So this thing is about reflecting about social media. The cpd23 blog suggested some advantages and disadvantages of social networking in the context of professional networking. To add to this, I would say another advantage is that you are kept informed in a way that you wouldn't be without it. I find sites like Twitter particularly useful for this. I have found out about professional events and even this course through the site. Without it, I would be one step behind all the news and events.
As for disadvantages, I think it is possible to feel overwhelmed by all the social networks out there. In some ways, we are more informed than ever but then there is such a thing as an information overload. Do we really have the time to read, digest and disseminate everything that interests us in our busy lives?
As for whether social networking can really help foster a sense of community, I would say that it can. I do think that there needs to be a common interest though and ideally people who are passionate enough about the subject to facilitate the community.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Back to college!
Last Tuesday, I went back to work after a 7 week holiday (I only work during term time).
It is fair to say that I needed to be eased back in gently! It was good to catch up with my colleagues and see and hear about the changes in our library over the summer.
One of the main changes has been an extension of our library (into some of the staff room) as we will have a larger intake of students this year. The extension looks good but I only hope that we will be able to control the noise level in the library. The whole library is meant to be silent study. Is this realistic? We will see.
We also have one more person in the team for four days a week so that should help us.
From Wednesday to Friday our team were helping the college with enrollement. Our sixth form is very popular and entry requirements are quite stringent. Unfortunately this meant that a lot of young people coming in to enrol were very disappointed as they hadn't met the required grades. As I spent some time helping the Careers team, it was good to see the support that was on offer.
We predicted that the loss of the EMA this year would impact on numbers enrolling, but by Friday afternoon the majority of our courses were full.
I am looking forward to one more student free week where I can make progress with preparing inductions and cataloguing books.
It is fair to say that I needed to be eased back in gently! It was good to catch up with my colleagues and see and hear about the changes in our library over the summer.
One of the main changes has been an extension of our library (into some of the staff room) as we will have a larger intake of students this year. The extension looks good but I only hope that we will be able to control the noise level in the library. The whole library is meant to be silent study. Is this realistic? We will see.
We also have one more person in the team for four days a week so that should help us.
From Wednesday to Friday our team were helping the college with enrollement. Our sixth form is very popular and entry requirements are quite stringent. Unfortunately this meant that a lot of young people coming in to enrol were very disappointed as they hadn't met the required grades. As I spent some time helping the Careers team, it was good to see the support that was on offer.
We predicted that the loss of the EMA this year would impact on numbers enrolling, but by Friday afternoon the majority of our courses were full.
I am looking forward to one more student free week where I can make progress with preparing inductions and cataloguing books.
Thing 11
At the end of my post on Thing 10, I mentioned that I am interested in working towards Chartership and getting a mentor.
I really do believe it is worthwhile having mentors - both informal and formal - throughout your career. I have as yet not had anyone I could call a mentor.
I did have a look at CILIP's list of mentors. There were many within the London area but some already had at least a couple of mentees. Others only wanted to mentor someone at their own organisation and there were those who were only taking Chartership candidates.
I therefore think my options are either to register for Chartership and contact one of these mentors on the list, or to ask someone that I already know and work with. It is more appealing to approach someone I already know but then it's more likely they might say no or they might not have done mentoring before.
Still, I do have a couple of people in mind and I think my next step is really to get in touch and see what they say...I will keep you posted!
I really do believe it is worthwhile having mentors - both informal and formal - throughout your career. I have as yet not had anyone I could call a mentor.
I did have a look at CILIP's list of mentors. There were many within the London area but some already had at least a couple of mentees. Others only wanted to mentor someone at their own organisation and there were those who were only taking Chartership candidates.
I therefore think my options are either to register for Chartership and contact one of these mentors on the list, or to ask someone that I already know and work with. It is more appealing to approach someone I already know but then it's more likely they might say no or they might not have done mentoring before.
Still, I do have a couple of people in mind and I think my next step is really to get in touch and see what they say...I will keep you posted!
Friday, 26 August 2011
Thing 9
Evernote could be what I've been looking for all my adult life. I love tools that make your life easier for you.
As it saves screenshots, you don't have the issue of going back to a webpage some months later to find it's no longer there. It's also very helpful that all the notes that you add can be accessed from any computer or device you happen to use.
I am yet to get to the Thing about referencing tools, but I can see how useful it would be for a student doing some research - or just putting all their notes together. The ability to create and save audio notes on an iPhone (not sure about other phones) is also great if you have one.
I certainly would have found Evernote helpful over a year ago when I was doing my postgraduate degree. There's even something called StudyBlue that works with Evernote and allows students to create flashcards from their notes. How cool is it to be a student these days, eh?
I haven't used Evernote for a month but I think the account data limits are more than sufficient. Maybe if you were saving a lot of images you would need to upgrade.
Possible drawbacks...well one of the first web pages I tried to save (timeout.com) did not save as I don't have a subscription with them. That's probably not that common though. There's currently just a choice between two browsers for a web add on - Firefox or Google Chrome. So, as far as I can see, you can't save web pages on an iPhone or Android phone. Maybe you would need to email the page to Evernote instead...
Also, I linked to my Facebook account but they asked for permission to access all my notes even when I am not using Evernote. So, if you value your privacy, don't get accounts with sites like these!
I also noticed that they had automatically signed me up to their marketing emails and that of other companies, so look out for that if you sign up.
It would be good to write again about Evernote at the end of this course and question if it really has changed my life for the better! Sites like Pushnote I really haven't gone back to since signing up for them. I think that it is more likely that I will stick with something that helps me in my everyday life rather than confuses me with more friends to add and feeds to follow...
As it saves screenshots, you don't have the issue of going back to a webpage some months later to find it's no longer there. It's also very helpful that all the notes that you add can be accessed from any computer or device you happen to use.
I am yet to get to the Thing about referencing tools, but I can see how useful it would be for a student doing some research - or just putting all their notes together. The ability to create and save audio notes on an iPhone (not sure about other phones) is also great if you have one.
I certainly would have found Evernote helpful over a year ago when I was doing my postgraduate degree. There's even something called StudyBlue that works with Evernote and allows students to create flashcards from their notes. How cool is it to be a student these days, eh?
I haven't used Evernote for a month but I think the account data limits are more than sufficient. Maybe if you were saving a lot of images you would need to upgrade.
Possible drawbacks...well one of the first web pages I tried to save (timeout.com) did not save as I don't have a subscription with them. That's probably not that common though. There's currently just a choice between two browsers for a web add on - Firefox or Google Chrome. So, as far as I can see, you can't save web pages on an iPhone or Android phone. Maybe you would need to email the page to Evernote instead...
Also, I linked to my Facebook account but they asked for permission to access all my notes even when I am not using Evernote. So, if you value your privacy, don't get accounts with sites like these!
I also noticed that they had automatically signed me up to their marketing emails and that of other companies, so look out for that if you sign up.
It would be good to write again about Evernote at the end of this course and question if it really has changed my life for the better! Sites like Pushnote I really haven't gone back to since signing up for them. I think that it is more likely that I will stick with something that helps me in my everyday life rather than confuses me with more friends to add and feeds to follow...
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Thing 8
Oops, such is my post-holiday jetlag that I missed out Thing 8 and Thing 9! Lots to catch up on so I'll keep this post on Google Calendar brief.
I have a Google operated phone so it would make sense for me to use Google Calendar to organise my life. Yet, even after this exercise, I don't feel so enthusiastic about making it my personal or work calendar. However, I can see how worthwhile it could be in an academic library like mine. Integrating it into a library blog to show events coming up is a good starting point. As long as it is kept up to date, I think it would be a useful tool for keeping students informed.
I have a Google operated phone so it would make sense for me to use Google Calendar to organise my life. Yet, even after this exercise, I don't feel so enthusiastic about making it my personal or work calendar. However, I can see how worthwhile it could be in an academic library like mine. Integrating it into a library blog to show events coming up is a good starting point. As long as it is kept up to date, I think it would be a useful tool for keeping students informed.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Thing 10
As this post is all about routes into librarianship, I will discuss my own decision to join the profession and experiences of it so far. I spent a long period of time researching librarianship/information management as a career but it took me a while to even get to that point.
My first degree was in History. I particularly enjoyed gathering information from different sources and making sense of it. Yet, like a lot of my friends, I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. So I spent two years teaching English as a foreign language in London and Madrid. I then fell into a job in Publishing when I returned to the UK. There were aspects of this first job I liked, such as responding to requests from colleagues for information, but it was not clear where I could progress from there. Other people in my team seemed to get jobs in marketing, so I went that way too. I started a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) course and eventually got offered a job at another company which gave me marketing experience.
Again, there were aspects of this job that I enjoyed but I felt there was something missing. I liked the idea of working with the public and doing work which wasn't just about profit. It was around this time that I arranged to volunteer at a local public library. It was here that I assisted a Librarian with an oral history project she was working on. The project itself was interesting but, admittedly, I wasn't so sure that public libraries was the place for me.
Then I got made redundant during the economic crisis! Bummer. This was a period of time when I really felt pulled to working in the information field. Marketing jobs were low on the ground, particularly as the type of experience I had was limiting. On the other hand, I felt that some of the work experience I had could cross over to the information field. Additionally, I liked that it can be both a technology and people focussed career.
So luckily I got accepted on a CILIP-accredited Masters course and found work in the Student Services department at the same university. Although I had customer service experience, this post was good for getting face-to-face experience as well as the opportunity to assist students using online technology. I also did a placement as part of my course.
I really think both my course and this experience helped me get recruited at the college I work at right now. It has been really good experience so far but, as it isn't a permanent post, I need to think some more of where I should go from here.
What I am certain about is that I would like to start working on Chartership in the next year. It would be good to get a mentor and discuss my career plans in more detail.
My first degree was in History. I particularly enjoyed gathering information from different sources and making sense of it. Yet, like a lot of my friends, I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. So I spent two years teaching English as a foreign language in London and Madrid. I then fell into a job in Publishing when I returned to the UK. There were aspects of this first job I liked, such as responding to requests from colleagues for information, but it was not clear where I could progress from there. Other people in my team seemed to get jobs in marketing, so I went that way too. I started a Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) course and eventually got offered a job at another company which gave me marketing experience.
Again, there were aspects of this job that I enjoyed but I felt there was something missing. I liked the idea of working with the public and doing work which wasn't just about profit. It was around this time that I arranged to volunteer at a local public library. It was here that I assisted a Librarian with an oral history project she was working on. The project itself was interesting but, admittedly, I wasn't so sure that public libraries was the place for me.
Then I got made redundant during the economic crisis! Bummer. This was a period of time when I really felt pulled to working in the information field. Marketing jobs were low on the ground, particularly as the type of experience I had was limiting. On the other hand, I felt that some of the work experience I had could cross over to the information field. Additionally, I liked that it can be both a technology and people focussed career.
So luckily I got accepted on a CILIP-accredited Masters course and found work in the Student Services department at the same university. Although I had customer service experience, this post was good for getting face-to-face experience as well as the opportunity to assist students using online technology. I also did a placement as part of my course.
I really think both my course and this experience helped me get recruited at the college I work at right now. It has been really good experience so far but, as it isn't a permanent post, I need to think some more of where I should go from here.
What I am certain about is that I would like to start working on Chartership in the next year. It would be good to get a mentor and discuss my career plans in more detail.
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Thing 7
I was looking forward to this Thing - on face-to-face networks and professional organisations - as
CILIP London had organised an event to coincide with it. So last Thursday evening I popped along to their offices, listened to a few speakers and got involved in discussions with other cpd23 participants over a glass of wine (or two!).
All of the speakers were involved with professional groups (mainly CILIP ones) in one way or another. There were also a few other people attending who volunteered with CILIP groups. It was clear that they thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. Although the main concern raised by other cpd23 participants was that it would take up a lot of spare time, some of those who volunteered said that it need not be the case.
It did get me thinking that I should go further than just being a CILIP member and following online discussion. I think I will try to offer my help to one of the groups I joined on CILIP in the coming months. I will have to now that I have written it!
I have also been thinking about Chartership for a few weeks now. However, as I am not in a permanent position at my workplace, I think it would be better if I wait. I may be wrong but what I have read of the Chartership process suggests that it is best to have some continuity.
Overall Thursday's event confirmed to me that, although online networks have opened a whole new world to me, I still prefer the old-fashioned meeting people face to face.
CILIP London had organised an event to coincide with it. So last Thursday evening I popped along to their offices, listened to a few speakers and got involved in discussions with other cpd23 participants over a glass of wine (or two!).
All of the speakers were involved with professional groups (mainly CILIP ones) in one way or another. There were also a few other people attending who volunteered with CILIP groups. It was clear that they thought it was a worthwhile thing to do. Although the main concern raised by other cpd23 participants was that it would take up a lot of spare time, some of those who volunteered said that it need not be the case.
It did get me thinking that I should go further than just being a CILIP member and following online discussion. I think I will try to offer my help to one of the groups I joined on CILIP in the coming months. I will have to now that I have written it!
I have also been thinking about Chartership for a few weeks now. However, as I am not in a permanent position at my workplace, I think it would be better if I wait. I may be wrong but what I have read of the Chartership process suggests that it is best to have some continuity.
Overall Thursday's event confirmed to me that, although online networks have opened a whole new world to me, I still prefer the old-fashioned meeting people face to face.
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