On a humid evening at the beginning of June, around
30 dedicated CILIP members gathered in the Kings’ Arms in Oxford to hear about
trials and triumphs they may face as part of the Chartership process. Drink in hand, I found a seat on the table
where the majority of speakers were sitting and nervously shuffled my
papers. Looking around the room, I could
see a sea of young and serious looking faces.
As normal for this kind of event, I wondered how much I would have in
common with them as I don’t actually work in a library. My job title is Information Manager and I create
and maintain taxonomies and ontologies for use on Yell.com.
The evening was very informal. There was no ‘death by PowerPoint’ to contend
with just enthusiastic people who wanted to share their experience of
Chartership with others. The first to
speak was Franko
Kowalczuk. Franko is a Candidate Support
Officer at CILIP with a decade’s worth of experience mentoring Chartership
candidates and assessing submissions. He
took us through the familiar CILIP Chartership and Certification guidelines as
well as the more unfamiliar Qualifications Board Assessment Panel interviews
that reminded me a little of a PhD viva.
Fortunately, Franko was suitably reassuring - candidates are only called
to a panel interview when the assessors want to expand on a particular topic in
their submission. Questions are sent to candidates
in advance of the interview so the candidate has time to prepare and it is
almost impossible to fail at this point.
The bottom line is that CILIP wants to support every candidate and help
them to succeed.
Next-up was Laura Wilkinson, Librarian at St Hugh’s College Oxford. Laura has already chartered therefore she was
able to share hints and tips including how to get the most out of the initial
CILIP Chartership seminars e.g.
·
Read the
Chartership Handbook before the seminar
·
Make a note of anything
you are unsure about and ask questions
·
Take the time to read
through past submissions
The part that I found most interesting
(I am a bit of a geek) was Laura’s description of her e-portfolio. She created her submission as a Word document
with hyperlinks between her personal statement and her evidence so the assessors
did not need to scroll down. Having done
that, she was able to submit electronically (using 3 CD-ROMs). This appealed to me as I am trying to collect
all my evidence in an electronic repository on Dropbox.com. My portfolio of evidence is accessible from
wherever I am and from whatever device I am using (desktop PC, laptop, iPad or
HTC Smartphone). I am also trying to
avoid filling my home with paper!
Chartership can be something you decide to pursue
immediately after library school as part of your career progression in your
role, something you do after a few years in a post (like me) or something you
put off doing for many years. It can
also be something that you start and do not finish. The next speaker, Tessa Shaw, Reader Services
Librarian at Queen’s College Oxford was a mature candidate with 25 years
library experience. She can tell you how
to deter snakes from entering your Malawian library (I sincerely hope Tessa
comes back and talks about that at a future event) and she has lots of experience
of supporting members of her team through their Chartership. Tessa has watched those people move onwards
and upwards after chartering so she has decided to join them.
Tessa’s experience matched mine in that the
Chartership process has changed her attitude to work. With her new perspective, she has sought out
new opportunities to develop and progress in her career. Tessa, Laura & I all stressed the
importance of recording the details of all the development activities that you
undertake at the time as if you leave them to the end of the month, you will
inevitably forget. That is also the time to reflect on those
activities. Most importantly of all, they
advocated “getting the thing done”. If
you make a start on writing your report and personal statement, you will finish
it. There may be a few iterations along
the way but it is the only way. You
can’t reach the finishing line if you don’t get off the starting block.
My own talk focused on how I am getting on so far and what
benefits I am getting from the process.
Chartership has given me a much greater enthusiasm for learning,
developing and networking: I haven’t felt this motivated since I left library
school back in 2004. I have been fortunate
enough to have a very supportive line manager who has allowed me time to attend
events and to be an active member of the Library and Information Research Group
(LIRG) committee. In my mentor, I have
found a good friend, a wealth of experience and an objective voice to help me
to develop a more strategic view and a greater awareness of the broader professional
context that I need to progress in my career.
The penultimate speaker was Barbara Moye, Healthcare Librarian at Prospect Park
Hospital in Reading. Barbara has already
chartered and I was interested to hear about her experiences because she has succeeded
in moving sectors. Barbara also managed
to keep focused on Chartership despite changing
jobs and experiencing organisational restructure during her period of
reflective practice. I can only imagine
how difficult it must have been to keep going.
Barbara said she managed to keep on track by booking a meeting with her
mentor before taking a 3 month break while she got settled in her new job. As the meeting was already booked, she had to
keep it. Mentors are not there to badger
candidates or drag them through the process.
If you miss the targets you set yourself, you are letting yourself down.
The final speaker was Lesley Kumiega, an experienced
mentor and member of the Qualifications Board.
Lesley provided the mentor’s perspective – all the pain and excitement
but no certificate at the end. The
mentoring relationship is formalised at the beginning of the Chartership process
but sometimes deteriorates. If this
happens, don’t just let it slide, tell CILIP.
The mentor/mentee relationship should meet both of your needs. I was surprised by how common it is to have a
mentor that you never meet in person. It
is possible to have a mentor that you only ever contact by telephone and
email. Mentors
will listen, give impartial advice and help you to review your progress however
you decide to communicate with each other.
Looking
through the past submissions, I felt that Chartership is not “rocket
science”. Every portfolio was
surprisingly individual considering that everyone is working to the same criteria. Each piece of evidence had been carefully
chosen, organised meticulously, related to a specific assessment criterion and
reflected upon rather than merely described.
The aim of your submission is to guide the assessor around your career,
making it easy for them to see which assessment criteria you are
addressing. Getting the odd document
number wrong is embarrassing but not fatal!
The
evening gave me some comfort that I would be able to succeed and that the
process is worthwhile. Thank you CILIP
in TV for organising such a great get-together.
Georgina
Tarrant BSc (Hons) MSc
