So further to my last blog I have now established my Personal Professional Devleopment Plan with the Librarian and Systems Librarian.
It was a very positive meeting and I feel a lot better now that I have a clearer direction in mind and I am even a little excited again now that I am to be given some projects. I get on well with our new sytems Librairan and she is very enthusiatic for me to do well which helps to bouy my confidence somewhat.
I am particularly looking forward to the opportuiny to job shadow in some other libraries as it would be great to see the variety of positions out there. I was also quite pleased that I will be given at least one project (to brand and market the library - eeks I struggled to brand myslef!) and the Systems Librarian is hoping that towards the end of my traineeship she can convince the librarian to give me responsiblity for cataloughing and classifying a small sunject area - which would be a fab opportunity and really give me hands the on experience of a librarian.
I'm really pleased things are coming together for me here now. I think it helps now that we have the new Systems Librarian as it helps our Librarian to share the load and free up their time more in order to get involved and focus on staff progression. I certainly think once I have had the oportunity to visit a few Libraries I can get a feel of where I would like to work which will help to confirm what route I want to take in terms of qualifications.
Thursday 30 June 2011
Tuesday 28 June 2011
Where to go from here
So I am trying to post every day I am at work for reflection purposes and for advice. Today is more about the advice (mostly becuase not much has been happening at work today).
I having some what of a crisis of confidence in my current career path. The situation is this - I have laways loeved libraries and have been trying for years to get a position in a library so to have finally entered into the environment I so craved is a wonderful suprise.
But here my dillema also begins, being a graduate trinee - the clock is clicking down to March whereby my contract ends. Naturally I am anxious to get as much out of the experience as I possibly can to put me in good stead for my next job (which will hopefully be within a library), however my collagues have been draging thier feet with this - as keen as I am to learn and as happy as they are to show me what they are doing there is no structured training plan in place. Supposedly this is to be remmidied next week and I shall start a proper schedule of training working my way through all the tasks involved in running a library.
So with this in place my next worry is reagrding my future - do I do an MA in Liibrary Management or similar? which I would love to do but really can't afford - I would definatley need to work to do either distance learning or a part-time course, but even then with a mortgage to pay off and living costs going up I don't have a spare few grand to invest in my future ( I know there are student loans and bursary's out there but I would like to avoid getting into more debt - that's my Dad's influence!). The other option is to work as a Learning Resource Assistant and see if my employer would contribute towards the cost of the MA.
Now here comes the biggest problem - both these options rely on me getting another job in a library and whilst I will have experience on my side this time there are simply fewer vacancies available and a lot of the LRA posts advertised are part -time and I can't apply for librarians positions without the qualifications which puts me in a bit of a difficult loop.
So potential readers any advice on where I can find a full time well paid library position please get in touch, or alternatively sharing your won expereince may help to ease my concerns.
I having some what of a crisis of confidence in my current career path. The situation is this - I have laways loeved libraries and have been trying for years to get a position in a library so to have finally entered into the environment I so craved is a wonderful suprise.
But here my dillema also begins, being a graduate trinee - the clock is clicking down to March whereby my contract ends. Naturally I am anxious to get as much out of the experience as I possibly can to put me in good stead for my next job (which will hopefully be within a library), however my collagues have been draging thier feet with this - as keen as I am to learn and as happy as they are to show me what they are doing there is no structured training plan in place. Supposedly this is to be remmidied next week and I shall start a proper schedule of training working my way through all the tasks involved in running a library.
So with this in place my next worry is reagrding my future - do I do an MA in Liibrary Management or similar? which I would love to do but really can't afford - I would definatley need to work to do either distance learning or a part-time course, but even then with a mortgage to pay off and living costs going up I don't have a spare few grand to invest in my future ( I know there are student loans and bursary's out there but I would like to avoid getting into more debt - that's my Dad's influence!). The other option is to work as a Learning Resource Assistant and see if my employer would contribute towards the cost of the MA.
Now here comes the biggest problem - both these options rely on me getting another job in a library and whilst I will have experience on my side this time there are simply fewer vacancies available and a lot of the LRA posts advertised are part -time and I can't apply for librarians positions without the qualifications which puts me in a bit of a difficult loop.
So potential readers any advice on where I can find a full time well paid library position please get in touch, or alternatively sharing your won expereince may help to ease my concerns.
Monday 27 June 2011
Sam Phillips - The Brand!
Thing 3 is a wonderrful one - especially as it covers some of the things I raised in my last blog about remaining professional and being aware of what you are putting out there.
I havent yet thought of a perosnal brand but have come to the conclusion that I am a little to firendly and over zealous in my blogs - I give away far too much information about myself. Now I don't see this as a bad thing, I am comfortable with who I am and am thus happy to be myself. However having read the blog on thing 3 I do understand the need to have a professional face and for this to be consistent - Imagine being in an interview and they say "so tell us about yourself" and you respond with "I can burp the alphabet" or "I'm really grumpy on monday mornings" it may be true but it isn't something you want to advertise in a professional capacity. Therefore with all this in mind I am still going to be me but try to ensure that my blogs are relevant and helpful in a professional manner.
I did google myself in both my married and maiden name but after searching the fist 3 pages in google found nothing relating to me - I did find out there is an Amrican actress with the same name though. This is both good an bad - it means that so far as I know unless any detailed reserach is done my personal information is secured. Unfortunaltey it also means I have very little online presence- if i can't be found how will people know about me? so any tips on how to remedy this will help. I do have facebook, and now a blog, the next step will be twitter so maybe my online presence will grow during the duration of 23 things.
You may have noticed (those who have read my blog before) I have changed my background and colour scheme - I wanted something that reflected me a bit more and that is why I picked the orange background and pink titles, I am quite an optomistic and happy person and this background represent this without being too over the top. I have also editied my personal info page and cut out anything I felt was irrelevant or didn't feel I would expose in an interview.
Another realisation I came to was that all my email addresses start with sambird84@ which is my maiden name so it may well be worth changing that for future networking to prevent confusion.
If I had to describe myself I would say I'm a good listener, organised, friendly and really helpful. So considering this I am going to adopt the slogan of a well known superstore that I worked in as a teenager and become - Samantha Phillips - always happy to help (is that alowed? or will people still think I work there?)
maybe a better one would be Samantha Phillips - Will do the best to achieve success. Yes I do quite like that.
So remember me -Samantha Phillips - will do the best to achieve success.
I havent yet thought of a perosnal brand but have come to the conclusion that I am a little to firendly and over zealous in my blogs - I give away far too much information about myself. Now I don't see this as a bad thing, I am comfortable with who I am and am thus happy to be myself. However having read the blog on thing 3 I do understand the need to have a professional face and for this to be consistent - Imagine being in an interview and they say "so tell us about yourself" and you respond with "I can burp the alphabet" or "I'm really grumpy on monday mornings" it may be true but it isn't something you want to advertise in a professional capacity. Therefore with all this in mind I am still going to be me but try to ensure that my blogs are relevant and helpful in a professional manner.
I did google myself in both my married and maiden name but after searching the fist 3 pages in google found nothing relating to me - I did find out there is an Amrican actress with the same name though. This is both good an bad - it means that so far as I know unless any detailed reserach is done my personal information is secured. Unfortunaltey it also means I have very little online presence- if i can't be found how will people know about me? so any tips on how to remedy this will help. I do have facebook, and now a blog, the next step will be twitter so maybe my online presence will grow during the duration of 23 things.
You may have noticed (those who have read my blog before) I have changed my background and colour scheme - I wanted something that reflected me a bit more and that is why I picked the orange background and pink titles, I am quite an optomistic and happy person and this background represent this without being too over the top. I have also editied my personal info page and cut out anything I felt was irrelevant or didn't feel I would expose in an interview.
Another realisation I came to was that all my email addresses start with sambird84@ which is my maiden name so it may well be worth changing that for future networking to prevent confusion.
If I had to describe myself I would say I'm a good listener, organised, friendly and really helpful. So considering this I am going to adopt the slogan of a well known superstore that I worked in as a teenager and become - Samantha Phillips - always happy to help (is that alowed? or will people still think I work there?)
maybe a better one would be Samantha Phillips - Will do the best to achieve success. Yes I do quite like that.
So remember me -Samantha Phillips - will do the best to achieve success.
Friday 24 June 2011
comments, compliments and complaints
As promised in blog entry two I looked at more blogs last night and was brave anough to comment on two who had similar concerns to me (like what to blog about, what are people thinking when they read my blog etc).
It's a little disconcerting to know that whatever I say is then out there in the ether for anyone to read, imagine if i'm having a bad day or don't agree with how things are done at work and I decide in the moment to blog about it - what if some-one from my work then reads the blog? I know I need to be a reposnsible blogger and really shouldn't write about anything I don't want anyone to read but sometimes my fingers run away with me.
In a way it could work out well - I mean if I am unsure about something and blog about it then at least I have the support and advice of other bloggers. I do think that you have to be balanced too its all good and well to come on and rave about new technology or great courses but if this is supposed to be reflective development you need to blog about the not so great stuff too so that when you do reflect you can consider what you need to improve either about yourself or in your workplace.
so with that in mind I intent to blog as I would speak (does that make sense) in that if it is something I would say to a colleague or family member it can go on here, however if it is something I would think twice about saying then i will keep that to myself.
It's a little disconcerting to know that whatever I say is then out there in the ether for anyone to read, imagine if i'm having a bad day or don't agree with how things are done at work and I decide in the moment to blog about it - what if some-one from my work then reads the blog? I know I need to be a reposnsible blogger and really shouldn't write about anything I don't want anyone to read but sometimes my fingers run away with me.
In a way it could work out well - I mean if I am unsure about something and blog about it then at least I have the support and advice of other bloggers. I do think that you have to be balanced too its all good and well to come on and rave about new technology or great courses but if this is supposed to be reflective development you need to blog about the not so great stuff too so that when you do reflect you can consider what you need to improve either about yourself or in your workplace.
so with that in mind I intent to blog as I would speak (does that make sense) in that if it is something I would say to a colleague or family member it can go on here, however if it is something I would think twice about saying then i will keep that to myself.
Thursday 23 June 2011
e-Fair
I spent the whole day today at the RSC (regional support centre) east Midlands e-fair. It was a brilliant day, I was able to find out so much just from networking on top of the great information given to use during the break-out sessions.
Being quite new to my post my knowledge of libraries is limited to what I have learnt in the last two months and my own experiences of university and public libraries so the networking session was a real eye opener to me. I have been educated in the Shibbloeth Vs athens conundrum as authentication portals and ease of use ( we use athens at our college).
I also found out about Drop-box - which is similar to cloud technology in that you download the software to your devices and then you can load documents, pictures etc into your drop-box and then you can access the drop-box from anywhere at any time.
There was a very interesting debate in learning providers using facebook as a tool to assist students with their learning. A lot of people agreed it is a great resource to connect with students but there are a lot of issues surrounding privacy and 'acceptable use'. We apparently have a facebook page for our library but whenever I search for it on facebook I only manage to find it as a place but no group. We also have a web page and a blog but I am unsure as to how well known and therefor used by staff and students in our college. I am a firm believer in using social networking to encourage students in their work. I don't advocate being 'friends' with your students but I see no harm in creating a group where we can post helpful tips and advice and students can ask questions and receive answers.
My last session of the day looked at students using their own devices in their learning again a very informative session and got me thinking about how we could make our library more interactive for our students. They can already access moodle and the library catalogue through our wifi but I think we could push this more and encourage students to use their devices to make full use of the resource available to them in the library.
Overall it was a great day, definitley worth going to and I would highly recommend it to others. I have previously been to an RSC meeting and information skills forum both of which have been beneficial to me and I have always walked away with ideas to implement in my own library.
sorry it has bee a mammoth post today (and I've been really restrained) but it makes sense that when you want to blog about something you're passionate about to express that passion.
Being quite new to my post my knowledge of libraries is limited to what I have learnt in the last two months and my own experiences of university and public libraries so the networking session was a real eye opener to me. I have been educated in the Shibbloeth Vs athens conundrum as authentication portals and ease of use ( we use athens at our college).
I also found out about Drop-box - which is similar to cloud technology in that you download the software to your devices and then you can load documents, pictures etc into your drop-box and then you can access the drop-box from anywhere at any time.
There was a very interesting debate in learning providers using facebook as a tool to assist students with their learning. A lot of people agreed it is a great resource to connect with students but there are a lot of issues surrounding privacy and 'acceptable use'. We apparently have a facebook page for our library but whenever I search for it on facebook I only manage to find it as a place but no group. We also have a web page and a blog but I am unsure as to how well known and therefor used by staff and students in our college. I am a firm believer in using social networking to encourage students in their work. I don't advocate being 'friends' with your students but I see no harm in creating a group where we can post helpful tips and advice and students can ask questions and receive answers.
My last session of the day looked at students using their own devices in their learning again a very informative session and got me thinking about how we could make our library more interactive for our students. They can already access moodle and the library catalogue through our wifi but I think we could push this more and encourage students to use their devices to make full use of the resource available to them in the library.
Overall it was a great day, definitley worth going to and I would highly recommend it to others. I have previously been to an RSC meeting and information skills forum both of which have been beneficial to me and I have always walked away with ideas to implement in my own library.
sorry it has bee a mammoth post today (and I've been really restrained) but it makes sense that when you want to blog about something you're passionate about to express that passion.
Wednesday 22 June 2011
2 days in a row!
I'm back again -mainly because I realised yesterday I was a day late doing thing 1 and so thing 2 was posted by the time I got in from work, but also if i remember to post daily then it will come in handy when I'm looking back to have record of the high's and low's of my traineeship.
I spent a good hour yesterday reading through people's blogs and I was amazed at the mixture of people blogging - from beginer to hardened pro's. I've yet to leave any comments - simply because I'm usure as what to say. I was however pleased to log on this evening to discover that some-one had read my blog and taken the time to comment it is lovely to already be recieveing support and so I endeavour over the next couple of days to read more blogs and have the confidence to post a comment.
I am at the RSC e-fair at the East Midlands Conference Centre at Nottingham University tomorrow. So if I have time I shall post about that tommorow. I'm looking forward to having a chance to network and go to a few workshops and pick up some useful info.
Thanks for reading.
I spent a good hour yesterday reading through people's blogs and I was amazed at the mixture of people blogging - from beginer to hardened pro's. I've yet to leave any comments - simply because I'm usure as what to say. I was however pleased to log on this evening to discover that some-one had read my blog and taken the time to comment it is lovely to already be recieveing support and so I endeavour over the next couple of days to read more blogs and have the confidence to post a comment.
I am at the RSC e-fair at the East Midlands Conference Centre at Nottingham University tomorrow. So if I have time I shall post about that tommorow. I'm looking forward to having a chance to network and go to a few workshops and pick up some useful info.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday 21 June 2011
Getting Started
Our college Librarian pointed us in the direction of cpd 23 and after having a look through it I thought it was definitley worth a go. It's been a long time since I've done any blogging and I'm even too lazy to update my facebook status regularly, so I'm hoping now that I have a focus for my blogging I may come to enjoy it again.
I am currently a Graduate Trainee (albeit 5 years graduated!) in the Library at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. I did my degree in Sociology but have always had an interest in books and have wanted to work in a library for many years so I have just started on the ladder of librarianship career-wise, but hopefully through my experiences at the college and the new things I am hoping to learn from cpd23 it will help me to develop a greater knowledge of library work.
I'm intrigued about Thing 2 and considering your personal brand as it makes me think of last years apprentice and "Stuart Bragg - the brand" which used to make me cringe but I suppose he has a point you need to have confidence in yourself and your skills in order to promote yourself and be successful in your career. I am also interested in Thing 4 - RSS feeds I know little about, Twitter I have managed to avoid so far and Pushnote I have never heard of. Generally I am looking forward to all the 'Things' and actually getting a little bit excited at the opportunity to network and learn some new (much needed) skills.
So that's it for thing one. I welcome any comments, advice or suggestions for ways to improve. I will be back again for thing 2.
I am currently a Graduate Trainee (albeit 5 years graduated!) in the Library at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. I did my degree in Sociology but have always had an interest in books and have wanted to work in a library for many years so I have just started on the ladder of librarianship career-wise, but hopefully through my experiences at the college and the new things I am hoping to learn from cpd23 it will help me to develop a greater knowledge of library work.
I'm intrigued about Thing 2 and considering your personal brand as it makes me think of last years apprentice and "Stuart Bragg - the brand" which used to make me cringe but I suppose he has a point you need to have confidence in yourself and your skills in order to promote yourself and be successful in your career. I am also interested in Thing 4 - RSS feeds I know little about, Twitter I have managed to avoid so far and Pushnote I have never heard of. Generally I am looking forward to all the 'Things' and actually getting a little bit excited at the opportunity to network and learn some new (much needed) skills.
So that's it for thing one. I welcome any comments, advice or suggestions for ways to improve. I will be back again for thing 2.
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