and Southeast Career Development Group. Given the almost universal budget cuts in libraries, one goal for the conference was to explore extending traditional services through volunteers and social networks. I also wanted to gain insight into effective methods of library advocacy as part of my Chartership preparation. While I work as a librarian for a local authority, the greatest benefit of Umbrella was learning about these subjects from information professionals with dissimilar experience.

A solo librarian I met at the First Timers’ lunch taught me the training techniques that help her manage a one person specialist library with over fifty volunteers. At the gala dinner, two remarkable library development workers from Leicestershire helped me plan my upcoming visit to a MIND day centre. And an informal chat with a CILIP trustee was empowering; she strongly suggested supporting change within CILIP by getting involved, whether on a committee, organising an event or writing a blog. 

In casual conversation a number of Umbrella attendees voiced concerns about volunteers, yet in the current economy many libraries use or are planning to use volunteers. Given this disconnect, Tracy Long’s and Tracy Hager’s presentations at the Volunteers in Libraries session were particularly important. The presenters detailed the processes, pitfalls and even unexpected benefits of their work with volunteers. As my local authority is piloting work with teen volunteers, I forwarded Tracy Hager's presentation to my co-workers, starting up a useful email dialogue. Access to this and other Umbrella 2011 presentations and related blogs is available via http://www.cilip.org.uk/umbrella2011/

I also attended several sessions on the future of libraries and library advocacy in the UK. Annie Mauger was explicit about CILIP’s role as a library advocacy group that champions all types of library and information professionals, communicating our importance at as high a political level as possible.  The recruitment of trustees from the Society of Chief Librarians and the Society of College, National and University Libraries is a step towards increasing the effectiveness of CILIP’s advocacy. Working at a grass roots level, the group Voices for the Library is an enthusiastic and visible advocate for public libraries. You can read about and get involved with both types of advocacy using the websites below:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/

            http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/

Social media sessions were intriguing, although the academic librarians and technology consultant presenters were farther along the curve in the practical application of social media. In this case hands-on experience trumped the seminars. I gained a huge amount of transferable knowledge about social networks preparing for, documenting and then following up on connections made at Umbrella. By following the #UB11 Umbrella hashtag prior to the conference, I made Twitter connections leading to in-person meetings. Along with other attendees, I tweeted seminar content to help people follow the discussions, whether they were at other sessions or at home. Twitter is a great tool for conference awareness!

The hardest part about social networks was choosing the right one for follow-up communications after the conference. In my conversations I discovered that everyone has a preferred method for maintaining professional contacts, whether LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or email. Despite the effort of maintaining multiple social networks, staying in touch with new library contacts is worthwhile. It is helpful to have sounding boards and brainstorming partners outside your organisation and area of expertise.

Don't be afraid to step up and attend a conference like Umbrella – I enjoyed learning from a variety of people, including students and heads of services. Whatever your background, you will have something to offer and will find a new perspective to bring to your work and professional development.

Getting the Money - how to pay for conferences

Most of us work in libraries, right?
a hugely remunerative field, leading to the acquisition of country homes, right?
so we can pay up front when we want to go to a conference of our peers, right?

Let's get real and talk about how to get to money for conferences.
(You know you want to go! If not, read Mind Matters cpd23 blog)

You're going to have to ask for money.

Ask your employer.
Try this first. I know it sounds crazy as most of our employers are strapped for cash, but it worked for a friend of mine. Take a look at your goals for the year,  think of three reasons why attending the conference will benefit your employer and help you meet your goals and then share those reasons with your manager. Even if the boss says no, the conversation highlights your interest in CPD. If you're able to come up with the cash from another source, management is more likely to be onside with helping you get time away.
Remember that the ways of Management are mysterious and miracles do happen, especially at the end of the financial year.

If that fails, you need to take a look at yourself and pick option a or b. If you're an outgoing type or excited to share success stories or research with your peers then:

a) Ask the conference organizers
Try this if you want to present a paper or a poster or live near the site and can volunteer to work at the conference. Read the conference website and see what the opportunities are, then telephone the contacts listed and tell them you're interested. Don't skip this step as contacts are hoping for lots of valid submissions and will be glad to give you insight into the selection process and timing. Check out the cpd23 posts on submitting papers and preparing presentations by thewikiman and others. Good luck!

if you want to network and learn, but aren't ready to present at the conference, then:

b) Ask the professional organizations you belong to, your religious institution, your parents.
Okay, maybe not your parents. But do think who else might have a vested interest in seeing you succeed. Do you work in a special library supporting accountants? Maybe the Association of Chartered Accountants will sponsor you, or maybe your CILIP/ALA special interest group will sponsor you.
Keep in mind that your sponsor will expect you to thank them profusely and publicly. Your pitch to a sponsor should include 1) how the conference will help you meet your goals 2) how your conference attendance will help meet the sponsor's goals and 3) how you will report back to the sponsoring organization. Be sure to follow through.

Best of luck, and if I can't get money for conferences from now on, I'll know you've been busy.
xx

hardcore cpd23'ers only - Thing 14, referencing software

Doggedly devoted to each and every Thing, I surveyed the blogs of academic librarians and student cpd23'ers and decided to download Mendeley. It took an hour or two to understand the options in Mendeley. By the end of my trials I was able to import PDFs and their reference data from the web at large and academic journals (via CILIP). I could also collect reference data only by copying the DOI (digital object identifier). The Watch folder makes the procedure seamless as you can toss anything you're reading into the folder on your desktop and Mendeley picks out the reference information while running in the background.
There was a payoff - I've realized that Mendeley is a good way to organize my chartership background reading and then pop out a reference list when I'm ready. While I don't plan on having 100+ references in my chartership portfolio, now I understand how other people have amassed such lists!

this is my fourth career

Librarianship in the U.S. is often a second career - somehow heading straight for the Masters Degree in Library or Information Science directly after paying for four years at University doesn't hold broad appeal.   Library science lacks the $$$ promise of law or business school or the cool factor of doing a PhD in Linguistic Forensics.

Long story short, I graduated university with a degree in psychology and got a job where I could wear suits, stockings and heels to work in a skyscraper in New York City. There were cockroaches, but not at work. I was a recruiter, then an IT trainer and finally systems manager at an entrepreneurial company - a very 90's progression of working hard and harder until I burnt out.

Looking for something less grinding, I found an HR job at The New York Public Library. Actually, there were two jobs on offer, one in recruiting (hiring) and one in employee relations (firing). Went for the job that allowed smiling.  Carefully built relations with intelligent and fierce librarians - I was lucky to be at NYPL when the highest level managers had worked there forever. NYPL was not a place where you would ever doubt the value of public libraries or librarians!

Some life happened, with babies, and I moved to a beach town where everyone knew my grandparents. Learned to live with sand in the books. I got bored after a bit and worked for a community organization that provided food and basic support to people in need (migrant workers and long term locals). Wrote cool job training/computer training curriculum and got some big grants. Installed a community IT centre,  taught classes and recruited staff and volunteers. Learned a valuable lesson about when to say no to grant money.

Life happened again - this time we ran out of dosh as a family and moved back into the NYC orbit. Deep in the paradisaical suburbs, I needed a calling, a career, a meaningfulness that would offer money and make the world a better place. Of course - Librarianship, in public libraries!

This was a perverse career choice; even in 2005 I thought that 10-15 years might see the decline of public libraries. But perversity is my middle name, so off I went to Syracuse University's Information school as one of the earlier distance learning cohorts.

I enjoyed formal learning as a mature student in a way I never had as an undergraduate. Some trying moments with distance learning group projects and a team member who plagiarized from Wikipedia, but that was real learning. Got a paid weekend librarian job and a work experience gig in public libraries, graduated and was ready to start work.

omg, this is such a saga. Because wanderlust took hold of me and my partner. We wanted to be somewhere other than the Northeast Corridor - the metropolitan blur stretching from Boston to below Washington D.C. With diploma in hand I found promising work in Washington State, near Seattle, but my partner couldn't get a good job there. He did have opportunities in London, so we decided to move to the UK; trading in the certainty of work for the fun of exploring.

If you are curious to know what I thought of UK libraries when I was freshly arrived, please read the 2007 section of this blog. I had a lot to say about volunteers and duplication of efforts.

Earning a librarian position in the UK took patience: school library volunteer work, CILIP membership, completing the ECDL, begging my way into a work experience placement in public libraries, temp work and working as a library assistant.
All the prologue to my fourth career, which I love.