The subject of this get together was
‘How do libraries make you more
employable?’ one of the
hot button topics face by librarians at the moment.
Among the
group were HE, public, FE, and NHS librarians, and we discovered we faced
similar challenges in each of our sectors.
The
LibTeachMeet was opened by Julie Hart, Aberystwyth University Librarian and
Deputy Director of Services, who noted the difference between employment and
employability within the context of HE skills.
Our first
speaker was yours truly, and I spoke on my experiences both as a recent
student, and as a library trainee, and how in both cases the library
contributes to employability.
Next up was
Anita Saycell, subject librarian, who gave a talk on the resources we have at
Aberystwyth to help students keep up to date with industry developments and
research companies.
Our third
speaker was SÃona Murray from Coleg Llandrillo, who gave us
an insight into Further Education’s contributions to employability, as well as
touching on a range of topics such as Information Literacy, Digital Literacy,
and social media skills as employability skills.
Next, Sarah Gwenlan, subject librarian, spoke about Aberystwyth
University’s efforts to collaborate Library resources and skills with the
Careers Service in our Employabilty group, and developing shared sessions, and
discussions were had about the best time in the degree scheme to introduce
these lectures to students.
Finally, Joy Cadwallader, subject librarian, gave us a personal case study about how
libraries were making people employable back in the 1980s, as libraries have to
keep up with new technology, so do our students.
There was plenty of discussion about employability of
students but also skills for librarians. Another key point that came up was how
to market the library’s involvement and provision of skills, and the issue of
‘presumed knowledge’ with a phrase I particularly enjoyed which is ‘IT confident
doesn’t equal IT competent’. We also discussed the importance of collaborating
further with careers services to develop joint sessions on skills, and looking
for ‘employability champions’ amongst colleagues and academic departments. We
also touched on the challenge of finding a good hashtag to promote the value of
libraries to employability, which proved to be a difficult one.
I would like to thank everyone who attended and spoke,
especially those who took the time to travel to Aber, as well as CILIP for
sponsoring this event and helping us provide the lure of lunch and freebies.
All that’s left to say is I’ll be looking forward to Aber
LibTeachMeet 2017
