Thing 15

Aberystywth beach by izzie_whizzie on Flickr
 (available for use  under the Creative Commons
Licence).

Sadly I don’t feel that I have much to contribute to this “Thing” about attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events.

All my experiences of attending conferences to date have been limited to a few locally-organised mash-ups and the Librarycamp un-conference, held in Leeds back in May.

When reflecting on the Librarycamp event I felt that the informality worked really well, especially when we adjourned to the local park for the afternoon sessions, although as a newbie it did seem a bit chaotic at the start when everyone was pitching their ideas.

I think that it would be really interesting to attend one of the big conferences such as CILIP’s Umbrella 2013 Conference & Exhibition due to take place at the University of in Manchester next July. However I think that I would like to just be a delegate as I am not sure that I am brave enough yet to put myself forward as a speaker!

Still in the spirit of “Carpe Diem” I can at least send off the registration of interest form for Umbrella 2013...

Thing 14

Just like the author of the "Thing" I too did all the referencing and bibliography construction for my dissertation last year without the aid of technology, despite being offered the use of Endnote by my university.



Reference Book Collection by Jordanhill 
 School D&T Dept on Flickr
(available for use under the Creative
 Commons Licence).



I agree with my friend Katie's comment in her recent blogpost  that  being "organised and methodical" was the key to successful referencing and that "the approach you take to referencing is very much a personal decision".

I didn't have enough  time to try out all three suggested products so decided to try Thing 14b - Mendeley, as from the introductory video it seemed quite straightforward to install and use. Once the software had been installed I did have a go at importing several files but found that I spent more time and effort correcting the citation entries, than it would have taken me to do construct the references manually. Therefore I am still not convinced if I will continue to use this software.

I am afraid that the same can also be said for my working environment as the FE students that I work only require a very basic knowledge of referencing and so programs such as Menderley could be considered as overkil for theml.
.

 

Thing 13

This “Thing” has been all about collaboration in a virtual context which I think is really cool and hope that in the future I will get the opportunity to with other people outside of my immediate working environment.



In A Whisper by /\lex on Flickr
(available for use under the Creative
 Commons Licence).

However I don’t think on a personal level  that I can justify getting to grips with either Google Docs or Dropbox at the moment. This is because  I have found that Evernote (which I encountered in Thing 9, and really love) satisfies my current needs in respect of online document organisation and storage.

At work we already have a virtual drive on which all documents created by the tram are stored thereby negating the need to use products such as Google Docs and Dropbox. However I can see that it would be useful for people to use when working on collaborative projects especially where they don’t have access to any common storage or file-sharing facility.

Whereas I can see that wikis have more potential (and I really enjoyed the "Wikis in plain English" video that Jennifer reccomended). For example my library service has recently undergone a major staffing restructure which has not only resulted in the loss of several very experienced (and knowledgeable)  members  of staff and the remaining staff being relocated across college (thereby making them geographically-remote from each other) but will also involve several new people joining the team, Therefore I feel that using wikis  as a means to share service knowledge and general information would be something that I would like to pursue actively.

Thing 12

When reflecting on how I put the social into my social media use I have to confess that I haven’t really got to grips with participating actively in social media as part of my professional role.



Fireworks #1 by Camera Slayer on Flickr
(available for use under the
Creative Commons Licence).

I still consider myself as more of a lurker and prefer to use aggregators and email to consolidate Linkedin, blog and listserv postings, otherwise I have found that the whole process quickly  becomes overwhelming. 

On a more positive note, I have ventured outside of the library sector, finding some useful resources within the teaching sector.