CPD staff collection: a little reminder!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always struggled to keep up with my continuing professional development. Taking time out to learn isn’t exactly easy. In the past, it was possible to take a day out of the workplace to go on a formal training course, but applying that learning to your own situation could be difficult. All that inspiration often faded away in the face of real world work. You might assume ‘Virtual’ training would be better, given you’re not as separated from that real world scenario, but there are different challenges instead. For example, you may not have that all-important time to reflect on what you’ve learned if you’re immediately plunged back into the job at hand, the moment you take off the headset and turn off the webcam.
One possible solution is reading. It’s often been seen as the ‘last resort’ or the ‘cheap’ option, but in truth you can read a few pages at lunchtime or on the commute to and from work (don’t do this if you’re driving!) and then pause and reflect in real time. That’s a lot easier to swallow than an entire training course which might spin a good yarn in itself, but is so tightly presented that there’s rarely any space in it for you to reflect back in the session, and precious little time for that afterwards if it’s being delivered ‘virtually’. It’s also easier to apply learning to the workplace if you’re wringing a few drops of common sense from a paragraph rather than drowning in a flood of inspiration from a training course.
But what to read? There are always journal articles like this, of course, but if you want to dig deeper, continuing professional development can prove a costly business. Especially if you’re not sure the book you’re thinking of reading will be of any use.
That’s where YOHHLNEt’s CPD staff collection may come in very handy. They’re freely available to all NHS library staff. We have a list of books available from our catalogue http://rotherham.nhslibraries.com indexed with the location "Librarianship Collection" for print titles. For e-books please search with the subject field “CPD Collection”.
As librarians we should be well used to the process of book borrowing of course, but sometimes it just takes a little reminder that a wealth of CPD is available at your fingertips!
And finally, we are always happy to take suggestions for new books to purchase, just drop us an email at: rgh-tr.libraryhealthcare@nhs.net
Daniel Park
Library and knowledge Service Manager
The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust
