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

When mentoring malfunctions

Mentoring's one of the standard activities that you'll come across in the information profession. We're very caring and sharing like that, wanting to support people in their professional development. As you start your career as an information professional, you'll regularly hear the advice: get a mentor. Or, as you advance in your career and seem to be doing well, you'll be advised to become a mentor. This is fine: yes, both being mentored and being a mentor can be excellent relationships, and very useful for both parties involved. But.....mentoring relationships are like any other relationships: they can go wrong. And they can go wrong in a whole lot of ways. I've heard of mentors and mentees whose relationships have malfunctioned due to mismanagement, wrong focus, disinterest, and inappropriate behaviour. Like any other relationship, bullying and abuse can happen in mentor/mentee arrangements, but it can be very difficult for the participants to escape t...

Time to shut down?

I've been thinking a lot recently about what my blog is actually contributing. I'm not a leading 'thinker', I'm not an investigative reporter, I'm not really great at anything, I'm just, well, here. It's been great for meeting other law librarians, both in the UK and internationally, but do I actually really contribute anything useful or new? I don't think so, to be very honest. So what's the point of me continuing this blog? I can now post (hopefully) useful stuff to the law.librarian collaborative blog, which I would otherwise have posted here, so this blog has become kind of surplus to requirements really. I started it to post items I thought were relevant to my field, so I could refer back to them easily, but law.librarians does a far better job of it together than I could ever do on my own! I may continue to post items of relevance to Scots law only, or the more fun / frivolous that doesn't really fit on law.librarians, but I think that...

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 ...