CPD23 Thing 10: Why, how, and what next (my life in libraries)

Why

I can’t say, like many others, that I just fell into it. If I look back, it was quite meant to be, and there have been a couple of milestones (i.e. decisions from my part) who have put me where I am now.

Risking to sound like a freak, I will confess that when I was a child, to the – slightly worried – astonishment of my parents, I used to browse the phone book  to see how many people with a certain surname were living in my town; I loved to look at maps; I used to make lists of everything in my possession (books, stamps, coins from foreign Countries, Barbie doll clothes); I loved to investigate the history behind objects – who owned that book, who wrote that postcard, where that piece of furniture came from – not to mention old photographs; restoring my Mum’s dolls; collecting old stuff, keeping it in order, and making it usable again. These are all activities that should have shouted “libraries and information” to any good observer (I definitely wasn’t one).

CPD23 Thing 8 and 9: Google calendar and Evernote

I’m running scarily late, so I will indulge in some self-plagiarism (again). I have already talked about my use of Google calendar in a post written for Cam23 some weeks ago. Re-reading it, I don’t find much to add, apart that I have added some external calendars to it and this works really well. Also, that post had a link to the presentation of the first Mac computer by Steve Jobs and, if you have never seen it, it’s really worth it. Expecially to anyone wanting to enhance their presentation skills.

Evernote: it sounds like a really, really useful tool, although the restriction on Word documents makes me feel a bit wary. I have tried to download it at work and I almost thought I had managed to get around internal IT security, when I realised this message had been on my screen for quite some time and realised also that that “1 second remaining” was destined to last for a long, long time.

I have no excuses for not dowloading it at home now that our IT provision has been upgraded with a shiny new tablet, but my husband is using it all the time to read one of his sci-fi books (why oh why are they all available to download?) so I’m a bit stuck. I know, this is a really bad excuse, but don’t worry: I want that elephant icon on my computer and I’ll have it one day!

 

CPD23 Thing 7: Real life networks

I wasn’t feeling much inspired for this one, but Helen’s post and, above all, the comments to it woke me up. Totally agreeing with what Jo, Bethan and LJ Hutchins have said in the comments, and bearing in mind that I know everyone is different and at different stages of their career / life, this is what wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t signed up for CILIP membership - and it's not an exaustive list. I wouldn't have...

CPD23 Thing 6: Online networks

Online networking: there are two sides of my personality clashing here. As a child of the Eighties, when all this stuff didn’t exist and we communicated in person, by letter (oh yes!) and by phone, I’m still a bit wary of all of it. Moreover, my husband and most of my Italian friends are social networking haters or strong sceptics. As and adult of the 21st century, however, I have embraced social networking as I think that, if this is the way to communicate, let it be it. It’s like using a different language: I wouldn’t be speaking Italian to English speakers, expecting them to understand me and reply in Italian; if everyone was just looking at Twitter feeds, I wouldn’t be sending emails to them, expecting them to reply by email. Thankfully, variety is the rule here; I love the idea of having more than one tool to communicate, and being able to choose the appropriate one according to the person I’m trying to communicate with. Also, I don’t think that secluding yourself in a disdainful ivory tower, declaring that new developments and technology are not for you and will never win you over, is a great favour you do to yourself. We would still be riding horses and litting candles if we hadn’t embraced technology and change.

CPD23 Week 5: Reflections

Not really knowing what to invent for this post, I started reflecting (!) on the meaning of the word reflection. You know, I love Latin, and every chance to talk about it doesn’t go amiss. The word is composed by re-, indicating repetition, and –flectere, which means “to bend”. Basically, reflection is the process of bending something over and over again in order for it to become flexible enough to take a different shape. It is an essential skill to apply to our actions and thoughts: taking them, twisting them in order to see where they might bring us, and then follow through.

Reflections on the Bohjini Lake, Slovenia

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!).

CPD23 Thing 3: Branding myself

Part I – My brand
  
I let a couple of days pass since Thing 3 went up on the cpd23 blog and, in the meantime, I had a look at what other people were saying about their personal brand. The thing that struck me most was the exercise mentioned by Tina in Tina’s Library Related Stuff: define your brand in six words. Come on – I told myself - six words, it can’t be difficult! Well, I have been thinking about it for three days now, and haven’t come up with ANYTHING, so I will be using this post (and your patience) for a bit of self-brainstorming.

CPD23 Thing 2: More blogging

As promised, today at lunchtime I went blog-hunting to find other CPD23-ers and see what they had been up to for Thing 1. I based my search on the conversation on twitter (#cpd23) and visited almost all those who sent a proud tweep about their first post yesterday. I also took a quick look at the Participants list and the tags on Delicious, to pick some interesting titles. Like I do with books, I choose bloggers on the basis of catchy titles – well done to Conan The Librarian Strikes Back who had me looking at that blog even if there was no CPD23 post on there yet.

CPD23 Thing 1: Blogging

Finally, the day has arrived: here we are with some 23-things related posts. I will try to keep the CPD23 and Cam23 separated and blog on different days, ideally CPD23 on Monday and Tuesday, Cam23 in the rest of the week. Sounds feasible, doesn’t it? ;-)

So, why am I taking part in the course? Well, being a member of the organising team, I suppose I couldn’t keep my place behind the scenes, and just watch all you people having fun with our programme. Besides, to overcome a sense of being stuck that was starting to haunt me, I have been thinking a lot about my career in the past few months, so this seems to be the perfect chance to gather my thoughts together and transform them in some form of action.

CPD23: will you?

Back in January, I had a nice talk to myself and decided to stick to the following rule for the first half of 2011: don't turn myself down and don’t prevent me from doing things. This is mainly why I now find myself running like a hamster in a wheel to keep everthing going...but feeling more alive than ever. When I was asked to be part of the CPD23 organising team, I said "yes" without even knowing what a 23 Things programme was.