Thing 6 - Now it's finally time for online networking

I'm very behind with the times when it comes to social networking. I've only really got into Twitter since this course, I've tweeted tonight but at the moment I only tweet cpd23 stuff. I'm not on Facebook or LinkedIn and had never given them a second look before until now. I haven't really made my mind up whether I'm missing out by not using them. I joined Facebook and LinkedIn tonight rather half-heartedly as I think I can't really comment on them unless I have actual experience of using them. I think I'll probably go back and have a good look at my profile on LinkedIn at a later date as I think this one looks the more useful of the 2 professionally. So far, I've just done the briefest of profiles and joined the 23 things for professional development group. I also had a quick look at the CILIP Communities, again I think it's going to be one to revisit at a later date.

Thing 7 - Networking face-to-face

I know I'm doing Thing 7 before Thing 6 but I thought I'll get the easiest Thing of the 2 done first as I've got alot to say on this one. I already hear the sound of the mouse as people quickly escape this blog.

I managed to go to one of the face-to-face networking events held last week. I was quite fortunate that one of my work colleagues who is also doing the 23 steps arranged a meet in The Brewery Tap in Peterborough - a pub that sells real ales and Thai food - what's there not to be liked! Seven hardy souls turned up and they weren't all from the RNIB so I can call that proper networking - 4 RNIB staff, one school librarian, one health librarian and one college librarian - so a good mix.

I'm a member of CILIP and have been a member since I started my Postgraduate course back in em......1992, better known as The Library Association in those days. My Special Interest groups are Community Services Group (continuous) and Career Development (from this year). I was a member of COFHE for a number of years until I realised that I hadn't received any mailings for quite a few years, time for a change. I also fall under the East Midlands Branch of CILIP.

I've become more actively involved in CILIP acivities as, with a lot of frontline library jobs, there is not much opportunity to develop in the job itself, so I'm always looking to gain knowledge and improve skills further afield. I also think I'm in danger of getting too wrapped up with just issues to do with visual impairment so networking is a good reminder of the wider library world. Luckily, since RNIB merged with National Library for the Blind, we have had new Library Management who have actively encouraged us to get involve with CILIP. However, like I expect with most library staff today, it can be difficult sometimes to get time off because of staffing issues and we have a busy telephone with a lot of needy customers to look after! I had also identified in my Chartership Report that networking and professional involvement in CILIP was something I needed to improve on so I feel that I'm addressing one weakness.

I've been to a few East Midlands events including a couple of AGMs which had guest speakers from CILIP, visits including Lincoln Cathedral Library and Lord Tennyson Library and a workshop on portfolios and revalidation. I'm hoping that they will run a workshop on reflective writing this year. It's quite good to get away for the day and network with Librarians from such a wide field and different professional levels. It's also nice to see familiar faces when you go to an event, networking becomes easier each time you go to something.

I've also started to become involve with the CSG. After winning a place at the Libraries Change Lives Awards in 2010 and writing an article about the event, I decided to take the plunge and volunteer to go on the Committee. After being a member for so long with this group, I decided it was time that I should contribute something back. I've only been to 3 meetings so far, the first one was very daunting walking into the room for the first time though felt better once I had an opportunity to contribute to the conversation! The second meeting also combined the annual AGM and a workshop - Public Libraries and Social Justice - which again opened my eyes to the wider world of public libraries and gave me an oportunity to meet some interesting people who were involved in some inspirational projects in their libraries. Networking also gives me the chance to promote the RNIB and the library services they offer to Public Librarians. I was also introduced to Wikireadia at http://www.wikireadia.org.uk/ which is a really useful website used by quite a few of the participants there. I've volunteered myself to help out with running a course at the end of the year which will be good experience. I've also contributed an article on MANIL Make a Noise in Libraries fortnight to the CSG Newsletter earlier this year. I'm also in the process of putting together an article for the CSG Website on Why I decided to join the CSG Committee. I'm hoping that the longer I'm on the Committee and the more background knowledge I pick up about the workings of the group, the more involved I will become and be comfortable in volunteering for more things.

I did have a quick look at some of the other suggested library organisations including IFLA and SLA. The online videos on the SLA looked interesting but this may be something to consider for the future, money depending! I also had a look at The Library Society of the World but I think the informal ethos led to a too informal and messy website which didn't really grab my attention. It probably may be fun to join if you had more time on your hands to join in the debates but I'm usually in a hurry and want to find information easily.

Thing 5 - I've been reflecting alot

So what have I been up to these last few weeks. Well, I've started a blog and a twitter account (and in the process discovered some half-hearted attempts from 2009), set up some RSS Feeds on various websites, learnt that there was something called Pushnote, thought alot about my online brand and from that, discovered that I was a sumo wrestler and an actress that starred in films such as Naughty Marietta in my spare time.

The question is what have I learnt so far? Firstly that it's right what people say that learning has to be relevant to the learner. I did a Web 2.0 course back in 2009 and didn't made use of it because I didn't have a computer at home, I wasn't allowed to use Twitter and similar web 2.0 technology at work and also there are problems of lack of accessibility to our visually impaired customers.

I've discovered that blogging and tweeting is fun and something that I would continue and is not just for sad technies who have nothing better to do in their life. I plan to start other professional blogs on things such as Revalidation and book reviews along with some more leisure blogs. I enjoy writing and tend to be spontanious in my writing style - I prefer to put my thoughts directly onto the blog rather than planning things out first. A little bit of this is due to lack of time though!

On reflection, I should have thought about my online brand first before putting my blog together and looked at some guides on how to make your blog more attractive and eye-catching. This becomes more apparent as I look at other participants' blogs. I've noticed that the more established and confident bloggers tend to use wordpress so I may investigate this further. I'm hoping my blog will evolve and gain extra features as I develop it. I'm still trying to work out how to insert images!

I'm also going to spend more time in leaving comments on other blogs. They may appreciate that there is somebody out there who is actually reading their blog as there is the slight worry that nobody is reading your blog and you're writing for the sake of it.

I'm not sure how much I will tweet once this course ends. I usually try and tweet as I work on my CPD23 in the evenings and it may be that it will become second nature to tweet most days.

I'm going to make better use of RSS Feeds for work and leisure as I think this will cut alot of time spent looking at web sites for new info.

I can't really comment on Pushnote as I have Internet Explorer and there wasn't much love for Pushnote from other cpd23 participants.

The next question is how can I apply all these new skills to the workplace and what can be practically (and realistically) applied. We are reviewing the library web pages in the near future so it would be a good opportunity to incorporate these new technologies. We can now use twitter at work so it would have been useful to tweet at Sight Village last week and it might be good to tweet on a daily basis at work. It would be good to start up a team blog on the library website where someone can blog on a regular basis on what's going on in the Reader Services Team - a new book going in to the library, an interesting enquiry or a new development which may be of interest to the Reader. We could also set up a blog for our work's book club where we could post our book reviews on for everyone to view. The most obvious thing for RSS feeds is to update readers on what new books have been added to the library catalogue or the library website in general. If given the opportunity, I would be happy to volunteer to take on board at least one of these ideas but if I don't get the chance at work, I will continue to blog and tweet at home.

Thing 4 - Are we nearly there yet? Yes - we're on Pushnote.

I've got to admit that I hadn't heard of Pushnote before I started this course. Unfortunately, my browser is Internet Explorer so I won't be able to get practical experience of this. I had a look at their FAQ page which didn't give me much more information that I had already known.

I then looked through some of the other participant's blogs to see their views. Alot of the Thing 4 blogs had done the Twitter and RSS Feeds but hadn't looked at Pushnote. The ones that had tried Pushnote were mainly quite negative about its usefulness. Comments included that Pushnote wasn't offering anything new to other social networking sites that already exist such as Twitter. Quite a few of the bloggers had also given up quite quickly citing that they just didn't get it.

I found one blog - Charlie's 23 things for professional development - that offered some useful comments both positive and negative and also referred to a couple of useful recent articles on the Techcrunch website. This blog highlighted one major problem that a website’s owner couldn't remove any of the Pushnote comments linked to their site which will be a problem if the comments are false or malicious.

Thing 4 continued! - RSS Feeds

When will Thing 4 end I ask myself forgetting that I've been easily distracted? I went in my blog last night to work on Thing 4 and to my horror noticed that my last post was full of spelling mistakes. I knew I was tired but..... Liberary? Sevices? After giving my blog a good spell check, I had a light bulb moment and remembered how to change the font as I had thought the font was far too small on my blog. So after playing around with that for a while and sending a few tweets, I remembered the reason why I was on my blog.....RSS Feeds.

I've set up an RSS feed for the CPD blogs and participants and had a look at the recommended list and set a few feeds for these too. Phil Bradley then planted the idea of setting up an RSS Feed for the BBC News which I thought was a good idea. I then thought about all of the other sites - professional and leisure - I regularly look at and decided to work through those. I then got distracted again and started adding other gadgets to my google page, totally forgetting about Pushnote.

I got to admit I thought RSS Feeds was just the automatic emails that came to me on a regular basis from Freeprint, Internet Librarian, Information Today Europe, CILIP, ICan and National Autistic Society, so accessing news from your Reader was something new. It's certainly a quicker way of checking your favourite sites for updates and probably better than getting hundreds of emails which you ignore for later as you're too busy and then never get round to reading it.

I can also see why RSS Feeds is a desirable requirement for library systems to let readers know what new books have been added to the catalogue in their favourite subject or author.

Thing 4 - Twitter continued

After a busy week with a full governor's meeting as a parent-governor at my son's school last night and helping out at Sight Village in Birmingham on the RNIB National Library Services stand today, I've finally managed to sit down at 9.30 tonight to have another look at twitter. I went through some of the recommended twitter accounts and decided to have a maximum of 5 to follow.

Publiclibnews and UKpling
I thought it would be useful to keep abreast on what's happening to UK public libraries and the opposition to library cuts.

infolitgroup
I've always had an interest in information literacy stemmed from my work in college libraries.

CILIPinfo
For obvious reasons!

Philbradley
My enthusiasm for Web 2.0 has grown since this course, after being indifferent before. Who else would be a better person to follow!

I also posted another tweet myself and had a look at libchat. I'll like to have a go and join in to see how this works. I can also see the benefits of tweeting at something like a Conference as I've just found out that Kent Libraries has won the Libraries change lives award through twitter.

Thing 4 - Twitter

I've finally managed to start looking at Thing 4 and set myself up a Twitter Account, only to discover that I already had one which I must have set up on the Web 2.0 course back in 2009! I actually had gained 4 followers who didn't have much to do following me the last 2 years.

I think the problem with the web 2.0 course back in 2009 was the lack of relevance to me at that time as we weren't allowed to use things like twitter etc at work, web 2.0 technology isn't very accessible for visually impaired people (our customers) and I didn't have a computer at home.

I updated my profile and managed to link my blog to my twitter account with few problems. I've sent a couple of tweets so far, seems pretty straight forward though quite a challenge to stick to the character limit. Also tried to see if I could easily add my tweet button to my blog but need to find a bit more help on how to do this.

My next step is to get in the habit of sending tweets on a regular basis and try and get some followers! The cyber world can be quite a lonely place. I'm also going to look at some of the recommended tweeters and pick a few to follow.

On reflecting on the 23 steps so far, I certainly would keep the blog going and would try and put something on most days. I would also perhaps have a go at some none library blogs. I also want to design my blog more - add a few images and gadgets such as the tweet button.

With regards to Twitter, I think I need to give it a few weeks before I decide on its usefulness for me.

Thing 3 - My personal brand

I've not had much of a chance these last few days to think about my personal brand. It's peak time in the garden with the soft fruit, cabbages and cauliflower. Plenty of blackcurrant ice cream and strawberry cheese cake to make.....and eat.

On hindsight, I should have thought about my blog first before putting fingers to keyboard and thought about my online image and how I'm presenting myself to the outside world. I think I was just concerned about doing a blog as this was all new to me but it's now becoming more evident that you need to think about how to portray yourself or even "advertise" yourself. Thankfully, this is my only online presence at the moment. Looking at the other comments about branding, we are either all very "English" and are uncomfortable with the concept of branding ourselves or we go all out for it and have a very strong personality!

As you can probably gather, I didn't plan my blog but I quite like my black background and white lettering. I think the 1980's goth punk is coming out in me with the days of black clothes, dry ice and Sisters of Mercy. I scarily saw an advert for a 30th anniversary gig for Sisters of Mercy recently and felt very old. I would like to add some images, particularly try and find one that I could use consistently, but have not yet worked out how to do this.

I like the idea of bringing together the professional and personal. I think I'm getting more comfortable in blogging about things in general and not just work so I think I would continue to do that. I like how some blogs list the books they are currently reading or music they are currently listening to. In my case - Barbara Kingsolver - The lacuna and Portishead - Third.

According to google, I'm a farmer's wife, an actress (apparently one of my films is called Naughty Marietta), I'm dead and there's an online orbituary telling the world how kind and unselfish I was, I'm a hairdresser/beauty therapist, a sculptress and a sumo wrestler and can be seen in action on U-Tube! Sometimes I even put Eliza in front of my name and do abit of country singing and even appear on Jools Holland. In my spare time, I'm a Librarian and appear on page 14 with a conference report for CILIP Libraries Change Lives 2010.