"Inspiring the Future" - day trip to Swansea

We went to Swansea Institute on Thursday 13th June, not quite knowing what
to expect from a full day aimed at Library Assistants - with no professional
Librarians in sight!
We arrived to find a room full of approx. 25 library assistants from
academic, public and hospital libraries.
The day was to be split into two halves - the morning dedicated to
identifying our training needs, and the afternoon tackling Social Exclusion
in libraries.

The morning began with an introduction by Neil Smyth from University of
Wales Swansea, who had organised the whole day's events. The first speaker
was Tracy Long, President of the Career Development Group. She explained
that the Career Development Group promotes, supports and represents the
development needs of new and existing Library and Information workers and
students. See their web site for further details:
www.careerdevelopmentgroup.org.uk. This group is part of CILIP, which was
formally the Library Association, and it came as a great surprise to
everyone in the room that this organisation is open to include all library
workers, and not just professional staff.
Tracy told us that their voice raises awareness of issues such as low pay
and equal opportunities. She showed us the jobs available in the
appointments section of CILIP's journal, and emphasised the skills required
for Library Assistant posts i.e. communication, interpersonal skills, use of
diverse resources, quality service, assisting users, team work and
flexibility. We were delighted to realise that we already had these key
skills and were obviously considered VIP's in the library world!!!

The second speaker of the morning was Paul Jeorrett, Chair of University
College and Research Wales, which is also part of CILIP. Links to UC&R can
be found on CILIP's website: www.cilip.org.uk
Paul started off by telling us a little bit about his background, which is
mainly in academic libraries. He emphasised that the barriers between
academic and public libraries, management and staff, and professional and
the rest of us, needed breaking down. We are all in the same game, and
experience and practice are as important as professional qualifications.

We broke into mixed groups to discuss: What are our training needs? and What
events do we want? We were a bit apprehensive to start, but soon realised
that we all had much in common and the ensuing discussions proved to be
lively and enthusiastic! After our half-hour discussions, which proved
difficult for Neil to break up!!, we fed back our ideas and were pleased to
have Neil highlight the need for further events.

Lunch took us to the canteen, where further conversation proceeded and we
found ourselves eager to return to the afternoon session. Not even the
pasta, chips and baguettes could call us away for long!
John Vincent, who has a long background in public libraries, but now
freelances on providing courses that highlight Social Exclusion, was our
speaker. Not quite knowing what "Social Exclusion" meant, we heard him
explain that Social Exclusion can happen to anyone. This includes people who
wouldn't normally use a library, and the afternoon discussions looked into
the barriers and what practical solutions we could find to overcome these.
Our position is a little different to the public libraries, but with the
VC's strategic vision to encourage non-traditional students from the
valleys, we will find ourselves more and more involved with Social
Exclusion. We may need to address this problem in future training and
development planning.

We ended the day driving along the seafront, even though we couldn't see the
sea! This couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the day and all we had learnt.
We came away aware of how lucky we are, as far as training is concerned,
compared to our colleagues in other libraries. If this is read by anybody in
Senior Management, could we please suggest that our excellent training
facilities be offered to outside institutions? This could help with our
income generation and raise our local profile.
It had been a very informative and stimulating day and we are determined to
keep in touch with our fellow library assistants on the proposed e-mailing
list. As soon as we receive details, we will make sure to pass them on to
everyone. We are, and hope you will be, inspired for the future!

Please contact any of us if you have questions, or would like further
information.

Liz Blacker
Lynda Edwards
Lesley Hargraves
Nicola Sutton