Photo of Katie Fraser with CILIP Blogger Button

www.chuukaku.com

Katie Fraser's blog and website

I'm an academic librarian, working in the UK Higher Educational sector, supporting academics and students. Prior to this, I was a researcher, working with social and learning technologies.

My interests include the application of all kinds of technology, research support in libraries, learning spaces (my Librarianship dissertation studied an Information Commons project), evidence-based practice and the professional development of library and information workers.

You can find out more about more about me from the links to the left.


Update on conferences, work and course

May 28th, 2009

Old computer at EssexThis blog’s been a little bit quiet recently as I’ve not been feeling too good: for some reason one of my symptoms has been weird vision when looking at screens (I can see them but my eyes are a bit weirded out by long exposure) hence the lack of updates!

Lots has been going on, however. The best news is that I’ve received a funded place at Mashed Libraries 2009. This is one of those fancy unconference things looking at mash-ups within the library field. I’m really excited about attending. I don’t have much experience in any kind of library technologies: the shot on the right shows the nearest I got to library tech in my last job, a new computer to access our old-fashioned LMS. However my enthusiasm for social networking, my love of playing with random software and the bits of my PhD involving representing and supporting homework through lots of different technologies should be pretty relevant.

On top of this I’ve been recruited to work on an HEA funded synthesis of research alongside members of CILASS, the University of Sheffield’s centre for Inquiry Based Learning over the summer. Should be interesting and a way of keeping up my research skills and giving me something other than my dissertation to think about over the next few months.

Other than those exciting pieces of news, the most thrilling thing in my life has been the gradual erosion of my coursework deadlines. At the time of writing I’ve only got two more pieces I need to get done, and hopefully things will keep ticking along. In fact, I’ve got some editing awaiting as I speak, so off I go!

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Posted in jobs, MA, professional development, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »

Jobs.ac.uk profiles Learning and Teaching Librarian

February 21st, 2009

Just a quick post because I haven’t seen this anywhere else, to say Jobs.ac.uk is featuring a profile of Katherine Reedy, Learning and Teaching Librarian from the Open University. I think this a really good example of a job where librarianship has changed a lot, with the Open University catering so heavily for distance learners. It sounds like just the kind of job I’d love to do, and I’m pleased she mentioned LILAC – it’s given me another positive view on attending.

I was actually quite startled to find out that a lot of the alumni who came to our recent careers’ evening had started applying for jobs around this time of year, so I’m checking job sites a bit more thoughtfully at this stage. However, it’s important to be realistic about how far I can travel from Nottingham, and while a couple of jobs I’d love are kicking around, there’s been nothing in the right region so far.

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Posted in HE libraries, jobs, media | 1 Comment »

Guardian MA Librarianship feature

January 24th, 2009

I contributed to the feature on taking a master’s in Librarianship in the Guardian today, talking a little bit about what it’s like to be a student in the field. You can find it in the Graduate section. It’s trailered on the front page of the section (which is the back page of the Work section) as ‘Sssh! Taking a master’s in librarianship’ but aside from the unfortunate ssh reference I think it represents us quite well. I’m bemused that I’m the only person who mentioned it’s not that easy to get a job in the field, but of course, they only took a tiny quote from each interview they did for each section (I’m sure I blathered on far more than that in the phone interview!).

Posted in jobs, MA, media | No Comments »

Careers event poster and general update

January 21st, 2009

As part of my involvement in the CILIP Career Development Group Yorkshire and Humberside (and in conjunction with the University of Sheffield Library and Information Professionals Social Society), my colleagues and I are arranging a career event with speakers from course alumni and other local professionals.

Putting together the poster was good fun, and you’ll be pleased to hear that the picture is of a real librarian, who blogs as the Librarian by Day. Picture is used courtesy of Creative Commons Licence and the same rights apply to this poster.

I quite like how the poster turned out, and I’m looking forward to the event as well – hopefully there’ll be a good turn out, and proceeds are heading to charity, so it’ll be good all round if it’s a success. I’ll probably update more after the event (on 11th February) to reveal how it went.

Otherwise, the coursework is ongoing (due in the day after tomorrow and should be polished by the deadline) and I’ve got a meeting tomorrow about possible dissertation projects, so everything’s running to schedule. I’ll be glad for a rest next week before lectures commence nonetheless!

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Posted in CILIP, jobs, MA, professional development | No Comments »

The inevitable job market post

July 23rd, 2008

Okay, so I’m not actually in the job market at the moment, but I suppose I’m job market curious. As a librarian-to-be I read a lot about emerging careers, and as my workplace was holding interview yesterday for a post that was ‘suitable for’ a recent library school graduate it’s been at the top of my mind.

In this game you hear a lot about the difficulty of entering the job market. Not to undermine the experiences of those who have difficulty in this area, it’s not a story that’s new to me since I entered the library and information world. It’s hard to get a job as an Occupational Psychologist (my previous vocational training at MSc level), it’s hard to get funding to do a PhD (something I managed), it’s hard to get a post as an academic (something I thankfully never tried) and it’s hard to get a graduate trainee post. A graduate trainee post is an interesting one to use as a potential comparison point for future me’s job market as in the future I don’t imagine I’ll be as willing to move around the country as I was for a one-year position. Alright, so I’ve got a traineeship now, but let’s just say that my application to interview ratio was not 100%, and that I was turned down for more traineeships than I was offered at interview, despite my previous library experience.

The question is: is it more difficult to get a job in libraries than in any other sector? The job market is hardly super welcoming at the best of time, and as I recently commented on the CILIP forum, the you-need-experience-to-get-a-job-to-get-experience conundrum is hardly of recent pedigree. Maybe there’s a study in here somewhere, unless anyone knows of any readily available statistics for recruitment by sector?

Posted in jobs | 3 Comments »

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