Tales from the CDG Tardis

Yesterday saw our first official Revalidation course up at Causewayside in Edinburgh. I joined with Margarets Forrest and Chapman to hopefully cover all points of view - CILIP as award provider; the assessor; and the candidate. We hope we created a welcoming and positive atmosphere, and indeed the afternoon did seem upbeat (even though we left a glorious summer day outside for an overly air conditioned windowless seminar room). It was a small group, and most people seemed comfortable asking questions. Ventured slightly into Fellowship territory at the end of the day. I think I will go for it. Well, maybe. Next year. Or the year after. When I’ve had both arms broken by my activist colleagues, no doubt.

Have you noticed how some names are more hallowed than others in the profession? I don’t mean specific individuals; I mean literally certain names. ‘Margaret’ is one such name. Chapman, Forrest, Watson and more. ‘Sheila’ does well too: think Corrall and Webber. ‘Keith’ gets about - Trickey, Nockels, Wilson. In my first library post, I worked with 3 Janes, 5 Annes and 7 Sues. It did get rather muddly. I’ve met a couple of Amandas on my professional travels, so that bodes reasonably well. (Did you know it means ‘charcoal’ in Lusoga?) I wonder whether there are any inauspicious names for information professionals? ‘Louis’ would give rise to some bad poetry, I imagine…

Back to Chateau Inbox today and hard at it all day with documents to finish, critical meetings and discussions, plus a host of new electronic resources each with their own peculiarities and demands. I’ve had to resort to using flags on my emails and it’s starting to look like an Olympic opening ceremony.

Tomorrow a musical interlude - off to Glasgow for the Scottish Recorder Festival, an annual jamboree with guest stick-waver and a nice lunch in between playing sessions.  Looking forward to being uplifted and achieving something with my fellow players - the ultimate in quick wins - see a piece for the first time, play it, rehearse, improve, perform. Also get to dip into some more short stories on the train.

Don’t forget - this week’s Doctor Who promises an ultra scary story set in a Library…

Back at work today after a flying visit to relatives in Lagartera, a village in Castilla La Mancha. (That’s Spain, for the geographically challenged.) The dusty dry bit in the middle, about 2 hours drive from Madrid. I say dry, but I seem to have a knack for coinciding with unprecedented torrential downpours. Lucky I packed the mac; should have thrown in the gloves as well. Did lots of eating and drinking and reading (all good things).

Visited the family’s flock of sheep (9 at the last count) and was quite impressed. Kirsty is the ringleader, then there are Morag and Shona (who according to the locals should be made into rissoles and according to my anthropologist stepmother provide social stability for the group), also Angus, who has to date sired Douglas, Davina, Lorna, Aileen and one whose name escapes me. Go Angus! Sheep are not intended for meat or milk or even wool, but will primarily be used as heavy duty lawnmowers.

Was present for the annual Corpus Christi fiesta, the first time I’ve seen the place actually come to life and show a bit of colour. Normally it’s rather drab and slow. At Corpus they strew fennel and wild thyme branches on the ground, and people set up altars outside their homes with the family’s lace and embrodieries all displayed, flowers and little Jesus figures (let’s not even get into the theology, let’s enjoy the cultural experience!) It’s a result if you can get some small children dressed up in the local costume to sit and look rustic in front of your altar. (They don’t sacrifice them or anything…) Anyhow, a unique event to witness and I look forward to uploading my photos on Flickr and Facebook at the weekend.

On my travels read Clare Morrall’s latest, The Language of Others - great story, rather sad but compelling as is all her stuff. And a good Brummie lass into the bargain! Also threw in some Marquez, Allende, Hello and Gardener’s World. Marvellous.

So, work today, meeting with the Head of School to twist his arm into taking out a shiny new multimedia subscription. Also trying to write a paper for another senior academic, struggling to fit it into the agreed sides even after reducing to point two font. Doing everything in fits and starts between my travels, but actually find this does help the focus at my desk.

Tomorrow is our Revalidation course in Edinburgh, a small but hopefully happy band of travellers coming together to think about taking the next step in their careers and CPD. Just read Margaret Watson’s excellent book on Portfolios, was inspired but a little awed by some of my colleagues’ case studies! (Ayub, I thought Fellowship was achievable by mere mortals but after reading your itemised submission list I’m beginning to doubt it!)

Just docking back with the mothership following a midweek jaunt down to Nottingham. Nice city: lots of green spaces, all the shops you could want, friendly taxi drivers and proper pubs.

Was joining in with East Midlands Division and EMBOC in their afternoon of AGMs and assorted entertainment. Great to see partnership working, enthusiatic professionals from different sectors in the area. Venue was Djanogly City Academy School, a big name for a high-ceilinged venue, rather like an aircraft hangar I thought! Alarmingly quiet without pupils but I can imagine how noisy and hectic it must be on a ‘working’ day. Our main venue was the drama studio, had to suppress instinct to start my Lady Macbeth or Much Ado routines…

Had encouraging thoughts from Joan Bray, EMBOC, who had had a difficult morning with flooded electrics and whatnot at Nottingham Central Lib, but still managed to show great passion for the profession and its future. Madeline Cox reported on a study visit to the British Library where she researched some Nottinghamshire astronomers. Turns out they all thought the sun was inhabited back then by a ‘differently organised race’ - I thought it was librarians who were ‘differently organised’! Alison Barlow shared her experience of IFLA In Durban, including some evocative photos and a moving video of one of the speakers recounting a saty in solitary confinement in which books (and especially Moby Dick) became a lifeline.

I joined this random cast with my own stories and snaps under the heading of ‘kissing with confidence’ - thinking about performance anxieties and how professional involvement can boost confidence and extend your skills. Not sure I was very coherent but hopefully the message came across that professionals should be proud of their achievements and that it’s easy and fun and worthwhile to get involved in the wider profession.

Not sure I’m very proud of the backlog on my work desk, though I’m trying to beat the mess and made some physics book vanish quite successfully this morning.

Tonight it’s packing for a few days in Spain visiting family - plus I have to plant some strawberry plants which chose exactly the wrtong day to be delivered!

Spend some time today with MSc Bionformatics students. They’re coming up to project time so I give them a refresher on literature searching and also introduce them to Endnote. Some resources are only available on campus which is a bit of a problem for this group, in which most students come from the Indian subcontinent and want to return home during the summer. They have some questions about multiple authors. Their tutor has asked them to look for an original research paper that they can bring to discuss at a Journal club.

After a long period of neglect, I decide to submit the coursework for module 2 of the PGCHET qualification. I’m les than motivated (set topic is curriculum design) but decide in the end to just put the thing to bed. If I get through this double module, modules 3 and 4 are more individual action research projects, which are potentially much more fun and relevant.

Ongoing rumbles and ramifications re budgets, product subscription renewals etc - lots of unexpected phone calls reminding me of things I need to do or think about

Bit of a chat with other CDG officers about how we can market the group more effectively. Looking forward to a trip down to Nottingham tonight for the East Midlands Division AGM, joint with EMBOC.

It’s Saturday. Here’s what’s on my to-do list for the day:

• Prepare prayers and reading for tomorrow’s service. I can pray extempore but it makes more sense to other human beings if I write it down beforehand!
• Do the handwashing (in the machine of course)
• Plant some cat grass and sweet peas, if it’s not raining
• Lop back the fried egg plant (cistus?) as it’s swamping the wee rhododendron
• Add 2 new DVDs to my LibraryThing catalogue (Friends 7 and Red Dwarf 5 - I’m a slow collector…)
• Record money spent. My other half keeps a careful check on our incomings and outgoings.
• Enter scores online for the latest Hotel Chocolat delivery. Our favourite were the honey and caramel tasting batons, although I thought the cranberry truffle was pretty knockout too.
• Recycling paper and card. We generate a lot of this but fortunately they do collect it.
• Ring my great-aunt in Liverpool and tell her I’m coming down in June for the UC&R conference. Hoping to extend my stay seeing family.
• Finish my ‘Kissing with confidence’ presentation for East Midlands CDG/EMBOC AGM.
• Start planning CDG Scottish Division session for Peebles day and writing related article for Information Scotland.
• Do some recorder practice. Trying to regain the agility of my lost youth.
• Get the Spanish books out - I’m going to my dad’s in Spain next Friday and I still have German in my head from the Dortmund trip!
• Do some sit-ups. Exercise has gone out of the window recently but I am beginning to resemble Pooh Bear (”Honey or condensed milk on your bread?” “Both please, but you needn’t bother about the bread”)
• Watch Doctor Who OF COURSE. Agatha Christie story tonight, so a double treat for me as I was a big Christie fan when I was around age 11 or 12. Sadly I stock edited most of them years ago except for a few old favourites for reading when in bed with the flu.

Tomorrow is another blog…

A quietish day today. Back to the office for the first time since Friday, so getting reacquainted with my inbox and my tasklist. It’s not pretty but things are moving in the right direction, gradually.

Pay my CDG expenses in at the bank during the lunch break, all the travelling soon adds up and it’s been a busy month with trips to Cardiff and London.

No rest for the President though as a few more engagements are looming - speaking at East Midlands AGM next Wednesday; Revalidation course in Edinburgh on the 29th; leading workshops at Peebles and Liverpool in June. I know I will enjoy each and every one of these events when I get to them, but the preparation and panic about whether I’ll be ready in time do sometimes kick in!

That’s an hour of CDG work this evening, so I’m going to knock off, eat some lovely prawn stirfry, put the washing on (overfull basket following trips down south) and CHILL OUT!

Well, I’m just back from our big two day Council meeting. It has felt like a full week! On Sunday I travelled to London to stay over the night before the meetings began. I dined alone in the Tavistock - not my idea of a great night out but even I am too inhibited to approach strange single male diners! On Monday morning (which dawned beautifully warm and sunny) I was interviewed by Elspeth Hyams for a piece that may later appear in CILIP Update. I hope I didn’t say anything too radical or self-damaging… apparently I talk very fast (she should meet my friends Kate and Rachel)… had to have photos taken too, ouch.

Monday afternoon we had our divisional reps’ meeting and the first instalment of full Council. Great turnout - the table full on all four sides, must have been around 25 of us? Great that people have travelled to London and come ready to represent their divisional committees and share best practice.

Monday night was my big night - the Presidential Reception at the British Library, Lovely location, fine weather, great turnout of group officers and past officers, past presidents from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and noughties, a few old colleagues, my director of service (all the way from Dundee!) Stayed off the wine till after the speech (wise decision). Was not booed and hecklers although present were not fully audible at the front. Yummy mozzarella and basil thingyboos. It was all rather fabulous and I got to dress up and do a lot of hugging, which I enjoy To be honest it was quite a lot like getting married (naturally I made a speech at my own wedding, I wasn’t one of those silent blushing brides… I spoke then about everything we need to know, we learned in kindergarten).

Tuesday it was down to the serious business of Council, hard to contain every different topic and decision in my head, great that many people joined in discussions. Somehow there never seems enough time. Another glass of wine with a couple of colleagues put the final seal on the meeting before I rushed off to get my train.

Train was random - no naps for me - sat next to a rather chatty guy who was an international baseball umpire. Random. And on my second connection from Edinburgh to home, I ended up next to a student from Abertay, where I work (never seen him before so he must have skipped my information literacy classes!

Day off today, much needed recovery. Still in dressing gown at midday (result). Cats attempting to disturb the peace by bringing in the first ratoncito of the year - ratoncito being our code word for any small creature brought into the house, alive or dead. This one had wings and may eventually have used them to get away, or else perhaps we will find it again under the sofa. All in a president’s day…

Photos are at http://www.flickr.com/groups/398516@N22/

Busy times as the Career Development Group National Council is almost upon us - Monday and Tuesday see our biggest business meeting of the year, and for 2008 I am its Mummy. Yikes. We have some wighty matters to discuss including finance and governance. Monday night also sees my Presidential Reception at the beautiful British Library, in the company of around 70 of my assembled colleagues - fellow group members, Past Presidents and officers, the great and the good of CILIP, even my boss (although I did warn him off staying at the Tavvy…) I am expecting another night when style will triumph over substance (hasn’t Boris shown us that…) and I will be relying on my trusty Jackanory binder for moral support and pre-menopausal memory lapses.

Flicked through the Big Issue yesterday, Lisa at Dundee Station always saves me one. The seller’s profile at the back this week caught my eye:

“I want to better myself, and books can help you do that. It’s mainly biographies I read; crime and sport stuff… True-life stories by people who’ve had a hard time are more interesting to me than fiction because real people have got a story to tell. Their experiences can make you think”.

I don’t agree about fiction but I do agree on the enabling power of books! Librarians should stop apologising for the books!

Also been enjoying Young Musician of the Year category finals on BBC4 this week. Technical ability goes without saying; it’s more about the performance, how to communicate with your audience, how to choose the programmes that will delight and inspire them. Sound familiar?

Today we had the first meeting of our book group and discussed Ann Patchett’s Bel canto - a wonderful novel which I was reading for the second time. It’s set in a hostage situation in a Latin American country (so I get my points for Passport to Latin America) - but that sums it up wrongly. Great sweeping themes of love and language and communication and lifelong learning - crystallised in tiny details such as chewed plaits, diced onions, stitches and opera scores. We love Gen, the modest translator who becomes the lynchpin of the whole situation. We were an all-female gathering so we’d love to know what any male readers out there think of the book?

This evening I have been writing an email to a very old friend - a fabulous Frenchwoman who dated an uncle of mine when I was barely 5 or 6 years old. I haven’t been in touch with her for literally decades, but I have always credited her with developing my language skills - she gave me French picture books and wrote out all the vocab, sat with me reading and talking. I still have all those books about 20 house moves later - they are very precious and meaningful to me.

Words are good things to spend time on, and are best shared with others.

Hollywood Librarian Scottish premiere last night. I set out dressed to impress: 5 inch heels, feather boa and antique gloves. Yes, and a top and skirt before rumours really start flying. The taxi driver was intrigued and I ended up telling him all about the film and the profession. Was disappointed that no red carpet was put out (not even a PBS reading rug…)

The film was interesting and absorbing. To be honest I’m not really sure what I was expecting - had gone with a fairly open mind. The old film footage was fun but there was too much of it - we’d got the point fairly early on. Although it was nice to be reminded of that lovely film The Station Agent. The interviews were interesting but were definitely biased towards public libraries - we didn’t really get a sense of the cut and thrust of different sectors, nor of any transferability. The story of the Salinas closures and political campaign was well told and made its point. I also found the prisoners’ contributions interesting.

My overriding sense, to be quite truthful, is to wonder why I don’t love my job in the way those librarians all loved theirs. Am I in the wrong sector, the wrong profession, the wrong country? Or have I just not learned to recognise the inspirational moments and to find the heartwarming story amidst the everyday grind?