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 19: Catch-up week/reflection

Some time to think about how you might integrate the Things so far into your workflow and routines...





Sunshine on our museology section

Well for starters, I really didn’t think I’d STILL be doing this course in May! When the news about the certificates came out back last year and we were told that in order to get one we’d have to finish by November, I remember telling my colleague Kristine [who by the way, finished on time] that even though there was no way I was going make the deadline, I’d definitely be finished by the end of January… famous last words.

When I first started CPD I was completely overwhelmed at all the things we were covering and thought I’d never have the time to integrate any of them into my working day. Then of course I got over excited and started using everything and got into a bit of a muddle and stopped the lot. Now, things have settled down and I’ve stuck with a few good tools.


A really big thing for me has been writing this blog; I love it and know I'll continue with it long after CPD is but a distant memory. I have created something that is unique to me and even though hardly anyone ever looks at it, I'm still very proud of it. It also works very well as a blogger news reel as I receive RSS feeds from an ever growing list of fellow bloggers and I get to see immediately anything interesting is posted. It has also allowed me to embrace my creative side as I started taking and posting my own photographs  and realise that I'm rather good at it.

Glass cabinets and folio shelves

Another great change is using Twitter and I feel about it very much the same way as Trinidad Librarian; I love using it but still don’t go on it anywhere nearly enough. I go through phases of constant use and then weeks pass by with hardly anything. I’m hoping this will change when I finally upgrade my tattered [yet beloved] mobile and get one with internet access, which I’ll do very soon. I have created lists of lots of librarians and organisations and enjoy seeing what they’re all up to [I’ve also created lists of celeb crushes but this is hardly the place to tell you about them J]. I think I get the most out of my Welsh librarians list; hearing about great work and best practice right on my front door step and have also made some valuable contacts here too. 

Finally, the most profound change starts with a negative; those other things I started but haven’t kept up with: LinkedIn, Evernote, Google Calender, Dropbox and Pushnote [to name but a few]. But, it was always going to be like this and the really important and positive thing is that I KNOW about these things now. I can tell people about them and show people how to use them and even use them myself if I need to [!] and this has had the biggest impact with regards to my workflow and routines - I'm different, more knowledgeable and therefore much more confident.

                                                                                                                    

Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published

Advocacy is something I had never really considered before I did two very important things; firstly, writing my Masters thesis [on how we manage one of our own special collections] and secondly, starting the CPD 23 Things course.

Writing my thesis was the first time I began to consider that we [the library] might be just a tad under valued within our own organisation; and taking into consideration the amount we do and the amazing collections we hold, this was not a comfortable realisation. If that can be taken as a negative, then starting the CPD 23 Things course was most definitely a positive. It opened my eyes to an active and vibrant community of information professionals who not only care deeply about their profession but are not adverse to a good old rant when they feel the need.

My library, just like all the others, needs shouting about – these days it’s not enough that we have been doing sterling work for years; we are now required to prove our relevance time and time again. This post comes at an opportune time as we have begun to discuss how we can we promote ourselves both within and without our own organization. We are going to look at outreach and marketing and improving our online persona and this just the beginning – we have come up with lots of good ideas!

On a practical level I am starting small J I make sure that my blog contains continuous references to my own library and have started Tweeting about both my own and other local libraries’ events whenever I can [last week I re-tweeted events for CLIC and Glamorgan Archives].

As for getting published, this does not currently apply to me. I am a long way from even considering it but [and I know I say this all the time] I’d like to think that in the future I might create something that would be worth publishing.

Ps. Just in case anyone was wondering... I'm the white kitten.

Thing 4 – Current awareness: Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

Twitter
This week I opened my first Twitter account [@SquirrelLib] with a little help from my colleague Kristine [@KrisWJ] as she has kept to the CPD23 time table and did hers weeks ago. Well it’s all very exciting but I also find it somewhat overwhelming and I’m only following 15 people! That said, the immediacy of Twitter is amazing - in fact I signed up to follow my own institution and never realised there was so much going on J Oh yes, and I signed up to follow Stephen Fry… I couldn’t help myself. On a more practical level I’m following a nice diverse selection including the National Library of Wales, Glamorgan Archives, British Museum, CILIP, LISPN, Metropolitan Museum of Art, BBC News and of course CPD23 [with helpful and interesting tweets from Katie Birkwood [@Girlinthe] and Lauren Smith [@Walkyouhome] to name but a few]. It’s early days yet but I will endeavour to acquaint myself with this new phenomenon; my first task is to build my tweets and followers into double figures.

RSS Feeds

Now, this is something I’ve really taken to. It’s such a practical tool – a one stop shop [via Google Reader] for all the news from your favourite websites and blogs in a few seconds and just couple of clicks! As suggested I subscribed to the handy bundle of all the CPD23 blogs [courtesy of Shannon Robalino] and there they all were with updates bouncing back and fourth all over the place! So much easier than trawling through them via the website and when you have access to all the blogs you realise that there are so many more that you wish to explore.  However, I wonder if this is one of those things that I get really excited about then hardly ever use - only time will tell.

Pushnote
I've signed up to Pushnote but quite frankly I'm not very impressed with it [although Stephen Fry seems to love it] so, since I'm seriously behind schedule I'm going to leave it for now and plough on to Thing 5 ... onwards and upwards!