As information professionals, we want to ensure that the communities we serve have the information seeking and evaluation skills they need, yet how do we ensure that our own information and digital literacy knowledge and skills are kept up to date? Using the experiences of the Academic Support Team within Libraries and Learning Innovation at Leeds Beckett University as an example, we will explore all aspects of setting up a professional reading club, from inception to reflection, and how this has benefited our work as information literacy practitioners. Our experience suggests that that a reading club is not just a mechanism for keeping up to date with developments in the sector but also facilitates the development of a more robust and proactive culture where librarians are able to inform and develop their own practice and pedagogy while increasingly perceiving themselves as research active. In this session, we will discuss the origins of our group; how readings and facilitators are selected; possible structures for meetings and further communication; and benefits, opportunities and lessons learned from our process, including some of the changes to our own pedagogy that has taken place as a result of our engagement with the group. We will also discuss how the group has increased confidence in our abilities, and how the experience has increased our empathy toward students as a result of own re-engagement with the more formal aspects of academic life. Attendees will leave with a potential structure for their own groups, including hints for success and suggestions for reading themes (including a selection of resources) and ways to extend the idea to others, including learners. We will also discuss how our group has supported work towards professional recognition (such as CILIP's Chartership/Revalidation or Associate/Fellowship in the Higher Education Academy).
ORCID: 
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)