First Steps...

What seems clear from all the information I can find, online, through my mentor and through friends, is that a lot of what chartership is about is - capturing. It isn't enough to be working at the appropriate professional level, you have to be documenting this experience. Not only that, you must be reflecting on that experience and using it to inform your progress.


Initially I will evaluate my job descriptions and highlight areas which I can use as evidence, or which I can build on to improve. As I have two jobs in two different academic libraries, I should have lots of duties and responsibilities to document, hopefully!


I will also be attending conferences and workshop to improve my skills. I have already attended a workshop in reflective writing (at Birmingham Library) earlier this year which has help me to think critically about how to document and reflect in a constructive way. We were asked to consider the wider impact of actions taken and how these can be documented. i.e. when writing a report within an organisation about a situation it is important to consider not just the impact to you or your immediate colleagues, but also to the wider organisation and to the service users. This perceptive can help to add a level of professionalism to a reflective piece of writing. What did we do? Why did we do it? What was the outcome to: us, the organisation, our users and wider public....


I intend to add to twitter conversations concerning chartership and share my experiences. I will be looking for and following other people's blogs and social media content that are also working towards chartership. I hope to be part of a collaborate community of people that are progressing within libraries and information services.


I would like to think that both my positive and negative experiences within my professional working career have shaped me for the better as a library professional. Chartership will give me a focus to channel this reflective practice of recording, reflecting and then acting.

In Defence of Chartership

Many of us within the library and information community have mixed feelings about Chartership accreditation. I will details some of the main reservations that I have encountered. I will then outline my own reasons for beginning CILIP chartership. 

Here are some of the reasons for why some people are put off from chartership:

1. Time

I'm currently studying for a master in library science and my hand-in date for my dissertation is 25th September. When telling some of my friends and co-workers (who are involved in LIS related endeavours) about my enrollment on chartership they have expressed that they won't have to time to do it, let alone me. To a certain extent I see there point. This is my schedule for the rest of this month:

2. Lack of respect for the qualification

Some people I have spoken to are pretty anti CILIP registration in general. One person said that when they were chartered (many years ago) all they needed was two years in a professional role and they were automatically a chartered librarian. 

Someone else said that you don't need to be chartered and that many librarians are not chartered and don't see themselves as needing it. I can understand why for some people who have finished a accredited qualification from a library course would be unwilling to start more training to further prove themselves. 

3. Cost

The fact that chartership costs - even when it isn't very expensive - can put some people off. As far as I'm aware employers generally don't paid for this, but perhaps some do. 

Why I am embarking on chartership

I am currently working in a role that includes duties and responsibilities at a professional level. I look after the science and mathematics collection at a sixth form college which includes book purchases and stock reviews, online content management, development of finding aides and resources. I also delivery workshops and induction with students and I am lead for information literacy at the library I work at. All of these duties can be used as evidence towards my chartership application when I come to submit. If I am already working at a professional level, why won't I want this to be recognised?

The process of documenting, reflecting and acting is crucial to improving practice. As a current student at the (relative) start of my professional career, I feel that support in honing these skills would benefit me greatly. Although I am comfortable in my current employment, the ability to reflect on my practice will help me when I come to look for new employment, especially during application and interview stages. 

These are some of the main reasons that I feel that chartership is worth working towards, others have also said that they want to act as a positive force for improvement within our profession and also that they want to help improve CILIP from the 'inside'. 

I will use this blog to document my journey toward chartership. I will post my opinions and comments and thought by other people too. I hope that this blog will also be read y other people doing chartership and help stimulate debate on this subject.