Thing 5 - Reflective Practice

OK. So I've been avoiding Thing 5 all week. Reflective practice isn't my strong point. Description yes but reflection not so much. Hopefully this blog and following cpd23 will help change this as I would like to start working towards my chartership soon.

So, what has cpd23 taught me so far?

Well, as you can see I'm blogging with some regularity, mostly about cpd23 to be fair but hopefully over time other stuff will become a part of this as well. I'm enjoying the opportunity to put something down and have somebody comment on it. And I like lurking around other people's blogs, it's educational. Sometimes I comment but mostly I lurk.

Of all the various things that I've learnt from cpd23 the most useful perhaps has been Twitter. Don't get me wrong I already knew how to use Twitter, I just didn'r really see the point of it that much. And now I'm using it not every five minutes like some but most days, not every day as to be honest I've more or less decided Twitter is going to be mostly professional with the odd bit of personal thrown in for good measure. However most days. :-) 

Between Twitter and my blog I've started networking which I'm quite pleased about. One of the drawbacks about working in the National Library is that while it is a prestigious and highly incredible place to work, we are to all intents and purposes unique we don't fit in as either Academic or Public Librarians. And this makes it much more difficult to network. This is problematic for me as I'm working on a project and once that project comes to an end (or runs out of funding whichever comes first) I'll be wanting another job. I'm hoping this way I can draw a little bit of attention to myself (hopefully good attention) which will help me find a job. As so far all my job hunting has been unsuccessful. And while I'd like to reflect on what's wrong with my application forms I can't. Mostly the feedback I've had has consisted of the words "it was a good application but there were a lot of good candidates" this really isn't helpful. Having said that most people have ignored my pleas for feedback so I'm a bit stuck.

The other good thing about networking is that it gives me the chance to make some new library friends. Both in Wales and in other parts of the UK and you never know maybe even the world. I'm looking forward to meeting some of these people on Wednesday in Cardiff. I'm just hoping my Tom Tom will get me to the place ok. Not that I think I could miss Cardiff itself very easily but I don't know it that well and may end up nowhere near milgi's which would be a pity as it's a 2 and a half hour drive apparently :-S

Anyhow I think Thing 5 may be very confusing for anyone reading it as it is definitely a bit meandering. Oh well, I tried. Maybe it'll get better with time? *Fingers Crossed*

Thing 4 - Current Awareness - Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

Hmm... Thing 4 seems to be a bit of a tricky one. I'm trying to understand/get the hang of all three of these mediums.

Twitter - I'm managing OK with Twitter, though until recently I had only a handful of followers due to everything being in lockdown. My Twitter is still in lockdown but I'm following more people some of which have been kind enough to follow me back. So now I have a grand total of 32 followers and I follow 86 people. The majority of which I've added in the last couple of weeks since I've started cpd23.

RSS - Well, I've signed up to Google Reader and am attempting to get a hang of it... I've added some random blogs that I like the look of, news and jobs. I'm still experimenting with this but to be honest I think I'd rather go to the blogs themselves in most cases as you don't get the various backgrounds etc that make the blogs personal to the blogger with Google Reader. For jobs I love it as then I can star the jobs I like the look of and I don't end up looking at the same jobs over and over. We'll see if it grows on me given time.

Pushnote - I really don't get this. None of my friends have it. Although I did find a couple of my new Twitter people from cpd23 on it. But so far I'm not fussed. We'll see whether or not this changes given time...