Moving onto the rest of Thing 6 this week, although as a quick aside, Karen Blakeman's latest newsletter (here is her blog: http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/) mentioned www.paper.li, which is a brilliantly simple way to read your twitter account! Trawling through twitter can be a bit of a chore, and this turns it into a newspaper that's a much easier read on your screen. I could see it being used to present news and commentary in areas of interest to a wider audience. I'm still investigating it, but you can rename it suitably, and add Editor's comments, publishing weekly, daily, or twice daily.
Back to the Thing!
LISNPN - This is short for the LIS New Professionals Network - so ideal for me. One of the first things that you see on the homepage are the forums - and the most important thing about forums is that they are active! These are - not horrendously so, which is just as well, but it is obviously used by a number of people. I've had a quick look at the download section, which has how-to guides, a couple of which look excellent. Definitely one to keep on my "to be checked regularly list"!
Librarians as Teachers network - This isn't really of use to me at the moment, but I should be providing training in the future, and I will come back to it then, as I have no experience of this! Although started for people doing teaching courses, it's aimed at anyone with an interest in the area, and really that will probably be anyone looked to advance their professional development.
CILIP communities - I'm not a member of CILIP, although the library does have membership. I will probably join next year, as I can definitely see the benefits. There are a lot of CILIP-related posts, and a lot of different groups that you can join which look to be of interest. There don't seem to be that many comments or replies, but those there are do look useful.
Monday 19 December 2011
Monday 12 December 2011
Thing 6 - Online networks (Part 1) LinkedIn and Facebook
LinkedIn - I actually set up a LinkedIn account a month or so ago, as a fellow Aberystwyth student sent me an invite. I haven't 100% completed the set-up yet, as I've been exploring it, and waiting until I got to this Thing to go into more detail. LinkedIn is actually quite forward in making suggestions on how you can improve your profile, but I still haven't found a photo that I like - I'll have a look on my computer at home, and see if I can find one. The only other thing to do, really is add more contacts! I sent a few requests, and got one answer back already, so hopefully this will improve!
Facebook - I do have a facebook profile, but that's really for family and friends, so I don't want to get it mixed up with work. I don't use it that much, but it's still handy for keeping in touch with certain people I don't see very often. I could see setting up a facebook page more if you're a public-facing company, but I'm not sure how much use it would be for this library.
I've spent long enough in LinkedIn tonight, so I'll get onto to the rest of this Thing in my next blog post!
Facebook - I do have a facebook profile, but that's really for family and friends, so I don't want to get it mixed up with work. I don't use it that much, but it's still handy for keeping in touch with certain people I don't see very often. I could see setting up a facebook page more if you're a public-facing company, but I'm not sure how much use it would be for this library.
I've spent long enough in LinkedIn tonight, so I'll get onto to the rest of this Thing in my next blog post!
Monday 5 December 2011
Thing 5 - Reflective Practice
I have been enjoying looking at these Things - some new, some not, whilst getting frustrated by the limitations of work tech. Unfortunately it can be painfully slow, which can make a quick 5 minute task last 20 minutes! I have been fitting my CPD 23 Things into a couple of hours on Monday nights, and have just about successfully managed this.
Things 1 and 2 - Blogging: I'm still not a huge personal fan of this, although I enjoy reading other blogs. There is a lot of useful information out there, and I'm trying to learn how to actively filter it so I don't get swamped!
Thing 3 - Considering my personal brand. This is still ongoing, but at least there aren't any nasty things about me out there. My twitter name is perhaps a little odd, SiobhanWGLib, but not too bad.
Thing 4 - RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote. This one has taken me the longest to do, although so far it's the most useful. I'm still getting the hang of RSS feeds, even though I signed up to Google Reader, as when I select, sometimes it adds it to my browser, and I'm not sure why! It's really important if you want to follow a number of blogs and webpages though, to prevent information overload.
I was already on Twitter, and I created a work account, which is very useful, as I am following a number of librarian twitters which post recent news and blogs that I may have missed.
I am unable to download Pushnote at work, but a colleague (Stephen Gregory!) has advised me that he doesn't think it's that worthwhile. I will leave that one unless I hear better opinions about it.
Things 1 and 2 - Blogging: I'm still not a huge personal fan of this, although I enjoy reading other blogs. There is a lot of useful information out there, and I'm trying to learn how to actively filter it so I don't get swamped!
Thing 3 - Considering my personal brand. This is still ongoing, but at least there aren't any nasty things about me out there. My twitter name is perhaps a little odd, SiobhanWGLib, but not too bad.
Thing 4 - RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote. This one has taken me the longest to do, although so far it's the most useful. I'm still getting the hang of RSS feeds, even though I signed up to Google Reader, as when I select, sometimes it adds it to my browser, and I'm not sure why! It's really important if you want to follow a number of blogs and webpages though, to prevent information overload.
I was already on Twitter, and I created a work account, which is very useful, as I am following a number of librarian twitters which post recent news and blogs that I may have missed.
I am unable to download Pushnote at work, but a colleague (Stephen Gregory!) has advised me that he doesn't think it's that worthwhile. I will leave that one unless I hear better opinions about it.
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