Handover meeting

My last mentor meeting was a bit of a hand over as my current mentor is finishing work soon to go on maternity leave. It was great that she took me on as a mentee at such a busy time and I really appreciate it - considering that she didn't know me before we started the process, I think it shows a real dedication to developing the profession.

The handover meeting went well. It was quite reflective as it seemed like a good point to review where we've got to and what we have to do moving forwards. Basically, more forms (for someone who hates filling in forms I seem to attract them like iron filings to a magnet). I think my fear of forms (or any sort of admin) combined with a tendency to put off anything I don't like might be one of my biggest weaknesses so I'm going to make a big effort to tackle this and get myself organised...

I find blogging is a really good way to brainstorm and using a to-do tag helps me to take action rather than just record ideas - once the actions are complete the to-do tag can be removed...

Here's my list for the transfer process:

1) Send role profile, organisational chart and any other info about my setting to my new mentor.
2) Review my PDPP(PDDP? - ah, who cares!) and send it to my new mentor to sign and return.
3) Bundle the revised PDPP with the mentoring agreement and the completion form from my old mentor and whap it off to CILIP with a covering note.
4) Confirm that it has been received and understood at CILIP HQ (this last point is very important!).

Other actions that arose are to sort out a CDG course actually, why not do that now...

...ok, job's a good'n - there's a course in London on 13.05 so hopefully I'll get a place...

Development Planning & Forms

Ok - time to get the forms in the post and registered. My mentor has approved my development plan so this post will summarise that and should act as a good work plan for next year. It's cool that, being a solo librarian, I'm able to base my development aims on where I want the library to go over the next year - thus this post is both a development plan and a work plan for 2008. I'll list the objectives in this post and then go into more detail in separate posts for each objective. I'll also define tags that I can use in future posts and (hopefully) at the end this will tie everything together.

Here's my 5 objectives:

1) Improve knowledge of journals management techniques.

2) Develop the skills and knowledge needed to redevelop the library web pages.

3) Improve subject knowledge.

4) Develop skills and knowledge in cataloguing and preservation techniques for archiving historically important material.

5) Develop awareness of reading promotion techniques.

These are fairly broad objectives but they relate to specific things I want to achieve with the library next year...

1) Get more out of the journals collection. I'm not really happy with the supply or usage at the moment. This objective is about getting better value out of the journals collection.

2) The library webpages are in drastic need of a revamp - the content at the moment is static and really about describing the libraries processes and proceedures. That's ok but how many people will read lengthy documents about how to use the library - if they need to know something they normally ask. What I would like to do is maintain access to this information while pushing content to the front with rss feeds - the website should be about promoting resources and library use.

3) Improve subject knowledge. This has been a fairly random activity up to now and needs to improve. I want to know about new subject areas quickly so that published info is on the shelves before people ask for it.

4) I have loads of historical documents and a room.

5) The reading promotion one is really about formalising my awareness that the library needs promoting. Constantly. This is a bit broader than the work role and includes promoting reading as a way to promote the library. It's about recognising that by developing a learning, reading culture, the library can contribute to the quality of information that people use.