Thing 7 - Real-life Networks

I am a member of CILIP, and get regular e-mail updates from them, and have online access to their website, which are both good ways of keeping professionally up-to-date.  There's been a lot of discussion lately about the library closures and CILIP's response to this, and the voluntarisation of library staff, which has been fascinating reading.
I attended a CILIP conference in May, which had a leadership theme, and plenty of talks and discussions about the state of the profession.  I was also able to meet a number of colleagues who I'd previously only known online, and just generally get to know some new people!  I also met a couple of people who are on my MSc course, and was able to have a lunchtime chat with one of them.
I'm fortunate that my dues are being paid by my employer, but I still think it would be worth being a member even if they weren't.

Thing 6 (Part 2)

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.