Happy New Year!

Hello and welcome to 2020! After a brief sabbatical in our capital city, your Living Librarian is back with big plans for the future of the project.

Upcoming in the Library:

  • Welcome one and all to 2020! After a brief planning sabbatical, we are coming back fresher (if not younger) and excited to let you all know about the new features of the living library! This is a bit of a long one, but worth taking a look when you've got the time.

    GPLL Logbook

    In talking to Louise Stone I discovered that although many senior GPs already have their own websites/blogs, there doesn't seem to be a place that collects reflective essays and opinion pieces. There are some, like The Conversation, but they require a much more intensive research process and balanced view than a blog about lived experience.

    So we've opened up a logbook to collect original content from GPs. This is the place where we publish reflective essays like Tim Senior's Free Radicals (available here https://bjgp.org/content/69/688/572), or promote current or upcoming projects by our Human Books, or publish pieces on Awareness Days as they come up. If you have a bee in your bonnet about a subject, a project to promote, or simply want to practice your writing, shoot me an email at gp.living.library@gmail.com - I welcome any and all submissions!

    Pitches

    On that note, I have constructed a calendar of 2020's Awareness Days, and following Dave Moniz's recommendation of HARO, I'll be sending out pitches for content tailored to your interests and experiences outlined on your forms.

    These are entirely optional, but they are a good opportunity to push out a quick couple of hundred words about something you're passionate about! The first round of January pitches will be going out this evening, with February going out on Jan 15th (to give you a better heads up).

    Conference season is also rapidly approaching, so we'll be amping up our content as much as possible to promote our Human Books as best we can.

    Mentoring

    We are currently workshopping our mentoring platform in order to integrate it into the site. I know a lot of you have been mentoring in informal or unpaid capacities for most of your careers, so I'm excited to bring this option forward as soon as possible, but our primary concern is making sure the platform is secure and that the process of securing a supervisor is simple enough to navigate. As ever, if you have recommendations for platforms you've tried and liked, I would welcome them!

    FAQ and AMA

    I'd love to do an Ask Me Anything session on twitter so we can update our FAQ, address concerns, and particularly so I can get a better feel for what you guys want from the project. I'll be scheduling it for Saturday 4th Jan, so if you have something on your mind that's a good place to put it! Keep an eye out for the #accessibleexpertsama hashtag on twitter (or just follow us at https://twitter.com/gplivinglibrary)!

    Minor Tweaks and Troubleshooting

    We're currently going through the website and updating it a little and sweeping for edits, so now's a great time to comment below or email me if you have new projects that you've started that you'd like included in your bio!

    There will be a bit of a wave of drafts sent out today and tomorrow, so if you haven't heard back from me you might need to check again as I'll be sending out reminders. If the email address provided in the form isn't the right one, please email me directly at gp.living.library@gmail.com so that I can get in touch with your draft.

    Mailing List

    Thanks to the good work on the GPDU page, I now have the names of some people I should contact as part of the project, but I am still accepting recommendations. If you have a GP or GP registrar you think deserves recognition or would benefit from some of the opportunities we find, let me know and I'll get in touch!

    That's all for now - leave your comments below or I'll see you at the twitter AMA!

Liz Waldron