All entries for Wednesday 23 May 2007

Inspire visit

Writing about web page http://www.inspire.gov.uk/

Jess and I met with a lady through the Inspire scheme. She is currently working in an FE library and is trying to decide whether or not she wants to make the move to HE (where she has previous experience). This lady is already Chartered but has been out of the Library sector for some time so is in the process of making decisions on her future career, and is considering applying for jobs similar to the ones that Jess and I do.

She wanted to meet with us to find out about what we do and how we fit in to the University.

A whole day was planned for her within Warwick Library, including meetings with various members of staff and visits to various departments. She spent one hour with Jess and myself discussing our roles.

We prepared in advance by finding and printing off various documents, such as our job descriptions and the terms of reference for the working groups that we each belong to etc. We also found examples of some of the work we have produced or been involved in (resource guides, customer guides, publicity work etc.) which she could take away. She had a lot of questions and we tried to answer them, but I did feel a bit like the session was not really long enough to cover all the things that Jess and I had planned for it. 

I also felt that the session could have been better planned, more structured and then we may have covered more material in a way which she might still have been able to absorb. I think this illustrates one of my many fears of teaching. I am not great at planning sessions or putting materials together. Structuring things for other people is not one of my strong points.

It also highlights the fact that there is little time in the day to do these things.  Jess and I had about half an hour to meet and plan for the session and after that we had to find the written information, print and collate it, book the room, set up the pc, log in to the LMS and various bits of web sites we wanted to use and generally figure out what was going on. The first and only meeting we had about it was the afternoon before, and this left us with preparation to do at home. 

Being involved in things outside of my normal job is important to me. But again, I have to be careful not to take too much on (see this entry).

Katharine Widdows : 23 May 2007 14:45 |  Tags: Career Communication Infosharing Libraryschemes Lis Widerprofession |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem