Thing 16

Local advocacy
I think we do quite well when it comes to advocacy in our own organisation. And without really realising or plan I had an input in that. Being the person that always likes doing things, I got in touch with some tutors and started doing small sessions during tutorials. Tutors and students liked them and they got mentioned during course reviews (by students!) and this way management learnt what we are doing. Also, we always try to follow up enquires, if we cannot find anything in the library, and recommend alternative sources of information.
Two difficult things that I am encountering now, in new role as a manager is, first of all, how to keep the good publicity. Second thing is, as I'm being quite critical towards myself and my work, so it is hard for me to speak about it in positive way.

Global advocacy
In terms of speaking for profession in general I probably do it on a very small scale. However I think all of my friends who had pretty set stereotype of librarianship are now fully aware, that it doesn't involve sitting and reading books for 8 hours a day.

Thing 14

Today I was looking at tools for referencing, I must admit this is the first time I've ever used them. I have tried all of these programmes, to have fair comparison and to see what each of them offers. The most important thing here is that they are free, so there is no excuse why students (and teachers and librarians) should not use them to enhance their work. A lot of our students struggles with referencing, so tools like that could really make their life easier.

Zotero – this citation manager is available as Firefox extension. I downloaded it and in just few minutes it was ready to be used. The tool helps designing, storing and organising bibliographic references- really interesting.

Mendeley - accessible through Facebook account however, the installation took few minutes to be completed. The program opens in new window and works independently. It is possible to attach it to our web browser, so anytime we come across interesting article or review   we can simply add it to our Mendeley database. It is great for organising references in accordance to title, date of publication, author etc.

CiteULike - again, it accesses the information through Facebook account so it is very easy to log in. In seconds, we can find many interested articles from the database and connect with users interested in similar research field.

It is a great idea. With these tools, you can quickly add the article to our databases to be able to go through it again and have a complete reference ready to go to the bibliography. It saves time and most importantly, the tools are easy to use. Definitely something to share with my collegues and students!

E-learning

Reading my friend's thesis on history and development of e-learning - everybody seem to think: blended learning is the future. I really do agree with that, it helps overcome the biggest problem of e-learning - lack of human interaction and, in consequence, motivation and persistence.

Thing 12

• are there any other advantages to social networking in the context of professional development than those already outlined above?

 Meeting people I wouldn't had chance to meet in real life and sharing, would be two most important aspects of social networking for professional development. Almost immediate access to vast amount of knowledge, reflections from conferences I cannot attend, ideas that could be implemented is absolutely priceless.

• can you think of any disadvantages?

No, not in professional sense. You have to be able to assess and filter, so you don't spend too much time networking, but the same can be said generally about Internet.

• has CPD23 helped you to make contact with others that you would not have had contact with normally?

Yes, it has helped me, but I definitely should do more. I am going to put more pressure on networking, although I must say that it already had been great experience. Knowing that there are so many professionals, eager to learn and share their experience, knowledge and expertise is simply amazing.

• did you already use social media for your career development before starting CPD23? Will you keep using it after the programme has finished?

Before I was using it only in a passive way - reading blogs or wikis, now I really appreciate role of dialogue in professional development 

• in your opinion does social networking really help to foster a sense of community?

That is a difficult question, but I think in context of professional development my answer would be - YES! It definitely gives you a sense of participation in the professional community of specialists - global community.

Thing 13

Google Docs -I am using google docs quite regularly and I really like the collaboration that it enables. I have recommended it to various pepole as a way of getting students together and allowing them working on one document. For that purpose there is also an excellent collaboration tool - iEtherPad http://ietherpad.com/. It allows many people edit the same document in real-time - great for gathering feedback, opinions, brainstorming.

Wikis - I have run some staff development sessions last year on using wikis, blogs and social networking in education. I prepared myself with materials from very basic to quite advanced and I remember being quite surprised how many people didn't know what wikis are (in plain English series was as always extremely useful here - I love it). In my own practice - I have created our department wiki to put our ideas and rules and it got really positive feedback. Will it be used? So far so good:)

Dropbox - it's the first time I have come across this tool and I really like it. I think it has huge potential for students' collaboration and gives great opportunity to work together with others on projects, conference papers, etc. Definitely something to use!

Thing 11

Since I've started my job I had nothing but wonderful mentors. I would say my first mentor was my manager, as I was really looking up to her. Now that she retired, very often I find myself thinking - 'What would she do in this situation?' Also in my organisation every new employee has his buddy - a person from different department to help with any questions or issues. Mine buddy was our careers advisor and she is absolutely great person. She was very supportive and always had time for coffee and small chat. Now with my new role I got different mentor, a person who has a similar level of responsibility and is really able to help me with mysterious things like service standards, appraisals, self assessments, business plans... Since starting charterchip process I have another mentor - for the first time it was my choice, and I must say it wasn’t easy. I had a look at CILIP list and I have seen so many interesting people that I felt I could learn a lot from. Finally I decided to approach person who was college LRC manager – just a role that I was taking on from September. It occurred to be a great choice and I am very grateful for all her advice.

I guess I have been really lucky when it comes to formal/informal mentors/buddies.

Thing 10

Here it goes. My story of becoming a librarian well actually - a library manager. I think it's quite typical: I have ALWAYS loved libraries and NEVER EVER thought I will work in one...

It has all started with my local small library near to my house and my love for reading throughout whole primary and secondary school. I still have a list of all of the greatest novels photocopied from encyclopedia and still cannot believe that as a teenager I have actually read thousands of pages by Solzenicyn or Boccacio or Margaret Mitchell finding them equally interesting. Then, times of university came and reading for pleasure was a overtaken by a little bit more painful reading - because you had to. But even in those dark times of  trying to remember every name and every theory, library had always been the bright place. This time it was huge (for me) district library in my city. It was the only place where I could focus, but also meet a lot of people. After graduating I worked in advertising and training agency,travelled a litlle and decided to come to UK. By lucky coincidence, while looking for course on a college website I found job offer for E-librarian that was appropriate fo my degree, seemed interesting and challenging. And here I am, two years later, loving evry da in my job an lookig forward to the futre.

posted on saturday morning using kindle on my way to sandown...