Thing 23

Thing 23 - Reflection week

And so things draw to a close. What a fascinating and at times challenging experience this has been. And mostly very enjoyable too, if tiring.

For me, the best thing about the programme has been getting in touch with other librarians. It's been great to have a support network of other people exploring these things at the same time so that we can encourage each other and compare notes. Without wishing to single people out embarrassingly, I've been more impressed than I can say by Annie's apparently boundless energy and enthusiasm. For the past three months she has been everywhere - not just blogging on the Cam23 2.0 site (and on her own blogs) but also commenting and tweeting all over the place. So thank you, Annie.

It was wonderful, finally, to meet other bloggers at last night's wrap party. I'm only sorry I couldn't have done it earlier. I wish all the best to those graduate trainees who are leaving Cambridge. Those who are staying around, and those who are just arriving, I hope to meet (again) before too long.

It's also been brilliant to be able to follow people who are doing CPD23. It has proved an excellent complement to Cam23, and if similar programmes run in the future I look forward to being a part of them somehow.

As for the Things themselves, by far the most useful has been Google Reader. It's revolutionised the way I manage RSS feeds. How did I exist before? I don't remember. Also delightful: LightShot! How simple it is, and how effective. It was also fun trying out screencasting. Though I try not to dwell on negatives, my feelings about Pushnote are unchanged, I haven't used iGoogle for a couple of months, and I confess I have hardly visited LibraryThing since my initial excitement wore off. I haven't got into the habit of using my Twitter account much either, though I still log in periodically, and perhaps it will become a more regular haunt now that less of my time will be taken up with blogging. But at least it's good to have tried these things out. As librarians we ought to feel an obligation to keep up with new technologies, or we will run the risk of being left behind. They may be a useful weapon if we are ever called upon to justify our existence.

OK, enough of the Braveheart stuff. I've done quite a bit of Wordling here and there in the past few years, so I thought I'd use Tagxedo, which I was introduced to by Erin's post, to add a bit of colour.

Well. Where now? I'm sure I'll appreciate the Cam23-shaped hole in my life for a bit, but those inevitable withdrawal symptoms will steal upon me before too long. I think the blog will go into at least semi-hiatus, but I won't hesitate to resurrect it if I think of anything interesting to write about. And I hope some of the other blogs will also continue. I'll keep following everyone's progress. Until we meet again.

Thing 18

Thing 18 - Reflection week

Reflection time again? The weeks are simply flying by. And I am off on holiday for the second time in a month, shirking my Cam23 2.0 drinks party attendance duties once more. I wouldn't even have been able to come on the extra day (Saturday) because I'm attending a wedding next weekend. But if I've got the hang of scheduling posts, this should appear at some point on Monday afternoon. Hello.

Glass reflections by JMaz Photo on Flickr

I have found the latest batch of Things more relaxing, by and large, than the previous ten. That's because most of them - LibraryThing, Facebook, Flickr and Podcasts - come under the heading of Play rather than Work for me, and so I've had a lot of fun tinkering around with them. LibraryThing, for instance, I don't really envisage using for professional purposes, but for my personal library it might be quite handy.

I feel as if I'm running out of steam rather, hence the comparative brevity of this post, though I've been quite good at keeping up so far. At least the end is in sight, with only five Things left - and one of those is the final reflection, and two of the others we get a whole week for - so it should be manageable. Looking ahead, though, the last things are very much outside my comfort zone. I suppose it's good to be stretched. I must say how very grateful I have been for everyone's support along the way. I find the blog comments most encouraging. Thank you.

Thing 13

Thing 13 - LibraryThing

I'm a librarian, but I'm also a bookworm, and so this is probably the single Thing I've been most looking forward to. I used a basic LibraryThing app on Facebook for a short while a few years ago to show friends what I was reading, but I had never had my own LibraryThing account. I thought it would be nice to be able to add a LibraryThing widget to my blog, so I set about doing that.

Registration was not only easy, but even pleasant. It's a nice touch that the code required 'to verify your humanity' (I can think of a few people who would fail that test...) has to be entered from the cover of a book:

Being the kind of geek who keeps a reading diary, I know everything I've read for the past several years. It was the work of no more than a few minutes to add all the books I've read this year to my account, using Amazon.co.uk as my search source. Then I played around with the formatting of the widget available to Blogger until I found something that suited me. And so on this blog you should now be able to see something like this at the side:

This morning I logged on to find that on the basis of the books I'd listed I had been invited by another user to a group called BBC Radio 3 Listeners, which I duly joined. I'm still very much on the nursery slopes with LibraryThing, but I think it is likely to become a regular haunt.

As far as using LibraryThing for libraries is concerned, it seems to be a nice optional extra but not essential. I don't know how easy (or desirable) it is to incorporate aspects of LibraryThing into a library catalogue. Looking at two Oxbridge libraries that use LibraryThing, one has not been updated for three years, while the other is updated every week or so with new additions. It requires someone to put the effort in, and it may be hard to monitor just how much library users get out of it. As my colleague Anna points out to me, we already have our own more mercenary way of notifying users of new books - via the Amazon Store on our library website, where we advertise new books by Fellows and graduates of King's College in the hope that kindly visitors will buy them.