Thing 7

I am a member of CILIP and have been since I qualified.  What do I get out of it?  Well I have attended some really good training courses when there's been money to send me on them - so obviously that means I haven't been on many because they are so expensive - however the ones I have been to were really good. 

I did join the Yorkshire branch of the YLG, then joined the committee, last year I was Vice-Chair & this year I'm Chair.  I joined because I felt it would be useful for networking amongst other things, and as I intend to stay in the profession until they drag me out screaming, I felt it would be useful for my career.  Although I have moved from public libraries, to SureStart & now to academic libraries, they have let me remain with the YLG.  I feel it's important to know what is happening in the wider library world, I work closely with school librarians and hope to also work with public librarians therefore being on the YLG with them, helps keep me in the loop.  Although some of the day schools aren't relevant to my line of work, I still manage to learn from them and in some cases adapt the information to use in my College.  Working with ESOL, key skills, life skills and the College creche, allows me to put quite a lot of what I learn into practise.

I have thought about IFLA a few times, but the cost of attending meetings and conferences is an issue.  The reason I got to thinking about it was when I went out to Sri Lanka to work with the SLLA after the tsunami.  There are some lovely librarians out there, and at the time they had lost quite a few librarians and teachers, so I met with Pramila Gamage at CILIP headquarters when she came to talk about how the tsunami had affected the libraries, and went out and delivered workshops to librarians, teachers and the children over 4 or 5 visits.  I also delivered a paper at their AGM! It was hard work, great fun but very sad at times too, as stories of what had happened were told wherever I went.  I would love to still be going there, but as I was self funding, the funds dried up.  I hope I helped to make a difference though. 

So to conclude, yes I feel it is important to belong to at least one professional body, and try to be involved if possible.  You meet so many lovely people and learn so much too.