Friday 14 October 2011

Thing 23: Reflection - what next?

This programme has been very good and has covered a lot of different areas the information professionals needs to know about. From how to get into the profession and how we can still develop and keep up with the new technologies that are around. It shows how much librarian have to keep up with what is happening to be relevant to the people we are serving. looking at the different tools that are available at the moment are very useful, and to be able to use them properly they need to be evaluated by each library service because there is not a one size fits all with them. I have also enjoyed sharing my thought with others who are a different stages of their careers, and how they have become or are becoming a librarian.

After undertaking this course I have seen there are many different tools that can be used but I have only looked a them briefly and had a short go to be able to blog about the resources that are used. Now I am going to go back and have a better look at them to see if they are useful for Telford & Wrekin Libraries to use. I do not want to go into using these tools and then let them go by the by because we have not got time to keep them up.

Friday 7 October 2011

Thing 22: Volunteering to get experience

I have undertaken voluntary work in Bridgnorth Library to gain experience. I found this an excellent opportunity to gain the experience I needed to get on to my course. It is sometimes hard to get that first job in the area you want and if you volunteer it shows prospective employers how keen you are to work in that area.

If volunteering is used in the right way I do not feel that it devalues the profession because it can show people aspects of the work that they never knew about before. I do not think that volunteers should be used instead of paid professional staff, but to work along side them to gain the knowledge they need to get a professional post is invaluable and can help gain more knowledge advocates for the profession.

Thing 21: Promoting yourself in job applications and at interviews

Looking at this post there are some very valuable tips for when you are filling in application forms and preparing for interviews. Creating a list of your achievements and strengths is a very good idea because I do find this the hardest part of the process. At the moment I have not created the list like they have suggested because I am writing a daily blog about my work and what I have achieved, this also lets me note down how I feel things have gone and when I am looking back at things this information is very valuable.

Friday 30 September 2011

Thing 20: The library Routes Project

Looking at the blog posts people have submitted to the wiki Library Route Project page shows that my route into librarianship was different from most people. When i was young I did not consider librarianship as a career, even though I loved reading and regularly went to the library to change my books. However I did not stumble upon the career after university, it was while I was undertaking my work experience in Year 10 at school. Though it did take a lot of patience because I could not find any work in this area at first. I do recommend undertaking voluntary work in the library because this is how I gained my experience though it was very good to have help from those who were professionals.

My advice to anyone who wants a career in the information profession is to keep persevering because in the end it is a very rewarding career.

Friday 23 September 2011

Thing 17: The medium is the message - Prezi and Slideshare

At the moment I have not got any presentations to create so the use of Prezi for that is not for me at the moment. I have had a look at some of the presentation however I have found it confusing at how to navigate it. Sometimes I would be going past the information I want or not work how how to find the next piece of information. This may have been just me not being very technologically minded. I need to have more practice on this perhaps when I do need to create a presentation I will use this instead of PowerPoint.

With slideshare I have used this in the past when I have been conducting research, looking at other peoples slide on that subject. I think that this is a very good idea because if you could not get to a presentation you would still be able to access the information on the talk. The downside would be if you got to a bit that you did not understand if might not be that easy to contact the person who create the presentation to clarify it.

I think that in some ways this is still a wait and see what the future holds for sites like these.

Friday 16 September 2011

Thing 19 Catch up week on intergrating things

From this programme I have gained a valuable insight to the tools that are available for library professional to use. Looking back over the tools we have used I think that some of them I may use but others I will not as we already have provision set up in work to be able to share documents for editing with other people. 

At this point in time the social media tool I am using the most at the moment is blogging. This is due to the fact that I blog everyday to document what I have been doing that day for my chartership. Even after I have finished my chartership I will continue to blog because I can capture my thoughts about what has been happening daily and I will have a record of what I have been doing if I need to look back on things.

The other tools that will be used at work are wiki's for disseminating information to staff and Facebook to engage with the online community. Though at the moment these are not set up yet. I am still fallowing people on twitter even though I am not tweeting. However I will try to use this resource more because it is very good to hear about what is happening in the library profession.

The other tools that have been discussed I will need to look at more to see if they will be any use to me in work.

Friday 9 September 2011

Thing 18: Jing/screen capture/podcsts (making & following them)

In the course of my work I have had to use screen shots to highlight areas, for example how to use Ancestry.  It has been good because you can annotate the pages, however the file that is created is very large.  Also for other people to use it the screen shots you either have to email it them or print it out.  Using a programme like Jing or screen-o-matic means we could create a short tutorial and put it onto the website and more people will be able to use them.

I think that podcasting is a good idea, for work it could be used as a way to promote books ie recording a book review, or to record talks that are given in the library.  These can then be out on the website for people to listen to.  The tool audacity is easy to use all I will need to do I practice with editing and uploading a file. This is because I have used this programme at church when we record the sermons. 

Both of these tools are a good way to promote the Library service.