“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Ray Pun, CPDWL standing committee member!

Ray Pun wearing gloves when handling photographs

Why are you a standing committee member of CPDWL and what are you working on for CPDWL Section at the moment?

Ray: I’ve been involved in CPDWL since 2015. I attended the CPDWL satellite meeting in 2015 held in Cape Town, South Africa. Through this section, I was fortunate to meet with CPDWL standing committee members and leaders Ulrike Lang (Germany), Catharina Isberg (Sweden), Susan Schnuer (USA), Vivian Lewis (Canada), Loida Garcia-Febo (USA), Dr. Gill Hallam (Australia), Dr. Jana Varlejs (USA) and many others who are passionate about reinforcing lifelong learning skills in LIS, and  encouraged me to be more involved. Dr. Varlejs actually happened to sit next to me during our 10+ hour flight to South Africa and we talked about LIS everything!

I initially served as a corresponding member from 2016-2018, where I assisted in supporting CPDWL sessions in WLIC 2016 (USA) and 2017 (Poland) related to our continuing professional development guidelines, and volunteered as a coach in our WLIC coaching session in 2018 (Malaysia) and 2019 (Greece). I also co-chaired the CPDWL satellite meeting program in Croatia in 2019 (in partnership with the Croatian Library Association – and co-chaired with Dr. Dijana Machala). I officially joined as a standing committee member (2019-2023) as the American Library Association (ALA) representative in the section and served as the information coordinator for CPDWL from 2019-2021 and now working on a variety of projects related to social media channels, webinars, podcast activities, etc.

CPDWL is always looking at new trends and issues impacting our field such as emerging professional development resources in LIS like Skilltype and Society of Scholarly Publishing (SSP) (see our past newsletter issue featuring an interview with former SSP president Alice Meadows).

What is one advice you have for new librarians interested in getting involved in IFLA or in their library associations for professional development?

Ray: Identify what you are interested in doing and then align what you are looking for within the association. It’s not perfect but you’ll find the overlapping areas to be helpful. Make connections with people serving in different roles in the association. Also keep in mind, we are all volunteers across IFLA standing committees, and it takes time to learn the process, to get involved, and to implement activities/enact change. I like to thank the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) (where I am currently serving as President) and the American Library Association (ALA) for providing support for me to attend and for enabling these global connections over these years!

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Elena Corradini, CPDWL standing committee member!

Why are you a standing committee member of CPDWL and what are you working on for CPDWL Section at the moment?

Elena: I have been co-opted in Summer 2022 to replace a vacancy. I believe that my experience as a public librarian, small-scale researcher and previous involvement in IFLA Standing Committees was a plus over other potential candidates and so I’m in! At the moment I am trying to follow the development of the draft Manifesto on libraries and lifelong learning, which is a great mission to cover with the help of very qualified colleagues from almost all over the world. Besides, I am trying to keep up with the many activities done by other members of the committee. I’ll try to do my best to be more and more active in the next months.

What is one advice you have for new librarians interested in getting involved in IFLA or in their library associations for professional development?

Elena: For most librarians whose mother tongue is not English, the involvement in IFLA means to be forced to learn not only how the librarian job is evolving over time, but also to be able to communicate fluently in a language in which the most updated professional literature is currently published. Besides, IFLA works with any professional association worldwide and, therefore, this “umbrella organization” collects viewpoints of librarians from anywhere around the globe. You get the idea that you are never completely alone, even if you are working in a remote area. If you are not so brave to embrace the challenge of working in an international environment, you can still connect to your national professional association(s), where you can find support and advice from other librarians. Establishing connections and discussing about daily problems is already a form of personal and professional development.

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Mitsuhiro Oda, CPDWL standing committee member!

Why are you a standing committee member of CPDWL and what are you working on for CPDWL Section at the moment?

Mitsuhiro: My role as a member of standing committee of CPDWL Section is two-fold. The first is to make the concept of Continuing Professional Development broaden in the training of library and information professionals of Japan, and to raise awareness of self-development among library and information professionals. For this reason, I am working as one of the standing committee members to further refine and revise the CPDWL Guideline. The second is to popularize the method for Continuing Professional Development. For example, in the past few years, the CPDWL section has been launching coaching sessions at the IFLA World Congress. I would try to analyze the effectiveness of this method as a LIS researcher.

What is one advice you have for new librarians interested in getting involved in IFLA or in their library associations for professional development?

Mitsuhiro: Competency is considered to have three dimensions in any profession. They are knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Workplace learning and training sessions often focus on only knowledge or skills, but most important be attitude as competencies. This means that library and information professionals should be able to objectively recognize their own situation and level, determine what they have to do, and choose and use appropriate methods for continuing professional development.

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Edward Junhao Lim, CPDWL standing committee member and information coordinator!

I am interested to learn and apply game-based learning in my instructional workshops with students. I have a friend who introduced me to the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) Game-based Learning community of practice (CoP). The facilitator and members have been extremely welcoming to new members, including myself. We are part of this Discord server that allows us to chat and meet with each other once a month.

Why are you a standing committee member of CPDWL and what are you working on for CPDWL Section at the moment? 

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Claudiane Weber, CPDWL standing committee member!

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Alan Brine, co-chair of CPDWL!

Presenting poster on CPDWL guidelines for professional development at Dublin WLIC.

“This is How We Do It: One Professional Development Activity in the Lives of Librarians from Around the World” is a new series from the IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning Section to highlight our standing committee members, who they are and what they do!

In this post, we highlight Ivana Todorovic, CPDWL standing committee member!