So I've actually made it to the final task 6 months on! I think that I've surprised myself as I'm not great about sticking to a course of action without specific motivation or someone expecting to see the results.
Will I continue to blog? To be honest, I'm not sure. I think that I would now be confident enough to write a blog as part of a job that I was doing or for an organisation that I was working for, but to blog personally without a purpose would be difficult. Glancing at the stats for viewings of my blog, I was always amazed that anybody actually read it!
I have enjoyed participating in CPD23 as I do enjoy learning whether by attending classes or through online courses. Prior to starting CPD23 I completed an IT User Skills course by distance learning online. And next...? Well, I've just started another online course (free!) - on cataloguing - run by the University of North Texas (thanks to @bethanar for the Twitter tip-off about these courses) so I'm obviously a bit of an addict or a glutton for punishment.
So I'm ending CPD23 still looking for my first break into the profession of librarianship, but how would I sum up the journey in 6 words? New skills, new community, new opportunities.
Showing posts with label distance learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distance learning. Show all posts
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Thing 20 - The Library Routes Project
I've decided to skip over Things 18 & 19 (for the moment!) as I want to devote more time to them than I currently have available. I have already talked a little about my library route in previous cpd23 blogs which you can read about in Thing 1 & Thing 10 , but to summarise my roots & route:
- An avid user of my local public library as a child. Bit of an obsession with 'information' - family joked that I couldn't go out anywhere without picking up leaflets, flyers, brochures for events, plays, courses... anything really!
- Volunteered in my secondary school library.
- Future career ideas included children's book illustrator, landscape gardener or meteorologist!
- Completed A levels at school.
- 3 years at university culminating in an English degree.
- 6 months working in an office to raise funds to go to drama school.
- 2 years studying Stage Management at drama school (Having stubbornly resisted opportunity to follow my father into a television career, despite the likelihood of earning more than in theatre! Second 'failure' at this point was not taking any inspiration from my mother who used to be a television script librarian...maybe genes are involved in my library roots after all.)
- 20 years working as a Stage Manager in theatre, opera & ballet (with a running joke amongst friends that I was going to open a bookshop)
- Mid-life crisis finds me considering a postgrad qualification (English? Open University?), but in the process of finally renewing my Bodleian Library membership in preparation, I stumble upon the details of the graduate traineeships which then leads me to thinking about doing a library masters.
- Spend 6 months unsuccessfully applying for graduate traineeships & entry level jobs whilst still working as a Stage Manager.
- Give up the theatre work to gain some library experience voluntarily whilst doing temp work.
- Get a part-time job in a medical records library whilst continuing to work voluntarily in a primary school library & helping to catalogue the collections of a local private museum. I know that this doesn't show much focus on a particular sector, & I think that deep down my heart still belongs in the arts & cultural world, so a library job in a connected area would be great.
- The Present: still searching for that elusive first job, & considering applying for a distance learning masters course.
I have previously dipped into The Library Routes Project, but for the purposes of this blog I decided to work my way through as many of the entries as possible & pick out some which either seemed similar to my situation or gave me hope & inspiration! Favourites included Tixylix's http://lib-reflections.blogspot.com/2010/07/roots-and-routes.html & Scarpagirl's http://www.scarpagirl.com/a-lass-in-libraryland/2009/10/24/library-rootsroutes.html for their journeying towards librarianship in the creative arts. I also enjoyed Sarah Barker's http://sarahgb.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/how-i-came-to-be-a-librarian/ & Sara Batts' http://uncookeddata.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/library-routes-or-an-accidental-librarian/ for their description of later career changes into librarianship (the similarity in names is a coincidence!).
- An avid user of my local public library as a child. Bit of an obsession with 'information' - family joked that I couldn't go out anywhere without picking up leaflets, flyers, brochures for events, plays, courses... anything really!
- Volunteered in my secondary school library.
- Future career ideas included children's book illustrator, landscape gardener or meteorologist!
- Completed A levels at school.
- 3 years at university culminating in an English degree.
- 6 months working in an office to raise funds to go to drama school.
- 2 years studying Stage Management at drama school (Having stubbornly resisted opportunity to follow my father into a television career, despite the likelihood of earning more than in theatre! Second 'failure' at this point was not taking any inspiration from my mother who used to be a television script librarian...maybe genes are involved in my library roots after all.)
- 20 years working as a Stage Manager in theatre, opera & ballet (with a running joke amongst friends that I was going to open a bookshop)
- Mid-life crisis finds me considering a postgrad qualification (English? Open University?), but in the process of finally renewing my Bodleian Library membership in preparation, I stumble upon the details of the graduate traineeships which then leads me to thinking about doing a library masters.
- Spend 6 months unsuccessfully applying for graduate traineeships & entry level jobs whilst still working as a Stage Manager.
- Give up the theatre work to gain some library experience voluntarily whilst doing temp work.
- Get a part-time job in a medical records library whilst continuing to work voluntarily in a primary school library & helping to catalogue the collections of a local private museum. I know that this doesn't show much focus on a particular sector, & I think that deep down my heart still belongs in the arts & cultural world, so a library job in a connected area would be great.
- The Present: still searching for that elusive first job, & considering applying for a distance learning masters course.
I have previously dipped into The Library Routes Project, but for the purposes of this blog I decided to work my way through as many of the entries as possible & pick out some which either seemed similar to my situation or gave me hope & inspiration! Favourites included Tixylix's http://lib-reflections.blogspot.com/2010/07/roots-and-routes.html & Scarpagirl's http://www.scarpagirl.com/a-lass-in-libraryland/2009/10/24/library-rootsroutes.html for their journeying towards librarianship in the creative arts. I also enjoyed Sarah Barker's http://sarahgb.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/how-i-came-to-be-a-librarian/ & Sara Batts' http://uncookeddata.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/library-routes-or-an-accidental-librarian/ for their description of later career changes into librarianship (the similarity in names is a coincidence!).
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