Our appraisal scheme, I think I mentioned, has been revised. It's now a PDR. Not a 'Professional Development Report' I had to produce to become chartered but a 'Personal Development Review' or something.

It seems to be pretty identical to the old appraisal except for two things:
- there's a more regular (very short) review of goals etc three or four times through the year
- your goals and CPD stuff have to be related to the Library's strategic plan

Hopefully, it will make the PDR less of a once a year paper exercise and more of a relevant document.

As my immediate boss (who was promoted to Head of Library) still hasn't been replaced, she's farmed out three of her six PDRs to her former immediate equivalent. So probably for this year only I have O interviewing me. He was fine, not that different to the Head really. And I still got lots of flak for the fact I do the least amount of teaching amongst my colleagues. The other thing I struggle with is the amount of time spent on, for example, on the *two*, just *two* goals I didn't achieve as opposed to the *18* I did achieve. And I tried to make sure I emphasised how I was struggling with (lack of) assistance while we're still in the middle of this staffing review and haven't replaced some key people who my assistant is filling in for. But it was still my fault.

At least I could counter some of that with the very productive year I've had with regard to publications and conference presentations. Only even that led into a sharp conversation about whether I was focussing my energies on the right thing.