Reflection and what next? #cpd23

Well here we are at thing 23! I've enjoyed the 23 things for professional development programme, and all the learning and reflecting that has come out of it, even if it has been a bit of a rush to the finish! There has been a nice mixture of new technology and tools to learn about, with other aspects of development covered too. I have appreciated the reflection weeks as a chance to reinforce learning, think about how things are going, and remind myself of what I have learnt so far.

Several months ago I put together a Personal Development Plan for chartership. This built on the personal development plan that my manager and I had discussed at work, which included goals that were directly relevant to my job. I then expanded this by thinking about what I would like to do that wasn't directly relevant to that role, and some areas that I thought I would need to develop in the future. I shared this with my chartership mentor, who was very good at getting me to think in terms of measurable and time-limited goals. My PDP has recently expanded since I started my second part-time library job almost three months ago, with new short-term achievable goals and learning outcomes added. I find a PDP a very useful exercise as it provides a structure for measuring progress against, and makes me step back and think about where I need to develop and what I want to do next.

So what next? I'll be working through the action points on my PDP, collecting evidence and reflecting as I go, and then eventually trying to put together my portfolio for chartership. I will put some of the things I have learnt from this programme into practice at work - perhaps a screencast will be next on the agenda. I aim to carry on with this blog for cpd to record some of my learning and reflections (although probably not quite as frequently as I have done over the last month!)

Before I end this post, I would just like to say thanks so much to the cpd23 team for all their hard work putting the programme together, answering questions, providing encouragement and everything else they have done.

Volunteering #cpd23

Careers advisers often recommend volunteering as a way of gaining experience, filling in gaps in your experience, learning new skills, demonstrating an interest in the field, and getting started in a career. While at university, I did some volunteering in the student-run history duplicates library, later becoming a committee member with responsibility for publicity to attract new volunteers and increase library usage, as well as supervising two volunteers. This gave me useful experience to talk about in my first interview for a library position, as well as showing an interest in and commitment to the profession when I hadn't yet had any employment in libraries. So for me volunteering at the beginning of my career was a positive way of gaining experience, skills, getting my foot in the door and all the benefits that careers advisers are always talking about!

My first job post-qualifying was part time, and there were no other part time library positions around at the time to make up full time hours, so I did consider volunteering. However instead I successfully applied for an interesting part time job in an HR department outside of the library sector. I enjoyed this position and gained an awareness of people management issues, plus useful transferable skills, such as minute taking and budget administration. I was about to write that I haven't done any volunteering since gaining my library qualification, but then I realised that I have! My position as a committee member on my regional branch of the Career Development Group is unpaid, and done mostly in my own time. I only joined recently, but so far it has given me the chance to meet new people in other library sectors and I'm sure it will be a beneficial experience for me, as well as being a chance to contribute to the profession.

Volunteering can benefit the profession by providing volunteers with experience of new sectors, and opportunities to learn, which can help them further their careers as information professionals. The question of whether volunteering devalues the profession is an interesting and tricky one. A friend of mine who is studying law recently did an unpaid internship, and competed with other talented people for the opportunity. While I have little knowledge of the legal profession, it seems to me that volunteering of this sort is quite common, without devaluing the profession. Could volunteering in libraries be carried out in the same way, with people applying to volunteer for a set period of time, perhaps to work on a specific project or to gain all-round experience of a particular library sector? Maybe not, I don't know. Many of us just can't afford to work for free, but volunteering can be mutually beneficial for the volunteer and the library.

Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview #cpd23

Part 1: Identifying your strengths; capitalising on your interests
I feel very lucky to have two part time jobs that I love in the same library, one in the mornings and the other in the afternoons. It may not be for everyone, but it suits me very well. I like variety in my work, and that is exactly what I get! I really enjoy enquiry work, both face to face and via email, and I get to do a lot of that. I enjoy the satisfaction of successfully troubleshooting an electronic resource, the detective work involved in tracking down that obscure book that someone wants to obtain on inter-library loan, or the government report that a user is having difficulty finding, and my jobs involve all these aspects. But it's also nice to have a break from dealing directly with customers to do some cataloguing, check ebook availability for ordering, or update the website and I get to do that too. I think two of my strengths are customer service and prioritising while dealing with multiple tasks, and I love to tick things off a to-do list!

  by  bark 

Part 2: Applying for a job
One of the most useful pieces of advice that my university careers centre gave me was to be very clear when demonstrating that you meet all the criteria when applying for a job. Employers may have lots of applications to sift through, so clearly spelling out that you meet each criteria rather than leaving it up to the employer to read between the lines will be helpful for them (and your application!). Also, if there is a criteria that you don't quite meet, you can at least show how you partially meet it or are working towards it, instead of just not mentioning it at all.

Part 3: Interviews
The CAR (context, action, results) structure for answering competency-based questions is a good one to remember, thanks cpd23! I often get nervous at interviews, so I try to remember that an interview can be a two-way thing - a chance for employers to find out if the candidate is suitable for the job, and for the candidate to find out if they would enjoy the job and working for that employer. Of course, preparation is key, so you can usually find out answers to most of your questions about the job and the employer before the interview (from their website or by speaking informally to the recruiting manager), but thinking of it as a two-way interview makes it much less nerve-wracking!

Library routes project

Library day in the life project is great if there's a library/information sector that you want to learn more about as you can discover what people in that sector actually do. It's interesting to found out what other people do day to day in their jobs. I've never been involved before, but I notice that it seems to happen every January and July so watch this space next January!

Library routes project is a site where information professionals record why they chose to work in libraries and how they got to where they are today. I've had a look at some of the posts, and it's interesting to compare routes that people have taken, their experiences and thoughts on what they have done, as well as hearing about all the different kinds of information work that many people have done. My post for thing 10 is duly added to the Library Routes Project wiki.

cpd23 reflections #cpd23

Ah, time out for a breather and some reflecting (but not too long a breather with the deadline fast approaching!) So, here are some quick reflections...

What have I learnt from the programme so far?

• I benefitted from thing 3 branding, as I have now given some thought to my online identity.
• I've gained from exploring new networks, meeting some new people and discovering new blogs, where it is great to see other people's views on the cpd23 things (as well as the other things they are blogging about).
• It has also been useful to reflect on things such as mentoring, and actually put something in writing about them. In the future, looking back at this sort of thing can be a reminder of what I was thinking at the time, and it might be helpful when it comes to putting together my portfolio.
• This programme and the Cam23 things programme have both given me things to blog about, which has helped me get over my initial nervousness about blogging. I doubt that I would have a blog if I hadn't undertaken these programmes. However, now that I do have a blog, I hope to carry it on after the end of the programme.

What will I integrate into my working routine?
Some things I just have no need for at the moment, but others are useful right now.

• I use Twitter for current awareness, but still don't engage in conversations with others as much as I could.
• I now make more use of RSS feeds as I follow more blogs than before, although I still look at my blogger dashboard more regularly than my feed reader.
• Zotero is the reference management tool that I have started using for possible chartership references.
• Lightshot is now my tool of choice for screenshots.

Here comes the obligatory reflection photo - any excuse to pretend it's still summer!

  by  Anderson Mancini 

Jing, screen capture and podcasts

I've already tried out and blogged about screencast-o-matic for Cam23 things, so was keen to test out Jing to see how it compares. I liked Jing's sun tool, and found it easy to use for both screenshots and screencasting. However I was a bit put off by the fact that you seemed to need to sign up for screencast.com for sharing a link to your capture (even if you didn't want to share, it seemed there wasn't an option to continue without it), and to edit the capture needed another tool to be downloaded.

Screenshots - Jing vs Lightshot
I will probably stick to Lightshot for screen capture, as this offers the same facility to share your capture via a generated link, but without the need the register with another product. Lightshot can also be edited without having to download or sign up for another product. Both Jing and Lightshot were equally slow to upload screen captures for sharing.

Screencasting - Jing vs Screencast-o-matic
There isn't much to choose between Screencast-o-matic and Jing in terms of features or ease of use. The main difference seemed to me to be whether you prefer the cursor to be shown (Jing) or replaced by a yellow circle (Screencast-o-matic) when viewing your screencast.

For my thoughts on podcasts, see my earlier post. Thanks to cpd23 for pointing out the arcadia@cambridge podcasts and Careers Group University of London podcasts – both look interesting and useful.

I like to move it move it #cpd23

I had a go at a Prezi earlier for Cam23 things, and you can see my first attempt here. Being a visual person, I like the look and movement of Prezi (as long as there isn't overuse of movement to avoid inducing motion sickness!) I hadn't realised that it was possible to upload and enhance Powerpoint slides in Prezi - this could be a useful time-saver if you don't want to start from scratch. I could perhaps see myself using Prezi to create an introduction or induction to the area of the library that I work in.

Slideshare is something I've also previously explored in the same post as Prezi. Although I haven't used it since as I haven't done any presentations, I'll remember it for future reference. Personally, I'm not convinced about putting my CV on slideshare. I prefer to share it only when needed e.g. when applying for a job, in which case it can be tailored to demonstrate how I meet the criteria and requirements for that particular job.

Advocacy and getting published

Advocacy is a big topic in libraries at the moment, particularly for public libraries. So far I haven't been involved except in a very small and informal way by using word of mouth to recommend visits to the local public library to my friends and family, especially if they mention a book that they want to read. Save Our Libraries Day is an example of advocacy that I think is particularly effective, as it involved a number of different activities on the same day across the country and drew a lot of media attention.

For this thing I have had a look at some of the resources linked to from the cpd23 blog. I hadn't seen That's Not Online! before, and was pleased to see a mention of the colonial blue books. I also looked at the CILIP advocacy resources. There are quite a lot of resources there, including templates and links to facts and figures about libraries, which are useful for putting together a presentation or to back up a campaign.

I work in the higher education library sector, which has had less focus in the news. However in this time of shrinking budgets, it is important to demonstrate the value of the university library and its staff, both to students and academics, to senior members of the university, and to potential donors. Information professionals adapt services to meet users needs, so we need to let people know this and what the service can offer.

As for getting published, I am always interested to read about what other professionals are thinking or have been doing, but find it harder to think of things I could write. At least blogging is getting me used to writing things that may get read by other people, and 23 things is providing me with topics to write about - a step along the way!

Events - attending, presenting and organising

Well, mostly attending anyway as that's what I've had more experience at! Events that combine a variety of sessions and plenty of time to network or otherwise engage with other participants get my vote. Discussions and activities in small groups are useful for making you reflect on what is being taught/presented. I feel lucky that my university has a library conference every year. This usually has a great mix of guest speakers and of presentations from library staff, so it's great for keeping up to date with projects and developments that are happening in other libraries within the university.

I would like to attend a national conference like the New Professionals Conference or Umbrella, as I've never been to one before, and think they would be great opportunity to meet other information professionals and hear about what others are doing. One day I think it would be beneficial to attend an IFLA conference to get more of an international perspective.

Small informal events such as Teachmeets may be just as inspiring and useful for attendees, and probably cheaper and involve less travelling. I'm not a confident public speaker, so informal events like this would be the most likely way to get me to start presenting. I was sorry to miss Library Camp, as it sounded like a fun and interesting day.
So far the only experience I've had at organising events has been organising social trips for library staff, but now I've joined the CDG East of England committee, I may be getting some experience of organising an event with a committee in the near future!

Exciting citing #cpd23

I've been using Zotero to manage references that might be useful for my professional development. More about this is in a previous post and here is my updated zotero library (growing very slowly but surely!)

In the interests of exploring other reference management tools for the purposes of being able to help and advise library users about them, let's take a quick look at Mendeley.

One thing I like about Mendeley is the feature to drag and drop pdfs into your Mendeley library, to generate a citation. I tested this with a couple and found that the journal title was wrong both times, but I may have just been unlucky with my choices! At least any incorrect details can be manually amended, and Google Scholar searched for the correct details. The ability to retrospectively organise an existing pdf library sounds like a real bonus to those who aren't at the beginning of the research process. The collaboration side of Mendeley looks useful too, with the ability to share documents and folders with colleagues, and join relevant Groups.

I haven't really got to know all the things Mendeley does, as I haven't used it extensively, but at least now I am not completely clueless if a library user asks me about it! In general I think it's useful for librarians to know a bit about reference management tools, particularly for those in user education type roles in academic libraries, where many library users are likely to use them and may want advice about them.

Google Docs, wikis and Dropbox #cpd23

I've written about Google Docs here a few months ago, and have to admit I haven't actually used it since, although I still love its potential for embedding forms such as book recommendations onto library websites.

With nothing really to add to my previous post about wikis, I will skip over that and get straight on to exploring Dropbox.

Dropbox is such a useful application for sharing documents between computers, and acts as a great back up for those documents you are currently working on. What I love about it is that you have a Dropbox folder on your computer where the files are stored, so that you don't have to log in to the website every time you want to access a file. And when you want to access the file from a different computer, you can login to the Dropbox website to see whatever is in your Dropbox folder. A friend gave me a handy tip about using Synctoy to synchronise folders for Dropbox. For example, if you are working on multiple documents for a project that are saved in the same folder, you can use Synctoy to synchronise that folder with your Dropbox folder. You can either set it up to synchronise automatically, or click 'run' every time you want it to synchronise. This saves having to remember exactly which files you want to update to Dropbox. You can control whether it synchronises both ways, or just the one way, and whether or not deleted files are included in this.

Thing 12 - Putting the social into social media #cpd23

The cpd23 things blog post gave some great advantages of using social networking in the context of professional development, which I won’t repeat here. I started using social media for professional development during the Cam23 things programme in summer 2010, and will definitely carry on using it after the end of this programme.

After initial scepticism, I've grown to like using Twitter for seeing what other information professionals are sharing, and spotting useful links. However I only follow 40-something people and each time I log in there are so many updates to scan through, that I’m sure I have missed some interesting things. It would be easy to spend a lot of time on Twitter, so this could be considered a disadvantage! Although I don't tweet very often from my personal account, I use one of my library's Twitter accounts and Facebook pages to share relevant information, so hopefully this is helping and adding to the online community in some way. 

For me, the tricky thing is the blurring of professional and personal boundaries. I initially used Facebook for personal social networking, Twitter for professional social networking and kept the two as separate online identities, but I'm finding that distinction harder to keep up, as more and more of my personal friends are on Twitter and colleagues are on Facebook. While there’s nothing on my Facebook profile that I would want to hide, I choose different profile pictures to reflect my professional side and my personal side, as my Facebook profile picture often includes a family member or friend. I wonder what other people’s experiences are here?

I do feel that social networking helps foster a sense of community, however it’s worth remembering that not all information professionals are involved in social networking and there are other communities out there too. If we are part of an online community as well as a face-to-face one, we can benefit from both and the balance this gives.

  by  SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent) 

Thoughts on mentoring #cpd23

Firstly, thanks to all the mentors out there - your support is much appreciated!

I'm glad that mentoring is part of the chartership process, as without a mentor, it would be so much harder to keep on track. My mentor and I agreed to email once a month and meet quarterly. As a person who quite likes structure, having these 'deadlines' to work to helps me set myself targets so that I have something to say in each email and meeting! Opinions vary on which is better: to have a mentor who you already know and get on well with, or somone you don't know. I deliberately contacted someone who I didn't know at all, and who worked in a different sector to me, so I could benefit from their different perspective. 6 months into the mentoring relationship, and I really appreciate the advice from my mentor and the questions asked that I wouldn't necessarily have thought of asking. It was interesting to visit my mentor's library, and see how completely different it is from the one I work in!

Mentor meetings usually involve something like this:

  by  hellojenuine. 

I've also been lucky with my jobs in that those in more senior positions have been very supportive and I've learnt a lot from their experience and advice in more informal ways, about my career path and personal/professional development as well as more directly relating to my roles.

When I am more senior and experienced, I hope I'll be able to help someone by mentoring them, either formally or informally.

Routes into librarianship

The beginning
I'm one of those people who has always loved libraries. You know the sort. I volunteered as a library prefect at my school library while I was in sixth form. During my undergraduate degree in History and French, I was on the committee for the student-run history duplicates library. The experience gained from these voluntary positions helped me obtain holiday work as an Archive Administration Assistant at a local government agency library, where I helped out with a project to reclassify some of the library stock. This involved a lot of fetching, relabelling and reshelving, but I also got to do some work on the thesaurus.

Graduate trainee year, but no formal graduate trainee scheme
After finishing my undergraduate degree, I was lucky enough to find work as a Library and Enquiries Administrator in the same government agency library for 12 months. The librarian there was very supportive and since I was working in a small team of 4, I got to do a bit of everything and learnt a great deal about different aspects of a library service. It was here I learnt that I really enjoyed enquiry work, although I found it daunting at first! While it wasn't possible to follow a programme of visits, like a formal graduate traineeship, I did meet people at training courses and events. Since the agency I worked for was about to merge with another agency, it was an interesting time. I was involved in some of the preparation work before the merger, such as creating FAQs and other documentation that could be shared between the two agencies. Graduate traineeships can be very competitive, but other experience is useful too and I'd also recommend small libraries for gaining a broad experience.

Masters course
I enjoyed my time at Loughborough University, doing the full-time MA in Information and Library Management. The modules covered a wide range of topics and skills, including marketing for information professions and cataloguing and classification. One of my favourite modules was the web design course, and my interest in this led me to a dissertation on public library websites.

Next steps
After this, I worked part-time for a year as Library Assistant in the Digital Resources Area of a university library, supporting users with electronic resources and computers. Then I successfully applied for the part-time position of Senior Library Assistant. This is another user-focused role, supervising a reading room, dealing with enquiries about official publications, inter-library loans and microfilms, and maintaining the department's website amongst other things.

Full-time library work
I recently started an additional part-time post as eBooks Assistant based in the same library, but providing a university-wide service. This is a great opportunity to meet new people, and new developments make ebooks an exciting area to work in. Four years after graduating, I am finally full time in library work, albeit in two different jobs. I love the variety of experience this gives me, and the opportunity to use different skills.

Chartership and the future
I started working towards chartership nearly 6 months ago, so one future aim is to become chartered. I will probably write more about my chartership experiences on this blog in future, so watch this space! I aim to continue developing professionally and learning new things, and am looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities that I'm sure the future will bring.

Face to face networks and professional organisations #cpd23

After a cpd23 break while I caught up with and recovered from Cam23, it's back to it with thing 7!

While it’s not possible to be active in every professional organisation (unless you are Super Librarian and I know I’m not) I think it’s beneficial to yourself and to the profession as a whole if you are a member of at least one organisation that is relevant to you (whether formal or informal).

  by  amy_kearns 

The main professional organisation that I'm a member of is CILIP. I joined when I was a graduate trainee and carried on as a student (Update had useful articles and information that could give me ideas for my coursework) then I let my membership lapse. I rejoined at the start of this year, as I really wanted to get more involved in the profession outside of my day job, and recently joined the CDG East of England Group Committee. I do read Update every month, and find this useful for keeping up to date and seeing what's happening in the library world. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I decided to start working towards Chartership of CILIP. It's a good incentive to make sure I don't forget about CPD, and I like feeling I am working towards a goal with a qualification at the end of it (hopefully!).

IFLA is an organisation I've been meaning to find out more about, so I decided to take this opportunity to do just that. As it's worldwide, with so many sections and special interest groups, it can seem a bit daunting, but the new professionals group looks like it might be a good way into it. I've now subscribed to their blog feeds. I hadn't heard about the cycling for libraries unconference that took place earlier this summer until now, but now I won't miss out on hearing about all the exciting events that the new professionals group are running!

Of the informal organisations, LISNPN is one that I have only come across online so far. The others were completely new to me, so I had a look at the Library Society of the World. It's a nice idea, but a shame it doesn't look to be that recently used, and I don't feel it is worth joining if other people aren't active there.

As for face to face networking, it doesn't always come easy when faced with a room full of strangers, but I do enjoy meeting new people. Casting my mind back to the cpd23 networking event I attended in July in Cambridge, I really enjoyed the chance to meet some lovely people and catch up with some I'd met before.

So what are QR codes then? #cam23

Thanks 23 things for explaining this to me! Not having a smartphone, these had completely passed me by (until now!) I liked the University of Huddersfield's idea of using them on journal stands to link to the electronic version and on shelves to link to ebooks. Not knowing how many of our library users have smartphones, I'm not sure what the take-up would be here, but it would be interesting to try. This is my QR code to link to the ebooks@cambridge webpages:

As for how they can be used in libraries, there seem to be so many possibilities to provide access to resources, information and help via QR codes. In terms of drawbacks, I suppose even if they can be made to look prettier, the library could begin to look very cluttered if these were all over every available flat surface! Some thought would need to go into this to avoid QR overload and how to make it clear to library users what each QR code would do/take them to so they know which ones they are interested in and which to ignore.

Reaching Cam23 Nirvana #cam23

So, here's to the end of Cam23 2.0. I have enjoyed the programme and along the way I've learned lots of new things. I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to read other people's Cam23 things blogs, but look forward to catching up with them at my leisure. Here's my overall summary of the Cam23 2.0 journey...

Things which made you smile

• Prezi was fun and although my first prezi was nothing special, the end result made me smile. I only did a very simple one, but found it easy to use (apart from some difficulties figuring out the path).
• Lightshot - so quick and simple to use!
• Flickr and creative commons licensing can go in this category as using creative commons licensed pictures from flickr can really liven up a blog post and they have so many other library-related uses!

Things which have become a part of the way you live and work

• I still don't engage in that many conversations, but I regularly use Twitter to see what people are talking about and for current awareness.
• Blogging has become much easier (although I still don't consider myself an experienced blogger!) and I will continue with this throughout the chartership process and hopefully beyond. I am finding it a very useful way of putting my reflections down in writing. 
• It's too early to tell right now, but here's hoping that Zotero will become part of the way I deal with references.

Things which you'll never go near again

I won't say never, but at the moment I don't have a need for Evernote. I'm also still holding off on LinkedIn and LibraryThing, although maybe one day I will change my mind about these.

Web 2.0 and social media more generally - what role do they really play within libraries and information services?

This sounds like an essay question from my library masters course! For a start, a lot of librarians and information professionals use web 2.0 and social media for their own development, current awareness, networking, sharing information and so on. This is why I think it's great to see people getting involved in 23 things to learn about the technologies and tools that are out there, and decide which ones they like and which ones will be useful for them. I have found social media to be really helpful for my personal development and I have learnt so many new things through them. Some of these things help me to be more effective in my work (even in small ways such as lightshot screenshots saving me time).

Then of course there are library users, who really come first in libraries. I would say that social media increases the number of ways we can engage with users, find out what they want and help them. If library users are on facebook and twitter etc, then it is great that libraries and information services are there if users want to access information or start conversations there. Of course a lot of these web 2.0 tools are directly useful for library users, such as RSS feeds for new books, bookmarking and reference management tools. It's all about providing a better service to library users, and web 2.0 and social media can help with this in many ways.

I'll stop here before this turns into an essay-length post, but will just add that I am looking forward to the party this evening and seeing all the other Cam23 participants! Wordle is currently have technical difficulties, so a wordle of this post will follow...

Wikis #cam23

Of course I love wikipedia, but I've never really used any other wikis. It was interesting to read about how wikis have been used for managing project information, and even staff intranets and staff manuals. I wonder if Google Documents would work as well for managing project information? The documents would be all in one place and could be edited by anyone working on the project. My library already has an intranet with manuals, procedures etc on there, so I don't currently need to use a wiki for this. The advantage of wikis when creating staff manuals and procedure documents is that they are collaborative and many people can edit them (useful if more than one person has a great tip that they want to add, or a section to update).

Having compared the BizWiki and the Business Blog,  I think the Business Blog has a nicer and clearer look to it. In terms of engaging with users, I know I am more likely to comment on a blog post than to do so on a wiki. The other advantage of blogs is that people can subscribe to an RSS feed to be notified whenever a new post has been added. I'm not sure if this is possible with wikis?

Overall then, wikipedia aside, I think I prefer blogs!

Evernote #cam23 and #cpd23

I like the way the Evernote website makes suggestions of how you can use it. I suspect otherwise I would have opened an account and then thought: now what?  I've put off writing this post, which suggests I'm not very keen on it. It's a nice idea and many people I am sure love it, but personally I'm not sure what I would use it for right now. Perhaps if I had a smartphone it would be more use to me! There are some useful-sounding features, like searching printed or handwritten text in images. The web-clipper tool means it could be a great tool for creating a scrapbook containing clips of relevant websites if you had a desire to do that.

Here is my test note:

For me, this is one to remember if I ever find myself thinking "I wish I had somewhere to store notes and clips from the web all in one place..." For now, though, it's not something I think I will use.

Organising references #cam23

Since finishing university, I haven't really felt the need to use any reference management tools. I have an account for Endnote Web, which I set up and explored so I would be able to help students who were using it. I also tried zotero a couple of years ago, but having no real need to save or export large numbers references, my account languished forgotten. Now I thought I would resurrect it for my chartership references. I like a web-based programme as most of my references are from the web.

I had to remind myself of how to get references in my zotero library. After a brief distraction caused by removing a spider (eek!) from my working space, I got down to work. A look at the very helpful quick start guide was all I needed to get started, and it was very easy to add items to zotero from LibrarySearch. Here is the start of my zotero library:

I aim to keep using this for any possible chartership-related references, and then use this as the basis for my bibliography.

Things galore - presentations and visualisation #cam23

I've previously blogged about slideshare here, but haven't used it since. I just had another look to see if there were any interesting new presentations up there. There seemed to be a lot more advert-style presentations compared to last time, but it may have just been the search terms I was using that brought up more of those (e.g. ebook) I found an interesting presentation called Library 2.0 jump-start your library with blogging and Twitter which had some useful tips on it.

I've seen a few Prezis and like their visual appeal, but I've never created one before. First I signed up with Prezi and explored a few. One that caught my eye was on the history of candy. I did find on occasion when moving through it quickly that it was a little bit motion-sickness inducing - one thing to beware of when creating mine! I then found a more serious but effective Prezi on the history of evolution. I think Prezis are harder to make look good than may first appear, but I had fun making mine! Here it is:

Reflecting again #cam23

A short post this time, just to jot down answers to a few questions:

What have I gained from this programme so far?
I feel I have updated my knowledge of web 2.0 tools, learnt about some new ones and met some new people - good all round then. Also the discipline to make time to go and explore and reflect on these things (even I haven't been quite keeping up with the programme!)

Which thing did I particularly like or dislike?
I particularly like imagecodr and flickr - fun and easy to use and makes the blog posts much more interesting, not to mention all the potential uses in library posters etc.

Which of the forthcoming things can I really not wait to try?
Data visualisation and QR codes look fun and both involve new things for me.

So that's all for this post, apart from the necessary picture (just to practice using creative commons and imagecodr of course!)

  by  lrargerich 

Pictures, podcasts and creative commons #cam23

Since I last used flickr, the layout has changed a bit, but I'm glad to see the Creative Commons licensed images are still there, and easy to find via a tickbox on the advanced search. This is such a useful feature! Talking of useful (my favourite thing to look for in a web 2.0 tool) Imagecodr really makes it easy to ensure the image is properly attributed, so here is my first shot at using it:

  by  alexbrn 

I also find the preview function on Imagecodr very helpful - so far, I think I'm a fan.

I don't use podcasts very often, but in a university and/or library setting they can be great for things like inductions, video tutorials and lectures. A student friend of mine finds podcasts a good way of spending time while he sits supervising an experiment - as they are in short bursts, they don't require a long time concentrating (which is good when you want to keep an eye on your experiment and make sure nothing is going wrong). Podcasts are probably useful for people who are short on time or who have short attention spans, or want to fill time while on journeys etc.

I hadn't explored the CILIP communities podcasts before, but there are some interesting sounding ones there, so it's worth remembering. I haven't subscribed to it, but may go back and search for information on a particular topic. As I have just got an iTunes account, I searched there and came across http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/los-angeles-public-library/id280972438?ign-mpt=uo%3D4. I'm sure there are other public libraries who put on talks and speeches who do this too, but it struck me as a nice way of making the library more visible, reaching out to those who missed the talks, and making the most of the effort that has gone into putting on the talks.

Various things, briefly #cam23

First up is LibraryThing. Everything I said in my previous blog post still applies, I think. I haven't used it for my own books, but there are some useful features for libraries.

My thoughts on Facebook for libraries and LinkedIn have already been covered in my previous blog post for the cpd23 programme, so I won't repeat myself here!

I'd no idea what tumblr was until now. I had a look at some tumblrs (is this really the plural of tumblr? It just looks wrong!) and like the look of them. Since I have already started this blog on blogger, it makes sense to me to carry on in this way, but I I like the visual look of tumblr and may be tempted to try a tumblr next time I need to set something up similar up.  One for the future then!

Similarly, I hadn't heard of posterous before, but I liked the Judge Business School's idea of using it as an online handout to showcase tools. Having looked at a few posterouses (this also looks wrong as a plural!), I would consider using it for a group blog.

Online bookmarking #cam23

I'm not going to talk about Delicious, as I have explored it before. Instead, I had a look at Diigo and Readitlater, which are both completely new things to me.

Diigo
I had trouble adding the Diigolet tool to the favourites bar, but it seemed to work fine from my favourites list. I really liked the highlighting feature, so that I can easily spot which part of a webpage was the important part to me and the reason I highlighted the page. The little 'preview' button on the My Library page is a useful tool as well, as this shows a screenshot of the page you bookmarked. As for the organisation of bookmarks and tags - perhaps not as good as Delicious (as you can't bundle the tags), but it beats the standard browser favourites list. Of course, as with Delicious, the key thing here is that the list is not tied to one machine, but can be accessed anywhere via the web.

Photo: Highlighter in HDR by Arria Belli

Readitlater
Their website says "it eliminates cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest". My usual strategy for dealing with a one-off bookmark (e.g. something I'll read once) has always been to bookmark it until I have looked at it, then delete it or add to a favourites category if it turns out to be useful to refer back to in future. While readitlater is probably great if you have lots of one-off bookmarks, as I only have the odd one here and there I think I will stick to my usual method of bookmarking them, simply so that I have one less place to look for bookmarks.

#cpd23 Online networks

I really liked Helen Murphy's summary of the benefits of online networking on the cpd23 blog - simple and I think she's right! I'm glad I have got involved in online networking to some extent : better known, better connected and better equipped are all good things to aim for. I have really noticed with Twitter that there are trends, events, discussions that I would not have heard about if it weren't for Twitter. Here are my thoughts on some other online networks:

LinkedIn - I first heard of this when doing 23 Things Cambridge last summer. I had a look, decided it wasn't for me so didn't join and promptly forgot about it (and ignored an invitation to join from my father - sorry Dad!) I've gone back to look at profiles of those kind people who let themselves be linked to from the cpd23 blog, but I'm still hesitant to put my CV online. I can see there are benefits to joining, but I don't want to join unless I'm sure I will keep it up to date.

Facebook - I'm a regular on here, but in my personal life only. If I worked in a small library then I would probably create a Facebook page for the library, along the lines of the Cambridge college and department library websites e.g. Selwyn College or English Faculty Library.
LISNPN - This is a great idea. I'm a member here, and find the resources really useful e.g. chartership portfolio information, events etc. I don't remember to log in all that often though...

Librarians as Teachers Network - not relevant to me at the moment, but I will remember this for the future if I end up in a role that includes a lot of teaching.

CILIP Communities - I've heard of this but never investigated it before, so had a play around with it and found my own page (which I hadn't realised existed and is of course currently completely empty!). It's quite useful to have a list of CILIP blogs in one place. I'd be interested to hear how others use CILIP Communities.

Overall, I'm a fan of online networks, but I prefer to join the ones that I think will be most useful and relevant, and then leave the others. I figure there's not much point in joining networks and setting up profiles if I only ever log in twice, my profile gets out of date and I don't actually connect with anyone!

Reflecting - #cpd23 and #cam23

Now I've started on the Chartership journey, I need to work on my reflecting skills. The reflective writing chapter in Margaret Chapman's Building your portfolio book was a good starting point and kept me busy on a recent train journey! I found Random musings of a librarian, almost's post on reflective writing really helpful. I have been thinking about attending a reflective writing workshop but couldn't make the recent one in my area, so it is useful to read a summary of one, and how participants found it.

So, how have cpd23 and cam23 things been going so far? Well, I'm still behind and playing catch up, mostly due to generally being busy and doing both 23 things programmes at the same time. There is some overlap with the things, which is always a nice surprise - it feels like getting to tick off two thngs in one (and I'm a big fan of ticking things off to-do lists!) Sometimes it's hard to fit reflection in, so thanks 23 things for making sure I do this.

Networking
I attended both cam23 and cpd23 networking events in Cambridge and enjoyed putting names and faces to blogs, and meeting people whose blogs I hadn't read but now follow. For me, this is one of the key benefits of 23 things.

Cam23
Things I like (or These are a few of my favourite things):
Twitter, but mostly to follow people and tweet my blog posts. I don't log in regularly enough to really join in conversations, so this is something I might work on.
Screencasting - both useful and fun!
Doodle
Google calendar
What I have learnt: Cambridge Libraries widget is really useful! Also that Google documents can generate forms that can be embedded in websites, and that there are some creative bloggers out there!
What will I use most in my working life? Hard to say at the moment, but perhaps Twitter. Currently many of the things are more useful for my general professional development than directly relevant to my day to day job, but this of course may change.

Cpd23
What have I learnt and how can I apply it? So far, the most useful thing for me has been finding time to think about my online presence so it's not just accidental but has a little more thought to it, even if more work is needed on it! I'm looking forward to a lot of catching up and many new things to explore over the next few weeks.

This was actually quite a hard post to write, so I must need some more practise at reflecting - roll on cpd23 things 19 and 23, and cam23 things 18 and 23!

#cam23 Google Docs

Embedding Google Docs in a website is something that I hadn't realised was possible until Thing 9 and the example of Faculty of Classics Library book recommendation came along. This has much potential in a library setting, and I'd never realised that these kind of things could be generated by Google Docs and not some complicated and expensive software - a pleasant surprise! As well as the classic things like book recommendations, comments and suggestions, I'm sure there are many other uses for the forms that can be generated. I had a go at creating a form for people to sign up for an imaginary cake-eating contest at the library (must have been feeling hungry when making it!), and found it fairly straightforward, although I haven't quite got as far as making it look nice when embedded in a blog post.

I sympathise with Murmation's post about how Google Docs could have saved her worrying about emailing copies of documents to herself, and saving them to memory sticks then trying to work out which was the most up to date version. Despite having used Google Docs before to share documents with other people, I never think to use it for this purpose, and resolutely stick to using memory sticks (if I have one to hand at the time) or emailing documents to myself (if I don't). I'm not too sure why, perhaps it's just habit? Next time I need to work on a document on two different computers, I'll try and remember about Google Docs...

Organising - Doodle, Google calendar and library widgets

I've previously blogged about Doodle, and how useful it is for arranging meetings and events, so won't repeat myself here. I've also blogged about Google calendar before. I still use this regularly outside of work with a rowing club (we've also been using Doodle to schedule rowing times). The fact that it is so easy to share is useful for teams. Having set up a personal Google calendar last time round for 23 things, I don't use it as much as I expected to. I managed to get hold of a paper diary and I actually prefer this for my personal work use. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned! My department already has an shared online diary on the intranet, so I don't think we'll be using Google calendar any time soon. However, being able to embed calendars in websites is very useful for libraries and other organisations as it allows them to share details of events, talks and opening hours with the public/their users.

The Library widget is something that's new to me, but I think it's important to be aware of things like this so that I can help library users if they ask about it, or help promote it to them if they don't already know about it. I don't have any loans out so haven't tested all the features properly, but it's been interesting to see what options are available. I wonder how many students use the iCal calendar feed to view their loan due dates in Google calendar? This is something I would have really appreciated as a student (not that I often had overdue loans, but it's a neat way of checking!) I like the fact that there is a mobile version as well, handy for use on the go. The screencast is really helpful, and much better than the one I created for thing 6! I like the way the instructions/commentary are written underneath. Overall, so many great features. Another favourite is being able to see the libraries you are registered with and your borrowing rights at each - apparently mine has expired, oops, better get that sorted! I am often asked by readers how many items they can borrow and for how long - so I will point them in the direction of this in future. Thanks to Cam23 2.0 I now know all about it.

Screencasting

Well this is fun! Screen-o-matic is really easy to use and a great way of demonstrating things that library users frequently ask. I created a basic screencast of logging in to an eresource via Raven authentication as this is something that I have often had to demonstrate. Then for something library catalogue-related I tried another very short basic screencast showing how to print selected results from a search in LibrarySearch.

It's not very polished at all and if I'd had more time I would have added an intro with some text at the beginning, and perhaps some commentary but it's a start! I'll look out for opportunities to create some screencasts in my work, as there is great potential to help demonstrate common online information tasks to library users.

Here are my tips for first time users:
1. Make sure you enlarge the capture screen enough - my first attempt cut off part of the left hand navigation on some pages and the search button at the bottom of another page.
2. Decide before you start what you are going to do, e.g. if you're demonstrating a search, decide which term you are going to use, and pick one that you know will bring up the results you want.

Pushnote

Since I've already talked about Twitter and RSS feeds in an earlier post, I'm just going to add that I have been using Google Reader a little more over the last few weeks. It seems I've been converted now that I am following more blogs (some cpd23 and some Cam23 2.0 participants).

Onto Pushnote, then - a tool that allows you to rate and rank your favourite websites and share this with others on the web. The principle of sharing information about useful websites is one that I'm sure most cpd23ers support, and Twitter is often used as a means of sharing useful websites via Bit.ly links. Having set up an account to try out Pushnote, I think it's unlikely that I will use it though. Many people like to rate things and give them scores, but this side of Pushnote isn't something that really appeals to me.

I managed to find some other cpd23ers on Pushnote and look at their latest and favourites lists. For me, a drawback of Pushnote is that (unless I missed something) there doesn't seem to be a way of organising or tagging the sites you rate and comment on. If I was going to use it, I'd like to be able to search for sites that have been rated on a particular topic (such as 'libraries' or 'technology'). If Pushnote really takes off, it could be used by libraries to rate the websites that might be useful to their users, as another form of useful links page. For most libraries though, I imagine this would only work if you could organise the links in some way. Just seeing a list of people's favourite sites may appeal if you have time to browse and like the serendipitous approach, but this isn't something I will use. However, Pushnote is only in Beta so perhaps this facility to organise your favourites may be added later. Personally, I would rather share information and learn about useful websites via Twitter and blogs. A useful feature of Pushnote then, is that you can share your favourites via Twitter and Facebook.

For me, the most interesting part of Pushnote is the browser extension, so that you if you come across a website you can click on the Pushnote icon and see how users have rated a site.

Overall, a mixed review from me. Some useful features, and I'm sure some people will enjoy using it, but it's not something I can see myself using at the moment.

My personal brand

This is something I've been meaning to think about for little while. Following Thing 3 instructions, I Googled my name and, apart from being surprised by how many people share my name, I discovered that none of the results on the first three pages were anything to do with me. Now I know that my online brand is invisible, do I want to change this and if so how?

I've been a bit nervous about my identity and name online. First time round blogging with 23 Things I went by the anonymous name of Newbie Blogger for blogging and NewbieCambridge for Twitter as my blog name had already been taken. This meant I could gain confidence in blogging without worrying that everyone knew who I was. However, because I had different blog and Twitter names, I didn't feel I had a consistent online presence. So, after 23 Things, I actually decided to set up a new blog and change my Twitter account so that LibRhi is used for both.

Ned Potter's wikiman blog had a great post on three essential things to do as soon as you join Twitter. This encouraged me to find a picture to put on both my blog and Twitter. I finally took the plunge and put my full name on my Twitter profile, as I think it looks more professional and most of my followers know who I am anyway! I found writing the short bio for Twitter the hardest thing to do, and kept changing my mind about what to write. How to sum up who I am for my Twitter followers in a few characters that says something more interesting than just 'librarian' (especially as this isn't my current job title). I decided to stick with the books background for my blog page as it goes well with my blog name, and changed the design of my Twitter so it is a little more interesting, even though it doesn't match the blog. I've had fun looking at the design of other people's blogs and Twitter profile pages, and what they have written for their bios. There are some creative people out there! I like Cam23 2.0 blogger Murmuration's use of a drawing of herself rather than a photo.

Overall, my personal brand needs more work, but I feel much happier with it now than when I first started. With experience comes confidence, so perhaps my online brand will have developed further by the end of the summer!

CPD23 blogging

I've already got behind with the cpd23 things, but the meet ups happening this week are spurring me on to do another thing before I meet some other lovely cpd23ers. I think I have subconciously put off thing 2, just because there are so many blogs out there! The Delicious participant list really helps with this though. I decided to look at a couple of blogs tagged with UK and higher education first, as this is the sector that I am in.

I found a fellow blogger who, like me, was also just getting started with the things and commented on their post. A few bloggers have registered but not yet posted about cpd23 things, so it is reassuring that I am not the only one who hasn't got to thing 7 yet!

Having decided to also try a serendipitous approach, I clicked on a couple of blogs from the list showing the latest updated on the cpd23 site. I enjoyed reading A Librarian Learning to Blog (and other things!). I've discovered a few other bloggers who are working towards chartership, or are new professionals in other sectors to mine. I'm hoping that by following some of these I will see new perspectives on the things and learn a bit about other library/information sectors. Like PalelyLoitering, I was also drawn to blogs with names or post titles that looked interesting or just happened to catch my eye.

Following a few links on the blogs that I read led me to the Neon Librarian (love the bright picture on the blog page), and back to Cambridge, where I recognised a few blogs from the Cam23 Things and Cam23 2.0 programmes. Nice to see some familiar blogs as well as new ones!  Looking forward to following some of blogs that I have found throughout the programme - hope we can learn from each other!

Screenshots - no more tears?

I had never heard of Lightshot before, but reading about Thing 5 I thought it sounded great. Then I tried to download it...

Perhaps I was just having a bad day, but I didn't find the download process very user friendly. In fact, I tried three times because it didn't seem to have done anything and I didn't notice a feather in the corner of the toolbar. So I gave up and tried to print screen something, when to my surprise the screen greyed out and the Lightshot icons appeared.  Once I got going with Lightshot, I found it easy to use and much less fiddly than editing in Paint. To remind myself of how fiddly editing screenshots in Paint is, I had a go at some and all the memories of trying to select a section that won't all fit in the Paint window in order to crop the picture came flooding back. Lightshot makes this much simpler. Here is a screenshot of my Twitter page, complete with new tweet from Twitterfeed.

In general I tend not to bother with browser addons, because I'm always using different browsers and have never felt the need. Hopefully discovering Lightshot will inspire me to try out some others. After all, I don't know what I am missing if I don't know what is out there...

Thoughts on Twitterfeed

Just a quick update to my last post. I like Twitterfeed as it does exactly what it says on the tin, with no fuss. I didn't find it the most user friendly interface in terms of setting up an account and establishing a feed from my blog to Twitter, but now that is set up it is very straightforward to review. When I published my last post, hey presto, a bit.ly link to the post appeared on Twitter and I received a comment almost straight away (thanks Annie!). Think I will carry on using this.

Tweets and feeds and extra things - Cam 23 2.0

So, first up is RSS feeds. I think these are very useful, but I'm not sure if I use them in the most effective way. I just logged into Google Reader to see the feeds that I had subscribed to last time round in 23 things. I haven't looked at Google Reader once in the last year! I do, however, like to add feeds for blogs to my iGoogle page and my blogger dashboard. I find these easier for following a relatively small number of blogs. On first impression, Google Reader is just a bit too confusing for me - there are so many options down the left side of the page, such as notes, starred items and trends that it's hard to know where to start! I would prefer my subscriptions to be at the top of the list and not hidden away at the bottom! On the plus side, it is useful that it highlights the unread items and shows how many unread items there are. If I find myself subscribing to more feeds, then I may well revisit Google Reader and would probably get used to, or at least put up with, the layout!

Next up is Twitter - the thing that surprised me last time round with its usefulness! I'm not much of a regular tweeter although I do follow several librarians including other 23 Thingers. I've just had to refresh my memory of how to search for people and hashtags. Luckily, it's user-friendly and so this wasn't too tricky. I had never tried any of the applications before, apart from Bit.ly which is very useful for posting links. Hootsuite looks like it would be a very good application for those with multiple accounts, or for teams who contribute to an account, but neither of those apply to me at the moment so I didn't bother to try this out! I have just signed up for Twitterfeed, which looked like the most useful application for me. I will have to revisit this once I have published this post and have tested how it works. Watch this space!

23 Things for Professional Development

So here is where this blog may start to get confusing...as well as Cam 23 2.0, I've decided to have a go at the 23 Things for Professional Development and put it all on the same blog. Will this work? I hope so!

I'm hoping to be able to keep up with both 23 things programmes. When doing last year's 23 Things, I found it very helpful to have set things to do and reflect on each week, and a deadline to work towards. Sometimes it can be difficult to fit CPD into the normal working week, so this structure is a great way of ensuring that it doesn't get put off! I'm looking forward to the wide mixture of things, including the less-technology focussed ones. Some of the things I know a bit about and some will be completely new to me (e.g. Jing). The reflection weeks will be useful as I'd like to improve on reflective practice, something which will be good practice for Chartership.

One of the aspects of CPD23 that is particularly interesting to me is that so many people all over the world can get involved. I'll be interested to have a look at some blogs from outside the Cambridge library sector as well as within. Thing 2, here we come!

Cam23 2.0

I'm pleased that 23 Things is back in 2011 as Cam23 2.0! I really enjoyed the programme last year and as well as learning a lot about web 2.0 and social media, I gained the confidence to blog. There were a few surprises, such as the discovery that I actually continued to use Twitter (something I had steered clear of prior to 23 Things!). While I'm by no means a prolific tweeter, I do find it useful as one way of helping me to keep up with what's going on in the library world. 23 Things was a way of getting more involved in the Cambridge libraries community and this was not just through meeting people at the launch and closing parties.

I've decided to stick with Blogger so that I can use my existing blog. As for what I want to get out of Cam23 2.0, I hope to refresh my skills and update my learning from last year. In this fast moving world, some things may be changed since last summer, and I'll be trying out some of the new things as well. 

iGoogle was one of my favourite things last time around, and I have continued to use it (although not every day). I have just taken the time to review my iGoogle page. Having investigated the current hottest gadgets, I decided to add the Google translate gadget to my home tab. Every now and then it is useful to have a translator to hand, so I will try this out next time I need one. My 'library stuff' tab is the one I use most. It's my preferred method of following blogs as I only follow a few, and contains the ever useful Copac and Worldcat gadgets. To prove I remember some of what I learnt last 23 Things, here's a pretty picture:

For the extra thing this week, I have added a search box and a labels word cloud to my blog. It's so easy to make changes in Blogger, which is one of the reasons I like it. As time goes on, some of the other gadgets may be useful too. I picked a very librarian-ish template this time around, rather than sticking to the default. I look forward to viewing some of the other Cam23 2.0 blogs, seeing which templates and gadgets people have used and of course reading the posts!

The future of CILIP

On 16th May I attended an engaging talk on 'Our professional future' by Annie Mauger, the new CEO of CILIP.  Annie's explanation of changes and challenges affecting different library sectors was interesting and easy to follow. While proposed public library cuts and closures have been all over the news, I hadn't realised that the Schools Library Services were facing similar closures.

The direction that CILIP is heading in seems like a positive step to me. The focus will be on three areas: advocacy, communities and continuing professional development. I hadn't been involved in the 'Defining our professional future' conversation as I wasn't a CILIP member at the time. I was interested to learn that co-operation with the Women's Institute is planned, and CILIP members are talking at WI meetings to get the WI on board to campaign for libraries. Annie explained that CILIP is relatively new to campaigning, while the WI are experienced at this.

CILIP will have a new structure from July and there are likely to be changes to branch and special interest groups. Some special interest groups may merge. Hopefully these changes will allow CILIP to provide better value for money to its members.

I was particularly struck by one of the comments Annie made. She had asked a colleague whether they were nervous attending their first board meeting at a new job, and they had replied 'no' because they knew that they would already know some of the people there. Annie used this to highlight the power of networking. I was inspired to attend the East of England CDG AGM on 18th May. It was useful to meet people from different libraries and sectors working in the region and to find out more about the East of England CDG. Hopefully I'll be seeing more of them in the future!