- Phil Bradley is running for CILIP Vice-Presidency! See Phil's blog for the announcement. How amazingly ace is that? If he is elected he will of course serve as President the following year - someone of his vision and technological know-how could position CILIP as a leader of the community, if he is able to wield as much power as I hope he is. Phil is an enormously popular and influential figure in the library community online and in the flesh, and in my own experience an absolutely lovely bloke. I think his bid should have real momentum behind it, as many of us were very disappointed that he wasn't interviewed for the CEO position (although understanding of why that was). It's also a great demonstration of putting money where mouth is, and stepping up, rather than just criticising from a comfortable arm-chair. So, when the time comes, if you believe in what Phil has to say about CILIP's future, make sure you vote Bradley...
- CILIP have announced their new Chief Exec! Annie Mauger has been appointed; here's the CILIP press release to announce it. I'm excited about this appointment for a few reasons - she's got lots of library history and lots of advocacy stuff on her CV that isn't directly library-related, so she should hopefully provide a fresh perspective on that side of things. She's also on twitter already, and responded to an absolute deluge of new followers wishing her well on the day of her appointment with admirable courtesy and taking-it-in-her-strideness (is that a real phrase?) - must be quite overwhelming to suddenly have to engage with hundreds of members of the organisation you're taking over, on the day of the announcement rather than when you actually start (November 1st).. Despite not being a huge twitter user previously, Annie seemed to take the time to respond to everyone's good wishes individually, and she asked for guidance on twitter usage - I'm hoping this signifies a new era in which CILIP may be more amenable to admitting vulnerability...
- Have you read @ijclark (aka Thoughts of a Wannabe Librarian)'s piece in the Guardian about the value of libraries? It's absolutely ace - you can read it here. Gives examples, sets out a convincing case, avoids sounding up-tight or hectoring- and it's in the freaking Guardian! Escaping the Echo Chamber proper, there - Ian just emailed the Comment is Free website, proposed a piece, they said yes, he wrote it, bang. Getting published on a non-library-specific platform and being read by thousands of people is that easy! Obviously you need to have something to say and a decent knack for saying it, and Ian already has a very well written blog from which to extrapolate and formalise ideas, but the point is to just try stuff and see if it comes off, and don't assume that national media won't be interested in what you have to say. W00t.
- Still a couple of places left on 'Developing Our Professional Skills'. There are still a couple of days left to book the remaining places on the Career Development Group's Yorkshire & Humberside AGM - you can see the official blurb here, or read my own version with a little bit more about the echolib presentation Woodsiegirl and I will be giving - Marketing the Information Profession: Escaping the Echo Chamber. We've successfully lobbied for it to be opened up to non Yorkshire & Humberside members, which is mint.
- Finally: this blog is one year old today! The first anniversary of the inaugural blog post is actually Saturday - and what an uninteresting blog post it was. It feels a lot longer than a year - I feel plugged in and connected to my profession in a way I wasn't before I started, from the basic stuff like literally hearing about events I'd like to attend that I wouldn't otherwise know about, to the more exciting stuff like have a network of peers I can ask to work with me on stuff like LISNPN and the Library Routes Project. (The next blog post WILL be about LISNPN!) Another thing blogging has allowed me to do is take blog posts and turn them into articles for publication, a bit like Ian did above: my piece on escaping the Echo Chamber will be made available here as soon as Library & Information Update's 3 month embargo has expired. I've just passed a subscription milestone and am really chuffed about that - so thank you to everyone who reads this stuff, and comments, and makes the time put into this blog worthwhile. :)I've always been interested in stats and stuff, and certainly blogging provides plenty. Here's a top-10 of the most read posts in the year of this blog's existence: self indulgent I know, but it is a birthday and I know I'd be interested in going back over other people's blogs and seeing if there were any popular posts I'd missed...
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