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!

April round up

My plan is to write regular updates in order to reflect on my learning. Since it has been a few weeks, I thought I'd round up the main news from April in one (very delayed!) post. Must get better at blogging straight away rather than trying to remember things from a while back! April was a busy month...

I attended a presentation given by the British Library on the upcoming changes to their document supply service. It's useful to know what's in store for inter-library loans. They outlined the challenges, both positive and negative, for document supply, and then introduced their new IRMDS (Integrated Request Management Delivery System) which will go live from July-September. Responses will apparently be faster and colour will be standard, which is good news for many library users. The ability to track orders online sounds like good news for us librarians too. The new system will allow the option for end users to search the BL catalogue and request items. This has potential to save users' time as they can instantly make a request remotely if they are searching the BL catalogue from home at a time when the library is closed, for example. Libraries can choose different levels of control, for example the system can be set up so that librarians have to approve/reject all end user requests. It looks as though there will be scope for quite a bit of customisation. For libraries who decide to allow this option, there will be things to work out, such as how to process payments/refunds. Whether or not my library decides to enable the end user request option, I look forward to seeing the other functions when it all goes live.

I've been getting on with the cataloguing practice. This time I'm cataloguing bought books, which already have minimal level bib records and need checking and upgrading. I dug out my notes from my university course and found the bookmark to MARC online, which had been feeling neglected in my favourites list, as a useful reference for when I need reminder. This brought back memories... The cataloguing has been slower than I'd hoped, mainly because the enquiry work side of things has been busy with exams approaching. It's nice to see the library so full of people working hard, let's hope it continues!