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!
Monday, 18 July 2011
Monday, 11 July 2011
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...!)
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 :-)
Thursday, 7 July 2011
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!
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!
Friday, 24 June 2011
A little bit of cataloguing....
Yesterday, I finally got the chance to put some of the theory I learned in my London Library cataloguing training sessions into practice - hurrah! It's been a long time coming, and I honestly thought I would have forgotten all things related to MARC21 and AARC2, but it turns out that somehow, I've actually managed to retain it!
Over the past couple of weeks, I (along with the other graduate trainees) have been examining the London Library's extensive fiction collection, and attempting to categorise our holdings into author nationalities. With a fair few spreadsheets covering lists of Australian, Canadian, Pakastani, Ghanaian, Malaysian, German, French, Spanish and Hong Kong authors whose books we possess(to name but a few), the aim of the project was to transfer this information into the item record as an LC Subject heading, so that if a library member were to search our OPAC with a wish to view our german fiction holdings, for example, this would now actually be possible.
After being briefed by the Head of Bibliographic Services, I set about acquainting myself with the Library of Congress Authorities. In order to make our fiction collections searchable by author nationality, I had to first find out which "authority record" to use. For those unfamiliar with the term, an authority record, according to the Library of Congress:
"Is a tool used by librarians to establish forms of names (for persons, places, meetings, and organizations), titles, and subjects used on bibliographic records. Authority records enable librarians to provide uniform access to materials in library catalogs and to provide clear identification of authors and subject headings."
I started with my list of German authors, and by typing in a variety of possible formations - that is, German authors, authors, german - I finally found that the authorised heading to use was the latter: "Authors, german." The next stage was to then transfer this information into the London Library item record (which also meant braving the cataloguing module on Aleph for the first time as well!)
Having opened up all records relating to Heinrich Boll, (he was by chance, the first author I started with!) I began adding in the LC subject heading that he was not only a twentieth-century German author, but one who also wrote fiction.
For the London Library, this information must be entered under a 650 field, with a second indicator of 0, which marks that the heading I was using had come from the Library of Congress Authorities. Under subfield a) I wrote Authors, German.
I then created another 650 field, so that I could also indicate the book in question was fiction. Under subfield a) I wrote "German fiction", and because I knew Boll was a twentieth-century writer, I added under subfield y) 20th century.
The first record I created can be viewed here.
If you scroll to the bottom, you will see that these headings now appear on the item record. SUCCESS!
Now, this, to me, is an extremely good idea. I can't tell you the number of times I've dealt with members who would simply just like to know which American authors, or French authors we stock in the Library. Although time-consuming, it's definitely a worth-while project, and will hopefully offer a much broader search for members who would rather browse, than specify exactly what they are looking for.
Over the past couple of weeks, I (along with the other graduate trainees) have been examining the London Library's extensive fiction collection, and attempting to categorise our holdings into author nationalities. With a fair few spreadsheets covering lists of Australian, Canadian, Pakastani, Ghanaian, Malaysian, German, French, Spanish and Hong Kong authors whose books we possess(to name but a few), the aim of the project was to transfer this information into the item record as an LC Subject heading, so that if a library member were to search our OPAC with a wish to view our german fiction holdings, for example, this would now actually be possible.
After being briefed by the Head of Bibliographic Services, I set about acquainting myself with the Library of Congress Authorities. In order to make our fiction collections searchable by author nationality, I had to first find out which "authority record" to use. For those unfamiliar with the term, an authority record, according to the Library of Congress:
"Is a tool used by librarians to establish forms of names (for persons, places, meetings, and organizations), titles, and subjects used on bibliographic records. Authority records enable librarians to provide uniform access to materials in library catalogs and to provide clear identification of authors and subject headings."
I started with my list of German authors, and by typing in a variety of possible formations - that is, German authors, authors, german - I finally found that the authorised heading to use was the latter: "Authors, german." The next stage was to then transfer this information into the London Library item record (which also meant braving the cataloguing module on Aleph for the first time as well!)
Having opened up all records relating to Heinrich Boll, (he was by chance, the first author I started with!) I began adding in the LC subject heading that he was not only a twentieth-century German author, but one who also wrote fiction.
For the London Library, this information must be entered under a 650 field, with a second indicator of 0, which marks that the heading I was using had come from the Library of Congress Authorities. Under subfield a) I wrote Authors, German.
I then created another 650 field, so that I could also indicate the book in question was fiction. Under subfield a) I wrote "German fiction", and because I knew Boll was a twentieth-century writer, I added under subfield y) 20th century.
The first record I created can be viewed here.
If you scroll to the bottom, you will see that these headings now appear on the item record. SUCCESS!
Now, this, to me, is an extremely good idea. I can't tell you the number of times I've dealt with members who would simply just like to know which American authors, or French authors we stock in the Library. Although time-consuming, it's definitely a worth-while project, and will hopefully offer a much broader search for members who would rather browse, than specify exactly what they are looking for.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
"Thing 2" - Investigate some other blogs...
Having already had some lovely feedback from fellow CPD23 bloggers, I thought it was about time I returned the favour, and explored what other great posts were out there! I thoroughly enjoyed reading and commenting on the following blogs, amongst many others (you'll find a list of some of my favourites on the right-hand side of the screen):
Theatregrad
Sarah Said Library
The Hobbit Hole
Jennifer Yellen - Neon Librarian
Trails and Trials of a Trainee Librarian
Reading about other people's experiences, routes into librarianship, future plans and thoughts on the CPD23 course itself, was really interesting, and reminded me that when you write a blog, you're not alone! Whilst at times it feels pretty isolating - especially when you're sat at home typing your thoughts and feelings onto a computer screen - actually seeing comments from other like-minded people makes me NOT WANT TO GIVE UP, and reminds me that there are people out there who, just by listening, make my voice heard! So thank you, to everyone who has taken the time to read this :-)
Theatregrad
Sarah Said Library
The Hobbit Hole
Jennifer Yellen - Neon Librarian
Trails and Trials of a Trainee Librarian
Reading about other people's experiences, routes into librarianship, future plans and thoughts on the CPD23 course itself, was really interesting, and reminded me that when you write a blog, you're not alone! Whilst at times it feels pretty isolating - especially when you're sat at home typing your thoughts and feelings onto a computer screen - actually seeing comments from other like-minded people makes me NOT WANT TO GIVE UP, and reminds me that there are people out there who, just by listening, make my voice heard! So thank you, to everyone who has taken the time to read this :-)
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
23 Things for Professional Development - "Thing 1"
Having signed up to #CPD23, or “23 Things for Professional Development,” here is my first post, or should I say, “Thing 1.” It’s going to take real discipline on my part to post regularly, so I promise I’ll do my best! In this post, I am meant to be telling you a little bit about why I am taking part in this course and what I’m hoping to learn from CPD23, so here it goes:
I first heard about “23 Things” at the CILIP New Professionals Information Day on 3rd June 2011, where Bethan Ruddock explained how joining a programme such as this would be an extremely useful and interactive way of familiarising ourselves with things like social media, web 2.0, and blogging – not only to network with like-minded individuals and enhance our own professional development, but also to understand the power of confidently using computers and the internet to their full capacity - especially in a profession which is steadily embracing new forms of technological advancement.
As I have mentioned previously, I am currently a graduate trainee at the London Library. Based in Reader Services, I assist in the day-to-day provision of effective book issue, renewal, reservation, returns and enquiry services, and perform stack management duties (including shelving returned material). Whilst many might think that a day in the life of a librarian sounds pretty monotonous (and sometimes, yes, they are right), a lot of the enquiries we deal with at the LL come from a variety of different sources – either via email, phone, letter, fax or in person, so no day is ever the same, and each day presents new challenges from which I find I am always learning! The next step for me is to complete a Masters degree in Library and Information Studies, and thankfully I have been offered a place at UCL to start in September. I can’t wait to start, as I feel that this is a huge stepping stone for me into a career in librarianship, and will give me the opportunity to understand the theory behind the practice. In terms of future plans, my sights are ultimately set on an academic librarian post – perhaps a subject liaison librarian, as my interests lie in humanities (I have recently also undertaken a postgraduate degree in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture – I just can’t seem to get enough of the studying, it would seem!)
I am hoping to gain confidence during the CPD23 course, and am particularly looking forward to completing Thing 4: “RSS feeds, Twitter and pushnote,” Thing 9: “Evernote”, and practically everything from Thing 13 onwards (as I don’t understand most of the words written from that point onwards!!) Most importantly, I really want to get to know other new professionals – so make yourself heard, and don’t be shy!
I first heard about “23 Things” at the CILIP New Professionals Information Day on 3rd June 2011, where Bethan Ruddock explained how joining a programme such as this would be an extremely useful and interactive way of familiarising ourselves with things like social media, web 2.0, and blogging – not only to network with like-minded individuals and enhance our own professional development, but also to understand the power of confidently using computers and the internet to their full capacity - especially in a profession which is steadily embracing new forms of technological advancement.
As I have mentioned previously, I am currently a graduate trainee at the London Library. Based in Reader Services, I assist in the day-to-day provision of effective book issue, renewal, reservation, returns and enquiry services, and perform stack management duties (including shelving returned material). Whilst many might think that a day in the life of a librarian sounds pretty monotonous (and sometimes, yes, they are right), a lot of the enquiries we deal with at the LL come from a variety of different sources – either via email, phone, letter, fax or in person, so no day is ever the same, and each day presents new challenges from which I find I am always learning! The next step for me is to complete a Masters degree in Library and Information Studies, and thankfully I have been offered a place at UCL to start in September. I can’t wait to start, as I feel that this is a huge stepping stone for me into a career in librarianship, and will give me the opportunity to understand the theory behind the practice. In terms of future plans, my sights are ultimately set on an academic librarian post – perhaps a subject liaison librarian, as my interests lie in humanities (I have recently also undertaken a postgraduate degree in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture – I just can’t seem to get enough of the studying, it would seem!)
I am hoping to gain confidence during the CPD23 course, and am particularly looking forward to completing Thing 4: “RSS feeds, Twitter and pushnote,” Thing 9: “Evernote”, and practically everything from Thing 13 onwards (as I don’t understand most of the words written from that point onwards!!) Most importantly, I really want to get to know other new professionals – so make yourself heard, and don’t be shy!
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