Thing 20: Library Routes

I've learned to love my routes. It's been a long, winding road that has actually ended up back where it started - when I was in my late teens I wanted to be a librarian. So much so that I took a Saturday job in Oak Farm Library and spent half my weekend shelving books, issuing them on little cardboard tickets and coming home feeling my hands needed a good wash. All for a real pittance of pay, especially once bus fare had been deducted. Still, I enjoyed it - the company was good and, as Saturday jobs go, it wasn't a bad one.

Next thing that happened was I fell in love - with my degree. I followed my heart and did Ancient History and Archaeology, specializing in Egyptology - and did well enough to go straight on to a PhD. You could do that in those days. Looking back, it was a mistake in many ways, even though I met my own condition of having to secure funding (thank you AHRC!). I knew nothing really of research so it was very uphill: there was very little in the way of support or research-skills training and, worst of all, I was so GREEN! I didn't have a clue about getting published, networking, or anything at all to take me beyond those 3 years. I loved my subject and I loved studying but I also spent a lot of time working as a barmaid to pay my way. I'd say, until now, that was my favourite job - I like customer service and I was lucky enough to work in the most beautiful spot in the whole wide world.

So after that, I looked around for a "proper job" - anything - I was broke! Applied for various graduate posts only to wind up as a trainee Computer Programmer for a company that liked non-tekkies for our "people skills" - the rest they taught you on the job. I spent a total of six years living in London, working in financial institutions in the City a lot of the time, learning various coding languages. And, yes, it felt a monumental struggle and I never felt like I was very good at it. The skill I learnt the quickest was how to find something someone had already done, try to work out how they'd done it and copy it before anyone noticed I didn't really have a clue.

That life took its toll. My heart wasn't in it and I had never wanted to move back to London. It felt like a wonderful release to get a job back in Swansea again but that turned out to be such a job from hell that I ended my IT career for good. After taking off on a wonderful road trip round Scotland, I came back and was both glad and lucky to a get a job on the issue desk at the University library. Yes, it was a huge pay drop from my IT days and, yes, it was worth every lost penny in terms of happiness and quality of life! I did that for nearly 2 years before heading off to Aber to do the library masters and my career as librarian was finally back on track, some 20 years later.

I can see now that everything I have done has been an enormous help in being a librarian. I have a research background, even though it was a long time ago, and the "Dr" doesn't hurt when you're dealing with academics. You never lose tekkie skills - it's about having a confidence and an understanding of how things work, not specific systems or languages - and I believe these are essential for library work anywhere today. Even being a barmaid was invaluable - providing good customer service often under pressure and with the occasional difficult customers.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else now - I love working at a university, I love Swansea and I have fantastic colleagues. I know how lucky I am to be able to say I love my job - I never forget the horrors of my London days (stress, long LONG hours, bankers). I don't regret the long road it took to get here. Who knows where it will lead next?

Thing 19: Integrating Things

My breather for Thing 19 turned out to be oh-so-much longer than a week! But it is the busiest time of the year so not unexpected... Now I come to reflect back, I'm feeling a little downhearted as I'm not sure I have made that many changes to my ways of working so far. I think this is partly due to the fact that I was already using some of the tools a lot (Dropbox, Google Docs, Evernote, Screencast-o-matic) but it was good to know that use of these was recommended. Then there are tools that I do want to use better (Google Calendar, Prezi, Mendeley) but I just haven't yet had the chance to develop this use. The timing of the course has been bad for me as I was on holiday for a chunk of August, then we start getting really busy with teaching after that. Excuses, excuses....I'll blog if I get there!

I do think however CPD23 has changed my way of thinking about networks and events and getting out there more. I find I'm scanning event announcements quite eagerly to pick my opportunity to get out and about. I also look with regret at the network meetings I can't go to in Wales! I sincerely hope I WILL be going to the ALIS Wales conference in November as long as work will to pay (pretty please!) and look forward to meeting other Disability-support staff there.

Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

This Thing:

We have been doing screencasts for a while now and use Screencast-o-matic. It has completely hit the spot in terms of being easy to learn, quick to get going & simple to share once done. We even added subtitles. I can't recommend it enough therefore if you just need to do it with no frills.

Personally, I find it easiest to write out almost a script to have in front of me. I also accept it's not going to be perfect. I genuinely believe anything over 2 minutes is too long - no time can be wasted on intros, you have to jump right in and be as quick as you can. They can always be re-watched...

The issues we hit were

• Media complaining about the quality and other aspects, compared with more professional tools. Basically, they expected us to be using Camtastia or similar. However, we don't HAVE copies of a posher tool nor do we have the time to learn it. The quality is definitely sufficient to tell someone how to do something and that is all we need. (Media were only involved at all as they said we have to host the videos on "estream").

• Backing them up. We tend to link back to the website but really we ought to download them just in case it went pear-shaped. We are supposed to put them on our institutional "estream" so this would achieve this.

• Finding a place to do them. We have an open plan office so to do one you need to book a room, use a laptop, find headphones, get it all set up to work etc. It's a huge faff! This is particularly annoying as I'd love to be able to do a quick screencast sometimes to answer a question - so many of our queries are about accessing online resources and it would be ideal for that.

• We already have a whole swathe to update this summer as interfaces change. This isn't a huge problem - I was able to reuse the "script" from before so it didn't take as long as the first time to do.

Hate listening to podcasts & don't make them. That sounds terribly churlish but I felt the screencasts were enough for one year! Also I prefer a visual medium - I'm not sure I have anything to pontificate on that would fit an audio format?

Thing 17: The Medium is the Message- Prezi and Slideshare

Link to the Thing

I've had so many false starts with Prezi I've lost count. I'm not a fan of its zoominess but I'm not letting that be a barrier to using it as I assume I can control it how I wish. I think it looks good and I'm a big fan of mind mapping so having a nonlinear approach suits my way of thinking. At our SALT Learning & Teaching Conference this year I was so impressed when one of the student presentations was done with Prezi, completely showing up the other academics' fusty old powerpoints! (Not a comment on their content - by its very nature, Prezi makes any PPT look pretty fusty....)

But it's just been too hard! Hard to get my head round it, hard to find my way around, feeling you need to use it well or not at all, feeling it always needs more time than I have to get to grips with it... I've been really trying to improve my presentations but I have focused on the content and planning so much I have less time for design. I think that is probably the right approach but I'm determined to master Prezi sooner rather than later... I looked at it again today but, even though I have watched the intro guides, I'm still a little lost on where to start. I do have an expectation that things will be easy to use, probably unrealistically so.

One big drawback: we are using clickers in most of our classes and of course that relies on Powerpoint interaction so I can see that being a reason not to use Prezis, although you could break up a class into different presentation formats if you were really keen.

I have used Slideshare a little and it performs a wonderful service in making things available. I have very little stuff that is for external viewers rather than our own staff and students but if I do, it will go up there. Here's my profile:
http://www.slideshare.net/Librarian_Sam

Thing 16: Advocacy for the profession and Getting Published

This thing makes me feel a little uncomfortable, as I know I haven't been as active as I should in advocacy and activism. I know a little about Voices for Libraries - enough to know I agree with it wholeheartedly - but  I do other stuff (Amnesty) in the very small amount of time I devote to such things. I think you have to find your own balance in life with these things and I'm not going to get stressed about it.

I work in an academic library and I do try to push and promote our services whenever I can, but this is usually only on a one-to-one basis. I think we seriously need to be bigging ourselves up on campus but there's only so much a pleb like me can do - it really needs a strategic lead & message. Demonstrating value / impact is key to this and I am desperate for time to catch up with all the research on this that's been going on. There must be a good message we can distil from it and use.

Getting published is a real ambition of mine and something I need to focus my efforts on in the next few years. This isn't just a vanity thing - I'd love to know I'd done something interesting enough to write about! I feel a real barrier of not knowing where to start or what to do - a publishing mentor would be very useful at this point I guess. When I think about publishing, I'm thinking of an academic journal - part of the point for me is to go through the process and get the research experience.

Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events

Goodness me, keeping up with the Things has never felt harder than on a hot, sunny August Friday...just before I go off for a week. This particular thing is also something I don't have too much to say about. As mentioned before, I'm a terrible stay-at-home these days unless there's something devastatingly interesting (rare!) or I'm forced into going (Gregynog!). Actually I really enjoyed my day at Gregynog, despite having to present, as it was full of friendly Welsh librarians, some of whom I'd not seen for a long time. So that will teach me to try to get out more...

I made a colossal effort with my presentation not to be death-by-powerpoint and I was boosted when someone complimented my first slide (a pic of an owl!) right at the start. So this is the tip I would share - make the effort to find good pics, nuke any bullet points and follow the advice of the presentation links in this Thing. I feel like I am on a steep presentations learning curve which is taking me far from my comfort zone. I still make many fundamental errors in boring an audience, but I do feel like I'm improving by trial and error.

A splendid owl (free use pic)

I'm going to pledge this year (2012-2013 academic year!) to try to attend one library event, no matter how far, as I definitely need to kick myself out of my lethargy.

Thing 14: Zotero / Mendeley / CiteULike

This thing is something I have dabbled with in the past as I try to keep up with referencing tools. Supporting students and researchers is a key part of my role and I think this ought to include information management if I can manage it. At my university we have a licence for EndNote and EndNoteWeb so this is promoted as the tool of choice and we run plenty of training on it too. It's OK but these are the defects:

• It's not social: you can only share libraries with other EndNote users
• I don't think it's a good idea to put your eggs in a subscription basket as most students and researchers will find themselves moving around in their careers and may not have an EndNote sub. However, you can always export and import your library to a new system.
• It's not the prettiest or the friendliest tool out there.
• EndNote the software is only available on campus PCs - for your own laptop you need to shell out around £60. EndNoteWeb is a cut-down version accessed via the web.

It does integrate well with Word and the full EndNote package is bells and whistles. I try to use EndNoteWeb myself as I have to train on it and need to know how it works.

I have tried Mendeley and used it for a project where we wished to share a list of references with the wide world. It worked well for that. It's also fab at indexing a load of PDFs but generally speaking I find it a bit clunky to use. You need to download and install it, and then there's the web interface.

Zotero I used once about a year ago and found it OK - again, I liked being able to share my references. I think you can see them here? They are part a work thing and part a Welsh flora thing I did as part of some voluntary work for the National Botanic Gardens of Wales.

My big problem is that I am accumulating various bits of library-related stuff and I have no way of indexing it all and keeping it neatly together. Some of these are articles but others are blog posts or reports etc. I sort of shuffle along in a disorganized state, Googling things I already found, re-downloading things I already have etc. It doesn't take too long - that's the problem! If I ever undertook some serious research or writing again, I'd have to put my eggs in one basket and I'd probably pick Mendeley.