Skip to main content

I am a mirror, so I'd watch where you're pointing that laser gun, kiddo

Ok, I'm caught up (ish)! I shall hold back on the firing of glitter guns, and the triumphal music, while I sit quietly, and Think About What I've Done for Thing 19. This is the type of Thinking About What I've Done that's good, unlike when as a child I would be sent up to my room, to Think About What I've Done. That was bad. And usually involved climbing a wall/tree/building I wasn't supposed to.

Anyway, what have I done with the Things I've looked at? And what have I used that's new? Well, to be totally honest...I've done everything, and use nothing new, mainly becuase I'm either already using the tools anyway, or they're not relevant to my current role.
I blog, and have done for years; I subscribe to the RSS feeds of blog that interest me; I manage my online presence reasonably actively; I use RSS for current awareness daily;  I'm active in my professional groups; I organise myself the way that works best for me; I'm qualified, Chartered, and preparing for Revalidation; I'm informally mentoring and soon to be trained to formally mentor others, I use social media daily; I use the filesharing and collaboration tools that are appropriate for the situation I want to use them for; I don't need a citation organiser tool; I attend, present at (if forced!) and organise professional events; my advocacy is focussed on my own service; I don't need to use presentation software, and the screencast software I'd like to use isn't accessible in work.

So, what's happened so far is that I've confirmed that I'm happy with the tools I'm using, and that they fit the jobs I need them to do best. I've had a look at other tools as we went along, but decided that they are either answering a need I don't have, or that they are unavailable in my workplace, and so not currently useful to me.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The mysteries of cataloguing

Cataloguing: an arcane art, where each piece of punctuation is significant, and commas and semi colons are all-powerful. Well, they are in "proper" libraries, where in-depth research of esoteric points goes on, and the precise spelling of Christian names, and information such as when a person lived and died can be crucial in pinpointing obscure facts. Here, we have our own catalogue system. It doesn't have a name, but if it did, it would probably be something along the lines of "I need this book NOW, no I don't care about the precise spelling of the authors middle name, or their date of birth." I know, I know, it's not snappy, but it's accurate. Cataloguing demands are different in a commercial law firm: we don't care about much more than what it's about, who wrote, when, and what jurisdiction it covers. And what we really, really care about is "where the hell is it". Law books are amazing: they have the power to move themselves f...

Careering along

When I look around at the activities of information professional groups, it seems that there’s a disparity. There’s quite often a lot of support and funding available for those who’re just starting out in the profession, but a desert of nothingness for those of us who’re “just getting on with it”. If you’re a new professional, you have lots of groups to support you as you progress in your early career, various prize funds available for essay and report writing, access to bursaries for conference attendance, eligibility for awards for being new and enthusiastic. But what do you get when you’re past that bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed first 5 years (5 years seems to be the approximate cut-off point for becoming “established” and no longer new). What happens when you’ve already received a bursary from an organisation earlier in your career and so wouldn’t be eligible for one now, meaning you’re not able to attend events or training? When you’re heavily involved in a project but not at ...

UK librarian blogs - the list so far

I’ve pulled the previous entries into one alphabetical list, with a few categories. Will be back later with more detailed discussion of what I’ve learned by doing this. And, as always, if you know of other librarian blogs, let me know and I’ll add them in! Institutional Library Blogs / Professional Group Blogs aRKive Appears to be the blog of the Reid Kerr College library, or someone related to the Library, but unable to confirm as it doesn’t have any ‘about’ section that I can find. Lots of posts about library topics, books, IT… Brit Lib Blogs Google Group There’s a Google Group for British librarian bloggers! Unfortunately it looks to be pretty much unused at the moment. CILIP Blogs CILIP has various blogs by either staff, or links to relevant blogs, available from the Communities section. Varying levels of activity on these blogs – the PTEG blog has one post from November 2007, while Lyndsay’s CILIP Blog has been going has been going for almost a year, with at le...