Short of time or money? Geographically isolated from similar libraries and obvious peer groups? Want to invest in your local community? Tired of looking at teeny tiny pictures of people?
Try networking locally with people from other types of libraries; academic, special, public and school. You already have something in common to talk about - the council where your work, local restaurants and entertainment, overlapping audiences - so conversation should be easy. The payoff in ideas and energy from working across special interest groups can be tremendous.
To begin, try a pub night or host a reception for library and information workers from two institutions, for example university libraries and public libraries in the same council. Placing invitations on social networks such as LISNPN, Twitter will add special librarians and school librarians in your area to the mix.
With the help of some colleagues I plan to organise a pub night in the autumn for my public library colleagues, library workers from the University down the road, school librarians across the council and any specials librarians we can find. Stay tuned to hear the results. For further resources, London Information and Knowledge Exchange share tips on how they arrange their events at LIKE start your own
This post is dedicated to the generous Cambridge librarians who brought us cpd23 and their great local network which includes academic and public library workers. I'd also like to shout out to the CILIP staff and members who are working hard to build and represent a unified profession. The more we get to know each other locally, the more efficient our advocacy on regional and national levels.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
Saturday 23 July 2011
Oh, Dearie Me...a defense of LinkedIn
I'm delighted to have be been introduced to St Evelin's cpd23 blog and am moved to defend LinkedIn. As a former HR person in libraries (stop booing!) and someone who currently teaches introduction to social networks classes in public libraries I have a few things to say.
Privacy on LinkedIn: the nature of privacy concerns seems to be age-linked. While I have a hard time sharing the minutia of my life and personal opinions on social networks, I am more than happy to have people know where I've worked and what type of work I've done. LinkedIn is relaxing precisely because the only information shared there is CV related - no one is asking what my relationship status is, expecting to see photos of me having fun or wanting to hear what entertainment I'm enjoying or not at the current moment. Dry as dust it may be, but LinkedIn is where you can learn about me and my areas of expertise.
Clubbiness: Yes! LinkedIn provides the access to people that a club membership might. But you don't have to go anywhere, learn secret handshakes, make small talk with boring people or any of the rest of it. And everyone is clear what the agenda is, so no need for social smokescreens when what you really want is Access to Information. Perfect for librarians who don't drink gin.
Usefulness: The value of LinkedIn is not in who you're connected with, but in their connections...your network. Imagine you're interested in duplicating an initiative at The New York Public Library. You search your LinkedIn network for New York Public Library and discover that a second level connection of yours (friend of a friend) works there. You can send her a LinkedIn message saying you're interested in learning about a particular initiative and that you've worked with Estelle (your connection in common). This is completely valid, the LinkedIn member will in no way be offended by your message and will likely introduce you to the correct person to talk to at New York Public Library.
Some recently told me "LinkedIn didn't get me a job" Well, LinkedIn is not an employment service - it doesn't use you, you use it. Most potential employers will check to see if you have a LinkedIn profile, so if you are looking for a job take the time to set up an outline CV on LinkedIn and populate it with a few connections. Unless you're in marketing/PR you won't be expected to have a million connections, and the best ones are those based on real life working relationships. And remember to look up your potential employer and interviewers before heading into an interview...the background information you gain could be valuable!
Changes at LinkedIn: Like Facebook (which once upon a time only accepted members with university email addresses) LinkedIn has diversified over the years. As LinkedIn's popularity has grown, members have started connecting with people that they've never met, rather than following the guidelines of only connecting with people with whom you have worked in the past. This dilutes the value of a LinkedIn introduction, but LinkedIn has tried to offset this by adding newer features like groups and discussions. Thoughts?
Privacy on LinkedIn: the nature of privacy concerns seems to be age-linked. While I have a hard time sharing the minutia of my life and personal opinions on social networks, I am more than happy to have people know where I've worked and what type of work I've done. LinkedIn is relaxing precisely because the only information shared there is CV related - no one is asking what my relationship status is, expecting to see photos of me having fun or wanting to hear what entertainment I'm enjoying or not at the current moment. Dry as dust it may be, but LinkedIn is where you can learn about me and my areas of expertise.
Clubbiness: Yes! LinkedIn provides the access to people that a club membership might. But you don't have to go anywhere, learn secret handshakes, make small talk with boring people or any of the rest of it. And everyone is clear what the agenda is, so no need for social smokescreens when what you really want is Access to Information. Perfect for librarians who don't drink gin.
Usefulness: The value of LinkedIn is not in who you're connected with, but in their connections...your network. Imagine you're interested in duplicating an initiative at The New York Public Library. You search your LinkedIn network for New York Public Library and discover that a second level connection of yours (friend of a friend) works there. You can send her a LinkedIn message saying you're interested in learning about a particular initiative and that you've worked with Estelle (your connection in common). This is completely valid, the LinkedIn member will in no way be offended by your message and will likely introduce you to the correct person to talk to at New York Public Library.
Some recently told me "LinkedIn didn't get me a job" Well, LinkedIn is not an employment service - it doesn't use you, you use it. Most potential employers will check to see if you have a LinkedIn profile, so if you are looking for a job take the time to set up an outline CV on LinkedIn and populate it with a few connections. Unless you're in marketing/PR you won't be expected to have a million connections, and the best ones are those based on real life working relationships. And remember to look up your potential employer and interviewers before heading into an interview...the background information you gain could be valuable!
Changes at LinkedIn: Like Facebook (which once upon a time only accepted members with university email addresses) LinkedIn has diversified over the years. As LinkedIn's popularity has grown, members have started connecting with people that they've never met, rather than following the guidelines of only connecting with people with whom you have worked in the past. This dilutes the value of a LinkedIn introduction, but LinkedIn has tried to offset this by adding newer features like groups and discussions. Thoughts?
Sunday 17 July 2011
reflective practice
Hurrah! Reflective practice sounded like it was going to be a touchy-feely navel-gazing hyphen-fest, but it just means evaluating your work. That can still be hard as the to-do list beckons.
Evaluating work is necessary to improving performance and decreasing the time it takes to do a piece of work next time. While I find it tricky to set aside hours to evaluate my work in writing, if you do then you'll be ready for:
I've been doing the easy parts and skipping pieces of work that seem to offer little upside (like Pushnote which so many people have had difficulties with).
In general the week by week unveiling of new tasks is incredibly motivating, as is the feeling of being in this cpd23 boat with a lot of other inexperienced sailors.
This blog has been resurrected half-heartedly, but I think I've already reflected on that in earlier posts. Instead, I have put some energy into adding to the Twitter feed and been librarianishly pleased to not just be a taker of information but also a giver.
More time spent reading other cpd23 blogs would be useful, as would adding feeds to Google Reader and reading them.
It has been about a month since starting cpd23; I will check in with reflective practice on cpd23 again at month 3.
Evaluating work is necessary to improving performance and decreasing the time it takes to do a piece of work next time. While I find it tricky to set aside hours to evaluate my work in writing, if you do then you'll be ready for:
- your upcoming assessment
- the interview
- handing off projects to other people
- sharing best practices with colleagues
I've been doing the easy parts and skipping pieces of work that seem to offer little upside (like Pushnote which so many people have had difficulties with).
In general the week by week unveiling of new tasks is incredibly motivating, as is the feeling of being in this cpd23 boat with a lot of other inexperienced sailors.
This blog has been resurrected half-heartedly, but I think I've already reflected on that in earlier posts. Instead, I have put some energy into adding to the Twitter feed and been librarianishly pleased to not just be a taker of information but also a giver.
More time spent reading other cpd23 blogs would be useful, as would adding feeds to Google Reader and reading them.
It has been about a month since starting cpd23; I will check in with reflective practice on cpd23 again at month 3.
Monday 11 July 2011
Tweeps, Eggs and Cartoon Women
Suggestion on Twitter that a good conversation starter is "I think I know you from Twitter". This will be particularly useful when I meet large eggs or cartoon women.
Heading to the Umbrella library conference soon, so I checked to make sure my web presence was up-to-date and correct. New photo for twitter was the first priority. Webcam mug shot but at least it resembles a current, vaguely professional me. Not vacation me with sunglasses and huge smile (unlikely sight at conference) or younger me from 2008 (hey, wasn't that just yesterday?). I also took another look at Linkedin; my profile is bare of recommendations or job details, but the information is correct. My employer doesn't print business cards and making my own would be frowned on, so I will be using LinkedIn to follow up on real life meetings.
tweeps?
I will be meeting face-to-face with people whose #ub11 and #cpd23 tweets I have been reading! This is a breakthrough entirely due to cpd23 encouraging me to tweet. I'd set up Twitter a year ago but I used it only for information gathering via Tweetdeck. Asking on Twitter about whether there were any #cpd23 people got a positive response and now I have a few people to look out for at the conference, which gives me a warm and cozy feeling.
If you've come across amusing library tweeters, please share. @orkneylibrary and @beathigh make me smile.
Heading to the Umbrella library conference soon, so I checked to make sure my web presence was up-to-date and correct. New photo for twitter was the first priority. Webcam mug shot but at least it resembles a current, vaguely professional me. Not vacation me with sunglasses and huge smile (unlikely sight at conference) or younger me from 2008 (hey, wasn't that just yesterday?). I also took another look at Linkedin; my profile is bare of recommendations or job details, but the information is correct. My employer doesn't print business cards and making my own would be frowned on, so I will be using LinkedIn to follow up on real life meetings.
tweeps?
I will be meeting face-to-face with people whose #ub11 and #cpd23 tweets I have been reading! This is a breakthrough entirely due to cpd23 encouraging me to tweet. I'd set up Twitter a year ago but I used it only for information gathering via Tweetdeck. Asking on Twitter about whether there were any #cpd23 people got a positive response and now I have a few people to look out for at the conference, which gives me a warm and cozy feeling.
If you've come across amusing library tweeters, please share. @orkneylibrary and @beathigh make me smile.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)