View of the Clarion Hotel, Limerick, my accommodation, from bridge by the Conference Venue
It goes to show that funding student places at a conference pays off! Last year I visited LILAC 2009 in Cardiff on a sponsored student place and this year I was back again presenting a workshop!
The workshop was called Building research student communities: is there a role for library and information services (slides can be found via the link). The workshop was based on activities at De Montfort University and the theory of Communities of Practice, and was written with my colleagues Melanie Petch, Lecturer in English Language from the Centre for Learning and Study Support and Jo Webb, Head of Academic Services.
The workshop seemed to go well, although the timing slipped a little so there wasn’t time for as much interactivity as I’d have liked. Still, it was fantastic to feel like I was moving towards the centre of our very own librarian Community of Practice and I really enjoyed being an active participant in the conference.
I’ve already written a little about the event in relation to my new job on our library blog in a post called Information Literacy within our Institution: Thoughts from LILAC. However, as I mention there, I felt LILAC was strong in both supporting reflection on work, and reflection on personal professional development, so wanted to take a chance to reflect on some sessions that had covered the latter, which I’ve done in my second post: LILAC 2010: Part two – Reflections on Teaching.