| Lis-la-charter
LESHA FOSSEY
In the March 2000 edition of Impact, there were two short articles about Chartership Get-togethers, which described how two groups of Charter candidates met up in pubs in London and St Albans to discuss Chartering issues. One of the contributors mentioned that the Library Association (CILIP) didn’t provide a forum for informal meetings such as these, so I thought that Career Development Group members might be interested to know exactly how these get-togethers came to happen. It was due to the Mailbase e-mail discussion list Lis-la-charter, which I set up and now co-own. This is the story of Lis-la-charter (as previously told in the January edition of the Devon & Cornwall Division’s
Contact newsletter).
I qualified as a Librarian in 1994. In October 1997, filled with enthusiasm about Chartering after attending an CILIP meeting, I decided to see if I could set up an e-mail discussion list for Charter candidates. I hoped that this list would provide a forum for Charter candidates to discuss issues concerning the profession as a whole (as required in Professional Development Reports or PDRs), as well as issues specific to Chartering. I sent a message to lis-link (the Mailbase e-mail list for Librarians) in order to gauge potential interest in such a list, and received over 120 positive responses. Therefore a proposal for a new list was sent to Mailbase. The list (called lis-la-charter) went 'live' on 8th January 1998, and by 12th January there were nearly 200 members. The current membership total is over 650.
Discussion on the list usually has a lull of several weeks, then flares up for a while when a question is posted to the list. Subjects discussed have included non-traditional LIS jobs and Chartering, PDR formats, problems for Route-B candidates, financial support for Chartering, and whether all Librarians file their own music CDs in alphabetical order! As a result of discussions on the list, there have been at least two informal meetings of list members (in Bristol and London) where people have met (at the pub!) to discuss their concerns, look at PDRs, drink beer, etc.
If you are a qualified Librarian who has not yet Chartered you may find membership of this list useful and enjoyable. If you have access to the WWW, then go to the list’s homepage
(http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/lis-la-charter/) and follow the joining instructions. If you do not have web access, send an e-mail to
mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk and in the body of the e-mail write join lis-la-charter yourfirstname yourlastname (e.g. join lis-la-charter John Smith). Leave the subject line of the e-mail blank.
I hope to see some new members soon! By the way, I still haven’t Chartered!
Lesha Fossey
Assistant Librarian, Circulation Services
University of Exeter
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