ILIG Informal with @davidclover
Last week I got the opportunity to attend one of the CILIP International Library and Information Group informal meetings at CILIP HQ, London. The speaker was David Clover, one of last year's Travelling Librarian award winners (the Travelling Librarian award is a collaboration between CILIP and ESU, the English Speaking Union, which funds a UK librarian to undertake a US library study tour). David managed to fit in 4 states, 7 cities and 10 libraries in just 17 days!
I'd not met David before, though had conversed with him on Twitter. I'm really glad I got to go; David is incredibly inspiring and gave lots of tips which will be useful for my upcoming trip to New Orleans and (hopefully) future study tours.
The main points I took from the presentation were:
develop your own itinerary and keep an open mind when doing so
study tours are time consuming to organise, so be patient but persistent
concentrate geographically for practical reasons
be flexible about topics to discuss
the value of face to face discussions is key (as people are often more honest this way!)
use the valuable networking opportunities to build and strengthen professional contacts
be flexible about your plans
David said that he would summarise what he got from his trip with 3 'i's'; information, ideas and inspiration. I hope my trip to ALA Annual and my visit to Louisiana State University will give me the same.