The blog of Elena Menéndez
CPD
CPD23 Thing 2: Exploring other blogs
Jun 26th
My approach to Thing 2 in the CPD23 programme has been somewhat disorganised. It’s been a busy week and I knew even before it started that it would be difficult to fit in the activities, but I wanted to make sure that I got on board with the blogging from the beginning – no excuses, right? So, I looked at several blogs with no particular strategy, just going form one to another, following a trail of links and comments. I started by reading posts from established bloggers that I had been following already. It was interesting to see their perspective and what they each wanted to get out of CPD23. I also found some good advice about keeping blogs and finding ‘your blogging voice’. It sounds like there is no standard practice. Some people like to blog in depth. Others prefer to write short posts commenting on current happenings. Some blogs are stricly professional, others more personal. And while some people write carefully researched and thought out articles, with clear goals in their minds, others prefer a stream of consciousness approach. There is no right or wrong as far as I can see, it all depends on what suits you and your circumstances. But despite the diversity, all experienced bloggers seem to agree in one thing: You have to keep at it to make it work.
I also looked at posts by some new bloggers and by those that, like me, have had some experience with on and off blogging. We seem to be in a the majority and a common reason for participation in CPD23 is the incentive to get on with blogging.
I would have liked to spend more time commenting on posts. While reading, I found several things certainly worth a reply, but I only managed to leave a handful of comments. Like I said, it has been a busy week but I’m also aware that unless something requires an immediate reponse, I tend to go “I’ll do that later”, which too often means “never”. This is also something I hope to work on as part of the CPD23 programme. Wish me luck! 🙂
CPD23 Thing 1: What I hope to get out of the programme
Jun 21st
I have decided to take part in CPD23 for a number of reasons, but the main one is that I hope it will provide me with an incentive to start blogging. Although I have been toying with the idea of setting up a blog for personal and professional development for a while, I always ended up talking myself out of it. Having complete strangers reading my thoughts wasn’t particularly appealing, but perhaps I struggled the most with not knowing what I would write about. I dipped my toe in the water with a few posts in shared blogs, and for a while I kept a private, personal study blog and a internal work blog. Nothing particularly focused and coordinated, though, and eventually my best intentions to keep posting fizzled out. It might be that blogging is not for me, but I felt I had to give it a proper go before arriving at that conclusion. This seemed like the perfect chance to get started. CPD23 provides the topic and all I have to do is write – no more excuses!
Aside from that, I am looking forward to getting to ‘know’ other bloggers and exploring ‘the things’ together. I am big fan of productivity tools and I’m fairly familiar with many of the applications in the programme but this is a great opportunity to review them and reflect on how I can get more out of them. I’m sure I can still learn plenty of new tips from others!
Last, but certainly not least, a small group of work colleagues are also tackling CPD23 this summer. I thought it would be great to do this together so we can discuss experiences and help each other along the way.
So, without further ado, let the proceedings commence! CPD23 here we come! 😉
Internet Librarian International review
Oct 21st
I was at Internet Librarian International last week and now that the dust has settled and I have had time to tidy up my notes and reflect on them, I thought it would be a good idea to jot down my impressions of the event.
It was my first ILI and I found it very well put together, a good choice of presentations, but not too packed. Sometimes, at this kind of conference, you can feel like they are trying to be too many things. If like me, you have a very wide-ranging role, this should be an advantage. However, I often end up being pulled in all sorts of directions, trying to cover too many strands or sitting in workshops that have very little relevance to what I do.
I had none of this at ILI – it was nicely compact (250 delegates and approx 60 speakers split over 3 strands and 2 days) and, essentially, what it says on tin: a conference for library and information professionals who work (or want to work) on the web.
As you would expect in the current financial situation, many of the presentations discussed how to add or demonstrate value. Brian Kelly talked about using statistics from existing resources to get the information you need in order to evaluate and maximise impact. I really enjoyed Joy Palmer’s presentation, which complemented Brian’s extremely well by explaining the importance of understanding the benefits added by our services. According to Joy, it’s benefits, not features that matter to users and by talking to them we can discover where we add real value and use that information to market our services better.
Another effect of the economic climate seemed to be the many presentations that discussed re-using data in a direct or indirect way, e.g., web and phone applications that access catalogues and databases. I was very impressed with the Pivot viewer from Microsoft Live Labs, which allows you to explore large datasets dynamically. It has applications that would suit both our staff (manipulating information for decision making) and users (exploring library holdings).
Another strong theme was social media as an extension of (not an alternative to) what we already do. This was confirmed by the obvious shift from Twitter being a topic of discussion in presentations to becoming part of the conference infrastructure. The wifi connection at the venue was very poor, but many delegates circumvented the problem by tweeting from their phones instead of live blogging. Several speakers mentioned how the networking experience had begun by “bumping into others on Twitter”, instead of on the train or at the airport. Brian Kelly posted an interesting analysis of conference related tweets on his blog.
This links to another strong theme of the event: sharing, collaboration and partnerships. Many speakers were reporting on large collaborative projects that involved, not only library consortia, but also partnering with businesses. For example, the Gladsaxe Public Libraries (Denmark) have worked with the suppliers of their Library Management System to develop an app for iPhone and Android smartphones which enables users to search for books, make reservations and check charges on their devices.