Saturday 5 November 2011

Social media / social networking

Thing 12 - well, I have spoken about this before. I'm not sure that online communities are much different to the real thing; does it all depend upon an individual's personality traits? Are you more likely to interact online if you find large social gatherings a bit of a trial? Interesting.

I've followed a few more library people via twitter - including Phil Bradley  This is useful and always brings up something interesting each day.

I've also saved some searches on twitter and have been intruiged by the links thrown up by Library Camp 2011, Infolit and others.

I will definitely carry on using social networks. However, it would be good to look out for opportunities to meet up in reality with others in the same field. Teachmeets would be a good idea, or something similarly low in cost.

Evernote

Evernote hasn't been successful at work as it doesn't seem to be possible to add material via clips to my Evernote page - frustrating.

Consequently my home usage has dropped and I'm still laboriously bookmarking my favourites on internet explorer - they are in folders, but it's still more limited.

Playing catch-up

Well! Just a little behind with the blogs for CPD23. A range of reasons, not least because term started at the beginning of September and it's been one merry go round since then.

The library skills sessions we have offered this academic year have really caught on. Library orientation was the big one in the first 3 weeks; and now it's calmed down with a steady flow of bookings for other sessions.

This has been a real learning curve and has meant that my emphasis has been more upon day to day troubleshooting and teaching rather than developing the broader librarianship and web 2.0 aspects of the job.

Now, having graduated last night, my thoughts are turning to QTLS status and growing my webfolio on the IfL website - no mean task! So, once more teaching is eclipsing the library aspects of my work. However, I'm sure they can be dovetailed as they are complimentary really. Some time management techniques may help!!

Re Thing 10 - masters degrees...chartership...accreditation and what comes next? Well, I took my Librarianship degree over 30 years ago; job changes over the last few years, resulting in a shift towards subject librarians and outsourcing my old job (cat & class), led me to enroll on a DTLLS (Diploma for Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector) course at the college where I work. That was 2 years ago and I graduated last night.

And now? A year to consolidate the library skills training, achieve QTLS status and then who knows? Certainly, some information literacy qualification would be useful, but so far I think it is only Sheffield Uni which runs a course....will keep this in mind. In the meantime, severe cuts in education and a drop in enrollment figures have resulted in little money for resources or training. Will be on the lookout for freebies like local teachmeets then!

Thing 11 - Mentoring. Well, that would be nice, but it's hard to see how anyone in my workplace could find time to formally mentor me. However, would it be possible to take advice from a mainstream teacher? Perhaps that is something to consider.