23 Things for Professional Development

Certificate progress and festive greetings

2011-12-15T18:32:00.000Z

Thank you and congratulations to those of you who completed the 23 Things for Professional Development programme and submitted your details for a certificate. The team have now checked each of the submissions and those who have successfully completed all 23 things will be receiving your certificate in the next few days - certainly before Christmas so that should be a nice present!

We'll also be analysing the data from the evaluation survey shortly, though it will remain open so please continue to complete it if you have not yet done so (we are interested in your views even if you chose not to participate, you are still working on CPD23, or you started but did not complete). We're planning to use this information to evaluate the programme, inform dissemination (the team will be presenting papers and posters at conferences, and writing articles and guest blog posts), and consider future steps such as repeating the programme at another time or developing new content.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the overwhelming positive response we have received since launching the programme, and to thank you for joining us and spreading the word. One participant recently spoke about CPD23 at an event and created this great Prezi (best viewed in fullscreen from More menu):

Cpd23: a voyage of discovery on Prezi

On behalf of all the organising team, we wish all participants and blog readers an enjoyable holiday season :)

On a related note, if you like the '23 Things' concept and want to get into the holiday mood, you may want to follow Festive 24 Things (blog or Twitter) for daily clues to a festive songs quiz.

Professional Development in Hard Times: cpd23 at the Historic Libraries Forum Conference

2011-11-15T11:00:00.001Z

Today I'm giving a talk to the Historic Libraries Forum annual meeting about cpd23. The theme of the day is 'Hard Times', so I'm trying to emphasise the particular value of a 23 Things-style course when finances and time are tight. I'm going to give a a brief introduction to the history and nature if of 23 Things courses, and a beginner's guide to cpd23.

If you've found this blog after hearing me at the conference: welcome! You can find a list of the Things and links to each post with instructions here. The slides from today are available below. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section to this post.

23 things for professional development, training and networking in hard times / Katie Birkwood

View more presentations from Katie Birkwood

Evaluation and Certificates

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000Z

We hope that you've enjoyed the 23 Things for Professional Development programme, and that it's helped you to learn you things, meet new people, and/or think in new ways about how you can develop your skills and career.

Evaluation
We'd very much like to hear what you thought of the course - whether that's positive, negative, or in between - and would be grateful if you could complete the following anonymous survey to let us know your thoughts. All questions are optional so please complete as much or as little as you feel relevant to you. Thanks very much for your help!

Survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cpd23evaluation

Certificates!
Several people have asked if they can have a certificate to mark their completion of the course, to include in portfolios, or just as tangible evidence of their achievement. We're very happy to provide this evidence for anyone who has worked through all the things. We have decided on a deadline of Wednesday 30th November for you to register that you've completed the programme and would like a certificate. All the Things will remain available after this date, so you're very welcome to keep working through them at a slower pace if you prefer. You'll still have your own blog as evidence of having done so.

If you would like a certificate, please complete the form below when you have finished all the Things.

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CPD23 #uklibchat summary

2011-10-11T11:21:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone! While you're reflecting on the end of the 23 Things programme, why not take a couple of minutes to read the summary of last Thursday's CPD23 edition of #uklibchat.

I met several of the #uklibchat team at Library Camp on Saturday, and they all commented how lively the discussion was. I was unfortunately only be around for the first hour of the chat, but I really enjoyed talking to lots of you about the programme, and the summary of the chat is going to be very useful for us both for feedback and dissemination. So thank you all!

Thing 23: Reflection - What next?

2011-10-10T08:37:00.000+01:00

The final thing! Thank you all for following the programme and well done for getting to Thing 23. A short evaluation of the programme is coming soon, but if you're up for a challenge maybe you could come up with a "6 word story" to sum up how you feel about the programme?

Many organisations include some kind of Personal Development Plans (PDP) as part of their staff review/appraisal processes. The idea with these is that you identify some sort of development need, think about how you could fill that gap, and set yourself a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Limited) objective to help you do it. I've put together a quick template that can be used for this, but feel free to tweak it to suit yourself or use one of the many other templates available online.

The Task:

For this last thing, we would like you to reflect on the programme in general and on what you want to do next.
Identify some gaps in your experience, either by looking at requirements for that next job you're aiming for or by conducting a SWOT analysis. The Library Routes and Library Day in the Life projects might be helpful here too.
Think about how you can fill those gaps and put together a Personal Development Plan to do that. You don't have to put the PDP on the blog unless you feel comfortable doing that.
Write about the process of putting the plan together and whether you think this is a useful way to think about your CPD in general.
Keep blogging and let us know how you get on!

Open Road by therefromhere

Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience

2011-10-03T11:00:00.062+01:00

Have you considered working for free to gain experience? For Thing 22 I reflect on my own voluntary work and the potential benefits volunteering can offer for career development.

My story

After graduating from library school I found myself with more time on my hands and less money in the bank and so began applying for academic librarian posts in earnest. After several unsuccessful applications, I was therefore grateful when my employers offered to make my library assistant post full time. Nevertheless, I respectfully declined their offer.

Although, my employers were very supportive of my career, the opportunities to gain the hands-on experience I needed to progress to a professional post were limited. Consequently, I found myself in what Bronagh McCrudden calls the ‘Experience Catch-22: the rut you can fall into because you can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience because you can’t get a job.' I therefore chose to continue working part time and use my new found leisure to gain professional experience through volunteering.

A colleague kindly used her contacts to help me find my first voluntary post which involved working two afternoons a week upgrading short catalogue records for another local university library. Having looked at the job descriptions for academic librarian posts in my area they almost all required cataloguing experience. I therefore seized the opportunity to prove that I could put what I had learned during my Masters course into practice and fill a crucial gap in my CV. But this was just the beginning.

The benefits of volunteering

As well as providing an opportunity to gain practical work experience, volunteering can lead to other opportunities to enhance your CV and kick start your professional career. Based on my experience, I believe it can enable you to:

Demonstrate transferable skills and experience

One of my colleagues from the library I was volunteering at invited me to join the planning group for a local Librarian TeachMeet. This allowed me to give something back by drawing on my experience as a former training administrator. Having demonstrated that I had transferable organisational and administrative skills I was subsequently encouraged to volunteer as secretary for the regional CILIP branch committee which in turn has enabled me to become more actively involved in the profession and raise my professional profile.

Increase your confidence

After graduating from library school and finding it hard to get a professional post I began to doubt my abilities. Helping to organise the TeachMeet helped me to regain my confidence. The motivation and enthusiasm of my fellow organisers also inspired me to give a presentation at the event – something I doubt I would have otherwise done.

Extend your professional network and broaden your knowledge of other sectors

Through my voluntary work I have met colleagues from a variety of different library and information services which has helped me to increase my knowledge and understanding of other sectors. For instance, another of the TeachMeet organisers invited me to blog the discussions live at a symposium exploring patients’ access to and use of online health information. Although I was not paid for my time, I learned how librarians are working with health professionals and technologists to improve the patient experience and gained an insight into an aspect of information work which was completely new to me. I also hope to use this experience to help demonstrate ‘a breadth of professional knowledge and understanding of the wider professional context’ – a key assessment criteria for CILIP Chartership which I hope to start in the new year.

Get a foot in the door

Perhaps the biggest benefit of all is that volunteering has helped me to progress to my current role as an Assistant Librarian within the same university which gave me my first volunteering opportunity. Having some insider knowledge of the university and having met several other librarians working there made it much easier to prepare my application and to settle into my new role when it proved successful. My voluntary work also evidently made an impression on my employers as it was the first thing I was asked about at interview.

The potential downsides and further advice

I strongly believe that volunteering should be a mutually beneficial arrangement. In exchange for their time and commitment, employers should provide volunteers with opportunities to gain valuable work experience and develop their skills. Volunteers should also be recruited as a complement to, not a substitute for, paid and suitably qualified library staff. Although this has been my experience, unfortunately this may not always be the case.

If you are considering undertaking voluntary work I therefore strongly recommend that you read Bronagh McCrudden’s prize-winning paper from last year's New Professionals Conference: ‘Would you work for free? Unpaid work in the information profession (and how to make it count)’. This offers case studies of three volunteers’ positive, and not so positive, experiences and considers the ethics of using volunteers in libraries. It also gives invaluable practical advice on how to make the most of working for free as well as sources of further reading.

Over to you…

Have you undertaken unpaid work to further your career? What was your experience? Is volunteering a good thing, or by working for free are we in danger of devaluing our profession? Tell us what you think.

A special CPD23 edition of #uklibchat

2011-10-03T10:58:00.000+01:00

Those of you who are tweeters may have heard of #libchat, or its UK incarnation #uklibchat. These are regular Twitter chats for librarians and information professionals, where participants decide on the questions to be discussed during the session.

Sounds interesting? Well then we have some exciting news. To tie in with the end of the CPD23 programme, this Thursday's #uklibchat will be a CPD23 special!

Where? Your computer/smart phone/tablet
When? Thursday 6th October, 18.30-20.30 BST
Who? Open to absolutely everyone
How? Search for the #uklibchat hashtag. One of the #uklibchat team will act as a host and will tweet the questions one at a time. Then discuss! Include the hashtag in your answers and everyone taking part will easily be able to find your tweets.

The agenda is entirely up to the people taking part, and is available as a Google Doc here: http://bit.ly/roNbkn
Add your questions on the subject of #CPD23, or on continuing professional development generally. If you live in a different time zone and this is a time when you would normally be tucked up in bed, never fear! The chat will be summarised and written up on the #uklibchat blog, and I will post a link to it here when it goes up.

Thing 21: Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview

2011-10-03T09:00:00.000+01:00

Well done for making it so far! After learning so many useful things, we need to think about how to promote all the hard work we do and the abilities and skills we have acquired in our career and life so far.

Part 1: Identifying your strengths; capitalising on your interests

These two really go together. What you like doing is often also what interests you, and vice-versa. In order to identify your strengths, take a good look at yourself, your tasks at work, your career, you life: what do you like to do? What do you dislike? Do you remember the last time you felt that feeling of deep satisfaction after creating, building, completing something? What was it about? What skills do you need to do the things you like? These skills are your strengths; they stem from your interests.

I am a strong believer in the fact that people are happy when they do something they actually enjoy. As we spend most part of our lives working, a sure way to be happy is to do a job you like (or love, if you are very lucky). A job that allows you to capitalise on your interests and use the skills needed to pursue them.

Most cpd-23 participants have found the love of their working life; some are still looking for the true love (a better library; a different work environment; a completely new job); some are uncertain on what to do next. It is important to remember that we are changing all the time: our interests change, our skills develop, we discover new things we like which we didn’t even know existed. Make sure that you keep up-to-date with yourself, and if you are unhappy in your current situation, acknowledge what has changed and take action.

Part 2: Applying for a job

After identifying your strengths, build a record (a database, a list, an Evernote folder, a piece of paper...) of everything you have done that demonstrates you’ve got the skills stemming from your interests. This will be extremely useful when writing your CV or filling job applications in, as you will be able to select information from a list rather than having to start from a blank page every time, thus risking to forget something. Keep this record up-to-date. Your CV is a living thing.

There is a huge amount of advice on CVs and application forms out there, and it would be really impossible to draw up an exhaustive list. Therefore, what follows is a summary of the things I have learnt from experience, and the advice I have received so far. Some of you have far more experience than me in this field, and I would love to hear your comments.

· The first, most important rule, is that no CV is the same. You need to tailor it according to the job you are applying to.

· Keep it short and readable: maximum recommended length is 2 pages of an A4 (front and back). You don’t need to put everything on it: select the most appropriate entries according to the job you are applying to. Use bulleted lists and hidden tables to make it visually easier to read.

· Job adverts have two main parts: job description, and person specification. The requirements listed under job description must be addressed in the work experience section, where you describe your current job and your career so far. The person specification requirements must be addressed in the space reserved for additional information. If you are using an application form, this is the paragraph that more or less says “tell us why you are applying, plus something you haven’t told us elsewhere”; if you are sending a CV, this type of information must be written in the cover letter.

· Try to meet all criteria (essential and desirable) listed in the job description and person specification. Don’t trust employers too much when they say that something is desirable and not essential: if it is listed there, it is important to them. Meeting the essential criteria is...essential (sorry!), and meeting the desirable ones is very, very, very important. Don’t overlook them.

· If you don’t meet all the criteria, you can still apply and try to make your case (if you don’t even try, you don’t give yourself a chance to be successful) but, if you keep receiving rejections, you should do something about filling those gaps, for example volunteering, on order to acquire all the skills you need.

· Make sure your references are relevant. Keep in touch with previous employers and, if your references are getting out-of-date, volunteering or getting involved in other initiatives that get you out there and better known (your professional association, for example) might be a good way to get new references.

Some people might feel awkward about “boasting” about how good they are in their applications. Well, remember that it is not boasting, but making the world aware of what you did, how (amazingly) you did it, and why you are more than willing to do it again for your potential employer. It’s giving you justice and credit for all your hard work and commitment. You are not stealing. You are not lying.

As I have been one myself some years ago, additional notes for foreign applicants willing to work in the UK.

· The so-called European CV is basically unknown in the UK; moreover, its format is quite unreadable for UK standards.

· Translate everything in English: employers might be clever and work it out, but they are not supposed to know that “bibliothèque municipale” or “biblioteca comunale” mean public library.

· List all your qualifications in their original names but explain what they are: some typical Italian sample formulas are “Laurea” degree (= BA), and “Maturita’ classica” (= diploma of classic studies, involving five-year classes on the following subjects: ...).

· If you can, get somebody living in the UK to proof-read your CV or application. It’s a matter of culture rather than grammar.

Part 3: Interviews

If you are called for an interview, it means that your CV or application were already positively judged by the panel. All your faults and gaps might jump to your mind as soon as you read the invite, but again, you need to give yourself credit for making it to the interview stage of the process, and get some confidence from that. This doesn’t mean that the job is already yours, but you have been given a further chance to shine, so why not making the most of it?

The first, basic rule is: prepare. Or, to use a well-known motto: failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Re-read the material on the employer; visit their website; re-read your application form/CV and any job description; prepare for awkward and less-awkward questions.

Try to get as much help as possible: for example, check if your careers service is offering interview practice of some sort. If you are in the UK, remember that CILIP members are entitled to two sessions with a careers adviser per year, offered by the Careers Group - University of London – you could use a session to explore interview techniques and ask questions on how to best promote yourself.

A very useful structure when answering competency-based questions (like “tell me about a time you found a creative solution to a problem”) is the acronym CAR, which stands for Context. Action. Results.

Start by describing the context, i.e. the situation you were in. Then highlight the action(s) you took to address the issue. Finally, explain the results, also specifying what you learnt in the process and, in case, what you would do differently in the future.

Resist the temptation to ramble. Avoid negativity. And remember that if you don’t get on well with the panel, it is unlikely that you will be happy in that workplace. An interview that didn’t go well is not necessarily a huge setback: when you finally land the job you love, it is likely that you will be thinking “thankfully I didn’t get that other one”.

Further reading: there is a lot to read on these topics but a very short selection of links I have found useful is here:

· Jobseeker tips – a series just started on her blog by Guardienne of the Tomes, with plenty of advice from “ a happy band of library hiring managers”

· Open Cover Letters: anonymous cover letters from hired librarians and archivists – an amazing website with samples of successful cover letters

· What’s the key to a good interview - beyond the usual truisms we all know already? – a blog post by Ned Potter, aka The Wikiman, and various comments to it.

Summary of tasks:

Answer the questions in Part I and make your own list of activities and interests: from watching the telly to something more work-related. Tell us what you’ve found about yourself: achievements/activities you had forgotten about, things you love to do, what they mean, how you could use them in your working life.

Update your “CV database”.

Share any interview tip or experience you found useful in your career.

Thing 20: The Library Routes Project

2011-09-26T09:00:00.000+01:00

This Thing is all about library careers. I’m going to talk about the Library Routes Project, but recommend that you visit the Library Day in the Life project as well.

The Library Routes Project was set up in October 2009, following a lively conversation on my blog about how people get into librarianship. As a result of this conversation, Ned Potter (aka thewikiman) and I decided that it would be a good idea to set up a space where people could share these stories, and thus the Library Routes Wiki was born. Now, almost two years on, it has around 180 entries and has been visited over 39,000 times.

'every which way' by jenny downing on Flickr

The idea is simple: blog about your library roots (how and why you got into the profession in the first place) and your library routes (the career path you’ve taken so far), and add a link to the great big list on the front page of the wiki. The value of this is twofold: first of all, it is interesting! If you’re a nosy person like me, it’s great to be able to have a look through people’s career histories and reasons for becoming librarians in the first place. Secondly, we think it’s a useful careers resource for people either thinking about careers in librarianship or just starting out on their path.

I think the latter is particularly important because a common theme in the stories on the Library Routes wiki is that of not knowing much about what librarianship involved, or even that it existed as a career option; or being discouraged from pursuing a career in libraries by people who had misconceptions about the options available. Like many people, I fell into librarianship after trying my hand at other jobs that I wasn’t really suited to. Once a careers adviser suggested to me that librarianship was something I could actually do for a living, it was like a light bulb going off: why hadn’t I ever thought of it before? Well, the simple reason was that I just didn’t know that it was an option. My only clue as to what librarians did was the ladies I saw stamping books and shelving in my local public library. I suppose at some level I must have been aware that there was probably more to it than that, but I’d never have guessed at the sheer range of jobs available within the information profession. I know from reading the blogs linked from the wiki that mine is a fairly common story: unless you had a close friend or relative who worked in libraries, you probably didn’t have much of an idea of what the profession involved before you joined it. The Library Routes project is intended to shine a much-needed light on the types of jobs and career paths available within the information profession.

Things To Do
The main activity for this Thing is to blog your Roots/Routes, and add a link to the wiki. I know a lot of people did this for Thing 10, so if you’ve already done this stage then the additional activity is to go through some of the links already on the wiki and reflect on how they compare with your own experiences. Do you think your own path was typical or unusual compared to others? Have you got any advice for people at earlier stages in their careers than you, or can you glean some useful tips from other people’s posts?

Future planning

2011-09-21T11:03:00.002+01:00

The CPD23 planning team are getting together tonight to discuss the programme, plan evaluation, think about wrap-up celebrations and so on. Let us know through the comments, on Twitter (#cpd23) or by email (profdev23@gmail.com) if there's anything in particular you think we should discuss!

Change in Schedule

2011-09-19T11:03:00.001+01:00

We've been listening to feedback throughout the programme and are aware that an extra chance to catch up would be appreciated! We've decided to change the schedule for the next few weeks, as follows:

Week 15 - (26th September) Careers
Thing 20: Library Day in the Life and Library Routes/Roots

Week 16 - (3rd October) Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview
Thing 21: How to identify your strengths, how to capitalise on your interests, how to write something eyecatching that meets job specs.
Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience

Week 17 - (10th October) Final reflection
Thing 23: What have you learnt and where do you want to go from here?

We will leave the blog live after the programme has finished and we know that there are groups of people planning to start the programme later this year, so if (like me!) you've only done one or two of the Things or if you haven't even started yet feel free to keep going at your own pace. The full list of Things is here and there is a link to them in the right-hand column of the site. We'll all get there in the end!

Thing 17: The Medium is the Message- Prezi and Slideshare

2011-09-18T22:24:00.002+01:00

Prezi- I like to move it, move it

by myfear

Prezi is now a very well known presentation tool and a great alternative to PowerPoint, but like any tool it has to be used well to achieve the best possible results. The unique aspects of Prezi include the ability to zoom, pan and layer levels of information in a way that offers the best viewing experience for the attendee. In an effort to avoid ‘death by PowerPoint’ people often overuse these aspects of the software and the results are as predictable as PowerPoint, albeit with more motion sickness!

The main thing to bear in mind when experimenting with Prezi is to step away from a linear presentation style, this will allow you to dance around your subject, drawing commonalities and contrasts from different elements of your topic. There are some great online guides which will help you, and I suggest you have a look a these, but there is no better way to get a grip on Prezi than to get your hands dirty.

So rather than walking you through Prezi, I'm going to consider a few general techniques you could use when selling your information and library service. Thinking about how we can exploit the intrinsic qualities of Prezi let’s consider a couple of uses:

Dynamic presentations

The success of this depends on using the functionality of Prezi to tell the story of your argument. Use the fact that you can travel along the canvas with your audience to illustrate the main points of your presentation. Raise a problem, look around it (literally!) , offer solutions and then show the audience how they can take your approach and apply it to their own situations.

Great techniques for this include:

Using a circular structure to link solutions to problems, allowing you to visit and revisit areas of the screen as you talk.
Zooming in- hiding key points within pictures or other text allows you to expand on arguments without overloading the structure with text.

Linking ideas together

A Voice in the Wilderness: Personalised Library Services in a Virtual Environment- Meg Westbury

Using one large picture as a background allows you to show detail, the whole picture and the relationships between them.
Techniques to bear in mind:

Choosing a high-quality, interesting, relevant or relaxing picture to compare or contrast to your subject matter- how about a beach scene to mount your 'Beginners Guide to FRBR'?

Regularly zoom back out to reveal the big picture- hint, use invisible frames.

Be careful with your colour choices to ensure that your text really stands out against an image heavy background.

Teaching take-aways

Scale of the Solar System Activity- Todd Ensign

Prezi is a great alternative to a hand out, or for getting your message to those who can’t physically attend your talk. If your voice isn’t there to accompany the presentation you will have to be more reliant on text, but you can do this without resorting to those tried, tested and tired PowerPoint bullets!

Try these:

Group your presentation/lesson into manageable chunks based on topic or difficulty using frames. Answers or clues can be hidden as text or pictures within the frames.

Use arrows to emphasise that the course is moving along, consider zooming out after each few sections so remote users can track their progress- you could also offer a recap here.

Presentation preparation

Not everything is best taught using a projector and a laser pointer, welding, for example, but even if you are not teaching welding you can use Prezi to help bring together your non-projection teaching. Simply use the Prezi as a mindmapping space, the different text colours, frames and arrows allowing you to forge connections between disparate parts of your subject.

By the way, I was wrong about welding. As 21 pages of 'how-to weld' Prezis proves. Go have fun!

Does Prezi mean the end for my PowerPoints?

Relatively new to prezi is the ability to upload and enhance PowerPoint slides. This gives you an opportunity to remix your existing PowerPoint slides, adding value by connecting them in a way that comes naturally to Prezi, but is impossible to do with PowerPoint. One of my students created this Prezi from an established slide set. It is intended to work as a stand alone teaching resource- notice how he’s grouped elements together so students can work though at their own pace. He’s added additional images to the ones already on the slides and integrated video content. This is his FIRST attempt at a prezi.

Over to you...

Take some time to experiment with Prezi and think about what kind of angles it could offer to help you sell your service more effectively. Try creating a take-away teaching course, breathe new life into some PowerPoint slides or create a dynamic induction presentation for new staff or students.

A final but important tip about images. Be sure to use high-quality images- .png or convert to .pdf, try Zamzar for free conversion. You can achieve variety or uniformity by mounting your images on frames or applying washes or treatments like drop shadows- Picnik will do all this and more, quickly, easily and most importantly: gratis.

Extra Credit:

Prezi For The Win? Ten Top Tips To Make a Good One- Ned Potter Edited 29/09/11: Ned has pointed out that this guide is now out of date. His revised version is here: The ultimate guide to Prezi.

Prezi: The PowerPoint Alternative?- Lora Helvie-Mason, Communication & Higher Education Blog

Slideshare: does exactly what it says what it is on the tin

by horrigans

Panning back to PowerPoint, let's look at one of its biggest hangouts: Slideshare.The difficulty with Slideshare is pinning down exactly what it is: it's an archive, a ready made audience, an inspiration factory and a place to get yourself noticed. Let's try and untangle this one:

Your personal archive- shared

If you do a lot of teaching the chances are you have a lot of PowerPoints knocking around on your machine, your website, your shared servers, your institutional repository, your cutlery drawer... well maybe not your cutlery drawer, but you get the picture. Slideshare gives you an opportunity to host all of your teaching materials in one place, and makes them available in an easily embeddable format for others wishing to share and promote your work.

It's a small point, but really worth mentioning. This is not your institutional repository, this is on the open web and can be discovered by a much wider and variable audience. If someone is looking for an inspirational teaching presentation they can cite in an article or use as a great example they are not going to come looking for your work. Put it where it can be easily found.

Can you think of materials you have produced which could gain a new audience on Slideshare?

Inspiration for you

Okay, so presentations vary from awesome inspiration to terrible, terrible warnings, but if you are a visual person you might find that browsing a handful of good presentations on Slideshare will equal an hour reading how to guides. From individual presentations to browsing the channels e.g. Pew Internet and American Life Project, The White House, or the Economist Intelligence Unit, there is a wide range of excellent slide sets available for you to learn from.

Browse Slideshare in search of the good, the bad and the ugly. Can you find anything that you could draw inspiration from?

Shareable teaching products, okay, predictable, but what else? What was that about getting noticed?

At a very basic level Silideshare is just a way to host PowerPoint presentations and .pdfs. The reason that it mostly contains presentations is only because we have a pretty fixed mindset regarding what PowerPoint can do. If you stop thinking about a room sized audience and start thinking about a panel. One of the most interesting new uses is to sell not just your service but your self. Have a look at this great CV

Visual Resume

View more presentations from Andrew Sommerfeld

Do you think this could replace (in certain circumstances) your paper CV or resume?

Extra Credit:
Top 10 Powerpoint Resume Presentations on SlideShare -Work Awesome

STEAL THIS PRESENTATION! by @Jessedee

Thing 19: Catch up week on integrating 'things'

2011-09-12T11:29:00.001+01:00

Fitting pieces together

by lilahpops

Wow, isn't the programme progressing quickly! It barely seems two minutes since I was writing Thing 3 about personal branding and yet we're now only a few things away from completion.

It's time for a little bit of a breather and some reflection on what you've gained from the programme so far and how you might continue to use what you've learnt. We've covered a number of social media tools (e.g. blogs, RSS feeds, Twitter, LinkedIn) and productivity tools (e.g. Google calendar, Evernote, Google Docs, wikis), as well as considering a number of different elements of our professional development (e.g. personal branding, reflective practice, advocacy, events). You can see a full list of the things we've covered so far here.

The purpose of this week is to look back at your previous posts and consider which elements you have found most useful and how you might integrate them into your working routine. You might already have done this, so feel free to blog about how you have done that if so. Maybe you've started using RSS feeds or Twitter during breaks to catch up on news. Maybe you're using LinkedIn for group discussions on professional topics or to share updates about your professional developments. Perhaps it's a technical solution you have discovered which updates multiple services at once or enables you to manage a number of different things. Or perhaps you haven't had chance to think about integrating anything yet. Now is your chance to review the previous tools and think about how you might continue to use them. Choose one or two (or more if you're feeling ambitious!) and share your thoughts in this week's blog post.

P.S. We haven't forgotten about thing 17 - it will be posted soon.

Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

2011-09-05T11:00:00.003+01:00

Waiting to learn everything about Prezi next week, we now explore some enhanced ways of visualising data with the help of screen capture tools. We will also take a look at podcasting.

1. Jing

Screen capture tools allow you to make a narrated video showing how to do something on a computer. They record your mouse, and everything you click on and show on your screen. Ever had a conversation over the phone with your parents, trying to explain to them how to open the attachment you sent in your last email? (“Double-click on the attachment icon!” – “There isn’t one!”...): this trick could help you solve this kind of situations and, more importantly, some work-related issues like having to explain over and over again to your users how your library systems work.

You can download a free version of Jing at http://www.techsmith.com/jing/. You will get a “Sun Launcher” button on your screen (top centre for Windows, upper right corner for Mac).

Hover over the “sun” and choose Capture. Click and drag to select a portion of your screen., and then release the mouse when you are happy with the image you have selected.

From here, you can do two things: 1) take a screen capture or 2) make a video.

The clever feature in Jing is that you can annotate your capture, by inserting a text box, highlighting part of the image, or adding an arrow. Once you are done, click on the Save button.

If you choose to record a video, Jing will provide you with an icon to check that you are not on mute and then will give you 3 seconds (!) before the recording starts, so make sure you’ve got a microphone and are ready to go. There is a 5-minute time limit – remember to keep your script short, clear and concise. Click Stop when your are done, and Save.

If you are following the cpd23 programme from your work computer only, it is likely that you won’t be allowed to download Jing. In this case, a very good alternative is Screencast-o-matic. Its use and features are marvellously explained in this post, written by The Book Gryphon for the Cam23 2.0 programme.

There is a variety of tools available for screen casting; if you want to explore the topic further, you can also take a look at Camtasia and Lightshot, to name just a few.

2. Podcasting

A podcast is an audio file broadcasted via the Internet. What differentiates it from web streaming is the fact that podcasts are usually part of a series, centrally maintained and regularly updated, which also allows for offline use after downloading. You can subscribe to a series so that it automatically downloads on to your computer and MP3 player. To do this, you need to have a podcatching software, such as, for example, iTunes.

Podcasts are a good tool to use if you are planning to deliver a series of talks, or training updates, or anything that will require delivering your content over time.

An example of podcasting for librarians is the arcadia@cambridge seminars series. Careers services are using podcasting too: see for example the amazing series produced by the Careers Group-University of London, which is open-access and free for anyone to download – a great source of professional development-related information.

How to make podcasts: the best way to get started is to take a look at Podwhating?, a full course on podcasting provided by Edinburgh Napier University. It took place some months ago and worked more or less like 23 Things, with blog entries for each task; all the content is still there, and the site features also a wonderful page of course materials that you can access for free. I particularly recommend the guides dedicated to installing and using Audacity, the main free software for making podcasts.

What next?

Thing18 requires a lot of work, especially if you haven’t used these tools before. If you have, let us know what you made of them and how they enhanced your work. If you haven’t, explore them and let us know how you think you could use them. Real examples in the form of screen captures and podcasts are welcome, of course!

Thing 17 - postponed

2011-09-05T10:29:00.000+01:00

Thing 17 (Prezi / data visualisation / slideshare) will go live at some point next week. The cpd23 team apologises for the delay.

Thing 18 is ready and will be published in half an hour.

Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published

2011-08-29T10:00:00.052+01:00

Apologies in advance to international CPD23-ers; this is a fairly UK-centric post, but I hope that those from countries where advocacy has more of a history will be able to provide some useful thoughts and resources to the rest of us!

Advocacy and speaking up for the profession

Advocacy for libraries has probably been around for as long as libraries have, but recently it's taken a big step-up in the UK. During These Economic Times it's increasingly important for people working in library and information roles to be able to explain and express the value of their service – what it does that benefits users, how it can help non-users, how it can add value to the organisation it's in, and so on, in order to serve as many people as possible, meet their needs as well as possible and crucially, to ensure that we've got enough of a budget to do all the things we need to do. Stakeholders need to understand exactly what it is we do and why what we do is important – they're the ones holding the purse-strings.

Perhaps the highest profile advocacy taking place at the moment is public libraries campaigning; there's a busy #savelibraries hashtag on twitter and organisations like Voices for the Library, CILIP, Campaign for the Book, Unison and the Women's Institute are all fighting drastic cuts to public library services across the UK. Unfortunately it's very hard for public library staff to campaign for their own sector without risking their jobs, so it's very important for people outside of public libraries (and within, where possible) to shout about the role of public libraries and talk about why they're more relevant than ever.

Annie Mauger's address to the WI by ijclark on Flickr

A lot of the advocacy for public libraries has involved activities that not all of us would be comfortable doing: banner-waving; shouting; marching on parliament; speaking to local and national politicians; giving interviews for tv, radio and newspapers; helping lawyers put together arguments for legal challenges...it's certainly not part of any job description for a librarian I've come across! However, this kind of thing is far more along the lines of activism than advocacy, and shouldn't put people off getting involved with advocacy. If promoting/advocating for your own service isn't in job descriptions yet, it a) blinking well should be and b) probably will be soon...! CILIP have put together some advocacy resources for different sectors including special library and information services, schools and further education. There's also a campaigning toolkit on their website. The American Library Association has absolutely tons of advocacy resources that I recommend having a scout around. Some fantastic advocacy came out of the LIS New Professionals Network Advocacy Challenge including jigaws, knitting patterns, and the That's Not Online! Project. It'd be great to see more of that kind of thing. The Lib Code is an advocacy campaign from the Philippines I stumbled across on Tumblr when I was looking for images for this post – they've only very recently had a soft launch, and I think it'll be worth keeping an eye on what they're doing.

The Lib Code [2011] from UP LISSA on Vimeo.

Getting published

In addition to all the skills you pick up when engaging in advocacy (public speaking, constructing arguments, communicating with different stakeholders, using social media effectively, designing online and print materials etc.), there is the opportunity to write and get published. Keeping a blog about your work lets people know that you're active and people will think of you if they need information, or someone to write an article. For example, the posts I've written for the Voices site and things I've published on my own blog have led to requests for articles from places such as False Economy, Living Streets and Public Library Journal. It's also worth pitching article ideas to places like The Guardian's Comment is Free – they're keen to hear from people who specialise in particular subjects, and have commissioned pieces by me, Ian Clark and Simon Barron when we've approached them. Emma Cragg and Katie Birkwood approached Guardian Careers, who published their piece on what it takes to be a 21st century librarian. Publishing within library-related publications helps to keep library and information people up to date with what's going on, and publishing outside of library publications helps to get your message out of the accursed echo-chamber. Both can be very useful, and help to boost your skills and experience.

Library Love by justgrimes on Flickr

Things to Do

There's plenty you can do to incorporate advocacy into your day-to-day life; the hardest part is working out how. For this Thing:

Consider why it's important to advocate for the section of library and information sector that you work for or want to work in.
Have a think about what advocacy you've been involved in. Give examples so we can pool resources and inspire others to do the same. Or, give an example of some advocacy that you think has been particularly effective – library-related or otherwise.
If you haven't been involved in advocacy, reflect on what your skills are (or which you want to develop), what you're most passionate about and think about what you might be able to do.
If you're passionate about public libraries and want to help – let Voices for the Library know! We're keen to get more people involved with things like asking organisations and well-known figures for supporting statements, securing sponsorship, liaising with other campaigning bodies and representing us at events.
If you've got any potential content for That's Not Online! let Jacqueline know.
Think about where advocacy fits in with professionalism – maybe comment on Johanna's blog post about Activism, Advocacy and Professional Identity or if you can get hold of any, look at some job descriptions and identify where you think the advocacy might fit within the requirements of the roles.
Publication challenge! A prize for anyone who gets a piece of library advocacy published.

Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events

2011-08-29T09:00:00.003+01:00

This Thing is all about events—conferences, seminars, training days, unconferences, teachmeets, or anything else vaguely organised that brings people together with a more-or-less strongly defined goal of teaching, training, or sharing ideas. We’ll look at why and how best to attend, speak at, and organise events, and hopefully by the end of the Thing you’ll be motivated to get more involved in this important part of professional life.

Attending
We’ll start with the easiest of the three facets: attending events.

Why?
Hopefully it’s fairly obvious why you might want to attend events. They’re a way to learn about something that you need, or would like, to know about, and/or an opportunity to meet people it would be good to know.

Perhaps, in these straightened times, it’s worth noting that a good event will be more than the sum of its parts: you’ll come away feeling more inspired, motivated, or capable than the event the advertising blurb promised. I’ve rarely regretted going to anything, however irrelevant to my work it might have seemed at the time. I’ve definitely regretted not going to things though - it’s best to take the plunge whenever you can.

And there’s a huge range of librarianly activity going on out there - from 20-people TeachMeets to the thousands-strong ALA annual conferece. There’s sure to be something that suits you.

How?
1. Money
I’m not going to hide the fact that many events cost money, and that some of them cost a lot of money. Most employers have restrictions on what, if anything, they will pay towards conference attendance, so it can seem impossibly daunting to try and get to some events.

There are channels that can help out, though. Your local professional body (I’m from the perspective of a CILIP member, but I hope it’s more-or-less the same elsewhere) may be able to help. The CILIP special interest groups and regional branches have some funds of money to help with training, development and conference attendance. Large conferences themselves will often offer bursaries to help people attend. Some of these can seem very specific in focus, or as though they’re designed for the sort of high flyer that you might not imagine yourself to be, but the awarding bodies will want *someone* to get them - so do apply. You might be surprised. (And having taken part in cpd23 will be excellent testimony to your ongoing commitment to your development.)

2. Making the most
Obviously, when you get to an event you want to make the most of the time and money that you’re devoting to it. My best advice is to (try to) relax and enjoy yourself. Don’t view it like a day at school where you have to write down as much as possible in your colour-coordinated folders. Try to take in the big picture of the sessions you attend, and, above all, talk to people. It’s not easy, but remember that they’re probably there to try and meet people to, so by striking up a conversation you’re helping them out, too! And do ask questions of the speakers: when I speak to an audience I like to hear their questions. If nothing else, it shows that they have at least been listening, and that my paper interested them enough to respond.

Jo Alcock wrote a great post about preparing for a major conference, which is definitely worth a read:

Conference advice

Speaking

Why?
The next step up from just attending an event is to get more formally involved and to speak at it. Speaking to an audience has several benefits for your professional development and your career. By taking the time and trouble to prepare a paper you’re showing that you’re committed enough to want to share your ideas and successes with the rest of the profession. There’s a lot to be said for overtly demonstrating a generous attitude. More selfishly, you’ll be raising your profile. People will be more likely to remember you in the future, whether that’s at a job interview, when looking for committee members, or when looking for someone to write an article or case study.

How?
1. What to speak about
You may well be wondering what on earth you could speak about. I’m strongly of the opinion that if you’re working in a professional way - evaluating your services and modifying them in the hopes of improving them, you’ve probably got something to speak to others about. Nevermind the fact that you may have done research (for an MA or other reasons), or that you may work in a library or with a collection that are interesting in their own rights.

2. Applying
There are conferences and events on every conceivable subject. Some of them invite speakers based on proposed topics, and who the organisers know in the field. Others invite applications from anyone who’s interested. Some informal events will accept talks from all comers - a great way to ease yourself in gently! Keep your eyes peeled on mailing lists, Twitter and in publications, to see what’s what. I can’t do better in giving advice on writing proposals than these two posts from Ned Potter and Bronagh:

Thinking of submitting a paper for the New Professionals Conference? Here’s some unofficial advice.
Writing a proposal for NPC11? Here's my tuppence worth (ETA: This link no longer works - sadly the blog it points to has been removed. I'm leaving it here as a record.)

3. Presentation tips
There are whole courses out there on public speaking and how to present to an audience, and this post would go on forever if I were to list lots of good advice here. Remember that your audience is there because they want to hear something interesting, not because they want to rubbish the speaker, and you’re more than half-way to success. Then read these two perspectives on how to present, and you’ll see that there’s no ‘right’ way to do it, and you can go with whatever suits you:

This post from Ned Potter is humorously dogmatic, but it does highlight some of the errors commonly made, so you should flick through it and make some mental notes:

Stop breaking the basic rules of presenting!

And from my own dogmatic perspective, I’d advise that everyone using a powerpoint presentation learn how to embed fonts in the file. This means that even if the computer used for the presentation doesn’t have the fonts you used to make the slides, the right fonts will still be shown, thus reducing the risk of your slides looking funny and poorly designed when you stand up to speak. Here’s a how-to:

How to embed fonts in PowerPoint

Organising

Why?
Last, and definitely not least, is organising an event. This is the ultimate events-based way give yourself sleepless nights, hectic days, and to contribute to the profession.

How?
Events come in various flavours. There are some that happen regularly, probably organised by a committee of people from an established organisation. Under this heading I’d put IFLA ALA, SLA and CILIP major conferences, as well as smaller organisations’ annual events. If you volunteer for the appropriate committees then you’ll have opportunities to help with those. Larger conferences also recruit volunteers to help as stewards and back-room people.

But there’s room to organise your own thing, as well. Informal events like TeachMeets and LibraryCamp are created by groups of people who just happen to meet and decide that it’s a good idea. There’s no recipe, I’m afraid for how to bring together such people - I’d advise just talking to all and sundry about this great idea you’ve had for an event, and hopefully some of them will volunteer to help out!

What to do for this thing
Don’t worry - we’re not now asking you to organise a conference. Instead, think about your experiences attending/speaking and/or organising professional events.

What worked and what didn’t work?
What advice would you give to others, based on your experiences?
And think about what you’d like to do in the future:

Are there conferences you’d like to attend?
Are there topics you think you could talk about?
Is there a training/networking/sharing need in your area/sector that you could help to meet by organising something?
If you have a burning idea for a great event, now would probably be a good time to talk about it!

Right. That’s the end of my talk. Any questions?

Thing 14: Zotero / Mendeley / citeulike

2011-08-22T08:30:00.017+01:00

When I wrote my masters dissertation I typed out my bibliography reference by reference. I worked through the whole text too, slotting in the references, remembering where I’d referenced the same thing twice – the whole 15,000 words of it.

from quinnanya on flickr

I don’t say this in a “we had it tough back in my day, you lot, you don’t know you’re born” sort of way. I say it because I didn’t have any alternative (that I was aware off). It was time consuming and error prone – who would chose that?

There are so many tools out there these days that there’s no reason for anyone - student, academic, researcher, would-be librarian – anyone to have to do that anymore.

For those of us still in the throes of writing essays, or perhaps writing articles for professional journals, picking one piece of software and running with it makes life a lot easier. But looking beyond our own needs to consider the needs of the library users we support, being aware of a number of different tools is always an advantage (and a big selling point on a CV). Being able to explore the pros and cons of different ways of achieving the same goal helps others decide which is the tool for them.

Managing information in this way, and helping others to do so too demonstrates our worth in a new way, and is a very useful skill. We’re not just there to help people find information, we can help them manage it to more easily achieve their goal. (I’m mostly thinking of these tools in an academic or research environment, but please give me examples their use in public libraries, business information centres – anywhere!)

There are 4 essential elements that you need in any reference management system. The ability to:

import references from a number of difference sources (eg websites, library catalogues, bibliographic databases etc)
manage and/or edit the references once they’re in the system, and add manually any references that you cannot find online
export references into the document that you’re writing, either as a single bibliography, or individually, often called “cite while you write” which generates a list of references.
format the bibliography according the referencing style of your choice, and re-format if/when necessary

There are some other “bells and whistles” which might be nice. The ability to:

share references with colleagues, supervisors, co-authors
attach the text of the article to the reference, so you can manage the full-text documents as well as the references
find full text of the articles in your list of references (particularly relevant in academic libraries)

There are many commercial products out there – Endnote, Reference Manager, RefWorks and Papers are just 4 examples. Those of us working in higher education may already have access to one or other of these. But there are also some free tools which are accessible to anyone (so long as you’ve got the rights to download software onto your computer!)

There’s a comparison table in Wikipedia and Martin Fenner produced a usefulcomparison between 8 different tool.

Of the many possibles, we’re going to look at 3 free ones:

Zotero, Mendeley and CiteULike.

Thing 14A – Zotero – www.zotero.org.

Zotero is an open source product that is a plug in for Mozilla Firefox (if you don’t/can’t use Firefox, jump to Thing 14B!)

A useful video which demonstrates Zotero is available from their front page, and rather than re-invent the wheel, I suggest you watch this

Zotero is free, but you can get extra storage space and more flexibility for a monthly subscription if you need it.

I think it’s a great, simple to use product which allows easy importing of references from a lot of sources – check if the ones you use regularly are covered: http://www.zotero.org/translators

Thing 14B – Mendeley – www.mendeley.com

Mendeley is another product which requires a download, but this time it’s a desktop feature, rather the forcing you to one particular browser. Like Zotero, there is a free version of Mendeley, but more features and increased storage are available if you chose to subscribe.

There’s an introduction video available from the home page , and plenty of supporting documentation.

One of the nicest features of Mendeley, is that if you’re starting off with a desktop or folder full of PDFs, there is a “watched folder” feature that you can point Mendeley towards, and it extracts metadata from the PDF files and populates your Mendeley library automatically. This is great if you/your library user has a great morass of files they want to organise retrospectively. There’s also a PDF editor function within Mendeley, so you can “scribble” on the fulltext articles ( you can get this functionality without by using PDF-XChange)

Thing 14C – CiteULike http://www.citeulike.org/

CiteULike is a like delicious but for articles rather than websites. So it’s not strictly comparable with zotero and mendeley, but still an interesting tool.

There’s a nice tour of citeulike by Alan Cann :

It’s a great site for sharing references (very useful for many academics who work collaboratively). It’s easy to gather references into citeulike using the browser button (similar to the functionality of delicious) and there is a massive bonus that you can upload PDFs to attach to the reference – since there is no desktop element this means you can access your documents and references from any computer, any time. You can share your library of references, or keep them private as you see fit.

If you chose to make your library public, just like delicious, you can see if anyone else has this paper in their library – ie who is reading what you’re reading. This might give you clues as to who your competition is, or who potential collaborators are.

But the big down side (I think) is that there is no cite while you write functionality – you can export the references in a single bibliography, in a range of difference referencing styles, but not add references through a document. (but since I don’t think it’s designed to do this, so not a fair criticism).

Thing to do

For this week’s Thing, I’d like you to explore and play with at least one (or more if you’re feeling enthusiastic and have time) of these tools – how could it help you achieve some of your own goals? How could your new skill help you improve the support you offer your library users?

If you’re already using one or several of these tools, please share how you’re using them. If you are running courses, who are they for? What format do these courses take? Does this service help to change perceptions of the library service?

Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis and Dropbox

2011-08-15T08:00:00.016+01:00

In this Thing you will investigate different methods of online collaboration and file-sharing and explore the benefits of using these tools within your library.

Collaborating on group projects with colleagues can be a great way to boost your professional development. However, when several people are editing the same document simultaneously this can sometimes lead to the existence of multiple drafts of the same file, which can result in confusion! Tools such as Google Docs, Wikis and Dropbox are designed to enable you to share information and documents more effectively when working with others on a joint project.

For this Thing, you will need to have a go at some of the activities below and then blog about any or all of these tools.

One of the main purposes of Google Docs is to allow multiple people to edit the same document, spreadsheet or presentation without creating duplicate copies. Documents can either be uploaded or created from scratch within Google Docs and the fact that everyone can access the file in one place means that it is much simpler to edit and update. This can be very useful for librarians who are collaborating on a project; for example, for this very 23 Things programme we have used Google Docs to create a spreadsheet of everybody who has registered to take part. This allows us to store the information in a single location where multiple administrators can edit and update it as necessary.

Activity:
Accessing Google Docs is quite straightforward: simply login with the same username and password that you would use to access your Google account. If you don’t have a Google account, you can quickly set one up by clicking here and completing the online form.

Once you have logged in to Google Docs, click ‘Create New’ and choose what kind of document you would like to create – such as a spreadsheet, word-processing document or a presentation.

Create your document and then save it by clicking on ‘File’ and ‘Save’.

Example of a presentation created in Google Docs

Now you are ready to share your document, either with a colleague or even with another CPD23 participant if you wish! Click on the ‘Share’ button in the top right-hand corner of the screen. In the ‘Add People’ box, enter the email address of the person with whom you would like to share the document and decide whether you will allow them to edit the document or just to view it. Click ‘Share’ and this person will now receive an email with a direct link to your document.

Dropbox is a free desktop application which allows you to store your documents online so that you can access them from multiple computers.

Like Google Docs, Dropbox can also be used when collaborating with others on a project as it enables easy file-sharing without the need for creating duplicates. For example, one person can drop documents and files into Dropbox and then invite other people to access and edit those files.

Have a look at this useful presentation to learn more about how Dropbox works:

Activity
If you don’t already have a Dropbox account, go to the Dropbox website and create one. Once you have created an account, you will be directed to a page that explains how to download Dropbox.

After you have downloaded and installed Dropbox, you will have a Dropbox folder on your computer where you can store any files that you want to share with others. You can access these files from any computer by logging into the Dropbox website with your username and password. From here, you can view, download and upload files securely using any web browser.

Sharing documents using Dropbox

Sharing with someone who already has a Dropbox account:
Create a new folder called CPD23 inside your Dropbox folder, select a file from your computer and paste it into this folder. Now go to the Dropbox website, login if you aren’t already logged in, and click on the tab called ‘Sharing’.

Select the option to share an existing folder, click ‘next’ and then select your CPD23 folder. Enter the email address of someone with whom you wish to share your folder and click ‘share folder’. This will send an email inviting the recipient to view your CPD23 folder via Dropbox. If the recipient is not yet a member of Dropbox, the email will direct them to page asking them to register.

Sharing with someone who does not have a Dropbox account:
Dropbox will also allow you to share single files (but not folders) with people who do not have a Dropbox account. In order to do this, simply copy and paste a file into the folder called ‘Public’ which is already inside the Dropbox folder on your computer.

Next, navigate to your Public folder via your account on the Dropbox website, right-click on the file you want and select ‘Copy public link’. This will give you a URL which links to your file and you can then paste this, for example, into emails or blog posts in order to share it with others. If you wish, you can paste this link into your blog post for Thing 13!

A Wiki is a public or private web page which allows multiple people to contribute to its content. The most obvious example of a Wiki is Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Wikis can be a great collaborative tool for library staff and may be particularly useful when creating documents such as library resource guides, student handbooks or teaching materials. Wikis can be used to store information which is useful to all staff members, while at the same time allowing all staff members to edit and update this information. I personally have found a Wiki to be quite useful for recording updates to the website which I jointly maintain with the other graduate trainees in Cambridge. The Wiki enables us to keep a record of the changes that each of us has made to the website, as well as the work which still needs to be done. We also use it to store all our HTML instructions, as well as the weekly rota.

One excellent example of librarians using a Wiki as a collaborative tool is the Library Day in the Life Project, which is a semi-annual event organised by Bobbi Newman (Librarian by Day). Librarians from all around the world add their blog URLs to a shared Wiki and then write blog posts about their working day. The Wiki acts as a central location from which to access all of these blog posts and as such it becomes a really informative web page which offers an insight into the wide variety of careers that exist within the field of librarianship.

Another good example of a Wiki is the Library Routes Project set up by Ned Potter and Laura Woods. This Wiki was set up in October 2009 to bring together the thoughts of Information Professionals on how they got to where they are today, and why they initially chose to work in libraries. As more and more people have contributed, this Wiki has quickly become a valuable career’s resource for those thinking about joining the library profession.

If you’re still unsure about how Wikis can be useful, check out this 'Wikis in Plain English' video:

Optional Activity
If you are interested in setting up your own Wiki, the basic edition of PBWorks provides a free platform for librarians. Alternatively, you could try MediaWiki, which uses the same software as Wikipedia.

Suggestions for your Thing 13 blog post
You could write about your first impressions of any or all of these tools, or you could explore their potential uses within your library. If you are already using one or more of them, you could write about the kinds of projects for which they have been useful. If you wish, you could also compare and contrast the value of each of these different tools and consider how they could be used to further your own professional development.

Don’t forget to visit other CPD23 blogs and share your insights with other CPD23 participants!

Thing 12 - Putting the social into social media

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000+01:00

Librarians and information professionals are turning more and more towards social media as a way of advancing their professional knowledge and networks. CPD23 had nearly 100 participants who registered before the programme started and this has since risen to 750 at the time of writing this post. This was all achieved through promotion of the programme using social media, which demonstrates the reach it can have.

In a recent article in CILIP's Update magazine, Debby Raven discussed this growing trend. She highlighted many recent studies which have explored the use of social media as a means for professional development and gave a brief rundown of the advantages:

social networking can lead to better communication between individuals who may or may not have the chance to meet otherwise
it creates a more collaborative working space as people are encouraged to share ideas
it aids in building online communities, which can then turn into real-life communities. This was highlighted by Things 6 and 7 of CPD23. During week five of the programme many real-life and virtual meet ups were organised by participants, taking an online community into the real world
social networking can provide easy access to other fields of the profession. I work in an academic library but social networking has provided me with a way to contact colleagues in a variety of different sectors to get opinions on different matters. This could have been a hassle but social media has made it a much more informal process

By being part of an enthusiastic online community, librarians and information professionals can help to advance their development. Due to the current economic circumstances many institutions have cut training budgets and individuals are finding it hard to justify the cost themselves. Social media seems ideally placed to help people advance themselves professionally in light of these developments.

Although it can't replace face to face networking, social media does give users a chance to interact with others within the profession. Networking can be a valuable way to see and be seen. You may start off small, with just a few friends and colleagues, but it's amazing how quickly and easily your contacts will build up. This can then lead to a valuable web of knowledge that you can use to develop yourself and your career. It goes without saying that the more you interact with others, the faster this network will build.

For Thing 12 I would like you to consider the role of social media in building up networks and a sense of community. Possible areas to consider are:

are there any other advantages to social networking in the context of professional development than those already outlined above?
can you think of any disadvantages?
has CPD23 helped you to make contact with others that you would not have had contact with normally?
did you already use social media for your career development before starting CPD23? Will you keep using it after the programme has finished?
in your opinion does social networking really help to foster a sense of community?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor do you have to answer all the questions, they're just some prompts to get you thinking. If you only do one thing this week then add a new contact on any of the social media platforms that you've started using. It can be someone you already know, someone that you have heard mentioned or you can even follow Stephen Fry on Twitter! The important thing to do is to make a new virtual contact (or two) and open yourself up to the social side of social media.

References: Opportunities not to be missed by Debby Raven in CILIP Update, July 2011, pg. 43-45.

Photo credits: Web Wizzard and Documentally.

Thing 11: Mentoring

2011-08-01T11:30:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Thing 11, where I discuss an often overlooked -- but quite important -- part of professional development: having a mentor. By ‘mentor,’ I mean someone who takes an active interest in your career either by sharing advice and knowledge or by facilitating professional opportunities. A mentor is an advisor who is usually more senior than you (ideally by 5 to 15 years), but does not have to be, and you can seek one out at any time of your career. Everyone should have a mentor, but circumstances often prevent many of us from having one.

A bit of personal sharing

I have been lucky thus far in my career to have had two very good mentors, one formal and one informal. These mentors have provided advice about my career path, explained the political workings of a new work place, provided professional opportunities, and have been a sounding board when I had hard decisions to make. Though busy people, they took an active interest in my work, and my career benefited tremendously from them. In return, these mentors learned from me about new technology developments in the field and (they said) were inspired to try new lines of research by my enthusiasm. The mentoring relationship has been so critical for me that I would encourage everyone to seek one out, no matter where you are on your career path.

My formal mentor was someone I explicitly asked to be my mentor -- something that admittedly was scary to do. However, as many writers about mentoring in librarianship have noted, reaching out like that is tremendously rewarding (and it was). Before asking, I was worried my mentor wouldn't have time or, worse, wouldn't see me as worthy of being mentored. Upon asking, I discovered that she was actually flattered and thrilled to be asked, as it validated her role as a leader in the library world and gave her a chance to give back to the librarian community.

My informal mentor was not someone I asked explicitly to be in a mentoring relationship with me, but someone I chose to consult a lot and to emulate early in my career ('What would so-and-so do in this situation?' was something I would constantly ask myself). Having a role model to aspire to gave my career path a clearer trajectory and, even though she likely would not call me a 'mentee' per se, she did indeed mentor me as I often sought after her advice.

Qualities of a good mentor -- and of a good mentee

If you do ask someone explicitly to be your mentor -- highly recommended -- you should choose someone you feel comfortable with and would like to learn from. It's imperative to be clear about what you would like from the relationship -- career advice, sounding board, professional opportunities -- and then to ask about such things in particular. A mentor/mentee relationship needs to be cultivated like any other. Remember that your mentor is giving his/her time and energy so make sure to reciprocate accordingly with gratitude and offers to share information from your perspective and experience.

What sorts of qualities should a mentor have? Not everyone is cut out to be a mentor. For starters, you should look for someone self-aware, respectful, and empathetic, with a strong sense of collegiality. After all, you're asking someone to help you, so that person should enjoy helping and understand the need to help colleagues network and find professional opportunities.

As a mentee, your role is not to accept the advice and assistance of a mentor passively, but to try to give back in terms of gratitude, professional sharing, and enthusiasm. You should be quite clear about your strengths and weaknesses and be honest about what sort of assistance you would like your mentor to provide. Such clarity and straightforwardness will lead to a much more productive and successful relationship.

Conclusion

In short, do try to find a mentor. At any stage of your career, reaching out to people you admire and seeking their counsel is immensely rewarding and beneficial. You will find that if you cultivate a good mentor, it is likely that one day in the future you will in turn ‘pay it forward’ and generously give of your time to a fellow librarian seeking advice and traction in this rapidly changing world of librarianship.

Further reading

The literature on mentoring in and out of librarianship is voluminous. It is not possible here to give a complete resource list, but a few good starting places online include:

LIScareer.com
Mentoring page: http://www.liscareer.com/mentoring.htm

How to Find a Mentor
http://learnthat.com/2007/12/how-to-find-a-mentor/

Effective Mentoring
doi: 10.1177/0340035209105672
IFLA Journal June 2009 vol. 35 no. 2171-182
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.150.5840&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Sharing program: The Big-Boy Boomeroo of mentoring
Carrye Syma and Cynthia Henry
C&RL News March 2009, pp 178-180
http://library.ttu.edu/about/facility/face/entries/social_sciences/PDF/Syma.pdf

Revitalizing a Mentoring Program for Academic Librarians
Diana Farmer, Marcia Stockham, and Alice Trussell
College and Research Libraries, July 2009, pp 8-24
http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/2097/1242/3/Farmer_etal09.pdf

Thing 10 - Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

2011-08-01T11:10:00.003+01:00

This week we will be discussing routes into librarianship. This post will mainly focus on the training and qualifications available to librarians in the UK.

Graduate traineeships

Although there are now undergraduate qualifications in librarianship, most librarians tend to have done their first degree in another subject, and then go on to a Masters in Library and Information Studies.

Most UK universities who offer LIS courses want you to have a year’s work experience before you start the course. Some people get this experience by working as library assistants but there are now an increasing number of graduate traineeships in the UK.

Graduate traineeships are usually 12 month long posts which start in August or September and are aimed at recent graduates who are thinking about going into librarianship. There are many different types of institution that offer these positions, amongst them are schools, universities, businesses and law firms. CILIP have a good directory of traineeships in the UK.

Every traineeship position is different but a lot of institutions offer training and a programme of visits to other libraries. Traineeships not only provide recent graduates with relevant library experience but can also help them decide whether the career is really right for them.

If you would like to know more details about an individual traineeship programme in the UK then I would recommend looking at Catalog. This website documents the traineeship programme in Cambridge and is maintained by the trainees themselves. There are many more types of traineeships out there though so have a look at the CILIP website and see which one looks good for you!

The 2010-2011 Cambridge Graduate Trainee Librarians on a visit to Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Masters degrees

The next step for most people is to complete a CILIP accredited course. It is becoming more and more necessary for holders of professional library positions in the UK to have or to be working towards a qualification in librarianship. A list of CILIP accredited courses can be found on their website It is useful to note at this stage that graduate level qualifications from the USA, Canada, Australia and the EU member states are accepted by CILIP in the UK.

Most courses are quite similar in structure and contain core course on cataloguing, classification, IT systems and management. Courses are offered both full time and part time by most institutions. The distance learning courses at Aberystwyth, the Robert Gordon University and Northumbria University are becoming increasingly popular as there is the opportunity to continue working whilst you study.

Chartership

Most librarians go on to Chartership after completing a qualification accredited by CILIP. Some professional posts require their applicants to be chartered but most people look at Chartership as a way to continue their professional development. You have to be a member of CILIP to undertake the programme. Chartership is a portfolio based qualification where you collect evidence of you professional development. Another important part of the programme is finding a mentor, (a concept which will be discussed more fully in the next Thing!) See the CILIP website for more information.

Certification

Certification is another CILIP qualification. It is open to anyone at any level who has had a minimum of 2 years work experience in the sector. You do not need to have completed an accredited course by CILIP and so in this way it is a different route to Chartership for people who might have had a different library career. The qualification is portfolio based and like Chartership is based round critically evaluating yourself and the job that you do. Again the CILIP website has a lot more information about how to join the Certification programme.

What next?

For this week’s 'Thing' I would like you to blog about your experiences as a librarian so far. Tell us about why you joined the career, where you are now and how you got there and what you are planning to do next. I apologise that this blog post has been rather UK focused and therefore I would love it if our international colleagues out there would blog about their experiences in their countries so we can learn more about routes in librarianship on a global level.

Thing 9: Evernote

2011-07-25T10:00:00.004+01:00

And following on with the organising theme we come to Evernote.

The problem:

You want to be able to make comments on webpages and archive them along with your own notes so that everything is all in the one place and easy to access.

The problem-solvers:

Evernote allows you to take notes on webpages and archive them for later consultation. Your notes can have file attachments and be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated etc. There is a paid version as well as a free version (limited to 60 MB/month and there is a usage bar so that you can keep track).

How to use Evernote:

1. Go to http://www.evernote.com and have a look at their Getting started pages.

2. Sign up for an account (you will need to get the confirmation number from an e-mail they will send you) and get to the welcome page.

3. Download Evernote according to their Getting Started pages and follow their instructions and sign in to your account. You can create a note by clicking on New Note. You can add URLs and tags and decide which folder to put it in. It saves it automatically and it appears in the central panel, which you organise to view by date created, updated or title.

4. Evernote is not just for making notes but can be used for archiving pictures from your computer or webpages or photographs taken during conferences to save you having to take notes all the time. All you have to do is to click New Note again and click and drag a photograph from the web or your computer etc. and drop it into your new note (or you can copy and paste if you prefer).

5. You can use the View and Edit drop down menus to alter how you view your information and the Usage button along the top tells you about your monthly use. The File menu also allows you to organise your notes and attach files etc. Evernote for Windows or Mac will automatically synchronize your notes with Evernote on the Web every few minutes, but you can manually sync any time by clicking the Sync button. (This means that changes you make to your Evernote account on different appliances i.e. computers, phones or mobile devices will all synchronise to keep your account up to date).

6. You can also save web content, which involves installing the Web Clipper (a quick and easy process which adds the Evernote button to your Internet browser). All you need to do it to highlight the information you want to save and click on the Evernote button. I highlighted a BBC article, clicked on the elephant, added tags when prompted and went to my Evernote page to find it had been filed with my other notes:

This is a really useful tool for bringing together everything that you look at on the web as well as drawing together photos, notes and text from various sources to one location, easily accessible from a variety of devices.

A bit more:

Have a play around with folders, tags, searching and how to integrate Evernote with Facebook and Twitter.

Thing 8: Google Calendar

2011-07-25T08:00:00.011+01:00

Following on from last week's focus on networks, we will now have a look at organising tools to keep you sane and on top of everything!

Ever feel like this?

The problem:

You need a calendar, which can be accessed from any computer and can be shared with other people.

The problem-solver:

Google Calendar is a free web-based calendar which can be shared with other people and accessed from anywhere with Internet connection. Events can be added quickly and viewed by day, week or month. It can also be integrated with other Google services, such as iGoogle, and embedded in web pages and blogs.

A lot of institutions already have Google Calendar on their web pages to keep their staff, students and followers. Libraries such as the Cambridge University Library (UL), are using Google Calendar to publicise opening hours and events.

How to use:

1. To create a Google Calendar, go to http://www.google.com/calendar/.

2. Log in with your Google ID (or get one here and get the benefits of Gmail, iGoogle and more!).

3. Your new Google Calendar will look like this.

3. Before you add any events to your calendar, go to the left of the screen and select Settings under My Calendar and then click on the General tab. In this General section you can change the time and date formats, plus have a mini icon of your local weather displayed and choose whether to show weekends etc.

4. Click on Save.

How to add events:

1. To add an event, click on Create event on the left of the calendar (you can also select Quick add or highlight a date on the calendar (probably the easiest)).
2. Fill in the boxes for your event and add duration, location and whether you want to have a reminder at some point before the event.

3. Click on Save and you will be taken back to the calendar with your new event visible!

Optional extras

How to share your calendar with someone else:

1. Under the My calendars section on the left side of your calendar home page, click on the drop down menu next to your e-mail address and select Share this calendar.
2. You will be taken to the Share this calendar section.
3. Type in the e-mail address of the person you would like to share your calendar with and their details will appear automatically underneath (note: this person must also have a Google Calendar too otherwise you won't be able to share it!).

4. Set the Permission settings you would like this person to have.
5. Click on Save.

If you have an iGoogle page then add your Google calendar to it:

1. Go to your iGoogle page.
2. Click on Add Gadgets.
3. In the Search for gadgets box on the right of the screen, type in Google Calendar.

4. You want the first on the list - click on Add it now.
5. Click on Back to iGoogle and your calendar will be displayed!

Further reading

A blog on how libraries are using Google Calendar:
http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2010/04/libraries-and-google-calender.html

Using Google calendar to manage library web site hours: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/46

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

2011-07-18T10:00:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Thing 7! It’s time to talk about professional organisations: what they do, what the benefits are, and how and why you can get involved.

What is a professional organisation?
Well, they come in all different shapes and sizes! But at heart a professional organisation is a group of people joined by a common profession, which serves some purpose towards the furthering of that profession.

They may be an official, subscription-based organisation such as CILIP, ALA or ARA, or they might be more informal, such as LISNPN or LIKE.

What do they do?
All sorts of things! Professional organisations will do some or all of the following:

1. Provide opportunities for networking.
One of the easiest ways to get started with professional networking is to join a professional organisation or group. The three professional benefits outlined by Helen in Thing 6 apply just as much to face-to-face networking as they do to online networking. Connecting with people through a professional organisation can help to advance your knowledge and career – as well as being a great way to meet new people and make friends! There will usually be networking opportunities available at all events – even if it’s just the chance to have a chat over lunch, make the most of it!

Find it difficult to approach people face-to-face? You’re not the only one! Most people find it difficult to start a conversation. I’d recommend this post on Jo Alcock’s blog for some advice about how to get started.

There are some chances this week for you to get involved with organisations in your area, practice networking – or just find out more about what’s going on! Meet-ups have been arranged in various places around the country – see here for a list.

2. Provide opportunities for training and development

Many organisations will run official training courses. These will usually be tailored to meet the needs of their members, and may be part of a professional development framework. They will also often run conferences, which are a great way to develop yourself, and meet new contacts and friends.

As well as these formal training opportunities, professional organisations give you opportunities to develop your skills in other ways, such as learning informally from other members. You can also gain skills and experience from volunteering for a position within the organisation: you could join a committee; write for the newsletter/blog; organise events; get involved in a mentoring scheme. For instance, you might need to gain experience of handling finances and budgets – a committee treasurer position is a great way to do this.

3. Provide structured professional development and qualifications

Many professional organisations will have a structured professional development path. This may include accrediting or validating courses, including the professional qualification courses. In the UK, this is done by CILIP (libraries) and ARA (archives & records management). ALA does the same for library courses in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

They may also run Continuing Professional Development (CPD) schemes, resulting in a qualification, such as CILIP Certification and Chartershipand ARA Registration.

4. Have formal publications

These can range from peer-reviewed journals to magazines and newsletters, to blogs and podcasts. These provide you not only with the chance to learn from the content, but also to contribute!

Associations may also run award schemes, provide advocacy and support, sponsor places at conferences, run current awareness and careers services – and much more! If your organisation isn’t providing the support or activities you need, why not contact them? You might be able to start something that will benefit you – and others!

Why should you get involved?
Being a member of a professional organisation gives you great opportunities, and the chance to benefit yourself and the profession. It can demonstrate that you are committed to the profession, and to your own personal and professional development. Membership gives you opportunities to help others, by sharing your knowledge and expertise, taking on a formal role on a committee, or taking part in a mentoring scheme. If the association is one which charges dues, these will help the association to continue their activities, and provide training and support to its members.

So, what organisations are there?
I can’t possibly supply an exhaustive list – if that’s what you’re looking for, IFLA publishes a ‘World Guide to Library, Archive and Information Science Associations’. If that’s a bit rich for your pocket, try a library! (Copac, WorldCat). The following is a selection of some of the organisations – and, if I’ve missed your favourite, why not leave a comment, or blog about it?

When you’re looking at organisations, remember that they will usually have sub-divisions – called special interest groups, chapters, caucuses, divisions, round tables, groups, committees, units - just about anything you can think of! For many people, these specialist/regional groups will be their main point of contact with the organisation, so it’s always worth checking out sub-groups when you’re deciding whether an organisation is right for you. You will usually get membership to one or more of these groups as part of your membership of the organisation, and can add more for a small fee.

Membership organisations:
All of the following charge membership fees, usually on a sliding scale depending on your salary, and often with great deals for student members. You might even be able to get your workplace to pay for your membership, or claim the tax back on your tax return as a ’professional expense’. If none of them fit your budget, why not have a look at some of the free, informal associations? You also often don’t need to be a member to attend events, so if you’re thinking about joining, why not go along to a few events, and get a feel for the organisation?

Library/info organisations:
UK:
CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the UK’s professional body for library and information workers. With 9 regional branches across England and home nations branches in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and 27 special interest groups, from UkeiG to the Patent and Trademark group, to Career Development, CILIP provides a wide range of support and activities.

ARA: the Archives & Records Association supports archivists, archive conservators, and records managers in the UK and Ireland. Sections include data standards and new professionals, and they run the Registration scheme, for formal CPD.

SLA: The School Libraries Association (not to be confused with the Special Library Association!) supports, and promotes the value of , school libraries and librarians. They also run awards, courses, and provide online resources.

IMRS: The Information and Records Management Society welcomes as members ‘all those who work in or are concerned with records or information management, regardless of their professional or organisational status or qualifications’. They run a bulletin, training, and a conference.

ASLIB: The Association for Information Management provides training, along with an impressive portfolio of publications. Members are not necessarily librarians, with ASLIB’s portfolio being aimed at ‘people who manage information and knowledge in organizations’

BIALL: The British and Irish Association of Law Librarians represents legal information professionals and suppliers. They provide information and support for those interested in/already pursuing a career in legal information work, including a ‘how do I?’ wiki, publications, and conferences.

Worldwide:

IFLA: With around 1600 members in 150 countries, the International Federation of Library Associations is truly an international organisation. Most library associations are members of IFLA, and you can also join as a personal member. IFLA publishes internationally-renowned guidelines and reports, and has relationships with other world bodies such as UNESCO, the UN, and the World Trade Organisation. They have a wonderfully diverse range of special interest groups and sections.

SLA: the Special Libraries Association is based in the US, but has chapters all over the world, including a very active European Chapter. The divisions and caucuses provide support for professionals in a wide variety of fields and areas of interest – including a baseball caucus! Members don’t just come from special libraries, and many cite networking opportunities as one of their main reasons for joining.

ALA: the American Library Association also has members all over the world. They accredit US, Canadian, and Puerto Rican library courses, and run 2 big conferences every year: ALA Midwinter and ALA Annual – featuring book cart rallies!

AIIP: the Association of Independent Information Professionals represents and supports independent information professionals worldwide, with e-learning tools, publications, conferences, and special deals with vendors. The association is also open to those who are considering going independent or starting their own business.

SAA: The Society of American Archivists account for many of the different names for sub-sections! With committees, sub-committees, sections, roundtables, student groups, and task forces, there are plenty of opportunities for involvement in a number of areas.

Non-library/info organisations
Many information professionals are also members of professional organisations outside the LIS sphere. These are a great way to gain skills and contacts from other professions, and widen your viewpoint.

HEA: Librarians who do a lot of teaching may wish to become members of the Higher Education Academy, which provides resources and support for teachers in the HE sector.

The Chartered Management Institute provides managers and leaders with opportunities for online learning, networking, and structured CPD.

CIM: the Chartered Institute for Marketing is celebrating its centenary in 2011. With levels of membership that cover novice to fellow, they also offer the chance to become a chartered marketer.

If you’re working/supporting users in a particular field, you might like to see if membership of their professional body is open to you, perhaps as an affiliate member.

Informal organisations:
The Library Society of the World describe themselves as ‘a world-spanning group of library professionals and library advocates, dedicated to furthering the role of librarians, archivists, information professionals, and information educators through communication and collaboration. The LSW is about people, not buildings (although some of us think architecture is sexy). It’s about friendship, not organization. It’s about creating and fostering opportunities, not building barriers and divisions.’ They have professional development material, a set of priorities that will chime with even the most jaded info pro, and a distinguished list of ‘Shovers and Makers’.

LISNPN: The LIS New Professionals Network started online (and was mentioned in Thing 6 by Helen as such), but has graduated to face-to-face events. Open to anyone with an interest in being or supporting new professionals, the network has discussion forums, resources, and recently ran an advocacy competition.

LIKE: The London Information and Knowledge Exchange meet monthly to ‘share stories, learn and exchange knowledge in an informal and relaxed setting.’. They run a variety of events – the next, LIKE27 on 28th July, is a guided walk of London, with an optional guided tour of the Guardian’s offices and Information and Archives service!

Hack Library School: By, for, and about library school students, Hack Library School is another group that started out online. Hack Library School also now has face-to-face meet-ups, including one at this year’s ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

What now?
Absorbed all that? Good! Your task for this week’s Thing is to consider your experiences with professional organisations, and blog about it! What involvement have you had? How has it affected your career? What have you learned? Why are/aren’t you a member? Extra credit for investigating a new organisation or group!

Thing 6: Online networks

2011-07-18T08:00:00.293+01:00

Welcome to Week 5, and Thing 6, which is all about online (or social) networks and communities. These have completely revolutionised how we network and make connections with others. If you've already completed Thing 4, and joined Twitter, congratulations! That's an online network too.

If you're not sure about what online (or social) networking actually is, or what it entails, take a look at this brief introductory video. It's from 2007, making it positively prehistoric in online networking terms, but it does hit all the main points!

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There are so many online networks out there. They fulfil different purposes, they have different raison d’êtres, and they attract all kinds of people with common interests and goals. Selecting just a few for Thing 6 was pretty difficult! So what we're going to do is look at the two 'big wigs' of the online networking world, that's LinkedIn and Facebook, both of which have become pretty much synonymous with online networking, and both of which are well-known and established. And then we're going to look at three other online networks (LISNPN, LATnetwork and CILIP communities) which have been designed specifically for librarians and information professionals. The list is absolutely and in no way at all definitive or comprehensive, and you don't have to explore all of them. Also, if there are others that you use or recommend, please feel free to blog about those instead!

Why network online?

There are lots of advantages to engaging in professional online networking, but I think that, in general, they all fall under one or more of the following three headings:

Becoming better known, and more visible in your fields of interest and expertise, by joining in with conversations and sharing information.
Becoming better connected, with people whom you might otherwise never actually get to meet.
Becoming better equipped, gaining knowledge and information from others, and staying up to date with the trends and ideas in your profession.

But before we get going, a quick word of advice! Please note that it's really, absolutely and completely NOT necessary for you to sign up to any, or all, of these online networks. If you're not a member of them, and would like to keep it that way, that's perfectly fine.

1. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network, with over 100 million members. There are lots of librarians and information professionals using LinkedIn, and it's an excellent way of building and organising your professional relationships. And, importantly, bearing Thing 3 in mind, LinkedIn profiles tend to rise to the top in Google searches, so a well-maintained and constructed profile can be a really beneficial tool for the development of your online brand. LinkedIn can be a useful way to introduce others to your professional experience and expertise.

Although you'll need a LinkedIn account to explore it fully, it is possible to have a look at some profiles and see how it could be used. To do this, go to the home page, and type a name into the boxes that say 'Search for someone by name'. This will let you see the kind of information that people put onto their profiles. I asked my Twitter followers if any of them had full, exciting or sexy profile pages, and couple of people volunteered their profiles, which are all great examples of best practice:

Getting an account on LinkedIn is very straightforward. You can easily register from the home page, and for more guidance, take a look at this video. As it's a professional network, you'll probably want your profile to match your CV or resume, so make sure that the photograph you use is suitable and that the tagline is appropriate. And then you can begin to make connections with people in your networks and with other librarians and information professionals!

One of the most useful features of LinkedIn is the groups, which are, unfortunately, only accessible to members of LinkedIn. These are a good way to expand your network and connect with other professionals based on common interests or goals. Obviously, the first group you'll want to join is the 23 Things for Professional Development group! To do this, go to the 'Groups' tab, and search for '23 Things', then click 'Join' to become a member. If you like, explore other groups too. Here are some relevant ones:

CILIP
BIALL
Sue Hill Recruitment Network
Special Libraries Association

There is plenty of advice online about how to use LinkedIn successfully, and how to get the most out of your membership (see, for example, Sharlyn Lauby's articles on optimising your profile, here). And if you like, take a look at this article by Charlie White, packed full of infographics: How are people really using LinkedIn?

2. Facebook

The world's leading social network, with over 750 million members, Facebook is most popularly used to socialise with friends and family, and to share news and photos. Most people wouldn't think about using Facebook in a professional capacity. However, it has become a powerful marketing tool and an excellent way to build more professional relationships. After all, there are 750 million people out there to build them with!

If you're not on Facebook, it's easy to sign up from the home page and create a profile. A word of warning, though: Facebook's privacy policy and its stance on intellectual property have been criticised widely (and rightly so). You may wish, therefore, to take a look at these policies in more detail before signing up, and they can be found here.

While individuals on Facebook have 'profiles', to which they add personal information, organisations and institutions have 'pages', which can have multiple owners and have a slightly different functionality. (There are also 'groups', but the less said about those, the better). Your primary concern will clearly be to become a fan of 23 Things for Professional Development! To find our fan page, simply do a search for us in the box at the top, and then click 'Like' to become a fan. This means that information posted on this fan page will appear in your news feed on your Facebook home page.

Other pages (all of which can be viewed, with or without Facebook membership) that you might be interested in are:

If you'd like to know more about Facebook, there's an interesting article on it's privacy policy here, a case study on libraries using Facebook by Jane Secker here, and for something a bit more frivolous, you could always watch the really rather good film, The Social Network, directed by Aaron Sorkin.

And then three more, just for librarians and info pros:

3. LISNPN

Image from LISNPN

LISNPN is an online network for new professionals in the library and information sector. Anyone in the sector can join the network, and at the moment there are over 900 members from 34 countries! You definitely don't have to have a professional qualification, you definitely don't have to be young, and the definition of 'new' that is employed by LISNPN is very loose indeed! So although the network is designed for prople who have joined the profession in the last decade or so, more experienced professionals are also very welcome.

LISNPN has all kinds of stuff on it, and it's really member-driven, so if there's anything that network members want to see, they can make it happen. It includes forums and blog posts, interviews, resources and reviews, and there have been (face-to-face!) meet ups and a brilliant advocacy competition since the site was launched just over a year ago. To find out more, check out this blog post by Ned Potter (aka @theREALwikiman) about the future of LISNPN.

It's a very friendly, and very user-friendly site, so to sign up, just enter your email address and password in the boxes to the left of the page, and follow the instructions. You'll get a profile with a picture and space for a brief biography, and there's also the opportunity to add 'friends'. Once your profile is up and running, go to the "Just joined LISNPN?" thread on the message board, and introduce yourself!

4. Librarians as Teachers network

Image from Teachers Monthly.

The LAT network was set up in order to offer support to librarians and information professionals who do a lot of teaching as part of their jobs, and/or for those who are taking formal teaching qualifications. Its key aims are to gather and pool knowledge and expertise, and to provide a space to share ideas and thoughts. For more information about the site's origins and purposes, have a look at this blog post from one of the founders, Johanna Anderson (aka @Jo_Bo_Anderson).

The site includes lots of information, about upcoming events, advice on organising (lib)TeachMeets and there's a forum which includes threads on book recommendations and just general teaching ideas. It's also really easy to sign up and get a profile: just click 'Register' and enter your details there.

5. CILIP communities

CILIP communities is an online network for all librarians and information professionals to share information and make connections with each other. Although a lot of the content is restricted to people who are CILIP members, there is a great deal of material on there which is open access, including links to the whole CILIP blog landscape. And just FYI: CILIP stands for Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals, and it's a UK-based library association.

If you are a CILIP member, it's very easy to sign up, to get a profile and then add contacts. In the top right hand corner of the screen, there's a 'Log In' link, which takes you through to the registration page. If you're not a CILIP member, then you can sign up with a Guest account, and this will allow you to take part in discussions on the forums, and to organise and coordinate the information you receive from CILIP.

And if you're a member of another country's library association, have a look to see if they have any equivalent communities or forums.

What to do now!

To complete this Thing, blog about your experiences with these sites. Which do you think are the most useful, and why? If you already use these sites, how do you use them, and what have you got out of them? If you don't want to use sites like these for online networking, why not? And do you agree with the founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, when he said: "Facebook is the backyard BBQ; LinkedIn is the office"? If you're an experienced online professional networker, do you think there is room for new networks like Google+?

There are TWO Things this week, and the next post, by the brilliant Bethan Ruddock, will be along shortly.

PS. I'd also like to say a very, very BIG thank you to everyone who responded to my plea for LinkedIn profile pages!

Thing 5 – Reflective Practice

2011-07-11T08:00:00.023+01:00

Thing 5 already? Yes indeed! Thing 5 is Reflective Practice. As you’ve been working through ‘the things’ you may have learnt how to use some new tools or had a refresher on the tools that you use already. You may have been encouraged to restart abandoned blogs or join Twitter with a clearer understanding of your online presence and what you want people to know about you. You may have taken steps to get some more current awareness on the go by setting up some RSS feeds. Whatever you have got out of 23 things for professional development so far take a bit of time this week to reflect.

What is reflective practice?
This post is by no means an in depth piece about the definition and theories of reflective practice, but more of an introduction to how to get going with it yourself. If you do want a more in depth look into reflective practice I’ve included some references at the end of post.

I see reflective practice as an important part of not only our professional, but personal development. It provides an opportunity to review the experiences we have, learning from them and applying what we have learnt.

How do I become a reflective practitioner?
Everyone will have their own style and preferred process of reflective practice, this is just one idea for you to consider based on the already existing models out there.

I’m all for simplicity so these models appeal to me most:

Greenaway (1995)

Borton (1970)

You’ll find a model that works for you, it might be that you adapt an already existing one like these examples.

I go through the following three steps when I’m embarking on a bit of reflective writing.

1. Recall it: this could be an event you’ve participated in, a project group you’ve been part of, a workshop you’ve delivered, an enquiry you’ve responded to…

2. Evaluate it: Take some time to consider these questions
What did you learn?
What did you enjoy?
What worked well?
What, if anything, went wrong?
What would you change?
What (potential) impact could this have in your workplace?

3. Apply it: Take some action. What can you practically apply from the experience you’ve had?

Tools for reflective practice

There are a variety of tools available to you for your reflective practice activities. Just as the process of reflective practice may vary from person to person, the tools used may also differ.

As you’re participating in the 23 things, Thing 1, a blog, is a perfect tool for communicating the evaluating part of the reflective practice process. Blogs are a great way to share your thoughts. The reason me and my colleague @sarahjison set up our blog (Librariansontheloose) was to give us a space to reflect on and evaluate our experiences as we work towards CILIP chartership. There are of course more tools including drawing, audio-visual, podcasting.

Are there any difficulties in becoming a reflective practitioner?
Yes! The most common seems to be time. We all have busy lives, so being realistic about what you can reflect on is important. If you are able to factor it into your everyday work activities, great. If not, be selective.

Reflective writing can also be a challenge, but resources to address this are plentiful online. If you’re an information professional based in the UK keep an eye out for reflective writing workshops organised by the Career Development Group, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). If you’re based in another country see if your professional body organises any similar events or put it to your employer as an opportunity for your professional development.

Sometimes the most difficult part of being a successful reflective practitioner is the application of what you’ve learnt.

Why should I bother with reflective practice?
Being a reflective practitioner does have its challenges, but it also has its rewards. Amongst other things being a reflective practitioner can…

Help you be more objective about experiences
Give you more control over your learning and development
Help you demonstrate you are active and responsive
Give you a better understanding of your work

So, there we go, a whistlestop introduction to reflective practice. Give it a try. Have a think about your approach to reflective practice. If you’ve any tips or resource to share, please do.

Want to know more? Try these…

Books/Theses

Boud D, Keogh R and Walker D (1985) Reflection, Turning Experience into Learning, Routledge.

Schön, D (1983) The Reflective Practitioner, How Professionals Think In Action, Basic Books.

Greenaway, R (1995) Powerful Learning Experiences in Management Learning and Development: A study of the experiences of managers attending residential development training courses at the Brathay Hall Trust (1988-9). The University of Lancaster, Centre for the Study of Management Learning.

Blogs

A wonderful blog post from a 23 things participant, Elaine Andrew, about attending a reflective writing workshop.
Random musings of a librarian, almost
Reflective writing workshop

Another fantastic blog post giving an insight into the difficulties of reflective practice from another 23 things participant!
Nataliafay. Librarian. Human.
Getting out of the reflective practice rut

This is from a teaching/education perspective, but still relevant to us as information professionals
Thoughts on learning processes and other musings
Understanding Reflective Practice

Presentations

A lovely introduction to reflective practice from Toby Adams
The Purpose of Reflective Practice

Another good introduction to reflective practice from Sarah Stewart
Journaling as a tool for reflective practice

*Images of reflective practice models
Greenaway (1995)
[Accessed 01/07/2011]

Borton (1970)
[Accessed 01/07/2011]

Images
The images in the post are available for use from Flickr under the Creative Commons Licence
Sky
Megaphone
Paperchain in hand

Could you help the cpd23 team? Calling (wannabe) techies!

2011-07-10T12:07:00.001+01:00

In an ideal world, we'd like to be able to give out certificates of completion to everyone who finishes the cpd23 programme. With the participant count now nearly at 700, this isn't something that we want to have to do by hand!

'Help' by LiminalMike on Flickr

We're looking for someone with the technical know-how (or the time to amass the technical know-how) to help us implement a semi-automated system. It's something I'd love to try and figure out myself, but lacking the time to do a proper job I've offering up the idea to any who'd like to have a go.

I envisage something a bit like this:

Finishers complete a form to say they're done and would like a certificate, supplying all the necessary details.
Members of the cpd23 team verify that they have really finished, and mark their entry thus.
Magic happens (this is where you come in!) to convert that table of data into personalised pdfs for each completer.

The solution you find has to work in the cloud so that all the cpd23 team can easily help with the verification/help look after the rest of the process etc.

If this vague explanation piques your interest please get in touch in the comments or @cpd23 on Twitter.

Thing 4: Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

2011-07-04T08:00:00.006+01:00

Welcome to Thing 4! In this Thing we'll explore a few tools that will help you to keep up-to-date and aware of goings on in the library and information world. The three tools we have chosen to explore are Twitter, RSS feeds and Pushnote. However if there are any other tools you use for a similar purpose, feel free tell us all about it when you blog about this Thing!

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters. Users follow other users to subscribe to each other's updates. All the updates from the users you follow will be aggregated in to one timeline that appears when you log in to the site.

Although a common belief is that Twitter is filled with celebrities tweeting about what they had for lunch, in reality few users actually use the service to send updates about the minutiae of their everyday activities, instead preferring to use it to network and share ideas or interesting things they have seen around the web. This is what makes Twitter such a valuable tool for those of us wanting to improve our current awareness.

If you already have an account, skip this paragraph! If you don't already use Twitter, follow the easy steps below to create your account and begin tweeting:

Go to www.twitter.com and click the yellow "sign up" button and follow the steps to create an account.
Once you have created your account you will be taken to your Twitter homepage where you can update your profile to include a short biography, a link to your blog and a profile picture. We recommend that you leave the Twitter Privacy box unchecked because this means other CPD23 participants can read your tweets. You can always change this at any time.
Now post your first update. Click in the status box at the top of the screen where you see the question "What's happening?" Write a comment, maybe something about your participation in the 23 Things programme. You are restricted to 140 characters, and as you type you will see the number at the top right of the box decrease. Leave enough characters to add #cpd23 at the end. This is known as a hashtag and allows Twitter users to group tweets by subject. By adding #cpd23 to your tweet your comment will be picked up by other participants. Once you click "Update", this tweet will be added to your timeline, and anyone who follows you will be able to see your tweet.
Search for @CPD23 (or click here) and click "follow". Now our tweets will appear in your timeline!

Being able to view all updates using a particular hashtag has made Twitter a valuable tool for following conferences. For example, if you wished you'd had the chance to go to SLA's 2011 conference, here are all the tweets from conference-goers: #sla2011. Another use for the hashtag is for holding real-time Twitter chats on a particular topic. A great example of this is #libchat, the brainchild of @NatalieBinder which is held every Wednesday at 8-9.30pm EST.

Once you have been tweeting for a while and have built up a few followers, Twitter can be really handy for asking questions. To help me with this blog post I asked my followers who their top 3 Twitter accounts were for LIS news and information. (I also asked them to "retweet" this message - commonly abbreviated as "RT" - so that it reached more people.) Based on the results of this, here are a few lists of people you might like to follow for starters, then why not try finding a few yourself! If you find someone interesting, take a look at who they follow and go from there. But follow as many or as few people as you personally can manage - current awareness is good but information overload is bad!

RSS
RSS (commonly known as Really Simple Syndication) allows you to view new content from web sites, blog entries, etc in one place, without having to visit the individual sites. This obviously makes following library news and developments a lot easier, as all the news comes to you!

The first step you need to take when subscribing to RSS feeds is to sign up for a feed reader. There are many available but for the purposes of this programme we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google. As an example of how to subscribe to a feed, let's get you subscribed to the CPD23 blog. In the right sidebar of this blog there is a "Subscribe to..." box. Click on the arrow next to "Posts", and click "Add to Google". This should take you to your Google Reader (you may need to sign in with your Google account) and you can then subscribe to this feed. From now on, whenever we post something new it will come straight to your Reader, eliminating the need to keep checking the site. You can subscribe to other blogs and news sites in a similar way, even if they don't have a subscribe button embedded in their site, most web browsers will have an RSS button - this may be up by the address bar, or in Firefox 4 this is in the bookmarks menu.

Here is a handy bundle of all the CPD23 blogs:
RSS feed of all CPD23 participants (this version, courtesy of Shannon Robalino, is one single feed will all the participants' posts in it)
RSS bundle of CPD23 participants (this version will load the 600+ blogs separately into your reader)

And here are a few of my favourite blogs for keeping abreast of library news and trends (again, explore for yourself, follow your interests etc!) -

Librarian by Day - transliteracy, digital library services
Phil Bradley's weblog - "where librarians and the internet meet" - search engines, web 2.0 technologies
The Wikiman - library advocacy, marketing, social media
Thoughts of a [wannabe] librarian - IT in libraries, digital divide, library news and advocacy
Agnostic Maybe - ebooks, library news. Hosts an "open-thread Thursday" discussion each week
Hack Library School - a must for LIS students, "hack" your library school experience using the web as a collaborative space
Rarely Sited - special collections and outreach
Mashable - social media and technology news

Pushnote
Pushnote is a tool that allows you to rate and comment on any website. If any of your Twitter or Facebook friends use Pushnote as well, you can add them as a friend, and then share pages with them. You can also choose to automatically post your comments to Twitter and/or Facebook if you want to share them with a wider audience. They have a handy set of FAQs on their website here: http://pushnote.com/faq

To sign up, go to www.pushnote.com, fill in your details and click sign up. You'll then have to download a browser add-on. Once this has downloaded you will have a new star button up by the address bar on your browser. Click on this to rate and comment on the page you are viewing, and see comments other people have left. The star will turn green when other people have commented on a page, and will turn red when your friends have commented or shared a page with you.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Pushnote is only available for Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers.

What to do now!
To complete this Thing, blog about your experiences with these tools. Which did you find most useful and why? Have you come across any blogs or twitter accounts that you've found particularly useful for current awareness? Have other CPD23 particpants been sharing helpful pages via Pushnote?

Images in this post by IconTexto on IconFinder.com

Real life networking for #cpd23

2011-07-01T12:56:00.025+01:00

Several events were organised to tie in with Week 5 of this programme, which looked at online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, LISNPN, LATNetwork, CILIP Communities) and real life networks (library membership organisations, special interest groups and other groups relevant to information professionals) . So far all of these events are in the UK and details have been included below. Now events are starting for the end of the programme too.

Would you like to organise an event in your area? Let us know when and where you're meeting and we'll list it here, on the calendar and on Twitter.

Wednesday 12th October 2011
Leeds 'End of CPD23' Event, 6.00pm onwards, Angel Inn, Angel Inn Yard, Leeds, LS1 6LN.
"To celebrate the end of CPD23 and all the hard work everyone's put in over the past few months! A few drinks and time to chat about the programme whilst meeting local participants. Please join up here or tweet me @libmichelle so we know how many to expect."
N.B. DO NOT try to use Google maps to find this address, it will send you to the wrong street! Angel in is down a side street off Lands Lane, a couple of doors down from the Cath Kidston shop.

Friday 30th September
Plymouth Event, from 6.30pm, The Bank (the pub next door to the Theatre Royal).

Thursday 21st July
London event, 5.30pm for 6.00pm – 7:45pm, CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE, #CILIPLNDN #CPD23.
"CILIP in London are pleased to be able to offer a chance for participants to meet up, network and consider Thing 7 (Offline networks, regional and national groups, special interest groups) during the appropriate week. The evening will feature brief informal talks looking at the CPD impact of various bodies and networks as a stimulus to discussion and we hope that it will make for some good blog posts!"
The event is free and open to all. For bookings and further information visit CILIP in London blog.

Newcastle event, 6:00pm onwards, The Town Wall pub, Pink Lane, NE1 5HX
"NE meetup for those working in libraries. This is around the networking week for CPD23, but you don't have to be doing CPD23 to come along."
To give an idea of the numbers coming (so that space can be reserved in the pub), please complete this poll.

Wednesday 20 July
Cambridge event, 5:30 pm onwards, in the back bar at The Maypole, 20a Portugal Place, Cambridge CB5 8AF. #cilipeoe #cpd23
"Regardless of whether or not you are currently a CILIP member or a CPD23 participant, come along to meet your branch committee members, representatives from various CILIP special interest groups and regional networks and, more importantly, to meet and network with each other."
For bookings and further information visit CILIP East of England's blog.

Cardiff event, 5pm onwards, in the yurt at Milgi, 213 City Road, Cardiff, South Glamorgan CF24 3JD.
The venue would like to know numbers, so please comment on this blog post if you'd like to go, or tweet @Darklecat.

Leeds event, 5:30pm until 10:30pm, Angel Inn, Angel Inn Yard, Leeds, LS1 6LN. (Note: DO NOT try to use Google maps to find this address, it will send you to the wrong street! Angel in is down a side street off Lands Lane, a couple of doors down from the Cath Kidston shop.)
"Please come along to this informal meetup with fellow CPD23 participants, new professionals, and anyone else who fancies coming along for a drink and a chat"
To give an idea of numbers, please sign up on the LISNPN event page or tweet @WoodsieGirl.

Manchester event, 6:30pm onwards, Port Street Beer House, 39-41, Port Street, Manchester, M1 2EQ (in the Northern Quarter).
"Informal meet-up for NW cpd23 participants as part of thing 7, but any interested library folk welcome."
Approximate numbers needed to book table - if you are thinking of going along, please comment on the event blog post or tweet @manynicethings.

Peterborough event, 5.30pm onwards, The Brewery Tap, 80 Westgate, Peterborough, PE1 2AA
"I am hoping for a diverse group of people including those who are not taking part in the cpd23 programme. It's a chance to meet others who work in the information industry, make new friends and share your experience."
Please email Kathy Teague or tweet @katthyt2 if you'd like to come.

Tuesday 19 July
International online event, 6pm GMT (that's 7pm BST, 8pm CET and other times elsewhere), at tinychat.com/cpd23.
Virtual, online meetup for cpd23 participants from any location.
Tinychat is a free video and text chat room provider; you don't need to register to use it. Instructions on how to join in are available here.

Oxford event, 5.30pm onwards, at The Turf Tavern, 4-5 Bath Place, Oxford, OX1 3SU.
"All LIS-interested people in Oxford welcome..."
Organised by Sonya Adams, @SportingNeasden on Twitter. No need to book, all welcome.

Monday 18 July
Birmingham event, 6pm to 8pm, Church St. branch of Urban Coffee Co. #cpd23 #cilipwm
It will be a very informal meetup; no presentations or speakers, just a gathering of local people from the LIS community. If you'd like to bring a friend or colleague along, please do. :)
No need to book. For further information see the CILIP West Midlands blog.

Edited 7/7/11, 11/7/11, 13/7/11, 14/7/11, 15/7/11, 18/7/11 by Katie Birkwood to include details of confirmed Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham, Cardiff, Oxford, Peterborough and online events. Edited 13/7/11, 14/7/11 by Jo Alcock to include details of confirmed Manchester event. Edited 19/9/11 by Niamh Page to add Leeds event and to reverse event order so newest events are at the top.

Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

2011-06-27T08:00:00.002+01:00

Don't worry - branding doesn't need to be painful!

Thing 3 is about your personal brand. We'll consider how people see your online brand, what brand you would like to convey, and how to match the two.

I have a couple of confessions:

It took over three weeks for me to decide on a blog domain for my 23 Things for Professional Development blog.
It took me an hour to brand my blog the way I wanted to before I registered it with the 23 Things for Professional Development programme.

I know what some of you might be thinking; what a waste of time! Or is it? It might *only* be a blog, but it's part of my online presence, and even more crucially, it's part of my professional online presence. I want that online presence to be an accurate reflection of who I am, whether someone comes across my blog, my Twitter account, my LinkedIn account, or any of my other online professional networks. I also want to maintain consistency across different platforms.

So what can you do to maintain a consistent image and ensure you are portraying an accurate reflection of who you are? Consider your core values and how you can convey those messages to those who meet you in person and those who find you online. Things to consider include:

Name used - do you have a nickname that you use in a professional or personal capacity? What do you want people to refer to you as? Try to be consistent across different platforms, and if you want people to know it's you remember to include your real name somewhere on each. If you're not using your real name, I'd recommend using something which is easy to pronounce - initials may make sense to you when you register on a web service, but won't make it easy to say when you meet people.
Photograph - do you want people you network with online to recognise you when you meet face to face? The chances are that you do, in which case consider using a recent photograph of yourself as an identifier, rather than a cartoon or other image.
Professional/personal identity - do you want to merge the two or do you prefer to keep them separate? Personally, I tend to take a "profersonal" approach to demonstrate both sides of my personality, but others prefer to keep different sides of their life compartmentalised.
Visual brand - one of the easiest ways to distinguish a brand for yourself is with a clear visual identity. This could be the colours you use, or a certain style of imagery - anything to help your presence stand out as something unique and individual to you, and again remember to be consistent. I have the same purple flowers background for my blog and Twitter page, and also use this (and my penguin from my blog header) on my business cards:

Activity

Time for a bit of a vanity check. Search for your name in Google and check out the first page or so of results (try to do this in a different browser or an incognito window whilst logged out of Google to get a truly objective view - if you have a very common name you may wish to use another keyword word such as library or your country of origin alongside your name).

Do any of the search results on the first page refer to you personally? Are they the things you would want someone to find if they were looking to find out information about you? Which of your profiles come first? Is there anything about you on the results page that you wouldn't want a potential colleague/employer finding out about you?

Reflect on what you discovered and think about some of the ways you could improve your personal brand. Record your thoughts on your blog, and if there are some simple things you can change, go for it!

Optional extra activity

If you are feeling particularly brave, try asking someone else (such as one of the other programme participants) what they think your blog says about your personal brand. Are the words they suggest ones that you feel describe you? If not, consider why that might be and how you could change that perception.

Recommended reading

The Practical Librarian - Manage your brand as a librarian

Andromeda Yelton - Personal Branding for New Librarians

LibWig - What's In A Name?

Georgina Hardy - Judging a blog by its cover

Danah Boyd - Controlling your public appearance

Dave Fleet - How to ruin (or build) your personal brand

Branding iron image from vapour trail on Flickr.

23 Things Webinar

2011-06-23T12:58:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, Charlotte and I were guest speakers on NCompass Live, a free online webinar hosted by the Nebraska Library Commission. The video of the webinar is now available on their website and embedded below.

One of the really interesting things from the discussion was the fact that we've been using some terms that make sense here but don't necessarily translate in other countries. Some examples include CPD (Continuing Professional Development) and Chartership (a qualification award by CILIP, the professional body for librarians and information professionals in the UK). If there are any other terms we use that don't make sense outside of the UK, let us know and we'll pull them together in a blog post.

Thing 2: Investigate some other blogs

2011-06-20T10:00:00.016+01:00

(This is Thing 2 in the programme. If you've not done so already, start off at Thing 1, here.)

Now you've set off with your own blogging, it's time to meet the neighbours: see who else is taking part and what they're saying.

First of all, you need to let other people know that you're taking part. Do that by completing the 23 Things for Professional Development registration form.

At the time of writing we already have over 100 blogs signed up: you can see an alphabetical list on our participants page. You probably don't have time to visit them all, so you can refine your choices using the country and sector tags on our Delicious bookmarks. EDITED 29/9/11 After recent changes to Delicious, our participants are now also listed on Diigo, where they are currently easier to browse.

If you think you've signed up, but don't appear in the Delicious list after a day or two, leave a comment here and we'll check what's happened.

Now, make sure that people can comment on your blog. In Blogger, look in the 'settings' tab for the 'comments' option. It's a good idea to say yes to 'show word verification for comments', because that helps to stop spam comments. If you say yes to 'comment moderation', you will receive an email (to the address specified) when someone comments - and you will have to approve the comment before it appears publicly on your blog.

Lastly, go and visit some blogs, read some posts and leave some comments to let the authors know what you thought. What did you enjoy about their post? Do you have similar or contrasting experience to share?

Being able to comment and discuss ideas is what makes blogging - and social media in general - so useful and valuable as a tool for personal and professional development. Comments on your own blog can offer advice and support, they might point you towards useful resources, or they might challenge your opinions and help you refine your arguments. By commenting on other people's blog you're likely to think more deeply about what you've read and what you think about an issue, you'll also be able to share some of your expertise, and you'll get your face (or, at least your moniker) more widely known. It can be daunting to comment on the blog of someone you may never have met, but do take the plunge, even if it's just to say hello, or to say that you enjoyed a post.

To finish Thing 2, once you've explored the cpd23 neighbourhood a little, write a post on your blog about what you've read and who you've met.

Further Reading:
If you'd like to investigate the wider world of library and librarian blogging, then why not investigate the UK Library Blogs/Bloggers Wiki, and if you know of similar sources from librarians elsewhere in the world, let us know in the comments.

EDITED 29 Sep. 2011: Delicious has implemented a lot of changes in the last few days which make it pretty hard to navigate the cpd23 blogs. You can now browse the participants on Diigo, a different bookmarking site.

Thing 1: Blogs and blogging

2011-06-20T08:02:00.001+01:00

Welcome to 23 Things for Professional Development! This is Thing Number 1.

In this Thing you will create your own blog (if you don't have one already) and will think and write about why you're taking part in 23 Things for Professional Development and what you're hoping to get out of it.

If you're already a happy, confident blogger, you can skip to What to write for Thing 1 below. Otherwise, keep reading for step-by-step blogging instructions.

Why blog?
Before we get to the how, a very few words on the why of blogging. Lots of new bloggers feel a bit strange writing down their thoughts and publishing them online for anyone to see. It might seem like a rather vain thing to do. But there are several reasons why blogging is a useful cpd tool:

blogging about what you've seen or done is a way of incorporating reflective practice into your professional life. We'll be talking more about reflective practice in Thing 5.
more prosaically, blogging about events will help you remember them more clearly in the future, and that's useful for job applications and when working towards qualifications.
you will positively impact on other people's development by blogging your ideas and experiences - professional engagement isn't just about your development, but it's also about sharing what you know with others.
by sharing your ideas and knowledge you'll get to meet new people and develop a wider professional network.

How to blog
There are various blogging platforms available online. Some of the most commonly used are Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, and Posterous. You're welcome to use any blogging platform that you like, but we're giving instructions here for Blogger, because it's quite easy to use.

Instructions

This video from Blogger shows you what to do. There are written instructions below, too, if you prefer those.

Click to enlarge

Go to http://www.blogger.com.
If you already have a Google account and you'd like your blog to be linked to that, then sign in and proceed to step three. Otherwise, click on 'Get started'.

Fill in the details on the 'Create an account' page. When you've completed all the details click 'save. You should get a confirmation email to the email address you supplied.

You should now be on the Blogger 'dashboard' page. It has two main parts - your profile, and your blogs. Investigate the 'edit profile' option and note that you can change the visibility of your name, email address and any profile picture you upload. You can change these settings at any time.
When you've set up your profile as you want, click on 'create your blog now'
Fill in the required details on each page. All the options, including blog title, URL and the template design, can be changed later.
You should now be given the option to make your first post. Posting is pretty straightforward - note that you have the option to write your post in html, or to use the 'compose' option. 'Compose' is much more straightforward - it's like using a wordprocessor, but if you have html knowledge you might sometimes want to tinker with the html of a post. Options for adding links, images and formatting are available across the top of the editing box.
When you've written a post you can preview it, save it for later, and, using the orange button, publish it online.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments to this post, and someone will be along to try and help out.

What to write for Thing 1
To start off your cpd23 blogging write a post about why you're taking part in the course. You could talk about where your career is now and where you'd like it to go, what you're hoping to learn from cpd23, which of the Things you're most (or least) looking forward to, how you feel about being a new blogger or how you'd like to improve your blogging, or anything else that relates to why you're doing this!

You'll notice that in whichever blogging platform you're using, there's normally an option to 'label' or 'tag' your post. Please tag your cpd23 posts with (you've guessed it) 'cpd23', in addition to anything else you'd like to use, so that you, we and the great wide world, can keep a track of your cpd23 progress!

And finally...
If you'd like to read more on this topic you could do worse than to look at Ned Potter's 'Everything you've ever wanted to know about library blogs and blogging!' and follow the links he suggests.

This week there are two Things to do. Thing 2 will be along shortly.

Following the programme if your workplace blocks social networking

2011-06-16T14:00:00.002+01:00

We had an interesting enquiry today about how you can follow the programme if sites such as Blogger and Twitter are blocked in your workplace. It's a shame that some workplaces do block these sites, especially when they are being used for continuing professional development, but if you're in that situation here are some tips for being able to join in.

Following the programme

Of course, to join in the programme you'll need to be able to read the blog posts from this blog. If you are currently unable to do that from your workplace, there are a couple of suggestions that might help you:

Subscribe to the blog by email - use the Follow by Email box on the right hand side to submit your email address and all new posts will be delivered to your email address.
Subscribe to the blog by RSS - if you are able to access Google Reader or another RSS reading tool (possibly a start page like Netvibes), you can subscribe to the blog using the Subscribe To links in the right hand side to receive posts by RSS. If you're new to RSS, have a look at this RSS in Plain English video to help you get set up (you may also want to use RSS feeds later in the programme to subscribe to some other 23 Things for Professional Development blogs).

Posting your own blog posts

If you are unable to access blogging platforms from your workplace, you can still join in and post to your own blog. You'll need to initially set up your blog from elsewhere, but once it's set up you can post to most blogging platforms from email. Below are links to instructions for some of the most popular platforms (again, you'll need to view these somewhere you have access to the websites):

Post to Blogger by email (instructions for setting up a Blogger blog will be included in week 1 so you may need to do this from home, or anywhere you can get access)
Post to Wordpress by email
Post to Posterous by email (also see further email tips)
Post to Tumblr by email

We hope anyone who wants to will be able to join in the programme - if you have any problems please let us know and we'll try to help sort out a solution which works for you.

cpd23 Calendar

2011-06-10T10:58:00.000+01:00

Inspired by a comment from Tom Roper, we've made a public Google Calendar listing all the Things and when they're happening, as well as a few events at which the cpd23 team are presenting. You can see the calendar below, as a widget on the right-hand side of the cpd23 blog, and at the web address https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=profdev23%40gmail.com&ctz=Europe/London

Feel free to add this to your own calendar (it should work for Google Calendars and iCal), so that you don't forget a single cpd23 Thing!

If you're new to Google Calendar and aren't sure how it works, we'll be explaining more about it in Thing 8, on 25 July.

Helping to promote cpd23

2011-05-27T12:27:00.000+01:00

A few people have asked if they can use the cpd23 logo to help promote the 23 Things for Professional Development in staff newsletters and similar. The answer is yes! You can copy the logo from here:

If you want a higher resolution version, then you can download that from Picasa.

If you want some text to use, please feel to copy this, and amend it (or not) as suitable:

Free CPD coming up!
23 Things for Professional Development is a free online programme open to information professionals at all stages of their career, in all types of role, and anywhere across the world.

Inspired by the 23 Things programmes for social media, this new programme will consist of a mixture of social media "Things" and "Things" to do with professional development. The programme starts on 20 June and will run until early October 2011.

Each week the CPD23 blog will be updated with details of the next thing to be explored. Catch up weeks and reflection weeks are built into the programme, so it's not a problem if you’re going to be away for a week or two!

Please do spread the word to any friends, colleagues, or groups that might be interested: please pass on this message and link to http://cpd23.blogspot.com. If you’re on Twitter follow @cpd23 and tweet with the hashtag #cpd23.

How do I sign up?

2011-05-26T14:28:00.003+01:00

To sign up to participate, all you need to do is to register your blog with this website. Most people will do this as part of Thing 2, but I hear there are some people eagerly asking to register already (great!)

If you already have a blog and would like to register now, please fill out the form below.

If you don't already have a blog, that's ok too - the very first thing we'll look at is how to set up your own blog, and we'll take it from there.

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All about 23 Things

2011-05-20T13:25:00.001+01:00

So what is '23 Things' anyway?
23 Things is a self-directed course aimed at introducing you to a range of tools that could help your personal and professional development as a librarian, information professional or something else. Each week, we'll write about one or more tool from our list of 23 things and invite you to try it out and/or reflect on how it could help your professional development. Some of the tasks will be practical Things for you to try out straight away, and some of them will be less immediate: ideas to try in the future, or things you can start working towards now and realise in due course or when opportunity arises!

Who's it for?
23 Things for Professional Development is for anyone who thinks they might benefit from it. You don't have to be a qualified anything, you don't have to work in a particular sector or location, you don't have to be in work, you don't have to be at library school... If you think you can learn from this then please take part!

How do I take part?
To take part, you'll need to set up your own blog (don't panic - that'll be explained in the first Thing!), register it with us (we'll explain that too) and use it to reflect on each Thing that we cover. If you already have a blog, you can used that to participate cpd23: no need to start a new one (unless you want to).

What if I need help?
Then please ask us! We'll be trying to give very clear instructions on the technical aspects of each Thing, but if anything's unclear then please comment on the blog or tweet @cpd23 and we'll try and help out. We're hoping that a wide spectrum of people will be taking part, so you can also ask fellow participants for assistance and make the most of their knowledge too. This programme is all about learning from each other, so don't be afraid to ask people questions or to answer them!

Acknowledgements
23 Things for Professional Development was inspired by 23 Things Cambridge, and is based on the original 23 Things programme that ran at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in the USA in 2006.

The Launch

2011-05-19T11:21:00.000+01:00

Now that we know what the 23 Things will be, we're moving on to planning the launch!

The plan is to launch the programme online, because it will be open to information professionals at all levels, potentially based anywhere. We're now looking for suggestions - what do you think an online launch should look like? So far we've got:

Hit the mailing lists
Have a live #cpd23 chat on Twitter
Possibly local real life meet-ups, feeding into the Twitter discussion
Guest posts on blogs (so far SLA Europe, CILIP, LISNPN - thanks!)

Anything else? We'll keep updating this main blog post with ideas as they come in, either in the comments here or on Twitter using #cpd23.

The cpd23 Things

2011-05-16T13:38:00.013+01:00

Here are the Things that we will be exploring during the 23 Things for Professional Development course this summer. There is real a mixture of stuff: some web 2.0 and/or social media gadgets and gizmos, and some ways of developing your career by more 'traditional', less technology-focussed, means. Throughout the programme will be emphasising how these Things can help your professional development, although you're likely to find lots of tools useful in other ways, too!

The Plan

Week 1 (20th June) - Blogging
Thing 1: Create your own blog, write about what you hope to get out of the programme. (If you already have a blog, then you're welcome to use that.)
Thing 2: Explore other blogs and get to know some of the other cpd23-ers.

Week 2 (27th June) - Online presence
Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

Week 3 (4th July) - Current awareness
Thing 4: RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote

Week 4 (11th July) - Reflection week
A bit of a breather to think about what we've covered so far.
Thing 5: Reflective practice

Week 5 - (18th July) Online Networks / Real Life Networks
Thing 6: Online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, LISNPN, LATNetwork, CILIP Communities)
Thing 7: National/Regional groups, Special interest groups and looking outside the library sphere

Week 6 - (25th July) Organising yourself
Thing 8: Google Calendar
Thing 9: Evernote

Week 7 - (1st August) Librarianship training options
Thing 10: Graduate traineeships, Masters degrees, Chartership, Accreditation
Thing 11: Mentoring

Week 8 - (8th August) Catch-up week / reflections
Thing 12: Putting the social into social media

Week 9 - (15th August) Filesharing/Collaboration
Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis & Dropbox

Week 10 - (22nd August) Organising your references
Thing 14: Zotero / Mendeley / citeulike

Week 11 - (29th August) Getting involved
Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events
Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published.

Week 12 - (5th September) Presenting information
Thing 17: Prezi / data visualisation / slideshare [postponed until Monday 19th September]
Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

Week 13 - (12th September) Catch-up week / reflection
Thing 19: Some time to think about how you might integrate the Things so far into your workflow and routines.
Week 14 - (19th September) Extra catch-up week and Thing 17

Week 15 - (26th September) Careers
Thing 20: Library Day in the Life and Library Routes/Roots

Week 16 - (3rd October) Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview
Thing 21: How to identify your strengths, how to capitalise on your interests, how to write something eyecatching that meets job specs.
Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience

Week 17 - (10th October) Final reflection
Thing 23: What have you learnt and where do you want to go from here?

Once you've finished
Feedback and certificates (certificate sign up ends on 30 November 2011!)

There are some great guest bloggers lined up to contribute to the programme - details of those to follow soon!

Welcome!

2011-04-06T07:23:00.000+01:00

Inspired by the 23 Things programmes for social media, this new programme will consist of a mixture of social media "Things" and "Things" to do with professional development and will run from the end of June to the start of October 2011.

It is aimed at people working at all levels of the library/information profession, from graduate trainees through to the more experienced. If you're interested but not sure you match this description (for example if you're currently studying LIS or are working in a different field) join in anyway - all are welcome!