I have been paying attention to some of the entries on the LIS-CILIP-REG mailing list (as usual of course!) of late, which have been discussing the value of visits to other libraries, how many should be made, which sectors etc. and it got me thinking that it would perhaps be something of great use to my development if i were to arrange something similar. So, having thought about it, i realised that beyond a couple of contacts that I have already, i didn’t really know where to start with regards to contacting someone to arrange a visit. I have previously visited a languages library at Glasgow University for the day, which was very insightful, in fact, that was my first introduction to the LIS-CILIP mailing list.
So, I made a post asking people for ideas about how to go about it, and to hear how others’ had arranged such visits. What a response i got! I never cease to be amazed by how quickly, and how many people take the time out to reply to the queries i post on that mailing list. I got a whole range of answers, all of which were helpful, and which I will summarise at some point both for this blog and for the list. I even had two people offer to help arrange something (one through Glasgow City Council and one through the Career Development Group) with me, which was really nice. I will definitely have to speak to my manager and see what she thinks about it - i’m not sure how the whole time off would work for something like this, so I will need to discuss it with her before arranging anything else. But I do think that it would be a really great way to assess my library’s position within the wider scheme of things, to see how other libraries operate and what their client base is, and what kind of systems they use for organising things and measuring performance and so forth. I guess that I could then do some kind of comparative/evaluative essay/report on the whole experience, including discussion of all the different libraries i had visited, as this would probably be more relevant than a simple description of each of the libraries and what i did there… I’ll keep you updated.
