i wanted to add in a piece of my reflective practice. if anyone ever gets to read it, i hope its a pleasant read and of benefit to someone!
here goes:
Librarians as Teachers Training Day
Monday 20th June 2010
Northumbria University CILIP CDG
Lynne Robinson
I was fortunate enough to win a sponsored place for this event. As a prison library assistant I find that it is important to keep in touch with different sectors of the profession, and the developments that every professional is going through.
Working in a prison library is quite restrictive and isolating has an information professional. The knowledge I gained from the day was that it is important to develop one’s self and take change with a positive thought rather than the negative. I may be restricted in my own work place, but networking and going on courses that do not fall into my natural working domain is quite fun, definitely informative and provides lateral thinking.
From the training day the first thing that became clear was that university library staff and academics need to have a working relationship to keep the continuity of library use within universities. From year 1 students should be encouraged to use the free courses that library staff teach, which include referencing skills, e-journal usage, encouraging student sot be more active in enquiry based learning etc.
As a prison library, we do an induction for library users, and then it is down to each individual to want to attend.
Library staff should be encouraged for their future careers to take courses in learning and teaching areas, becoming the blended librarian. I believe that from a public sector point of view, we do need to expand our services, but become braver as professionals and think on a bigger scale. From a presentation on this area I researched the following website[1] especially as it links to case studies and work on accountability.
Many academic authors were mentioned in the presentations, and after attending I researched Herminia Ibarra and found this quote: By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change careers is to delay taking the first step until they have settled on a destination[2].
I have decided for my future career, and this I came away from the training day as a light bulb moment even though I am in the middle of PTLLS 7303, that I do want to move forward into teaching. I am not so sure has to which sector I would like to develop in, but thanks to this opportunity from Louise Gordon I am grateful to have attended and met some marvellous people.
