This might well be the strap-line of our professional body rather than a mantra of the rail network which, with varying degrees of success, carries many of us to our places of work every day.
This Spring issue of Impact rings in the changes of the Career Development Group's New Year by examining a number of important changes proposed by our parent body, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
At the time of writing, the Framework for Professional Development is still being discussed, but it is essential that this discussion involves our own group members. As Marion Huckle writes: "it will need the active involvement and participation of the whole membership to turn the proposals into reality." So, do not just watch this space; make your voice heard as well. Let the editors or any of the national officers know what you think about the proposal to devise a body of professional knowledge.
What would you include? Do you agree with John Miller that
lists of core skills and competencies are only part of what
it means to be professional? If you are already chartered,
what do you you feel is the best way to certify that professionals
are staying up-to-date? Another plan proposed by CILIP will
potentially have far-reaching implications for the Career
Development Group. Proposed changes to the branch structure
to match regional development agencies will put the spotlight
on our own divisional structure, and the function of CILIP
branches is also set to change in terms of how they support
continuing professional development.
We need to look at how we take the group forward to best meet the needs of our members. The interview with the new group President provides a vision for the Group's future, but he also correctly claims that the Career Development Group needs to be driven by the needs of its membership. One of the claims I often read about on the chartership email list (LIS-CILIP-REG) is that CILIP is not supportive enough. If you feel this is the case, how might the Career Development Group help instead?
Thank you to those members who let us know what you thought about another recent change - the last issue of Impact, which appeared online only. This was a change which the Group reluctantly had to make because of financial constraints. The large number of hits on our web-site, however, suggests that this was a popular move, but we also recognise that there are members who, for whatever reason, also prefer to have access to the paper version.
The online-only version was always an experiment and not the start of a move towards only publishing Impact online and we would like to reassure members that maintaining a maximum number of paper issues is one of the Group's highest priorities.
This said, the Group did want to have the experience of publishing and promoting a current online issue (previously our web-site has just held an archive of selected articles) and we learnt a great deal from doing it. It enabled us to publish content which otherwise would not have been published, albeit with limiting access. To overcome this problem, the offer of printouts from the online issue still stands. Please contact the editors to obtain print-outs from the web-site if you do not have internet access.
