New CILIP regulations

With CILIP having changed there regulations, on obtaining chartership, I thought I would spend a few minutes to explain the changes. Firstly for MCLIP, they are going from 4 (or was it 5) down to 3. Plus making a clearer definition between each of the criterion.

The first Criteria deals with identifying there learning needs and reflect on the learning. This is made much easier with the introduction of Professional Knowledge and Skills Base.

The second criteria needs to show that they have examined their organization and shown an ability to improve the service. 

The third and final criteria needs to show an understanding of their wider professional context.

It sounds much easier but maybe because I have just had someone calmly explain this to me for near 6 hours and I don't need to put any of this in to practice.

There are loads of simple things that can be added in to tick off parts of the criteria. for each there needs to be 5-6 piece of evidence. 

Chartership and beyond

Tuesday I was able to attend the CILIP qualification session on the new regulations. Which first of all is a little confusing because as the trainer said achieving chartership is not a qualification. Which I thought it was, however it turns out it is actually demonstrating a level of achievement and commitment. But the day was good, I met some people I think who could be useful contact for the future. This is one of the reasons why I really enjoy these sessions, you mean people who are connected to your role or right on the edge of your role and they can be really useful in a certain situation as they have experience in a field that is not connected to your own.

The pace of the session was slow enough to write up notes but contained enough information for the session to hold the attention of people thinking about becoming ACLIP, MCLIP and the odd person like me who is thinking about becoming a mentor. 

Having completed my MCLIP, I now would like to give something back, if that makes sense and pay on the favor to another generation of librarians. My mentor was great with me, she was very supportive and everything that she made me do (which in the end I did do) was on the list of things that needed to be completed. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention at the last session which I attended. 

My next step is to register as a mentor and get trained, I have already have 4 people say they would like to have me as a mentor, which is pretty amazing.

One thing that did positively annoy me was if someone with experience in a library now wants to go an get a chartership they need no previous qualifications, I am not saying I only want people with Masters to be librarians. I am not elitist and part of the first generation of my family to obtain a degree. Actually I am the highest qualified person in my family. Getting more people in to librarianship is a good idea, but I don't think making everyone a chartered librarian is the right way forward. Personally I think there sound be different awards depending on your qualifications and experience.

Chartership completion

Having completed my chartership about a month ago, after two years of struggling and battling with word counts. I have hand it in and last Friday I was contacted rather unspectacularly and told I have passed, or being successful in completing your chartership. So I am now Donna Gundry MCLIP. 

But working in education and post chartership manner of thinking, I am now wondering so what and what next. In terms of so what, I will now, fingers crossed, when I need to, be a more appealing candidate for another job position. As for what next, I want to move on to being a mentorfor for someone else. Hopefully more than one person. 

When I started working in a library 7 years ago, my manager was great at helping other people, so this would be my way of me continuing her ethos. Plus I want to see what it's like on the other side. My first library manager was a great woman who I a proud to say I worked alongside her. Sadly she passed away, 6 years ago. Paying a good deed forward was something she would have not only approved of but welcomed.

One thing my chartership has told me, is stopping every now and again and reflecting on what you have done is a good idea. Not just at new year and your annual performance appraisal. 

UKlibchat

Last night for the first time in ages I managed to catch #uklibchat, usually I join #chartershipchat, as I have just submitted my chartership, but I fancied a change. Uklibchat is a twitter conversation between library professionals, we met roughly once a month. Last nights session was really good. We discussed the definition of users, who are the users. For me it's a closed group, the staff and students that are at the college. An easy one to start with.

Customer service and barriers to delivering this. Coming from a retail background customer service is back ending a shift exhausted having helping everyone else. Maybe that is a bit extreme, but customer service is about putting the customer first, stopping that conversation and dealing with the customer. Personally I hate to ask where something else in a shop and if I then get a rude person telling me I am likely not to bother buying the product. Good customer care is shared, you normally tell someone about it. Working in education where students have to pay a massive amount to attend, someone recently told me students are paying £35 per day to attend, so give them what they deserve.

Barriers to providing good customer care- staff personality, work load and not being able to give students what they want due to budget or conflicting strategy plans of the department. I have to say reading success at the enquiry desk by Tim Owen, dated by very good for training sessions.  I must have used this book twice, maybe three sessions.

Online users experience, a decent website needs to have the content written by the librarian, a web designer to make everything pretty and a web developer to make it actually work. Technology not working, due to IT issues is one of my biggest problems when teaching students. Luckily I have a decent relationship with the IT department and they are use to no body ever saying something works well.