Social networking

Social networking has certainly taken off in the last few years and I am sure that many wonder how they managed with out it. It has replaced the art personal interaction such as letter writing, phone calls and meeting people. Where perhaps one once wrote to an individual, one can now write to many and never move from the comfort of a favourite chair. Whilst it is a great way to communicate I cannot help but wonder if something is being lost and if things will eventually turn full circle once the novelty has worn off? Although we can chat away and network for hours, how well do we know these new found 'friends'? Will the professional contacts made make any real difference to one's career? I would be very interested to know if there has been any studies into this area of social networking.

Mentoring - a Mentors view

I have been a CILIP mentor for 6 years and have found it to be a very rewarding experience. I decided to become a Mentor because when I was a young 18 year old trainee I had a wonder Mentor myself. His name was Mr Sainsbury and he was the Deputy Borough Librarian. Unfortunately he died a few months after he retired and just after I qualified so he was not able to follow my subsequent career. His mentorship was unofficial (no CILIP Mentors in those days!). It came about because we always got to work early so we used to sort the newspapers and journals together (all supplied by a local newsagents). He was a very fatherly figure and took a keen interest in my career. He not only provided encouragement and made suggestions but was also able to transfer me to a variety of departments that ensured that I gained experience in all aspects of the public library service. He was a wonderful man and really gave me a good grounding in librarianship.

In recent years I have also been an unofficial mentor to a number of young librarians. I think that the environment that we now work in is changing so rapidly that if one is able to pass on information, encourage or support someone starting out in their career then I shall be doing good and giving something back to the profession that I love. Having someone who is genuinely interested in your career can make you fill a bit special and its great to be able to receive support and to talk through ideas. Mr Sainsbury was a kind, generous man who taught me a great deal. I am sure that he would be proud if I am able to do something similar for the next generation of librarians.

Career Development

I qualified many years ago under the old system during the Library Association's day. It was easier to become a librarian then as it was not seen to be a graduate profession.

Chartership was achieved by just working in a professional post for 12 months - no portfolios etc... with few librarians thinking about CPD. However seeing how important it was to obtain a Masters if I was to progress after having a career break, I embarked upon the Aberystwyth distance learning course in the mid 90's and more recently I have achieved a PhD in information science. I am not sure what I shall do for the remainder of my career as I have worked in a variety of sectors: public library, FE & HE. Unfortunately fate has intervened and has meant that I have had to think about this more seriously. So watch this space....................................
    

The end of pens and papers?

Goodbye to all this?

Evernote is an interesting tool. I can see that it has great potential particularly at a conference. It will save you carrying a lot of notes around or produce the necessary documents if you have forgot to bring them. I like the flexibility it has and that it isn't limited to one computer. I am not sure how much I will use it though, perhaps it is just a matter of getting use to working a different way. It is certainly worth knowing about. The current awareness that cpd23 is providing is fantastic. Keep up the good work. Its back to the garden now........

Whats occurring?

As I am on leave this week I am pleased that Thing 8 is easy. I am a great fan of google calendar and have used it all the time since I was introduced to this last year. I find the reminders a great help in ensuring that I am at the right place at the right time. Once I got into the habit of remembering to enter meetings etc.. it has worked well for me. I am sure that there are other programmes out there but this seems to work for me. Now when am I supposed to return to work................?  

Professional involvement

In the past I have not seen the value of becoming involved with CILIP etc.... how wrong I have been. In the last 5 years I have taken a more active interest. Wanting to give something back to the profession now that the offspring have spread their wings, I first became a CILIP Mentor, then a CDG committee member and more recently have become the group's treasurer. I am also the Secretary for the Association of British Theological & Philosophical Libraries. I must confess I did not realise how rewarding these actives could be and wished I had found the time years ago. I have learnt new skills, made new friends and gained a tremendous amount of confidence. I would certainly recommend becoming involved particularly if you are a new professional as you will be able to increase your network and acquire a lot of useful skills. These days networking and a wide ranging portfolio are essential if you want to achieve your full potential. I wish that the opportunities now available were around when I was working towards chartership etc... 

The list of possible organisations is certainly useful and there are two that I shall explore more fully. I am sure that I am not the only one who finds it difficult to keep abreast of the the large number of organisations that are appearing almost daily. That's why awareness courses like this are great. Well done all :) 

Is there anyone out there?

Very interesting Things this week. Although I signed up to LinkedIn last year I have not really use it until the last few months when I have had a number of 'link' requests so have used it a bit more. This weeks Thing seems to be about LinkedIn v Facebook. I would agree with Reid Hoffman that Facebook is for home and LinkedIn for the office. I have accounts on both and have always taken the view that LinkedIn is my professional networking whilst Facebook is for keeping in contact with friends. My husband says that his company actively uses LinkedIn for recruitment, training etc.. .  I think LinkedIn is invaluable for becoming better known particularly if you have a business or a particular skill to promote.

Although I tend to think that Facebook is really a 'social' space I can see the value of promoting the library service or having a presence on it. Saying this I think that it is really important that the library Facebook page is not allowed to stagnate and should be updated at last twice a week to keep it fresh and interesting.  We intend to setup a Facebook page for our libraries for one term to see if this method of communicating information would be of benefit to our users.

I have not used LISNPN but can see it would be of great use if I were a new professional - I wish this had been in existence when I first qualified (some time ago now!). I must admit I did feel rather isolated and this site would have been brilliant.

I was interested to learn about the LATnetwork, I think that this could be really useful. I have thought for sometime now that library training should have some element of teaching experience incorporated. This is particularly useful for anyone working in education - librarianship has come a long way from stamping books.

I was not aware of Google+ but am not surprised that they want to introduce something like this - world dominance springs to mind. I think one of the problems is that there are now so many networking sites that soon we shall need a guide to where to start. I think that these sites will have to start to specialise in order to make their site stand out. It also gets confusing for a novice like me. Soon we shall spend all our time in front of a computer, the art of old fashioned face-to-face conversation might become a Thing of the past!

Reflections

What an interesting blog. I have got a bit behind so have only just started Thing 5. A very thought provoking and well written blog post with some very useful links. I am always telling my colleagues that they should reflect on the courses attended etc... but rarely do it myself in written format - its about time I did.
I agree that applying a new skill or ideas is sometimes the most difficult aspect of reflective practice especially if you do not use this newly acquired knowledge straight away. Writing about ones experiences also helps to re-enforce what has been learnt and to reflect on how these new skills can be incorporated into ones current post at a later date can also be beneficial.   

To date I have found it really useful to go over some of the things that we learnt last year. I have certainly gained some new insights and have been inspired to learn more. The new links have provided essential current awareness as Web 2.0 tools have moved on in 12 months. I have tried to introduce a few of the things I have learnt into my everyday work life but have found that this can sometime be difficult to do as there is never enough hours in the day. Regrettably my hours are to be cut due to the current economic problems so I shall have even less time. I am however determined to try and shall continue to endeavour to bring our libraries into the 21st C.

Fun and games

I have certainly had fun and games today setting up a new Twitter account, RSS feeds and a Pushnote account. Our IT officer has things tied down so much that its difficult to download anything. Although I set up the Twitter account last year the system did not want to let me in so I had to set up another and that was where the fun started. I finally managed to gain access after much frustration by setting up a new account. I have a couple of followers already from the US - gosh!

I am still not convinced about this medium. I can see that it could be useful if you want to find some information quickly but I guess it is only as good as whats available. I like the idea of being able to add videos and links as it is a very quick way of disseminating information. Only having 140 characters also means that it is quicker than writing a blog. I equate Twitter with mobile texting. 

I added the RSS feed for cpd23 blog so now I have a quick way of finding it which is great. I got into a bit of a muddle with adding the feed as I still had the old one on my iGoogle page and it didn't want to download the new one. Fortunately my colleague was on hand to help me out.

Pushnote: I signed up to it but unfortunately I cannot download it yet, I need to talk to our IT Officer. I think this seems quite a good idea to be able to share good site and warn your friends of rubbish ones. I am not sure how frequently I shall use it but it is good to at least have that facility.

Who am I?

This is extremely interesting. I must confess I have not put much though into my brand (it no doubt shows) and the recommended articles have given me much food for thought. I think that I shall have to work on this, particularly my LinkIn profile. I have been meaning to update that for a while so pehaps this will be the spur that I need. I did Google myself and to my surprise I found that I had about 5 pages worth. Thinking about my blog page I'm not sure that this wishy washy blog reflects my personality - or perhaps it does?

On another note, I attended an excellent session on medieval manuscripts last week and as part of the homework I was directed to the following site which I must share as I think it is a hoot and is perhaps an indiction of my type of humour

To blog or not to blog....?

Have completed the second task - obviously. I must confess I have not blogged since last year although I do regularly look at other peoples. Have changed the look of my blog a little although it is still not as fancy as some of the ones I have seen. There are certainly some very creative people around. I still feel very much like a novice as there seems to be more sites, gagets etc... than ever around. Still practice makes perfect and I shall get plenty of that over the next few months.

23Things 2011

Last year I ended 23Things with a final blog that lamented the ending of the course, this year I would like to say hurray - its 23Things time again. I shall not be lost this summer for 'Things' to do!

Thank you team for offering this again with extra's. I intend to work through it all again to act not only as a fresher but to try the things I opted out of last time. I also intend to try some of the 'Things' out on the staff and students. Breaking my leg last September meant that my plans were not realised, hopefully I can rectify this during the next academic year.

I completed Thing 1 by setting up a new iGoogle page - I had completly forgotten how to do it so it has been a great refresher exercise. It has ended up looking very similar to the one I created last year - now what does that say about me I wonder?