Cam23 - The Big Catch-Up: Things 9, 10, 11

I’m going to write very quickly on a series of Cam23 topics as I can’t find a way to keep up with everything and I need to squeeze several posts in one. I’m also about to go on holiday so I will resume in September with even more things to catch up on. Time management skills, eh?

Google Docs: I didn’t really know what to say about this until I created my first form last Friday and discovered the magic of the whole thing. I had used GDocs before but only as a way of sharing Word documents (with others or myself, to avoid carrying memory sticks around all the time), and I had found it slow and less useful that a “real” Word doc. But the forms! And the fact that the data are automatically collected in a spreadsheet! Blessed be Google however mischievous they may be. The form I created was aimed at colleagues in other Cambrige libraries. Every year we update our publications and, in the past, we used to send a copy of each to all Cambridge librarians. This approach had two main downfalls: 1) we didn’t ask librarians if they actually wanted our stuff, thus spamming them with literature and not making sure it was well received and happily dealt with 2) the system was based on an address list that changed all the time as librarians were moving jobs and roles: updating the address list used to take a lot of time – and transform the whole thing into a very tedious task. I have now created a form in GDocs and sent an email (plus a tweet) around the mailing lists. Responses so far have been really good and the form has been filled by a dozen librarians. I can’t wait to pull it all together in September and start organising a personalised mailing service! As I didn’t trust GDocs fully, I chose a rather convoluted way of sending the form around but next year I’m going to put the link to the form straight into the main email.

Pushnote and Evernote: nothing to say on them apart that 1) I can’t download them 2) Pushnote seems not to be that useful 3) Evernote sounds more interesting and useful. I will remember their names in case my downloading facilities get an updgrade, or I manage to snatch the admin password and hack my work computer.

Dropbox is an extra-thing and actually one I wanted to try as I do have an account but I have never used it. When I’ll get round to use it, I promise I’ll blog about it.

My opinions on the programme so far: it’s very interesting and the fact that I’m not enjoying it fully is totally my fault. I just got involved in too many things when I had a moment of professional boredom some months ago, and now I feel like a fly bumping into the same window over and over again without finding a way to get out. I thought about dropping one of the two programmes (the other being cpd23) but I know I’ll regret it if I do, so I’ll keep going and you will forgive me if I’m always running late.  See you in September.

Self-plagiarism (CPD23 Thing4)

So it appears that cpd23 Thing4 corresponds more or less to Cam23 Things 3-4: what a shame! ;-) Will have to resort to self-plagiarism and link back to my post below. Apart from going to the Take That concert, I’m running a bit late because I’ve been quite busy with setting up some little projects before our brains switch off and, following our users, desert the library for the Summer. This is because I just CAN’T sit at my desk and enjoy a quieter time – I have to find things to do and yes, you are right, I can be an absolute pain for my colleagues what with projects, developments, changes, improvements, etc. etc. Well I guess I’m paid to do something in the Summer too, otherwise I would stay at home and take care of my garden (or something like that).

Just one more thing to say that I can’t try Pushnote because I don’t have all those alternative browsers at work. Of our two home laptops, one is almost ten years old and already suffering from overload (when we tried to download IE8 it all failed and left us with the message “your browser is obsolete – install IE8 again”), the other is the Sacred Computer My Husband Uses for Work, which I can’t use much: apparently, every time I touch it I revert to the clumsier IT person in the world. On the contrary, when I use my laptop, I’m an IT geek. Neither is completely true, but my husband seems to think so. Mysteries of the human psychology!
So enough for this week, sorry Pushnote but I might give you a try when you too will have been swallowed by Microsoft (or at least made a sort of agreement with them!).