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...
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
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.
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.
Friday, 26 August 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 22 August 2011
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...
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...
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