Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Rudai 23 : The End

Its over now what do I do... 





Now that Rudai 23 is all over I'm panicking a little as to what I do now! It has been a big part of how I spent my time over the last few months! 

Over the past three months I have really enjoyed this course. I have learned and engaged with technology and software most of it free that I didn't know about or failed to see its relevance to my work. This was the first course that I completed was done entirely online and self motivated. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning about online tools and these days all jobs require some knowledge of whats out there. 

I have been asked before in interviews did I write a blog and until this course I never saw the point. I always saw it as a self-promotion tool and it was only for academics to put their views out there. I never thought of it as a record for yourself of your attendance of seminars and a way of keeping notes as bits of paper can get lost copy books can get put away and not used ever again! Although so can blogs.. I hope I'll use it again if only to remind me what I attended and who spoke. So I still can't see myself being a regular blogger. I'm just not that interesting!

I found Rudai to be well structured and timed one or two things every week. It was challenging but fairly spaced. The team was always on hand to provide help and guidance (bit of self praise here I know) but so were the other participants which provided an almost classroom environment. There was lots of engagement on twitter and commenting on other peoples blogs which allowed for a growing of networks and a sharing of different viewpoints. 

I couldn't pick a favourite thing from Rudai as I enjoyed doing them all and could always relate them back to a workplace setting where they would be useful. In my last employment for example I could really see the usefulness of infographics. They would have been a great eye-catching method of displaying the dry facts and figures that make up inventory's and registers. What I liked also was the fact that the course wasn't only about learning new tools. It cover areas of responsibility such as advocacy, copyright and to your own profile as a information professional. 



I would like to give a big shout out to Naimh and the rest of the Rudai gang and saw thanks for putting this a really great course together. 




  














Thursday, October 15, 2015

Rudai Twenty three : Making it all work together



Social media management


I ignored Flipboard as its strictly a mobile app and went straight to Hootsuite. I had heard of it in passing before but never knew what it was or how to use it. 

I tried out sending a scheduled post to twitter and then tried to send a post across my Facebook and Twitter accounts. They both worked. I can really see the usefulness of this app for organisations. It would be make the handling social media aspect of work much easier.  Events can be advertised across a wide spectrum and reach many more people than would say an email or poster. 

The scheduled posting on twitter is something I came across before at a conference. The speaker had prearranged tweets to sent during her speech. I found this a bit odd. I see this better used to send out reading material or examples after the conference. 

The only thing I would say about it is that for personal social media accounts it can be difficult to invoke permission of access. Which could be a security risk for your data. For work organisations such as a library's this may not be too much of a problem. 

Hootsuite is a great way of managing your organisations social media output at a reasonable price. 


 

Monday, October 12, 2015

Rudai twenty two : Mobile Things

Apps and Stuff

I have not given much thought about apps for my windows phone as it was a budget buy for my personal needs. On reading the post I had a good look at what kind of apps were out there for windows phone users. I was always told that there were only a tiny number of apps being made for these devices and that the quality was inferior to android or Apple. I can't testify to the quality of the opposition but the quantity and quality here seems great. 

The ones that stood out to me and were free that I would be tempted to download for my phone if it had a bit more power were:

  • Code writer which supports 20 file types
  • Winzip
  • Lastpass a password management tool
  • Evernote touch
  • Camscanner whoch allows document scanner and sharing 
  • Collaborate
All these got good reviews and reasonably high download rates. I think I'll wait till my next phone till I download these as they tend to be for windows 8 and above and my little old windows 7 and even older PC wouldn't be compatible.

The Bizarro 23 things like Rudai 23 but different..


I took option three as I don't have an iphone or tablet and couldn't borrow one for the others tasks though they did look interesting. 

The 23 mobile things course looks very similar to rudai23 in that it covers much the same ground. I would say though this one is the superior course it does seem a good deal more detailed and how-to. The post I chose to investigate was thing four Maps and checking in.


They recommend the user to explore google maps as we did too. I said before in a post that I don't trust google maps that much as they can be up to a kilometre out. I use HERE maps which are a windows phone app they are quite good but it no longer works on my phone since the last upgrade. 

The post mentions "checking in" functions on Facebook and other software. I have a problem with this in that I dislike being tracked by multinational companies. I feel by giving this is giving them access to downtime when I should be offline enjoying the company of friends not giving even more information to the likes of Google or Microsoft. Strangely this isn't mentioned in the post or comments. 



The post mentions some apps and uses for these GPS tools such as geocaching and wayfinding. Third level institutions and maybe large secondary schools could use geocaching in their library induction as a fun way of getting the students used to making their way round the library. The post also mentions Wayfinding while I can see this being useful for finding WiFi spots I can't see it being used to find books or items in the library. The stock is labelled 000- 999 it's a easy system as it is. I would fear for the student who could navigate it. It also smacks of technology for technology sake. 

Readar is an app developed by Librarything which tells the user of library's and bookshops round them in an area. This does seem a great way of reaching a interested audience. Foursquare also gets a namecheck. This is a search engine app that allows users to search for businesses in city's around the world recommended by the locals. I searched for coffee shops in Dublin and got a good number of names. I did observe however that they predominately based on the south side of the city.  This is probably because clientele in this part of the city is wealthier and will have a greater chance of owning an up-to-date smart device and use apps such as this more. What does this mean for businesses and institutions outside these areas? Is it worth their while investing a presence for the apps if they're not going to picked up? 


23 Mobile things also seem to have a very good pintrest page. I looked at there pins for thing 4 and it was impressive. It give links to more detail and updates to the software and applications mentioned in the post. 

I am in my mid thirty's so I could be showing my age in the fact that I dislike and don't get the attraction to sharing my details online and I dislike being tracked by faceless machines. I don't really understand why people are so willing to give up valuable information about themselves which data mining companies will make money from for perhaps a cinema ticket? If they're lucky..

Overall I really liked how they wrote up the posts and used pintrest to supplement the information being given. I prefer Rudai23 though! 



 




Saturday, October 10, 2015

Rudai twenty one : inforgraphics


Charts and posters for blogs


I have used piktochat and easy.ly and have tried another cavna. I normally enjoy making this type of stuff posters headers etc. I have done it before designing a logo and headers for an accountants firm. I found this task quite hard however. During the task easy.ly crashed quite often or just froze when I tried to do something. I also found the free version fairly limited in images and some of the templates were not that useful or easily adaptable. The site pixabay however did have a massive amount of vector images for use for free and these could be loaded up onto the infographic without much hassle. 

I also seemed to have a problem logging in I used the same password and username for both packages but could never seem to be able to log in to piktochat. In saying that I found this package easier to use and it seemed to have a lot more offered in its free version. But easyly did offer a save as PDF which makes things look more professional.

I liked the fact that you could construct graphs and charts in piktochart and import information into a poster. While in easy.ly the chart could not be altered so easily. It seemed to be set at four comparables. 

When I had difficulty choosing a topic when planning my infographic. I wanted to keep it library related and a lot of my early attempts were appalling. I suspect the two I have posted are good examples of a bad infographics but I am glad I tried it out. 

The first one I constructed in easy.ly It is a just a lot of facts about the famine in Ballinasloe. I tried to saved it as a PDF.   But I could not get it to embed here for some reason. All I got was a white empty box. So I saved it as a jpeg and inserted it as an image. it can be viewed below.




Here is the piktochat infographic it is about my rudai blog visitors





I have embedded it in the blog post. I think its a bit too big for it. Overall I think infographics are a great way to display large amounts of information in a concise way. They offer an alternative to reports with large amounts of text that would take longer to read.  




Saturday, October 3, 2015

Rudai Twenty : Presentations

Addressing the crowd


Bilbo's Birthday


I dislike making speeches or giving presentations. In small groups I am able to speak well and get my points across but in rooms full of people I get quite scared. I am quite a shy person so I used to introduce myself loudly not quite shout out my name but not far off. This helped me get rid of some of the nerves I was feeling. Getting the tone of voice is difficult and keeping it mixed so that I didn't have a monotonous drone. Linked to getting the voice right is the timing problem explaining the issues in the allotted space can take a some practice but sometimes it can be even worse to finish before time.  In my experience I did speak far to fast. 

In many of the presentations or lectures I have attended for work or pleasure I have found that many don't know how to give good presentations. In one instance the speaker proceeded to read his 10,000 word thesis in a 1 hour 30 minute lecture that was only meant to be forty minutes. In another on cataloguing the speakers slides were so badly designed that I could not read them. The background and font colour were clashing and the images were fuzzy. I would be critical of his speaking style as he took a complicated topic and made even more so. 

My experience of giving presentations were in my third level and post graduate education. Here I used the first three types listed the the exposition, the showpiece, the conversation. The sales pitch while I have not completed one I have taken part as a member of the audience. A company did give the library where I was employed an overview of a new system that they were trying to sell us. It was an online presentation which had a voice over and slides followed by a phone conversation. 

Putting together your speech is a time consuming job. It has to sound natural and flowing all the points leading into and on form each other. It is a less forgiving than anything written. Similar to podcasting knowing your script is vital. 



Building slides is hard what do you put on them? pictures is permission needed?, are they focused properly? Bullet points have recently been spoken against. How much text is to much? I have only used PowerPoint. It is useful but I agree that its strengths can be its weakness in that too slides can be over busy with words and pictures. I have never used Prezi and when I looked at the site the cost was quite a lot a €10 a month. 

I have included here in this post a mini Pecha Kucha presentation I did for the Digital media production for the MLIS. It was on the volunteer library myself and other set up in the local village. This was a 3 min lecture with timed slides that moved every 20 sec or so with musical interludes. This type of presentation works better with lots of photos and little text unfortunately the library had been damaged by flooding and I got no photos of the library itself so had to take lots of the village instead. Looking at it now I can see lots of errors and things I could have done much better. The text and the colour scheme could have been better selected as they don't really match. It was a difficult process speaking for 20 seconds on a topic of the photo/slide then moving on to the next. But it is suprising how much you can fit into 20 seconds. 


Friday, October 2, 2015

Rudai Nineteen : The Legal side of things



                         Anonymous [public domain] , via wikimedia commons

    

Copyright

                                  

I first came across copyright connection to libraries in the MLIS when I audited the publishing module. This was interesting but very dry as it was full of legal history and jargon. The lecturer actually hated some of the copyright laws especially the lifetime of some copyright restrictions on works. The example they used was James Joyce whose grandson was still living off the proceeds. They were a publisher themselves 

Caroline's great blog post condensed and updated a lot of the information on photos creators rights. As a librarian I am familiar with attributing correctly when quoting from articles or books but only lately has it sunk in that I should be just as rigorous when it came to photos. 

Throughout my education I am not sure I accredited pictures I used for projects thinking that if they were on the internet or published I could just use them freely. For this course I have been very careful to use either getty royalty free images or pixabay images. 

I have worked in an institution who had several large photographic collections of local historical interest. Using Creative Commons licensing would be a way of promoting themselves and still maintain ownership and ensure the safety of their collections. 

A question I have though if you are involved in the preparation of a work for a body who will in turn own the rights to the work can you mention it in interviews or your CV?   


Saturday, September 26, 2015

Rudai eighteen : Communicating through photographs



Say it with Pictures


I will not be setting up a flickr account. I don't want to give Yahoo! my phone number. Google, Facebook, Twitter, and MSN doesn't have it (to my knowledge though they are sneaky) so no. Also I have enough passwords to remember as it is. I can't set up an instagram account as I have a windows phone and I couldn't do it on google play on my laptop.  

So doing the tasks this week has been tough. 

Looking up some instagram sites such as New York, San Francisco, and Boston libraries it reminded me of Pintrest. The New York library site tended to be full of pictures of people holding books over their face or people holding their favourite book or witty photographs. I loved National Gallery of Ireland site it had lovely photographs but not much interaction from the patrons. The comments are very few on the any of the pictures. 

I can see the use of this in libraries especially in holding events for children and teenagers. It could be a great way of getting young patrons to interact and be inspired by the novel they have read. It could be used for Christmas events such as the polar express program to interact with the children and publicise the event. 




Although I didn't sign up to Flickr I did use the search facility. I used it to find some photographs of my hometown which were very old, possibly Victorian and they included now demolished buildings which is great for an amateur historian. It also includes details about the photograph and you can interact with the owner or poster of the image. These would be a brilliant way to showcase a collection and aid researchers. The drawback being you must register. 



  

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Rudai seventeen : Reflective Practice



A few thoughts on the course

I started this course so that while I was unemployed I wouldn't be wasting my time. I would be helping out with this and learning new things. Learning about online tools was something I had fallen way behind in. A lot of the examples covered I had thought were just for teenagers or were different forms of Facebook. I now know better. This course isn't just about learning new things however.

I never liked the reflective practice part of modules on the MLIS but they generally counted for a good part of the marking scheme so I got on with it. I found the Gibbs cycle quite difficult to get a grip on as it seemed to be based on a emotional connection and I am more rational.  

The fact is too I still don't particularly like writing and reflective writing especially. If its a report that's fine I can do a good job of that as it generally deals with facts, describing problems, suggesting solutions, etc. 

The Gibbs cycle is a very academic approach to evaluating situations and skills and I don't know if its appropriate in a workplace. An emotional interaction may be important for a module in university but I think the similar STAR (situation, task, action, result) method would be more appropriate for a professional workplace. The two parts of Gibbs that I personally disagree with are "feelings" and "evaluation". I think ones feelings for a task does not matter so long as it is done to the best of your ability. When using either Gibbs or STAR a personal work diary is essential and should be kept by everybody.

Where these methods come into their own is in job interviews or personnel evaluation. I don't think that managers or employers are interested in how staff felt or how the experienced the task. Whichever method is chosen being able to describe a problem or project at work is the first step. The next step is to describe the task at hand. That is what the project entails, how many stages there will be, etc. The action plan or how the project was completed and your role in it. Finally describing the result did your actions work? 

It is important to remember to emphasise YOUR role in the project or task. 

I think being concise and factual in recording your work makes it easier to remember for reference to combat similar problems that may occur in the workplace in the future.









Saturday, September 19, 2015

Rudai Sixteen : Collaboration tools




Setting Dates and working together

I tried to comment on the page with the weird writing that Rudai had set up on Google drive but I couldn't see it. When I made a suggested revision of the text that did come up. I don't know if I am doing something wrong? 

The fact I don't know how to use it properly didn't detract from my opinion of it. I think this is great. I really wish I had known about this when I did my Graddip, it would have made life much easier for some of the group projects where some of my team did not live or stay in Dublin. 

I can see the google docs being really useful for LAI committee work or for groups who use the library such as local history societies. 

I have taken part in doodle polls before but this was the first time I created one it was very easy to set up and best of all I didn't have to create another profile. So I set up a poll for a meet up in Athlone. I created the dates the 3rd and 10th of October and invited the Rudai gang along as these are the emails I had. I thought it interesting that there was a limit of 20 emails and that you could not paste emails addresses into the participants box. 

you can see the poll here my rudai doodle poll

There is no obligation to fill this out or come as I did it to have a go at creating a poll but if people fancy it I'll arrange something. 



Thursday, September 10, 2015

Rudai Fifteen : Advocacy




Power to the library...


What do I think of when I think of advocating for libraries? asks Rudai 23. Answering this was harder than some of the previous things including video streaming! 

What do I think of when I think of advocating for libraries, I think of:

  • Trying to get our communities to support and use the facilities
  • Trying to get the attention of those in power of the purse strings to what libraries can offer the population. 
  • Trying to get some recognition and respect for the qualification and the profession.
  • Trying to get involved in library organisations

what do we do?


We as a profession are intelligent, highly skilled, and probably over qualified for the job we do as a whole.  Our patrons and overall managers generally don't know what we do. I often wonder do we know what we do? Our profession is so varied no two workplaces are the same. It is not like a academic or an engineer where workplaces and skill set can be similar. Librarians in health have a different work practice and skill set to a public librarian. 

The most common perception is that of cardigan wearing, book stamping bespectacled shush-ers. Some People don't seem to realise that we are managers, event organisers, researchers, teachers and more all rolled into one. That's why I really liked the Why librarians? website .

Margaret Thatcher famously said there is no such thing as society and this thinking is still the predominate mindset in our politicians who control the purse strings of most of our workplaces in someway or other. However I honestly think the people of our communities get how important the library and we are to them. The recent protests in Sligo hopefully show this.


Photographer Seamus Finn from Sligo Today

Advocate to Whom?

We are not the most mouthy of professions or individuals as a rule of thumb. We need to get more assertive though if we want to survive. We have to show our worth to our greater organisations and ourselves. All the things we do should have a "brought to you by" stamp 

Proving to managers that library's are worth keeping around is very difficult they are seen as low hanging fruit that can easily be dispensed with. In some organisations the departments that spend more money are seen as more important. Libraries don't cost a lot to run generally so maybe we should stop being frugal?!

In public libraries the deprofessionalisation of our workplaces is part of a greater centralisation scheme that at this stage cannot be stopped. The attack on rural Ireland is manifestation of this. Volunteerism is here to stay but if we can turn these people into advocates for the library maybe its no bad thing.

Linkedin and Twitter offer great ways to advocate. To show to ourselves that we are important and can contribute a different perspective on finding solutions to work problems. The work swap too is a brilliant way of advocating the profession among ourselves and also to management who have to sign off on it. 


Campaigns


Many of the campaigns are great and show libraries at their best. But I sometimes feel that some like Library Week are preaching to the converted. Which is important too we need to remind people we're still here. 

Knowing ourselves and showing those who look we can help with the effective running of the our organisation is one thing, maybe we need to start demanding to show we can do it.  






Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Rudai Fourteen : Augmented Reality




Remember when things were just.. things?



First impressions


I was at a seminar a couple of years ago and the topic of augmented reality was explained by one of the speakers. They were very enthusiastic and excited about it which was to be expected as it was their project. I was left unimpressed.  I still am. At the time I had a old battered old phone but it had a great battery life and signal but no apps. So this new technology immediately excluded me form participating.  Which I think is a big drawback for this technology. The devices to use this have to be up to date. 

The reason why I was unimpressed was that they just seemed like a new form of QR codes. The thing about QR codes for me was that I have never seen anyone scan them even though they were everywhere! I eventually managed to try and scan a sample poster with the extra embedded information at the seminar with a borrowed iphone but found that it wasn't anything a simple google search wouldn't have found for me. I also asked myself did I need the extra information such as games, pictures, and videos? When is there information overload?



Changing behavior 


The photo at the beginning of the post actually made quite depressed. The person aiming their tablet at a painting to get more information. Can they not just look and enjoy it. Interpret the meaning for themselves instead of trying to read up on more information. Just enjoy the pretty pictures! Museums are places where you can switch off and enjoy exhibits without the noise of technology. In other words be a bit old fashioned. Is this on the way out do we now always have to be on?





Opinion on AR


I read the articles recommended in the post such as educational and mobile learning website. I thought some of the apps were more like gaming tools. Looking at others I felt they were going to be used at some stage to sell people stuff or advertise products Here's information on Big Ben sponsored by : insert a Fast Food Chain/Insurance Company/Phone Company. This saturation of advertising already annoys me on other online media. I felt that some seemed to be created with the (thankfully) failed google glass in mind. 


I also read the other recommended article library of the future. Of the eight technologies two and four were augmented technology. The little video I thought showed the main thing I distrust about this technology. The man walks in to his library takes out his tablet and scans the shelves and finds his book. Yet the article about libraries 2020 says 18% of EU citizens have not been online. How many have smart phones or tablets? even more?


I do agree with Naimh that its a good way to introduce children to technology and it is important that they start young to get to grips with the quickly changing world. Its good too that parents keep abreast of developments and this technology is a good simple way to ease in it. I can see too that it makes posters a bit different and more fun. 

Number four in the above article however might convert me to AR. Combining the print and digital technology with accompanying extra data. I thought this would a fantastic piece of kit for any library with a research section as it takes the cost away for the patron. 

As might have guessed I'm not the biggest fan of AR I think it can add expense to the patron, can be excluding, and I think may in future be may used as another channel of advertising for corporations. 








Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Rudai Thirteen : Professional Organisations



Joining the Club.

I have been a member of the Library Association of Ireland for at least five years.  I am a member of several sections or groups. This tends to change depending on what my job is at the time. When I had a short internship at the Midlands Regional hospital in Tullamore I joined the the HSLG for the LAI. In my last position I worked in the Department of the Taoiseach so I joined the government libraries section. 

I have currently signed up to several groups the Cataloging and Metadata group, the Career Development group and the Western Region section are the ones that stand out. 





The reason I am member of the association is

  • It puts me in touch with a wide field of professionals who I can all on for advice.

  • The mailing list tells me about upcoming seminars and conferences.

  • The LAI publishes an online magazine which has advice, book reviews, interviews etc. It can offer an opportunity to increase my profile by giving me a chance to get published. I am currently working on an article which I will hopefully submit sometime. 

  • It increase my working circle. Often requests will sent out via mailing lists so it gives me a chance to help others and be helped in return.

  • Being a member of a group gives me discounts into the seminars. 

  • And not forgetting holding a countdown card (LAI membership) gives you discounts for a certain shoe brand



I do find that the groups do tend to be Dublin based and are slow to leave the capital which I think is a weakness and doesn't help with advocating the library cause. The WRSLAI are countering this by offering seminars and networking opportunities away from the east coast. As I live in rural Ireland that's why I joined the group. I'm a committee member with them now so hopefully I can work well with them and help out in running events and meetings as best I can. 

The groups may also conduct meetings several times a year the government library section meet about 4 or 5 times annually. These meeting were an opportunity to network and share information about current library work related issues that I felt was arising. 

The Library Association of Ireland does a good job considering its a volunteer run. The people behind the groups do so on their spare time so responses to emails and sending out membership cards may take time. Most groups however will reply promptly. The only exception in my experience was CONUL who seemed to ignore any queries I had about their last conference. 

I feel advocating may be a not as strong as it could be. During the recession library restructuring and closures were not condemned by the LAI as loudly as they maybe should have been.  However as said above their is no professional clerical staff which hampers and increases the workload on people. Also as most libraries are in some way relying on the State for funding it might be seen as biting the hand that feeds.

The LAI is very strong in CPD. Offering a Fellowships and Associateships. As well as offering bursaries to attend conferences overseas. 

The other associations mentioned by the blog are more expensive to join. I find following them on social media discussed in Thing 3 and 5 can be a good way on keeping in contact with them. CILIP are regular tweeters posting advice, article links, library news, etc. The other way I follow and connect with members of other associations like the ALA, IFLA and CILIP is through Linkedin. I have got involved in several debates and discussions on the forums on that site. I have "met" some of same people on twitter chats so its a good cheaper way of building relationships without joining the actual body.

So my goal for my time being a member is to hopefully get published in an leabharlann, and work towards becoming an associate member


...Well actually my goal is to get employed again then everything else.













Friday, August 28, 2015

Rudai Twelve : Attending Conferences




Attending conferences and seminars


I try and attend as many library events as I can every year. Its very difficult most of the time as funds are generally short, the seminar or conference is in Dublin (and the Dubs don't like leaving the city so outside events can be poorly attended) which means travel and accommodation have to be sourced. These events aren't cheap, tickets can be quite expensive even with the discounts that are usually offered. A cheaper way to take in conferences is to go for a single day. 

This year I managed to get to several seminars and one conference through work funded training. I attended the WRSLAI seminar in Gort, the CDG seminar, DBS seminar and the HSLG conference in Athlone. 

The networking opportunities are great and rare chances that need to grabbed. This year I met people I had only discussed business with over the phone. It was easier to get a feel for the person who I was dealing with in a face to face meeting in a relaxed setting. I also got to meet and share ideas and discuss problems and solutions with other professionals who had similar experiences. As well meeting up with acquaintances and old co-workers for a catch up over cups of tea.

They can be intimidating if attending on your own as sometimes it can feel like a clique and breaking into it can be difficult. I usually try to chat to people I don't know to see what they are doing or where they're working. If I go with someone then we tend to break up and circle the room and meet up after or get introduced to other people if we're finding it difficult to break the ice with people. 

I always try to take a notebook to write down people names (a while after I talked to them!)   and to take down the main points from the speeches and talks. The advice about the business card is correct I've never though about it always thinking they went out in the 90s or were for salesmen. But I'm pretty sure I'm not that memorable and as all contracts seem to short time I'm nearly always looking for work so I will carry a few from now on. 

The downside to conferences is sometimes there is a lack of relevance to your own work in some of the speeches. Sometimes the lectures can be overly academic and the research can be overstated and simple ideas can be made complicated.

The first seminar I attended this year was the CDG information skills for the future. It was in the long room hub in TCD and everyone got an Easter egg on entering the building. The keynote speaker gave a very interesting speech on how libraries and librarians current roles are evolving. Leadership and being a connector to information are now the librarians role while the survival of libraries is based on building content and relevant, unique collections. Over the next two hours the speakers told how important it is for staff to have the chance for CPD. The varied careers that are out there for librarians. The last speaker of the session however made the point that none of us will have the same role for life. That our careers and roles in organisations will continue to change every 5 years or so. Which seems quite scary to me. 

The second session was about the library space and how its changing. The final speaker stood out for me. Taking about the creation of the DLR lexicon. Personally I think from the outside its an ugly monstrosity that will age horrendously. On the inside it is a large community space which seems to meet everyone's needs. It was interesting to hear the story of their career path as it didn't follow the traditional route but instead went from public and private and back to public sector. It was also good to hear from a high management level as their take on libraries is different form those of us lower down the ladder. 

Overall it was a productive day I met people who I have since been in contact with over other things. The talk were informative. And the lunch was tasty!






Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Rudai Eleven : Reflective Practice




"Contemplate all this work of time"

Halfway there now..(almost)

Well since the last reflection I've learned about video, live streaming, curation tools and podcasting. I've created a podcast and looked at loads of others, I've made a video and looked at lots of others and watched a live stream from the Rudai23 team. In other words I've been busy. 

These last four things have been more challenging and require much more concentration than previously. I really enjoyed listening to podcasts from those doing the course that I could find, everyone was different. All the varied opinions on them was brilliant for some they have no use for others they belong in the past. I thought this was really interesting and showed how quickly technology and software is changing and the life cycle is really getting shorter and shorter. 

Of all the things the newest for me was the curation tools I had zero experience with them. I don't know how much I'll use them but it was interesting to learn about them. Pintrest is incredibly visual but lacks or can lack context. In saying that it gives a fantastic ways of displaying what libraries do and can do rather than offering drab lists.

I watched the live stream of the hangout-on-air on the Youtube channel the Rudai23 team has created. I didn't want to take part this time as I was nervous but also I didn't have the right equipment a headset and reliable broadband is a must. This was a great half hour and it went really fast. It was nice to see people in the flesh who I had only communicated though comments on their blog or maybe a quick twitter chat. 

There was an accompanying twitter chat which allowed those of us not on the live broadcast to get involved. It kind of reminded me of those serious political debates on the Vincent Browne programme on TV though Stephanie was a lot more friendly! 

I feel Twitter for hangouts on air is almost as important as the broadcast as the two go hand in hand. People are able to still feel engaged in the chat being conducted as the chairperson was able to read out questions or points raised by the audience. 

I don't know if I'll ever create podcasts and video as part of career but I'm glad I know how. The one thing I will do however is start following podcasts from now on. People on the course have recommended some interesting ones. 

I still not sure about blogs either. I look at what others have written and they're nicely worded and well put together and raise interesting points. Then I look at my own ramblings and want to hit delete! 

anyway onward and upward only another twelve to go :)

the image is from getty images. It was free to embed for non-profit websites
the quote is from Tennyson I don't know what poem though it one that was in my head for years.



    

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Rudai : Ten

Streaming



I found this task very challenging and while reading the entry on Rudai 23 home page I noticed my eyes beginning to glaze over about two thirds of the way down the page.  There was a lot going on and lots of information it took several readings to make sense. Sorry Wayne! It was definitely me, as technology and I tend to take time to trust each other. 

I'm not the biggest fan of hangouts as they tend to log me out of my Skype account which I can never remember my password for. Hangouts-on-Air do seem very complicated to set up needing a bit more equipment than normal. So I might give them a miss until I have to. 

I do like the idea of streaming an event though.  I have watched a couple of webinars this year and liked the fact that I didn't have to travel to Dublin to attend them. Though the lack of interaction was a problem as not everyone was thinking the same as me and didn't ask the question I really wanted to ask. So the invitation to participate is great. 

The big drawback is the need for a secure and reliable internet connection with a large data allowance. Here in the midlands unless I go to a hotel I wouldn't have it. Three or Four Skype chats for an hour each generally eat up most of my data. Having a full blown conversation on a laptop in a hotel lobby would only attract rightly negative attention and be inappropriate. 

I read up on Periscope and it seems to have caught on really quickly 10 million users or something in a few months. It is very controversial though as people have used it to upload pay for view TV programs such as Game of Thrones and sporting events. I looked at some streams and most seemed to be of walls, feet and pavement! But it can be really simple way of broadcasting events in libraries such as award days (the reading challenge coming up shortly). It would be nice to have the concerts sometimes held here or lessons such the knitting classes be streamed and recorded. 

The big barrier to streaming from library events I would image would be confidentiality and privacy. Would legal issues be easy to remedy? 

  






Sunday, August 16, 2015

Rudai nine : Video

Face for Radio 






I was dreading this task. I assumed when I saw the title that it would involve creating videos of ourselves and as I don't have a face for TV I really didn't want to do it. So I was pleasantly surprised that it involved creating a tutorial video. 

My use of youtube is limited to looking at old music videos and cartoons from my childhood or movie trailers for upcoming films. The editing options are very simple to use and I can see the benefits for oral history projects. 

My voice now however is slightly hoarse after this task as I was shouting at the computer for the last few minutes while I recorded my screen cast. The microphone in modern PC's are not the best for picking up my voice. The upload to youtube went fine but the results when I tried to add subtitles were hilarious but I would have to write out everything I said as the software got my accent very wrong. Next time I will script the lesson.


Screen cast is a great way creating tutorials its almost like being in a classroom. This a great free software that could be used in libraries for showing people how to use the resources such as searching the catalogue.





Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Rudai eight : Curation tools

Pretty Pictures


I heard of curation tools but never used them before now. The first tool I tried was Pintrest. It seems strange to have something made up almost entirely of graphics and pictures. Its very visual and pretty. I can see the use if your building or converting room space and want design ideas. There is lots of ideas for colour schemes and shelving and furniture. 

I use it now for reading materials I can put together lists of books that I saw reviewed and can get an image of their cover so I can recognise them.  

But other than images there is not a lot else there. Some context maybe missing as there is few accompanying words.

anyway I had a go and created a few boards of my interests




Visit Emmet's profile on Pinterest.







I had a go at flipboard too. I liked this though I had some trouble setting up my magazine as the articles I had "flipped" never appeared till I had logged out and in again. I think this is very useful as it can be used to collate notes and interesting articles for projects or about an area for public libraries. It also is very visual with large pictures and lots of images that link to the article. There is a large amount of library related articles for professionals on a range of topics library design and nation library collections. I had a go at creating a magazine and just flipped some articles that piqued my interest that I'll come back too.


View my Flipboard Magazine.




The only one of the tools discussed I had some experience with was the last one. I've read some Storify pages after some missed libchats. I've found them a great way to have followed a discussion or debate. As often what appears in my feed is only half of the story. 

I enjoyed learning how to use these tools. I'll definitely be using them again for any course I do.