CILIP Professional Qualifications Fair

So yesterday I braved the train and one bus to find a room in a building located on the University of Kent Campus. Did I mention that I have been to Canterbury only twice? Yeah, it wasn't easy. But I only had to ask for directions once, so go me!

I have already missed one CILIP get-together due to getting lost. That one was in London and I ended up in some scary neighborhood calling my husband in a panic. Ok, nothing bad would have happened to me most likely--all I had to do was get back onto the DLR and go somewhere else, but I was scared DAMMIT!

The reason for the anxiety-inducing travel this time was to attend the Kent division of CILIP for their qualifications fair. It was worth the trip, I think. I learned about different paths to becoming a bonafide librarian and about continuing professional development within the field. It sounds like several librarians have taken a similar path to myself--rather than getting a masters in information science, they got their certification/chartership with CILIP. Ergo one thing this visit did for me is to verify to myself what I thought I knew. Piece of mind=good thing.

I also learned how to get a masters or diploma in the subject if I so desired. I was able to ask a professor about his journey to teaching LIS, which I think is something I might look into doing in the future. It sounds like he basically started out just like me and after working in libraries for years, doing just about everything there is to do, he went and got his PHD and started doing research.

As for short term goals, however, I think I am pretty clear on what I need to focus on for certification. I need to provide evidence that I am aware of the my own plus the wider library, information and knowledge sector, that I understand collection management and development, I have developed my research skills, I know how to organize knowledge and information, I understand the ethics and values of librarianship, and that I have some generic IT and customer service skills. This list comes from the PKSD and I have actually only chosen a few of the many professional skills here that one needs to know at least a little bit about.

For my chartership, I would like to come back to my original focus of education. I will need to do some training to show evidence of my literacies and learning skill set.

Finally, now that I have an idea of my areas of focus, I can look at the successful portfolios that have been submitted. From there, I will set a schedule of work. So far, I have purchased a few text books on areas that really just require a bit of reading and thinking about--such as basic librarianship, research, ethics, and information seeking behavior models. If my portfolio is awesome enough, I could even get it bumped up to chartership! (Yes this actually can happen) I kind of doubt that will happen to me, but you never know I guess.