I’m a subject librarian at the University of Huddersfield, looking after the School of Computing & Engineering. I’ve previously worked in information roles in several sectors, including commercial law and charity.
As of April 2022, I am also a part-time PhD student at the University of Sheffield. My topic is the information behaviour of women studying engineering.
I’m always interested in starting conversations with other information professionals: I don’t like to publicise my email address, but I’m on Twitter as @WoodsieGirl or you could always leave me a comment here!
Organising Chaos 
Hi
I wondered if you’re a member of Cilip and submitting a paper proposal for the new professionals conference? I’ve been emailing with Jo Alcock and she highly recommends it, so here I go!
Now that you have your MSc, do you find it frustrating being an Information Assistant rather than Librarian? I recently passed up the opportunity to apply for a Subject Librarian post in my library (University of Plymouth) and now I am absolutely kicking myself!
Anyway, great blog
Take care
Venessa
http://scarlettlibrarian.wordpress.com
To answer your questions Vanessa – yes, yes, and …sort of. I am keeping my eye out for professional posts to apply for – although there isn’t much out there at the moment! – but I do enjoy the job I’m in right now. Plus, as we’re such a small team I do get to do more than I would at IA level in, say, an academic library, and my colleagues know I’m keen to learn so they’re good at giving me more stuff to do!
Good luck with the NPC2010 proposal – I submitted mine last week. Will probably go to the conference even if my proposal isn’t accepted (went last year, would highly recommend!) so I may see you there 🙂
Thanks for replying, and I just wanted to let you know, I’m featured in the cilip Gazette in the MyWeek section, and I do mention your blog!
Venessa
Hi woodsiegirl, I posted about something you said during a conference and I thought it would be polite to tell you! http://wp.me/p1KgMv-O
Thanks for letting me know! Think it might actually have been Ned Potter (@theREALwikiman) who said that though – hard to remember as it’s from a join presentation we did, but it does have the ring of one of Ned’s lines to me!
Dear Laura,
This is probably a very long shot, but we PR professionals often take aim from afar! I am publicising a book called ‘The Business of Law’, published in association with the IBA.
It is a multi-contributed volume and covers some current legal issues such as ‘surviving in the credit crunch’; ‘women & the law’; ‘internationalisation’; and ‘CSR’.
Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you would like to see a Media Pack (I won’t invite you to the London launch as you are based in Leeds). Last but not least, I read your post about how you stumbled upon librarianship, it rings a bell even though my field is PR.
Best wishes,
Martha Halford-Fumagalli MCIPR
Martha Halford PR
Thanks Martha. I’m not involved in purchasing books for my library, but will certainly mention this to our acquisitions librarian and see if there’s any interest.
Hi. I recently read with much interest your article in this month’s edition of the “CILIP Update”.
So many thoughts came into my head when I read your piece! Initially, my mind went back to the first lecture I attended when I trained as a librarian. I remember the Head of School talking to us about the kind of jobs that recent graduates from the course had taken on. By no means all of them were traditional librarians’ posts but the lecturer was able to demonstrate how the skills that we were about to gain would stand us in good stead in a range of positions.
I also remember an opinion piece by Gwyneth Marshman with a similar theme to yours appearing in the December 2011 edition of the “Update with Gazette”, as it was in those days. Gwyneth’s article had quite an effect on me as it made me realise that a lot of the ICT zones which in many schools are coming to replace traditional libraries actually demand similar skills from those of who staff them. In the end, Gwyneth and I pooled our ideas and wrote a paper for “School Libraries Worldwide”, in which we suggested that the two types of information environment were actually more alike in their nature than most people tend to imagine…
Finally, the chart at the bottom of your piece reminded me of a similar exercise I carried out myself, but in relation to writing, rather than librarianship. I guess many of those of us who are involved in LIS at least at some point in their lives are also interested in contributing to its literature. I know that was the case for me! After I’d spent a few years writing, I wrote a paper in which I set down the skills that one acquires writing for publication and specified the contexts in which they have to be demonstrated. As in your list, some of them weren’t the sort of skills one would necessarily associate with anyone in LIS but may be of great interest to employers…
Thanks for writing the piece. It stirred up so many ideas for me.
Best wishes,
Andrew K. Shenton