Thing 23: Reflection – what have I learnt and where do I want to go from here?

When I started this course back in June 2011, I had no idea just how long it would take to complete; it was supposed to have taken one year but instead it has taken two. Now, I hasten to add that this lengthy run has nothing to do with me being disinterested or lazy, I had to deal with two fairly major personal traumas that took my time and attention. However, I am happy to report that both turned out okay in the end so I was able to bounce back and here we are, this is IT, the very last “Thing”! Let’s start off with what have I learnt, which is SO much, it’s difficult to know where to begin…

 

The very first “thing” we were required to do was to create a blog and this old blog of mine has become very important to me. Mostly because it has become both an outlet for my interest in our special collections here and, in photographing the items, it has also become something of a creative outlet. I have learnt that I love taking photographs, I love the whole process; setting up shoots, taking the photos, editing them and posting them.

I have also learnt the vast benefits of using social media to promote and improve my library career. I would say for this, Twitter has been the best outlet [I’m @SquirrelLib] as I came to a conclusion very early on that librarians love to Tweet! There are thousands of them out there; all sharing valuable information resources [of course], experiences, breaking news, gossip, cat pictures, recipes, film reviews... you name it, they'll tweet it! 

Another important thing I learnt was not to try and do everything. The course advocates trying everything of course but very early on you realise just how many social media vehicles are available and therefore the best thing to do is to pick and choose what works for you. This has worked perfectly for me, I use my Blog and Twitter accounts for work and Facebook and Flickr for my little crafting business and right now, these four accounts are quite enough thank you very much.

 

Doing CPD23 has made me a better librarian, I’m much more aware of information resources, new technologies and I’m definitely much more in tune with what’s going on around me, and I was pretty rubbish at that last one.

Where do I want to go from here? Well, I have just been given permission to upload my blog posts on to the main museum blog and this is very exciting as so many more people will get to see them. I love the idea that doing something I really enjoy is also promoting my library, myself and our museum's collections and I consider that ending on a real high!

So goodbye and thank you to CPD23, it has been a pleasure :-)

 All photographs in this post taken by Squirrel Library

Thing 6: Online networks

LinkedIn was the first network I looked at and my first instinct was that this would be a good thing to sign up to. I then read Charlie White’s interesting article How people are really using LinkedIn in which he discusses how professionals are using it as the business equivalent of Facebook – and therefore keeping their personal and professional profiles distinctly separate. However, he also writes about it topping the hundred million user mark in March of this year and that it is also adding a new member every second and I find statistics like that quite off putting – when something gets too big my instinct is to back away but I will give it some thought and I suppose there’s no harm in signing up for a while to see what comes from it.

Facebook had become massive before I even started to register what it was and by that time everyone I knew was on it so [me being me], I stayed away and haven’t signed up yet. Of course I do see its value for social networking and professional networking too especially when browsing through suggested pages such as Voices for the library and ALA. That said, it’s is not something I’m going to sign up to right now and whereas I do acknowledge its 750 million membership status, Andrew Brown’s article Facebook is not your friend  most definitely affirms my decision.

LISNPN [LIS New Professionals Network] is the only network I was signed up to before I started this course and it’s been a helpful resource to dip into if only to be aware of the current topics under discussion. I was sorry to miss out on a recent face-to-face networking event in Bristol in June - my colleague Kris at Taken for binding went along and really enjoyed it. In fact, it was Kris who told me about LISNPN in the first place and also about CPD23 which incidentally, she heard about on LISNPN so it’s been a VERY useful resource to date [and Kris is very useful colleague to have around J].