Thing 5 - Reflective Practice

Okay, so Thing 5 this week is going to be rather short and sweet - more of a promise to actually start being reflective, as opposed to reflecting!

After reading the CPD23 post, I have started to realised the importance of reflection in terms of advancing your professional, and indeed personal, development. I particularly liked the following model, as the questions force you to evaluate yourself objectionably, help give you a better understanding of your work, and ensure that you are playing an active role in what you are doing. For those of you who are interested, here is a good example of how to begin reflective practice, courtesy of Wigglesweets' blog post:


1. Recall it: this could be an event you’ve participated in, a project group you’ve been part of, a workshop you’ve delivered, an enquiry you’ve responded to…

2. Evaluate it: Take some time to consider these questions
What did you learn?
What did you enjoy?
What worked well?
What, if anything, went wrong?
What would you change?
What (potential) impact could this have in your workplace?

3. Apply it: Take some action. What can you practically apply from the experience you’ve had?


With this in mind, I hope to apply this theory when I next go to a CILIP event, or even undertake smaller things such as projects at work. It will be difficult, but I'm definitely willing to give it a go!

Thing 4 - Current Awareness: Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

When I first joined the London Library in August, I had only the faintest idea of what Twitter was, and, at the time, could not see how anyone would find it more useful or interesting than facebook (which I had spent the good part of my English MA constantly checking for better want of another form of procrastination). I was so wrong. Half-way through my trainee year, Sarah, a previous LL trainee, recommended Twitter to me, and said that as a soon-to-be new library professional, it would play a key role in keeping up-to-date with current library issues, networking, and meeting new people who will be starting the MA in Library and Information Studies at UCL in September. So, taking her word for it, I hesitantly set up an account. Following a rather shaky start, during which I was frequently baffled by what abbreviations such as RT, hash tag trends and other such things meant, I finally started to find my feet. After following a few different accounts (including libraries, library professionals, other library graduate trainees, CILIP, The Guardian, Penguin Books, Waterstones etc etc...and yes, I am not ashamed to admit it, celebrities too [how can anyone resist a bit of celebrity stalking??]) I found that people out there started to follow ME! :-) I have already found being on Twitter extremely useful. Not only have I befriended a couple of soon-to-be UCL postgrads before my course has even started, I am really enjoying following other library professionals and hearing about their experiences in different library environments. I also (and I know this may sound a bit weird, as I'm talking about something which is completely and utterly virtual) find that Twitter offers a great sense of community, of which I am really enjoying being a part.

In terms of RSS feeds, and Pushnote - this is literally the first time I have ever come across them. Whilst I had heard what RSS feeds were, I didn't know how to use them on my computer. Thanks to Annie's instructions, however, it all started to make a bit more sense! After logging into my Googlemail, I found locating Google Reader easy, and was amazed by how useful RSS is for keeping on track of all the blogs I'm interested in reading. Previous to today, I had literally just been visiting individual blogs as and when I had the chance, and I was finding it very difficult to keep on top of it all - especially as I never knew when a new post had been written! Here's hoping that RSS will help me on that front - I've already spent the last hour adding blogs to my Reader (goodness knows when I'll have the time to read them all!!)

To conclude Thing 4, I have also signed up to Pushnote. As a concept, I feel this is quite a good idea, although in practice, I am not sure how dedicated I am going to be "liking" various pages I come across online. Once I start following more new library professionals online, however, this may change! (The only person I'm "following" so far is Stephen Fry...!)

Ice Bar London

On Saturday, I surprised my not-so-little-sister with a trip to Ice Bar, London, for her 21st birthday:

It was a great experience, and although only 40 minutes, it was definitely worth doing - even if just the once! Everything inside is made out of ice (including your glasses!) and believe me, after 40 minutes, you are definitely ready to resurface out of the -7 degree temperatures!

If you go, and are stuck on what to drink (the cocktail list upstairs is about 10 pages long!) I would recommend the White Chocolate Cocktail - it was absolute heaven! Inside the Ice Bar, try the house cocktail, Ice Bar London - it won't disappoint :-)

CPD23 Thing 3 - Consider your personal brand

Better late than never, hey? Well, in all fairness, I do have a pretty good excuse as I have been jet-setting this last week to Cyprus and enjoying sunnier climes. Back to reality though, and back to CPD23!!

When I first set up my blog and my twitter account, I hadn't really thought much about "my personal brand", although I did make a conscious decision to use the pseudonym of London Library Girl in both cases, to make myself more easily identifiable. I really admire Jennifer Yellen's decision to use her real name, and I can understand how this makes things easier when it comes to networking and being recognised on google (among other things). I have to admit, when I initially started, I liked the anonymity, as I felt I wasn't under pressure if I made mistakes, and people wouldn't blame me personally if my blog was completely rubbish!!

After googling myself, the first thing that appears is "Carley Deanus: Facebook" - with a link to my account. Unfortunately, nothing appears in relation to my blog, but this is probably because I previously had never mentioned my full name anywhere on my profile. Typing in "London Library Girl" into google instead brings up an immediate match to my blog page - hurray! In light of this, I have now added my full name to my blog, so maybe this will make a difference to future google searches (only time will tell!) I have also included a photograph of myself on both my blog and twitter account, to make myself more recognisable at future events. I found this really helpful recently, as at the recent CILIP Information Day one of my twitter followers (and fellow future UCL postgrad) recognised me and came up to introduce herself in person!

One thing I think I think I could improve on is to create a LinkedIn account. I've not really had any experience of this before, but this is something I aim to do as soon as possible. I might also perhaps look into changing the background of both my blog and my twitter account so that they are both the same. It's something to think about, anyway!

If anyone has any comments about the layout of my blog or any suggestions for improvement, I would be very happy to hear them!