Article, ARLIS and LILAC bursary

Well, yet again, it has been a while since I last managed to write which is a little frustrating. However this week has been exceptional busy, possibly one of the most exciting weeks, where professional some exceptional events have happened.  

 

Firstly I have had a piece of work published in CILIP update. This is the fourth piece of writing I have now published (not including my blog). This piece was a piece that both my mentor and I wrote about our use of Skype in our chartership, from her position of the mentor and mine the mentee. The reason using Skype came about was we were unable to physically meet up. Over the course of 12-18 months we met virtually every other month. Towards the end of my chartership, which I successfully completed and have been awarded MCLIP in November 2013, we started thinking, how unique is this? Using conference call technology to complete something like a chartership, which needs to have two people working together for guidance etc? Which got us to ask the question, how many other people have used this method of working? With everyone having more and more work demands on them, travelling several times a month, year or every week become not only expensive but also impractical. 

 

I am very proud to have been a part of this project and I will continue to be grateful for the support of my mentor. She has already suggested we meet up with a glass of wine on Skype to celebrate, which personally seems very fitting.

 

Secondly I have now a member of the publications committee for ARLIS, which is amazingly exciting. ARLIS is the Art Libraries Society for the UK and Ireland, which promotes excellence within this community. Sadly due to the weather I was unable to travel to London, however Skype was used, with some success. Not to go in too much detail, but I think there is some great potential in an established publication. Alongside being a committee member I will also been asked to help co-edit the newsletter, which is brilliant, whilst someone else is on maternity leave. Editing is something that I have not done previously, however I have done proof reading. Having my husband’s aunt work in editing has always fascinated me. So being given this opportunity is one that I am very enthusiastic about.

 

All of this came about by attending last year’s ARLIS conference, which was in Bristol and I had a great time. I ended up chatting to loads of people, and obviously I must have made a pretty good impression on them. A few weeks after the conference I was asked to join the committee and then asked to become the co-editor. 

 

So it really has been an amazing week. Then I find out that I was successful in getting the bursary for the LILAC conference in April. Which I was really surprised that I had won and completely thrilled. I am hoping to do a write up after the sessions, for publication in CILIP, as well as blog about the days. Information literacy is a massive part of my role and something I have developed within my own role. 

 

It truly has been a remarkable week, were connected have developed in to exciting new projects or hard work has paid off. 

ARLIS conference

So I have been back to reality after the ARLIS conference for a week now. You may ask why I say back to reality, I have a young son, and after spending three great days in picture perfect surroundings, returning home to a little man who wakes me up twice a night, is a bit of a shock to the system.

As for the conference it was great, ARLIS Rising to the challenge, and it really did cover a lot of the challenges facing art librarians today. This is the first time I have attended an ARLIS event and would do again, it was well organized and not as rushed or as busy a CILIP umbrella, though I do understand they are pitching at difference audiences.

Each day was had great speakers, plus there were relevant workshops, that I struggled to choose which one to attend. I opted for the negotiation workshop, which was really interesting practical session, based on the side of personality types and when negotiating you need to think about the types of people you are dealing with to get the best result. I'll definitely use this next time I have to, not only negotiate with others but also delegating, to team members. The other workshop was increasing your online personality. Another very interesting topic, it might have taken a week to even start putting it in to practice, but at least I am trying.

On the first day there were also a series of visits, I choose the theater collection, I was expecting to see just a load of costumes, but it was so much more, the amount of content they had was outstanding. Books and play script with images drawing in them from the head costume designer and other really special objects with a fabulous history and social story to tell. 

Overall the conference was excellent, there was a really interesting session on augmented reality and  the use of QR codes, plus a session from The Hive in Worcestershire, which is a one stop shop for all library and council needs combined with the cities university library. The idea is complex but excellent, every decision needs to be taken for the good of everyone, not an easy task, when the public and the university students have very different needs. Or as it was explained, very similar needs, just said in different words. Plus a session on open source resources, such as ItunesU.

Great conference, now I need to write up one of the session for ARLIS newsletter. 

One of the other things that really impressed me was that at the moment there are loads of Gromits (from Wallace and Gromit) around the city of Bristol, painted and decorated to look amazing, I manged to see quite a few, we at least I thought it was quite until I found out there was 85 in the city, my rather lame 6 weren't really worth mentioning.