I think that being an active part of CILIP in this way has helped me feel more professional and dedicated in other parts of my job. I take great pride in what I do and the professionalism of other committee members has rubbed off on me. It has been a great experience. I spoke to MMU students before Christmas about my experience of working in public libraries and being a new professional and it was a fantastic experience. Not only did I get to meet & network face-to-face with LIS students and share my experiences, I also gained new skills in speaking in front of groups of strangers (something I hadn’t done in such a way since I was an undergrad! I suppose doing class visits and rhyme time gives me some skills necessary but that isn’t always a planned and structured presentation).

I can’t exactly say how being actively involved in CILIP has affected my career, as I am still in the same job, but in my day to day job I certainly feel that it makes me more aware of the general library sector. It’s very useful to know how we can all support each other in our work. The CILIP North-west branch tries to focus on cross-sectoral work & events, as we aim to appeal to all CILIP members across the north-west. To me, this is excellent as it makes you more aware of current issues in other sectors and can help me direct public library users in the right direction of more specialist information if necessary. It’s also a good networking opportunity and will help support my chartership portfolio.

Now, going back to CPD23, thing 6 looks at online networks for CPD.

I am on LinkedIn, but to be honest I am not sure of the value of it personally. The groups seem interesting enough and I think it has the value of international networking, but for myself it seems like something you have to be seen on and not much else. I know that in some fields of work it is very important for advertising jobs or head-hunting, but I haven’t had that impression from the library & information sector. Perhaps I need to get more involved in the groups to feel more value from LinkedIn.

Facebook is also discussed, but personally I prefer to keep my facebook for personal use and not work. Although I have some work colleagues added on Facebook, I am not a member of any of the professional networks on there and prefer to follow them on twitter or somewhere else.

As for professional online networks, I am on LISNPN and I have found it a good way to find people to follow on twitter but generally I do think that most of my networking happens on twitter. I think now that there is #uklibchat and the #chartership chat on twitter it will grow and grow to become the more dominant online network for librarians. However, there is a risk of not following new people and becoming like an echo chamber, so I think that the use of hashtags and involving more people than just those that you follow is important. I am looking forward to the chartership chat next week, hope to meet more people like myself who are in the chartership process but also hopefully those who have chartered.

At the moment, with the summer holidays and staff being off on holiday too, I seem to be very busy at work so haven’t had any time to incorporate reflective writing into my everyday duties. I know from experience though, that reflective writing can really make a difference when you next come to do the same task. For example, I blogged and reflected on a school visit that I did in which I decided to change the activities I chose for the next one because they were too hard and also noted not to worry too much about sticking to a schedule. After reflecting on it, the next school visit went much better.

I am about to start chartership (once my new house is ready to move into after the renovations and I’m into some sort of real routine which I’m not at the moment) and have been reading over some notes off a colleague who is currently doing chartership from an event on reflective writing, so it was a coincidence that I then decided to see where I was up to with cpd23 and see it was this! It is evidently a sign to remind me to do more reflective writing.

Twitter

Thing 4 suggests joining Twitter and I have been part of the ‘twitterati’ (is there any worse word?!) for a few years now and in the past 18 months have been using it to stay up to date with current library affairs. I love twitter because when big news that affects my work, like Booktrust funding being cut or Amazon announcing that they’ll be working with Overdrive for library books, it is Twitter where I find it out. I try to keep up with twitter in work, either via my iPhone app or chromed bird on my browser. It’s also really good for following conference tweets, although sometimes some users can overtweet. It’s rare that conference tweets actually manage to make discussions amongst non-conference tweeters, which is what I’d really like to see, instead of just regurgitated statements from speakers.  (NB, I tweet over at @afeitar)

RSS

I use RSS to follow all my blogs via Google reader and find it indispensable. I subscribe to a few library blogs too and book blogs to keep me updated with work related things, but the majority are just ‘fun’ ones. I prefer to use twitter to keep me updated with current news, but library blogs are useful for creating more in depth discussion about current issues that are currently hot on twitter.

I decided not to sign up for Pushnote because I just thought it was yet another social media tagging/pinning/bookmarking thing that I would use for a few days and then get bored of. I have twitter which many people share bookmarks on anyway.

Google+

Instead I wanted to talk about google+ because I think this may be the ‘next big thing’ for staying up to date in the library world. It’s relatively new but there are lots of librarians on there already (I think Phil Bradly had 700 at the last count). I have started following a few and they are all +1ing & sharing interesting library items and it creates discussion too. I had some great discussion about the pros & cons of eBooks after Phil Bradley shared a slightly mis-judged article from Wired magazine. If you’re on Google+, add me! I think as more people join, it will become like a more debate & discussion based twitter/facebook hybrid.

I think that these online tools help me keep informed about current issues in the library sector, which is so important in these days of changing policies, budget cuts & dramatic technology changes.

I have a personal lifestyle blog which I have been updating for 3 years now so it predates library Helen. While there have been times when I’ve considered closing it down and shied away from talking about it in a professional context, in the past 6 months or so I’ve become more confident about it. It reflects the ‘me’ that is outside work and I completely believe that it is so important to show a personal and human side to yourself. I don’t think it is healthy devoting too much time to your career and I enjoy my free time and relish my days off to spend doing things not work related. Sometimes I think ‘oh gosh, I shouldn’t sound like I’m looking forward to the weekend so much’, in case people think that it means that I DON’T love my job. I do, I just need a break from it too. I also love other things, like baking, running, eating nice food, photography, interior design, fashion, crochet, etc. Working in a public library, these hobbies come in handy whenever someone comes in asking for a good baking book, or if they check out a book about running I can have a nice chat with them.

So, I am quite proud of my little old blog. I have over 1,000 subscribers on it and I have met lots of great people through it. I initially got a twitter account to work alongside my blog, but then I started following lots of library people and I guess you could say it is more of a crossover twitter account now. The name of my blog is ‘Afeitar’, which has literally no significance at all. It dates back to the livejournal days when I wanted to start a new account and just picked up a Spanish dictionary and flicked to a page and chose the verb ‘afeitar’ which means ‘to shave’. I often get people commenting ‘do you know what your name means in Spanish?’ as if I would be completely oblivious to it! I don’t like it at all now but it has become such an established name on my blog & twitter that I can’t really change it.

I think perhaps I could change the name of this library blog to something that could incorporate ‘afeitar’ because then there is some continuity across all my social media presence. Afeitar in the library? (No, please don’t shave in the library.) Opinions needed please!

Thing 2 involved us commenting and subscribing to fellow cpd23-ers. I have a folder in my google reader snazzily entitled ‘LIS stuff’ and it is now BULGING! I used the delicious links to find new blogs. I limited myself to just UK based blogs, as I thought these would be more relevant to my current situation. I wanted to look across sectors though so didn’t just limit myself to public libraries. Looking on the delicious tags, there are SO many different people taking part. Librarians from Belgium, Canada, Israel, Serbia, Thailand, New Zealand.. Such a variety! If I had more time I would love to read their blogs, but unfortunately I don’t.

I visited Rob’s blog, as an old course mate it’s always nice to have a nosy to see what he’s up to.  Plus he is a very funny chap with a great way of writing, so you should all go and visit his blog! I also visited The Library Gossip Girls blog, because, to be honest, their name stood out to me! I also found it interesting that they are doing the course as a duo, as they are two colleagues who work at an FE & HE college. I thought it was a great idea to do it together because it can help motivate you more if someone is pestering you in real life to do it too. Another blog that I visited because the name stood out to me was ‘More Adventurous‘ because it’s a Rilo Kiley reference! Sally is currently volunteering at The National Coal Mining museum, which I found really interesting, but she is trying to find a job and get more involved with the profession.

And finally, I also discovered that a lot of people called Helen work in libraries. Maybe it is just coincidence or maybe it is a common name, but I don’t usually encounter so many people named Helen! There is Helen at Helen’s library blog who is a librarian at Cardiff Uni, Helen at Helen’s Learning Maze who is a librarian at Swansea Uni, Helen at Library Wanderer who is a librarian at Cambridge, Helen at Helen’s 23 things who is a systems librarian at a mental health library and Helen at Meadow Time who is a school librarian from Yorkshire. Okay..so that’s only 5 Helens in total but it seems a lot to me. I like that we are quite a varied bunch too and some of them have such interesting sounding jobs! Anyway, here’s onto Thing 3 now.

Graduation is just a few weeks away and I’ve officially been working in this post for a WHOLE year next week! That is crazy. It has gone way too fast. I have learnt lots in the last year, but I can also feel quite isolated inpublic libraries at times. My next aim is probably Chartership and through Chartership I want to branch out into other library sectors and gain new experiences. CPD23 seems like the perfect chance to gain some new skills and also learn from others’ experiences and network, network, network!

Yesterday I compiled an online survey that I wanted librarians in the UK to complete if their library service provided eBooks to library users. I half expected a mediocre response. I emailed the survey to LIS PUB LIBS, the jisc mail list for public libraries. There are over 1000 subscribers on that so I thought the chances would be quite high that someone from each authority with eBook services would see it.

Then, I tweeted it. It got retweeted by over 50 people and the responses started flooding in! (I say ‘flood’, more like trickle.) It even got retweeted by the comedian Chris Addison!  But still, I have had 25 responses at the moment and so many other encouraging comments from library services that don’t currently provide eBooks but are interested in my research. Obviously the survey is limited because only libraries who provide eBooks can reply, but I wonder how many responses I would have got if it was just a simple survey for all librarians, something like ‘Librarians! Do you like cats or dogs best?!’. No doubt with the power of twitter it would have had lots of respondents!

Part of me now almost wishes that I added in a question on the survey asking people how they found the survey – was it lis-pub-libs or twitter that had the bigger impact? I sent both the email and the tweet at pretty much the same time so there is no real way of knowing which is a more effective method of gathering data from a target audience.  :( If I ever have to do such research again though I will remember to add that in too!

If you haven’t already done the survey, there is still time to complete it here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GV7KMWX I will be closing the survey at the end of the week because I then need to start cracking on with the data analysis for my dissertation. It really feels like the pressure is on now because so many other people are interested in the results. This is all good though because I need a bit of pressure to motivate myself!

PS. Mega thanks to everyone who retweeted it or completed the survey, the kindness & enthusiasm of librarians never fails to amaze me.

While I was off ill, @cilipinfo tweeted this video and it really got me thinking.

I feel ever so slightly irritated when you hear something described as ‘librarian chic’ or when someone describes someone as dressing like a ‘librarian’ as meaning someone dressing dowdy.

So, I hereby begin my campaign (I use the word campaign loosely, it is more of a rant to be fair…) to eradicate the use of ‘librarian’ in fashion to describe the stereotype of librarians. I have a few reasons for this:

• It is detrimental to the library and information profession. As soon as you say you’re a librarian to a bunch of outsiders, you can instantly assume you will get some comment that you don’t look like a librarian, although you are wearing your hair in a bun. It is a negative assumption too – ‘librarian chic’ is boring, dowdy, sometimes scruffy and unkempt. Librarians are women, covered in cat hairs, wearing ugly shoes and tweed. This does not go with the hardworking, professional and tech-savvy librarians that I know. We struggle enough to have our profession respected and understood (it’s not all about books), without having our fashion sense bring us down.
• It is insulting on a person level. Okay, I do dress like a librarian because I AM A LIBRARIAN! But if a stranger/Gok Wan/Trinny & Susannah said you dress like a librarian you would be pretty insulted. I am proud to be a librarian but when I went for an eye test once, I prayed that I didn’t actually need glasses despite secretly wanting glasses for ages. I didn’t want any of those ‘oh you look like a proper librarian now’ comments! Glasses do not make the librarian. It also makes me more conscious when I wear my hair in a bun (my favourite lazy day hair style). Am I comforming to the stereotype and thus enforcing it? Surely if I backcomb it enough it won’t look like a ‘librarian’s’ bun?
• It is sexist. For two reasons: 1. The assumption that all librarians are women. and 2. The ‘sexy librarian’ idea. If you google ‘librarian fancy dress’, the images that it throws up do not look like ANY librarians I have met.

Urgh, yeah, because we all walk around with a short book printed skirt and low cut top telling everyone to ‘shush’. This is not how librarians dress! I understand that the ‘sexy nurse’ stereotype must annoy nurses, but the odd thing about librarians is that their stereotype conjures up 2 extremes: sexy or dowdy.

What do librarians wear then? Anything and everything. Some wear jeans and trainers for work, some power dress, some wear pretty dresses. We pretty much dress the same as any profession with a wide variety of people in it. It also depends on your work’s dress code – my work strictly says no jeans or trainers. I do have another little blog where I sometimes post outfits of what I wear, if you want to see what a ‘real’ librarian wears (occasionally cardigans and buns but no tweed and more dog hair than cat hair!)

Fashion and style has always interested me so I have an interest in perceptions of librarians, fashion-wise. So, librarians, what is your work wear of choice? Perhaps we could start a librarian style blog to show what real librarians wear?

(I’ve hesitated with posting this because ‘librarian fashion’ seems quite shallow and trite when there are libraries closing down and budgets being slashed, but now that libraries seem to be in the media more, I can’t help but feel more irate about the way we are portrayed as old women with tweed suits, glasses & buns.)

• Joined the CILIP NW branch committee and attended 2 committee meetings and the members day.
• Started tweeting for the CILIP NW branch.
• Registered for chartership.
• Had my job put at risk (scary)
• Worked a lot on my dissertation.
• Asked the public library journal if I can submit an article to them based on my dissertation findings once it’s handed in (and they said yes!)
• Been given a few new interesting projects at work (I am now the ‘railway collection marketing officer’)
• Oh and got engaged too!

Phew. What a crazy few months. Although there have been times when I have felt despondent about my career with my job being placed at risk, in the long run it has motivated me more to squeeze every last ounce of experience out of the job while I have it.

I am also training for a 10k run for the British Heart Foundation in May, just after my dissertation is due to be handed in. So, the next few weeks look like they will be a very busy time for me! However, I want to update the blog more to document my career more (which was the whole idea of it anyway). Please prod me if I don’t!