Thought Patterns, Plants and Seamus Heaney

Having perused through the Library Journal’s article on the best library architecture of 2011, I was doing a bit of pondering about how the space and environment that we sit within shapes our thought processes and self-application to tasks.

This may seem obvious, after all, anyone whose GCSE poetry anthology covered Seamus Heaney’s “Digging” will surely know that Ireland influenced his decision to write poems about potatoes (perhaps if he were from Somerset it would have been entitled “scrumping” and provided the opportunity for cider drinking to get into his frame of mind; sadly it was nothing but jacket spuds for me whilst revising). The same principle therefore applies for blogging, writing articles and generally applying oneself to tasks and projects. If you work in an academic library, chances are you will ponder things about academic libraries, and maybe after a while start to think like an academic librarian. I work in a law library, and whilst I don’t quite think like a lawyer, I have started to capitalise the occasional word for no good Grammatical Reason.

With this in mind, we will therefore always be shaped by our past experiences and current work environments, be this good or bad. For the most part, it is fine; our experiences provide us with a basic set of skills from which we can build upon and use to grow. When a change in environment occurs (be it job related, or personal), this process is usually accelerated, lending a set of new experiences to shape and develop ourselves; not too dissimilar in how a plant enjoys getting a new pot to fill every once in a while. Much like the plant though, our roots (read thoughts) quickly grow to fit the pot, and come into line with its shape. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, ideas and growth need support and parameters against which they can be measured, however this can mean that the new ideas that were generated are scaled back to fit the confines of the (terracotta?) walls of the new workplace or study environment, just as quickly as the old ways can be forgotten.

This chap has used those past experiences to define himself as well as make something new- Flickr CC by jo-h

I’m not saying this always occurs, but it can do, and it is an easy trap to fall into.  So, how to ensure that our mindsets can continue to grow uninhibited? If I continue to work with the plant theme, then maybe what we need is the human equivalent of Baby Bio to give our professional selves a bit of a kick?

Firstly, awareness always helps. You are reading this aren’t you? Hopefully, some of my nonsensical wording and attempts at imagery will make enough sense that some self reflection can occur off the back of it.

Secondly, don’t worry, it doesn’t really matter. If your frame of mind works for you, then that’s great. This post is 110% speculative. I’m not saying here that you need to change your way of thinking, merely that you need to make the most of it, and realise the benefits that your circumstances have given you. However… if you can be aware of how you think, then you are better placed to self-critique, therefore better questioning your current way of working, and helping yourself to continually improve.

Thirdly, networking and conversing with those outside your regular workplace can be a great way to understand your current thought processes. This can be achieved even better by looking across sectors, either by reading their professional and practitioner literature or interacting with real people (gasp!). It doesn’t matter if those you meet have a similar way of thinking, because if you have realised that they do, then that also means you have become aware of how you, yourself, think! Plus, seeing your personal traits in another sometimes makes it easier to critique them. I’m not saying insult yourself, merely be aware of way in which characteristics and patterns could be built upon, creases smoothed, and the mental thinking process eased out.

Hopefully all of this will provide additional confidence in a way of thinking, leading to new ideas, enthusiasm and a feeling like you are an esteemed psychology professor. Don’t go adding PhD after your name though, that’s just lying (unless you actually have a PhD, in which case it’s fine).

So to round this post off in neat-ish summary, Heaney was aware of his potato based past, subsequently reflected on it in a poem and ended up in the GCSE anthology. Who knows what he would have achieved if his past was based in a library?

*Disclaimer – whilst I enjoy poetry, my ability to analyse it is rather poor. I am however aware that Digging by Heaney is no doubt about more than just Potatoes, peat and hard labour.*

The Effect of the Modern Education Structure on Professional Development

The Background

Last week I attended the SLA Panel session at Internet Librarian International (ILI) and even after a busy day, several thoughts managed to occur to me throughout the evening.

A momentary flash of (potential) insight that I would like to reflect on relates to moving forward in ones career and future-proofing yourself for future job roles. This stemmed from a comment that Dave Pattern made with reference to a blog post by Ed Chamberlain – Ed talks about getting ready for future roles and developing new skills.

I was thereby pondering how people think about preparing to advance to the next stage of their career and how people are encouraged to adopt a mind set for forward thinking. I thought I would have a go at relating this to a change in educational techniques and their impact on new professionals and the next wave of information-professionals-to-be.

What this related to in my head

As anyone who reads the broadsheets supposedly knows, exams are getting easier year on year (at least so they say). Any contention put aside, a far more concrete statement would be that exams are becoming modular, more frequent, and with greater regularity. Less time is spread between them, creating a series of relatively short term goals. Each exam seems to act as a gentle stepping stone to the next level; GCSE to AS, AS to A2 etc. Students are therefore becoming used to constantly looking to the next challenge, and to a higher level. They are forced to plan ahead; the grades and subjects chosen, to a certain extent, shaping their options further down the line.

This needs to be combined with a new professionals’ view of the job market (or anyone’s view of the job market for that matter) – it is tough and unforgiving. Many jobs that become available for those with little pre or post qualification experience early in their careers are short fixed term contracts. This creates a mobile, fluid culture, reinforcing notions learned during their education of short, fixed term goals and achievements. To a recent school or university leaver, it would appear that the days of building loyalty to a firm are no more – instead entrants to a profession are encouraged, and to a certain extent, forced to move around frequently. This may come as a shock to some library positions in which traditionally a post was held and developed by an individual for a long period of time.

How does this become of relevance to me (and you)?

It means that there is a shift in thinking with regard to how people get ready for future job roles. Over the coming years there will be gradually less talk of ensuring that you prepare yourself for the next role or position – this kind of thinking will already be ingrained in the heads of those entering the profession as they think about moving up the career ladder.

Instead, as Bethan Ruddock explained during the panel session, there will be an emphasis on ensuring that people look two, or three, steps above and beyond where they want to be, ensuring that they can develop the skills necessary to get there, and to ensure that you don’t box yourself into a corner.

Employers too will need to ensure that they increase their talent development programmes if they wish to retain staff and develop individuals. Time needs to be invested to explain that one can mature and develop skills in a single place across a period of time, it is not always necessary to move on; rather job roles can be adapted and to a certain extent redefined to keep their employees keen and to help them develop themselves, and therefore the organisation.

 Employees will need to perfect a fine balance of loyalty against progression. Not easy terms to remedy against one another.

This shift in mentality also means that a greater emphasis on obtaining the skills needed to advance will slowly develop over time, as opposed to dedicating resources to general awareness. Cases of staff becoming complacent within roles may gradually diminish due to the continuation of the unstable financial situation worldwide. This may also be linked to the rise in professional networks – it is becoming easier to interact with others in the profession than it ever was before, helping employees remember why it is that they enjoy the profession they entered.

The other change I think will occur as a result of this change in thought patterns is a greater emphasis on evidence based seminars, presentations and papers. Students have been reassured by figures and obtaining the “right answer” throughout their educational careers, using an evidence base will therefore be reassuring to them. The theoretical side will still remain, but it will be here with numbers, facts and figures. An attempt to quantify advances will be desired. Evidence based practice will start to arrive in the world of the practitioner to a greater extent than it currently has, and it will expand to career development, not remaining solely within the workplace.

Developing the Profession

Initial Thoughts

I have been pondering involvement with professional bodies for some time now, and thought I would muse via a blog post to force me to pin some thoughts down. I also wanted to think about those with time constraints and those that do not belong to a professional body, and the challenges that face them.

Professional development (PD) is a common phrase when discussing participation in professional activities outside of the workplace. In line with my recent trend of getting bogged down in semantics, I feel that this provides a very one-sided view, and suggests that only the individual will benefit from their involvement; developing their CV without helping others.

I would therefore like to point out (something that is probably obvious) how professional development activities can help and assist others too.  In this sense, I make reference to something I would like to call “developing the profession” as opposed to the traditional professional development.

Tangible Vs Intangible Involvement

**additional thought dated 24/10/2011* These terms may be better referred to as demonstrable and it’s antonym (which currently eludes me).*

When you become involved in a seminar, a board, attend a course, or simply express an interest in something that is happening outside of your workplace, it is not only you who benefits. This is demonstrated in two ways; tangible and intangible involvement.

If an event has been organised, or a newsletter published, then the benefits to others are clear – you have something tangible that you are providing.

However, there are other ways to aid the profession, and not just through involvement with professional bodies. Simply by keeping up to date with current developments in libraries (there are no shortage of them) can be a great way to help the profession, your organisation and yourself. The enthusiasm gained from current awareness may begin to rub off within a team or onto peers, being aware of current affairs can make you a strong advocate for the profession, and strengthen your confidence in what you do on a day to day basis – intangible benefits.

This enthusiasm can ensure that jobs remain fresh, and new ideas and advancements can be brought into a workplace creating exciting projects, or helping to re-examine the best way to achieve a daily necessity. In a similar way to how networking events can introduce new ideas, or how seminars can ignite thoughts, awareness and passion will reflect back into your job and on those around you – thereby fulfilling one of the main purposes of professional development.

Final Thoughts

Despite the enjoyment that full involvement within a body provides, it can be time consuming and therefore not possible for all, but broadening the PD remit to include a bit of enthusiasm and help for the profession at large can help to provide a similar sense of satisfaction. By simply attending an event, or discussing current LIS affairs, if one can prompt others to read a blog post or newspaper article, or even just enjoy their day a little bit more, then that is still a success.

So think not of professional development as a singular term, rather link it to the wider remit of developing a profession.

Putting Nerves and Expectations into Practice

I have recently decided to get out and about in the library world more than I currently do. After all, I can now try to make the most of my time when travelling to events following my attempts to change my working routine (See Working Habits and the Window People).

My first attempt to do this will be to head over to Manchester for the SLA ‘Future Ready’ event. I’m a bit nervous as this will be my first ‘proper’ event that I have attended outside of the confines of my librarianship programme, though it is the potential networking after the session that is causing the most apprehension. No doubt it will be fine, but there is that ‘unknown’ factor loitering in the back of my mind.

The main point of this though, is not to illustrate that I am nervous, but rather to explore the expectations associated with the wider ‘library world’ that I have been taught so much about. We have had numerous sessions on networking, but until now I have only had a chance to use my new-found skills on a friend of a friend who happened to work in a library, and other unsuspecting librarianship students. I’m interested to see if I make use of any of the skills that I have been taught. Are elevator speeches useful as introductions, or do they make you sound a bit strange where a simple ‘hello’ would have sufficed? Do ‘open twos’ and ‘closed threes’ really work in the way textbooks say that they do?

Personally, I’m still more than a bit sceptical about the way in which networking is taught and portrayed by journals and textbooks. It all seems far too artificial, far too constructed and rigid. This might be as I have only seen it from a classroom point of view. I’m hoping that the theoretical aspects will be mere observations extracted and adapted from real life into theory by academics in an attempt to make sense of how people interact. Deep down, I’m hoping for a group of friendly people with similar interests making for easy, and interesting, conversation. After all, us students have been rightly told many times over that librarianship is a ‘people profession’ (See The Wikiman’s post, the “Beyond Books” by @girlinthe and @ekcragg from The Guardian and the Library Routes project for just a few examples), so why stick to fixed confines of how to interact? Is it not better to just be yourself and try to leave a positive, friendly impression?

The subtext to all of this is the extent to which my masters is preparing me for the professional world. I think I have a good amount of experience, having done quite a lot of volunteering in various libraries and archives alongside my graduate traineeship, but that was all before I was expected to know things, as opposed to surprising people when I accidently knew things- I’m now a lot closer to being classed as a ‘professional’ than I ever was previously. My course is very good and it is serving its purpose as a ‘professional preparation masters’ by giving me an excellent grounding in the information world. The way in which the teaching is designed replicates the workplace in many ways, however, there is only a certain extent that it can help me in the real world and the rest is up to me to put in the effort. As I have not been working during my studies I was concerned that my links to the profession would dwindle. I hope that professional events will enable me to contemplate useful applications to the course material we have been taught. This should enable me to think about the theory as useful practical examples, and the SLA event will be my first attempt at doing so!