In Information Professional Stuff / Tags: CILIP, CILIP Graduate Day, liaison with other industries, Professional bodies, Trade balance hilarity /
In most Universities there is some kind of formal liaison between the library and the academic departments. Obviously all subject librarians are essentially ‘liaison librarians’ to their specific schools and departments, but often the department itself will have an academic who is designated the library-liaison, or a committee of nominated people on which the librarian also sits. This is to everyone’s advantage, as the library gets to understand the needs of the departments, and the department gets their needs heard. The library can also manage expectations etc, though having an established line of communication.
Having a first point of contact in this way is extremely useful, because it creates a bridge between the two worlds. Even if the people designated as liaisons don’t always have to cross the bridge themselves, they facilitate others doing so by putting them in touch with relevant people.
 At a CILIP session the other day, we were discussing the idea of taking a version of the Graduate Day on the road (as currently most attendees come from London and the South-East, so it would be great to make the whole thing more readily available to those across other regions). We were discussing the fact that CILIP membership might be of relevance to people who don’t actually consider themselves librarians or Information Professionals at all, from other industries such as Law, Education, IT, the media, and of course the more closely related fields of archiving, museum curation and so on. How to advertise to those sectors that such an event as a regional CILIP day exists?
Wouldn’t it be useful if there was the equivalent of a library liaison academic in all of those other areas? Obviously in an area like Law there are plenty of very proactive Law librarians about, but even then is there any direct link between CILIP and BIALL, for example? It would only take a CILIP Liaison Officer at BIALL, and a BIALL Liaison Officer at CILIP, to establish a potentially fruitful direct link between the two organisations. Similarly, the National Union of Teachers or the Association of University Administrators or the Society of Archivists or even you-never-know-how-useful-we-might-be-to-each-other-until-you-try type organisations like the Association of Fundraising Professionals etc etc. This would be mutually beneficial for all concerned, surely? CILIP and its members would have a route in to the resources and members of other organisations, and they would have a similar route into ours – a point of contact to facilitate others crossing the bridge. And presumably not a whole lot of work for each person involved, as the opportunities for collaboration and liaison wouldn’t be so much as to be overwhelming.
I’m aware I could be one of those people who happily ‘comes up with’ an idea which has in fact been doing the rounds for ages, or has been suggested and rejected as unworkable before, or which others simply don’t reckon there’s a need for… Maybe it’s already been done and I’ve just missed the news! But I’m fairly sure there would be circumstances where such a relationship with another organisation could bear fruit (and the organisations themselves could perhaps kick things off by giving free membership to a designated liaison officer from the others!).
I’m tagging (I think that’s what it’s called) Kathy and Lyndsay at CILIP, as they know about this sort of thing. I’m sure they’ll soon set me right if it’s a non-starter…
- thewikiman
p.s Incidentally, I read today that in the UK we import almost exactly the same amount of GingerBread as we export (465 tonnes in, 460 out – I’ve got an idea, how about we just import 5 tonnes and leave the rest of the GingerBread where it is), a phenomenon known as ‘boomerang trade’. Similar trading parity applies to Chocolate Waffles (I’ve never even seen waffles with chocolate built in already), toilet-paper (we gave Germany 4000 tonnes of it, they gave us 5000 tones back – brilliant) and even Ice-Cream to Italy (what on earth do Italians want with our ice-cream for Chrissakes?!).
If ever there was an argument for liaising, and opening the lines of communication, that’s it right there…Â
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This is a gingerbread tree. The gingerbread house in the background operates a one-in, one-out policy, probably
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5 ResponsesLeave a comment ?
Ned, the liaison of librarians and other professions is enormously important. Perhaps one of the reasons why our profession is misunderstood in terms of its actual role is because we do not communicate our worth and skills to other people who could make use of them. The Big Conversation thing that Kathy and Lyndsay mentioned would certainly value ideas like this.
Regarding boomerang trade, I’m not sure that a return to pre-industrial revolution models of production and consumption would be particularly attractive. The mighty Great British ginger bread industry generates enormous income for the haulage industry, the storage industry, the marketing industry, and not to mention revenue from import/export duties. Also, I’ve never tried German ginger bread, but I’d like to in the future, and it may become prohibitively expensive if it becomes a niche rarity. I heard recently that China imports the most concrete in the world, but also exports the most. It sounds perverse but I guess it must make some sort of economic sense.
Yes I see what you mean. I think within about 30 years or so, the environmental situation will be so dire that considerations about liking different varieties etc will be seen as a symbol of our decadent past… I see your point about the income for storage and haulage etc, I hadn’t considered that at all. But (and I don’t wanrt to turn this into an eco-debate!) the fact is the world needs less haulage, so duplication of trade seems a good place to start.
All that said, if it’s lazy journalism and they’re actually talking about Lebkuchen then that’s totally different from basic gingerbread and well worth importing from the experts while we still can!
Gosh, the future is scary, but there’s probably no better time to have an eco-debate (what with the big meeting in Denmark coming up).
I think the world needs better, cleaner haulage, not nescesarily less haulage. I say explore and exhaust the alternatives before accepting the horror of an era when only domestic gingerbread is avaliable.
Amazing how things work out isn’t it? I start a blog about trying to set up a digitisation Wiki, and end up talking about the Gingerbread apocalypse with someone from the House of Commons…
Ned, this is a really interestin post, thanks for putting it togeher. This is a very important area, especially in the current financial climate where we’ve already seen one group that represents information professionals cease to exist. Yes there should be closer ties between CILIP and other organisations. I know that several members of BIALL sit on the CILIP Update editorial board but I belive what you’re asking is whether the two organisations work together to produce training and the such like.
The short answer is no, having said that I know BIALL is currently in negotiations with a number of other organisations that represent legal/law librarians in relation to working more closely together. Not just to share costs, but to try and encourage members to join both associations/groups.