So, while I'm musing on standout things of 2014...
Library Camp Glasgow on Saturday 8
November.
Background
This was the second annual Library Camp Glasgow, hosted in
the Mitchell Library. It’s format followed the previous year in fairly relaxed unconference
fashion. It started with a version of bingo as the ice-breaker, and then
proceeded into One Minute Rants, and pitches for parallel sessions and the
sessions themselves. There was Mitchell Tour for those who wished, the normal
badge competition...
I say ‘normal’ badge competition, and that in itself is
quite telling, it has become a normal established part of the year (though
whether it’ll happen next year, or on what fashion, who knows, it is, after
all, an unconference).
I opted for sessions on Changes to professional registration
and CPD, Advocacy, Are we practicing what we preach, and 23 Librarians live.
So, a couple of months later, what stands out for me from
these sessions?
Changes to professional registration and CPD
This is a weird one for me. I was hugely involved in setting
up the changes, but due to various workplace changes had then lost track of it
all a bit implementation-wise until earlier this year when I started getting (very
slightly in comparison) involved again. So my ability to wax lyrical on the
past was excellent, but it was really interesting to hear about the present.
All in all I got the idea that what we’d set up re changes wasn’t working badly
and had gone quite well so far. And that made me smile quite a lot.
Advocacy
This was kind of depressing overall. Nothing to do with the
session, but a lot of advocacy discussions tend to feel quite bleak. Everyone
sits round and says the same things, means the same things, they’re not remotely
wrong things, it’s just they’re very difficult to make happen or to get outside
the library profession. It is useful however to share news, and look at new
initiatives. Looking at The Library A-Z was particularly fun. Advocacy is
simply a long hard slog, no short-cuts or easy solutions. It needs to continue
to happen simply because things would be worse without it.
Are we practicing what we preach?
This was really interesting because it was all about
reflective practice. We discussed things like do we just repeat ourselves or do
we actually take time to rethink, are we comfortable sharing, non-defensive
reactions, how we reflect individually (huge variety of ways between the
group). I think I’m unusual in keeping a daily work diary of everything i’ve
done, but it’s mostly factual, a prompt, though it has some comment in it
also. That ‘Opus’ as I call it is what I
go through to then do my cpd log on the CILIP VLE every few months. Now technically
I know I mean to do it every month.... in reality I don’t, it’s quite erratic.
But there’s nothing erratic about the Opus that it’s drawn from. And at the end
of the year there’s Revalidation submission through the CILIP VLE. Which kind
of sounds fairly organised, but actually I find time for reflection is difficult
to come by these days, and that's a real shame.
23 Librarians Live
This was kind of a face-to-face break-out version of the
(now various!) 23 Librarians blogs. It kind of dealt with folk just discussing
their career paths and jobs and aspirations and moving between jobs, and inside
and outside the sector. I’ve got mixed feelings about this, it was a good
session, I’ve just looked at far too many daily job alerts thudding into my
home email in the last couple of years. Mostly in me a Saturday in-depth
discussion of it all thus produces a wish to sigh and rub at my headache rather than a feeling of great
enthusiasm.
Conclusion
I do like Library Camp Glasgow, and I’ll miss it if there
isn’t a Scottish one next year. I’d like my enthusiasm back, and in the
Professional Registration session it was fun to hear myself sounding like my
old self, I could hear the fire and passion, which I’d really like back, sort of lost it a bit. Things that help
to rekindle that are welcome.