OK... as I need to channel off the excess energy from Wales beating the Irish someplace I thought I'd try catching up with my blog, at least a little bit!
Attending
I've attended a couple of things since starting at the National Library of Wales. I've probably attended more training days than anything else, though most of these have been internal, I did attend one external CILIP training day last November 'Moving into Management' but in general all my training has been internal. This has given me the chance to get to know people from other departments who I probably wouldn't have much, if anything to do with during my day to day work. It's also given the library the chance to ensure that I have the skills that they want when it comes to things like managing staff.
I have also attended a couple of NEWSPLAN Wales conferences, that is the ones that have been held in the National Library as my line manager thinks this is important to me. These events have been really interesting to see how things are being handled all over Wales. While I didn't really get the chance to socialise with people as much as I would've liked due mostly to shyness, I was lucky enough to get to talk to Ed King who had come to Aber for the event! And was very kind in beginning a conversation with the lonely shy person in the corner! :)
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend the Gregynog Colloquium which I've spoken about in an earlier blog. And I've also been to a cpd23 meet up in Cardiff which was great fun! These two events are probably the best I've attended for giving me contacts. Though it probably helps that some of the people were the same.
Presenting
Again this isn't something I've done much of. I had the opportunity to talk about the importance of digitising newspapers to NEWSPLAN Wales early last year, and did a presentation about the content of the volumes the library are digitising to the Chapters members of the National Library. I particularly enjoyed this one as the contents of the newspapers really fascinate me and it was interesting to see what other people were interested in. There was one lady who speaking about her Grandmother had experienced an earthquake back in the early 1900s which I'd happened to talk about, apparently the family had always though she must be mistaken!
I was also lucky enough to speak at the Gregynog Conference. Again see the Gregynog Conference blog or for the presentation itself see Thing 10.
My main problems with these was the actual Presenting as I'm rather shy and the idea of standing up in front of a bunch of strangers (even friendly librarian strangers) terrifies me more than you could ever believe. However I've a feeling that the more I do the better I'll come at doing it. I also like to make sure my hints to myself are actually a part of the slide. That way I just can't forget something or mix up any cards I'm holding or something dreadful like that. Maybe with time I'll become a confident public speaker but I have the oddest feeling that that is just not going to happen somehow.
Organising
I've never organised an event. And so I'm not going to comment on this. If the day ever comes when it happens I'll probably blog about it.
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