CILIP WM AGM day

On Thursday 7^th February I attended a day event held by CILIP West Midlands branch. It was entitled ‘Promoting your service and the profession’ and was held at the Mary Seacole Library, Birmingham City University.

 

The event filled up within two days of the booking opening and there were approximately 50 delegates present. The agenda included the various activities:

• Staff from Mary Seacole gave an introduction to the university library service
• Gill Colbourne from Warwickshire library services spoke about how to promote a service which is part of a larger entity.
• Barbara Band gave her first official presentation as CILIP Vice President. It focussed on how she uses her role as a school librarian to promote the profession to a wider audience.  
• There was an overview of the changes being discussed relating to CILIP professional qualifications, given by Simon Edwards (Director of Professional Services at CILIP).
• CILIP West Midlands Chair Roger Fairman gave a brief overview of what’s next for the branch.
• There were also AGMs from CILIP West Midlands branch and two SIGs – CDG West Midlands and ARLG West Midlands.
• A tour of the Mary Seacole library.

There was a lively Twitter conversation surrounding the day’s hashtag #cwmagm13. In the absence of a marketing officer, I tweeted on behalf of the branch and an archive of related tweets can be found here. I found this to be quite fun and hope to soon post about the experience of live tweeting from events.

I found the day really interesting, and - as always – it was nice to hear people speak who are passionate about the profession. In my current role, I find it frustrating that we are bound by ‘one-size-fits-all’ guidelines established by the college’s marketing department. In my previous role in a school I had much more freedom to whatever was best for the library, without having to get it ‘okay-ed’ by a separate department. However, despite this I understand the college must protect it's brand. It was interesting to realise that although we all work in different library sectors, we still face many similar issues regarding promotion of the service.