Thing 9 Evernote

The topic for thing 9 is another organising tool – Evernote.

This is intended to allow you to gather together a range of items whether from your own notes to entire websites. So you can mix you own thoughts, documents, images and Internet links in one folder, giving you a more rounded collection of information than might be gathered say in a book-marking tool. This sounds good to me. I’m always emailing myself bits of information and have various “ideas” documents on the go – this sounds like a good way to keep info together whatever the format.

The problem for me was that it wasn’t available within the cloud and that you needed to download an element for it to work. This downloadable element was required on every device that you wanted to use Evernote with. I’m not entirely sure where your information was being stored but the details from the various devices were supposedly synchronised.

I work in a hot-desk environment so I don’t think that downloading the software on to up to 5 computers shared by a number of staff is a viable thing for me to do. People sometimes delete things that they don’t recognise.

By the way I inadvertently added something via the web login (ie where the software wasn’t installed) and it did then synchronise this with rest of my folder held on a PC with the software installed, though I wasn’t able to see my previous items from the web login. Not sure what is going on or whether this is supposed to happen. I can’t decide whether to persevere a little longer with this tool. I am tempted...

Thing 8 Google Calendar

Google Calendar is discussed in Thing 8 as a tool to help you to keep organised . This is basically what it says – an online calendar.

As I already have a Google account – in for a penny, in for a pound – I’ve followed the instructions and set it up, entered a few events and so on. However I’m presented with a bit of a quandary as I use Google with my home email account but the events are work-related. So I’ll need to keep a check on my home email for reminders about work events, hmmm!

This may all change as I understand that our work email system is moving to some sort of google-esc version and then I can keep work things all together. I haven’t shared anything though I understand that this is supposed to be part of the appeal so that work colleagues can easily keep up-to-date with where you are, what you are doing and join meetings. We still use a paper diary here and I doubt that there is any clamour to move online or even electronic.

I did investigate the facility to embed a calendar in a web page. For example I notice that our university events calendar is maintained in Goggle calendar and presented in a web page. I thought this looked quite effective and will investigate whether something similar is possible for our training programme schedule. This might be a way for the training librarians to update the latest dates without me having to change the webpages.

Thing 7 Real-Life Networks

Thing 7 is looking at real-life networks.

The idea of “networking” sometimes seems a little insincere and too much like the old boys’ club to me. The notion that you need a little notebook of introductory phrases with details of your “networkees’” latest project, son’s a level results or previous holiday location seems a little… icky!

I am a member of Cilip and have been since starting my MA back in 2003. Following graduation I got quite excited about chartership, attended various workshops and started gathering my evidence. However I didn’t really start the process and now I’m not terribly motivated to re-start. I’ve managed to keep my skills up-to-date and have a positive attitude to learning new things and training without it. 

I’ve started to wonder if it is worth continuing with Cilip. It still seems to be focused on public libraries and is very London-centric. I’m not really clear whether I’m getting enough for my money.

I tend to attend workshops, training events and “networking” opportunities less and less these days – perhaps the availability of information online and online networks means I don’t have to so much?

Thing 6 Online Networks

Thing 6 is looking at online networks.

Twitter

As mentioned previously I've been on Twitter as @libcheryl for a while now. This is in a professional capacity, linked to my current role. I mainly use it for current awareness and passing on relevant re-tweets to do with health, medicine, nursing and midwifery or librarianship. I haven't really found it to be a conversational place and the only question I asked was ignored.

LinkedIN

I've been on linked in now for a few years. I find that the groups are really useful - you can post questions and most seem to get some sort of response. It is also helpful to lurk - you can pick up lots of interesting bits of information. I've recently noticed that more spam posts appear to be posted which is starting to annoy. The email updates are also getting repetitive though maybe I need to investigate my settings more here.

In terms of contacts I have mainly re-connected with former colleagues. I'm not sure of the etiquette of making contacts. The advice seems to be don't connect with people you don't know but then surely the point is to build up a new network. A work in progress I think.

Facebook

I have 2 Facebook accounts - one is personal for family and friends whilst the other is used to admin our library Facebook page. We decided to set up a library page so that we had a presence in the largest and most likely used network. We have linked in our blog so that entries get posted automatically and we also add any news about new resources. 

Others

I had not heard of the other networks mentioned:

LISNPN - not sure how active this is, there seemed to be few replies to some of the forum posts despite lots of views

Librarians as Teachers - doesn't apply

Cilip Communities - hadn't heard of these despite being a cilip member, and I'm registered on the site too.

Summary

At the moment I find Linked IN most useful for connecting with other professionals via the groups. Twitter is most helpful to me as a current awareness tool. Facebook is either purely personal or used to connect with our user groups. I'm not sure how much I can expand on my use of networks - there is only so much time in the day.

Thing 4 Twitter and Paper.li

There was a great post from Jen Gallagher about Twitter that also referred to using paper.li

While I had started tentatively to create lists of people I follow on Twitter, after reading Jen’s post I definitely think this is a super way to organise your tweets and it is something I will be applying in the future. I split those I follow into different lists so I have a librarians list, librarianship issues list, Health Professional list, NHS orgs list and so on. I can also create a stream in hootsuite to follow each list. This means that I can separate out my health feeds from my library feeds, from my stoke feeds… and so on, which makes it all much easier.

I had also started to experiment with paper.li. I didn’t really seem to be getting the papers I was hoping but I’ve rearranged them now to follow my various lists. So I have Healthcare Today! which follows my health-related lists and Librarian News I’m not sure how the different sections are populated. I don’t think I’d use them to present information to users but I might try to interest some of my non-web2.0 colleagues.

Thing 5 Reflection

Thing 5 looks at reflective practice, so cue lots of lovely images of reflections.

Lake Louise, Canada

This is the part that I am having most difficulty with. It all sounds a little touchy feely, with lots of navel-gazing (yuk!) and self-expression through toe-painting thrown in. I’ve started the blog, so that means I’m talking to myself or trying to talk to strangers – I’m sure if I was doing this off-line I’d be having nice cups of tea with a different sort of professional.

So I’m looking to pin reflection on something more concrete. Back in the day, when I worked in computing we followed a quality management process. It went along the lines of:

Plan it; review it, Do it; review it

So this equated to:

• Write a specification; review it (with others), implement it; post-implementation review (with others). Reviewing the plan, preferably with others, gave you an opportunity to identify whether you’d missed anything.

This feels much more concrete and related to work processes; and seems to be (a little) in line with the processes discussed (I’m feeling happier). I’m not sure that I agree with the suggestion that reflection is something you do away from work, in a nice quiet spot. I’m more inclined to think it should be part of your daily work / training linked to how you are delivering your service rather than something away from this.