I'm having huge difficulties in getting my thoughts together after a huge break from my blog (made worse that I've just lost an hour's work already and I'm not sure what I've pressed). Also slightly worrying that I'm feeling more inspired to write about non-work related things rather than work.
Firstly, after a month off from formula one, the Spa Grand Prix lived up to expectations and my crystal ball was right that the 2 worst drivers Grosjean won't make it to a lap and Maldanado will crash/incur some kind of penalty and the world's most boring driver (yes I'm criticising a fellow Brit) Di Resta will eek out a point without bothering to overtake anybody and letting quite a few cars overtake him. Yes, I know he gets the car home in one piece but so can Joe Bloggs get their car from one place to another in one piece. Take your rosy-tinted glasses off BBC!
The start of the football season has been an anti-climax for the ever-frustrated Stags fan. I was expecting better things with lots of interesting new signings with footballers that had good reputations of being able to play football, I was going to think that Paul Cox had had lessons from Billy Dryden, Steve Parkin and Keith Curle over the summer and they had all shown him how you can get your team to play good football. Unfortunately Paul continues to study the John Beck manual of football - pinching players from the local rugby team, intimidating the opposition and stopping them playing and missing the middle of the pitch out in play (at least most of the pitch will still be in pristine condition at the end of the season as it doesn't get touched) though even worse this year, he's forgotten 2 crucial elements - to win, teams have to score goals and stop other teams from scoring. Hopefully he'll continue in this vein and get the sack soon. I can't even make any Lincoln jokes at the moment.
What else can I talk about before I have to think about work? I managed to catch some of the Reading/Leeds Festival last week. Favourite parts - Crystal Castles, Sbtrkt and before I get accused of being a dance freak - Mark Lannegan Band, At the Drive-In and Black Keys. Least favourite - toss up between The Vaccines and Florence and the Machine (just plainly awful), also quite a few non-descript indie-bands which all sound the same.
It feels like an end of an era as probably our most well known reader to all of the RNIB passed away last week. He used to ring up most days so it's like losing an old friend. It was sad that he spent his last weeks in hospital and none of us had a chance to speak to him there; I think his closest friends in his latter years were the RNIB Library Staff and Customer Services.
50 Shades of Grey has divided the readers, although achieving the largest waiting list for a book by reaching 126 requests, some have eagerly phoned back and made enquiries about the rest of the trilogy, others have been just as quick to say no more. One lady thought it was called 50 Shades of Green and it was going to be a nice family story set in Ireland. Couldn't get further from the truth! I think the best positive comment was from one customer who was just pleased to be able to get hold of this book in an accessible format and being able to join in the conversations with their friends and family. A nice example of social inclusion!
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
Monday, 16 July 2012
Rhubarb Pickle, The Reader and Revalidation (again) - 18th June-16th July 2012
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and blog. It’s that time of the year when the garden takes over and as well as doing some mass weeding, I’ve spent the weekend making spicy rhubarb pickle and summer fruit mixture for the freezer with the excitement of spending my evenings this week freezing cabbage and broad beans. I could also do with some ideas of what to do with red currants. One site that I have discovered recently that looks pretty handy for garden produce is http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipes.
I’ve also had to concentrate on my revalidation portfolio as my 3 year cycle is now complete. I’m slightly worried that my development seems very lacking with my limited role and lack of opportunities in projects and attending courses. I’ve decided to put a paragraph in my statement about my intention to do a management course to acknowledge a gap in that area. It’s been quite hard trying to decide what to include in my appendices, so far I’ve seem to have a pattern - new skills ie social networking and cataloguing, an example of a project I was involved in, development of my core skills needed for my current job and my committee work with CDEG and participation in EMBOC events. I’m also finding that I’m all right writing about what I’ve learnt from an activity but it’s the bit where you have to talk about how you’ve used this knowledge for your job which is proving to be more difficult. I’m also going to have to start filling in my audit sheet for my 2nd cycle.
I’ve been entertained by our forthcoming new reading business system with the constant booking and cancellation of dates for testing the functuality of the circulation module. Now, things have now been put on hold which is a bit of an anti-climax. I’ve had my initial training of how we should be carrying out the testing, the question which remains on everybody’s lips, when will we see this new system? I guess it is better that the data’s correct than rush it through regardless and the system is unusable.
It seems a month for cancellations. We’re being treated to a new carpet, it’s our first one since the building was built well over 20 years ago and with nearly 100 people in the office, it’s well used as you can imagine. We had a mad couple of hours clearing cupboards and filling the skip and shredding box today only to be told late this afternoon that there’s been a delay! We’ve just got to remember where we put the various cupboard contents for the next few days.
I don’t know if it was just me but I thought the Update was particularly dull this month and I struggled to find anything of interest. I keep meaning to go through the Phil Bradley’s column and trying some of the sites but it’s just finding the time.
We had our book club meeting last week. This time it was The Reader to go under the spotlight. On the whole, the book was well received, mainly getting 8’s and 9’s though it did get a 4 from one of our members. There wasn’t much fondness for Hannah except for the bit when she asks the judge “What would you have done?” and perhaps the beginning when she takes Michael home after he falls ill. Some of us couldn’t quite work out why she considered it more of a crime to be illiterate than the atrocities that she was accused off when she was an SS guard and that she preferred to go to jail rather than say she can’t read or write. There was also some confusion about when Hannah and Michael first met, some of the group thought that this had happened before she was a guard while others thought it was after the war. There was a thought that Hannah has a vicious streak in her, the fact that she hit Michael with her belt and cut his lip when he off to get some breakfast and left her a note and also her behaviour on the tram. This was a book that raised lots of questions – why did Hannah suddenly stop looking after herself once she had learnt to read and write, Michael’s relationship with his father that he had to make an appointment to see him, should Michael have told the judge that Hannah could not read or write so could not have written the report and had Michael really betrayed Hannah?
We had to do 3 month’s book selection pick this month to take into account of the forthcoming upheavals with the Stockport staff relocating into a drier place that isn’t falling down around their ears (a bit of an exageration here!) and the braille and giant print books coming back down to Peterborough. There’s a real good mix of new titles with highlights including a bit of true crime Midnight in Peking, Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Way, Hilary Mantel’s follow up to Wolfhall and A Cat Called Bob (including scarf of course). Collection Development titles concentrated on minority sports and include biographies on Barry Sheene, Nadal and Colin Montgomery’s latest autobiography. The imports more or less picked themselves and include new novels by Joanne Harris and Michael Frayn, the latest autobiography by David Essex and Ann Patchett’s A State of Wonder. Missing series is also a good mix from Colin Forbe’s A Savage Gorge (the only Tweed one that we haven’t got), Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments as we bizarrely only had the third one in the Barrytown series and the usual 3 favourites – Lee Child, Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin - that we’re trying to fill in. We’ve also discovered that Donna Leon and Harlan Coben isn't an Import, always a big excitement when one of the big crime favourites hasn’t succumbed to Isis, Audiogo or Oakhill.
We’ve now reached a record 55 requests for people waiting for 50 Shades of Grey to be completed. Hope the studios aren’t going to be too long!
I’ve also had to concentrate on my revalidation portfolio as my 3 year cycle is now complete. I’m slightly worried that my development seems very lacking with my limited role and lack of opportunities in projects and attending courses. I’ve decided to put a paragraph in my statement about my intention to do a management course to acknowledge a gap in that area. It’s been quite hard trying to decide what to include in my appendices, so far I’ve seem to have a pattern - new skills ie social networking and cataloguing, an example of a project I was involved in, development of my core skills needed for my current job and my committee work with CDEG and participation in EMBOC events. I’m also finding that I’m all right writing about what I’ve learnt from an activity but it’s the bit where you have to talk about how you’ve used this knowledge for your job which is proving to be more difficult. I’m also going to have to start filling in my audit sheet for my 2nd cycle.
I’ve been entertained by our forthcoming new reading business system with the constant booking and cancellation of dates for testing the functuality of the circulation module. Now, things have now been put on hold which is a bit of an anti-climax. I’ve had my initial training of how we should be carrying out the testing, the question which remains on everybody’s lips, when will we see this new system? I guess it is better that the data’s correct than rush it through regardless and the system is unusable.
It seems a month for cancellations. We’re being treated to a new carpet, it’s our first one since the building was built well over 20 years ago and with nearly 100 people in the office, it’s well used as you can imagine. We had a mad couple of hours clearing cupboards and filling the skip and shredding box today only to be told late this afternoon that there’s been a delay! We’ve just got to remember where we put the various cupboard contents for the next few days.
I don’t know if it was just me but I thought the Update was particularly dull this month and I struggled to find anything of interest. I keep meaning to go through the Phil Bradley’s column and trying some of the sites but it’s just finding the time.
We had our book club meeting last week. This time it was The Reader to go under the spotlight. On the whole, the book was well received, mainly getting 8’s and 9’s though it did get a 4 from one of our members. There wasn’t much fondness for Hannah except for the bit when she asks the judge “What would you have done?” and perhaps the beginning when she takes Michael home after he falls ill. Some of us couldn’t quite work out why she considered it more of a crime to be illiterate than the atrocities that she was accused off when she was an SS guard and that she preferred to go to jail rather than say she can’t read or write. There was also some confusion about when Hannah and Michael first met, some of the group thought that this had happened before she was a guard while others thought it was after the war. There was a thought that Hannah has a vicious streak in her, the fact that she hit Michael with her belt and cut his lip when he off to get some breakfast and left her a note and also her behaviour on the tram. This was a book that raised lots of questions – why did Hannah suddenly stop looking after herself once she had learnt to read and write, Michael’s relationship with his father that he had to make an appointment to see him, should Michael have told the judge that Hannah could not read or write so could not have written the report and had Michael really betrayed Hannah?
We had to do 3 month’s book selection pick this month to take into account of the forthcoming upheavals with the Stockport staff relocating into a drier place that isn’t falling down around their ears (a bit of an exageration here!) and the braille and giant print books coming back down to Peterborough. There’s a real good mix of new titles with highlights including a bit of true crime Midnight in Peking, Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Way, Hilary Mantel’s follow up to Wolfhall and A Cat Called Bob (including scarf of course). Collection Development titles concentrated on minority sports and include biographies on Barry Sheene, Nadal and Colin Montgomery’s latest autobiography. The imports more or less picked themselves and include new novels by Joanne Harris and Michael Frayn, the latest autobiography by David Essex and Ann Patchett’s A State of Wonder. Missing series is also a good mix from Colin Forbe’s A Savage Gorge (the only Tweed one that we haven’t got), Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments as we bizarrely only had the third one in the Barrytown series and the usual 3 favourites – Lee Child, Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin - that we’re trying to fill in. We’ve also discovered that Donna Leon and Harlan Coben isn't an Import, always a big excitement when one of the big crime favourites hasn’t succumbed to Isis, Audiogo or Oakhill.
We’ve now reached a record 55 requests for people waiting for 50 Shades of Grey to be completed. Hope the studios aren’t going to be too long!
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Lake District, The Savage Garden and Congratulations to England - 1st – 17th June 2012
I always seem to suffer from writers block when I haven’t written on my blog for a few weeks. I've spend the first ½ an hour typing, deleting, retyping and redeleting until I get in the swing again.
I met up with one of my best friends in Nottingham on Saturday. I hadn’t seen her for quite a few years so we had quite a bit of catching up to do. Most of it was done in Pret a Manger. We spent nearly 2 hours there. It’s put me in a good mood and spending the Sunday doing the usual chores didn’t seem quite so arduous as normal.
The month has flown by. We took avoidance tactics for the Jubilee and hid in our tent in Chapelstile (Lake District) until it was safe to come out again. We didn’t get flooded out this time, in fact it stayed dry though it got progressively colder as the competition on who could wear the most layers in the evening became more fiercely fought as the days went by. The only trouble with camping is that you always feel that you need a holiday afterwards to get over the ordeal. You always feel that you are on a fitness fanatic outbound break as you end up going on about ½ dozen walks a day excluding the numerous treks to the toilets and the water tap.
Work has been busy as usual, lots of calls and never a full house in to take them. The latest batch of customer requests was a varied affair, including autobiographies by Sheena Byrom (a midwife), David Jason and Kenny Dalglish, some poetry from Auden, the classic Mary McCarthy’s The Group, A Daughter’s Secret - a saga from Anne Bennett and Louise Foxcroft’s Calories and Corsets which looks at the history of dieting over 2,000 years.
We had our first Committee meeting as the newly formed CDEG last week. I thought it went well with lots of plans for the Committee to work on including an Equal Opportunities Act Workshop, a Library Camp, Libraries Change Lifes, Umbrella, the Diversity Award and a Conference. One of the next big things we need to work on is the quarterly Newsletter though we didn’t come to a final agreement on how we should do this. It would be interesting to see how the other merged groups came to an agreement on this one.
There was an interesting bit in the latest CILIP Update. Hidden in the 60 seconds with…. was a mention to The 25 Research Things which looks similar to the 23 Steps CDP and might be worth going through to refresh myself on some aspects of Social Networking. The website is http://25researchthings2011.wordpress.com.
Another useful link for Librarians and related professionals is http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/library-and-information-professionals.
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week where we picked a book out the book cupboard for one of our work colleagues to read. I was given Mick Mills – The Savage Garden – which could be classed as a well written, atmospheric mystery book though some readers may find it a bit slow and lacking a thrill. Other authors reviewed included Sam Bourne’s The Righteous Men which was described as similar to Dan Brown, a page turner and one to take on holiday but weak characters and not very well written. Another book reviewed was Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America where although it was a well written funny book, it was too long and the reader had to work hard to work out what was happening. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine was another book up for discussion. Again, this was another enjoyable readable book but was spoilt by being too far-fetched. The last book was Barbara Nadel’s A Noble Killing which again received positive feedback though took the reader a few chapters to get used to Turkey as the setting and they also thought that some readers may find the subject matter – honour killing - difficult to stomach.
Congratulations to England, the final whistle’s just blown and we’ve managed to win 1-0 with a struggle. We’ve got lady luck on our side at the moment – not played very well at times, Ukraine not been given a goal and Rooney getting a goal with about his only good touch of the game. Italy next!
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Russian Grannies, Orange Prize and Gina - May 21st-May 31st 2012
Huge excitement as we had a Eurovision sweep stake last week, I thought I'll be in with a chance as I got the hotly tipped Russian grannies. Sadly, it was not to be as I got pipped at the post (only by a few hundred points) by the Swedish entry though I can't really see the point of this one being in the contest as it's got to number one in most countries anyway. It's only sour grapes as I didn't make my fortune. Mind you the time I've bought cakes for everyone with my winnings to celebrate, I will be out of pocket. I didn't come bottom either as there was going to be a special prize made by Phillip the Archivist for the loser.
What was happening in the league one play-off final to take all 11 players having to take a penalty. Did neither team want to get promoted? It was left to the goalies to decide the outcome and Huddersfield's goalie who had been having lessons from Bayern Munich's goalkeeper on how to outwit your opposite number in the art of penalty taking to decide the winner. We were all wondering what would have happened if the score had still stayed the same, would the fans then have to line up and have a go?
Talk about hero to zero awards, this must go to Pastor Maldanado. First in the Spanish Grand prix one week and then forgetting he had something called brakes in Monaco and spent most of his time riding into the back of everyone else. And good old Grojean, I was getting abit worried that he hadn't crashed for a while, back to unable to get one full lap in.
As you've probably guessed from my ramblings, nothing much has happened at work. The next batch of customer requests that made it through to the book selection meeting was a curious mix including the latest one by Martin Amis (Lionel Asbo) mixed in with A Tangled Summer by Caroline Kington (country life fiction) and a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. There were quite a good selection of general fiction titles requested but unfortunately Oakhill has snapped up a lot of good titles including Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Allison Pearson's I think I love you. The non-fiction selection is just as varied including Roger Deakins Wildwood, Rafael Nadel's autobiography, Kate Chisholm's recent biography on Samuel Johnson and the Countess of Carnavon's Lady Amina's Real Downtown Abbey.
It was the Peterborough Orange Prize's Reading Groups event last night. Anne Enright was a much better read than we all had anticipated after her gloomfeast The Gathering. Quite honest, insightful and at times funny. I personally liked the rambling style of writing as if the main character is putting her thoughts together. The book is told in the first person - Gina - but we agreed that we couldn't rely on her account of what actually happened nor get an accurate portrayal of the other characters. She was summed up as being delusional, self-centred and basically not a nice person. I gave it 8/10 with 2 other people from the group but a couple of people didn't enjoy the book at all and only gave it 5/10 which led to an average of 7/10. For the first time ever, all the groups enthused about their books and the scoring was high. As usual the Peterborough Reading Group's winner differed to the proper winner with Half Blood Blues being our winner. Madeline Miller actually came second from bottom, our book came bottom! Last year we would have won such was the dislike for all of the books in general.
I'm off camping in the Lake District for a long weekend. The weather looks suitably cold and wet, can't wait.
What was happening in the league one play-off final to take all 11 players having to take a penalty. Did neither team want to get promoted? It was left to the goalies to decide the outcome and Huddersfield's goalie who had been having lessons from Bayern Munich's goalkeeper on how to outwit your opposite number in the art of penalty taking to decide the winner. We were all wondering what would have happened if the score had still stayed the same, would the fans then have to line up and have a go?
Talk about hero to zero awards, this must go to Pastor Maldanado. First in the Spanish Grand prix one week and then forgetting he had something called brakes in Monaco and spent most of his time riding into the back of everyone else. And good old Grojean, I was getting abit worried that he hadn't crashed for a while, back to unable to get one full lap in.
As you've probably guessed from my ramblings, nothing much has happened at work. The next batch of customer requests that made it through to the book selection meeting was a curious mix including the latest one by Martin Amis (Lionel Asbo) mixed in with A Tangled Summer by Caroline Kington (country life fiction) and a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. There were quite a good selection of general fiction titles requested but unfortunately Oakhill has snapped up a lot of good titles including Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Allison Pearson's I think I love you. The non-fiction selection is just as varied including Roger Deakins Wildwood, Rafael Nadel's autobiography, Kate Chisholm's recent biography on Samuel Johnson and the Countess of Carnavon's Lady Amina's Real Downtown Abbey.
It was the Peterborough Orange Prize's Reading Groups event last night. Anne Enright was a much better read than we all had anticipated after her gloomfeast The Gathering. Quite honest, insightful and at times funny. I personally liked the rambling style of writing as if the main character is putting her thoughts together. The book is told in the first person - Gina - but we agreed that we couldn't rely on her account of what actually happened nor get an accurate portrayal of the other characters. She was summed up as being delusional, self-centred and basically not a nice person. I gave it 8/10 with 2 other people from the group but a couple of people didn't enjoy the book at all and only gave it 5/10 which led to an average of 7/10. For the first time ever, all the groups enthused about their books and the scoring was high. As usual the Peterborough Reading Group's winner differed to the proper winner with Half Blood Blues being our winner. Madeline Miller actually came second from bottom, our book came bottom! Last year we would have won such was the dislike for all of the books in general.
I'm off camping in the Lake District for a long weekend. The weather looks suitably cold and wet, can't wait.
Monday, 21 May 2012
Not much to say except Drogba is a hero - May 14th-18th
Not much to report workwise except that I spent the week with the phone permanently glued to my ear as there were only 2 of us in for most of the week. It was just a matter of keeping on top of the incoming calls and checking the in-tray for anything that was urgent. It didn’t help that it was our third busiest week of this year. We've had a worrying amount of calls of readers complaining about the slowness of the service and books going missing in the post. Our manager looked into it but both Production and the Peterborough Sorting Office have reported back to say there’s no problems at their end. A complete mystery!
Quite surprised that Chelsea won the Champions League. Not sure how as they were outplayed and offered little as an attacking force but if they have a player like Drogba who’s able to pull something out of the bag and keep their cool anything can happen. Also thought it was nice that after the match while his team mates were celebrating, he was going round consoling the Bayern Munich players whether they liked it or not. Definitely hero of the week. Also congratulations to York City for winning promotion back into the football league after beating Luton 2-1.
Otherwise not alot more to say, my revalidation portfolio has ground to a holt and I haven't sorted out any plans for any form of professional development. I have been given permission to go on a mentor's course in Leicester next month but I'm still in 2 minds whether to go.
Quite surprised that Chelsea won the Champions League. Not sure how as they were outplayed and offered little as an attacking force but if they have a player like Drogba who’s able to pull something out of the bag and keep their cool anything can happen. Also thought it was nice that after the match while his team mates were celebrating, he was going round consoling the Bayern Munich players whether they liked it or not. Definitely hero of the week. Also congratulations to York City for winning promotion back into the football league after beating Luton 2-1.
Otherwise not alot more to say, my revalidation portfolio has ground to a holt and I haven't sorted out any plans for any form of professional development. I have been given permission to go on a mentor's course in Leicester next month but I'm still in 2 minds whether to go.
Thursday, 17 May 2012
The Forgotten Waltz and the underdogs - 7th May-11th May
Not sure if it’s the weather but I spent a lot of last week revamping readers’ lists to “more light reading please”. I’ve done many variations of lists consisting of family saga authors who write like Catherine Cookson, Rosamunde Pilcher and similar, country life fiction, Fred Archer and Gervase Phinn style autobiographies, golden age crime and Mills and Boon romance. It’s surprising how many different combinations you can do for light reading.
It was my turn to attend the monthly book selection meeting which passed by smoothly. There was quite an interesting discussion from our production department who are looking into automating the braille process. We presently conform to the rules set out in The Brailler’s Manual which gives a consistent standard to how a braille book should be transcribed. The obvious advantage would be the speed in getting a book produced into braille. I query the quality of the output though and I think there may be some come back from some of our customers. I think there is a parallel with brailling books to cataloguing in that there are rules and standards to conform to and that you need some manual intervention.
We finally managed to do an overhaul of our noticeboard, this time the focus is on our Reading Group – Bookbabes – to try and drum up some new faces. We managed to attract a couple of new people from a notice on our Intranet but could do with some more people. Good news!, we’ve just found out at short notice that we are going to be taking part in the Orange Prize Event held at Peterborough Central Library again. One of the other reading groups has dropped out last minute. The bad news is that we’ve got to read The Forgotten Waltz – Anne Enright - which we’ve not only got to read but also sell to the audience as a “must read”. We’ve got a 100% record every time we take part so the pressure’s on.
There was an interesting article in the latest CILIP Update about e-readers, particularly the views of the VI pupils. They liked the fact that they were small and easy to carry and more importantly that people couldn’t tell that they were reading a book in alternative format such as a giant print book. It might be something to think about when trying to persuade teenage readers to join the various library services. They don’t want to be seen reading something different or have a special daisy player which will set them apart from their friends. Another useful comment was the dislike of Kindle’s electronic voice. There is one argument for more talking books to be done in synthetic voice in the future as the younger generation would be more used to this and would accept it. The pupils in this survey certainly wasn’t reading the script.
I've been distracted again with the sport with Man City winning the Premier League with almost the last kick of the match and then Pastor Maldanaldo of Williams winning the Spanish Grand Prix. Definitely the weekend of the underdogs.
Monday, 7 May 2012
Denise Mina, Revalidation (again) and Scram! - 23rd April-4th May
I know I’ve missed a week again but to be honest, there hasn’t been a lot to report from work. It’s just been a steady flow of calls mixed with book selection. Again, there’s a good variety of titles selected including Scram, a book about the Falklands War, A Rough Guide to the Middle Ages which looks like a good readable history title, the latest ones from Anne Tyler and Marina Lewycka and an autobiography by the chap who used to read the shipping forecast on Radio 4 in amongst the popular names across the genres.
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week, this time it was popular crime author that we hadn't read but are always putting them on readers' lists. Authors under the spotlight included Donna Leon, Anne Perry, James Elroy, Denise Mina, Reginald Hill and Graham Hurley. We're trying to conceptualise a ladder from a gentle to a gritty crime read with Anne Perry at the bottom (the reader found it too dull because of the lack of action) to James Elroy at the other extreme. I managed to get through both Denise Mina and Reginald Hill with Denise Mina closer to James Elroy on the scale of grittiness - no shortage of violence, language and a bit of sex thrown in as she depicts well a bleak early 1980's Glasgow's landscape. Reginald Hill falls in the middle with not too much violence but with the odd bit of language and the stereotypical Yorkshire males makes it a treat with care to who you send it out too. Graham Hurley fell between James Elroy and Denise Mina though the violence wasn't gratuitous. Donna Leon was closer to Anne Perry with a bigger emphasis on descriptions of food!
I’ve been concentrating on my Revalidation particularly after my recent meeting with my mentor who suggested that I could reconsider the dates I was using (Nov 2009-Oct 2012) as I had made good progress with my portfolio. As I had been sending my yearly log to the CILIP, I contacted them to see if it was okay to bring the dates forward. I also have at least 3 things I could include from earlier on in 2009 which are worth including. CILIP have given me the okay so I’m now frantically trying to sort out my Revalidation Audit Sheet – what did I learn from the activity and how did I apply it in the workplace. Fortunately I did keep a log of everything with my thoughts but although I’ve done the first part okay, there’s not been enough thought so far on the application side. I’ve been surprised that there are over 40 things to include in my Audit but I’m still concerned about the quality of my professional development.
There have also been quite a few emails flying around the new CD&E (Community, Diversity and Equality) Group. We’ve managed to come to a quick agreement with the Logo. There’s still seems that there are plenty of issues such as the financial side while the bit which I’m involved in – Website and Newsletters – has thrown up a few issues – what to do with the monthly and quarterly newsletters, when do we start to merge the 2 websites and how do we develop this area. I’m slightly worried by the fact that the longer we delay sending out newsletters, people will be less inclined in wanting to pick our group as one of their special interest options when they come to subscribe next year as they may feel that we haven’t anything to offer.
I’ve been distracted this last week with the Blue Square Premier Conference play offs but unfortunately I won’t be going to Wembley after Mansfield lost 1-0 to York after extra time. Oddly enough, the lowest placed teams in the play offs have made it to Wembley instead which doesn’t seem right that you can’t get promotion with 98 points! Poor Wrexham!
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week, this time it was popular crime author that we hadn't read but are always putting them on readers' lists. Authors under the spotlight included Donna Leon, Anne Perry, James Elroy, Denise Mina, Reginald Hill and Graham Hurley. We're trying to conceptualise a ladder from a gentle to a gritty crime read with Anne Perry at the bottom (the reader found it too dull because of the lack of action) to James Elroy at the other extreme. I managed to get through both Denise Mina and Reginald Hill with Denise Mina closer to James Elroy on the scale of grittiness - no shortage of violence, language and a bit of sex thrown in as she depicts well a bleak early 1980's Glasgow's landscape. Reginald Hill falls in the middle with not too much violence but with the odd bit of language and the stereotypical Yorkshire males makes it a treat with care to who you send it out too. Graham Hurley fell between James Elroy and Denise Mina though the violence wasn't gratuitous. Donna Leon was closer to Anne Perry with a bigger emphasis on descriptions of food!
I’ve been concentrating on my Revalidation particularly after my recent meeting with my mentor who suggested that I could reconsider the dates I was using (Nov 2009-Oct 2012) as I had made good progress with my portfolio. As I had been sending my yearly log to the CILIP, I contacted them to see if it was okay to bring the dates forward. I also have at least 3 things I could include from earlier on in 2009 which are worth including. CILIP have given me the okay so I’m now frantically trying to sort out my Revalidation Audit Sheet – what did I learn from the activity and how did I apply it in the workplace. Fortunately I did keep a log of everything with my thoughts but although I’ve done the first part okay, there’s not been enough thought so far on the application side. I’ve been surprised that there are over 40 things to include in my Audit but I’m still concerned about the quality of my professional development.
There have also been quite a few emails flying around the new CD&E (Community, Diversity and Equality) Group. We’ve managed to come to a quick agreement with the Logo. There’s still seems that there are plenty of issues such as the financial side while the bit which I’m involved in – Website and Newsletters – has thrown up a few issues – what to do with the monthly and quarterly newsletters, when do we start to merge the 2 websites and how do we develop this area. I’m slightly worried by the fact that the longer we delay sending out newsletters, people will be less inclined in wanting to pick our group as one of their special interest options when they come to subscribe next year as they may feel that we haven’t anything to offer.
I’ve been distracted this last week with the Blue Square Premier Conference play offs but unfortunately I won’t be going to Wembley after Mansfield lost 1-0 to York after extra time. Oddly enough, the lowest placed teams in the play offs have made it to Wembley instead which doesn’t seem right that you can’t get promotion with 98 points! Poor Wrexham!
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