May Topic of the Month - Professional Membership

For those of you who subscribe to the New Grads Group e-list, we've had an ongoing discussion on the topic of association memberships.

I posed the questions: why do you choose to become (or to not be) members of your professional association? What are the benefits? What's in it for you? Or if you think that it's "all features, no benefits", then what are the things that you look out for when it comes to joining a professional association?

Most responses chose to focus specifically on ALIA, and used examples of how they were either attracted to join ALIA, or had reasons not to join ALIA.

So, to summaries the reasons that people DID choose to become a member:

- Several mentioned feeling isolated in their roles, and joining ALIA to find support from outside their employer. Similarly, when working in a specialised or non-library field, the association provided opportunities to maintain that connection with the wider industry, and maintain an awareness of the "bigger picture" outside the individual workplace.
- Many mentioned the opportunities to contribute to the association and voice their concerns.
- Many also mentioned the networking opportunities, to meet like-minded professionals.
- The opportunities to work on interesting projects that they wouldn't have had access to with their employer.
- Discounts to PD events, and especially conferences, where membership costs less than the difference in cost for attendance.
- InCite magazine
- To support the industry, and to support the profession.

On the other hand, reasons NOT to become a member were:

- A few people mentioned that it was too expensive, or that they didn't think it was worth paying money for.
- Professional Development is already managed through the employer.
- Time commitments - Not wanting to do library things outside of work time. Can't be bothered. Don't want to be hassled about "getting involved".
- They already have all of the benefits that association membership has to offer, through other channels, such as the employer, publicly available services / programs, and personal resourcefulness.
- It seemed cliquey. I thought this comment was interesting. I think part of being a good networker is the ability to "infiltrate" cliques, and make the most of what are clearly already strong social and professional networks. Which, of course, is easy for me to say, already being in the so-called "in" crowd. However, I also think that, whilst we're a strong social group, we're pretty welcoming of newcomers, especially in the New Graduates Group.

So, where do we stand now? What are the determining factors in individual motivations to become association members?

I think that part of it is certainly where you are in your career. The most successful newgrad events seem to be those that focus on "getting a job", and at the time of graduation, it seems that you need to do everything in your power to get that elusive first professional job. And there is certainly a feeling that association membership can help you on the way there.

Another determining factor is who your employer is, and the nature of your work. If you're professionally or geographically isolated, you might get involved in your association in order to maintain connections with the wider industry, and to keep perspective on the bigger picture. And your employer might not necessarily provide opportunities for you to stay on top of emerging library trends, so your association might be a great way to do this. However, you might work for a fantastic employer, who provides all of your PD needs, and keeps you "professionally satisfied".

And as for expense - as indicated, the membership fee pays for itself if you're going to go to association events, such as conferences. But if you have no interest in attending such things, then what exactly are you paying for, other than a card and a magazine subscription?

Personally, I feel that one of the biggest benefits of our membership is the thing that many of us have worked pretty hard for - our qualification. ALIA accredits all of the courses, and sets the standards by which a graduate can be "Eligible for professional membership of ALIA" - something that you often see on job descriptions, and thus something that many employers consider to be an essential attribute for recruitment. It also acknowledges our standing as a professional, in line with library and information professionals around the world. And this work that ALIA does in maintaining the professional standard by which we are ourselves valued, as professionals, is paid for primarily through association membership. It keeps the profession strong, and in doing so, keeps us strong as professionals.

Of course, this issue is far from over, and I'd encourage you to keep the discussion going through the comments thread here, if you wish.

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Committee Roll-call! Daniel Giddens- Group Website Co-ordinator and Victorian Committee Member

I'm Daniel. I have been on the NGG Victorian committee since February 2008 and responsible for all things website since March 2009.

Aside from organising events for and meeting up with the New Grads and students in Victoria, I work in an academic library as a Reference Librarian. and have done so for the past three years, since graduating from my Information Management degree in fact. I love my job and am always finding a new challenge to take up. Before becoming a library and information professional, I volunteered in a public and a special library while studying. These were great experiences, and I would encourage others to volunteer. It's very rewarding, and strengthened my view that the information profession was the right career path for me.

I'm also currently studying for the Grad. Cert. in Industrial Education, enjoy listening to a mix of music and have a shelf of books crying out to be read (I MUST find the time!).

Keep an eye out for the next New Grad event in Victoria. We're trying to organise Library Folk in the Pub style events, that Sydney have been doing so well. If you have any suggestions for events, look me up me here

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Committee Roll-Call! Rebecca Parker - Regional Coordinator, VIC

Hi everyone. I'm Rebecca Parker and I’m one of 4 regional coordinators for the New Graduates group in Victoria. It’s great to see that this blog is already so active and taking on a life of its own---it supports what we’ve always known: that for new librarians, life moves too fast for a static webpage!

So, a little about me ... I come from a writing and editing background and graduated from ‘library school’ with a Master of Information Management from Curtin in mid-2007. I’m still a ‘new-ish’ librarian though not a really new one any more ...

In many ways, my professional experience in libraries so far can be described as ‘not your average library job’. Some of you may remember my presentation at NLS2008, where I talked about academic libraries offering more to professional librarians than reference work. My role as Research Services Librarian at Swinburne Library is a new one this year, and the kind of work I do at Swinburne is primarily about finding new ways for academic libraries to support research within universities. This includes managing digital libraries (aka repositories, ghastly term, shudder); publishing open access content; and ensuring that our services are tailored to the needs of both researchers and corporate areas of the University.

One of the most exciting things I’ve been involved with so far is the NicNames Project, where I served as subject expert on a project to work out how best to display name variants in digital libraries. We held focus groups with researchers to find out what they expected from search interfaces, and how a search interface would best display one person with many name variants if we nuked everything and started again. This was groundbreaking work because it meant we were suggesting that library authority control didn’t necessarily work in the research context and we were open to new ideas. And it was really exciting to actually be face to face with a room full of real library users and finding out what we did that they liked, and what drove them crazy!

There's only one thing that really annoys me about being a librarian, and that's the stereotypes. We really need to change the prevailing attitudes to librarianship both within our own industry and the wider community; the only way to do this is by setting positive examples. There’s a new Facebook group for librarians called ‘Help a Librarian Out’ . It’s a social experiment that aims to connect all the librarians throughout the world so they can help each answer questions and share knowledge. What a great idea! Except that the group’s profile picture is a woman with her hair up wearing old-fashioned glasses. Pleeease.

For a better example of what librarians really are: passionate, devoted, caring and humanitarian … but with a sense of humour all the same … I highly recommend watching the slides from Romany and Suzanne’s presentation.

That’s enough from me for the moment. Like many librarians, I tend to be a bit verbose. Not that that’s a stereotype or anything …

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NGAC Take Home Messages

Hi New Grads! I'm Naomi, and I'm currently the Chair of the ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee (NGAC). You might also recognise my name from the elist, as I often ask for contributors to the new grads column in ALIA's member's magazine inCite, Energise>Enthuse>Inspire.



NGAC is an ALIA Board Advisory Committee, which means that most of what we do is pretty behind-the-scenes, cloak and dagger stuff (not really!) but a lot of it is confidential. However, we are essentially the representatives of new graduates who the Board liaises with - and therefore we want to make sure we liaise with you, the membership (or potential members!) so we can make sure we get it as “right” as possible. So to that end, I’d like to provide monthly “take home messages” from our meetings. They can be found on our website too, but here’s what’s happened over the last couple of months:

On 22 April 2010 NGAC discussed the following:

Conference attendance:

A new sub-committee led by Katie Hannan will be investigating ways to help new graduates attend ALIA conferences. This will include scoping out budget accommodation, investigating sharing of registration, and attempting to source budget for a free registration at each major conference. Email Katie@lost.net.au or contact her on twitter with your ideas and suggestions @KatieLHannan

Conference mentoring:

Naomi Doessel has initiated a research project that will trial conference mentoring at a large ALIA conference. It will be based on the American Library Association's New Member's Roundtable's Conference Mentoring

1. Conference Mentoring: a program designed to help first time attendees of ALA Annual conference feel at ease at a conference (whose size can often be overwhelming and intimidating!) by pairing them with seasoned conference attendees. http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/rts/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/mentor/mentoringcommittee.cfm

ALIA Member demographics:

The ALIA Board of Directors has asked NGAC for input on the results of the ALIA Member Survey that show that the lowest concentration of ALIA members is in the 18-29 and 30-39 age group. NGAC will be discussing the demographics issue over the next few months and making recommendations to the ALIA Board of Directors on how we can increase new generation membership and involvement.

On 5 May 2010 NGAC farewelled two long-serving members and welcomed five new members.

Alyson Dalby resigned after three and a half years on the committee, and much service to new graduates within ALIA. Alyson will be sorely missed within the committee, but she is on to a professional role in ALIA as the NSW Local Liaison Officer.

Kristen Blinco has also resigned after two years on the committee. Another great loss to the committee, Kristen leaves us as she has taken up a permanent team leader role at her workplace, and does not have the time for volunteering with ALIA at the moment.

We wish both of them all the best and look forward to seeing them in LibraryLand in the coming years :-)

In their place we welcome five new members from around the country, all new grads with a variety of committee and work experience. A big welcome to our new members! Bios will be up on the website soon.

Bruce Klopsteins comes to us from the National Library of Australia in Canberra.

Clare McKenzie is a recent graduate who works in Sydney as an OPAL in higher education.

Susanne Newton just returned from a year in Samoa as a Youth Ambassador for Development and is based in Melbourne.

Hoi Ng works in Perth as a public librarian and is on the NLS5 committee.

Vanessa Warren works in Hobart in higher education and has presented at local and international conferences.

They join existing members Jo Beazley, Naomi Doessel (Chair), Andrew Finegan, Katie Hannan and Andrew Spencer.

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Australian Librarians in Developing Countries

On the evening of Tuesday 12th of May, the ALIA New Graduates Group hosted an exciting opportunity to hear two of its member speak about their experiences working as a librarian for a year in a developing country. A sizeable group congregated at RMIT Library in Melbourne, where Romany Manuell (who you might recognise as our Group Secretary), and Susanne Newton (member of the ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee) talked about the work that they did with the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development (AYAD) program.

Susanne spent a year based in Apia, Samoa, where she worked at the National University of Samoa, where she worked with the law collection, reviewed and developed library policies, trained local library staff, educated library users, and provided research and reference services. She also talked of the other opportunities that arose locally, such as attending conferences in the pacific region, and being involved in projects with the Library Association of Samoa. Susanne was also in Samoa during the tsunami in September 2009, and spoke about that experience.

Taking your library career outside the square by Susanne Newton

View more presentations from Susanne Newton.

While Susanne was in Samoa, Romany Manuell had quite a different experience, working as a Teacher Librarian in the remote village of Ulei in Vanuatu, where she worked in setting up a school library, teaching the students how to use the library, and training staff in library management. Being in a remote location created a different set of challenges (i.e. no electricity in the library, let alone computers!).

AYAD Assignment Summary (Romany Manuell)

View more presentations from Romany Manuell.

It should also be mentioned that both Susanne and Romany were both new graduates, relatively fresh from their librarianship courses, when they set off on their overseas assignments, so it was very interesting to hear not only of their learning curve in adapting to very different cultures and professional attitudes, but also how they used these opportunities to establish and develop their own professional skills as librarians, which they have done impressively.

And, finally, for those of you who might be interested in working overseas as an AYAD, there is a current assignment on offer, working in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as a librarian at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which was set up for the purposes of prosecuting the leaders of the Khmer Rouge for war crimes committed during their regime in the 1970s. If that sounds like your kind of adventure, go and check it out here. But get cracking - applications close on May 28th. That's THIS FRIDAY!

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Committee Roll-call! Andrew Finegan - Group Convenor

Hi there, I'm Andrew!

I've been milling around the library scene for a few years now, but I'm still very much a new graduate librarian. I first joined ALIA in November 2006, just after moving from Melbourne to Darwin for my first professional job as a librarian. Less than a month later, I was in Sydney, attending NLS2006, and I met a bunch of awesome people - some of whom made the following years of relative isolation in the Top End far more bearable, through online professional peer support.

Since then, I've been involved in ALIA through the Top End Group, the 4th New Librarians Symposium in 2008, and, since early 2009, the New Graduates Group, where I assumed the position of Convenor after relocating back to Melbourne.

Whilst I've worked in academic, public and state libraries, I've most recently settled into a library manager position at an inner-suburban Melbourne government school, which I have been enjoying very much. In my spare time, I enjoy reading (Yes, I know, libraries aren't JUST about books, but they're not NOT about books either!), writing words and music, performing them, and generally enjoying the busy social scene in Melbourne.

So, that's me. You'll see me around at New Graduate Group events in Melbourne, and at the New Graduates stream (What Next! Practical information to enhance the career of New Graduates) at ALIA Access 2010 in September. If you need to contact me, you can find my details on the ALIA website here.

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Officially launched!

So, it's Library and Information Week (or LIW) for 2010

As part of LIW, we have launched this blog as a means of communicating news of events, interactions, and issues related to the ALIA New Grads Group. You'll read correspondence from our regional counterparts, reflections on hotly-debated and emerging topics, and all the latest gossip on upcoming excitement in the library world.

For example:

Last night, an envoy of young new graduate librarians were seen lurking in the wings at the 3rd Annual Library and Information Careers Night. Another NGAC committee member was unfortunately absent in person, but present in two-metre-high splendour on an RMIT banner, and on the front of their course information leaflets. After an series of informative talks from Margie Anderson, Mary Manning, and Marion Slawson, these new grads were spotted seeking out the most "librariany" of the audience members, and encouraging them to join our professional ranks. They also raided the university tables for mints and caramels, followed by a swift getaway for beer, dumplings, and pink walls.

So, may I welcome you all to the New New Grad News Blog, and I look forward to many posts, and many more comments in the future!

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Happy Library Week everybody!

And welcome to the (New!) New Graduates News! Let the posting begin.

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