Thing 8: Google Calendar

I have used Google Calendar before but I did not find it very useful for me. I prefer a visible calendar on my wall and in hand to keep me organized. What I did not like about the calendar is that I had to be online, in some way, to see it or get notices. This is great if I am always plugged in, but there are times I like, or am forced, to be unplugged. So the old fashion way is best for me. However, I love this tools as a means of keeping teams on track for group projects. I also love  how it can be used for websites to announce and keep track of events. Overall, I think this is a great tool for libraries and librarians. It is easy to use, manage, and share :)

Thing 7: Real-Life Networks

 I have been involved with the student association McGill's Multilingual Children's Library Association (MCLA). This was a great opportunity to get involved with some real library work with Children! Not only was I able to grow professionally, but also got to spend time with these children and brighten their day with great stories and activities. I also have been able to grow professionally through associations that had chapters in the school (CLA, SLA, & ABQLA) and their great workshops and presentations that were provided for the local librarians and students. From one of these associations at school I was able to participate in a mentoring program which allowed me to get a in depth view of how a public library works and the different kinds of work done, along with the benefits and challenges of public libraries. I also got to meet so many nice people!


I have also joined the CLA, SLA, and other associations that enabled me to attend other presentations and webinars. These were great opportunities that I enjoyed immensely. I do love these events! Next on my list is to attend conferences & unconferences. I find the aspect of conferences & unconferences exciting and scary. I want to see and hear everything, but am a bit shy so I am also scared about the idea. And one day I would love to present!

Thing 6: Online Networks

Before CPD 23 I had only really used Facebook. I mostly use Facebook for personal life stuff. I do not plan on using it for professional purposes. I would certainly agree with Reid Hoffman, as FB is more of a connection with friends thing, while Linked-In is meant for professional networking. However, I also have connected with friends from library school and we have a Facebook group for topics of interest. This is kind of on the line as they are friends and schoolmates, but they are also fellow professionals, so I leave it as it is.

However, over the past year I have really gotten into LinkedIn as it offers many groups of interest which have provided many opportunities for development. While keeping current with LinkedIn and FB friends and posts is daunting at times, it is invaluable as it is a great way to get a wider view on topics, keep up to date with people, and one great way to meet new people. Also, there is so much great advice from groups for (recent graduates or long time librarians) librarians trying to find work.

Last year I did join LISPN but I have not returned to my account...Sorry LISPN network! I have my hands quite full with FB and LinkedIn. Also, I found that while its a great network, it's best for UK librarians, while LinkedIn seems more the network of choice for North America. It might have changed since I looked at it last, but for now I will leave it aside to focus on the two above.

Last year I left the Librarians As Teachers Network aside as I was quite busy, and will do so yet again. I will get to you! Librarians as teachers is quite an important aspect that I want to get more involved with. For the moment I will utilize my LinkedIn groups and blogs that cover this aspect for now.

As for CLIP, I am not a member so I cannot join CLIP communities, but I did look around where I could. The blogs and forums look interesting. Already started by RSS-ing the Blog posts and bloggers of interest that I found while there!

P.S. I love the new ability of FB to integrate libraries and their catalogs on their FB pages! It will be great to see if & how library members use it.

Thing 5: Reflection

Well I am going through and reflecting on what I have learned already by rewriting it down in this blog. I like being able to revisit my experiences and thoughts about these "Things" I have learned. From my CPD 23 experience last year, it definitely pushed me one to get more web savvy. I have enjoyed CPD 23 immensely and look forward to the rest of the program.

Personal Brand was a big Thing that took lots of time for me to really get it down. I was uncertain for quite some time about how to approach it. I think it took me until this Summer when I began to work on my ePortfolio to really get it settled. It is hard to focus yourself upon your own brand. I find it helps to focus on what I want people to remember about me.

I enjoyed the finding other blogs thing and learning Twitter, RSS, and Storify. I found that once I started I got right into the web tools. I like learning from other bloggers. Also using Twitter has become much easier as I have kept using it, although I do so only periodically.  RSS is a great way to keep up to date, and I am glad that I finally learned how to use Google Reader, makes it so much easier to keep up with all those blogs!!

Thing 4: Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Storify

Before CPD23 I have not used any of these (Twitter, RSS, Storify) before and was very excited to have a reason to jump right in! I found setting up an account and getting started in all of them was so easy! Before I had trepidation about using them but no more, it's actually quite easy. I found some people to follow on twitter right away! And it was very simple to begin tweeting. 

RSS was always intimidating as the idea of endless steaming of knowledge was so scary! But its actually quite manageable as you can easily scan new info all in one place, which is extremely helpful! The only thing Google Reader is missing is the personal touches of the blogs themselves. 

The first time round we used Pushnote, which was the hardest of Thing 4 to get off the ground as you needed to know people by email or their Pushnote name. When your just starting this is not good enough. It needs a better search system, maybe by integrating browsing of options by categories of people/interests. While it's nice that it can integrate Twitter and FB feeds into one place it's not necessary for me, it doesn't seem worth while as I would still rather check and use each on their own. 

This time around we are using Storify instead of Pushnote. I had not used this one yet and found it an intriguing idea. This tool is very easy to use, just search and slide items of interest over to your story. I like this tool a lot. I think its a great tool to get people interested in journalism, news, and world events! And it can be used in many ways, as seen by Oprah's use of Storify for her book club. Scoop.it also looks like a great tool. I think these tools could be great for creating reader's advisory pages on selected topics, journalism clubs, and much more! I think it would also be a great tool to use with teens to get them involved with aggregating useful information for themselves and others about what they believe are important topics worth discussing.

Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

Name Used:  Here I am pretty consistent, as I use the same name across the board. Except on this blog where I just my first name. There may be problems with my name as there is at least one lady in the States and another in Britain with my exact name (minus the middle name, which I really don't use my name is long enough as it is!). (see below for further elaboration)

Photograph: The pictures I use are current pictures of me that I took in the Spring. They are a professional and I quite liked how it turned out :) I do not use my picture on all web tools as I feel that I do not need to. If someone wants to see a picture of me it is available through Linked-In easily enough, which I link to where I can.

Professional/Personal Id: These I intend to keep separate. My Facebook account is just for fun. Though I have many library school friends on FB and we do talk library stuff :) My Linkedin account and Blogging are for professional. Intermingling my personality and likes into the later is of course intended but I prefer to keep some things private. I rarely write anything personal on FB anyways either. It's more of a quick see what going on with friends link.

Visual Brand: Well at the moment I only have these 3 things going on and they all have their own interface design. However, I take note of the great tip by those running CPD23 to keep everything related and consistent. Thanks!
  -- I am recently working on an ePortfolio and am continuing to incorporate a similar design and color to keep it consistent with one another.

Activity: Well I did this one a while ago to see what I would come up with. This is how I found out about the lady in Britain with my name! I knew about the lady from the States through FB, I was trying to find myself for a friend  on FB to become friends and could not (my security settings were really high!) and I found this lady who obviously wasn't me. Which could definitely be confusing for those trying to find me! The first page of results on my Google search found my Linkedin and FB info and even a poster for a presentation I was in 3 years ago for my Undergrad. Though there were the other 2 ladies mentioned as well, problematic indeed. Thankfully, they are in other occupations and countries so the confusion isn't too great...unless you didn't know anything about me..hmm, something to work on!

Thing 2: Investigate some other blogs

Last year I began by randomly looking at some blogs registered with the CPD23 program. I found some blogs I enjoyed and followed them. I also had found The Lipstick Librarian, a very witty read. Unfortunately she hasn't posted in quite a while. I also began looking around for some other blogs and found
Phil Bradley's weblog, the wikiman, and Library Web Chic; all of which are very informative! Thank you!

Before I did not understand how people could get lost in blogs, well there are so many great ones out there with so much great information! I can completely understand how there is information overload with all of these blogs. I try to keep to a few to make sure I am not overwhelmed. I prefer blogs about the internet and libraries/librarians as this is what I am most interested in.

Thing 1: Blogs and Blogging

I started 23 things for Professional Development last Summer but stopped due to my Final year in Library School and my many volunteering activities. So now that I have some free time again I am continuing the program. I decided to create a new blog that would incorporate what I said before with some new reflection. Last time I finished up to Thing 7. I am looking forward to finishing all the things this time around! The program is great and gets us involved in many new and popular web and non web tools and resources.

Before the program I had very little knowledge/experience with web tools and resources (beyond Facebook and Linked-In) and really wanted to get into the action! Since I started last year I have gone beyond the program and have started to get to know and experiment with more web stuff. I find web technologies very interesting and have become quite addicted to trying and learning new web tools/resources. However, it can be daunting at times due to the massive amounts of tools and resources available on the web, but never fear! I have learned just to try things and if its not right for you to move on to the next. While nothing is perfect, there are many alternatives to choose from to get what you want.

I think the areas that will be most difficult for me will be Thing 15 (Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events) and 16 (Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published) as those make much use of public speaking, an area I'm already working on! This area is definitely my weak point. But I have gotten a lot better and am looking forward to benchmarking these "Things" as personal milestones to professional development.

I'm most looking forward to Thing 4, 14, 17,  and 18. Basically all the tech stuff to make my life easier!