Building Your Portfolio: The CILIP Guide

Citation

Hannabuss, S. (2008), "Building Your Portfolio: The CILIP Guide", Library Review, Vol. 57 No. 9, pp. 747-748. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530810911932

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) introduced a new framework of qualifications in April 2005. From that followed new processes of qualifying and assessment based on personal development planning (PDP), career portfolios, mentoring and the principle of revalidation. Newbies in the scheme at all levels felt their way into it, those hoping to qualify (at certification or ACLIP level, at chartership or MCLIP level, and at fellowship or FCLIP level) as well as those engaged in mentoring and assessing, all working towards a common and clear understanding of what was to be involved. Material was made available on the CILIP website and education/training contacts at CILIP were helpful, regional assessors put in their penny‐worth, and so on, but, until actual cases built up and people really knew what they were doing, and how it had been done in the recent past, there was some vagueness, some perplexity at the bureaucracy, and (more controversially) still a residue of doubt about new post‐nominals and about revalidation too.

The strength of this new and helpful introduction by Margaret Watson (currently a mentor and a member of the assessment panel) is that it lays out clearly what happens, and it is helped considerably by life‐like case studies of people who – by now – have actually gone through the mill. Early on questions like what is a portfolio and how are criteria interpreted on the ground sprayed about, and now answers can be provided to questions: the case studies here are of particular value to anyone intending to embark on the various levels, or engage as a mentor. This makes the book an essential handbook for any trainer in a large library with responsibility for qualifications, and as much an essential purchase for anyone who wants a book at their elbow and for whom the CILIP website is not enough.

The cases help you understand what is involved and what it is like, for example, to prepare a CV for certification, or to prepare a PDP for the certification portfolio (along with advice on completing those forms). Watson explains what supporting evidence is needed, how you draft statements, how evidence meshes with the chartership matrix (particular activities tied up with criteria like ability to analyse personal and professional development), and a checklist of eligible evidence in a portfolio. Margaret Chapman's account of how she tackled revalidation is both personal and transferable (in giving anyone else a good idea). Wider information and debate is picked up in the bibliography in books like Brine.

It is pleasingly un‐preachy as a guide to what is now longer the “new” qualifications framework, and, rightly in the circumstances, skirts around some of the more polemic dimensions of the subject, in particular, revalidation where published statistics so far suggest that many practitioners remain on the fence. Perhaps, unlike pilots and doctors, the need for revalidation is more nice‐have rather than must‐have, even though the benefits of reflecting on practice at all stages of a working life do make sense. Whether these sentiments and aspirations should be institutionalized, above all in a profession insecure about its role and boundaries and with a love of creating structures, remains to be seen. But these are side issues here: a most useful book. Pity it was not around at the start but it takes time, as lawyers tell us, to build up appropriate case law. Questions now of course about ways ahead: we can engage all we like in the rhetoric (and even the reality) of self‐reflexive practice but there are even bigger questions on the horizon, such as getting enough pay for the work done and exactly how jumping through hoops will impress employers: if being chartered gets people no more, or not enough, cash, why bother? The best portfolio in the world may help you move on and up, perhaps incentive enough for the pragmatist.