Thing 4: Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

Twitter

I have been on Twitter for a couple of years and initially I used it as a personal account only, following a few friends, celebs and retailers. I started to blog over a year ago and I then began to use Twitter to chat to other bloggers and to promote my blog. I started a second personal bog with a group of friends and we have a separate Twitter account for this.
When I became aware of all the other library staff on Twitter I started to follow them along with CILIP and some advocacy groups to keep up with what is going on in the library world. Rather than having three separate accounts I use my personal account for everything and just tweet a little more reservedly than I would have before I knew any colleagues were reading!

I have found Twitter to be a very useful tool to follow what is going on at conferences I cannot attend. I also tweet from conferences so colleagues who cannot attend can see what is going on throughout the day. I love that so many people tweet at library conferences now, it means I don’t have to take notes at all. I am free to listen to everyone, tweet a little myself and then when I get home I can make better notes and find links to the speaker’s presentations and slides.
Through tweeting at conferences I have gained a few new followers and made connections with library staff all across the UK. Twitter is a very valuable tool to me!

I use TweetDeck to view everything I need on one screen, in an organized column format. It defaults with columns of @Replies, DM’s, and AllFriends. You can create columns which just show tweets from colleagues, friends or create a search column on a particular term, like a conference hashtag.

RSS is great and I have been using it for a while. I use Google Reader to view all the feeds and it allows me to read and follow all my blogs in one place without having to visit each site individually. 

I tried pushnote but I don't really think it will be something I use. I already waste far too much time reading blogs and another way of rating them and commenting will just add to the long list of things I already to. I think it would be useful for someone who is new to blogging or for people who might use it just when following library related blogs.

What have you find most useful?

CPD23 Cardiff Meet Up

For more information please visit - Adventures of a Welsh Librarian

Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

I have thought about my online brand before but that was when I just had a personal twitter account and a personal blog. I used the same photo and nickname for everything and all my various profiles and social networking sites had the same look and feel. I started to follow a few colleagues and librarians on my personal twitter account and I think it was a little confusing for them, they didn't recognise my name and I only used my twitter account to chat to other fashion/lifestyle bloggers and to promote my personal blog.

I decided that when I started the cpd23 programme that I would use my twitter account in the 'profersional' way that Jo talks about on the cpd23 blog. I am pretty comfortable with people knowing my full name, reading both my personal and professional blog and being able to chat to me on twitter in a informal way.

I recently went through all of my accounts and used a single, clear photo which means it is easy for people to identify me, a few people have said hello at conferences because they recognise me from my twitter photo which is great.

I use the same background for my cpd23 blog and my twitter profile which is a photo I took in Hay on Wye of some lovely old books. My header for both my personal and professional blog were both drawn by a blogging chum and are whimsical and fun which is what I want all of my blogs to be like.I hope that I have created a unified look that represents my personality.

I searched for my name in Google and I was a little shocked about how much you can find out about me.
You can see that I have done the 10k charity Sunwalk and I was a guest on the 6Music show 6Mix and even the type of music I like. None of these things are particularly distressing but I have tightened the privacy settings on all of my social networking accounts just to be safe. I don't think there is anything about me online that my employer would be unhappy about, I hope.

I'm going to see what other cpd23 participant do to create a personal 'brand' and see if there is anything I can improve on.

Thing 2: Investigate some other blogs

With over 800 cpd23 blogs to chose from I've had a hard time choosing which ones to read.
I've narrowed my choices down to the following 4 groups-

Colleagues

New Professionals

Welsh blogs

Russell Group blogs

As I have previously mentioned I recently moved house so I've only really had time to explore blogs by colleagues and people who work at other Welsh universities so far. 

The Welsh blogs I have been checking out are Sharon's , Glamlawlib (I follow her on twitter and briefly met her at a conference) Glamlinda and zOMG! Library Things! (love the name).

There are quite a few Cardiff Uni colleagues taking part in cpd23 and I was surprised that there are so many of use blogging from one building. I have read Mathom Houser, Notes from the Basement and Helen's Library Blog so far, I wonder how many more of my colleagues are taking part. If you work with me please say hello and leave your link in the comment section below!

If you want to ask me any questions you can leave me a comment but you can also find me on twitter- @Gemma_DS

Thing 1: Blogs and Blogging

I first became aware of the online library community through a great post by Helen, which told her story of becoming a librarian. She really spurred me on to explore library related blogs and connect with the library community on twitter. I have been involved in blogging for over a year now but both of my other blogs are personal, one is about health and the other is about fashion and lifestyle
I was unsure about starting a blog relating to work, I had a lot of questions- what topics should I cover? who would read my blog? why blog at all?

Lots of people have been talking about the cpd23 programme in work and at places like the Gregynog Colloquium so I did a little research and found out what the course was all about. I thought a course that set out what I would write about each week would be a great way to start a work related blog.


Here is a little information about me and my career so far-

• I am a 23 year old Library Assistant and IT Support Assistant from south Wales.
  
  
• I work for Cardiff University term time only and I've been there for one year.
  
  
• I also work on a supply basis at Caerphilly County Borough Council libraries covering sickness, training and annual leave. I have been with Caerphilly for over 2 years.
  
  
• I studied History at Cardiff University and I'm currently doing an evening course called ' Management and Leadership Skills for Women'.
  
  
• I decided to work in the library sector when it became clear that I have no musical ability and I was not going to be the next Debbie Harry :( (being a library assistant is just as cool as being a rock star right?)
  
  
• I want to work on improving customer service in libraries (especially now that fees are going up) and I want to bring my retail experience in to the library environment.

I don't have a clear career plan, I'm not entirely sure that the Masters degree is something I would be suited to and I feel that I'm relatively new to the library and information sector so I'm hoping this course will help me decide what I want to by reading about other peoples experiences.
I'm looking forward to week 7 when we will explore training options. I'm really enjoying thing 2, I've been reading lots of great blogs and started to follow a few which I will read on google reader.

My dog- Sookie

I'm moving house tomorrow so I wont have the Internet for a while, I'm going to go to my local library to write my next blog post!