New Professionals and Career Development
I submitted a proposal for this year’s New Professionals Conference. It wasn’t accepted but I thought the process was worth saying something about. I’ve never really written a proposal for anything before, my last attempt was for a grant to attend the IATUL conference last year, but the powers that be encouraged me to submit a version that wasn’t really my own. I didn’t get the grant. I got one of those ‘the submissions were of such a high standard this year’ so thanks, but no.
I think what really made me what to take part in the New Professionals Conference this year is that it’s being hosted at Sheffield. Our library (in general) has a habit of not particularly interacting with the Information Studies department or even the wider CILIP community for that matter – correct me if I’m wrong, please – and I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to showcase some of the work we’re doing.
Anyway, I decided to publish the proposal I wrote here hoping that someone could offer me some advice. I know the ideas were not particularly original or the proposal particularly well written so I’m after some tips on proposal writing in general, you know just in case I ever feel the urge to try again – although I’m not really sure how much longer I can call myself a ‘new professional’.
So, here’s the proposal, make of it what you will:
Because we’re worth it too – Beyond shushing and shelving in an academic library
Budget cuts and reduced funding are not new. Librarians have been coping with these for years – reviewing subscriptions, haggling with suppliers, devising strategies to manage impacts – it’s part of the job. But with the ubiquity of the Internet, electronic services and mobile technologies our users are claiming that they no longer use the library and thus our skills increasingly redundant. So with more cuts looming (following HEFCE’s announcement of a £600 million reduction in higher education funding) and a commitment to a ‘faster, better, cheaper’ work ethic we need to be proving our worth now more than ever by promoting services, marketing resources and communicating knowledge.
Today there’s a greater need for students to demonstrate their own skills in acquiring knowledge, judging sources and conducting research. The role of the academic librarian is transforming. New opportunities are arising for us to proactively engage with learning and teaching – conducting skills sessions, supporting workshops and offering practical solutions to complex enquiries. Transferable skills are a key attribute employers are looking for in our graduates and it’s therefore essential for us, as librarians, to proactively seek new ways to support, teach and develop information literacy in our users to carry with them into the workplace and their professional maturity.
In my discussion I’ll consider some of the ways in which the University of Sheffield is working to continually improve services and student satisfaction by meeting the demands of higher user expectations and the new learning environment, through our physical spaces (the collaboration of library and computing services in the Information Commons and Western Bank Library’s £3.4 million redevelopment); web 2.0 technologies (weblogs, Twitter, QR codes and social networking in uSpace – our online collaboration tool); mobile applications (the University’s iPhone app, CampusM); and online skills tutorials (the Information Skills Resource).
That's me... Lex Rigby
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:44 am
Hi Lex, I was involved with the submission process for this year’s conference. (I viewed all the proposals and fed my thoughts in, but wasn’t there for the meeting where the final decisions were made – so I say this in *no official capacity*!)
I thought it was a great proposal, and one which you could submit again to other conferences. The only thing that I wasn’t sure about for our very specific NPC2010 purposes was, it was fairly service provision orientated. I absolutely agree with what you say about Info Lit and teaching generally, but the main focus of the proposal is on what *libraries* and librarians can do for people in this regard, rather than specifically what a New Professional could do. (That’s how I personally understood it.) So while librarians generally can prove their worth by offering teaching and support info/digital/trans literacy, it might be hard for those attending the conference to apply what you say to their own jobs (because the conference is aimed at people within the first 5 years of the job, and normally people in that category are too junior to have large amounts of influence in their organisations).
God, just read that back; I sound like a tosser. What it boils down to, for me, is that this is a strong proposal in field where we had enough strong proposals to run three conferences. And too many of them were more directly applicable to what the New Professionals in the audience could actually *do* when they leave the conference, for this one to get picked… (You’ll see what I mean when you see the programme, hopefully – it’s all pretty focused stuff.) Does that make sense?But it’s still a good proposal!
- Ned
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Sorry this wasn’t successful, Lex, I think it’s a good proposal. Suspect main issues was that demonstrating value is a common theme at the moment, even if it’s hard to actually do. RLUK is about to commission some research on this btw.
Hmm – not sure I agree with you about interaction with DIS which generally has been better in recent years than for a long while, but perhaps we need to do more to change that perception.
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Hey!
Good on you for this post. I like it and totally know what you mean about writing proposals for stuff. It is a tricky business.
Even though your proposal didn’t get accepted this time you should still go along to the conference if you can. Great networking opportunities and the follow on from that is what you make it I guess.
I did a joint proposal with my fellow ‘librarian on the loose’, Sarah Ison and presented it at the New Professionals conference last year and met the likes of Jo Alcock (joeyanne libraryanne), Ned ‘theREALwikiman’ Potter and New Professionals Coordinator Chris Rhodes. There have been lots of things that I’ve been able to do since then, as a direct result of being involved in the conference. You can read more about that sort of thing on our blog ‘Librarians on the Loose’
I like your proposal and there are some good ideas in there. You’ve got quite a bit in there that you want to discuss, maybe a bit too much. For stuff like this I think it’s best to be a bit more specific and have one or two discussion/focal points rather than trying to do too much in a short amount of time. What to choose though?! Difficult because all of the things you’ve put are really interesting.
Aside from that, it’s current and topical and open for plenty of debate and I really like your title!
Anyway, sorry to ramble on! I hope that’s useful. The other thing you should consider is getting involved with your local CILIP branch, the Career Development Group and any of the special interest groups you like the sound of! Get in touch with your New Professional Support Officer in your area, Chris Rhodes, the New Professionals Coordinator will be able to tell you more about that. He’s on Twitter rhodescj.
As for being a new professional, you are a new professional if you have been in the profession for 5 years or less :-)
Keep doing stuff though!
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Thanks for the comments so far! Now roughly speaking I’ve been working in libraries over five years but really only a ‘professional’ for about two – that gives me another three years right!? :)
Ned I think you’re probably right about it not really speaking for ‘new professionals’… I didn’t really consider that.
And Martin I also think you’re right about more interaction over recent years but maybe this isn’t as transparent as it could be. As a student during 06/07 there was very little. Alastair is the obvious link between us but am I right in thinking both Fran and Alison have conducted sessions in the department? I’d definitely support more of that and would like to hear more about such things in the bulletin or something.
March 4th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Lex. One member of the pannel particularly liked yours, and it is really well written and interesting.
I think the reasons we didn’t pick you are two-fold. Firstly, as Ned has hinted, the focus of your proposal is organisational rather than personal. The conference is really about employability, not about how organisations can cope with changing circumstances. Although NP attitudes can clearly alter the ways organisations behave, we would want this relationship made clearer in a proposal.
Secondly, you use Sheffield as a case study of how services are improved and then list service improvements that are all reletviely standard. One of the proposals we selected uses this case study method to illustrate their point but highlights a fairly unusual way that their service is helpong NPs to engage and work better. Case studies only really work if you can demonstrate that the aspect of the case in question is worth talking about by virtue of being unusual. In addition, as Emma points out, you highlight quite a number of features of Sheffield’s services to discuss, whereas you proposal might have been imrpoved had you focuesed on fewer aspects.
But, as I said, we really enjoyed reading your proposal and it was full of interesting ideas. Please don’t let this stop you getting involved with CILIP and CDG in the future, and I remember you said to me that you were thinking of going to the conference anyway, so hopefully see you there.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Just wanted to say bravo for putting yourself out there and asking for advice. It can be disheartening to find out you haven’t been accepted for something, but I think asking for feedback is a very positive way to learn from the experience.
I think you’ve had a lot of very useful comments already from the commenters, and I would concur with the points raised, particularly about the focus for this particular conference being quite unusual that it’s more about the individual as a new professional, rather than the service.
I definitely think the idea is a very interesting one (I’d certainly be interested in seeing your presentation!), and I wonder if you have considered submitting a proposal to a different event that something like this may be more suitable for? Unfortunately many conferences for this year have already closed their submissions, but it might be something you could consider focusing on one aspect of and re-submitting to different conferences next year? Maybe you could focus on the information literacy support and submit a proposal for LILAC, or on the student support angle and submit a proposal for UCR or CoFHE conferences? Or events for CILIP special interest groups?
I’d also echo the others in recommending you attend the New Professionals Conference anyway, I’m planning to as a delegate this year as it was such an excellent event last year. The enthusiasm was infectious, great to get so many new professionals together and hoping to meet lots more this year.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
[...] tips from people who have written proposals would be very interesting. The wikiman and Lex Rigby have already posted their thoughts on the proposal process. Possibly related posts: (automatically [...]
May 4th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
[...] and to the point. I remembered a couple of great blog posts relating to last years conference. lex rigby wrote about her unsuccessful proposal and a lot of the advice given really helped with putting it [...]