CPD23: Things 8&9: Google Calendar and Evernote

Once again, I’m going to combine two things into one to try to get caught up. Since both Thing 8 and Thing 9 are individual productivity tools, I should be able to handle them both in one post without getting too long-winded.

Thing 8 is Google Calendar. I love this tool! I’ve had a Google account for a while for email, but only within the past 5 or so years have I really started to take advantage of the other tools that Google provides. I love how easy it is to share calendars and add others’ calendars to your own. I am an officer with my library school’s joint student and alumni organization, SLISConnect, and we use a Google calendar that we share to keep track of meeting and events, which is very convenient since we do most of our work virtually. I also have my calendar set up to sync with my iPhone calendar, so changes I make to one are updated on the other, and I love the option to send myself alerts to make sure I don’t forget something I may have put on my schedule weeks ago.

CPD23: Things 6&7: Online and Real-life Networks

I’ll be doubling up on Things 6&7 because they’re related: both about networks. Thing 6 is about online networks, including LinkedIn, Facebook, and library-specific ones like LISNPN, LATnetwork (Librarians as Teachers Network) and CILIP communities (or for those of us in the US, ALA Connect). I’m adding Twitter, because this is the one I used most often for online networking.

Tips for attending ALA Annual: A Roundup

The ALA Annual Conference is this weekend, and I thought I’d do a quick roundup of some tips for new attendees I’ve seen over the past few weeks. My first ALA was the 2009 conference in Chicago, and I did not plan as well as I should have. I did take a look at the preliminary schedule and picked out sessions I was interested in, but I didn’t know about any of the social events, didn’t really map out my schedule to see if it was feasible to get between sometimes fairly far-flung locations, and didn’t take advantage of all the services on offer. Don’t let this happen to you!

CPD23: Once More, With Feeling. Or, Thing 5: Reflective Practice

Last year I started the 23 Things for Professional Development course, but got sidetracked after Thing 4. In fact, I got sidetracked from the blog entirely – I think I felt that I couldn’t post until I was ready to finish the 23 things! After a while it seemed too late to start back up again. However, I just realized that they’re holding the 23 Things course again this summer. It started a bit earlier this year than last, but since I already posted about Things 1-4 I’m only a bit behind if I jump in now. I hope that this will help me get back into the habit of regular blogging.

CPD23 Thing 4: Current awareness tools

For Thing 4, we are supposed to explore 3 tools for keeping up with current news and information in the profession: Twitter, RSS feeds, and Pushnote. Of these three tools, I was already using Twitter and RSS (via Google Reader), so the only thing that was new to me was Pushnote.

CPD23 Thing 3: Personal Branding

When I first heard of “personal branding” I have to admit the term turned me off. I was very resistant to the idea that I need to market myself like a product I’m trying to sell. However, as the Practical Librarian points out, just because you do not put the effort into creating your personal brand does not mean you don’t end up with one. The problem in that case is that you are letting yourself be defined by what people may find on the web instead of taking action to present an identity that reflects you the way you want to be seen. I realized it isn’t necessary about packaging yourself as a product, but about managing your identity and professional reputation.

CPD23: Thing 2 – Meeting other participants

Despite my good intentions to keep up with the CPD23 schedule, I have fallen quite a bit behind. I left for the ALA Annual conference shortly after writing my last post, and things were a bit busier when I got back than I had anticipated. Hopefully I will be able to get back on track!

Thing 2 was to investigate other CPD23 participants’ blogs and comment on some of them, to start getting used to the “social” aspect of social media – having conversations rather than just posting your thoughts into the void. I’ve been commenting (sparingly) on blogs for years, so this was not so new to me. Commenting on posts that have gotten you to think about something in a different way, or that just interest you for whatever reason, is a great way to get your feet wet with blogging. Comment on enough posts and you start to realize that hey, maybe you do have something to say and starting your own blog doesn’t seem like such a silly idea.

ALA 2011 Annual Conference: My plan

I find myself with some extra time before I leave for the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, so I thought I’d jot down a quick post about my schedule in case anyone is going to the same events and wants to say hi. Due to alarm clock issues, I missed my 5:40 AM flight this morning. Luckily, the United Airlines agent at the ticket desk was able to rebook me on a later flight. I’m so grateful for this since nearly everything was all booked up. So, I’m now leaving this afternoon and will arrive just after midnight. Find me tomorrow around the conference center – I’ll be the groggy one with the extra-large coffee.

CPD23: 23 Things for Professional Development, Thing 1

I’ve made a last-minute decision to participate in the 23 Things for Professional Development program, which begins this week. Several people have mentioned it on twitter, and it looks like an interesting experience. The first “thing” is to start a blog. Since I already have one, I’ll be using this blog to participate in the program.
Looking at the list of 23 things, I’m already pretty familiar with many of them from my “Information Technology Tools and Applications” course for my MLIS. So why am I doing this program? There are several reasons:

• There are some topics that I do not know as much about and would like to learn more, such as personal branding and advocacy.
• I certainly don’t know everything about any topic, so I could always learn something new, even about the topics I think I know well already.
• There are a lot of people participating, so I may make some new connections. Everyone who’s participating is listed here.
• I’d like to get in the habit of blogging regularly since I’ve let this blog slip a bit. This program could give me the structure I need to make that happen.

I think it’s important to keep learning even though I’m done with school. Sometimes it can be difficult to make time to do this on your own, however. I think that this program, with its weekly schedule and assignments, will be a good way to remedy this problem. I look forward to the next “thing”!

(Non)participation in ALA elections

Every year after the ALA elections, I feel like there’s a flurry of comments online about how disappointing it is that such a low percentage of eligible voters actually submit a ballot – approximately 1 in 5 people voted this year. It makes for a popular topic of lamentation for a while and then seems to be forgotten until next time. This year, however, after a conversation in the ALA Think Tank Facebook group, Oleg Kagan decided to do something to find out why. In the spirit of #makeithappen, he put together a short survey for ALA members who did not vote to indicate their reasons and what might prompt them to participate in the future. The survey had a good response, thanks to the efforts of various Think Tankers in spreading the word and its inclusion in the AL Direct newsletter. Oleg has posted the results, along with analysis, on his blog. He has also made available his spreadsheets of both the raw and cleaned up survey responses in case anyone else would like to perform their own analyses on the data.