Cruel and unusual punishment

The sun is shining, and the sky is blue. I am in work at a desk set well back from the windows, with distant patches of blue to torment my day. The school buzzes round me as timetables get polished and classes fine their levels. One poor teacher had to borrow a chair as she had one more child than her room had chairs! The last of the changes are being settled with only tomorrow to get it perfect before the first years come for a visit on Wednesday and Thursday. While this is a very very busy time for teachers, as librarian I am doing my housekeeping for the school year end. The new classes won't be in yet as the teaching plan need to be started, the old one is gone so I have no timetabled classes until I get a new one made which I am waiting until august as we are due a staffing change and any thing I plan now will be wrong.

Quick question thrown at me about a room number, where is room 60! I have been here nearly 14 years, but I also have a map form nearly 10 years ago that just has classroom numbers on it, and voila room found, teacher happy, internet unneeded! :-).

At the moment there are a whole load of discussions going on about the re-branding being done in CILIP, This has brought out the likes of Tom Roper who has called a general meeting, and Ned Potter in favour for and against the current situation, I think we need what is happening, but the transparency for some aspects has been missing. The cost is scary, and the result if we fail even scarier. But the most interesting article I read was by a non member of CILIP, By Ian Clark which is looking from a step away, so to speak. I am interested in the out comes, and hope that all this debate will make us stronger. It is also bringing things to the surface that need addressing, and hopefully can be addressed. The CILIP side is here, so you can go and see what all the fuss is about, if you haven't already.

Some shots of the Dundee trip;

Post dinner talk watched with half empty glasses.

Venue looking fab in the morning sunshine.  

All in all a wonderful trip, I have plans of what I want to do with all the info and I will be typing up as I go and posting here from the different speakers.

From the high octane conference to the monthly paper work! as the title says a cruel and most unusual punishment but one I take on willingly and with a smile. My faith in Libraries and my own choice and place renewed for a while, and with plans for the Umbrella 2013 in July, they wont be stopping any time soon.

Home sweet home

Home sweet home, and I even got to sleep in my own bed! I love nice hotels, even cheap ones can be fun, but for a goodnight sleep it has to be your own bed. It was just getting dark when I got home, which for us is very late, we are only 16 days of no dark at all, and that dusk only coming at 2 am! so to get home in dusk and it being dark was late.

How to sum up yesterday? I thought Monday was a wonderful ride, a sit there hang on and go! Tuesday was more of 'an I can use that' day There were several speakers I got to see and most made me think oh yes I can use that! The lady from the Reading Agency was full of things and ideas, some of which I must confess to having borrowed from already :-) but she had so much more and great ideas for how we could get more from it. Next for me was a media guru about social media and empowerment, only 2 years ago this would not have been a main theme for libraries, an extra or an add on, but now it is part of our lives and so much to be used!

After yet another fine meal, which BTW we had all the way through at the Apex hotel at Dundee, we had the afternoon sessions, again this was led by a non librarian, and again in the past it would have been an extra or an also run idea, and now is so main stream. It is nice that in our changes of looking at ourselves and how professional we are the greater appreciation for others is also coming through. The fact that while we are Libraries specialists we may not know all and can learn and 'collaborate' with so many to help be the best we can. The afternoon was again full of I could do that, and I wonder how I can try that with my kids!

The final speaker was a change to the listing, and until they said this you had no idea that they had any changes needed, The guy booked hadn't been able to come so they found another at short notice. Both were motivational speakers, I have no idea what the first guy would have said but the second had me from tears of laughter to tears of sorrow. His message was why to we do what we do, we have to make sure what we do is what we want to do. to care about our work, our jobs, to have fun and play. He seemed to think we needed magic back in our lives, the sort of magic that we had at 5 when the world was full of wow and really! which he is right, we lose. I would argue it is partly reality as well as school. practicalities intrude, you need to earn to live, you need to work to earn, and in this culture getting new work is harder than staying. But he is right, we don't want to end up apathetic to our world, to sleep walk through life, or to be the moany chops in the corner. ( I do like that description, sadly there is always one though)

I have waxed lyrical about Gavin Oats as he was the last to speak and I drove north with his words in my head, he spoke to the 12 minutes that it takes for us to get annoyed in a traffic jam (though up here more then 4 cars at the round about is very busy) he says he makes a choice to enjoy the timeout, the chance to sit and think, with no guilt as he can't change the situation. An idea I must use, a choice I must make. I wont be turning my toilet roll round though some things are too much...

But now I must get all I missed sorted and then process what I did get from the last 2 days. I will be posting a bit about each speaker I heard, so you will get more, but when I have had a chance to be reflective :-)