Tales from the CDG Tardis

A very quiet day back at the office today after a whirlwind trip to London. The filing frenzy came upon me and now stuff is sensibly arranged, I can find it, and my desk looks shiny and bare.

Raising the bar was a great success. Everyone turned up, and there were no technical hitches. Speakers were all excellent, and workshop leaders managed to be universally interactive and keep to their time constraints, no mean feat. Dr Paul Ayris welcomed us to UCL and spoke about their work on Investors in People. Anne Poulson and Ian Snowley offered us an unofficial masterclass as they reviewed their own careers and focused on leadership and personal motivation to succeed. We enjoyed a range of workshops - first up I got to hear Jacky Berry speak on managing stress for improved performance, which featured a case study of the BMA. Jacky was good-humoured and her empathy came through as she tackled this difficult area. We heard about the wonders of bug lists and the perils of orange creates, before we broke for a relaxed lunch featuring some lovely fruit and cheese - a welcome additon to the usual conference menu. (Though not a patch on Peebles of course!) I didn’t get to hear fellow conference planner Helen Blanchett run her session on scenario planning, but it sounded lively!

Afternoon saw workshops from Caroline Williams from Intute on managing change, and Veronica Fraser on influencing skills, as well as parallel sessions from Lesley Robinson on making a business case and Ayub Khan on achieving personal goals. (I was sorry not to be able to be at all of these!) Both Caroline and Veronica were thoughtful, well prepared and informative.  Bruce Madge rounded the day off with a thoughtful assessment of marketing based on his experience at the London Upright MRI Centre. He managed to sweep through marketing, USPs, medicine and art and still leave time for a leisurely and pleasant chat to leave people feeling inspired. I even let him have a free plug for The Bearded Pigs, but he wasn’t makin’ any bacon any time soon.

All this plus the airy cloisters and the contribution made by our bijou exhibition - CDG, PTEG, Intute, Netskills and Sue Hill Recruitment. The conference planning team rewarded themselves with a well-earned bottle of Pinot Grigio before deciding to run a similar conference in 2010, keeping the same title, so we can spread the word and let others experience such high calibre speakers and enriching programmes.

The best was yet to come. Having boarded the 1800 from King’s Cross, I decided I couldn’t face one more train sandwich and oppted instead for a proper meal in the on-board restaurant. Chap sits down opposite me, I make the usual pleasantries such as ‘how far are you travelling’ and ‘how was your day’, then we progress on to ‘what’s your line of work’. He’s a writer. ‘Oh, what kind?’ I ask. Children’s books - this sounds highly promising. To cut a long story short, my dinner companion is none other than highly respected author Marcus Sedgwick, on his way up to a festival in Melrose. I try to get the fan bit over with fairly quickly (having read just two so far, The Foreshadowing and Blood red, Snow White and we then have a great chat about books, reading, readers, writers and publishers. Too bad I didn’t have a notebook to hand… anyhow, Sedgwick is a capital fellow and I shall certainly be looking out for his future releases.

Afternoon, the sun is shining today and despire being woken up obscenely early by said burning orb, am definitely feeling perkier today. This may have something to do with Developments on the career progression front…

Day job wise, have a couple of reasonably productive meetings and - shock horror - actually complete the task of drafting 6 programme annual reports.

Also looking forward to Raising the bar in London. UCL is a great venue and if we get sunny weather it will be idyllic. We have a strong programme and it’ s a joint effort between CDG and PTEG, exciting and possibly could lead to more joint working in future.  I hope the delegates enjoy themselves and I know they will come ready to contribute and network enthusiastically. And maybe we will be raiding the bar afterwards.

Must have plenty of train reading about my person - I have Allende’s Paula; When we were bad (Charlotte Mendelson); Update; and no doubt some suitably trashy magazines.

37 today… getting dangerously close to the big four-oh. Am I still in my mid-thirties or have I crossed into the shark-infested waters of the late thirties? Never mind, I get to play my lovely new cherrywood recorder that smells all yummy. Mr Amazon may smile upon me also.

Book group today, fairly much did a hatchet job on Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale. Contrived? Possibly. So much tragedy in the family and yet so hard to really care about any of the people. Have agreed no more tortured artists and something fun for next time (jury still out…)

Reporting is taking over - information literacy seems to be one strategic document after another these days. Trying to write programme reports, made stupid decision to start with programme where I have the most extensive input (biomedical sciences). Need to map so many variables against each other that I will require at least seven dimensions. Analysing things brings me dangerously close to uncontrollable weeping fits. (So decided extra cake and clothes shopping trip were in order…)

Frined reports that her nearly 2 year old has a vocabulary of 10 words, one of which is TARDIS. Good lad: he’ll go far.

Hopefully succeeded in convincing PGCHET examiner that she wants us to include information literacy input intot he taught module. We have all-singing all-dancing plans plus theory and content to go. Fortunately she is a social software enthusiast so we may be able to satisfy that angle. Programme tutor keen on fireside chats over nice wine in the local Tasting Rooms, he wants to start including IL tutors as regular part of the team, can you see where I’m going with this?! (Excellent conflict of interests as I am also a reluctant student ont he course, and have just hopefully scraped a C in the second module, aka Curriculum Deisgn, aka Module of Doom). If I write module 3 based on reflections on teaching input to the PGCHET I may in fact disappear right up my own module descriptor.

Surely it must be time for a little scampi and chardonnay?

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!)

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.

Does anyone else feel they are constantly hopping from one lily pad to another but never really getting anywhere? It’s a funny time of year - university vacation but with a surprisingly high number of students around; just back from my own holiday and not quite back into the workaday rhythm; lots to do but no obvious top priority. Fiddle about with a document for our MSc dissertation handbook; log a new FOI enquiry; answer several emails; meet some prospective students; go to a meeting that feels a bit unsatisfactory because we are between several peaks.

Preparations for the CDG national conference are nearing completion, and the delegate list is growing all the time. I’m greatly looking forward to the trip, the venue (City Hall), my stay at the Big Sleep and hopefully a visit to the Doctor Who exhibition in Cardiff Bay. (Good practice for when we get one in Glasgow next year). These conferences are always fun, surprising and attract both stalwart regulars and different people every time. I love meeting folk from different sectors and finding out what makes them tick and what turns their hair grey. I love waffling on in a random but hopefully welcoming manner at the start of the day. And in a strange way I love the randomness of changing locations, never knowing how the journey connections will pan out or whether I will be running the last stretch against the clock (that was Leicester).

Started a new book today - The wind-up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami. It’s odd but pretty intriguing so far. It will tide me over till our book group completes its online vote as to the first title we will read and discuss.

Back to the day job after my week’s holiday. (Actually it feels like about Wednesday already after spending much of the weekend catching up on Career Development Group work.) The whole day is spent processing emails and responding or filing them. By hometime I have got the inbox from 240 down to 30, which is not bad at all. Although I wonder sometimes whether this counts as actually working or whether it’s just rearranging the furniture.

Shocker of the day was finding out that a well-used specialist resource will no longer be available. I’ll be sad to see it go. I like choice and I had chosen this particular resource for sound reasons. Now the choice resembles a Discworld restaurant menu: soss, egg, beans and rat.

A student asks for advice on plagiarism - he wants to include a long paragraph from a particular source, together with all its hyperlinked references.  It’s worrying and I try to explain why this isn’t acceptable and how else can approach his coursework. Feel a bit out of my depth really.

Many CDG emails flying around - dividing my brain between national conference in April, our Raising the bar senior event in June, Presidential Reception and Scottish Revalidation course in May, to say nothing of the much anticipated Scottish screening of Hollywood Librarian. Wondering whether to buy a feather boa specially. Have the hair for a bun but sadly not the training.

If my mental space needs to be partitioned into any more compartments it will require a trip to IKEA for some of those gauzy curtain fabrics. A new colleague joins the team today and has been bombarded with information and paperwork - maybe I could share my IKEA head-curtains.

We are starting a book group for library staff tomorrow, so need to ponder what I’d like to read on all my journeys up and down the country. I’m thinking anything that doesn’t have the word ’strategic’ or ‘operational’ anywhere in the title will be acceptable. In fact a picture book with large letters and a reassuring ending would suit me just fine.

So, I’m just back from a fabulously relaxing holiday in Tenerife. I knew it was time for a break when at the airport I could see monitors displaying “Paris CDG” and found myself wondering how our French Division was doing and whether I should be asking them for their 2008 Divisional Plan. Nuff said.

No truly household names were harmed during our stay, thus demonstrating the fantasy principle that naming something is an inherently powerful act.

Book reviews from my week away:

• Jane Smiley - Ten Days in the Hills: I love Jane Smiley and her books are all really quite different. This one is definitely at her trashy end! A bunch of folks (longlost offspring, ex-partners, business associates, random gurus) spend 10 days together in the Hollywood area immediately after the 2003 Academy Awards. They chat about Iraq, argue, wacth and chat about movies, reminisce and have really quite a lot of graphic sex (unusual for Smiley’s novels). For reading by the pool in 25 degree heat, it was just fine.
• Isabel Allende - The House of the Spirits: finally I got round to reading this absolutely wonderful novel! Epic saga of several generations, each more quirky than the last, a social history of South America but with a light and personal touch. Moving, passionate, funny and tragic by turns. You can keep Marquez - this for me is the real deal - realism and magical but with a plot. I sponsored myself to read this as part of our Passport to Latin America. What shall I read next? Suggestions?
• Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner: yes, yes, another one long overdue. Only halfway through but what a captivating story. See above - moving, passionate, tragic and compelling.

So it’s back to the mountain of emails and post and undone tasks… information overload still alive and kicking… but the cats are pleased to have me home and there are signs that the garden is coming back to life. Loads to catch up on with CDG, great stuff happening all over the place!

Well, here it is, this blog is only a week old and I’m about to abandon it for a week. Hush; dry your tears. We will blog again soon. I’m off to sunny Tenerife tomorrow and Martyn and I have a sacrosanct NO INTERNET pact. I will be eschewing email, web browsing and telephones in favour of novels, conversation, sun, sea and honey rum. Fasting can be good discipline - we once did a corporate fast which included a week off the media and a week off non-essential shopping.

CDG is of course never far from my thoughts, and there’s a lot coming up in the next few months - April will see our national conference and AGM in Cardiff, plus the Scottish Division AGM at the Saltire Centre; May is Council, my Presidential Reception, a trip down to East Midlands Division and our first Scottish Revalidation course, which is shaping up rather nicely (I have a selection of useful Margarets at my disposal). And June is looking distinctly hairy.

In my holiday suitcase is a copy of The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende - always meant to read it and whaat better opportunity than to do so as part of the Passport to Latin America sponsored reading challenge, raising money for the group’s international projects.

It’s not hitherto been public knowledge, but when on holiday I seem to form part of a bizarre Celebrity Death Squad. It started when the Queen Mother passed away during our Spanish holiday in 2002. A trip to Portugal coincided with the last days of the Pope. Other vacations have seen us say goodbye to such luminaries as Jim Callaghan, Mo Mowlam, Brother Roger of Taize, and last year it was the turn of Bob Woolmer. It doesn’t seem to matter whether we holiday at home or abroad; we seem to spread chaos in our wake. So watch the news this week and think of us.