Things 8 and 9

Ok, 2 pieces of homework in one week again. I'll be honest, I haven't fully checked them out yet so this is just my initial thoughts. Google Calendar: can see how this could be very useful for any libraries that hold events and especially public libraries. As a non-event, specialist library mainly used by colleagues, and sometimes visitors with a particular interest in the subject of our library, I can't see it being beneficial to us. It also strikes me as a limitation that people have to have their own Google Calendar to view yours. Evernote: think this could potentially be useful to me. Part of my role includes compiling a newsletter which highlights websites. At the moment I sometimes have several scrawled Post it notes on my desk to remember web resources and why I like them. This sounds like a much more professional, and organised solution. Will endeavour to check it out further. Once again really pleased that cpd23 has brought these resources to my attention, and always interested to hear how other libraries and librarians are using them.

Things 6 and 7

cpd23 is upping the ante this week with two Things to do(!): online networks and face-to-face networks. So if you're sitting comfortably I'll begin with online networks. I'm afraid my attitude in the main to online social networks thus far has been, if online social networks are say, Dracula, then I have grabbed the garlic! Thinking seriously now, there are probably two key reasons why I personally haven't gone down this road: privacy, and a desire to spend what little free time I have as far away from computers/emails/messaging, etc. as possible! I have found reading around facebook and LinkedIn useful and interesting, so thanks cpd23 for that. I can certainly see the benefits of LinkedIn professionally, particularly if one is looking for work; and facebook could be very effective for campaigning and awareness-raising I should think. I found it particularly useful to see example profiles. I was surprised by how much LinkedIn was like having an online CV.

For Thing 7 we are asked to blog about our experiences with professional organisations. I have been a member of CILIP since studying for my MA in Information Services Management at the then University of North London all those years ago! I must confess I did make more of an effort to get along to things in my early days particularly during my chartership. I have however always made use of the special interest groups, sometimes signing up for more than the CILIP standard allocation of 2. I always scan any emails and publications I receive, and have written for a few publications too which I have found very rewarding and enjoyable. I have been fortunate enough to have an employer that has supported my CPD and I have benefited from attending several CILIP training courses. It is a great shame that these are no longer available as before as I would argue that this was one of the best services provided by CILIP.

A few groups I would recommend are ALISS (the Association of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Social Sciences). Very useful for librarians working in special/academic libraries, and they organise very interesting visits to other libraries. The other is CHILL (Consortium of Independent Health Information Libraries in London). It was through CHILL that I learnt of cpd23. They host regular meetings for members which often include a tour of the host's library. They help professionals working in independent specialist health libraries such as charities and the royal colleges to network, seek and share expertise, and access training.

Thing 5

Reflective practice hmmm... What have I got out of cpd23? hmmm... That's reflective practice for you - lots of hmmming! Seriously though I think in our busy world it's easy to lose sight of reflection, to not make it a part of our daily life. I think it's especially easy to fall into this habit when you have been in the same role for a while - check! Before I start sounding too philosophical I suppose Thing 5 has taught me that I probably should make time for reflection. I think it can be easy to think of reflective practice as quite a woolly concept so I especially liked the Thoughts on learning processes and other musings blog as it gave a very specific practical example of reflective practice. I like the idea of breaking the process down step-by-step and applying it to a situation. So there's one thing I've got out of cpd23, here, very briefly, are a few others:

• Learnt how to set up a blog
• Discovered the range of blogs out there, found some very useful and others very entertaining
• Learnt how diverse one's presence on the Internet can be and that the top link about you retrieved by a search engine may not be what you expect
• Has reinforced for me the value of cpd and taking a little time to focus on this can yield surprisingly significant results. I have only devoted an hour or so to cpd23 each week and yet I have learnt, read and done so much in such a short space of time.
• It has also been a good experience so far learning with so many others at the same time, and finding that there are lots of people out there, who like me want to brush up on their web 2.0 skills.

Thing 4

Well I was on my hols last week hence the late post. Lucky for me this week's topic is something I'm a bit more clued up about than other topics on the programme. I thought it might be useful to share my experience of using Twitter and RSS.

I set up an institutional Twitter account for the library and information service that I work for last year. I have been tweeting for 10 months now and found it a positive experience. I wanted our information service to reach more people in a way that suited them. We already have a few institutional Twitter accounts within the charity I work for so the use of this medium was established. There were some concerns about time but they proved unfounded as I think Twitter is something that you can do quite quickly once you get the hang of it. The fact that you are limited to 140 characters really helps with focus - you simply have to get to the point! It is fair to say that I could, and some would argue should, spend longer on Twitter. I only post on average once a week and use Twitter to let our 'followers' now about new information that may be of interest to them, e.g. new and updated information sheets, current awareness services, journal and newspaper articles, online conferences and Q&A sessions, etc. We have around 100 'followers' now which is small compared to others but I am very excited by the range of people following us including those with a personal interest in our charity's work and its focus, campaigners, writers, and publishers. I have also found Twitter very useful as a 'follower'. I only follow a few people to keep it manageable but have certainly learnt stuff through Twitter before, for example, coming across the information on a website or in a newspaper.

This brings me neatly on to RSS. I attended a cilip course on Social networking and user-generated content last year run by the excellent Phil Bradley I had previously been aware of RSS and had a nagging feeling that I should be using it for my work but hadn't got round to it. Phil showed course participants how to set up RSS feeds. I set up a Google reader account for my library and have never looked back. I showed my colleagues how to use it. Some have liked it others not, preferring to visit websites instead. I however have found it has really changed the way I work. I am responsible for an electronic newsletter for colleagues which updates them on relevant news, publications and websites in our area of work. Previously I visited several websites each week through my favourites as well as subscribing to several electronic newsletters. All but one of the websites I regularly visited offered updates by RSS so it was easy to make the move to receiving information in this way. I can now check my Google Reader at a time convenient to me and scan the headlines for relevant stories. My email overload has greatly reduced as I have been able to unsubscribe from email updates and electronic newsletters. Since starting cpd23 I have set up RSS feeds for the blogs I am following. The blog posts are helpfully displayed separately to my news feeds.

So in summary, for busy library and information workers who need to keep up with lots of news and information, and disseminate this to their users I think Twitter and RSS are invaluable. I obviously wouldn't suggest using these mediums alone but as an addition to other ways of keeping abreast of information and reaching current and potential library users they can be incredibly useful.

Last bit of homework this week was Pushnote which I had never heard of before so I'm really pleased to have learnt something new again on cpd23. We're restricted on browser here at work but I note that IE users will soon be able to use Pushnote so I will be sure to check it out in the future as well as letting colleagues who develop our charity's web resources now about it. Hurrah for cpd23!

Thing 3

Branding, oh dear! I must confess that I find the whole branding thing a bit of a turn-off. I know, I know, naughty, naughty! Conveniently I'm even more pushed for time than normal this week so alas you won't be subjected to my ramblings on the subject - what is this saying about me(?!) I should be asking. There proves I've learnt something! Seriously though, I did do the sad Google search for my own name as instructed. Alas I married a lovely, unique man with a very common surname so I don't appear in any results with only my name. I also share a name (first and second name) with another librarian with an online presence so adding library doesn't really help. If I add a keyword related to the charity I work for then you do get the delight of my presence in the first few pages. I'm not on Facebook and the like, and I'm only on Twitter for work using an insititutional account so nothing there. Amusingly what does appear as the top result is my doing a sponsored walk with my little boy. You then get a few articles I've written in library journals. I think the experiment highlighted to me the breadth of one's online presence especially if you are online in both a personal and professional capacity.