Thing 12: Putting the Social into Social Media

I've found myself being more social than ever before thanks to the CPD23 programme and I think that is one of the major benefits of taking part. I think I behave the same on social media as I do in real life - if there's a big group conversation going on I tend to feel quite shy about joining in and think I have nothing worth saying...unless I have something I am burning to say when I will eventually work up the courage! Social media has an additional speed element to it that often defeats me - I'm not lurking on Twitter all the time and sometimes I'll find there was a conversation a day ago that I would have enjoyed but everyone has moved on already.

I'm lucky in that I have some friends working in different careers but with a shared interest in social media so that gets me out of my comfort zone a little. I try to follow more general topics such as social media and education so that means I'm not just engaging with librarians - although most of my top tweeters to follow are librarians (our profession just has such quality people...)

As with many things, time is an issue - I haven't had much time lately to follow Twitter or check the blogs I follow - but when I do find a moment, I shall keep trying to engage a bit more and lurk a bit less.

Lurker by Robert Stok on Flickr
(This breaks my secret NO CATS rule!)

'Managing your online presence' : Promoting Digital Literacy

I've just uploaded my presentation from the Welsh HE librarians conference at Gregynog to Slideshare (tweaked slightly as the original was mostly images):

Managing Your Online Presence - Promoting Digital Literacy

It's really a pitch to get librarians thinking about students' social media awareness and whether this could be part of our remit. I think it should! It's digital literacy and, if you consider what a great source of current awareness and resources it can be, it's an information literacy issue too.


I had already been thinking about this before the whole Liam Stacey/Twitter incident but when that news story broke it really brought it home to me how much we could do to help students think about their social media use. We have only really just started thinking about this at Swansea Uni and, as you can see from the presentation, our attempts to do something about it have been a bit two steps forward, one step back... Still, to continue a dodgy metaphor, it does feel like it's an idea with legs!

There was lots of positive reaction on the day - for which I was very grateful! I'd love to hear opinions / experiences from anyone doing or thinking of doing anything similar?

PS There's a link at the end to our teaching resources, shared under Creative Commons. We will be adding to these as we develop more stuff.

Tardy Thing 6: Online Networks

Image by Patrick Hoesly on Flickr, courtesy of Creative Commons

I'm very grateful for online networks as I really don't get out much these days.... Having travelled a lot in my last job - and also now having small kids - I don't enjoy days out as much as I used to. I also don't feel the need with so much online - conference tweets + presentations + reflective blog posts.

I don't really think of LinkedIn as an online network, more of an encyclopedia of people. I do 'get it' more than I used to but it seems a very static thing, rather than active connections. Maybe I should do more with Groups? I'm resisting treating it like trading cards and collecting people other than those I really do know well. I've tried to add more to my profile, but it's still a work in progress. I found it very useful to look at the sample profiles on this Thing and I hope to incorporate some of their ideas.

I've been on Facebook a long time now and wouldn't be without it for keeping up with far-flung family and friends. I have it locked down and I don't friend anyone I don't know reasonably well in real life but I do take a chance sometimes on people I know a little at work. It's then a refreshing surprise when you find you have more in common than you thought, and that then feeds back into work in a positive way. So I think it's worth taking a few cautious chances there.

I haven't really done much with LISNPN: I don't feel like a new professional (2004 was probably when I called myself that) and I kind of like the idea that there's all this youthful enthusiasm going on there without feeling the need to join in!

Improving my teaching is something I really want to work on next (academic) year so I think I will have a proper look at Librarians as Teachers later in the summer. I'll be hoping for tips and resources I can use and perhaps a sounding board for ideas.

I'm no longer a member of CILIP so I'm not really minded to try the Communities. I guess I feel that I have Twitter as my main online community - that's where I get to meet new people and join in conversations. I don't really feel a need to add to that at the moment. It's all about keeping it manageable...that's where I struggle!

Thing4: Postscript on Storify

I found a use for Storify today! I hoped to harness the power of Twitter by throwing out a request:

(Icon from Iconfinder)

"Any (other) HE librarians out there teaching social media / managing your online presence skills? To students or staff? (Please RT!)"

I was fortunate enough to get a load of RTs and the information started flowing in. Even though I use Hootsuite which is pretty good for controlling the stream of Twitter, I felt a little panic at keeping track of what I was learning. So I remembered Thing4 and went over to Storify to store the replies I got:

http://storify.com/rscsam/he-librarians-teaching-social-media-skills

One thing I found is that now I am trying to add some extra tweets and all my requests time out. I find that using Twitter once the US comes online can be frustrating in terms of searching or viewing older tweets etc. Just need to get it all done in the morning!

Information Overload?

Image by Khalid Albaih on Flickr - used under CC licence

I picked up this on Twitter last week (sorry - can't remember who from...)


http://www.briansolis.com/2012/05/the-fallacy-of-information-overload/


It created very mixed feelings in me. I could relate instantly to the "perpetual sense of 'missing out'" - the more you engage in social media, the more it gets it hooks into you. I find it particularly difficult as I work part-time so I'm always missing out on the first part of the week (I work Wed/Thur/Fri). It means I'm never going to be a consistent tweeter and often I miss out on news stories that come out on those days as they've sunk way down my stream by the time I get to work on a Wednesday. As will all the other down-sides of working part-time, I try to cultivate calm acceptance (2 days off a week are great)!


The main conclusion - "To be clear, information overload is a symptom of over consumption and the inability to refine online experiences based on interest and importance" - this got me narked initially. I felt a bit bludgeoned by that statement as I *do* experience information overload sometimes and I don't like being told it's all my inability! Seems to me, this is HARD - it relies on a constant editing process of selecting and learning new tools, refining your sources / feeds and critically engaging with them. It's not like just picking up your daily newspaper of choice.


It's up to every individual to decide how important social media is to them, and it won't be to everyone. I do see it as a vital source of information and I believe - as an information professional - I ought to be evangelizing (in a focussed, relevant way) to others about it too. This means I'm keen to take part in social media sessions here for researchers and students and I'll try to keep on top of social media sources for the subjects I support.


I also think that "refining online experiences" is a key digital or information literacy skill. I think this is something we should be able to teach or advise on as librarians. So I try to educate myself in how to do it as much as I can. That's an ongoing process and sometimes seems very uphill. And that's where CPD23 comes in. :o)

Thing 4: Twitter, RSS and Storify

Twitter Bird Sketch by Shawn Campbell on Flickr, used under CC licence - ta!

I've been on Twitter for some time now as @rscsam. My moniker (there's a word I don't use very often) is related to my old job which isn't ideal but I can't get my head around changing it. I have a separate personal account - which I rarely use - dating again from my previous job when we were told not to say anything political during the general election as we were on government pay. That proved too hard to bear! I keep my personal account as it has a separate non-work-related bunch of stuff that I follow - local news & councils, music stuff, friends and family. My work account is an invaluable source of library-related information, ideas, news and trivia. I do use it more for listening than tweeting and I think I ought to make more effort to have a conversation now and again. I've watched and learned from How Not to Tweet! I've never used Storify, because I've never had a reason too yet, but I'm sure it's a great tool. I'm going to keep an eye out for a reason to use it...

Now I hate to gripe...but I'm going to anyway! I do struggle with the whole tweeting from conferences thing sometimes. Your feed gets swamped for the duration (although there are clever tools to weed out hashtags e.g. some mentioned here) and often it can be all soundbites with no substance. I want stuff I can USE. When people tweet links or examples of people / places doing something interesting that you can follow up then that's superb. My other pet peeve is paper.li : usually random stuff in an irritating format. I'm sure it's great in the right hands but it's just not for me.

For current awareness, I'm finding there's a real tussle going on for me between RSS and Twitter. A lot of stuff comes through on Twitter and then I find it duplicated in my RSS feeds. However, particularly being part-time, I just can't keep up with Twitter enough to rely on not having missed something vital. I use Google Reader and have a set of folders dividing up my work feeds (library blogs, Welsh library stuff, subject-support related stuff, information literacy stuff, learning technology etc.) and my personal ones (news, art blogs, music blogs, pretty pictures on Flickr, archaeology feeds, vegan recipes, green stuff). I manage my feeds quite closely and get rid of one if I find too many posts just aren't interesting me. I think you have to be ruthless or it becomes unmanageable.

My best RSS feeds?
For work, the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog has been going great guns lately on academic research-related stuff. Personally, I always enjoy the feisty Heritage Action blog for the latest on heritage issues - there's an ongoing investigation into the trashing of a prehistoric stone row by a wind farm on Mynedd y Betws which is almost visible from my front room on a good day (I don't mind wind farms but I do like stones). Epic Fail! and the gentler Win! used to have me howling with laughter but I couldn't keep up so they've been axed!