Hello readers, you’re looking smashing today. There are blue skies and sunshine outside my window- deceiving me into thinking it’s warm out there. It’s the Spring equinox today, so there is a certain lightness to my step, I must admit. Sunshine is a definite mood lifter for me. There have been several other mood enhancers in my life over the past couple of weeks.
My librarian colleague and I attended a HEE Specialist Librarian day in a sparkly coference room in London last week, which was all about resilience, knowing your worth as a professional, and advocating for the impact librarians and library services can have in trusts. You’ve chosen to read a clinical librarian
’s blog post, so you’re likely to already be aware of the value of librarians in healthcare, but it can be difficult to explain when faced with a room of doctors, or senior managers, so having some time and space to think about this, and suggestions of tools to make it easier, was very welcome. The food was awesome too- warm scones for afternoon tea, yum. I’ve written it up as a blog post which will hopefully appear on a bigger blog than this one (not that I’m not proud of this little corner!).
I then delivered a repeat performance (wth #Billythelibrarycat) of my social media workshop for the East Midlands librarian assistant networking day. I was the first act up this time, which was daunting, but again it went well, and I got some great immediate feedback. I’ll be interested to see if I made it onto the formal feedback too- something for my chartership portfolio?
Talking of chartership, I’ve written up some more reflections, and started to look at what else I need to write. I think a couple of days in a darkened room might lead to the emergence of a first draft. I just need to find the time….
A mood lifting highlight of the last month is the well being reading group we’ve launched. Although we had a modest initial turnout, we have distributed lots of books. We’re reading The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul D
idierLaurent. Don’t tell, but I read it before the first meeting, it was a joy. Not anything I’d have picked up usually, but I enjoyed it immensely. We’ve also secured a doozy for our second read so if you’re a George Eliot staff member and you would like to join in, please shout! I’ve set up a virtual group on the Goodreads site, so people will be able to join in even if they’re not able to see us in person. We all know how difficult diaries can be to co-ordinate! Honestly, I can’t believe this is my job- reading and talking about books for a living, how fantastic.
So, coming up- this is the blog equivalent of movie trailers- I’ve got a Grey Literature searching session to attend, and I know that unless you’re a librarian you won’t get it, but I’m soooo looking forward to it. Oh, and the biggest news of all… I’ve got a bursary from the fabulous HEE people to attend LILAC- the information literacy conference for librarians. 3 days in sunny Nottingham just after Easter. Woohoo! I’ll be blogging and tweeting and anything else ing I can think of. Watch this space.
Thanks for reading, have a great week!