Cilip
Read, listen and learn

This isn't me writing, but someone you should respect!
f 

Frances Hendrix

-----Original Message-----
From: Library and Information Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wendy Foster (Hywel Dda UHB - Knowledge Services Manager)
Sent: 17 July 2014 07:43
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: LIS-PROFESSION Digest - 14 Jul 2014 to 16 Jul 2014 (#2014-118)

I can understand why Tom felt the need to resign.  This is ridiculous!  However, CILIP has not been a democratic organisation for a long time so I suppose we should not be too surprised.  With this information now available to us all I think far fewer of us will be renewing our membership next time.  What would be the point?

I used to think there was some value in telling employers or prospective employers that I was a chartered member of CILIP, but frankly employers no longer know about or care about CILIP.  I'd have done far better spending my membership subscriptions on getting a masters degree and I think this is what those new to the profession are doing.  In any case, why would they join an organisation which treats it's members in this shameful fashion.


Wendy Foster


-----Original Message-----
From: Library and Information Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of LIS-PROFESSION automatic digest system
Sent: 17 July 2014 00:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: LIS-PROFESSION Digest - 14 Jul 2014 to 16 Jul 2014 (#2014-118)

There is 1 message totaling 349 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. The sad departure of Tom Roper

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Date:    Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:49:29 +0000
From:    Frances Hendrix <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: The sad departure of Tom Roper

I have taken the trouble of printing Tom's goodbye blog below for those of you who have not seen it.

Well it says so much doesn't it. All the hopes we had of the new Councillors, and where may I ask are the others who were voted in with Tom, when we the electorate wanted to see BIG changes and more democracy? Have then joined the 'old guard'.
So 6 months into his position on Council, the first debate of the new Governance proposals. Openness, democracy,  it seems not, rather closed sessions!!. Is this a British membership organisation we are referring to, and that I have paid subs to for  c45 years. It hints of something much more alien.

How do you feel about a third of Council seats being appointed and the President elected by the same Council.

BUT the saving grace and your opportunity to have your say, at least these proposals are going to Cilip's AGM in September, so stand by your beds!
What on earth is happening to Cilip? To miss quote a well know TV series 'Who on Earth do they think they are'?

Can they not see what they are doing with membership down to an all-time low of 13,342, and I would think after this dropping even more. Do they ever ask why? Of course with the multitude of closures of public libraries, and the replacement of qualified staff by volunteers and the 'silence of the Cilip lambs', it is obvious membership will drop, but what on earth are they doing to give help, courage and practical assistance to those of us who pay their wages and expenses! (Yes council members will claim expenses). And a risk register which hasn't registered the falling numbers. Glad they are not responsible for fire risk!!

I have highlighted Tom's last paragraph as it says it all. Do we care enough about our profession to allow this to go on. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHO DO THEY SUPPORT? Perhaps they should be paid by results in number of new members?

I know I will be slagged off for this by the same-old, but you know I don't care if I am, I am just so angry that we have lost Tom from this Council!
f




July 15, 2014
Farewell to CILIP Council
Today I e-mailed Martyn Wade, Chair of CILIP Council, to say I was resigning from CILIP Council. At the Council meeting on 8 July we debated, for the first time since I was elected to Council, the Governance Review proposals.
I have written before about the Governance Review<http://www.roper.org.uk/tr/2013/07/the-mystery-of-the-vanishing-cilip-governance-review-or-kittens-in-aeschylus.html>, and once more here: http://www.roper.org.uk/tr/2013/07/cilips-governance-review-update.html This review has been four years in preparation, and kept secret for most of that time. Indeed, at the first Council meeting I attended, in January of this year, the agenda item on it was taken in closed session. Then, only then, were the proposals put out for consultation.
Most of the proposals are innocuous, but there are two that are profoundly undemocratic, the proposal that a third of Council seats should be appointed, rather 13,than elected from the membership, and the proposal that Council, rather than the members, should elect the President. Council is recommending these to CILIP's AGM in September; I found myself in a minority of one when suggesting we should not support these when Council had its first opportunity to debate the substance of the proposals.
The Governance Review has been conducted during a period of a crisis in CILIP. As well as last year's failed proposal to change our name to ILPUK, membership has sunk, and continues to do so. At the beginning of 2010 we had nearly 18,000 members; this year, in March our membership fell to its lowest ever figure, 13,342. At Council meetings it seemed to me that tackling this was not seen as the central concern it should be. It is not worthy of an entry in our risk register.
That crisis may explain why the Governance Review shows such a lack of confidence in the profession at large. We are not to be trusted to elect a President, and when we elect Council members, our judgment is likely to be flawed, so must be tempered by appointed members, who need not be CILIP members.
We desperately need a strong professional association. We need it to set standards, to bring on new generations of professionals, to speak out for library services of every kind which find themselves under threat. If we mute the voice of members in the way our organisation is run, we weaken ourselves, and those who depend on the services we run will suffer.



Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs, PR6 7QR
Tel:  01257 274 833.   Mobile: 0777 55 888 03

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End of LIS-PROFESSION Digest - 14 Jul 2014 to 16 Jul 2014 (#2014-118)
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