Thing 17

In a bit of a rush but I have opened my flickr account and posted some pictures (including some rather lovely ones of autumn leaves, even if I say so myself!).

I found it quite easy but I need to get my head around finding friends on flickr and  tagging - I never was a good cataloguer.....

Doing my Things in the wrong order

As I have already attempted some of this (as my previous blog entries show) I am doing my Things in the wrong order this week.  Thing 17 will have to wait.  Today I am reporting on Thing 18 and 19.  I have already shared Creative Commons pictures (like this picture of a librarian and his drawers):

  by  Musgo_Dumio_Momio 

I have also embedded library instructional videos before.  This one remains my favourite:

But I have just discovered this one, of which I am quite fond:

Not sure if it brings much clarity but it would be a fun session in the Teaching Grid...

End of week blog

As it is Friday afternoon, a few more reflections.

I started the week by lecturing postgraduate students at Sheffield's Information School about branding.  They proved a great group to teach. They really responded well to the exercises I gave them (one admitted in a group discussion that she thought that marketing was 'sleazy' before we unpacked what it really means - I don't normally get that level of honesty) and I really feel that the profession is in safe hands with these guys.

That is assuming there is a profession left and libraries are not being run by volunteers who have nothing better to do on a wet Wednesday afternoon.  Good on the public librarian who wrote in The Guardian about why we still need what the students pointed called 'professionally-run' libraries.

Finally, a find to round off the week: a video that should make anyone smile...

Thing 15 and Thing 16

Ah, back to low frustration Things!

I really like the look of Zotero: the ability to collect different types of objects, the easy to use interface, the ability to search within the text and to provide virtual marginalia AND the drag and drop for referencing...all looks really useful.

I get to hear a lot about EndNote from Sam or Mr Perkins.  I used to be more involved with it in a past job but my handouts were not as good as the guide on the Library's web site.  

"Collect.  Manage.  Cite and Share."  Nice!

All round: good stuff!

"oh, you silly Thing...."

I think it was the Sex Pistols who sang "Oh you silly thing, you've really gone and done it now" (I can't quote Keats but I can quote Paul Cook).

I'm afraid Diigo proved a silly Thing for me as, because I 'registered' with my Warwick email it would not get back to me to accept me.  I was a bit suspicious about the page of things to do if the emailing did not work...

  by  annavanna 

I'm not too heartbroken, though, as I have previously used and enjoyed delicious.  It is easy to use ...especially now they have taken the full stops out of the name.

I do hope it will continue ...at least it lets me log in......

23 divided by 2 equals 13

Surely there is a problem with the maths here!  Thing 13 is the half way point!  Are we really doing 26 Things and we haven't been told?!!

So how have I found it ...so far?

On the negative side I have found it difficult to find the time and a worrying number of these blog entries appear late on a Friday afternoon.

On the plus side the actual Things don't take that long to do and it has been great having a catch up week (otherwise the posts would be appearing on Sunday nights!).

I quite enjoy the blogging and could see this as a good tool for reflective practice.  Some of the stuff - Firefox and Facebook - is already familiar to me.  I still haven't made full use of RSS feeds though I can see these are useful.  Twitter looks the most fun, though I still need to master all the respond/share/contact directly functions.  I think I could become addicted to tweeting - I now only have to develop an interesting life to tweet about...

Thing 12

Thank goodness!  A nice easy one.

I have been on Facebook for years but use it more to lurk.  I find it useful for contacting individuals, hearing from distant friends and checking my nephew's ever-changing relationship status!

Library use of Facebook varies from the rather dull to the quite interesting ...a bit like Library Web sites I suppose.  The BL site is pretty cool because there is so much unique stuff they can be promoting.  The new Birmingham Library site contains some fancy images.  It certainly looks a lot better than the bizarre council shopping centre feel it currently has.  I always remember running a training session there once and setting an ice breaker exercise.  As I looked out of the window at 09.35 I saw a guy drinking beer in the boozer down below.

When I do my marketing talks I invariably mention our Facebook presence.  This is much admired.  Katharine deservedly won an award for her article about our Facebook campaign in ALISS Quarterly.  I like to think that part of this was down to the writing and part down to her hard work in establishing this excellent resource.

Things 10 and 11

Phew, it feels like I have had 5 million things to do lately, so this social networking stuff on top pf this means my 'To Do' list is now at 5,000,023.

Over the last two weeks I have had a go at Twitter:

  by  xotoko 

I found it a bit tricky to set up ...especially finding an image which wasn't going to crash my account.

I find it a bit weird having followers (even though I have wanted followers all my life in one way!) and am still a bit concerned about responding to Tweets (who can see what?). Having said this I do find it nice and concise and fun ...and I imagine it could be strangely addictive.

Hello stranger!

Been very busy so haven't even had time to blog!

Don't know how Stephen Fry does it....