Thing 9: organising tools (Evernote)

I've only just realised the significance of the Evernote logo (which I love btw) being an elephant, duh! Evernote's pitch is: put your thoughts, ideas, inspiration, and things to remember all in one place. I like the idea of using it as a memory substitute that I can access from anywhere, and once I've downloaded the app to my phone I think it could be really useful for sorting out travel logistics in particular. But a) I already have a few tools that help me remember and organise stuff and b) I'm a bit worried that I don't have any 'thoughts, ideas, inspiration' to capture!

Having downloaded the software I can see that it's a pretty powerful tool, and one of those things that, once embedded in the way you do things, is impossible to do without. But it's going to take some time for this embedding to happen, in my case. At the moment it just doesn't occur to me to make my own notes about webpages, or to take photos of things I want to remember. Perhaps it should. After all, I wrote in my very first cpd23 post that ' I need to better absorb and reflect on the learning I'm doing every day' and if I don't get things out of my head and into more concrete form, that can't happen. But it's just so much quicker and easier to think 'ooh yes that's interesting, I'll bookmark it on Delicious' than to come up with an actual thought about something...

I did try out Evernote this morning to make notes during an online workshop I was (virtually) attending, and then tried sharing my note with a colleague using the email function, but this promptly crashed the programme. I like the sharing idea in theory though. I think I now need to add the Web Clipper to my browser to get full value from it, not to mention actually having some original ideas about stuff that I want to record!

Thing 8: organising tools (Google Calendar)

I'm not going to dwell very much on this Thing. I do use Google Calendar, but chiefly for organising my personal/family life, which to be honest is far more complicated than my working life. (The two do overlap, of course, chiefly when I have to go away for work and the massive childcare-finding operation cranks into gear.) My husband and I share our calendars, and occasionally we even remember to look at them.

At work we use a shared Outlook calendar as well as our individual ones and this is useful - at the moment I can't really see a way for us to use Google. I do like the way you can make a calendar public and embed it on your site etc, and I would like us as a department to become a bit more 'social' in our use of online tools (we do already use Doodle which is handy for organising Christmas outings etc). But it will be a slow process I suspect...

Photo by Helico on Flickr

Thing 7: face-to-face networks and professional organisations

Although I have a professional qualification and think of myself as a librarian, my current post is what you might call 'paraprofessional'. (Ironically pay is so bad for librarians in some sectors that I get paid more here in a research institute as an 'assistant' than I was offered for a professional post in an FE college...) So I'm slightly agnostic about being part of a professional group, I guess. Here are some professional organisations/associations and networks I have known and loved (or not):

1. CILIP
The biggie. I am not currently a member, although I used to be. Why? Simple cost-benefit analysis. Subscriptions are expensive and the income bands are completely absurd, in my view. Earn more than £17,500 pa and you pay top whack. Many nice things about CILIP are available to non-members, and since we have organisational membership I can still read Update and Gazette, and access training (such as it now is) and networking opportunities. I can see it being important for chartership candidates but at the moment it's not essential for me. Anyone care to convince me otherwise? :)

2. ALISS and IFLA
Again, we have organisational membership of ALISS (Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences) and I have attended discounted events and can access ALISS Quarterly etc. Not sure what other benefits there are but it's good to know there's a specific group for us social science people. IFLA keeps us connected within the international library scene and does really interesting work.

3. UKCoRR (UK Council of Research Repositories)
I'm a new member and still learning/lurking but this seems to be an active, supportive and forward-thinking group and if I ever get funding to work on our repository properly I will be taking a more active role, I hope!

4. The Poetry Society
My other 'profession'. As with CILIP, my membership has lapsed on and off due to cost considerations, but I will rejoin at some point (I usually badger somebody to renew my subscription as a Christmas/birthday gift). They bring out the lovely Poetry Review and the handy Poetry News, run the National Poetry Competition and provide loads of support and promotion for poets and poetry in the UK. However, at the time of writing the society is holding an emergency general meeting due to mysterious (to me) funding/policy issues and - live update! - the entire board have just stepped down. Crazy times!

5. UNISON
Ok not strictly a professional organisation but I was a bit surprised to see no mention of trade unions in this Thing. Depending on their sector and role, LIS people could join various different unions. Unison (public sector/school), Unite (charities/special libraries) and UCU (academic) are probably the major ones. CILIP doesn't do representation/negotiation in terms of workplace pay and conditions and these days we might all end up needing it - so join a union if you can!

Face-to-face networking
I used to hate this. Now I'm more confident in my work and have developed some skills, interests and even expertise, I feel much happier talking to strangers in a professional context. I don't think I'm very good at it yet it terms of producing useful outcomes or making a stunning impression, but at least I don't fear it. I went to a conference this week and managed to not only join in, but actually start, conversations. Mainly about Twitter, to be fair, but then it was a social media conference...

Photo by Nicola Corboy on Flickr

Thing 6: online networks

I have to confess that my starting point here is not so much 'Facebook is the backyard barbecue; LinkedIn is the office' as 'Facebook is a party you can't leave; LinkedIn is a conference you didn't want to attend in the first place'. But let's elaborate a bit:

Facebook
I joined Facebook in 2007 and like many people I've become less and less enamoured of it, due to a combination of privacy concerns, unwelcome design and functionality changes, annoying advertising and general encroaching ennui at yet another Farmville update or mystifying quiz. I still have an account but my profile information is now quite minimal and my privacy settings are turned up to 11. I check it every so often for photos and news from distant friends, and I have 'liked' Voices for the Library, but I can't see myself ever using it professionally.

LinkedIn
I did join LinkedIn a while ago and was instantly turned off by the labour-intensive profile building process - which is clearly worth spending time on for job-seekers and the self-employed but is harder to knuckle down to when you're already happily employed. I also seem to remember getting lots of irrelevant messages and connection requests (though I imagine this happens less as you build up your profile information?) I didn't like the idea of people selling themselves to me - and I don't have any hiring or purchasing power anyway. Nor did I want to sell myself to other people. However, I have rejoined and will see if I have a better experience this time. I like the idea of being better known, better connected, and better equipped (as Helen puts it), and I can now see the benefits of talking to people in my field even if I'm not actively looking for work. I've found quite a few people from my organisation on there, but am hesitant to 'connect' with them because, well, if I need to talk to them I'll just email/go down the corridor and find them! I think groups could be really useful though and have joined the cpd23 group - hello!

Other networks
For me, Google+ offers the promise of making a clean break from FB - less pressure to 'friend' people back if you don't want to and very little likelihood of my mother-in-law ever joining. It's also nicely intuitive in the familiar Googly style and I really like that I can put everyone I know into tidy categorised circles (hey I'm a cataloguer after all), even if it's not quite that simple in real life. But I haven't explored it fully yet and it's too early to say if it will work for me as a functioning network. Mind you, my 'libraryesque' circle is already my biggest, thanks to Twitter spillover effects :)

I have signed up to LISNPN and like the idea of it, but whether I will ever remember to log in is another matter! I can see myself going there with specific questions or if I'm in general need of peer support. As for CILIP Communities - I'm not currently a member of CILIP (see upcoming Thing 7 post...) but I do use some of their free resources, blogs etc. A lot of the really exciting networking seems to happen outside of CILIP, at least that's my impression...

Photo by Royce Bair on Flickr

Reflecting on Thing 4

What? (recalling)
Thing 4 was all about current awareness tools. The three we explored in particular were Twitter, RSS and Pushnote. I didn't do a huge amount for this Thing, as I already use and love Twitter and Google Reader. As for Pushnote... well, see below.

So what? (evaluating)
There's an interesting split in cpd23 (and everywhere else) between Twitter evangelists and Twitter sceptics. I'm still not sure what the tipping point is where you 'get' Twitter. For me it isn't about accumulating followers, but more about making new connections, discovering stuff that I wouldn't have known about, challenging myself to be interesting and funny in 140 characters, getting answers to my questions, and seeing great tweets retweeted and amplified. It was good to see it on the cpd23 programme and I hope that the people who signed up (or re-investigated it) have come to love it to as unhealthy enriching a degree as I have. Google Reader was used by lots of people already - I think it's a good fit for librarians as it allows us to gather up massive amounts of information but also go some way to organising it. And then there's Pushnote, which I actually started to feel quite sorry for, so many people were generally 'meh' towards it! I reckon that Pushnote's problem is that there's no critical mass of users yet, as well as being restricted in terms of browsers. It was a good lesson in itself though, since maybe part of using the social web is being selective and figuring out that not all tools are going to work for you.

Now what? (applying)
I'm pretty happy with how I use Twitter, but I might be a bit more adventurous with my RSS feeds (my 90-odd subscriptions feels a lot but is positively tiny compared to some people's tally!) and use Google Reader more intelligently in terms of organising and sharing items. If I'm honest, I probably won't pursue Pushnote. Like Cinderella, it may get to go to the social media ball one day, and maybe if I see it in a pretty dress and nice shoes, surrounded by cool, popular netizens, I will be very shallow and take up with it again. But not today.

Photo by Lady-bug on Flickr

Reflecting on Thing 3

What? (recalling)
We considered the different dimensions of our online identity (I'm still more comfortable with 'identity' than 'brand'...) such as names, pictures, professional/personal split and visual consistency. And with trepidation, we Googled ourselves.

So what? (evaluating)
I am someone who feels 'at home' online to some extent, but this exercise made me think a lot more about how I present myself and why I make the decisions I do - especially regarding anonymity etc. I have rarely used my full/real name in social media contexts (only Facebook which is pretty locked down and not used for work at all), probably due to a fear of inadvertently sharing more than I want to with my bosses and/or somehow presenting my workplace in an inappropriate light. However, I'm starting to think that the time has come to change this practice, especially since social media is such a big part of my professional life now.

What now? (applying)
Hm, well I'm not quite ready to relinquish my anonymity altogether, at least not until I've gone back through all my tweets and removed any incriminating content... But I will be moving towards it I think. On Google+ I already use my real (married) name, but it's not the name I use for work. I think using a real photo of myself and being consistent across platforms was therefore the only way for libraryesque people to find me there. And I'm glad they have :)
I've also realised the importance of giving a bit more thought to a visual 'brand', at least in terms of feeling happy with it myself - hence the blog redesign.

Photo by The Trousered Ape on Flickr

Reflecting on Thing 2

What? (recalling)
I explored other blogs registered for cpd23 via the Delicious participants list, added a selection to my Google Reader, and (eventually!) posted some comments. I also set up a saved search for #cpd23 on Twitter, and followed @meimaimaggio's cpd list, so I could keep up with people's updates there too.

So what? (evaluating)
There was a really broad range of styles and experiences to be found amongst the cpd23 blogs - from seasoned bloggers to complete newbies, from cautiously private to expansively bonkers. I think I've found a few permanent additions to my blogroll/Twitter stream, but it was also a useful reminder that not everyone has an online presence already, or necessarily wants to. It was good to find a few new repository people beyond those I already knew from UKCoRR and the RSP school I attended last year. But I found taking the step of leaving comments quite difficult, which I talked about at the time.

Now what? (applying)
I think I'll be making an effort to search out new bloggers every so often, rather than just relying on the same few well-known ones. I'm more aware of the benefit of leaving comments on blogs - being a participant rather than just a spectator - so I hope I'll continue this. And perhaps continue with my own blogging too.

Photo by Amanda Mines on Flickr

Reflecting on Thing 1

What? (recalling)
I created this blog and used it to consider what I hope to get out of the 23 Things course.

So what? (evaluating)
I haven't blogged regularly for years, and wasn't sure I really wanted (or had time) to, but interestingly I found that the very fact of having a blog made me think slightly more deeply about things. I was thinking in terms of paragraphs again, rather than 140-character Twitter-bites. However, I was typically overeager to get started so didn't take much time to select/customise my blog template, and I ended up with something I didn't really like the look of.

What now? (applying)
I have now changed the design of this blog to something that feels a bit more 'me'. I don't know whether it matters that I didn't start out with a fully-formed perfect design, but in future I want to take more time to consider the impact, on me and others, of making speedy decisions that I later have to undo. I also want to maintain the more thoughtful style that blogging has brought back into my professional thinking.

Photo by elycefeliz on Flickr

Thing 5: reflective practice

Time to reflect on what I've done, and learnt, so far. I've previously had reservations about 'reflective practice', suspecting it of being one of those things that people promote as a method when really it's just common sense dressed up with models and tools and tips and acronyms...

But I clearly need to shed this attitude. I can be quite impatient when it comes to my professional life, because I think quickly and am good at analysing and synthesing information. This makes me inclined to mentally jump ahead in work projects and become frustrated when I perceive things as being bogged down in 'process'. I do like to think that I'm always learning, and applying what I learn to future activities, but I certainly don't do it in a systematic way. Time to slow down and see what this reflective practice stuff is all about, then...

I found Emma's post a really useful starting point and I think her and Sarah's blog brilliantly communicates their own reflective practice. The model of what - so what - what now appeals to me as it's simple and not jargonistic, with reassuringly few steps! (Though of course in the graphic it's a never-ending circular process argh!)

I will do a post for each Thing we have covered so far over the next few days.

Thing 4: current awareness

Twitter
As a heavy Twitter user already I'm finding it quite hard to step back from it and actually consider its usefulness as a current awareness tool. I suppose it's a fairly strong endorsement to say that I can't imagine my life without Twitter! I follow around 500 people, probably half of whom are from the library world, and I would say that between them they do tend to clue me in to most of what's going on. However, I would definitely miss out on things if I ONLY relied on Twitter. It's easy to get lost in an online echo chamber and forget all the things that are happening/being talked about elsewhere. So I also use good old-fashioned JISCMail (LIS-LINK, UKCoRR etc), library journals and magazines including CILIP Update/Gazette, the national and international media, and personal connections.

Two things I would say to Twitter sceptics:
1) you get out what you put in, and it's just as much about engagement as about current awareness
2) USE LISTS (and probably saved searches as well) or you have no chance of staying on top of things

RSS
Again, I'm a big RSS user. I subscribe to around 30 blogs, sites and podcasts via Google Reader and Google Listen, and around 40 via Netvibes. I'm not quite sure any more why I have two different readers on the go - I think Netvibes started as a place to hive off the library content that was most relevant to my job as I thought it might turn into a public web channel. I like both services and they are brilliant for current awareness as I can scan my feeds in a fraction of the time it would take to visit all the individual sites. I also like being able to mark, share and organise my feeds.

I've also been thinking about RSS in relation to Thing 3 - remembering that having a lovely looking blog with a strong visual brand is all very well, but if someone is viewing it via RSS they are not going to be seeing any of that. Similarly, most people following you on Twitter will just see your posts in their own stream/on their chosen client rather than spending a lot of time on your carefully designed profile page. Web 2.0 is all about syndication and personalisation, so when we create content we are not necessarily in control of how people receive or view it...

Pushnote
Ooh new toy! I do generally like to try out new Web 2.0 tools (Google+, anyone?) but Pushnote seems on first impressions a bit fiddly and underwhelming. I'm not sure I like ranking tools anyway - too reductive - although I did like the idea of reading comments from other users. Part of the problem is also the Catch-22 of social media - it only really starts to make sense once lots of people are using it, but that needs enough of us take the plunge in the first place. The only person using Pushnote I have found so far who I recognise is bethanar! So I think for now I prefer bookmarking tools like Delicious, which lets me organise, tag and share pages in a slightly simpler way. But I'll play with Pushnote a bit more I'm sure.