Certificate?

So I've just completed the registration form for the certificate..

It's quite the feeling.  I didn't think at the start of the course that I would get this far. I mean I obviously wanted to finish the course but I can procrastinate very efficiently. There were a couple of times where I had to give myself a good talking to, and make myself sit down to complete the Thing. This normally happened when I'd had a look at the task and had a mental blank.  Usually when I sat down and looked at it properly, it was never as bad as I first thought (though the live streaming was touch and go).

Would I recommend the course?  Yes, I would; even to non-librarians. There is so much stuff out there and you don't need to know about it all so it's useful if someone wants to hold your hand along the way. To sort out the rubbish and say 'this might be useful', 'have a go'. It does take self-discipline and enthusiasm. It's a great course - I've said that all the way along. The help and encouragement from the Rudai 23 team was paramount to the success of the course. I've also recommended things like a glossary which might be useful looking back over the tasks.

Will I keep up with the blog? I don't actually know. It's a useful vehicle for recording thoughts and deeper reflective thinking about tasks, courses etc. We've already seen how important that is to our professional development. I can't see me posting to it regularly but who knows!

Thanks go to the Rudai 23 team for organising the course, keeping up to date with all the blogs and commenting on the posts, encouraging, and sourcing materials and information. I would certainly push you to re-run the course; obviously after a well earned rest.

Making it all work together - Thing 23

The Last Thing....

How to make it work together. To keep track of everything we've signed up for, and to make it easier to engage and contribute to the discussion.

I was most interested about Hootsuite and about Buffer. I've heard about Hootsuite, though I think they use Tweetdeck in work as a way of keeping on top of the twitter account. But I haven't used either. Having the one twitter account means that it is fairly easy to keep on top of it. However that account combined with all the others and soon, I'm buried under an avalanche of social media.

I signed up with my twitter account to Hootsuite which was quite straight forward. I also added my feed and my mentions as separate streams. And those of you who have checked twitter recently (in the last 15 minutes) will have seen my post via Hootsuite.

All good so far. I did try to add a link to my blog post as normal but that didn't quite work. It's more likely my problem than Hootsuite not doing what it's supposed to. As I have taken on the responsibility of Candidate Support Officer for CILIP Ireland, I am toying with the idea of a twitter account. Hootsuite would be a fantastic way to keep a track of both it and my personal account.

I have just had a look at Buffer and hope that my first scheduled tweet will come through at 11.45am. Fingers crossed. Both Hootsuite and Buffer allow for scheduling of tweets so I think I'd be better concentrating on one social media management tool.

Update: the first scheduled tweet didn't happen. Maybe it will randomly appear tomorrow at 11.45am.

Mobile Things - Thing 22

Putting all the Things together is one thing, but putting them all together while on the move is another. It's good to see the Rudai 23 team covering this.

Answering the questions:

Option 1 - I don't have an iPad or iPhone.  I'm an android girl through and through. I did check the Play store in case Gumit had released their android version early but no.  It's a shame as I can see how this app could really work in libraries. Academic libraries could use it to identify the module codes that list the book on their recommended reading lists, or even to help identify ebook versions. However there is no point introducing this in an academic library if it only serves half the customer population.

Option 2 - I quite like the Pocket app. I had used it initially when I got my smartphone, tablet etc but haven't used it regularly. It acts like a document folder and is quite useful for storing things to come back to at a later stage. I'm overwhelmed keeping track of everything so I might need to scale things back for a while. However I don't think I can really comment on how Pocket works, its functionality etc as I'm not a regular user.

Option 3 - 23 Mobile Things. I had a look at this website and while I hesitate to get involved with another Things course, it looks like a fairly comprehensive course. The team that set it up aren't actively participating in it any more. I think that's disappointing. I can understand why they aren't as I'm sure it is as time consuming for the team as it is for the participants but the encouragement along the way has helped to make the current course. I think we need this - to have a sense that someone is reading and commenting on the blog posts shows that you have an audience - even if it is only that 1 person. The range of Things covered looks great. It bounces from twitter to maps, to QR codes, to Adobe ID, to ebook apps and digital storytelling. It's an extensive list; some of which we have already covered in the current course.

From the look of it, you don't need to work through the course week by week. If you want to put everything together, then I assume you should but I imagine that you could dip in and out of the Things that interest you. You do need to share everything via Twitter. I think that could be quite difficult. There are a lot of questions posed at the end of each Thing post and I think these would be better answered in a blog, where you have the freedom to write and expand on your thoughts. Though answering the questions via Twitter would mean that you would need to be very inventive with your 140 characters.

23 Mobile Things comes across as an advanced version of the 23 Things course. I'm disappointed that you don't get a certificate or something. Granted a certificate isn't the aim of the course but self-directed learning is tough! Getting something in recognition of that proves to you, your peers and your employer that you invested the time and your knowledge about what is out there is enriched.

Would I do it? No. Not at this stage but it is useful to know that it's out there.

Touching on some of the other questions posed by the Rudai 23 team -
I don't like using my mobile phone for work purposes. I have a landline phone in work for people to contact me as well as a work email.  That might not seem very helpful or customer focused but I need some sort of balance between my working life and my personal life. I don't give my mobile number out to customers, nor do I use it to check my work emails. My personal emails come to my mobile phone but not my work emails. My work email has my out of office on it when I'm not available, and it advises people who they should contact if their query is urgent. I will use it to test the WiFi strength or responsive design but not directly in my work.

I also hope that Rudai 23 was joking about taking your mobile phone out in the middle of a meeting and checking tweets if you're bored. This is really off putting for everyone else. Bad Rudai 23!

Creating Infographics - Thing 21

I haven't really seen too many Infographics knocking about the place but I think they definitely have their place in presenting information and/or statistics in easy to digest bite-sized chunks. I've always thought that it must be quite fiddly to produce one but I didn't realise that there were tools to help you. Should have known!

For those of you who read Thing 17, you will know that I am chairing or sitting on a number of Task and Finish groups this year. There is always a report to produce and these tend to follow the same format. A survey is carried out in order to get the opinion of the customers, we look at the statistical information available from the library management system, and generate some recommendations. I will have at least 3 such reports to produce over the course of the year.

The surveys are always carried out in Questback so I would let it do it's thing and produce the survey information in it's usual set-up of tables, charts and graphs. It works quite well and I don't have to fiddle with the raw data.

The statistical information from the LMS has the option of Excel and I wonder whether an infographic would work well here. Similarly, not everyone has the time to read a lengthy report so perhaps an infographic could work in terms of presenting the recommendations.  Anything that can cut down a wordy report can only be helpful to the people having to read it in the first place.

I think that an Infographic could work extremely well when presenting these recommendations and actions back to the customer base. A new way of presenting 'You said, We did'. The example below by City University Library demonstrates exactly how it could be used.

City University Library: You Said, We Did
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/504895808198553010/

Easy to display, easy for people to read and (hopefully) easy to produce. I also like the idea of word clouds mentioned on Rudai 23's pinterest board for this topic. It highlights Wordle. A colleague used word clouds as a way of pulling together the information from 'the any other comments' question that always appears at the end of surveys. Sometimes this is the question that provides the most insight about the customer and what they think about your service overall. I think working through anecdotal comments like these would be time consuming but rewarding for the reader of the report. As my next batch of reports are due around Easter of next year, I have giving myself plenty of time to experiment with the tools highlighted here.

Presentations - Thing 20

Presentations used to be part and parcel of my daily job as a subject librarian.  Since moving to Borrower Services, I don't tend to do any sort of presenting on a grand scale.  I always carry out a briefing session before the start of the academic term in order to remind staff in my particular library about the quirks of the system, things that have changed over the summer months and usually draft in Library Systems and Research Support so they can have their say as well.

One such presentation was carried out in September 2011. You may ask why do I remember this one - well I had only be in post for 1 year, we had recently introduced a new library management system so we still had lots of issues to iron out, and it was the one and only time I used Prezi.



I was under a lot of pressure at this time as I had taken leave just before the start of term, and before having to present this information. I was trying to set up this presentation at home without any real indication of how it would appear in a work environment. The result was that I actually prepared 2 presentations - one on PowerPoint, and the other on Prezi. I had no training in Prezi so it was a case of learning as I went.

From memory, I liked the idea of using something different. We've all had death by PowerPoint and I wasn't keen to submit my colleagues to that. I found Prezi to be fiddly to set up and use.  That might be selective memory, it might have been early days for Prezi and I was constantly thinking 'Why didn't I stick to PowerPoint?'

At the time, I went with Prezi. I was concerned about the 'motion sickness' element of it and actually made the audience aware of this.  Everyone seemed to survive though. Prezi was good as it allowed me to emphasize the connection between different points. You would swing into see the text and then swing out and on to see the next point. One member of the audience with visual impairment said that it worked very well for her as the text was of a consistently large font throughout instead of Powerpoint where it tends to get smaller as you go through your points and subpoints. All in all, I think it worked very well from the audience point of view.

And what about me? How did I feel?

Well I was glad that the presentation was over - presenting in front of your peers is always more nerve-wracking than a group of students. Despite having set the presentation up, I wasn't always sure of what was coming next. I preferred Powerpoint from this aspect - it presents the information in a much more linear manner. I can't remember whether Prezi allowed you to print out an overview - if it didn't, then maybe it does now. I didn't feel very confident about presenting the material but that's not necessarily all down to Prezi.

My advice is to really think about the information you want to get across and the connection between the points. This is where Prezi comes into its own so it's best that you know how each point and subpoint are connected to each other. Also, practice, practice and practice some more. You really need to know the sequence of your points in order to come across as confident.

Coincidentally my work now has a training course on an 'Introduction to Prezi' so as a tool it must be going to stick around. It would be good to attend this training to see what exactly I missed.  I'm sure there was a lot as I was so keen to get it finished but I probably didn't scratch the surface of what the basic free version can do.

Reflection on Thing 19

Hello,

Just a quick post about Thing 19 when it's fresh in my head.

The legal side of things (no pun intended) was a brilliant post by the Rudai 23 team (thanks especially to Caroline). It was pitched at the right level for me, and now Creative Commons licences have been explained to me in a way I understand. I think before I was put off at the amount of information surrounding the licences but this was broken down into bite-sized chunks - just enough to take in. I think I'll be referring to that list of licences again and again.

It was evident that a lot of work had gone into making this cardboard like subject a bit more tasty. The history of copyright was interesting and even if the Irish hadn't thought of copyright, someone else would have so I don't think we can hold the nation as a whole as responsible. It is always evident that the Rudai 23 team have thought about their posts, backed it up with references and lots of helpful stuff like Pinterest boards but this post had links to the legislation.  That's dedication!

I also ended up coming away with a couple of new resources - unsplash.com, pixabay.com and opsound.org. Unsplash and Pixabay will definitely be passed along to the social media team in work as I think we could make real use of these two resources.

All in all, I'm more positive about using images and attributing works. Thanks Rudai 23.

The Legal Side of Things - Thing 19

Those of you who have been following my posts throughout the Rudai experience will have undoubtedly heard me mention before that using images online tends to scare me a bit. I know where I stand with a book - it's so much easier to figure out who and when for purposes of referencing. I find using material online or from online sources to be less predictable. You don't necessarily know who owns the material or work, whether they allow you to use it and how to reference it. So this post by Rudai 23 was of great interest.

Copyright and the technicalities of it tends to be something I shy aware from - dreadful to say it out loud as a librarian but it's true. I tend to see copyright as the image below

Maximilian on Pixabay.com (CC0 Public Domain)

A bit murky and grey with very little light getting in. I much prefer asking someone in my organisation about copyright issues; to get clarification rather than rely on my own knowledge.

The task for this Thing was to blog about the possibilities, issues or concerns that this subject has raised about the content you have personally created during the course.

I don't really have any concerns as largely my posts have been text based and if I have referred to someone else's ideas, I have referenced them.  All thoughts and reflections have been my own. I have also stayed clear of images so I haven't really blundered into wrongly attributing someone's work - at least not to my knowledge. However I have wanted to introduce more images to make the blog more interesting and I suppose that not really knowing what I'm doing has put me off.

I wonder also about the ownership of the screencast created in Thing 9.  I consider it to be mine as I created it but I haven't asserted any sort of licence or creative hold over it.  I don't know whether I need to.  I'll take my chances though as I can't imagine anyone wanting to use it for anything unless it is to hold it up as a shining example of how a screencast shouldn't look!

My blog doesn't have any sort of disclaimer on it.  In fact my twitter account is the only thing that mentions that my opinions are my own and aren't reflective of my employers. I don't usually put anything controversial on it so I should be fine in that regard and possibly to be extra safe, I should had a disclaimer to the blog.

In work, we do have a social media policy in order to guide the work of the social media team. It identifies our social persona, the targets we're reaching for in terms of followers or reaches and how we communicate with our audience. Again it doesn't cover how staff are to use social media within work or whether we should distance ourselves from our employer outside of work. I can only think of one occasion where post by a staff member under a personal name had to be questioned. A certain amount of common sense and a feeling of responsibility has to come into play.

After Thing 19 from Rudai, I don't think I have cleared up the issue of copyright completely, but I have more of any idea of what I'm looking for.

Unsplash on Pixabay.com (CC0 Public Domain)

The sunlight is eventually coming through to clear away that copyright gloom.

Reflection on Thing 18

Having promised to restart my reflective thinking and posting, it would be a real shame if I didn't do that.

Thinking reflectively about Thing 18 - well to be honest, I completed Thing 18 before 17. Although I didn't post it until today, I actually completed it at the beginning of October. I haven't thought about it much since then except every now and again, I thought I better complete 17 before posting 18. Sitting down now to reflect about it is tough, It seems so long ago so this might be a bit of superficial reflective thinking rather than the deep thinking that Thing 17 highlighted,

When I looked at Thing 18, I immediately thought 'not another account'.  Signing up for another account means one more to manage, one more to remember login details for and/or one more not to use. When I eventually got down to looking at it, we had been talking about instagram accounts in work so I could see the potential benefit of this Thing. Also when I re-read the instructions and looked at all the documents, I figured out that perhaps I already had a flickr account because of my yahoo account. Who knew!

Well obviously I didn't but thankfully Rudai 23 did.

As I mentioned in Thing 18, I'm a word person rather than a picture/photo person. I prefer dealing with words and really don't have alot of photos on display.  So immediately I put another mental block up - 'not only another account, but one on photos! I don't even use photos.' But that's not in the spirit of Rudai 23. Thing 18 forced me to look at photos and at the accounts of other equitable academic libraries. It highlighted to me how others were using social media and how we might use it in my library.

Currently we have to be careful what platforms we get involved in - we can only manage so much as it is inter-twined with our daily jobs. We don't have a dedicated social media person. The result is that we concentrate on twitter and facebook as this seems to be the best way to reach our customers. Maybe we're missing part of our potential audience.

Despite looking at the photos and part of the task to download a photo for Thing 18....and attribute it correctly, I'm still not 100% sure about using or attributing photos. I'm still anxious about getting it wrong. I have high hopes for Thing 19.

Communicating through photographs - Thing 18

I like words and I can definitely be text-heavy in everything I write. So it would be good to have photographs to fall back on in order to get my message across. That's why Thing 18, 19 and 21 look so important. One thing I'm very nervous about is copyright on images. I'm not sure I understand the whole creative commons thing (roll on Thing 19) but it can be such a minefield to get across.

Anyway, I was interested to look at Flickr and Instagram. I don't have either set up as an account but an Instagram account had been talked about in the library I work in. No-one felt the need for one, nor did anyone want to take on the responsibility for one.

I opted for a Flickr account. As I found out, I already had this account basically set up as I already have a yahoo account. Just a few extra clicks and I was ready to go. Now I haven't got any photos loaded up yet but it all looks fairly straightforward. 

Searching for people or groups was technically very easy. Just put your search term in the box and away you go! I looked for UCD Library and Libraries NI before settling on the Library of Congress. I can see from the search that some libraries opted for the Pro version of Flickr which allows you to get rid of ads from your Flickr account, get advanced statistics and save on shipping.

Library of Congress Flickr Account / Carol M. Highsmith

I was able to download the image above. I was still unsure of how to find out whether the image was covered by the creative commons licence and whether it was attributable or not. However when I looked closer at the image, it indicated that there were no known copyright restrictions. I have included the details of the image in a caption so as to highlight that the image isn't my own.

Can I see either a Flickr or Instagram account being used in my workplace? If someone was willing to take responsibility for it, then yes I can. We have official photographs of the various libraries around campus but sometimes it can be the ones taken during Welcome Week, International Students Day etc that you want to record. It's these that provide the most amusement during the rest of the year, that we want to look back on and record for future events, posts and tweets. Could we use it to show what happens behind the scenes, to capture the elusive back of house staff?  I think so - everyone deserves to be in the limelight for at least 5 mins. It's how to take this forward in the workplace that will be the interesting discussion.

Reflective Practice - Thing 17

Thing 17 is another stop and reflect task but this time it is about deeper reflection. Not just paddling about in the pool of reflection but diving in:

Unsplash.com / Talia Cohen

Hopefully I won't have to go that deep but it reaffirms what I was trying to do at the start of the whole experience. I had started doing my own reflection series after the blog post on each Thing but looking back this stopped around Thing 8.  I didn't think it had been so long ago!  This was due to time pressure and also I started incorporating some reflective thinking in my Thing post so I didn't see the necessity of having a separate reflective post. However I think this is a practice that I'm going to have to try and pick up again - if I don't think reflectively about the task, how it made me feel and what I can do to alleviate any fears, then no-one else is going to do it on my behalf.

I'm going to look at using reflective practice in my daily work. I sit on a number of task and finish groups which obviously look at different tasks every year. But the whole process about how they work is replicated from one to another. The first time I had to take part in them was last year - this was also the same time that I first had to chair one of them.

My particular task and finish group was that of loan entitlements - basically looking at how the current set up of loan entitlements, who can borrow what and for how long, renewals and recalls. Scared didn't cover how I felt.  Not only was I chairing a group of people that I didn't know very well, but the task of the group was huge and such an integral part of the library. I was scared we'd get it wrong, that'd there would be lots of complaints about how things were better the old way and that it would basically be a mess.

We met for a number of times, and in order to make everyone feel included, I divided up the tasks between the group. This ranged from benchmarking to surveys to statistical information from the current LMS. I believe that this approach worked and have adopted it again in this year's task and finish group. It allowed me to get on with other bits and pieces, and to collate the information once certain tasks were finished, I have a 'problem' with delegating.  I don't do it often enough and I don't do it very well so this was a real struggle for me.  I had to realise that I couldn't do everything and other people can do tasks just as well if not better than me.  I had to let go.

I also found that I could chair the group. I wasn't great at it but the meetings didn't descend into chaos so I took that to be positive. In meetings (and I think I've mentioned this before) I prefer to sit back and think about things before contributing to the discussion rather than lead the discussion. This isn't an option obviously if you're chairing a group. But that isn't what being a chair is all about - it is about letting others contribute, recording the discussion, acting on suggestions and keeping the meetings under control to get to some sort of conclusion. I'd like to think that I did all of these things but it might be better to ask one of the team members. Subsequently after last year's task and finish group, I have attended a course on chairing meetings. I'm going to pull out those notes and have another look at them - perhaps this will help identify how I could change my behaviour to promote more discussion.

Back to the T&F group - we did come up with a series of recommendations including ones that could be implemented during the summer and some which could be implemented over the term and those that required further examination. From this point of view, I believe that we presented a well-rounded overview on loan entitlements. The fear I felt initially was unfounded. I should have realised that any recommendations had to go through two further groups including senior management so there was no possibility of crazy suggestions getting through. They would have been stopped in their tracks before any changes were made. I need to remember this for future T&F groups.

This year, I am chairing 3 T&F groups. The time-frames for completion feel short and pressurised. I will need to plan carefully in order to get meetings organised and leave enough time for the building blocks to be completed in each group. Last year, we started to use a project management framework for one of the other T&F groups that was also going on but it didn't work very well in that instance. I wonder whether something like that might keep me on track. I also think that a period of reflection after each T&F group has ended will prepare me for future groups.

As part of my CILIP Chartership, I had a complete a portfolio but alot of this was based round reflective writing. Currently I am looking at revalidating my chartership status and again this is based on reflective writing. The whole process of writing and thinking reflectively about your work is integral to so many things we do in the library landscape. It is a tool that we need to be aware of and get to grips with. Building it into the cycle of meetings, activities or T&F groups will help develop this skill making it second nature.

Collaboration Tools - Thing 16

I can't shout enough about how good Doodle is! It just makes things so easy when it comes to trying to organise meetings or getting a large number of people in the same room at the same time. I started using it in work about a year or so ago and am always surprised now when someone uses the 'old fashioned method' of dates in an email. I don't usually add email addresses into Doodle but let it send me the link and administrator email; then I can email it out to people in my address book. I like the way it notifies you when people have responded to the poll.  I even use it now to organise get-togethers with friends spread across the whole of Ireland (must be the librarian in me!).

I haven't really used Google Docs. In work we use the sharepoint application to save documents, policies etc but only really when they are signed off.  As with most organisations, there is alot of document and email ping-pong before a document, set of instructions or policy is finalised.  There may well be a function within sharepoint for this sort of collaboration but usually it involves a word document with the notes function or track changes. The latter can be a pain to follow at times so it's good to see that Google Docs has suggested editing and comments rather than only hard and fast editing. Do you need to have google account to be able to access Google Docs?  If so, that's a downside but perhaps not. I'm not sure that it would still exist if it had to be google account holders only.

As we already use Doodle in work, it fits very nicely and I don't usually have a problem with anyone accessing the link.  Google Docs might be worth a try if it doesn't rely on the google account side of things. At the moment we seem to be using another tool called Coggle. I registered to use it with my gmail account but it is used in work to look at complex information e.g. generating mind maps for use with the social persona on our library social media accounts. I haven't had the opportunity to contribute to the mind maps but it looks very straight forward to set up and amend/add material.  I then get an update email to say that something has changed so I can only imagine that everyone within the group who has registered for it, gets a similar update.

I'm sure that there are so many tools out there for collaborating together. It's about finding them and using the best one for the job.

Twitter Chat on Advocacy

Following on from Thing 15 on Advocacy for Libraries, Rudai 23 planned a twitter chat on this particular topic. As I hadn't been able to take part in the Google Hangouts on Air, I was keen to take part in this get-together.

I know that twitter chats take place but I usually don't remember until after the fact so I marked this one in my calendar. Rudai 23 also posted a number of reminders on twitter so there was no danger in forgetting.  A link was also helpfully provided to the questions ahead of the chat so there was plenty of time to think about your answers and what was important to you.

I had never thought a great deal about advocacy which is why Thing 15 and the twitter chat were so helpful. It was great to get different opinions.

Taking part raised the following with me:

• We very nearly didn't get to answer all the questions so perhaps 9 questions was ambitious?  I don't know what the normal number is.
• Not all participants used the question number at the start of their answer so you had to figure out what question they were answering. 
• I went to the twitter feed for #r23chat as I thought this was the best way to see the feed coming in. I don't know whether this is the best way but it worked reasonably well for me. Perhaps there's a better way?
• I was quite slow at typing any responses so things had moved on a bit by the time my response appeared.
• There is such a thing as a library calculator. I didn't know this so a couple of people forwarded the link to me. Also a short course on advocacy was highlighted - again a useful tool to have access to.
• Rudai 23 is going to produce a storify on the twitter chat so I'm interested to see how this works.

Would I take part in a twitter chat again? I would. I'd mark it in my online calendar to make sure that the time was set aside. I'd use my tablet next time as the smartphone was a bit small for sustained typing (and it was a bit hot after holding it for an hour).

Advocacy for Libraries - Thing 15

Rudai 23 started this by asking a straightforward question:

What comes to mind when you hear the words advocacy for libraries?

I think public libraries. There has been much in the press and social media outlets about the use of volunteers in the running of public libraries and off the top of my head, this is what I think of when advocacy for libraries is mentioned.

Rudai 23 has shown me that advocacy is about this and much much more. I always thought that advocacy was about demonstrations and petitions, never that twitter, collaboration and networking were forms of advocacy. It's about being visible and vocal.

I think it's wrong of me to say that I don't have time to be involved in an advocacy campaign; it is true I don't have time, but it's much more down to the image of advocacy that I have in my head. I don't have to be involved in demonstrations, but I can use how I act, what I do and say everyday to act as an advocate for librarians and libraries.

I had a look at the campaigns and resources that Rudai 23 provided. Despite being a member of CILIP I didn't realise that there were advocacy resources available on the website and while some of the information is dated, it's a worthwhile resource to tap into. I also had a look at the Libraries Change Lives youtube clip, and it made me feel warm and fuzzy - I felt good to be part of libraries.

Augmented Reality - Thing 14

Thank goodness Rudai 23 provided an explanation of what augmented reality is at the start of their post. Basically it is a scanned image that comes to life with video, images, further information etc.

I looked at all the information and links on the post, and even visited the pinterest page. I thought the practical use of AR in public libraries for reading challenges etc was well documented and I could see how it would work in such a location, but I struggled to see how it would work in academic libraries.

The following articles helped to clear that up:

• Keeping up with Augmented Reality by Carli Spina, posted in the ACRL
• A dose of (augmented) reality by Anthony Humphries, posted in the elibrary team blog of Birmingham City Library

Ideas like video demonstrations of service points (e.g. self service machines, multi-functional devices) and directional maps seem to be a couple of suggestions that would be useful in any library setting. One of the staff options that was mentioned was the use of AR to identify when books were shelved in the wrong location - something every library can identify with.

Having satisfied myself that there could be a use for AR in academic libraries, I looked at Anatomy 4D and LibrARi.  I had previously come across Aurasma whilst flicking through a magazine. Using the app to look at the images wasn't at all successful. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, nor did I know what I should have been looking at. I can only assume that it was me and not the app, or that the app has improved in order to still be around.

Anatomy 4D - I can see this being very useful if you're studying anatomy, physiology, medicine, nursing etc etc. I can't see how this applies to a library context but maybe the library just facilitates the use of this technology. It took me a couple of attempts to get the app to work but once up and running, it was fascinating to see the body come alive. I will mention to the research team in work to see if it is something they would recommend.

LibrARi - I just couldn't see the point of this. Why wouldn't you just ask one of the librarians or library staff that seemed to be sitting at the enquiry desk?  It might be useful in an unstaffed library, but surely the app would need to take into account that the item might have been mis-shelved, rather than pointing you to the section it should be in. Isn't it better to inform and educate our users about our classification scheme, whether Dewey or Library of Congress? I'm sorry, I'm not really behind this application.

Professional Organisations - Thing 13

When I started looking at this, I didn't realise that there were so many organisations for library and information professionals. I mean we are well catered for right across the world. Rudai 23 have links in their post on Thing 13 if you need to backtrack and look at a complete list.

The tasks for Thing 13 are:

• Take a look at your country's Library Association website and see what it has to offer
• Write a blog post on your thoughts on becoming a member of a professional organisation

As I live in Northern Ireland, I have the best of both worlds. I can become a member of both CILIP and the Library Association of Ireland.

As it stands, I am a member of CILIP. I have been a member of both it, and it's predecessor, The Library Association, since I started my library qualification in 1999. At times I have wavered; I'll admit it - I have wondered why I am a member. For this reason it was interesting to go onto the CILIP website and see what they say are the benefits of becoming a member:

• professional development
• grants and bursaries
• advocacy and campaigns
• deals and discounts
• information and support
• VLE (virtual learning environment)
• professional magazine, e-journals and e-bulletins
• networking and community

This looks like a lot and if you are a new professional or just starting out, then I'd recommend joining. 

Nope.

In fact scratch that. I'd recommend joining no matter what point you are at in your career. The big attraction for many is the professional development aspect. I gained my MCLIP post-nominals in 2007, and although I don't flash them about, I am proud of them. It was a big achievement for me, and there was a lot of work involved. Since then, the professional development mechanism has undergone a huge overhaul, and it should now be significantly easier to develop professionally following the CILIP plan. CILIP also has the professional knowledge and skills base (PKSB) which allows you to identify gaps in your knowledge and identify the opportunities to rectify this. I am now currently revalidating and I plan to complete this/submit this before the end of the year. During my time as a member of CILIP, I have attended courses, read and made use of the magazine and e-bulletins and have joined committees at a local level. I also belong to two special interest groups as part of the CILIP membership. Despite all this, I still questioned my need to be part of the professional organisation every time the renewal came round. It wasn't a serious question but it was still there nonetheless.

Then I realised. A light bulb moment. You can't expect your professional organisation to do everything. You need to engage with it. Like many things, you will only get out what you put in. A certain amount of effort on your part is required. So I have made a small promise to myself. I am prepared to do more. I am prepared to get involved and listen more - only at a local level, on the local CILIP committee to begin with. It might seem like baby steps but who knows where it might lead, and with any luck, the amount of value I place on my CILIP membership will be more that the membership rate I'm charged.

I also was a member of the Library Association of Ireland. And I hang my head in shame that I cancelled my membership. I didn't feel that I got anything out of it. That being said, I still get information emailed to me so I'm not sure what's going on with that. Again the same thing applies. You need to be prepared to engage with the organisation. Rudai 23 is just one example of that. It's a great course run at a local level, but it engages with people far beyond that. I'm contemplating joining the LAI again. If I get this much engagement from not being a member, imagine how much I can get by being a member.

Attending Conferences - Thing 12

Reading through the post from Rudai 23 on attending conferences, it struck me that I haven't attended a conference in a number of years. So I couldn't really complete task 1 of this Thing, which was to write about a conference I had attended.  I'm sure that the Rudai team want to read about a conference which has been recent and not one that falls into the 5-10 years ago bracket.  So I opted for the 2nd task:

• Identify a conference or seminar you'd like to attend
• What challenges do you anticipate?
• What are your expectations for the event? What will it give you?
• What are your fears about attending the event?

I usually flick over the information about conferences. If I'm honest, I'm not fond of conferences. Two of the reasons for that are that I don't really like to travel (even if for just a couple of days) and I'm quite shy. I find networking a really challenge and the thought of walking into a room where I don't know anyone is actually quite terrifying.

But I went looking for conferences I'd be interested in. The problem is that at this stage of the year, you only know that a group/organisation is planning to hold a conference; not necessarily what the conference is on. I identified 4 conferences that I would consider going to, topic dependent.

the CONUL Conference
the Academic and Special Libraries Conference (section of the LAI)
the Joint Conference between the LAI and CILIP Ireland
the Health Libraries Group conference (last one 2014, so anticipated that there will be another one in 2016)

I expect to have challenges in terms of funding. Attending conferences can be an expensive business and budgets being tight means that funding is not always available. I would have to be sure that I would really get something from the conference if I was to pay for it personally. If a place was funded by my employer, I would also expect to maybe have to make a case to attend - prove that there was something of value on the programme that could be fed back into practices in the workplace, and I would be expected to cascade information on my return.

My expectations for the event are usually over-shadowed by fear so it's difficult to pinpoint what these are. I would be attending because a couple of topics on the programme appealed to me so it wouldn't just be a jolly day out. At the very least I would expect to come back with a free pen....seriously though, I would expect to come back with a few simple ideas that could be implemented back in my library/workplace. At the very most, I would want to come back with a number of contacts about a particular project we have been wanting to implement in my workplace, or an idea of how to solve or approach a problem that has been hounding us. It's always very useful to tap into someone else's experiences and pitfalls about a particular project, technology or hardware.

You might have guessed that the majority of the conferences I identified are all reasonably local geographically speaking.  Only the HLG conference would be held outside of Northern Ireland or Ireland. This kind of addresses my dislike of travelling. The other big one is shyness. I read both links re how to network in the Rudai 23 post, and can identify with both. But both gave some really useful advice about how to approach this and deal with it. It isn't so much the conference but it's the downtime - the coffee breaks, the lunchtimes that I'd be worried about. I thought the post by Dawn Rasmussen in Careerealism was particularly accurate. I'm afraid I have been that shy limpet - the person that clings on.  If I can get over that, anything else will be a bonus.

Reflective Practive - Thing 11

At last some breathing space! Thing 11 is all about reflective practice and how Rudai 23 is going. And is my time management up to scratch?

Before starting the Rudai 23 course, I would have said 'Yes, absolutely'. I know in my day job I can get distracted by things that others can easily do without my direction, that I am not great at delegation and like everyone like to do the nice stuff before tackling the hard stuff. In fact I would have said that my poor delegation skills were my biggest downfall. However since starting Rudai 23, my time management skills have gone to pot.

It could be that once I come home from work I don't want to spend more time in front of the computer.
It could be that some of the Things are way out of my comfort zone and so I put them off.
It could be that there are other things that crop up that I'd rather do (like reading my book).

Or it could be all of the above.

So as recommended, I made a study plan. And quickly fell behind with it. I will have a look at the Mindtools website as there appears to be a lot of useful stuff and hints on this site; not necessarily just about time management.

Thinking about Rudai 23:

• I am doing the course alone. I haven't said very much about it in work; preferring to wow colleagues with my knowledge about social media and mobile technologies....not really. I just don't want to draw attention to it in case I don't finish it. It will of course be added to my CPD at appraisal time and also as part of my revalidation with CILIP. 
• I thought I was ok at time management, but Rudai 23 has just highlighted that I'm a list maker, and perhaps time management and list making aren't the same thing. I also need to prioritise the items on my list so that the tasks that really need to be completed aren't left to the end of the day.
• I'm enjoying learning the new technologies. The thought of some of them frightened the pants off me but once I settled down and got on with things, they were quite enjoyable. Also useful is the guidance on how to use everything and the hints & tips.
• I know that everyone is taking Rudai 23 at their own speed but I don't really like the feeling of being behind. It's great to know that others are in the same boat, that life just overtakes Rudai every now and again. The Rudai team don't pressure anyone but have left good gaps in the programme to allow for catch-up and reflection. Someone is always reading the blog posts and leaving comments. They are also quick to reassure and offer help if needed. As time goes on, I'm finding that to fully investigate some of the technology, an hour doesn't really cover it. Sometimes it can be a whole evening.
• I need to go back over my posts and notes to see what I said I would go back and look at. It's very easy to forget. I feel a list coming on.....

Something that would be very helpful would be to have a 'glossary' of sorts of the technologies, websites and tools covered. The entry would include what they can be used for and which Thing they appeared in. I don't know whether the posts will be available after the end of the course but it would be good to be able to dip back when you think one of the tools might help a project in work etc. Just a suggestion Team Rudai!

Live Streaming - Thing 10

Live streaming is really the pinnacle of 'putting yourself out there'. Not only can people hear you but they can see you as well. Eeek!

I have never thought about streaming live so I have never investigated the technology. I've heard of Ted Talks and even watched a few, but didn't ever think of them as streaming live. Sometimes Rudai 23 just gives you the umbrella name for what you've been doing all along. This tool is very useful when thinking of conferences. As funds are squeezed, it is unlikely that we will get to take part in as many conferences so live streaming is a useful way to dip in and out of the conference programme, and participate from the comfort of your own office.

I wasn't able to take part in the Rudai 23 Hangouts on Air but I did watch the video playback on Youtube. Having never seen a HOA, it was great to watch one in action. It works on the same premise as FaceTime or Skype I suppose and from watching the video, I gleamed the following points:

• The main facilitator has a very difficult job; guiding the conversation, posing questions, checking the technology, facilitating the debate, checking twitter. I think the Rudai 23 team (Stephanie and Martin in this case) did a terrific job.
• The time goes very quickly. I couldn't believe it when Stephanie said that their time was nearly up. For this reason, it is probably better to have a set of questions that you want to go through - useful if the chat dries up, but not so crucial if conversation goes off in a different tangent.
• Sometimes it appears to be difficult to get the flow of the conversation right. People answering over one another, faces freezing etc. I think this is just part and parcel of this type of technology. Alot depends on the connection you have to ensure that freezing is kept to a minimum, that video and voices are in sync. It happens with FaceTime so I don't think that this is an issue exclusive to Google HOA.
• The conversation was really interesting jumping from how people are applying Rudai 23 in their daily work, to Things that they are looking forward to (Augmented Reality seemed to be an attraction) and the debate between personal vs professional social media accounts. 

I also signed up for Periscope. Unfortunately the app wasn't compatible with my tablet so I had to download it to my phone. The problems of android. It was extremely easy to sign in with my twitter details and from this, automatically follow people as the information was pulled through from my twitter account. However, no-one I follow has made a periscope video recently.  I'll wait in hope and be prepared when I see one popping up on twitter.  I have seen people I follow tweeting about their periscope video but when I went to view it, I was too late. I wasn't aware that it only lasts for 24 hours so this explains it. I need to be quicker off the mark.

Video - Thing 9

For this Thing, I produced a very short screencast of how to add a couple of feeds into your feedly app. Why? Well it was something short and sweet and it was something I knew how to do.

I downloaded the Screen-o-matic screen recorder, which I found problematic. I think this was down to my impatience rather than anything to do with screen-o-matic. After a few false starts, I came up with the following:

I didn't upload it to Youtube as I don't really want to have anything up on youtube. If I use this option in work, then it will appear on the youtube account in work.

So how did I find it?

I found the whole process encouraging. I always thought this was something that other people did, but hey! I produced something.  It's not perfect by any stretch but it's something. I haven't added subtitles to the video but I would need to to make it properly accessible. I'm surprised at myself as adding the subtitles would mean that I wouldn't have to record my voice but I went for the voice option.

Once downloaded, it was relatively easy to create a screencast and presumably to use this to create online tutorials on how to access and make use of the library facilities and resources. This is one practical element of Rudai 23 that I can see me taking back to the workplace.

Curator Tools - Thing 8

As a librarian, curator tools sounded right up my street. I like things to be organised. I especially like everything to have a place and to be in it's place (one of the reasons I like shelf-tidying though I don't get to do that much these days). The task for Thing 8 included looking at one of the tools covered by the post on Rudai 23, explore it and blog my thoughts.

I decided on Flipboard. It was one that I had previously signed in to and had started using when I first got my tablet but after a while I had dropped it. I was interested to see what it could do now. For a start up there now was a web version - this was great. I find sometimes that it can be a bit easier to set things up on the PC and then continue to use them on the tablet or mobile phone. The web version made it a lot easier to search for things and move back and forth between the screens. And another thing, it seemed to sync perfectly with my tablet! I had my tablet beside me (some might say I had a command centre going on) and all the changes I made on the PC came through to the tablet. A revelation! I always have problems syncing devices so it was a great feeling to know that I didn't have to do anything. Flipboard works better on mobile devices not least because of the flipping motion to turn the page of information over. You don't get that same action with a standard PC/laptop.

However, after this I was a bit disappointed.

Firstly, I wanted to include blogs but I couldn't see an easy way to do this. I tried to search for a number of blogs I follow but to no avail. I went to the blog itself and looked for a way to add it to Flipboard but a lot of blogs ask you to sign up via email so you're notified of a new post. I looked at the help section on Flipboard (which rather unhelpfully was a bit tricky to find) but again there was a nice little video but no real information on how to do add blogs. So this was strike 1 against Flipboard.

Strike 2 followed close behind in the way that the magazines are created. I want a magazine to contain all the information about a topic that I follow. So if I follow the topic 'Libraries' and the topic 'Information Science' I want a magazine that pulls this all together. It seemed to me that you read the article/post etc and then decide to put it into a magazine, thereby pulling together all the information you thought relevant or interesting enough to refer to again. I'm afraid Flipboard, I want the flip of this.

Possibly I'm just being awkward. I already use feedly. And it does just this. I have a folder called Library Stuff and when I look in it, I can see the posts etc pertaining to Library Stuff. It also allows me to add some blogs (not all of them for some reason but some is better than none). The only thing is that feedly is a bit sparse on images and colour - something which Flipboard does very nicely.

I have been trying to think of how you would use the other curation tools mentioned. Storify is one that I intend to come back to. In work, we have a number of social media accounts and frequently we post questions about our services etc. Storify, from the description provided, seems to be the ideal way to collate the responses together from the social media tools we use and present these to senior management as evidence on how a campaign worked or progressed. Used in the right context, this could be a really useful tool to have to hand. Pinterest seems at first glance to be a bit more personal than work based. I'm struggling to see how an academic library could use this effectively.  I'm going to hold back on this one for now.

Reflection on Thing 7

I could lie and say that I've been reflecting on podcasts for the last two weeks, but that wouldn't be fair to the relationship we've built up. Honestly I just got caught up in other things (not Rudai 23 Things) but annual leave type things. I'm still on annual leave so I should take the opportunity to get back on Rudai track before the start of the academic term hits me.

Podcasts don't wow me. They've obviously got their place but I won't be hunting them down with any great regularity. As I said in my post about Thing 7, I am much more interested in Serial.

I tried to listen to episode 1 in bed before going to sleep one night. You might think that given the subject material of Serial, that I didn't sleep very well. On the contrary....I slept too well. I fell asleep before the episode had even finished so that wasn't much good. I'm much better listening to the podcast when I'm standing up (less chance of falling asleep) so now I listen when I do my ironing. I do my ironing on a weekly basis, and it usually lasts an hour - so perfect for listening to the Serial podcast and enough to keep the suspense building during the week. I actually look forward to ironing now.

On a different note and a more library-related note, as the new academic term approaches, we always start thinking about ways to embrace new students - to make them feel welcome and comfortable in approaching us for help, but also enabling them to be independent users of the library. Perhaps a podcast tour of the library would be one way to do this. There are lots of things to think about before doing this:

• How do we do this?
• What do we want to say?
• Who will say it? (lets face it, there are very few of us who like listening to our voices on playback)
• Will it be used?
• Do we have to lend technology to the library user? For example ipods? Or do we rely on them using their own devices?
• Can it be incorporated with the use of QR codes?
• Do we want to do this, and more importantly do our users want us to do this?

There are, I'm sure, plenty of other questions to consider and 2-3 weeks before the start of term is not the time to be voicing them. This is something that would need to be raised at the end of the academic term in May/June, with a lot of work happening over the summer months. I think that users would also need to be asked whether they would find it useful - perhaps international students might find it particularly of assistance especially if it could be produced in other languages. But is it worth the effort if no-one uses it? Have students already moved onto something else while the library and librarians are still playing catch-up? I'd be interested to hear how other libraries have incorporated podcasts into their building/collections/services. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction for an enlightening podcast...

Podcasts - Thing 7

So I ambled towards Thing 7 instead of hurtling towards it as I had promised myself. Thing 7 was all about podcasts.  It was useful that Rudai23 included the information re how to produce, edit and host your own podcast but I'm not brave enough to do that so I opted for the second (and potentially easier) option.

• Listen to some of the podcasts in this article.

So I did listen to the all of the podcasts mentioned in the Thing 7 post. Ok, so I didn't listen to them all in their entirety but at least I listened to the start to see if it was something that interested me. Actually listening to the podcast was very straightforward. I'm not sure how I would do this on a phone or I-pod; perhaps use the SoundHound channel but it was good to be able to listen to the podcast on the PC while getting on with other things.

I listened to Circulating Ideas which was one that Rudai23 recommended and that I had seen on other sites. I have to say that I wasn't taken with it. It lasted nearly an hour and although it is related to librarians, professional issues etc; it primarily deals with libraries and projects in America. I know that ideas, projects and skills can apply anywhere and can be transferred based on how others found the experience, but all in all, I'm not that interested to hear what's going on in libraries in America (potentially short-sighted of me, but sorry!).

I also listened to Longform but again I wasn't taken with this one.

However, Serial had me gripped.  I had seen some tweets coming through about it so was interested to hear what it was all about, and I wasn't disappointed. Shame it didn't seem to be anything related to libraries unless there is some sort of plot twist halfway through. This is definitely one that I'll be coming back to.

I also listened to T is for training but thought the sound quality wasn't that great. Having to strain to hear what was being discussed put me off from continuing with the podcast. Isn't it funny how first impressions can make or break something like this?

I also stumbled on the Happier podcast by Gretchen Rubin on Bookriot (tweeted by Rudai23). I had read The Happiness Project by Gretchen and thought it to be quite inspiring (and I don't say that often). I was interested to hear what she had to say on her podcast. She didn't sound anything like I thought she would! It is one that I will probably come back to and explore a bit further - the only negative thing was having to listen to information about her sponsors - slightly irritating.

I'm not sure how I go about searching for other podcasts - I tried a simple search on the internet but the results coming back weren't that inspiring. I'm not actually sure that podcasts are that relevant to the my daily work. It would be hard to set aside an hour in my day to solely listen to the recording so it would have to be on in the background while I got on with other tasks - I wouldn't be giving it my full attention then so could easily miss something. We don't currently use it in the library I work in, but I wonder how it would work for library tours?  Something kind of along the lines of the recorded tour you get at national attractions like Stonehenge. Different tracks could be recorded to be played at different points in the library, and given that the university I work in has a fair number of international students, it could be recorded in different languages. Is this a podcast or just a series of recordings?

Open Clip Art

Reflective Practice - Thing 6

www.unsplash.com  / Leah Tardivel

Ah, reflective practice. The opportunity to sit back and reflect on what we've been doing. Not something that comes naturally; rather it doesn't come naturally to type up your reflective thoughts.  I've had some experience of this as part of my chartership journey many years ago. As I've just started the revalidation process, I've been trying to be reflective throughout Rudai23.


Thing 6 gave me the opportunity to look at other Rudai23 blogs. Something I had been meaning to do since the start of the course, but here was a golden opportunity to do so. Part of the course. I found the delicious link invaluable for this. I'm not sure I would have found the blogs otherwise. I thought it was really interesting to see which platforms people had picked and how they had set them up.  Obviously the platform affects the display and tools available but some participants had used some added extras while other blogs were quite sparse.

I've obviously been a bit hesitant using images without knowing where to get freely available ones and/or how to attribute them correctly. I read some blogs where images had been used and it was quite refreshing to see the mixture of text and image. I think my blog posts are a bit text heavy (hence the picture for reflection above), but not everyone had attributed their images which I found worrying.

I commented on some posts; currently waiting moderation, though I didn't always see how to do this easily. It now explains the influx of comments I got on some of my earlier posts - other people had reached Thing 6 before me. I'm glad to say that I replied to most if not all of the comments coming through on my blog. It's always nice to know that someone is reading.

Having read through some of the blogs, I found it quite insightful that we all face the same challenges no matter where we happen to be working. We all have similar traits and worries about using social media. We all seem to have signed up for at least 1 social media tool, only to have discarded it by the wayside. Rudai23 has forced us to pick that tool up again and dust it off. I also found that the majority of us have fallen into librarianship or working in libraries. Few of us have ended up in libraries from the outset first time round. It has all been by accident rather than design. I don't regret my path into librarianship as I'm doing something I love. It turns out that everyone else feels the same.

Reflection on Thing 5

Thing 5 wasn't such a hard task to complete - which is good as I was falling a bit behind.

As with many tools and platforms, I don't explore everything and will often only find out about functionality when I try to get said tool to do something. This is the case with both Facebook and Twitter. However Thing 5 highlighted the groups and pages option on Facebook, and the lists or chats on Twitter.

I've started to gather a small number of groups/pages for Facebook - only a small number to begin with to see how it affects my feed. I've already mentioned in my post for Thing 5 that I found it difficult to find lists that I wanted to subscribe to in Twitter so I'm waiting for someone to tell me how to do this easily. I'm also not great at chats on Twitter; mainly because I forget the time of the chat or am involved with something else at that precise moment in time.  I never go back to look at the hashtag of the chat but this is something I could try and do. Also it looks likely that a Rudai23 twitter chat will happen in the near future so that will definitely have to go into the diary.

I also had a look at the Rudai23 pinterest page for Thing 5. Lots of useful things here. The one I found most telling was the UKEdChat session 263 on the power of twitter for developing teaching practice. The point that stuck with me was 'think before you tweet' - wise words because once it's out there, there's no taking it back!

Now moving onto Thing 6 which ironically is about reflection.

Best wishes,
A.

Online Networks - Thing 5

Thing 5 is about online networks or rather using online tools to network with friends, family and like-minded individuals. Two of the most popular were highlighted in this Thing: Facebook and Twitter.

I have an account on both tools but I use the Facebook account for personal, family and friends interaction. I have only recently started using Twitter so thought it might be a good one to have a closer look at.

I find the number of characters a challenge in twitter but that's part of the fun. Can you get your message across in 140 characters or less? I also wonder about whether people really want to read what I'm tweeting about, but my followers are continuing to increase so I take that as a good sign. I've also found out about things that I wouldn't have been aware about if I hadn't been looking at twitter - that's been really helpful. For example, I have to follow a gluten free diet and I wouldn't have been aware of cafes and restaurants in my locality that serve gf food and perhaps more seriously about recalls on gf food if it hadn't have been for twitter. I'm sure I would have found out about the recalls eventually but twitter was so speedy at getting the message across.

So this week I was tasked with:

• setting up a twitter account
• following @rudai23
• sending a tweet using #rudai23
• finding a list and subscribing to it
• and then writing my blog post

Well it was all going swimmingly until it came to finding a list to subscribe to. I have successfully followed three lists; rudai23, librarians in Ireland and networks (another list by Rudai23) but I found it difficult to find lists that I was interested in. I looked at the people I was following in order to see what lists they had subscribed to but the vast majority didn't use the facility so I don't know how useful it is. Do most twitter users get by without lists? I also found this way to be a particularly long-winded way to find lists so I'm sure that I have missed some search facility on twitter to do this easily.

All in all, I'm beginning to enjoy twitter. I frequently lose time in the mornings by looking at twitter (not so good as I should be getting ready to go to work). I don't stay on it all day, nor do I have it up on my PC during work as I don't get paid to look at twitter. I tend to sculk a bit in the background in Facebook even though it's with family and friends. For some reason, I interact a little bit more on twitter - that can only be a good thing.

Reflection on Thing 4

www.unsplash.com / Luis Llerena

I've had a bit of think over the past couple of days about Thing 4 and how I found it. And to be honest I found it to be one of the easier Things to do so far.

For a start I already had a gmail account and a Google+ account so it wasn't a huge step to brush up on the settings and profile. I've joined a number of communities and tried to set up some circles. So I've hit a bit of writer's block about how to reflect on this (hence the blank page above). Thanks to Niamh and Stephanie for pointing me in the direction of images that can be used.

As I mentioned in the post about Thing 4, not alot of my friends use Google+or gmail so it may eventually be something that becomes more of a professional tool rather than using my personal email. I haven't tried hangouts nor have I posted anything so my work isn't completely finished here .... yet.

One thing that does strike me is that even though I'm only at Thing 4, I seemed to have gathered up a number of social media accounts:

• Blog
• Linked In
• Google+

It might not seem like much and I already had a Linked In and Google+ account so it isn't the fault of Rudai23 but given that there are many more Things to come, I can only imagine how many I'll have at the end of the course. I already have a facebook and twitter account and I've just signed into pinterest so for someone who is a bit nervous around social media, I already feel a bit over-exposed. I just wonder at the end of the course, will I be able to manage so many profiles or will Rudai23 point me in the general direction of a handy tool to manage everything at once?

Best wishes,
A

Google - Thing 4

Well it appears that we are being asked to become friends with the librarian's Nemesis for Thing 4: GOOGLE. I mean who hasn't used google for one thing or another, and who hasn't come up against that age old phrase 'I just googled it'. But it appears that Google is much more than just a search engine....

I already had a gmail account for various reasons so it wasn't too hard a task to set up a Google+ account. I set up my profile and added a photograph, but again, I was put off about handing over too much personal information, Firstly I'm not sure I want Google to have more insight into my life than I do, and secondly, there is such a thing as identity theft. So my information on Google+ is brief and to the point to say the least. I did run through all the security settings, and I did find it slightly comforting that Google holds your hand every step of the way.

Once I had figured out the difference between circles and communities (only second to my problem understanding companies and groups in Linked In), I added a few people to circles and joined a handful of communities. However, apart from the Rudai 23 community, I have turned off the notifications option. I don't really need another email address to become bogged down in notifications that I don't have time to read, The Rudai 23 one is the one I'm interested in, and the others I'll dip into when I'm that direction. One of my other issues is that a lot of my friends don't have Google+ accounts or have and don't check them very often. I don't want to put a lot of effort into something if no-one is going to see it.

I haven't had a hangout chat yet, and I'm not sure I want to. I'm not a big fan of Facetime and I'm not convinced that I want to have a go at the Google equivalent. For me, this is something that they could definitely drop from the Google suite of products. I mean, what's wrong with picking up the phone?

Google also offer a photos option which is something I'll explore. It would be useful to be able to share photos with family or to store photos for the eventual decline of the photo album. It's something to look into on a rainy day and with plenty of those to choose from in Ireland, I'm sure I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

So Google does have much more to offer than just searching the internet. I'm already using Gmail, Maps and Blogger. I also used Docs on a much more low-key basis, and as I'm an android user, I'm already up to speed on the Play store. Without reaslising, it turns out that Google and I are already friends.

#thing4

Reflection on Thing 3

Ok, so I have some catching up to do.  I have just finished Thing 3 while the most recent topic is Thing 8. I'm hoping that the initial Things are close together to get everyone up to speed with the basics and then the subsequent Things have a bit more time between them.

Thing 3 was all about the professional brand. As mentioned in my post about Thing 3, I wasn't sure that I needed a professional brand of my own. Does the label 'librarian' not speak for itself? Does it not indicate what I can do, my skills and my professionalism? In short, I was a bit dubious about the need for any professional brand.

Maybe the point is not to be tied down by a label. The word librarian sends out one message but in actual fact, I might be able to do a huge number of other things; be offered more opportunities based only on my skills if I didn't use the word librarian. The word librarian has a stereotypical image attached to it: tweed, glasses, hair in a bun, stamps books and says 'shush' alot.

In actual fact:

• I've been known to wear the odd bit of tweed
• I do wear glasses; but only when my eyes are too sore for contact lens
• My hair no longer can be put in a bun
• I don't stamp books 
• And the only time I have shushed someone was in the local cinema (it was effective though)

In 'Not Your Ordinary Librarian: debunking the popular perceptions of librarians' by Ashanti White, it is noted that 'the librarian is one of the most visible yet misunderstood professionals in the world' (p174). Is that why I need a professional brand? In actual fact, it was a recent article in the magazine 'Feel Good You' that hit home. In 'Time to rebrand you!' (p132, Summer 2015), some of the reasons for creating a "me" brand are listed as:

• to build confidence
• to help you get what you want
• to help you get better at your job, promotion or changing careers

Now, this isn't the normal sort of magazine I read and I can't even remember why I bought it, but I was impressed that rebranding appeared in it. The article contains contributions from Jennifer Holloway, who happens to be the author of 'Personal Branding for Brits' and she says that 'having a strong personal brand means you know exactly who you are and what you're about'. In essence, 'your brand is what people are saying about you when you're not in the room'.

And that's why I can now see the importance of a personal brand. It's what you can say about yourself, your skills, abilities, values, behaviours and image without having to utter a word. It can also defend you when you aren't there to defend yourself; to speak up on your behalf. I'm still wary about Linked In. I don't think it's very user friendly but similarly, I don't want to have to learn About.Me. Further on down the line, I may go back and brush up my profile but at least now I'll understand why I'm doing it.

Best wishes,
A.

Your Professional Brand - Thing 3

Thing 3 is all about the professional brand. Not something I have given a lot of thought to but a worthy question.

Do I really need a brand? I'm not convinced I do. I already had a Linked In profile, albeit an incomplete one but I don't think I have suffered professionally because of it or the lack of a more complete profile. 

Anyway, in the honour of Rudai23 and Thing 3, I brushed off the Linked In profile (once I had remembered the username and password) and set about updating it. 

• Create a linked in profile - complete
• Develop your professional brand, including a photo and information - complete
• Join Rudai23 group and introduce yourself - I have sent a request so hopefully it'll be accepted.
• Write a blog post about your experience - in the middle of it.

I will of course write a supplementary post about what I thought about the whole activity and how I found Linked In as a platform or tool, but my initial thoughts are here:

I adopted an incognito approach to searching for me on Google Chrome. Slightly scary that this is possible but a useful tool.  Of all the social media tools I use, the only one that was even slightly visible was my profile on twitter. I had no Google+ information appearing, the Facebook profile was locked down and the Linked In profile wasn't even me.  Who'd have thought that there was more than 1 person with my name? All of this is fine. I'm quite a private person so I'm pleased that Google+ wasn't there and Facebook was locked down. One of the common factors I realised was that none of the tools had a photograph of me - some didn't have anything while others had an avatar. This is something I mentioned in a previous post and still need to rectify. I also might need to lighten up slightly on the privacy thing; maybe slightly but not completely.

Once the Linked In profile was dusted off, I searched for a photo. I know that there is a better more professional photo of me in my workplace, but I didn't have access to it at the time. This can easily be rectified at a later stage. I filled in my experience and education, sorted out my URL and added other bits and pieces to the profile. Linked In can easily lead you through all the steps; however I found the whole experience complete torture. I found the tool quite un-userfriendly and struggled to fill in sections. In fact I had to pull out old job applications to get dates and job information correct. I'm still not sure what the difference is between companies and groups, and as for some of the suggestions of people that Linked In thought I might want to connect with - some of them don't even work in the same field and I can't see what the connection is. At the time of blogging, I'm still waiting to receive confirmation that I'm accepted to the Rudai23 group but it has only been an hour. Once that arrives, I still need to introduce myself. I'm not sure how to do that and I feel that Linked In hasn't given me the knowledge to do so.

In short, it felt too much like homework. Not many people in my workplace use it so it isn't really in the culture in my work. I also think that selecting your own skills etc isn't something that comes naturally to librarians as a group - we don't usually like 'blowing our own trumpet' (a bit stereotypical, I know but it's true!). I'm still not convinced that I need a brand or that I can use it as a tool for networking. I'm sorry to say that after a lot of work (and it was a lot of work), Linked In and I are not new BFFs.

Reflection on Thing 2

Thing 2 was all about writing your first post, based on something we are all interested in. How or why you became a librarian.

I found the approach to writing this post interesting. First of all we were asked to think of 7 questions we would like to ask our favourite author, actor or celebrity about how he or she ended up in their chosen career. Then we had to pose the same questions to ourselves. All in all there were 5 small tasks involved with this bigger task, and each was to take no more than 15 minutes.

Rudai 23: writing your first blog post 

I can see why the 15 minutes limit was set as you could easily go off at a tangent and still be there hours later. I'm sure it was also to restrict what was posted - answers to the questions as opposed to a life story. I liked the idea of the questions element to help focus what you were going to post about but the time element didn't sit well with me. I felt under pressure because of the time allocated to each task. I find it hard to think on the spot. I like to think about things and reflect on them before saying anything. Usually at meetings, I'll be the one that voices little opinion at the meeting only to have a thunderbolt moment 1 hour after the meeting has finished. I know that everyone learns and thinks about things in different ways and this is the way I think.  So having that time element added extra pressure on me to come up with the goods. I know that no-one was watching me and I could have spent all day on the task but I did try and stick to the task in hand. 

I also found it a bit difficult to pick out the 5 tasks from the blog post. A summary at the end would have been helpful and I see that this has been added to the Thing 3 post. The next task is about professional branding; something I touched on in my previous post about Thing 1 and the need for me to update my Google+ profile.

I've also partially completed another task I set myself in my previous post about customising the look of my blog. I think I'm nearly there. Perhaps a few additional tweaks and once I get the chance to look at other people's blogs, I might come up with a few other ideas. It's probably time as well to start introducing pictures and videos etc in order to move away from a lot of text. So nearly there...

Best wishes, 
A.

Reflection on Thing 1

Hello again, 

I thought that it was maybe time for a bit of reflection on the Thing 1 task and to keep up with the regular blogging.

Thing 1 was all about creating your blog.  The actual creation of the blog didn't take too much time once I had decided to go for it.  The hardest part in fact was choosing between WordPress and Blogger.  That's what I like. A straightforward task for Thing 1.

Or was it?

Now I have the blog set up and have posted a couple of items, I now find myself thinking about the blog. I want it to look better, flow better and have a few followers at least. So I have been back to look at the Rudai 23 Thing 1 post. I remembered that there were some helpful videos about how to customise your blog. I have only watched two of them so far:

• How to follow another blogger via email
• How to change the layout and appearance of your Blogger blog

 But both had some useful tips about how to stay on top of my favourite blogs, and more importantly how to make my blog more appealing.  As you can see, I haven't put that into practice yet but I'm hoping for a bit more time tomorrow to play about with the template, look and layout. I've also jotted down some ideas for future posts; things that I know I'll be doing and I'll want to write about.

I've also been thinking about the blogs that I want to follow. I spend a fair amount of my day in front of a PC and while I'm not keen to do the same when I get home, there are some interesting blogs out there that I want to subscribe to both from a personal and a professional point of view. 

 I also need to create a better profile on Google+. At the very least get a photograph or avatar so I don't continue to look like a blue person in a circle but I don't use Google+ for alot of activities. I could be missing out. Something else to be explored.

So on reflection, I don't think it was a simple Thing 1. It has prompted a lot of thinking on my part - what blogging platform, how to blog, what to blog, how it looks, content, my profile and blogs that appeal to me. Maybe that was the whole point of Thing 1 or perhaps I'm overthinking the process. Whichever it is, I'm grateful. If I continue like this about all the Things, then I have a whole lot of reflection ahead of me.

Best wishes,
A.