Integration

Thing 19 - reflecting on what's been covered so far and how I have integrated the Things into my work flow

Reflection
I am now a regular user of Twitter, I have found that to follow trends and people more effectively I have had to download Twitter to my phone as this is the quickest and easiest way for me to access Twitter. I now monitor who I follow to unfollow the people who post random nonsense to better control what I can see in my feed.

I am much more confident at blogging and make more of an effort to follow blogs, this is useful for current awareness in areas I am interested in. I find Ned Potter's blog to be particularly informative, and from comments I have read on other posts so do a lot of other people.

As far as events go I think I am still more comfortable attending them I feel like I lack enough experience to consider presenting at one although I often man a stand at events and this is building my confidence.

Volunteering is something which I will consider, I am fortunate that my employer is willing to let me volunteer for events which are usually staffed by a different department, this has allowed me to work at open days and events like Mini Umbrella. I will continue to actively participate in CILIP SIGs to improve more professional skills like networking and liaising.

I have already identified my strengths and ways to improve my weaknesses as part of the many job applications I have made so I was already happy with Thing 21. Although it never hurts to revisit it!

One drawback I find from CPD23 is that it could have been split into 2 sections, one which was aimed at people at the start of their career and were looking for ways to gain skills to advance in the field, and another aimed at people who were already at a higher level and wanted to increase their awareness of what was available to them. I have managed to create development opportunities as best I can and have managed to volunteer for library events and provide training after developing a training checklist, but, there is only so much I can do and I worry that if I push too much then the answer might become 'no'. There are Things which I won't get the chance to use as part of my job if I don't advance soon such as Prezi and Jing, even the personal brand would be more advanteous to those in a professional post, although it is useful to consider at this point. Thing 20 on library roots/routes was interesting and gave me things to consider for advancing in the field.

Integration
Twitter has been the most integrated Thing as it was something which I had not liked to use previously. I quite often check it out on my breaks now if something I want to follow is happening.  I will continue to attend events and volunteer for CDG and UC&RG. I have considered my personal brand and changed my online presence to reflect this. I have used RSS feeds to set up alerts for new jobs so I can be more aware of them and save time.

The joy of networking

I really like the networking opportunities presented by professional bodies. I got involved with my local CDG group as I wanted to be more involved in the library community and have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to network within the group, especially for someone like me who doesn't find meeting new people very easy. When I represented the division at National Council I also got to put faces to names which was useful. I have also become the workplace rep for my local division of UCR group, even though I haven't yet been able to get to a meeting (just joined last month!) I have already talked, or 'networked', with the other UCR members at work.

As far as training and development goes I have benefitted greatly from my membership of CDG, I became Website Officer for the group which has already improved my web skills and liaison skills, as division rep at Council I gained a better understanding of how information moves throughout the organisation which I could translate to work. Being a member of the group and attending meetings means that I get to discuss possible training events so if there is something that I feel would be useful to me and other new professionals it is possible to raise this at meetings. This is fantastic as most CILIP training takes place in London which would mean either a very early train and thus a very long day or a stay overnight which increases the price, neither is an optimal outcome, but as CDG organises events within their own region this makes attendance much more likely.

I am also demonstrating my dedication to continuing professional development and applying for Chartership, another good reason to be a member of CILIP.

Thing 3 - my own personal brand

The cpd Thing for this week is to consider our personal brands with an activity to search for ourselves online.

My personal brand
I began by reading the article by Mary Kelly (the Practical Librarian) and following a couple of things on there when I became aware that I had inadvertantly been creating my own brand at work for some time now. Most people at work know that I'm interested in becoming a subject specialist and that I am interested in the library user as a learner, mainly because these are the things I tend to talk about the most and the jobs that I apply for, while I don't see anything wrong with this, in fact I think that having a known interest in a team would be helpful and has been helpful to me.

Activity
I Googled myself, something I often do out of curiosity (vanity?), and discovered that I have created 2 brands for myself and realised that depending on how well the person Googling me knew me would depend on which brand they get. A prospective employer would search for Rebecca and find a 192 listing and a report which I wrote as part of the Junior Research Associate Scheme on sustainable waste management, hardly something which screams 'librarian' and thought this may deter them, or perhaps the lack of information on Rebecca would concern them.

To anyone who knows me I am Becky, here is where my librarian self comes out. The top results were my LIS NPN account and things which I had liked on Facebook, as these were Newcastle Libraries and CDG Northeastern and thus related to my career I'm happy that these things came up. However, these things are essentially hidden from people who don't know me.

I have to be honest and say that I haven't found the courage to show this blog to any of my colleagues to get their feedback on it so any comments from people reading this are most welcome.

23 Things for CPD - Thing 1

Hi everyone,
Well, I've started, I have managed to create my first ever blog!! Having been a 'lurker' for quite some time, often reading but never commenting, I am very pleased to have taken that first step :)

A little bit about me - I have worked in Northumbria University library for 5 years now in Customer Support (Circulation), I have recently completed my MSc in Information and Library Management at Northumbria by distance learning and I will be submitting my Chartership application by the end of this year.

What I'm hoping to get out of this is more experience with using online tools (experience of creating a blog achieved) apart from using Facebook I don't have a great deal of experience with all the wonders of Web 2.0. I have dabbled here and there but never really attempted to become familiar with all the different tools.

Happy blogging,
Becky