Volunteering

Thing 22 - Volunteering to get experience

I have not yet been in a position where I can volunteer the way it described in Thing 22, the need to be able to provide for myself has meant that I need to earn money, volunteering is not a luxury I can afford. This does not mean that I am against volunteering, given the opportunity I would love to gain more skills and develop my experience outside of my customer support experience, I would love to work in Content Services, working on e-resources and cataloguing. Opportunities for extra hours do come up in that team from time to time but due to the hours they would conflict with my current post so are not something that I can do.

It is important to realise that volunteering does not just mean working a job for free, it can also be joining a SIG. I joined the Career Development Group a little over a year ago, so far the benefits have far outweighed the costs, I have made contacts, gained skills such as networking and liaising (not possible in my current post) and get to be a part of something. The only downside of this is that I have to take holiday to attend the meetings as they take place during my shift, which I don't like doing as I run out of holiday for doing things that I would like to do for fun rather than professional development.

I have also joined University, College and Research Group as my university rep. This has been useful for current awareness although I feel completely out of my depth! I have only attended one meeting so far and at the regional round up session where people talk about what is new at their instituition I had no idea how QR codes are used in libraries, I vaguely remember reading an article about it and not really understanding what QR code was! Needless to say after that meeting I went and read up on QR codes and now know they are a way store information, ways this has been applied in libraries include: floorplans, catalogue entries and audio tours, all of these can be accessed via a QR code. I have a feeling that a lot of reading will take place as a result of my membership of UC&R! This will be great for my current awareness.

I think that if you can't afford to volunteer then joining a SIG is the best way to develop skills and knowledge. Networking and liaising skills are important management skills and not ones I could develop much in my current post so CDG has been very useful. Having a direction for current awareness is useful and cuts down on the amount of reading to do, or adds to it? Not really sure how that one works.

The joy of networking

I really like the networking opportunities presented by professional bodies. I got involved with my local CDG group as I wanted to be more involved in the library community and have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to network within the group, especially for someone like me who doesn't find meeting new people very easy. When I represented the division at National Council I also got to put faces to names which was useful. I have also become the workplace rep for my local division of UCR group, even though I haven't yet been able to get to a meeting (just joined last month!) I have already talked, or 'networked', with the other UCR members at work.

As far as training and development goes I have benefitted greatly from my membership of CDG, I became Website Officer for the group which has already improved my web skills and liaison skills, as division rep at Council I gained a better understanding of how information moves throughout the organisation which I could translate to work. Being a member of the group and attending meetings means that I get to discuss possible training events so if there is something that I feel would be useful to me and other new professionals it is possible to raise this at meetings. This is fantastic as most CILIP training takes place in London which would mean either a very early train and thus a very long day or a stay overnight which increases the price, neither is an optimal outcome, but as CDG organises events within their own region this makes attendance much more likely.

I am also demonstrating my dedication to continuing professional development and applying for Chartership, another good reason to be a member of CILIP.