Day 1 Baby Bouncing on Bladder Prompts Research

Good evening to all!!

Due to my not-yet-born child bouncing on my bladder causing me the inability to find a comfortable position for sleep I have decided to set up my Dunn & Wilson Scholarship blog. Welcome to those visiting!!

For more information about the Dunn & Wilson Scholarship please visit: http://alia.org.au/awards/dunn.wilson/

A bit about my scholarship project:

My project will investigate and identify secondment programs offered to library technicians nationwide (Australia) and in all library sectors. This research will be a resource for library technicians seeking secondment opportunities. The aims of my study are:

• to investigate the range of secondment opportunities available to library
  technicians Australia-wide and in all library sectors;
• to spread awareness of the role secondments play in library technicians’
  personal growth and professional development;
• to highlight secondment programs in different library sectors and provide a
  resource to which library technicians can refer when seeking out secondment
  opportunities in their careers;
• to identify ‘best practice’ secondment arrangements; and
• create a body of work that can be broadly utilised.

My interest in opportunities for library technicians to participate in secondments stems from my own experience and the research I conducted for my paper, ‘Multi-skill me’, that was presented at the 2005 neXt conference.

I am a qualified library technician with ten years experience in the academic library sector. I started my career at the Bremer Institute of TAFE before moving to the Queensland University
of Technology, where I currently work as a reference librarian at Kelvin Grove campus library.

For more information about my career and life, please refer to: http://alia.org.au/~suthmann/

So where to start my research?? Well on the project plan outlined in my application for the scholarship I have:

October 2005 – March 2006 Preparation: including research (web/database/catalogue searching), preparing site visits/interview times with contacts.

So I suppose I should get started with the searching. Also, if anyone reading this has been involved in secondments with their organisation, I'd be happy to hear from you. Please feel free to post comments to this site or contact me on the address provided on my website listed above.