By Maureen Pinder, Faculty Librarian, J. B. Priestley Library, University of Bradford.

Professional Registration Support Officers (PRSO) play a vital role in helping CILIP members navigate their way to Certification, Chartership and Fellowship. They are part of a network of support that is available to Professional Registration candidates at all levels. Here Maureen Pinder shares her experience as a PRSO.

MY name’s Maureen Pinder, and I’m a subject librarian at the University of Bradford. My degree was in French and German, which I taught in secondary schools for six years before retraining for librarianship.

My first professional post was at Chatham House Library, which is where I did my Chartership under the old, old regs in 1997! Then I moved into universities, and have worked as a subject librarian at Essex, then Leeds, and for the last nine years at Bradford. I now support pharmacy, for my sins!

I joined CILIP (then the Library Association) as a student at Northumbria, and have been a member ever since. I like the perspective it gives me on the whole profession, and the interconnectedness with other sectors. As already mentioned, I chartered in my first job, and talked about my experiences at a few CILIP events over the years.

In 2006 (I think) I took the plunge and became a CILIP mentor. I mentored a few candidates over time, then stepped up when Yorkshire and Humberside needed a Mentor Support Officer (MSO). There was a great, tight-knit MSO community countrywide, with regular meetings and shared training materials. As MSO I trained mentors in my region, plus a few from further afield. I always reckoned this was easier than the Candidate Support Officer (CSO) role – they had to train the candidates! But when CILIP changed the structures around Professional Registration a few years ago, both sets of CSOs and MSOs just became PRSOs overnight.

Variety

So what do I think of being a PRSO? Well, I haven’t left! It’s quite a varied role, which allows you to see a lot of what CILIP does in different contexts.

And as a PRSO I also attend regular online meetings with other PRSOs from around the country. We get updates from CILIP about changes and policies, are briefed by the PR Panel on any trends and problems they’re seeing with submissions, and we liaise between our regions and the PRSO group on events, timings etc. We take it in turns to run a regular series of training events, which have almost all been online since the pandemic. The interesting thing nowadays is that people attend from all over the country, and even abroad – so events are much less regional than they were. And we take turns answering questions about PR from the web forum for candidates on a weekly rota basis.

Staying in touch

So what do I get out of it? Well, I’m pretty gregarious and like meeting people, whether it’s online or face-to-face. I’m always curious about people’s jobs and sectors, and the challenges they face. I’d say I’m fairly well known outside my immediate workplace, especially across my region, and that’s mostly down to my work for CILIP. For me, I suppose, increasingly nowadays it is important to keep in touch with young people, new professionals. It keeps me in touch with changes, and keeps me on my toes. And, after all, we all like to be useful, don’t we?

If you’re thinking of becoming a PRSO, I’d say go ahead. We share everything – teaching materials, tips, knowledge. None of us know all the answers – some of the questions are really hard! So we ask each other for advice all the time – you won’t be left on your own.

*If you would like to know more about the PRSO role or would be interested in applying please contact Member Services for more information.