Playing catch up with Thing 6

Online networks... a subject I thought I was comfortable with, but then realised I had only scratched the surface.

I have been using Facebook for a couple of years and I am quite attached to it as a way of (a) keeping up to date with friends and (b) reconnecting with friends I haven't seen for a while.  It has been particularly useful as my family and I moved from Kent to Berkshire about 3 years ago (how time flies).  However, despite being a fan of Facebook, it is something I keep very definitely in the realm of the personal, rather than anything work related.  I do have colleagues I am friends with, but our interaction is informal and rarely mentions work.

I haven't tried LinkedIn at all (although I will admit to having a nose around when my husband logged in).  I can definitely see the benefit of it, in his industry (HR) where contacts are everything - he has even found contracts which were only advertised through LinkedIn.  However, if I'm honest, I have felt that it wasn't really relevant to school librarians, who tend to work in relatively small networks.  But the guidance for this 'thing' has made me take stock and reconsider this notion.  In my  thirteen years as an information professional, I have already worked in three sectors (commercial law, public libraries, schools) and where else can I bring together the contacts I have made across all three?  Having seen the suggested examples, I think it is time to have a go - a project for the summer holiday maybe? 

As for the other suggested online networks, I have engaged with a few via Twitter, but others I need to investigate further.  Pininterest, for example, I hadn't really twigged what it was, but when I looked at the site I realised I have seen it used to group images together like an electronic mood board.  Again something I might try out over the summer - maybe as online extension of our displays. 

Overall, I am a fan of online networking.  I think it opens us up to so many more opportunities than we could hope to be part of without them; and I think Reid Hoffman's "Facebook is the backyard BBQ; LinkedIn is the office" quote is a brilliant way explain the differnce between the range of sites available.

Thing 5 - Reflective Practice

Still behind, but I've reached the thing I was most worried about... Reflection. 

I've mentioned previously that starting the Chartership process has made me realise that I need to work smarter and I can see reflection is a vital part of that.  But despite that lip service, I don't think I have truly reflected in any useful way... until CPD23.  From Thing 1 onwards I have been directed to all those 'things' I knew I should be doing, but never got around to; to those things I started using, but never went back to.  Over the last 5 weeks I have started to engage more and lurk less.  I suspect this is due to the idea that there are other librarians out their dipping their toes in as hesitantly as I am - there's safety in numbers!  Each week the CPD23 guidance has very effectively taken a scary unknown and demystified it. 

And our CPD23 gurus have done it again with Thing 5.  They provided a very succinct, not too academic outline of the basics of reflective practice, that even I can understand.  I've even explored some of the further reading???  Katrina Malone's post for Thing 5 (Get Chartered) also gave a very clear outline of the benefits of reflective practice - the key point being that it gives you a better understanding of your work. 

I can see now, that so far my blogging has only really been reflection in a very casual, informal way - I essentially sit in front of a PC and spill my thoughts onto the screen.  However, to make that reflection more effective, I now need to become more structured and apply it to my professional life.  So now I need to put it practice.  Having spent the weekend at the joint SLA/SLG/YLG conference, attending some very interesting workshops and thought-provoking key-note speeches, I have the perfect opportunity to sit back and consider what I got out of the sessions and what I can use 'back at the ranch' to improve upon my service delivery.

As always, the biggest challenge seems to be time.  As I sat and listened to various speakers this weekend share their wisdom and experience, I often came away from the session thinking "Wow, brilliant...but how do they find the time to do all that?" And I know I wasn't alone in that thought.  So surely part of the reflective process has to be having a realistic view of what is managable or relevent for my service or situation. 

Things 4 - Current Awareness

Current awareness is something I always say I'm keeping up with, but there's just so much out there.  Before you know it the latest news and innovations are old hat.  Starting chartership has made be look at bit more seriously at how I keep up to date and I dug out my old Twitter account - the one I started when it was all shiny and new, tweeted about six times and then ignored.  But strangley just weeks before finding out about CPD23 I started to check my account again - cleared out all the random celebs I had followed (except Stephen Fry, obviously) and started following various library related 'real' people.  I finally got around to setting up my iGoogle page and now I am a changed woman. (well, comparatively)

I think the thing I like best about Twitter is the succinct-ness of the medium.  I don't alway have time to read the full text of everyone's blogs, but if someone enjoys an article or finds something interesting enough to just tweet a link, I often find myself  reading the opening and then saving it to Evernote to refer back to later. 

What I hadn't really done until the CPD23 prompt was start to tweet again. A bit like the idea of blogging...who on earth want to know what I think? In fact, I turned away followers? I lurked on a few chartership chats and finally said hello in a #uklibcat session.  I suppose I'm using Twitter like you can use feeds, and as such, when I looked into RSS I found it difficult to see what it would add to my iGoogle/Twitter homepage setup.  Similarly, I have yet to delve into Storify other than as a viewer.  So on reflection, I don't think I am as current as I though I was.  I can see that it takes me a while to feel comfortable with each new application.  I lurk for a while (sometimes a long while) before fully engaging.  But I'm aiming to do better.  I'm off to Lighting the Future this weekend - I am determined to tweet all weekend (#LTF12).  All I need now are some followers...