Pieces of expensive paper; being a librarian

I have written recently about how I became a librarian, so won't repeat too much in this post. The tl;dr version: it was kind of an accident. I started my MSc in Information & Library Management at Loughborough University after working as an Information Assistant for less than a year, and worked and studied to develop my skills in tandem. I felt this worked pretty well, putting theory learnt in the day into practice in the evening (as there was generally no-one around to stop my crazy schemes), and I feel it gave me a good, rounded idea of HE libraries in particular.

There was an entry requirement on the MSc of a year's experience in libraries; speaking to a tutor towards the end of the year, she said that this was less to do with giving enough grounding in the realities of libraries (though it undoubtedly helps in this regard) and more to do with making candidates employable after they graduated. I know that a few of my coursemates are still struggling to find library work (at any level); by and large they were the ones with less pre-course experience, which reinforces the importance of starting in library jobs as early as possible.

I'm now starting off with the process of Chartership, which I feel inspired about immediately after meetings with my mentor but then quickly lose enthusiasm and don't do much about it for a few weeks. I'm currently writing out my personal development plan, and trying to decide how strictly to embed the Professional Body of Knowledge (and indeed which definition of this to use, as there are several on the CILIP site alone). My inclination is to target the areas which I feel I need developing in in order to get the jobs I want, and tie it back to BPK later. This inclination changes every time I think about it. The process is ongoing, and will be for some months I think. There's a Chartership support event coming up in about a month, and I'm aiming to have a pretty-much final draft of the PPDP by then, to check against the advice and to have something to talk about! There's also a more informal group of Chartering infopros, who meet in Coventry - I'm considering going along to their next meeting, in a week or so, but Coventry is still quite a way away, and it would mean having a 17-hour day...