Dumpling in a Hanky

So, between Thursday 13th June and Saturday 15th June, I attended the annual BIALL conference in Glasgow, thanks to the help of a generous bursary from BIALL. Now, due to funding restrictions with my previous employer, I'd not been able to attend this event since 2008 . As this is the main professional event for the UK legal information sector, I always felt frustrated that I was missing out on being somewhere where important developments were being discussed, and that I wasn't getting to make the connections with people that I should. However, since 2008, lots of things have changed, especially in the way people who are effectively strangers to each other can communicate. Basically: Twitter happened. Now, through Twitter, I feel like I have an excellent network of contacts both within my sector and outside it, and as I restrict the amount of people I follow/allow to follow me, I feel I really know them quite well. So when I need help with anything, I can ask my contacts...

Oh, Thing 14 was the last thing I did, back in August! Life and busyness in work got in the way, but I'm aiming for a full-on assault of lots of Things now, while I have a moment! Ok, so this was about attending, presenting at, and organising events. Now - two of those activities I'm perfectly happy with, and one puts the fear of God into me. Attending events I love doing this: I get to meet lots of interesting people, learn new things, and generally go away from them having gained lots of useful tips or contacts. The only problems for me attending events are: Time Time out of work to attend events is time that I'm not available to deal with enquiries, or do my day-to-day tasks, so it's got to be something relevant enough to my duties that being away from them will be recompensed by better skills to do those duties afterwards. Distance Often the most relevant courses and seminars for me are nowhere near me, usually in London. Attending a course in London woul...

So, for this Thing , I'm looking at my professional networks and organisations. CILIP / CILIPS I was never a student member, and only joined in the first place because 1) my employer paid the fees, and 2) my line manager at that time was heavily involved in the Scottish branch. The same pretty much applies now as the reasons for me maintaining my membership! Oh, and also because I'm Chartered now, and if you leave CILIP, you lose the Charter (which is fair enough - there's no point having a qualification that shows your commitment to your own and others professional development if there's no-one checking you're doing what you say you're doing) . What do I get from CILIP/CILIPS? Well, currently, not much. As a Chartership candidate, I attended a session on the process, and I've attended occasional events organised by CILIP, where I could squidge them to kind-of fit with my internal Appraisal goals. I get the CILIP info email on library related news, but ...

Are you: In Scotland? An information professional? Keen to improve your web research skills? Unlikely to get the time or funding to travel to London for the most popular and useful courses by experienced trainers? Then come to this training day  in Edinburgh on Monday 13th June. Presented on behalf of the Scottish Law Librarians Group , Phil Bradley will be leading a full day course (split into a morning and afternoon session), first on getting the most out of Google, and then going beyond Google to using other online resources and tools. If you're interested, contact the organiser soon - places are limited, and only a few are left!

Yay, it's almost time for the festive grumbling-about-suppliers and muttering-about-budgets SLLG Christmas meeting! And the musical speed-networking chairs game! No Scottish law librarian Christmas is complete without it! It's that time of year again. This year's Christmas networking meeting will be held on Wednesday 9th December at 4pm in the SSC Library . Christine Wilcox has kindly offered to be host again and the meeting will be sponsored by Avizandum. We will be sticking to our usual "speed networking" format followed by the ever-popular "mulled wine and mince pies" format. If you would like to come please let me know and if you have any suggestions for discussion topics, even better. If you're a member of the Scottish Law Librarians Group, I hope to see you there. And *ssshhh*...I may even bring along some teeth-melting tablet too... Also, while typing the title to this post, I created what I believe to be a new type of meeting: "new...

So, I've previously blogged my Library Roots , and added it to the wiki of the Library Routes project (and if you haven't done yours yet, get adding - it's fascinating!). I thought I'd now add info on my Library Route, i.e. how I ended up doing what I do today. Well...it all started off a bit randomly. I'd qualified, and now I needed a job. I was scouring the CILIP Gazette job section, and the library recruitment agencies, and the local authority job sites here in Edinburgh, hoping to find something, anything, that would let me work! But it's not easy, even in the Capital of the country, to find a job when you don't have any official experience. So really, after a couple of months, and with the savings going down fast, I needed a job. I saw a post for a part-time library assistant at a private members society library within the Scottish courts complex at Parliament Square. I had no idea what a librarian would do in a court library, but I got the job, a...

So, on Monday afternoon, it was time for the now-annual Scottish Law Librarians Group jaunt to the Edinburgh International Book Festival . Every year, the Committee try and decide on an event that's as relevant to the members as possible (law related, Scottish issues, publishers with a Scottish interest), and at as convenient a time as possible...and that we can get enough tickets for. As you can imagine, that's not always an easy trick, but I think we did well this year, and even managed to get a day when the mud was minimal, despite the signs warning us about it! The event chosen was Michael Mansfield. The info's gone from the site now, but it was: Michael Mansfield Mon 31/08/2009 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM From Ruth Ellis to Jean Charles de Menezes, Bloody Sunday to the Marchioness disaster, Michael Mansfield has taken on many of the most difficult cases of our times. The Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer recalls a career defending the innocent (and sometimes the guil...

Once again, another SLLG members event has been organised, this time we're sorting out our poor, abused books:  The National Library of Scotland have agreed to host and deliver a Book Preservation Awareness Workshop for SLLG members.  This half-day session takes a pro-active approach to preservation and the training will be provided by a qualified conservator.  The workshop will cover the causes of deterioration and the basic first aid treatments to apply once the root cause of the damage has been identified. Topics for the Book Preservation Awareness Workshop: 1.         Prevention is better than cure 2.         Basic repair methods to include tip-ins and tears 3.         Four-flap enclosure 4.         Proper use of Clarkson Book Cradles 5.         Book handling 6.    ...

From BBC News website: "Members of staff at the National Library of Scotland point to an extract taken from one of the first books printed in Scotland, which forms part of the 500 years of the Scottish Printed Word exhibition. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images." If you're a member of the Scottish Law Librarians Group (SLLG) , you'll have already been sent your invite to this years event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The SLLG likes to try and ensure that members get the maximum benefit from the group, and as last years Book Festival visit proved so popular, it's been decided that this should become an annual jaunt. So, this year, we've selected the following as (hopefully) being of interest to as many members as possible, and at a good time to allow everyone the chance to attend: "Bill Bell, David Finkelstein & Alistair McCleery: Books and Society Tue 19/08/2008 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM As Scotland celebrates 500 years of printing, edito...