I am the latest joiner of the “Fellowship of the Ring” and
have come on board a little late (story of my life..). I work as part of the NHS Health
Care Libraries Unit (HCLU) and since I was the only librarian in the
team who was not either a Fellow or on the road to becoming one, I was
beginning to feel a bit left out! I like
to think that other motivators include wanting to demonstrate my commitment to
the profession and to be a positive role model too. I had, in the past, considered CILIP
Fellowship as something very high brow, for more erudite people than me with
lots of publications under their belt.
Who knows, I may turn out to be right!!
Once I started to look into the requirements of Fellowship
though, it began to seem a little less out of reach. There are three areas of performance which
need to be demonstrated:
-Personal performance
-Organisational context
-Commitment to the profession and wider profession
No doubt, we would all find some of these areas easier to
evidence than others. For me, personal performance and organisational
context have been slightly easier to get my head around. Through Chartership and other professional
development, I have established habits of reflection and my objectives are
agreed annually and measured with my line manager. In terms of organisational context, I can
describe how my role fits into HCLU
Objectives and to our national strategic framework Knowledge
for Healthcare. The area that
requires most thought for me is commitment
to the profession and wider profession.
It is very easy, with busy home and work lives, to focus on the tasks in
hand and keeping abreast with developments mainly in our own sectors. There is plenty going on in health to keep
anyone busy! Partnership working is an
important part of my current role and I am now working more closely with
colleagues in other sectors. Working in the NHS, library and knowledge services
staff are very good at working collaboratively and sharing resources. As we move into new areas of work e.g.
information for patients and the public, we are working in a cross-sectoral way
and partnership working is becoming part of the day job.
So, I have made a start with Fellowship and I don’t
underestimate the importance of those two key words “substantial
contribution”. I am finding the process interesting again
though, much as I did for Chartership.
For anyone thinking about Fellowship, I would heartily recommend Jo
Walley’s Blog on Fellowship.
You may not initially think this is a positive read on Fellowship, but
it certainly helped me to put the whole process into context and perspective.
Joanne Naughton
NHS Library and Knowledge Services Development Manager –
North East
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