Sunday 24 June 2012

This Things I Believe

Crumbs! I kind of used Things 5 and 6 as a good excuse for a holiday there. Not that I don't appreciate the value of reflective practice (I own many mirrors...) but I don't think I really had much worth posting about it. Yes I am aware that hasn't stopped me posting before now but anyway.

Regarding Thing 7, I am joining some real life networks, namely CILIP and the LAI. I can join as a student right now and I know from talking to others that there may be opportunities to attend further CPD events through such organisations. It's tough building networks without being employed in the sector but I am attending another conference tomorrow so that will give me an opportunity to impress with my vast knowledge and stores of wit... hmmmm. Well I'm going to go anyway and if someone talks to me I'll talk back. We'll see how that goes.

I already use Google Calendar. It sits there reminding me of the deadlines I have set for my dissertation. Actually this is an excellent way of keeping you on your toes if you have a deadline for anything. I break any project into stages and decide what date each stage has to be completed by. So every week I have to have the project advanced to the next stage or I will fall behind. I am pretty good for sticking to deadlines which I set for myself and Google Calendar allows me to check from anywhere how I am doing. I think if you break any task down into manageable stages and focus on the next stage the whole task seems so much less daunting. 

I haven't yet done Thing 9 but will do so soon. In the meantime I'm enjoying reading the blogs I'm currently following and can recommend them to anyone who reads my own. I think there's a list on the right there. Go try them and nod sagely at their advice, laugh politely at their jokes, and comment often on their posts :D Now I should go looking for more to follow.

Friday 1 June 2012

Thing 4 - He's gone all social on me

Hey everyone, I've just completed setting up a Twitter account which if I'm doing this correct is @DamienLibrarian. I can't imagine me having anything worthwhile to say in just 140 characters as I'm very long winded. But it should be useful for current awareness. I think I will search around a bit more and be able to find some useful resources through it. I had always resisted Twitter and have constantly slagged my mates for telling me stories (admittedly funny) about the exploits of Joey Barton the professional footballing clown so I am going to avoid letting any of my fellow tough, footballing, beer-drinking pals in on my having this account :D otherwise I think it will be really useful to me and my new career.

Storify was new to me and though it seems pleasant I am wondering about its usefulness in the library world. If anyone has any good examples of the application of this tool I would really appreciate a link because at the moment I can only envisage using it for my own amusement and not in a professional setting. Having little library experience I may be way off on this but I will investigate some of the blogs I am following to see if there are any  examples in them. Oh and I should start following more people now to keep myself in the loop.