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!
Monday, 21 November 2011
Friday, 18 November 2011
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!
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!
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 14 November 2011
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.
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.
Friday, 11 November 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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