CPD In Your Later Career

Hmm! Does early 30s qualify me as an older thing? Certainly not in the library I work at. The average age there is early 50s.

Maybe it's a mindset? Act your shoe size not your age. That works out better.

What if you've switched careers a few times so you're still a young thing for this career. When I was training to be a teacher my tutor said that over the course of our lifetime we'd have about 7 different kinds of job. So far I'm on job #4. How do you train for that? Take it one job one skill at a time? What kind of attitude do you need? Yep I think it's back to mindset.

Stromness Library on Mainland Orkney

It is as Gandhi says "Be the change you want to see in the world." I want to exude adaptability in the hopes that I will have adaptability returned to me.

National Library in Tibet

So far I'm interested in things that I can related to my work: reading (duh!), travel (apparently broadens the horizon and allows me to view other libraries and ways of doing things) and book arts (a lot of effort goes into making a hand-bound book so why do we grab it by the top of the spine?).

At the moment in Ireland there aren't that many jobs going in libraries; therefore I'm moving around within my library (yes it's MY library) to get the most varied experience that I can. So far I've been to Customer Services, Inter-Library Loan, Special Collections and a Health Sciences library. The Health Sciences library has been really handy as it's also a branch library so I get to see what happens when staff are security, customer services, information services, basic IT troubleshooters etc.

Thing 9: Evernote

Prior to reading the post I had heard about Evernote. One of the guys at work swears by it. So I installed it on my netbook and wow wow wow. Why didn't I use it sooner. I work in two different areas and so I've the web clipper installed on Firefox. The one down side is that it's great to be able to add pages on and have them saved without emailing a whole pile of links to myself but I still have to go back and read the pages afterwards. Now if only I could find a program that would read the information for me as well!

While looking at Evernote's T&C it asks if I am over 13 years old. Why 13?

I've looked at integrating Evernote with Twitter but for the time being I'll leave it. I wish to become more familiar with Evernote and not rush into all the new bright & shiny! Oh the irony!!

Thing 8: Google Calendar

I can't say that I use Google Calendar much. I've a new head at work and she has reorganised the shared calendars adding tasks and rotas and adding them to our individual personal calendars. However this is through Microsoft's Outlook.

Certainly it makes sense to use Google Calendar if I'm working with someone who doesn't have access to the institutional calendar or if a group doesn't wish to add a tab to their existing calendars. Most people already have a Google account for something: mail, reader etc so a calendar function would just be another add-on.

Hmm! Short post...

Thing 7: Real-Life Networks

Recently I was at a number of events in the British Library and in both cases I was the only person from Ireland there. I got the impression that some of the others met each other on a regular basis or at least if some were based in London then it was good to know someone at another institution who was more accessible than someone who was in a different country.

I've become a member of CILIP as I received their email newsletter for some time but became increasingly frustrated that I couldn't access more than the headline as I'm not a member. I hope that membership will allow me to connect with more people so that if I travel to other events I may already know more people.

I'm currently finishing a MSc in ILS but once that's done I intend to do CILIP Chartership. I had wondered about how you find a CILIP mentor but recently I read an article where the mentor and mentee corresponded on Facebook as they lived some hundred miles apart in England. Good to see that Facebook is being put to use beyond photos!

I did the Myers-Brigg test and I'm an INTJ which wasn't that big a surprise. I like that you need time to recharge. Thing is (no pun intended!) one person's version of time sufficient is not the next. Maybe this is why I like the silent carriage on the trains where I can do all my reflective thinking!

Thing 6: Online Networks



Orkney Library & Archives at Kirkwall

I've been on Facebook since 2007 and I remember suddenly being able to reconnect so very easily with people I'd gone to school with and that had just been a few years earlier. Next all the embarassing school photos showed up. Scanners can be evil! .I've moved most of my library world updates to twitter but I still follow a number of libraries on facebook over twitter such as Manchester Libraries or Waterford County Library Service. Plus I'm a member of the ALA Think Tank Group. Too much trouble to move it. Funny Orkney Library and Archives is mentioned. While I don't 'like' their page I was on Orkey last year and so I have pictures of the building. No one but a library afficionado would take photos and maybe not even then!
I joined Linkedin later and bit by bit my profile took shape on it. Recently my cousin requested a connection. Each time I log in now I see all her updates. Apparently people spend about 8 minutes on Linkedin compared to 30 mins on Facebook. That would be true for me. People just don't put up photos on Linkedin though! From reading Sharlyn's article I should be using a photo of me and not my favoured landscape shot. How many connections is just right? Currently I have 25 connections so that puts in her Sharlyn's slot of checking once a week which is about right!

I've tried to separate out my selves so that Facebook has my personal life and Linkedin has my professional life. On Linkedin I'm part of the following groups: 23 Things, ACRL, ALA Emerging Leaders, ALA, CILIP, EDucause, LIBereurope: Heritage Collections and Preservation, IFLA, Library Research Methods, British Libary, LIberEurope: YEP!, Special Libraries Assoc. Whereas on Facebook I'm part of ALA Think Tank alone. It's interesting to see the group work on Facebook though, I think the interaction level is better.

I joined LISPN. I like Ned Potter's work as it's very straight forward and practical. I'm down as walkerabroad which is my username from as much as I can use it for. Jasper Fforde's new book The Woman Who Died A Lot has a good paragraph about librarians and the book itself is dedicated to librarians so I've included a quote from it on my profile: "Libraries were a treasured institution and so central to everyday life that government or commerce rarely did anything that might upset them. Some say they were more powerful than the military or, if not, then certainly quieter." (Fforde, Jasper. The Woman Who Died A Lot: A Thursday Next Novel 189).

I also joined the LAT Network. Before I came to library work I had been in teaching and I miss the interaction with people at that level.

I find it hard to keep up with all the various networks. I have a Google+ account but don't use but mostly because no one else I know is on it. How many networks are needed? And how many can be sustained?