Mirror, mirror on the wall ...

Thing 5

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and I’m starting to fall behind, so I’m hoping to catch up with things 5 and 6 this week.

Reflective practice is something I do quite a lot of anyway. I’m always reviewing what I’ve done and how I could have done it better. One of the advantages of job-sharing is that there is an opportunity to update and reflect with my colleague at least once a week, and this face-to-face discussion is often invaluable in helping me to understand why things have happened the way they have, and how to improve things the next time. Also, discussions on operational plans, or just working out our to-do-lists can leave me feeling more in control and with more understanding of how to fulfil tasks and manage my workload.

Looking more particularly on 23 Things …

Blogs. I really enjoy reading other people’s blogs and I’m trying to leave comments whenever I read something that resonates with me. It’s reassuring to know that other people are grappling with the same problems or facing the same issues as ourselves. It’s also extremely enlightening to have a snapshot of other people’s professional lives and see what they are doing day-to-day. If there is a risk to all of this, it’s the time spent browsing various blogs. As for blogging myself, I started out very enthusiastically but time (and half-term) have made it difficult for me to blog regularly. I find it valuable to record my activities and thoughts (reflective practice I guess?), but I’m not sure that others find it so useful., but the beauty about blogging is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be for other people. Having said that, the first things I do when I log into my blog is check my stats. I want to carry on blogging, but I need to be realistic about the time it takes. Once 23 Things is over, I may need to recognise that once a fortnight is as much as I can manage.

Twitter. I’m tweeting more but not sure if this of the benefit to myself or anyone else. It might be raising my profile, and it gives me a feeling of being part of a community when I join in a discussion. As for following other people, I’ve found some useful links now and again but I’m aware that I’m missing stuff so can’t rely on it as a failsafe tool for getting information – possibly this is my fault and I need to get to grips with tools to manage tweets. Again it helps to feel part of a community, and it helps to have a finger on the pulse when it comes to current issues. However a lot of the information is superficial and I have concerns as using it as a representation of the entire library community. It seems to be dominated by a few very frequent tweeters, so not sure if it representative of the community as a whole. Although it’s used, and often praised, as a way of following discussions and presentations at conferences, I haven’t found it at all helpful in that context. I’d much rather read a longer, more considered report on a blog.

However, it’s easy to use, and I love its immediacy. I can access it from my smartphone, otherwise use would be infrequent at best. It is definitely my tool of choice when looking for breaking news, such as information on the floods at the weekend, especially when I’m not at my desk.

Storify. I wasn’t too impressed with Storify at first, but I’ve now succeeded in identifying an use for it, and am looking forward to going back and playing with it again.

Personal Branding. I find it really interesting not just for me, but also for the institution that I work for, and my husband’s business. Personally I still need to get my blog and twitter account to match and update automatically. My blog is improving my online presence (I hope anyway), and there doesn’t seem to be anything bad out there. I could do more to promote myself, but again it’s lack of time and it’s not on the top of my priority list at present.

This blog post has become far too long and taken up too much time (yet again) so I’m leaving it at this for today. I just want to add that in all of this, the biggest benefit and motivator is engaging with other people, and that’s why I want to continue tweeting and blogging after 23 Things.