I was invited to attend this training day by my co-chair on the SLA Europe ECCA committee, Lyndsay Rees-Jones. The day was run by the CILIP Membership Support Unit for the CILIP Career Development Group (CDG) regional New Professionals Support Officers (NPSOs). I’m not an NPSO – yesterday, I wasn’t even a member of CDG – but was invited along to share experiences of working with new professionals.
What I encountered was a group of bright, friendly, and enthusiastic people, brimming with ideas. Some I had heard of through their involvement in various projects, such as the 2009 New Professionals Conference, but this was the first chance I’d had to meet them.
Maria Cotera, president of CDG, introduced the day with a clear explanation of where CDG and the regional NPSOs fit into the CILIP structure. Then Kathy Ennis of MSU, Lyndsay, and Maria spoke about previous CDG events – mainly the new professionals’ conference and the graduate day. They asked for input from people who had attended these events, and Ned Potter and Emma Illingworth gave some interesting insight about their experiences of presenting at the new professionals conference and how it has affected their career.
Kathy also mentioned the “Big Conversation” that will be starting In Jan 2010, about the future of CILIP over the next 10 years. She was very definite that new professionals should be very deeply involved in making the decisions about the future of the profession, and said that she had recommended that the leader of the Big Conversation should be under 35.
We also had a chance to brainstorm ideas for future incarnations of CILIP Graduate Day, to involve opening up the audience, and taking it on the road. This produced some excellent ideas, and showed a lot of consensus in what we, as new professionals, feel is important for new professionals.
Overall, a great day. I’ve now joined CDG (can’t believe I wasn’t a member before!), and am going to have the chance to work with them again in the future, which is very exciting 😀 I also got to meet some great new peers and do some good networking. (During which I found myself vociferously defending ASKPro – I don’t think I realised how strongly I felt about it until I was challenged!)
Bethan's information professional blog 
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November 6, 2009 at 11:11 am
Lyndsay (Rees-Jones)
Glad you enjoyed the day Bethan. So did I.
I love that we have such a great and inspiring bunch of new professionals, brimming with ideas and a keen willingness to get involved. True activists in the making.
And thank you for signing up to CDG too. I can see you getting involved!
Isn’t it funny that we often don’t know how strongly we feel about something until we are challenged. That’s my favourite (and the slightly scary) bit of presenting – when people ask questions – because I sometimes don’t know what I thought about something until I actually voice it.
I’m already enjoying working with you in SLA Europe, and am excited by your energy and enthusiasm.
Lyndsay
November 16, 2009 at 6:13 pm
bethan
Thanks Lyndsay! WordPress thought you were spam, so I’ve only just rescued this comment 🙂 I’m really enjoying our work together as well – long may it continue!
November 7, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Tina Reynolds
Glad to hear I helped! Seriously though, although I still don’t like the name, you did make me at least more keen!
November 9, 2009 at 4:25 pm
bethan
You did help! it was an interesting chat, and good to hear your views on it 🙂
November 9, 2009 at 11:01 am
thewikiman
Like you I started off not really knowing much about the day or the NPSO role, and came away completely sold on the whole thing… it was great, all that teasing about how we ‘were’ NPSOs now whatever we said to the contrary, seems to have been right on the money!
November 9, 2009 at 4:29 pm
bethan
it’s true! I haven’t signed up to be an official NPSO yet, but it’s on my list of ‘future things to get involved with’ – it just seems like a really useful and interesting thing to do. I am getting involved with next year’s conference, which sounds like it’ll be great fun!
November 9, 2009 at 4:35 pm
thewikiman
I’ve not signed up either, but I’ve just been sent a preview of Yorkshire and Humberside’s newsletter cos I wrote something about Library routes for it, and it says on the cover “…also in the New Year, we look forward to welcoming Ned Potter onto Committee as a New Professionals Support Officer”! I guess these CLILIP people don’t take ‘probably’ for an answer…
November 9, 2009 at 4:38 pm
bethan
That’s one way to make sure of you – ‘it’s in print – can’t change it now!’. I’m sure I remember a Yes Minister based around that principle… sneaky CILIP peeps!
November 17, 2009 at 4:30 pm
thewikiman » Blog Archive » what about having library liaisons in other industries?
[…] a CILIP session the other day, we were discussing the idea of taking a version of the Graduate Day on the road (as […]
November 20, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Kathy Ennis
Hi Bethan
Thanks for the really positive write up of the day. Before the session I hoped that we would get some buy-in for the idea of taking graduate Day out and about – so I was blown away with the enthusiasm for the idea and the really interesting input we had from everyone there. Thank you all so much – and remember – I know who you all are now, so there’s no getting away 🙂
Ned’s comments are great – let that be a lesson to you; stick your head above the parapet and we’ll never let you go!!
Kathy