Alan Brine

This book is a pretty quick read. Actually, you can probably scan it and get the gist of it. The most valuable chapter is Chapter 3, which deals with developing your professional portfolio; it tells you what to include and why as well as provides some good tables and checklists. In fact, I went ahead and photocopied that chapter for later reference. For readers, each chapter has a helpful summary of what was covered. In fact, if you are in a rush, you can probably get away with reading those summaries. The last chapter is a summary of the whole book, so you could simply read the last chapter and get the gist of the book. This is why I said the book is a quick read and one that can be scanned.

The main idea behind the book is that individuals in information science fields, including librarians, need to plan for their professional development. They need to develop needed skills at various points of their careers. Documentation is crucial for this. Another useful idea was using the concept of a SWOT analysis to do your career and professional development planning. Reflection also plays an important role in continuing professional development.

The book may also be useful for managers to know questions to ask the employees they supervise in order to help them with their growth and development. However, we all know that appraisals, that wonderful ritual, are often empty exercises of filling out a form in a certain way and then used to pressure the worker to perform in a certain way. That is not what this book advocates, far from it. But I noticed that the reality is very different from the book; I have been through my share of appraisals where it was more a matter of making sure the form was filled in correctly so HR would be happy. Professional growth? What the heck was that? You get the idea. In the end, the individual has to be in charge of their own professional development. At least, that is the conclusion I have reached from my experience.

I did make some notes in my journal for some other points I wanted to remember. Anyhow, this is a book to borrow. I don't think you really need to buy it. A quick read and making some notes for yourself should be good enough.… (mer)