what price professionalism?

When I got the job at Ridgmount Street (just over eight years ago, in September 1999), I was very keen to see professional qualifications at the centre of our professional community.  Since then, we've worked hard to develop CILIP's Framework of Qualifications and Accreditation and to focus on the concept of the "registered practitioner" - a recognition of competency at three levels (ACLIP, MCLIP, FCLIP) with an accompanying focus on continuing professional development.  Registration in its modern form provides certification of expertise for the individual, guarantee of competence for the employer, and quality assurance for the user in the delivery of library and information service.  Next year we reach 110 years of our Royal Charter and I want to mark that milestone by seeing CILIP's Framework recognised as the benchmark of employability and quality across the library and information workforce in the UK. 

All of which makes my recent experience at the PLA (Public Library Authorities) conference in Glasgow somewhat frustrating.  Faced with a debate on, This house believes that professional qualifications are a drag factor on public library service (I paraphrase), delegates voted in favour of the motion by a ratio of 60:40.  If sixty percent of our colleagues don't value professional qualifications - and are prepared to say so in front of their political paymasters from local and national government - then what's the point of all the work that CILIP has put in (and continues to put in) on the Framework?  And what's the point of CILIP trying to advocate to government that "local people are entitled to a professional standard of service" when sixty percent of colleagues in public libraries are prepared publicly to undermine our position on professionalism?  After the debate some colleagues sought appeasement by suggesting to me that we need, "a new form of professionalism".  Weasel words!

Our profession is deemed important enough in society to be regulated by Royal Charter and we should be proud of that fact.  CILIP carries out that regulatory role on behalf of the profession by maintaining the "register of Registered Practitioners" (as the 2007 version of the Royal Charter puts it - somewhat tautologically).  It is the CILIP Body of Professional Knowledge (BPK) and the CILIP Register which give expression to our profession in terms of scope and practice - and nothing else can do this.  But, of course, you might not agree. 

If the CILIP Register and the CILIP BPK didn't exist - how would our profession be given tangible collective definition?  Let's hear from you