Honouring my Inner Child with a Helsinki Librarian Conference
Bibliotherapy, social prescribing, a library conference in Helsinki & books worth mentioning
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In this update I briefly mention my interest in bibliotherapy and social prescribing, mention a book on my radar and share my plans to attend a library conference when I’m in Helsinki. I also mention a number of books I commonly recommend.
Are you wondering what an ambivert is? Read more here.
Connecting bibliotherapy and social prescribing
The study of bibliotherapy and how it relates to social prescription is a topic I’m exploring for future research. I first read about social prescribing in Lost Connections, by Johann Hari.
More recently I discovered a social prescribing initiative in the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Locals (Local Services), Victorian Government - Local Connections. I hope to uncover ideas relating to this (and more!) when I visit various libraries and universities in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker has been mentioned to me as a suitable read as I consider how I’d like to continue to connect with my professional and reading community in 2025.
Honouring My Inner Child
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a librarian.
I’m sharing this update a little earlier than usual due to an upcoming trip with my family to celebrate my 50th birthday. We leave on Sunday and will be travelling to four countries and five cities across Scandinavia.
I’ve registered for a two day conference that’s being hosted by The National Library of Finland and taking place at the University of Helsinki. If we’ve met, you’ll know I often weave books and ideas into most conversations.
It’s well known that I enjoy reading books.
When I visit a new place I always visit the local library. I scour the book shelves of any op shop I discover, and I purchased my most recent book club read, Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood, at the Vinnies in Glenferrie Road for $2!
I’m also a member of two book clubs, the co-host for One Roof’s Quarterly Book Club, and my recent passion project focuses on how allied health professionals and healing practitioners use books in their practice.
It therefore makes complete sense that I’m honouring my inner child by registering for a conference dedicated to librarians and the transition to BIBIFRAME. Initiated by the Library of Congress, BIBFRAME provides a foundation for the future of bibliographic description, both on the web, and in the broader networked world that is grounded in Linked Data techniques.
Even though I am not a librarian, I registered for this free two day conference based on a deep knowing that I would love entering the grounds of the university for the purpose of attending a professional development event filled with librarians and knowledge managers.
I’m imagining experiencing a similar feeling to the electric currents that seemed to buzz through me when I visited Oxford University in 2000. Being surrounded by thinkers and readers, and the thought of the knowledge, learning and scholars around me is my kind of thrilling.
I can even see myself approaching the registration table for this conference, and scanning the name badges for my name. I know how to be incognito, so I will smile and nod and then I’ll nonchalantly find an inconspicuous spot where I can ease into my chair with a content smile on my face, as I people watch and soak up the intellectual atmosphere.
I’ve received an invitation to the conference party, which I felt compelled to RSVP to. Yes! I will be there.
The thing is, I am not a librarian and managing the BIBFRAME transition is not part of my job. It’s probably best I contact the organisers and reveal that I am a registered teacher from Australia who is a bibliophile and will happen to be in Helsinki on the two days of the conference.
Perhaps I’ll politely mention that I’d love to join the tour of the Helsinki Library at the end of the first day of their conference. It can’t help to ask.
Should I share this Substack post with the conference organiser?
Books worth mentioning
Like a bibliotherapist, I enjoy exploring the relationship with books and the issues someone may be experiencing or expressing (ranging from grief or a job change, to a desire to find more meaning in your life). I then prescribe a book or selection of books that may enrich, inform or speak to these special problems.
Unlike a bibliotherapist, I am not a licensed health practitioner. I am a registered Victorian Institute of Teaching (VIT) teacher, and have mentored and advised clients on career and small business marketing decisions for over 14 years. Hopefully this counts for something.
I use books in my educational consulting practice to help people explore areas of personal growth. I often reference and recommend books to friends and colleagues, from my virtual bookshelf over on goodreads. I also have a few friends who refer to me as their local library, and they borrow books from my bookshelf whenever they visit.
To keep you, the reader, and myself, safe (emotionally and legally), let’s agree that the books I’m about to recommend below are offered as a general guide to exploring some of the common issues, challenges and opportunities many of my community are facing in their lives right now. It naturally follows to suggest that you seek professional help from your GP or psychologist if you wish to explore specific issues further.
Sensitive: The Power of a Thoughtful Mind in an Overwhelming World
by Jenn Granneman & Andre Solo
This book explores the unique strengths of highly sensitive people and how it can make them inspiring leaders, heartfelt caretakers, careful decision-makers, and natural-born artists. Based on more than twenty years of research in neuroscience, psychology, and human genetics, it is one of, if not the first book to explore the science and strengths behind sensitivity.
Sensitive includes a very interesting reference to Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking:
Some experts . . . believe that Cain was actually writing more about highly sensitive people than introverts.
I recommend Sensitive for introverts and ambiverts, along with the websites, Introvert Dear and Sensitive Refuge. I discovered Granneman when I was searching articles about ambiverts and enjoyed What is an Ambivert?
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
by James Clear
This book helps you consider how to refine or reset your habits. There is a lot of gold in Atomic Habits if you’re ready to re-think your habits, and you like the idea of habit stacking (a concept that makes a lot of sense when Clear explains it).
It provided me with a total re-think about how I approach what is important to me, and it helped me prioritise reading books. I’ve always been a fan of considering what I want to stop, start and continue doing in my life and business. This book takes this thinking to the next level.
There is a main idea that has stayed with me, and I continue to return to, since reading this book. It relates to deciding what sort of person I want to be and using this thinking to influence my activities.
How to do the Work: Recognise Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past + Create Yourself
by Dr Nicole Le Pera
This book is designed to give readers the support and tools that will allow them to get better at recognising and potentially also breaking free from destructive behaviours to help recreate your life.
I liked reading Le Pera’s personal story and the perspectives she offers about trauma. If you are a perfectionist, be kind to yourself when reading this book and keep reading each chapter, even if you do not complete the exercises from the previous chapter.
I was introduced to How to do the Work by
. In the first episode of Healing through Books, Ingrid Jones: Diving for Pearls through Journaling, we discuss How to do the Work in more detail.The E-Myth (any version)
by Micheal E. Gerber
E-Myth explores the value of systemising your approach to the way you deliver and manage your professional practice. I recommend E-Myth at least twice a month to professionals who are running small businesses if they’ve expressed the sense of overwhelm, and sometimes dread, they’re feeling in relation to having to ‘do it all’.
I wish someone had recommended this book to me when I first launched my small business in 2010. There are so many versions of this book and it’s been around forever. If you have an audio book service, you could listen to any version to get the relevant insights from Gerber’s systemisation principles.
This book comes with a warning. Some of the brands referenced in the E-Myth case studies have seen better days, and may not stack up in the world of B Corp certifications and Corporate Social Responsibility & Human Rights. If you can ignore the brands and tune into Gerber’s principles, your future self will thank you.
This book is relevant for any small business owner who wants their life back in the pursuit of growing a sustainable and ethical small business.
With love and gratitude,
KPH
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I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which I live and pay my respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Great recommendations here, Karen! Enjoy that conference. I’d love to be there. My four years running a library fulfilled a dream of having my own library and pressing the right book into the right hands at the right time.