Attend everything!

Thing 15 is about attending and presenting at events, and all the benefits associated with this.

Attending events
I am a great fan of attending events, I love being current and getting to meet potential contacts. I love the group discussions and all the chances to interact with new people, once the shyness is over that is! One of my favourite events is the Mini Umbrella put on by North East CILIP, this offers the opportunity to go around the stands before and after the presentations plus all the presentations done mainly by local people. At one of these events I make a fantastic contact who helped me through all the technical jargon of my MSc dissertation on library websites, he actually introduced me to the semantic web and what it could do for libraries. I would strongly recommend to attend every one you get chance to go to. That being said, cost is obviously a factor, not just the cost of the event but the cost of getting there and possibly accommodation, I have been fortunate that my employer has paid for all my work related training and Mini Umbrella is free to attend, but I have also had to pay to attend events which don't fall into my job description and are more for information about developments in the field.

Speaking at events
At this point in time I can see the advantages of speaking at events but think this is a bit out of reach for me, I did my dissertation on public library websites yet I work in an academic library so I have stopped researching that area, other than that I don't actually research anything here and I'm not in a position where I would be asked to do so. So for the time being speaking at events seems something to look forward to in the future and hopefully nerves won't get the best of me.

Let's share

Thing 13 is about the different ways to collaborate by sharing access to documents, whether to edit or just to view. Applications like Google Docs and Dropbox are fantastic ways for multiple people to be able to edit the same document, particularly useful when project teams are made up of people from other institutions.

I haven't used Google Docs or Dropbox before but I have used a wiki as part of my MSc. One of the lecturers set up a module and we each had to write 2 short pieces on a topic and add them to the wiki then pick someone elses piece and write a bit about that. This would also be easily transferable to work, having a wiki would be a good way to collect and share information, if someone found out something which may be of use to people in the future just put it on the wiki.

I like the idea of the wiki, having one place to put information which is accessible to everyone who needs it wherever they need it, which I guess is the point of all of these apps, but the wiki seems more accessible to me. One thing for me to try harder with is exploring the other apps and seeing what they can do.

Evernote - attempt 2

Well once again Evernote has defeated me. I am now mildly curious as to what it actually does and how it can benefit me, perhaps one day I will remember to try this at home where I have admin privilidges! Since I'm off work next week, if I'm not busy with the annual clear out I should get it sorted.

A sense of community

So this weeks Thing is about social media, one of the good developemnts of Web 2.0?

I personally think that social media is a mixed blessing. The advantages are obvious and well discussed, for example: communication, online communities, usability, speed, access and so on, plus being online can take away some of the pressure of a face-to-face meeting as no one can see you blushing. However, there are numerous disadvantages.

Disadvantages of social media
The main disadvantage is that it is so time consuming, I now have too many social media accounts and get email updates from several of them which simply clutter my hotmail which leads to more time filtering out the potentially useful or interesting ones and following them up. But, whenever I contemplate deleting one or more I am then faced with the dilemma of which one? I need Facebook to keep in touch with my friends. I need Twitter to keep up with my professional people I'm following. I need Librarians as Teachers Network as I want to be a librarian. I need LIS NPN to keep up with new professionals to see what we're all going through in the quest to reach our dream jobs. I need LinkedIn since it's supposed to be a top place that employers look when checking out your professionality and rates high in Google search results. How do I cut these down? How do I overcome the fear of missing something if I leave a network?

I am also concerned about the relaiblility/accuracy of the information available. Anyone can set up a blog or make a post on one of these sites and there is no noted professional who checks this. This is a problem inherent on the internet, where is the peer review? A lot of information is presented as fact rather than the opinion that it is. Academic publishers have items peer reviewed so you can assume that a book or article has been reviewed by someone in a position to point out any errors or points of contention, not that this means the content is 100% accurate but there is a level of competence assumed of the authors.

Another irritating disadvantage is the crap that I am faced with on Twitter, everytime I log in I am faced with someone who feels the need to tweet about where they are, what they're eating, what they're watching, when they're off to bed and so on. Why anyone thinks their life is so interesting as to tweet every single last detail is beyond me, I feel like shouting at them to shut up, do something interesting then tweet about that! My main complaint about Twitter is that I may be following someone who genuinely tweets about things which I find interesting but then feel the need to tweet some random stuff.

Ok so rant over. I'm hopeful that when the semantic web is in full flow that better searching/filtering will mean that I won't have to waste so much time filtering through unwanted information, then all will be well.

Contact?
CPD23 has enabled me to make contact with existing contacts in different ways, for example, I now follow several people who I  know professionally on Twitter. I haven't yet made new contactsand am finidng that quite difficult. I am spending a lot of time trying out these social media and trying to find posts which I find interesting that I don't feel that I have time to foster new contacts, I hope this will change and believe it should in time and with some more effort on my part. This is definately something I need to work on.

Use of social media for career development
I had dabbled previously, I set up my LIS NPN account last year them promptly forgot about it as nothing much seemed to be happening. I had joined LAT after attending a Librarians as Teachers event organised by CDG and UCR. I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter, i'm not sure that i'll ever really like it or use it consistantly. The only social media which I have made a notable effort with is Facebook, I have joined several relevant groups and often look at their pages.

Is there really an online community?
I think that for professionals who are interested then there is an online community, but for the rest of us it's kind of hard to break into. I'm not an expert yet, I  know I will be one day because I'm working hard towards it. I feel quite intimidated by these highly knowledgable people who are posting and so far am working towards the courage to actually join in an online discussion. It's kind of good for lurkers like me who can dip in and out and pick bits up where I can but I need to work harder to get to the stage where I can truly benefit from social media.

Do I really need another mentor?

My 'official' mentor is my Chartership mentor, I followed CILIP's advice and chose someone in a different field. This is useful as I have to explain more of what I say so I have to think more, which is sometimes known to be a good thing...  On the other hand it is difficult to get field specific advice, she's really informative and has helped me by suggesting events to attend which is great but then there's the question of what will happen once I finish my Chartership? We've both agreed a timeframe but it's hardly likely to be the end of all contact as we both attend similar events, so when does it end?

As for unofficial mentors, I have several, there are so many people at work that I can approach for advice/guidance (for different reasons) so it basically depends on what it is I want as to who I go to. I personally like the idea of having the choice of people to go to, this way i'm not tied to any one person so do not have to wait until they return from holiday or try to hunt them out at work or have the hassle of finding someone new once they move on. Some may call it fickle, some may call it wise but it works for me.

My experiences so far...

I got into librarianship by sheer luck, I finished my undergrad degree and realised that I would have to get a job, having very little experience in my chosen field (Geography) my aunt was kind enough to get me a job through an agency to work on a book move in the library that she works at. I started here, found I liked it and was fortunate to get a permanent position when one came up. After working here for a year I realised that I wanted to be a librarian and had completely gone off the idea of being a geographer (the idea of bugs and mud did it), looking at job adverts I came to 2 conclusions: the first was that I would need a degree in librarianship to get where I wanted to be and I needed to look into Chartership.

As I knew that I wanted to continue in education for a higher degree I decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone and applied to do a Masters in Information and Library Management by distance learning at Northumbria. The best part about this was not so much the course but the way I got to know more people at work as I asked for them for help on various aspects of my assignments, I now have a better idea of who does what and why.

When the MSc was finished I knew I wanted to do more, I love learning things and like to go training courses and events, so Chartership seemed the logical next step. I am now past the half way point and have benefitted from the goal setting imbedded into Chartership. Previously I had simply attended courses/events which were relevant to my current post, after writing my PPDP I found it was better to have a section for the future so I could have aims and direction to achieve my goal of becoming a librarian. At this time I am at the start of my career but I have a plan of how to get where I want to be.

So although I ended up doing temp work at a library by chance it's been really good for me as I've found a career i'm interested in and can see myself being interested in long term.