Umbrella 2011: KIM Profession

Umbrella 2011

KIM Profession

[More of my scrambled notes and thoughts, we’ve reached the afternoon of Day 1 of Umbrella 2011 now.  This session consisted of three presentations on the knowledge and information profession, skills for and changes to]

First Speaker – Sharon Jones on Dewey to Bear Grylls

From a government librarian so with the normal caveat of personal opinion only.  The theme of this presentation was survival, that it’s not about navel gazing on what is and is not ‘professional’ but it’s about survival and doing whatever we can do that’s unique and better than someone else can do it and embracing all the change and moving with it.  She briefly talked through the existing Professional Skills for Government framework and those existing in CILIP qualifications and went on to consider essential skills for survival in Bear Grylls style.  These included the need to use media the way customers use and expect, not getting caught up past baggage (‘real librarians’), professionalism as a state of mind that can be nourished (e.g. by bloggers), doing CPD little and often (horizon scanning, staying up-to-date with changes), being a catalyst and involving people in services, connecting to people, positive communication and transformation skills, influence and fight for things but know when to stop, need to sell USP in a sentence and then cross-sell like mad once in, enjoy what you do. She noted that the phoenix always rises from the ashes.

Speaker Two – Franko Kowalczuk on Librarian skills in KM

This was more using own career to demonstrate how library skills had segued into knowledge management and the sheer range of skills that had been called for in his different jobs.  He started with some standard definitions of librarian and knowledge management, then looked at ‘traditional’ library skills, then his own career path from a librarian to a knowledge manager.

Speaker(s) Three – Ned Potter and Laura Woods on Escaping the Echo Chamber

An expanded version of the presentation given in this session is available online so I’m just going to cover some main bits here. It was a discussion of getting outside the echo chamber (the profession talking to itself) for advocacy work on libraries.  The thread was that it’s no use us all talking to ourselves and complaining in an enclosed space. Libraries are in trouble because people don’t understand what we do and it’s easier to criticise than defend so need to broadcast out to users and those who control the finances.

Various examples were given of both failure and of success in getting beyond the echo chamber.

It was noted that media narrative on libraries was largely controlled by others and various bodies were trying to impact on that such as CILIP and Voices for the Library as well as lots of other campaigners.

Various techniques for successful engagement were outlined including asking things and being confident, stealth advocacy, aligning messages and values with the audience (it was suggested looking at the SLA work on alignment), not mixing messages, responding to attacks using same medium from whence they came (talking outwith the profession in terms of media).

The curve of engagement was discussed as a means of deciding what type of people to target, easier to target those of no fixed view than those determined against, more chance of success.

Thoughts….

This session brought together a variety of food for thought. A lot of it touched on themes of Conference I’ve already mentioned in other posts. The complexity of the skills base as jobs and careers evolve, the difficulties of the current operating context and need to promote our value. The need to sell and cross-sell services. Perhaps what all the speakers had in common was an emphasis on the need to get your foot in the door and then expand outwards in adaptable fashion, that applies to growing market for services, talking to media, and also I think thriving in new posts demanding different skills which have to be developed as you go.