Thing 8 - Google calendar

Thing 8 – Google calendar

I have a little pink refillable diary that I carry around in my handbag. At home I have a little diary that I keep handy in the kitchen (we don’t party in the kitchen but lots of our conversations take place in there!) I have a wall calendar next to the phone in my hall.

At work I have an A5 diary in which I keep a note of various things. I have a small spiral bound pictorial fold out calendar on my desk (always Cornwall!). I have a pink A4 card calendar of dates stuck on the wall above my desk. We have an A4 team diary in which we record annual leave, courses, training sessions etc.. I have my boss’s work calendar on my Outlook email.

In February 2008 I felt overwhelmed with the number of dates I was trying to remember from all my different diaries, so I registered with an online calendar – airset. In the early days I was really organised and had different coloured highlighting for different types of activities and for the children’s activities, but lately that has slipped a bit. I can share my airset calendar with anyone I wish; I can create a shared login, I can email a day, a month, a year or the whole thing to any email address, and I can export it to anywhere (and, equally, I can import to it from anywhere).

I am obsessed with not forgetting anything!

I don’t think I need to investigate yet another calendar!

Moving swiftly on to Thing 9!

cpd23 - things6 and 7!

Cpd23 – Thing 6 – Online networks

For a very long time I made a point of avoiding using social networking sites! Ok, so I joined friendsreunited in the very early days, and used it to contact school friends with whom I had lost touch, and later joined other sites for specific reasons. For example, I reluctantly joined facebook when my son’s school was under threat of being closed, with a view to joining the group, but when I investigated the group, I didn’t quite get the “like” idea, so never really took part. What I have used facebook for is keeping in touch with relatives who live far away, and friends I don’t see very often. Only in more recent months have I “liked” professional groups, preferring to keep facebook for the personal!

Before joining Twitter I was used to using Yammer, a microblogging site that was devoted to a specific institution, and I found this quite helpful in my work life. I then joined Twitter because I ran a “new technologies day” for my team members at which I and a few other staff talked about what was happening out there on the internet that might be of use to us as professionals. A colleague was very keen on Twitter, extolling its virtues for answering queries, so I joined to see what it was all about. I admit to having blown hot and cold about it, but now that I have “new” Twitter I can now see Tweets from people I don’t follow etc. without having to subscribe to some other service, so I’m feeling a bit more confident about its use.

I joined LinkedIn for similar reasons as I joined Twitter – to see what all the fuss was about! I am always afraid of having too many contacts on these types of websites, afraid that I will spend all my time on them rather than on meeting up with people in real life, or doing some real life work! In reality my LinkedIn activity is centred around friends! Lately, I have joined some of the groups (again, keeping them to a minimum) and found some of the discussions taking place within those groups quite useful – and I’ve even contributed to some!

Thing6 has alerted me to other networks that I have been vaguely aware of, but I am reluctant to join any more; I only work part-time and I have found myself doing more and more at home in order to keep up with all the information I’ve been extracting from Twitter etc., so I am in danger of collapsing under the weight of it all. I must keep a sense of perspective though; I’ve managed to do my job perfectly well over the last 24 years without much recourse to online networks, but I appreciate that the world is changing and I have to keep up - somehow!



Cpd23 – Thing 7 – face-to-face networks and professional organisations

I have been a member of CILIP (formerly the Library Association) since 1979. The reason I joined (when I was a student) was because without being a member it was not possible to get a professional job in a library! Over the years I have been a member of various CILIP special interest groups, but have not really made the most of my subscription, not having been to many events. Lots of reasons for this, mainly based on the fact that I work part-time and have difficulty enough fitting in all my work. I’ve never been on a committee, nor contributed anything to the groups really. This is partly because of my lack of confidence; this is something that I find difficult to deal with. I have always paid the subscription to CILIP myself and have never claimed the tax back.

When I worked for a pharmaceutical company, I was a member of AIOPI (Association of Information Officers in the Pharmaceutical Industry). This was a great association that cost very little to join and held some really useful training sessions.

Thing7 refers to Jo Alcock’s blog post on networking for introverts. I had already found and read this post with great interest, being an introvert myself (although I did puzzle over the idea that introverts think to talk (yes, I do a lot of that) and that extroverts talk to think (yes, I do a lot of this too, but it’s usually to myself or to someone I would describe as a “safe person” so does this count?!)).

Another thing that resonated with me was the idea that as an introvert I am much happier to lead a discussion in my team than I am to participate in one! I also don’t have a problem standing in front of a group presenting on something I know about (not that I have had occasion to do that much lately!)

A few years ago I read a very helpful book, “How to talk to anyone: 92 little tricks for big success in relationships” by Leil Lowndes. A bit of fun really but some interesting techniques for making socialising a bit easier and a more positive experience. I’ve never read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”, but this appears to have influenced Leil; perhaps I should.


Right! That's things 6 and 7 tackled: Thing 8 - here I come!

Thing 5 – reflective practice

Thing 5 – reflective practice


It’s at this time of year that I always have to indulge in a period of reflection: I’ve recently had my annual staff development review, so reflection is on my mind at the moment. I’ve discovered that although what I write is almost entirely dependent upon my mood at the time, the only sure thing is it will be always be negative! That’s just me! Lacking in confidence, a pessimist, whilst at the same time being ambitious and a perfectionist!

Over the last year there have been a number of catalysts to me arriving at a point where I thought I could undertake the cpd23. Going to the CIG conference in September 2010 made me realise there were other people out there who were experiencing the same problems, issues and successes as I was, was one of them. Linking with other cataloguers on Twitter was another. The CILIP Executive Briefing on RDA was another confidence-boosting session, as well as being an avenue for discovering more about RDA. All this whilst in the background our new VC was encouraging us to be a little more vocal about our achievements; ok so he was really talking about the academics, but why not the service areas too? After all, our library achieved high results in the student experience survey so we must have been doing something right, and we needed to recognise what these things were so we could expand on them.

And then there’s my blog. Originally I started a professional blog but really felt I had nothing to say that would be of any interest to anyone else, but having networked with cataloguers and seen what people were grappling with, I thought I had one or two areas of experience that might be useful to other cataloguers, so I started to blog more regularly. I also contributed a couple of articles to the high visibility blog, started up by Celine and Venessa.

My reasons for taking part in the cpd23 programme were really to see if there were other things out there on the web, or other practices that I could use to help me with my day-to-day work. So far, this has proved to be true and I’ve incorporated RSS feeds into my iGoogle page, considered my online identity, found loads of cataloguers out there to network with – and decided that I need to devote at least 2 hours a week to the process in order to do it justice and get as much as possible from it!!

I've also looked into just what exactly reflective practice is and found a brilliant site (amongst the many) which explains it to me really well. Hopefully, I shall continue to refect upon my learning and apply it to my "day" job for a long time to come.

Ok, now to Thing 6 – bring it on!

Thing 4 – Twitter, RSS feeds, Pushnote

Thing 4 – Twitter, RSS feeds, Pushnote

I know, I’m miles behind on my cpd23!

Luckily for me I’ve been registered on Twitter, and have used it for about a year now, so I can put my hand on my heart and say I’ve reflected on that one (see my earlier blog post).

I can also put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve previously tried RSS feeds, but not found them easy to use! Reading through thing4 made the use of RSS feeds sound easy, and more useful than I had previously realised, so I gave it a go! I’m not sure how I did it, but initially I managed to get the cpd23 feed onto my browser bar, so it’s there permanently, although unintentionally! So far so good, now to follow the actual instructions and get it onto my Google account. Oh, seems like I have somehow managed to get other feeds onto my Google Reader page – which is a bit odd as I have never knowingly used Google Reader! Ah, now, on closer inspection they seem to be blogs that I have subscribed to, probably blogger ones, and certainly ones from other cpd23 participants! So that’s what happened when I subscribed; it actually turned them into an RSS feed and put them on my Google Reader, not send me an email like I thought it would!

Well, that’s something unfamiliar, so let’s try something I do use regularly – putting them into iGoogle! Yeah! It worked! I now have a page of RSS feeds in my iGoogle which I will find useful!! Now I’m off to see if blogs from other blogging software can also be RSS fed into iGoogle.

In the meantime, I’m reading about pushnote. Hmmm, no, this is too tricky. I wouldn’t say my work computer is completely locked down, but it is really rather difficult to download stuff, without asking for help from an IT colleague – and that just isn’t on at the moment. Things are no easier at home either; I don’t have administrator rights, so I have to weigh up whether it’s more important that I encourage the OH to decorate the kitchen or download new bits of software for me! No contest really. If anyone out there thinks I’m really missing out on a trick by not having access to pushnote, do let me know and I’ll revise my thinking!

All in all, I am keen to get to grips with new technology and whizzy web developments, but I like to understand how these things will benefit me before I go through all the hassle of getting stuff onto my pc.

Cataloguers and wikipedia

Cataloguers and wikipedia? What is their relationship?


A colleague has just alerted me to a report from the Primary Research Group entitled: "Libraries and the Mega Internet Sites". An abstract of the report is available, but the report is essentially about how and why librarians use some of the big internet sites, like wikipedia, Google, YouTube, etc..

Personally, I haven’t got $89.50 to spare to buy a copy of this report, but in the Primary Research Group newsletter of 2 August 2011, there are a few juicy extracts from the report itself. Naturally, I gravitated to this one:

"Wikipedia was most popular among librarians working in technical services and cataloging; 71.43% of these librarians found it highly useful."

And found myself wondering why this should be the case! I came to the following conclusions, and I admit there are probably a hundred more reasons that I haven’t even considered:

1. Cataloguers who are classifying new bookstock often deal with subjects of which they may have little or no knowledge, and what better starting point than wikipedia, after all, it’s not as if we are writing essays to gain qualifications or that people are marking our work! The “facts” presented by wikipedia, if used in conjunction with the text in hand probably represent a fair interpretation of what the book is about and therefore leads to a relevant classification number being assigned. Usually. And besides, it'll always be found on OPAC, wherever we classify it!

2. One of the other reasons cataloguers are using wikipedia is in an attempt to provide users with greater and easier access to useful resources. Here, think using wikipedia for creating/controlling authority data . Here’s an example of a link to wikipedia in a German authority record (very bottom left of the screen). Have a look at allthingscatalogued for a more in-depth discussion on the German/Austrian approach. Mining the information held in wikipedia is also within the remit of a Tech Services department; have a look at the wikipedia miner site to see just what is possible, and then take a look at a blog post from a cataloguer who has just seen the light - do read the comments too, as they are most interesting! OCLC has also been doing work with wikipedia to include OCLC name authorities in wikipedia articles, see the wikipedia entry for Abraham Lincoln: Right at the bottom of the entry, the LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) links to the LC authority heading for Abraham Lincoln. (dare I say this looks a little more aesthetically pleasing than the LC authority search results page?)

3. Cataloguers are also talking about mapping wikipedia articles to LCSH

Of course, one has to be careful when presented with isolated statistics:

Ok, wikipedia was most popular with Tech Services librarians and cataloguers at 71.43% , but maybe there was another group of librarians with whom its popularity was 71%? And how many other groups of librarians were there? Oh, one could go on and on, but at least it proves that Tech Services librarians and cataloguers are not the dinosaurs that they are often imagined to be! We do use the internet, the “big” sites, and are interested in mashups and providing our users with access to all sorts of useful resources.

University open days

Over the last couple of weeks I have been lucky enough to accompany my daughter to five university open days. Ok, so that doesn't make me an expert in running an open day, but it has opened my eyes to what can be achieved by making potential students feel welcome, and what might put them off! Let's have a look at some of the things which really impressed me about the open days I've been to. Obviously, I'm not going to "name and shame" the institutions, just point you in the direction of what I think were the good things, and possibly what were the not so good things! In no particular order, these are thoughts just as they came to me!

• Student Ambassadors - are vital to the sucess of the open day! Having lots of ambassadors is essential (as long as they are not huddled around together in groups!) as this proves that current students are interested in promoting the university, and by implication that the university is worth applying to. It also gives the prospective students someone to address with any queries they don't feel they can ask of staff! Dress the ambassadors in a prominent colour t-shirt and station them at strategic points: at the railway station, at the bus station, various points en-route to the university - no matter if it's a straight route from public transport to your university - and position them everywhere on campus or outside university buildings.
• Put up clear signs from major routes into your town or city to help those who are driving in. Sat nav codes on your website are very handy, as are the obvious links to maps of the major routes, showing where your university is situated.
• Ample route and building signs on your campus are also a must, and work well in conjunction with your student ambassadors. These are also a must if your permanent signage is not too hot - you may well know your way around but a prospective student is unlikely to and may waste valuable time trying to find a specific location.
• Plenty of pre-open day information is more than useful! Email the prospective student to make them feel welcome, even if all you're doing is sending them links to open day information on your website.
• Provide a coherent set of welcome and informational lectures: cover student finance, UCAS admission procedures, student accommodation, student life, student careers & support. Even if a prospective student has heard the finance situation from a previous visit, others will not have done, so you are never going to be presenting to a small, disinterested audience!
• Ensure, as far as possible, that the subject-specific lectures cover all the ground a prospective student is likely to want to know: admission criteria, course outline, amount of contact time, assessment methods, module choices, what your usp is, etc.. Also, if at all possible have said lecture presented by your most charismatic, engaging member of staff, whether that be the head of department, a lecturer, or a junior researcher; there's nothing like a lecture delivered with a bit of passion to sway a propective student's opinion!
• Make sure that the general lectures are repeated throughout the day.
• Be sure to co-ordinate across the university so that lectures are scheduled at such times to give people enough time to move between buildings.
• Ensure that you provide big enough lecture rooms to accommodate all the people who want to attend the lecture! There's nothing more disheartening than having closely planned your day to be told that the particular lecture you've scheduled into your limited timetable, and turned up for is full!
• If at all possible, open up some of your other buildings! Most open day visits seem to be centred around one or two buildings which doesn't give prospective students much of insight into your university. A good one is to open the subject staff common rooms, where staff can be on hand to answer questions, displays of current work can be exhibited and refreshments provided.
• If something unexpected should happen (for example the fire bell rings) do try and let people know what's happening, especially if you are going to pick up the talks where you left off or if you are going to continue with the scheduled events at the scheduled times.
• Where possible provide tours to and of the university accommodation; open up a few rooms if possible so the youngsters get a feel for what it might be like to live in uni halls.
• Another great idea is to offer campus tours, even if you you don't offer to actually go into buildings, it's still good for people to be aware of how big/hilly/old/new etc. your campus is.
• Make sure your library offers tours to prospective students!
• Have a central exhibition area where all departments and services can display their wares and answer questions.
• Clearly identify all your eating establishments; many people have travelled a long way to get to you and need to eat and drink!
• Have your bookshop open and giving a discount to any purchases made on the open day!
• Get subject staff to provide prospective students with a booklist! The avid readers will love that!

If you have any other great ideas for open day visits, or any bugbears, do leave a comment in the comments box.

Thanks for reading!

Personal brand

Oh dear, I'm still thinking about cpd23 part 2 and haven't got round to looking into part 3 yet!

It's taken me until now to consider the title of my blog, and what effect that might have on people scanning a list of blog titles. Understandably, I would read it and say "Yay! That's right up my street!" but I'm sure a lot of people - librarians and information professionals included - will zip past it, either for being as boring as anything or not relevant to their area of the profession.

And I suppose they are right! I chose the name because it had a nice sing-songy rhythm to it - blogg-ing cat-a-logu-ing! However, if I want to write refelctively about aspects of my work and profession that aren't strictly to do with cataloguing, then I probably won't have many readers!

So, for anyone out there who might be reading this, my next posting is not going to be about cataloguing - so spread the word if you know anyone who might be interested in reading about university open days!