Building a Future Ready Profession by Christine Tate, CILIP North West New Professionals Support Officer

On 4th March 2019 the iSchool at Manchester Metropolitan University held an event for the students on their MA in Library and Information Management course.
The theme for the day was ‘Building a Future Ready Profession’.
Programme Leader Geoff Walton opened the day with a warm welcome. The first speaker David Stewart then took the floor and introduced the students to his role as CILIP President for 2019. David announced that from next September the iSchool will be launching a new health module that will help prepare students for working in this sector.

Nick Poole and the history of CILIP

Next up was Nick Poole who gave a presentation that covered the development of the profession, the origins of CILIP, the award of its Royal Charter in 1898, and the challenges and opportunities that we are now facing. Some of the changes highlighted included:

· The changing population – the population is due to increase by 10.5% increase by 2030. As most of this increase will be in our urban centres we should be planning for how our services will meet the increase in demand
· The data revolution – with the fast pace of developments in AI and data analytics we need to upskill and ensure that we have the skills to become the bridge between these development and citizens
· Changing consumers - user behaviour, use of leisure time, caring and family responsibilities, learning, media consumption, and civil participation are changing. Alongside these changes are developments in consumer expectations of the scale, quality, and accessibility of the services they access.

Implications for information professionals today

For information professionals, this means that our work is changing. The user, the material and the librarian are no longer always in the same place. CILIP is committed to securing our continued relevance by future-proofing our skills, building influence and advocating for the difference we can make.
Nick provided an overview of the work that CILIP is doing to achieve this goal:

· CILIP has been working with the private sector to produce position papers such as Information as an Asset. The partnership between CILIP and KPMG encourages executives to recognise the strategic value of the information assets in their organisations

· CILIP’s campaigns such as My Library by Right have highlighted the two tier system of library ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, the continual budget cuts, and the disconnect between local and national government

· The Great School Libraries campaign aims to secure school library funding, produce a national framework for school libraries and obtain recognition of school libraries within the Ofsted framework

· Another CILIP campaign - A Million Decisions - highlighted the fact that every 17 hours over 1 million decisions are made across the NHS which have a profound impact on patients, their families and carers. It called for decisions in health to be evidence-based and asked government and health service providers to employ and make use of the skills of information professionals

· The profession is facing a retirement cliff face so CILIP is looking at how it can lower the barrier to entry through workplace development and how we can welcome diverse talent from all backgrounds.

· Reconnecting with ethics. At the end of last year CILIP launched its 7 Ethical Principles which were produced as a result of the 18,000 responses it received to its ethics review. The principles are now modernised, simplified, and more relevant.

· Skills development. 100 online courses have been launched in the last few weeks (they are accessible through the CILIP VLE) and members can join an unlimited number of the Special Interest Groups. CILIP's Leaders Network also provides members with an opportunity to develop leadership and management skills.

Discussion workshop

The afternoon concluded with a discussion workshop which considered
· What does it mean to be a profession and do we want to be one?
· What will we need as information professionals in the future?
· What should CILIP's role be?

The questions stimulated lively group discussions covering apprenticeships and Chartership, the need to keep updating our skills and learning more about coding and data science. We also considered whether CILIP should focus on being an advocacy body rather than a regulatory one.

Closing thoughts 

Our CILIP North West student representatives Erica and Rachael shared their thoughts on the event.
Erica: ‘Of course, it is great to have the opportunity to hear directly from CILIP leadership, not least because it suggests that CILIP has a genuine interest in fostering the development of emergent professionals. I appreciated the opportunity to meet and share ideas with professionals from the region in a productive, focused manner. The presentations certainly provided us with some important points to consider as we begin building our information careers.’ 

Rachael: ‘As a MA student, I found [the workshops] extremely useful for linking theory and practice. The workshops allowed for debate from both sides of the profession.
Both presentations gave me a clearer insight into the relevance of the subjects I am currently studying, as well as helping me to better understand CILIP's strategic vision.
The afternoon has given me the motivation to succeed; it presented a profession that is both welcoming and innovative.
Nick did a fantastic job of highlighting the benefits of membership for CILIP.
Overall, a brilliant, enjoyable afternoon was had by all. Thank you to Geoff for organising it.’