Thing 12 - Social networks

Thing 12 seems to be covering a lot of the ground that we've already gone over in terms of how we use and feel about social networks. I've already said in previous posts that I'm a very limited user of these networks. My Facebook pages are private and I don't think I'll ever use them for work purposes. I'm still intending having a good look at Linkedin, but time just seems to run away from me. It's on my expanding list of things to do though. I'm afraid I find Twitter a complete waste of time for professional purposes. There's just so much rubbish on it. I know I can choose who to follow, and I have kept it quite a short list, but I just don't have time to filter through even that stuff to find the odd gem.

Social networking does have a place though. I've made contact with other librarians via CPD23 that I would never have met normally and have enjoyed establishing some relationships and sharing ideas. It's really good to be able to get a feel for who and what's out there and what others are doing, both in the same sector and in the wider profession. I don't think social networking will ever replace face-to-face contact as I don't believe it allows you to establish the same depth of relationship. It is much more superficial and it's very easy to ignore an e-mail, blog post or twitter feed. You can't really do the same when the person is standing in front of you. I'm glad I've dipped my toe in the waters of social networking though. I have enjoyed writing these blogs and seeing what everyone else is up to. Surely that's the whole point of CPD23, to get us trying out things we haven't done before and see what works best for us. I don't think anyone doing CPD23 will use all of the tools we are being introduced to, but we cherry pick the ones that suit our own way of working and doing things.

Thing 11 - Mentoring

Like me, many people doing the CPD23 things will be registered for CILIP Chartership and have a mentor. However, I have never been a mentor myself. I suspect that I'm probably in the majority there. My experience of the mentoring process to date has been fairly limited. I admit that I am making my way through Chartership extremely slowly and find it hard to get motivated. My mentor also works in academic librarianship but at a University rather than my own sector of FE. He has recently moved away though and, although I said I would be happy to continue the mentoring relationship via e-mail, I'm not sure if I've done the right thing. I said in earlier posts that I am a champion procrastinator and not having to talk to someone face-to-face and attempt to justify why I've done nothing will not do me any good. It's easy to ignore an e-mail from my mentor so maybe, in my case, finding a new local one would be better. I'll maybe give it to Christmas, see how I get on and then make a decision.

My mentor did give me some useful tips and advice on the chartership process and the kind of things I should be including in my submission. He was especially helpful when I was getting confused by the criteria that CILIP have so there is definite value in being able to talk to someone, share ideas and find solutions to problems that you might be having.

I'm not at all sure about asking someone to be my mentor outside Chartership though. I think that sets it up too formally. It's good to network and establish professional relationships but actually asking someone to be your mentor is an extra step that I'm not sure I'd ever take.

Thing 10 - becoming a librarian

I’ve been reading lots of other blogs where people have said that, due to their use of libraries as a child, they always wanted to work in a library. I have to be honest and say it was never a burning ambition of mine, to be a librarian. Like many others I was a voracious reader and heavy user of my local public library, but it never occurred to me that it could be a job I might want to do.

At school I had no real idea of what I wanted to do. I was good at English and History and read a lot. I was hopeless when it came to maths, science or the arts. A careers adviser suggested that I could do librarianship at university, based on the fact I read a huge amount, and the idea just stuck. I suppose you could say I fell into librarianship for lack of any other career path presenting itself. I sometimes think that 17 or 18 is far too young to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. I would possibly do something different if I could choose again, based on the person I am now, but that’s not to say I regret my career choice. I think (hope!) I’ve turned out to be not too bad at it.

In Scotland a 4 year degree course is the norm for undergraduates and, at the time, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen offered an honours course in Librarianship and Information Studies. It meant I could stay at home and not be too poor a student (this was in the days of student grants. In retrospect I was fairly well off!) so that’s what I did. It’s been 15 years since I graduated so my memories of the course are relatively faint. I remember enjoying most of it (AACR2 and Marc aside!) and still keep in touch with some of the friends I made.

During my honours year I realised that I had no practical experience. Some of the people on my course had worked in libraries prior to doing the degree and were talking about going straight in at Assistant Librarian level once they had graduated. I knew that this was unrealistic for me, and that I might also struggle to get full-time work. I already worked part-time in a shop which gave me some experience of customer care etc. but practical library experience was the problem. I decided to write to all the library services in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire and ask if they had any part-time posts available. Most wrote back to say that any vacancies would be advertised in the local press but one invited me to come in for a chat with the Librarian. Happily this led to me being offered an evening position which I started in the January of my 4^th year. In June, just before my graduation, one of the full-time staff left and I got her post. This meant that I began working in my first full-time library job as soon as I had finished my degree.  Northern College was still using the old Brown system when I started but they automated 3 months later. It was fascinating to see how the library coped with the change of system and my manager felt I was really helpful in assisting some of the older members of the team who were adjusting to a computerised way of doing things.

A few years later came a sideways move to another Information Assistant post at University of Aberdeen. I had enjoyed working in Northern College but felt that it was limited in scope. I hoped that the larger institution would offer more opportunity for training, development and advancement. I was right about the training and development side of it, but not so much about advancement. I applied for lots of promoted posts but was always being told that I had been second choice. That got a bit irritating after a while! Often the job would go to someone external to the university who had been doing similar work already. I understood the reasons, but it didn’t make it any easier. (Somewhat ironically University of Aberdeen now advertise most of their jobs internally. I’d like to get back in there but I don’t think it’s going to happen.)

A few years and many interviews later I applied for the post of Assistant Librarian at Aberdeen College and have been here ever since. I’ve been in this post for 10 years now, but the job has changed quite a lot. My CPD has never really stopped. Initially it was all about the books but with the rapid expansion of internet resources, development of e-books and more focus on user education I have had to change and adapt to new circumstances. 

10 years on I am looking for the next step. I’ve had a variety of interviews over the last few years for Librarian posts with other organisations but they are few and far between and competition is fierce. RGU no longer offers the 4 year degree course but does have a very popular postgraduate option. Although relatively affluent, Aberdeen is a small city with limited employment opportunities and having a local university putting out a new batch of qualified librarians every year doesn’t help matters! So, back to CPD and trying to update my skills again. I’m progressing extremely slowly through my charter, trying to find local training events that don’t cost very much and won’t take up too much work time and hopefully using CPD schemes such as this to update my skills and knowledge.

Reflecting on it all, this career that I just fell into hasn’t turned out too badly after all.

Thing 9 - Evernote

I did sign up for Evernote but it wouldn't work properly for me. I have a feeling it was to do with not being able to download stuff on to my work network, so it wasn't quite right. I looked interesting but, as I can't use it at work, I didn't think it would be worth me pursuing.

Thing 8 - Google Calendar

At last, a nice easy short thing to do. Which means this will also be a short post. I had a look at Google Calender and, whilst I can see it's merits, I won't be signing up any time soon. I use Outlook at work so have access to the mail function there and am perfectly happy with it. I can see that anyone with lots of outside work commitments and activities might find it really useful but I don't think it's right for me.

I think that's my shortest post yet. Hopefully there'll be a few more like this and I might start to catch up a bit!

Thing 7 - face-to-face networking

I’m gaining quite a discouraging picture of my professional development through doing the 23 things. I’ve already found out that I’m a reluctant user of online networking tools and am about to admit that I do very little in the way of face-to-face professional networking either. I suppose this is part of 23 things though, to help us find some professional strengths and weaknesses and introduce us to tools to help with those weaknesses.

I’ve been a member of Cilip for some years now, with the ultimate aim of completing my charter. I’ve been qualified for 15 years and in a professional post for 10, so you can see how slowly that aim is progressing! I enjoy reading Update magazine, although I do find that I don’t look at it nearly so often now that it’s online. It’s just another thing for me to remember to go and look at. At least if the magazine was lying on my desk I was likely to pick it up during a slow half-hour. My engagement with Cilip has gone no further than that though.

As part of my Cilip membership I’m also in both the Career Development Group and Colleges of Further and Higher Education. Again, I read the magazines and subscribe to the COFHE jisc mailing list, but go no further than that.

I know that Cilip Scotland has a fairly active local branch, but have avoided getting involved with that for various reasons. It’s something I might have considered but, unfortunately, until the main reason is gone, then I won’t be going down that route.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, as I’ve remembered that I have done some face-to-face networking in the past. We have a local network called Grampian Information and I have thoroughly enjoyed going to their annual conferences over the last 10 years. I wasn’t able to go last year, and will have to miss it again this year due to an overlap between some annual leave and the conference date. Fingers crossed for next year though as I was disappointed that I couldn’t go. The conferences are usually interesting, informative and a good way of meeting new people and catching up with friends from previous jobs or university. I do struggle with networking and talking to new people though. Maybe I should take a look at the book mentioned on Jo Alcock’s Blog (the link to which can be found from the Thing 7 thread on the CPD23 site) as it looks as though it would be ideal for me.

Another obstacle to face-to-face networking is that, as with organisations all over the country, reduced staffing and budgets make it very difficult to get to external CPD events. I did manage to get to quite a few local events in the past but this is now very restricted. I keep an eye out for free events which fit in with the working hours but there’s not much coming up at the moment.

Reflecting on all of this (see, I’m getting better at it!) I think I need to take some action. Initially I’m going to see if I can get hold of the networking book as I think it would help me in those situations. Then I’m going to make an effort to find local events that I can manage to get to. Although I find the thought of these events a little scary, I know I always enjoy them once I’m there so time to do something about it.

Thing 6 - Online Networks

I've found Thing 6 somewhat similar to Thing 4 in that it's all about how I use social networking. Any regular readers will know that I've only really just dipped my toe into the waters of social networking and that I find the whole thing slightly unnerving. However, saying that, some of the professional networking I've done via CPD23 has been interesting and useful and I want it to continue.

So, the online networks then. I've been on Facebook for sometime now and it's strictly a personal thing. I don't think I'll ever change my opinion on that, as I don't particularly want professional contacts seeing my friends attempts to get me to join their Mafia Wars games or my nieces asking me to contribute to Farmville. Similarly, I don't think they would find the minutae of library and information work all that interesting so I prefer to keep the two apart.
I had a look at the 4 LinkedIn profiles that were on the CPD23 things website and that is something that I'll possibly consider doing. I do like the thought of my professional social networking being strictly professional, so this would probably be a good thing for me. I still need to give some thought to my personal branding though before I take the plunge there. Watch this space!
I briefly checked out Cilip Communities but I'm not sure I like the format. I've been a member of Cilip for a long time but haven't really engaged much beyond paying the annual subscription. Maybe I should set aside some time to see what's on offer. Looking at the Communities site though I don't feel encouraged.

I think one of the main things that puts me off all this social networking is that there's just so much of it out there. All this information coming at me just gets a bit too much. I already read, and contribute to, various Jisc mailing lists and look at a few blogs and professional websites. There's only so much that one person can do. I think I also like the fact that Jisc mailing lists come directly to my e-mail inbox. I don't have to go out of my way to interact with them whereas with services such as Twitter I have to remember to check it. Sounds like I'm being very lazy here but the job I'm paid to do has to take precedence. I know that social networking can enhance my current post, but I have to balance that with making sure that my work gets done.

As usual, apologies for Thing 6 being so far behind everyone else. Two weeks off and then pretty much straight back into students being on site doesn't really leave time for CPD. I'm hoping to catch up before the end though.