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

Gig Review: Victoria University SIM Orientation Wellington Fri 26 Feb 2010

Kia ora koutou!

Again, another great event that I'm glad I went to. Lotsa schmoozing and networking went on and met some cool people.

I did not attend the full day that all VUW SIM students attended (involved learning about research and logon's and passwords and all that unnecessary stuff), but I did join in at 3pm when we had guest industry professional speakers talk for 15minutes about how they got to where they are and what they love about what they do.

Guest industry speakers were:

• David Jones (aka DJ) as a representative from Te Roopu Whakahau. DJ is currently the Maori and Pacific Island's Subject Librarian at Victoria University and is doing a great job developing a Maori and Pacific island collection to be housed on the main floor of the central library at Kelburn Campus.
  
  
• Paula, representative from RMAA (Records Management Association of Australasia)
  Totally engaging and entertaining speaker, who says that
  "Building relationships and relationship management will be the most important skill to learn in the Master of Information Studies and your career." Amen!
  
  
• Rachel Esson (a personal favourite of mine), a LIANZA member, and currently head of Research and Learning Services at Victoria University's Library and on the TELsig committee (Tertiary Education Libraries special interest group)
  PLUG --> TELsig workshop 18th March and
  "How to make a difference" Conference in July
  

• Joanna of ARANZ (Archives and Records Association of New Zealand)
  Started at Fletcher Challenge, was there for 10 years and established their archives and now works as an archives and records management consultant and is also doing a Masters in "Maintaining and Sustaining Community Archives".
  
  Quote from Joanna: "Your education is preparing you to enter into any sector of the profession", and this was reiterated by Alastair Smith in closing the formal part of the day for the students.

And after the speakers, there was scones, cakes, fruit and non-alcoholic liquid to be consumed in the School of Information Management communal area! Fabulous afternoon, well-spent couple of hours out of my day. And by "spent" I mean, time, because it didn't cost anything to attend!

Your grand tour of the major centres was a success Timothy, congratulations. I thoroughly enjoyed this event.

H

Gig review: Twitter Workshop @wcl_library Thu 25 Feb 2010

Kia ora koutou

Just have to say that this was an awesome workshop and I'm glad that the committee decided to sponsor it. The workshop was held by and at Wellington City Libraries on Victoria Street. I got a lot out of it and am looking forward to more workshops that Magalie Le Gac, an enthusiastic staff member of Wellington City Libraries, facilitates.

The morning session focussed on learning the theory before getting into the application.

Such things covered were:

• How many people are using Twitter? It has a pretty fast growth rate. Here's some stats I found. There's a lot of people tweeting out there! Currently around 6% of the NZ population is on Twitter. 30 Libraries in NZ use Twitter at the moment.
  
  
• There are access issues for libraries in NZ to do with blocking the website. Particular problem for council's as two attendees at the workshop mentioned it was a problem where they worked.
  
  
• Uses for Twitter for Librarians:
  Online Reference
  Professional Development (sharing links to good articles)
  Monitoring library uses
  Disseminating information about the library
  Following useful Twitterers (e.g. @Te_Ara, @NLNZ, @citygalleryWGTN, @NZStuff)
  Marketing Tool
  
  
• Advantages
  
  
• Disadvantages
  
  
• Potential pitfalls
  
  
• Different platforms to use (other than twitter.com)
  Hootsuite
  igoogle gadget
  Tweetdeck
  
  

Now I didn't attend the afternoon session but I hear it was a good hands-on one using self-directed tutorials that Magalie had compiled earlier. Magalie actually included me in the email with the links to these so I could go through them and "self-direct" myself in learning about Twitter, but I think I'm good for now.

If anyone would like to share their experience of the afternoon session that'd be way cool if you'd comment on this post!

Hope you enjoyed it, and again, I'm really glad that LIANZA Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui decided to sponsor this event/workshop. Well worth it. Cheers Magalie!

Hana

Eight Weeks to Associateship - Week 4

Week 4: Talking about professional development and contribution

Welcome to week 4! This week, we'll be looking at your professional development and contribution in part C.

Although it may not seem like it, we all undertake development activities in one form or another. While it may seem like a long time since you did your library qualification, once you start to write things down, you'll be amazed at how much training and skill gathering you've done since then.

Let's go through each section of the application:

Self-development of professional perspectives and objectives through professional reading, Internet discussion groups: Most of us are subscribed to at least a couple of list-servs (NZ-Libs, SLIS-NZ, and so on), and have a few blogs that we follow. When noting these down, also think about what contributions you've made to these, such as blog comments or participating to an online discussion. How about professional reading - books, articles, journals, and links through to news stories? Also consider what you read in support of your job that may fall outside LIS and what what you learnt from these that helped you to do your role better. Did you feed these results back to a group, or implement what you'd read about? Did you find out about something in a different sector of LIS, that changed or widened your perspective? Did these change the way you think about the profession, or help you to set goals or objectives as a result? Were you able to feed that perspective back into your organisation?

Continuing education through such activities as attendance at seminars and workshops: Continuing education covers a wide variety of activities. As well as seminars and workshops (internally or externally), you may have done Certificates of Proficiency, attended Conferences, taken training in general skills to support your role (customer service, management, SharePoint, etc.), gone to lectures, taken an online course, or attended a LIANZA CPD event. If you've led training events, make a note of this too.

An awareness of professional issues: How do you keep up-to-date with professional issues, particularly in your specialty areas? You might demonstrate your awareness of professional issues through helping your work group understand the context and implications of changes or issues in the profession or outside, such as copyright, fee levying in public libraries, and creative commons licensing. Or you may be involved in working groups, discussion panels, or internal or external taskforces. Perhaps you read library journals from other countries or library associations?

Knowledge of and/or participation in the work and activities of the Association, and other relevant organisations: Do you understand what LIANZA does and how it operates? Perhaps you've been on committees, attended local CPD events, presented at conferences or weekend schools? Have you been involved in other organisations, like ARANZ, Te Ropu Whakahau, IFLA or the NZ Knowledge Management Network?

When you're jotting down your notes, use your workmates to jog your memory, check your old Outlook calendar appointments, or dig out those paper diaries.

Keep up the good work! This is the last of the 'note-taking' weeks - next week we get into the more serious business of writing up. Good luck til then!