CPD23 Thing 14, 15 and 16

The summer has flown by and we're now in a term term in a new school, but many of the old problems. Note to project managers everywhere: Please allow 2-3 days contingency time to get things all working!
 I seem to apologising to all and sundry for the lack of IT and software packages that we've come to rely upon not working. I feel as if we've had a false start.

So in investigating web 2.0 tools such as Mendeley for organising and referencing, my obvious response is : make sure you have a backup of everything you save! Mendeley looks good, and could be useful to students in particular. There seem to be so many choices of different tools in this area, I would say see what suits you best. Mendeley doesn't seem to do much more than Dropbox and Neil's toolbox put together in one place, although I may be underestimating it's power having not fully explored all its capabilities. It has a fancy 'dashboard' but I didn't find it intuitive to use and had a very American 'look'. In my view simple is good. For our 6th form students , the newly launched Studyvibe from Autrialia seems better presented and a one stop shop for research tools.As ever, time is an issue with finding out more.

Conferences and presenting. Conferences are a wonderful thing, particularly for school librarians who are often one man bands these days. It's such a relief to be with one's own kind, and know that you are not alone! This is in addition to all the wonderful new things to discover and share in the profession. Cost is an issue, so go where you can! Video conferencing could be an answer, which we are going to trial within our small Independent schools librarians group. Presenting when working in a school is part of daily life, particularly at the beginning of a new school year. All those inductions! I love them, but they are exhausting if you don't do it all year round. I fully endorse all the tips from Phil Bradley here.  I also believe that some of these skills need to be taught on Library and information course as they are in the USA.

This also links in with advocacy. I try by every means possible to get recognised in the school curriculum. Some teachers are more supportive than others, as are some subject areas. The full support of Senior Management is also needed. Until Information Literacy becomes part of the curriculum in Independent schools, this is a slow but steady development. Staffing to cover the rest of the library whilst you're 'teaching' however is another issue in a busy environment. There is a problem being overwhelmed with too many initiatives when you have little in terms of cover. Advocacy in the wider world is an issue that CILIP is starting to address on behalf of the profession in the UK. I strongly feel that the modern Information Professional is highly skilled on a miriad of ways and are not recognised either in status or pay. It is a stark reminder when you work in a school that an NQT gets the same pay as a Chartered Librarian with 20 years experience. I realise that economic times are bad, but employers are taking huge advantage of the situation and lowering renumeration. Not only do we need to save our libraries by investing in change to suit the changing technology available, we need to ensure that the Professional Librarian doesn't die out. I fear that the next generation with otherwise miss out on those gatekeepers (for want of a better word) to information. In short, our professional body, CILIP has a big job to do! Advocay needs to be done consistently and powerfully, getting to the right people to persuade. How many of us in full time work can actually spend enough time doing this? All we are left with is little by little on a personal level. A drip feed if you will, which in conjunction with the National campagin has to have some effect in the long run.

Here endeth the lesson!

Thing 13: Collaboration and sharing

Finally, something I've already dabbled with and a few solutions that could prove very useful! I already have a drop box account. Not particularly for collaboration, but because I work on documents on many different computers. As our school has been undergoing many changes over the summer, this has proved vital in getting access to My Documents, which aren't web-based, but local network based. It does take a bit of forethought as to what should be put into the drop box as the storage is limited, unless I want to pay for more. I've also added in the usernames etc of some of the new systems and services to remind me how to get back to them. I can see this being useful for sharing documents as well. However, to keep my stuff private and share only truely collaborative documents with others I've now explored Google Docs. This will be a godsend in September when we have a new member of staff, so they will be able to access things over the internet, not just the local network. The big advantage over wikis is that Google is NOT BLOCKED by the school web-filter, whereas certain wiki sites that could potentially attract viruses are. I have used wikis in the past (pbwiki being particularly easy to use) to connect book club members together. However, I seemed to be the only one adding comments. Facebook groups seem more productive, as it's the place where most of our members already hang out in cyberspace. The wiki got forgotten very easily.

Thing 12: Response to Social Networking

I discovered Social Networking on a personal level with Facebook when my children went to University, and it was a way of keeping up with what they were doing. Once our school was going through a merger I joined 'Linked In' as a way of job seeking and developing my CV. Since then I've joined the SLN a Yahoo group and Twitter for professional development. CPD23 didn't necessarily help me go further with these, but highlighted aspect such as user groups that have helped. I do believe the social networking can help sole Librarians with a sense of community and support in a very real way. Once sphere I have noted is that social netowrking has enabled a much faster response to events that affect the profession eg. peitions on library closures, the recent remarks about copyright etc. Help is instantly at hand point the direction to documents and statements that make a difference to understanding of problems and possible solutions. SN gives librarians a voice that they never had before. However, I believe that face to face contact is also essential for both community feeling and professional development and shouldn't be pushed to the sidelines in a wave to hop onto the next big thing. We need to have both. After all, we can all see the demise of MySpace. Who knows how long each of these services will last? Librarians are a great breed adapting to change, and these days it seems the only way to survive.

Thing 10 & Thing 11

A short autobiography of my life in Libraries. Where to begin. At my advanced age, my career in Libraries has been varied. At 16 my school was reoorganised into a tertiary college, where for the first time the library was a big deal. I was drawn to the space and the staff and had my first incling that this would be a good place to work. The summer before I went to Universtiy to study History, I worked as a summer relief person in Richmond County libraries, so had a taste of the Public library sector. I loved the variety of work and community spirit of the branch libraries, but hated the regimentaiton of the large County Library (this was in the 1980s!). All through University I had no idea what to do once I qualified. Careers information wasn't that great. Many of my contemporaries went into Teaching or Accountancy, neither of which I thought was for me at the time. So Signed up for a Postgraduate course at North London Polytechnic as it was then known. Computers had only just been intorduced, so this was an interesting time. I had my pre-course placement at University of London, Senate house library and during the course went to a Special Library in a computer services firm, where my first computer was a PC with 10mb hard drive! After qualifiying, I finally got a job with the same computing firm in London. I'd obviously made an impression! It was here I really started to learn my trade, dealing with enquiries, learning about online searching, new technology and moving an entire library from London to Milton Keynes, involving re-designing the space. During this time I became a Chartered Librarian with the Library Association. Then came children and it was hard to find work which fitted kids hours, so I ran my own peripatetic music teaching business, whilst volunteering at my kids primary school as librarian and parent 'listener' helping youngsters to read. Finally, I landed a job in a local secondary school, which was a huge learning curve getting up to date with all the changes that had happened in libraries during my absence. The CILIP library was really helpful in lending items on new and current trends. Again, the library was transformed during a re-building programme. After a few years I moved from the State sector to the Independent sector, where I am now. CILIP SLG conferences have ben my life blood in keeping up with new technology and services as well as networking. I found it so wonderful as a sole librarian to connect with others and to know 'You are not alone'. The conferences have spurred me on to actively seek training in fields that I knew little about eg: Information literacy, teaching skills, research skills, and more recently Web 2.0 tools and e-books. Where would I be without them? My aim is to try to keep one step ahead of our kids at school, but it is quite hard being a 'digital immigrant' rather than a 'digital native'. However, these skills have meant that during a merger of our school with another Independent one, I kept my job rather than being made redundant. It's not great pay, but it is employment! I fully support CILIP in trying to get our status and pay improved. After all, I have as many qualifications as most of our teaching staff. Next step is to develop our online infrastructure which means a lot of cooperation outside the Library service with IT department and teaching staff. I'm not sure I'd actually go for another qualification such as an M.A., because the CILIP chartered status should be an equivalent. However, I'd possibly like to 'mentor' others. Firstly, I'll do this in house whilst training a new, younger member of Library staff with a view to getting them CILIP qualificaitons. When I gain a bit of confidence in that, who knows!

Thing 8& 9 Getting organised

I haven't used an online calendar yet, but I'm really impressed with Google calendar and it's email alerts. When I get around to getting a Smart phone this will be even more valuable. I do like the fact that you can share the calendar, which will be invaluable if I set this up for my Library Assistant to share which will save a lot of crossed wires.

Evernote looks fab, but will need exploring more to see if it's more useful than Delicious/Diigo and dropbox all of which are free too within limits. It's certainly one to recommend to students as a useful 'tracking' tool when they do their research.

Thing 7

Professional organisations. I have found belonging to CILIP & SLA vital to my professional development and for support in times of crisis. I have managed to go to the last 3 SLG conferences where face to face networking is a huge part of the weekend as well as updating on all the latest technologies etc. Locally, I belong to the county School Librarians group which again provides support and CPD opportunites locally. As a librarian in an independent school, I and others are trying to get a group of us together in our local region. SLA were our first port of call for information on who we can conatct, but they haven't been very forthcoming. We may have to spread this by word of mouth/online using various groups. But then I've signed up for so many, that souldn't be too hard! Cost has become an important factor in belonging to more professional organisations other than keeping up to date online. After all, librarians aren't paid that much!

Thing 7

Having lots of problems with the internet this week. I already have a facebook and linked in, but need to sort the latter profile to be more efficient. I have added the groups to my profile, so that should be interesting. I've signed up for so many things online groups or info feeds on this course, when am I ever going to get the time to read everything?! Had a look at the LAT site. Interesting if a little confusing on the web page navigation. LISNPN looks good, but does it do anything more than our very own SLN?