Thing 7: face-to-face networks and professional organisations

Although I have a professional qualification and think of myself as a librarian, my current post is what you might call 'paraprofessional'. (Ironically pay is so bad for librarians in some sectors that I get paid more here in a research institute as an 'assistant' than I was offered for a professional post in an FE college...) So I'm slightly agnostic about being part of a professional group, I guess. Here are some professional organisations/associations and networks I have known and loved (or not):

1. CILIP
The biggie. I am not currently a member, although I used to be. Why? Simple cost-benefit analysis. Subscriptions are expensive and the income bands are completely absurd, in my view. Earn more than £17,500 pa and you pay top whack. Many nice things about CILIP are available to non-members, and since we have organisational membership I can still read Update and Gazette, and access training (such as it now is) and networking opportunities. I can see it being important for chartership candidates but at the moment it's not essential for me. Anyone care to convince me otherwise? :)

2. ALISS and IFLA
Again, we have organisational membership of ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) and I have attended discounted events and can access ALISS Quarterly etc. Not sure what other benefits there are but it's good to know there's a specific group for us social science people. IFLA keeps us connected within the international library scene and does really interesting work.

3. UKCoRR (UK Council of Research Repositories)
I'm a new member and still learning/lurking but this seems to be an active, supportive and forward-thinking group and if I ever get funding to work on our repository properly I will be taking a more active role, I hope!

4. The Poetry Society
My other 'profession'. As with CILIP, my membership has lapsed on and off due to cost considerations, but I will rejoin at some point (I usually badger somebody to renew my subscription as a Christmas/birthday gift). They bring out the lovely Poetry Review and the handy Poetry News, run the National Poetry Competition and provide loads of support and promotion for poets and poetry in the UK. However, at the time of writing the society is holding an emergency general meeting due to mysterious (to me) funding/policy issues and - live update! - the entire board have just stepped down. Crazy times!

5. UNISON
Ok not strictly a professional organisation but I was a bit surprised to see no mention of trade unions in this Thing. Depending on their sector and role, LIS people could join various different unions. Unison (public sector/school), Unite (charities/special libraries) and UCU (academic) are probably the major ones. CILIP doesn't do representation/negotiation in terms of workplace pay and conditions and these days we might all end up needing it - so join a union if you can!

Face-to-face networking
I used to hate this. Now I'm more confident in my work and have developed some skills, interests and even expertise, I feel much happier talking to strangers in a professional context. I don't think I'm very good at it yet it terms of producing useful outcomes or making a stunning impression, but at least I don't fear it. I went to a conference this week and managed to not only join in, but actually start, conversations. Mainly about Twitter, to be fair, but then it was a social media conference...

Photo by Nicola Corboy on Flickr