Google Docs

Yay. I love Googledocs for collaboration. No sending millions of versions around between people and ending up with two differently amended ones. Just one master document that can even be edited simultaneously by contributors. What's there not to like. TeachMeet used this a lot in advance of our last event and it was invaluable, as the amount of face time we could manage prior to an event was limited. We wrote publicity, articles and kept lists, accounts and even passwords on Googledocs ensuring anyone could step in where necessary to help out.

In conclusion, Googledocs =

  by  Paolo Camera 

Google Calendar - no thanks

I am not the most organised of people. I guess that should make me a rubbish librarian, but I seem to be ok at that bit. I do, however, have to keep track of what I'm doing with lists and diaries or I would not know where I was or why.

So really, Google Calendar should be a useful tool at work and home. But I'm just not sold. Ok, I can share it with other people, but somehow it just doesn't appeal enough for me to use. I prefer my dates in a diary, or two, and my Outlook. Oh dear. I really should like Google Calendar.

At the moment, we have a physical diary at work that everything goes in. I then have my Outlook, which means appointments pop up as reminders so I can't miss anything. I then have my diary, which contains some of the same things as the work diary and Outlook, but also everything personal, and happening at weekends. I've used this same system for over 5 years, and I'm loathe to change it. It's taken me long enough to train my brain to this way of thinking...

Doodling

I like Doodle and I already use it. Organising librarians together for any reason is quite difficult, so using Doodle is a great way to arrange meetings that suit the majority. I do find more complex polls, with lots of options a little annoying, as I don't think the concertina is particularly helpful.

I also wish Doodle could be used for other types of poll as well. It would be great to be able to poll on date, time and location, or refreshments or whatever else. That may just be the completist in me...

I haven't used Doodle within the library, as organising meetings here is not difficult, but for things like TeachMeet get togethers, and even social events Doodle is an invaluable free resource.

Thing 6 - I made this

Right, skipping Thing 5 for the moment, to do when I've got time to wrangle the download, onto Thing 6. Seeing as I wrote the blurb to this one, it should be fairly straightforward.

I like screencasting. I think it's an incredibly useful tool in circumstances when face to face training isn't possible, or isn't having the desired effect. And, since people have many different preferred styles of learning, this is a great tool for on demand education, and self-directing learners.

The biggest problem, and the one I had when writing the Thing, is sourcing a good programme. In the last couple of years quite a few good, free online products have disappeared and, depending on how the screencasts were stored, the screencasts may have disappeared too. I don't really understand why this is. Adobe Captivate proves there is a commercial market for the product, so the good free products should survive as well.

I am keen to do a number of screencasts for the Library here once the new College website is launched, although quite when this will be is not certain. A lot of material that is included in our library guide at the moment, might be better as a separate document, and some would definitely be more easily explained through a screencast demonstration than any number of screenshots.

What I particularly like about screencast-o-matic is the ability to save things to YouTube for other librarians to utilise, rather than keep everything squirreled away, when a lot of screencast topics can apply across libraries.

Foiled again!

  by  raysto 

I can't download Lightscribe at work, so efforts on Thing 5 have been temporarily suspended...

Let the great catch up begin... starting at Things 3 and 4

Ahh, RSS feeds. I am no luddite. I have been aware of RSS feeds for a long time and have indeed encouraged many students, colleagues and friends to use them for particular purposes. But I have never ever used them myself. I don't even know why. I use Twitter (more of that in a minute), I use Facebook, I use a range of media that act in a similar way to RSS feeds in gathering information and providing it in a feed. I have many friends and interesting library people that blog, but up to now I have always just clicked onto their blog now and again, or found out about new posts through Twitter etc. My bookmark list of blogs is quite long. I can only assume it is laziness. So now I have subscribed to all the Cam23 participants, and will work through my bookmarks list to add others.

Now I have to sit back and see whether RSS works for me. If it doesn't I suspect the problem will be with how often I look at my feed, and how many blogs I have on it. I oscillate wildly in terms of the amount of time and frequency I spend on social media (which I count RSS as in my categories), so I may miss so fab posts because they slide down before I see them. But we shall see... I've taken the biggest step by signing up.

So, Thing 4, what do you hold for me? Yay, something I already do!

I've been on Twitter personally for maybe 3 years, and coming upto a year professionally. I maintain two separate accounts in a bid to keep home and work apart, and to keep my professional account free of information on my friends' various shennanigans. My work account is @losbiblio and I'm happy for anyone to follow me, although my posts are at times sporadic, and may involve asking advice of other professionals on a range of subjects. Sometimes I just fill myself in on the latest news by reading my feed, without contributing back. I am definitely more talkative in person than online. I also don't follow everyone that follows me - I filter fairly strongly on @losbiblio to keep the amount of wasted time wading through cupcake recipes to a minimum (not that I don't appreciate the slightly 'offlist' nature of some Friday afternoons).

My personal account is also locked, so I can say whatever I want safe in the knowledge that only people I know and trust will see it. I don't ever go completely bonkers on there, but I like to have that bit of privacy.

We also have a library Twitter account, but don't use it as much as I would like. In my previous post, because I was working in a subject library, there were lots of things to tweet of interest to the majority of our students. College libraries are so varied that those sort of tweets don't really work in the same way. But we do use Twitter for service updates and reminders, both locally and around the University. At the moment I don't feel our students are particularly engaged with us through Twitter, but we'll keep going...

Creeping guilt

Feeling a bit naughty that I haven't caught up my Things yet - 3,4,5 and 6 to go, but going to see Take That scuppered any plans I had at the end of the week, and then I had to write Thing 6! (Not that I'm making excuses you understand).

I've also been MIA on Twitter for a good couple of weeks due to holiday and important stuff at work, so apologies to all the tweeps, particularly when I want to be engaging about this programme. Hopefully normal service will resume by the end of next week...

Post 1! Or, let's start at the beginning

I've set up this blog to record my efforts and experiences participating in Cam23 2.0 over Summer 2011. I arrived in Cambridge just after the end of the original Cam23 and the level of buzz, and the legacy I've seen it have over the past year made me regret missing out on it.

So, Things 1 and 2 (in typical fashion I went on holiday as everything started, so am playing catch up!).

Thing 1 was to get up an iGoogle account. I already use Gmail and Googledocs a fair bit for various work and leisure activities, but I'd never fully set up the iGoogle page. I can see how it could be a useful tool. Unfortunately, at work our homepage is consistently reset to the work website, so I can't use iGoogle for that, which would have been good. But, we might be able to use it as a library resources page if we wanted too, which might help circumvent the difficulties in getting the library web pages updated. I also couldn't help adding a pointless hamster to my page, which I can feed and watch run in its wheel. It's the simple things :)

Thing 2 was to create this blog. I've dallied with blogging before, almost exclusively for personal use, and never overly successfully, as I haven't kept them up very well. I'll be really interested to see whether the impetus to blog each week for Cam23 will finally get me in the habit of doing it generally. Blogger is certainly a simple way to get started. If I find some time I definitely want to look at Extra Thing 1 about making it look better.