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27 May 2003
Review by Kristel Petrou
Last night SALIN put on one of its excellent
networking-professional development events. The theme for this event
was Me, Myself and I: Marketing you and your library. The setting
for last nights event was the CPA building in Pultney St and it
provided a new, professional and fresh atmosphere for the evening.
After a brief introduction by committee member/co-organiser Sarah
Morphett, Ann Luzeckyj spoke on how to market yourself by using your
past to develop your future. Having worked in various trades
(paver/bricklayer/women's refuge/clerk etc etc) and travelled
extensively, Ann realised she had gained many skills that have
enabled her to progress and develop through many careers and jobs,
to her current position as Campus Librarian at UniSA's City West
campus.
Ann explained that by moving out of her comfort
zone to speak in front of people (which she assured us always makes
her nervous, despite the fact she always looks calm and confident)
she has gained a skill that can be transferable to other personal
and professional situations in life. Using her varying past jobs and
personal achievements, Ann explained how all these previous
achievements are not only relevant, but useful, sustainable and
transferable. Her career examples included:
Job as a Paver: shows you can cope with boredom
and tedium in the job. Travel: shows you are good outside your
comfort zone and possibly a bit of a risk-taker Women's Refuge:
shows you can work with a diverse range of people in varying
situations. Customer service: shows you have good communication
skills.
Using real-life scenarious in answering
interview questions, to prove your skills is also an effective way
to market yourself. According to Ann, 'if you can plan a wedding,
you can plan anything!'. Other examples Ann gave were, planning a
dinner party or renovating a house - both provide you with
invaluable, transferable skills in project-co-ordination and
negotiation and are useful ways to market yourself to any potential
employer.
Along with these real-life professional and
personal experiences, Ann touched on other methods of marketing
yourself such as CV development, team involvement (such as being a
member of a sports team) and getting on executive committees like
SALIN and ALIA group committees, and helping in the development and
planning aspects. Ann's final point was to encourage everyone to
enjoy the challenge of finding out about what you want to do in the
Information Profession and to use opportunities from South
Australia's very welcoming and highly active library network.
As is often the case at SALIN events, attendees
were divided into groups (first by a color code, then by Positive
'P'-word), and the first groups' activity was to read a Case
Scenario where someone held a previous job (outside the library
industry) and now has the opportunity of an information profession
job. The activity was designed to build on Ann's talk and show
transferability of skills (For example: Mike the Mechanic/Car
Detailer is injured and placed in a position as a cataloguing
assistant => His transferable skills are: attention to detail,
follow-up communication skills, negotiation skills, practical
problem solving skills, ability to learn a trade and recognise
errors/mistakes and correct them).
Following Activity 1, Roz Davidson from Fisher
Jeffries Barristers & Solicitors spoke thoroughly on Marketing your
library to your organisation. As a solo law librarian, Roz markets
her library's services to her firm's 100+ staff (including 45
practitioners) over 3 floors, by using many different methods.
The location of the Fisher Jeffries library is
behind reception on the first of the three floors and, as such, is a
highly accessible and somewhat central area with door entrances
either end. Roz finds the library's location enables staff to pass
by and this creates marketing opportunities because people will stop
for a chat, see new items on display, and often remember a
query/request they need the library to research/chase up. On the
occasions that Roz leaves the library (to hand deliver a request -
another in-your-face marketing tool), she always takes pen and paper
ready to jot down any sudden requests staff may require. This shows
initiative, organisation and professionalism.
The way Roz looks at marketing the library to
her organisation is through Appearance and Action. Both the
library's appearance (tidy, reshelved, classified by the law library
classification system MOYS for universiality) and personal
appearance (dresssing professionaly). Roz's view on marketing is to
present yourself and your service to your organisation, to show our
profession adds value, through actions such as: Setting up Current
Awareness services, daily newspaper alerts specific to the firms'
Practice groups; recognising, after completing a request, that other
staff may find the information useful, and distributing it.
Recognising the intangibility of the library's
service within the firm (and in most organisations) becuase most
organisations determine value by billable hours and profits, Roz has
found ways to prove to management the service is valuable through
the use of statistics documenting the library's various services and
using her skills as a librarian coupled with the resources the
library has electronically and in hard-copy, to obtain timely and
accurate information on request - saving the practitioner's time
(which can then, of course, be freed up to be billable time!). With
the law being ever-changing, Roz needs to be aware of changes and
pass on any relevant updates to respective members of the firm.
Roz also touched on the importance of marketing
the library through the Intranet - by acknowledging that different
staff will search for information in different ways, the Intranet
needs to be set up with multiple access-points so the information is
accessible to all staff. Other useful marketing methods Roz spoke of
were getting involved in office meetings and social events, to put
yourself our there and let the organisation your resources and
services and therefore help them gain a sense of the value of the
library and the librarian. Roz feels the most important marketing
tool is in delivering what you say you are going to.
After Roz's talk, new groups were formed for
Activity 2 - Discussing three actions that you can do to market your
library to non-library colleagues. My group came up with: Using the
Intranet page to post a FAQ's link; putting coloured marker flyers
with the library staff names on each hard-copy completed
request/current awareness service for instant identification;
regular newsletter circulation with images and tips relevant to
staff; using 'buzzwords' from office meetings and researching them
post-meeting to send up-to-date information to relevant staff;
Add-on services etc.
This concluded the evening - A big Thankyou to
Ann and Roz for their excellent, informative, inspriational and
entertaining talks. And, of course, a big thankyou to Sarah
Morphett, Robyn Ellard and Gewain Letheby and the rest of the SALIN
committee for producing yet another excellent and entertaining
professional event.
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