Eight Weeks to Associateship - Week 8

Week 8: Making the final touches

This week we'll be rounding up the last pieces of information and sending off your Associateship application. Some of you (me included!) might find this a high-anxiety week - have I done enough to answer the questions that the Credentials Committee wants answers to? Have I missed anything out? A final review, and the collation of all your materials should help you put your mind to rest.

Having put your personal statement away for a few days, take it out and give it another read over. Make any tweaks that help it to flow, or to highlight your achievements better.

Now, get yourself a big envelope, and assemble the following:
1. Your personal statement
2. The LIANZA Associateship application form
3. A cheque for $50
4. A passport-sized photograph
5. 4 copies of your evidence of written work (and a bibliography, if you have enough)

These needs to arrive at the LIANZA office by 31 MARCH 2010, so get down to your NZ Post shop asap!

Also, email your referees to remind them about the deadline for the referee's report - 14 APRIL 2010

Just in case you thought this was the last post - fear not! Now that you application is away, in a month or so we'll be looking at the presentation to the credentials committee.

But for now, you can take a breather and give yourself a pat on the back. This is a process of detailed and thoughtful self-examination, and it doesn't come easily to most of us. Many people will choose to never apply for an Associateship because of this. So, good on you! I hope to see you all at conference receiving your awards!

Best of luck,
Laurinda

Paul Reynolds - Valedictory Lecture

Reposted from NZ-Libs...

Valedictory Lecture by Paul Reynolds, Monday 22 March

Paul Reynolds is marking the end of his role as Adjunct Director of the National Digital Library at the National Library of New Zealand with a valedictory lecture on Monday 22 March, 5.15pm at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa. Entry is free.

Come along and hear Paul as he presents his thoughts on the emerging trends of the digital landscape, and how, in his view, institutions like the National Library and other GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) partners can contribute to emerging learning and cultural commons.

Paul Reynolds is an Auckland based commentator and thinker on the topics of information access and cultural/techno change. He is a co-founder and joint managing director of McGovern Online, and has been or is currently a member of several advisory bodies and boards, including the National Digital Forum and Auckland Museum.

Eight Weeks to Associateship - Week 7

Week 7: Polishing and Professionalism

By now I hope you're all feeling like your application is beginning to take shape. We'll be completing the last piece and sprucing things up this week. So, let's get into it!

Part C looks at professional development and professional contribution. The requirements are:

(i) Self-development of professional perspectives and objectives through professional reading, Internet discussion groups

(ii) Continuing education through such activities as attendance at seminars and workshops

(iii) An awareness of professional issues

(iv) Knowledge of and/or participation in the work and activities of the Association, and other relevant organisations

You should have a good list of your activities from week 4. You might want to tie aspects together, for example, how has your self-development informed your awareness of the issues? Has this changed anything you've done or how you approach things? What are the professional issues that are most concerning to you, or that you're most involved with? What are your regular LIS must-reads or must-attends? How do you keep up-to-date? What about professional networks, either personal or association-based?

There are a range of thing that could be included under continuing education, so you may choose some highlights, or showcase a range of courses, workshops or seminars you’ve attended (some of these might fall outside of LIS, but be part of the sector you're in).

Once you've done that, take your whole application and give it a good thrice over!

1. Read it through for flow. Does it read well? Have you repeated anything?
2. Look at your formatting. Is there anything you could do to improve the presentation on the page, or make it easier for the credentials committee to identify how you fit the criteria, such as headings or new paragraphs to separate key points? Don't be afraid to use white space on the page and have an appropriate font size. Steer away from serif fonts or anything too flashy - they are more difficult on the eyes. Stick to a nice sans-serif!
3. Give it a good spell check and identify any sloppy punctuation. This can be very distracting to the reader.

Now is a good time to go over the checklist of things that you need to supply to the committee so that we can put everything together next week. Well done - you're nearly there!

Revalidating? Help is at hand!

Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui Region invites librarians and information professionals to a presentation on professional re-validation.

Presented by Janet Upton, Manager, Knowledge Leadership at Land Information New Zealand
5.30pm Wednesday 14 April
Nau Mai Room
Ground Floor
Te Puni Kokiri
143 Lambton Quay
Wellington

There is no charge for this event.

For catering purposes, please RSVP by Wednesday 7 April to: anne.thompson@natlib.govt.nz

Eight Weeks to Associateship - Week 6

Week 6: Showing off your skills

Management and planning responsibilities are the name of the game this week. Take out your notes from week 3, and remember as you're going through to think of management in a broad sense, since our job descriptions don't always use that word. This week's section is quite a chunky one, so get yourself a cuppa and a biscuit before you get going.

We're working through part B in much the same way as we did with part A. The tricky thing here I think, is to get down all the main points succinctly. Resist the temptation to exhaustively list every little thing you've done, but rather try to hit the high points. There are a couple of ways you could tackle this. You may want to start with a job where you demonstrated several of these skills and write briefly what your role and responsibilities were in the different areas. Or, you might choose one area and talk pick out a couple of significant examples from your working life. Or, if many of the examples are from the same project for example, you may want to talk about the project you worked on and describe the responsibilties you had within it.

Remember, they're looking for the following:
(i) Staff management
(ii) Financial management
(iii) Resource management
(iv) Implementing and managing of appropriate and/or innovative library and information services
(v) Initiating or contributing to projects or changes/improvements in existing services
(vi) Marketing services
(vii) Evaluating and implementing appropriate technologies
(viii) Planning own work and that of others, setting priorities and aligning with organisational goals and objectives

Don't worry if you don’t have experience of all of these, the application does state, "Some of the categories below may not be applicable to the applicant. This will depend upon the applicant's work."

While the emphasis is on seeing that you've had responsibility in some of these areas, if you can, pick out achievements you've had or show the impact that you've made as well. These show that you have moved into mastery of the area, rather than just competence.

Best of luck this week with your write-up. Next week we'll be looking at professional development and contribution - one of my favourite topics!

Finally - an apology for the lateness of this column. Despite my best intentions to get this out by Wednesday, events overtook me! I hope y'all have ploughed on ahead anyway!

Associateship Event - Cancelled

Unfortunately, due to a lack of RSVPs, we're decided to cancel our Associateship event this evening (4th March). We're hopeful that we'll run the session again, but perhaps towards the end of the year instead.

But never fear! We'll continue to bring you the Eight Weeks to Associateship series to support you on your application journey, so stay tuned in!

Eight Weeks to Associateship - Week 5

Week 5: Telling your story


Congratulations - if you've made it this far you're well on your way to completing your associateship application! A lot of the hard work and thinking has been done, and now it's time to tell your story in the application process.


Take out your notes from week 2. We're going to start shaping them into your application. Although 1000 words can seem daunting, many of you will find that once you start writing it's an easy target to reach, so you will want to be fairly concise.


We'll focus on part A this week, which looks at "Practical knowledge and skills in providing library/information services", in particular "Competence and achievement in some particular aspect(s) of library and information services" and "a well–demonstrated understanding of the information needs of clients, and the delivery of services to meet those needs".


Firstly, you'll want to choose which aspect of library and information services you want to focus on for this part of your application. From your notes there might be a one very clear frontrunner (reference services, circulation or systems for example), or you may choose two or three where you can measurably demonstrate both competence and achievement.


For each area, briefly discuss your roles you've had, including levels of responsibility, and what higher level tasks were undertaken. From your list of achievements pick one or two, summarising the aim, implementation and outcome of each. You may want to select achievements or projects which tie into the second part, demonstrating a knowledge and delivery of service to, client needs. Also outline what additional work you do in this area to keep up-to-date or to spread your knowledge to others.


If you haven't addressed it in the first area (or maybe even if you have), you'll now want to demonstrate that you understand client needs, and can deliver services to meet those needs. Again, examples are the most informative, discussing the needs of your client base, how you keep abreast of their needs, what you've done to address these, and the outcome.


Don't worry too much at this stage if you find you've written quite a lot. We'll have a chance to revise and pare things down a little later. As you're writing up the next sections, you may find that many areas overlap, and that one example provides examples that fit several different criteria.


As you write things up, remember to take a little time to enjoy your achievements. Best of luck, and see you next week!

Thinking of applying for an Associateship? Let our panel show you how!

LIANZA Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui (Wellington) Regional Committee has organised an opportunity for you to hear more! We've brought together some inspiring Wellington librarians– Sue Sutherland who has served on the Credentials Committee and Moira Fraser, Rachel Esson and Kareen Carter who were the Wellington 2009 Associates – to tell you all about their experiences and why you too should apply to be a LIANZA Associate.

Where: The Moot Room, Level 3 Old Government Buildings, Bunny Street Entrance
When: Thursday 4 March, 5.30pm-6.30pm, nibbles & networking from 5pm.
RSVP: gabrielle.hikaka@tpk.govt.nz by Wednesday 3 March 2010