Thing 7: Face-to-face networks and professional organisations

I was disappointed (and frustrated) that I did not get to my f2f networking event last Thursday at CILIP due to an M25 traffic jam. This may be why it's taken me so long to get around to writing up last week's activities.

I'm a second career librarian and joined LIANZA while completing my MLIS. I found the face to face events in Wellington region very good for developing contacts. Also the annual conference provided opportunities to meet others and even to get to know people working for the same (large) organisation better.

Later I joined the committee of my special interest group, ITSIG, which gave me closer (mostly phone conference) contact with some key movers and shakers. The direct contacts were very useful when I needed to find out how others had already done something that I needed to do. Especially since I worked at the National Library and we were not exactly encouraged to publicly post our queries on email lists.

Since coming back to Britain I've joined CILIP and had several temporary contracts. The formal publications are my main benefit as I haven't yet been to a regional event although I'd like to. My library contracts are in London, but I commute in from a different region, so that took a while to sort out.

I haven't taken up the benefit of CILIP training as with gaps between my contracts I have no budget to spend. A big change after working for a national library that sent me on courses, organised in-house courses and also had regular talks from staff and international experts.

I would like to gain and maintain professional registration. I had 5 years post MLIS experience by the time I left New Zealand, but LIANZA introduced professional registration just after I left. My MLIS is accredited by CILIP but it seems difficult to qualify to register while I have only sporadic short term contracts (which may be website rather than library work). Probably my best route is to get a permanent role and get started on registration straight away.

I like the look of LIKE: The London Information and Knowledge Exchange. It appears to give more networking opportunities than are available to me with CILIP so I am now taking their RSS feed and will go to an event (although I'm still trying to go to a CILIP one).

I'm not convinced that I need the US-centric The Library Society of the World. I may check out their professional development opportunities a bit more, but the link to an insurance site that bought the domain name for Umbrella 2007 does not bode well for my desire for high quality, current information.