Let’s get professional!

Thing 7 calls for us to look at our involvement with professional organisations.

 I have been a member of CILIP since I was a student and it was the Library Association. I’ve belonged to a variety of special interest groups, including Cofhe and UCLRG when I was working  in the HE sector and most recently HLG.  I also belong  to UKeIG . I subscribed when it was a separate group and added it to my choice of groups when it became a CILIP special interest group. I’m also a long-time member of the Career Development Group.

This is my chance to remind anyone who was around in the late '70s of the short-lived Women in Libraries group. I attended one of their conferences as which Dale Spender confessed to borrowing books from the BL to photocopy, as this was not allowed in the library.

On a local level I’m an occasional attender at the CILIP in the Thames Valley  group meetings and a more regular attender at the various local Health Library Groups, which are more informal.

I’ve attended a very large number of courses and conferences run by these groups. Usually funded by my employer, sometimes by myself, and once by a bursary. I have not however had any formal experience of being on a committee or contributing to the work done by the groups and I’m wondering why not?

Some of this is due to the logistics around working and raising children – especially library work with its often irregular hours. Still, I’m thinking that now it may be time for me to contribute something back to the profession. I feel a reluctance to do this, something around not wanting to push myself forward?

I have done some work as a mentor, which may be better suited to my personality than being involved in a committee. I do find networking very difficult, more so as I get older although that's not supposed to happen.