Christine Love-Rodgers, University of Edinburgh

Category: Meet our Members

The following is a guest blog post from Christine Love-Rodgers as part of our focus on sectors.

There’s no average day at the office for me. Today has included meeting with IT and e-learning staff who support my subject areas, meeting sales representatives from digital publishers about new business models, planning to bid for additional funding for digital Scholarship, teaching a workshop on fake news and news sources and holding a literature review clinic session. Those activities have been held in different library buildings across the city centre so I do a lot of walking each day in all weathers (and with Edinburgh’s physical geography, a lot of climbing hills and steps). I love the variety of my job and the creativity, and I enjoy working collaboratively with my team of colleagues to develop ideas and solve problems. At the heart of the job is our mission to foster excellent learning, teaching and research and it’s great to get thank yous from students and staff when we provide the help they need.

I joined CILIP as a student and started working on my Chartership over twenty years ago in my first professional post at the National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum. That was back in the day when you had to submit printed portfolios. Over the years, I’ve revalidated three times, and found the feedback I received helpful and affirming. Attending CILIPS events, like the Autumn Gathering, I’ve been inspired by the work for inclusion and social justice in Scotland’s public libraries and the information literacy and reader development work in school libraries. Events like this challenge me to step out of my higher education ‘box’ and think differently. I’ve been involved with CILIP’s professional committees, most recently as a Trustee of CILIPS. I’ve found this useful for building my network, gaining in confidence and developing new skills, such as finance and governance, in a ‘safe space’ away from my day job. Recently I’ve been working on my application for CILIP Fellowship, trying to weave the threads of my career into stories of what I’ve achieved. This process was really helpful in an interview when I had to come up with examples of situations and challenges I’d dealt with. My CILIP membership has meant most to me during times of change and development, and has supported me to develop and move on.

Christine Love-Rodgers
College Lead, Library Academic Support (Arts, humanities and Social Sciences)
University of Edinburgh