Social Networking: Thing #12

Professional Social Networking 
An additional advantage is that when you do get engaged into a professional community and find yourself in the predicament of job seeking again your LinkedIn account or Twitter feed will have a professional networking appearance.

A disadvantage would to have too much personal information intermixed with your professional. Separate and treat personal and professional social networking differently.

Reflection
I haven’t added much to my already huge repertoire of networks, maybe taken away a few skills though.

I already had the accounts, but I am forced to realize I should use them more often. I attended most of the WebJunction/ALA LearnRT conference, watching the twitter feed, chat and program ppt’s. It is exhausting to keep up, but interesting. I can’t imagine enjoying it more by participating more in the dialog – because then I’ll lose focus on the presentation (which is ridiculously frustrating) just to be chatty and get my name out there. If I had a question – I was prepared!

I will continue to grow my usage of social networking. Maybe one day soon I will be outspoken and need to use my voice and I will already have the avenues set up and maintained to do so.

I think social networking works for some. 
Just like face to face networking work for some. 
Others watch from the side lines. 
And others don’t care how others are getting along. 

One way of networking or communicating won’t please everyone, all the time.

Social MEDIA is everywhere and those who want to connect have to join in or loose out on those opportunities. 

Thing #10 & Thing #11 (Education & Mentoring)

I have been a librarian for 16 1/2 months.

I became a librarian because that's what people were saying I should do. It took me 7 years to finish my undergrad because I didn't want to spend the money on an education that I didn't know if I'd be interested in. The "just cuz" you need to go to college and get a degree reason wasn't enough for me.

When I finally found sociology I was in love, transferred to a UC and finished up my degree. When I tried to find a job that I could use my new found degree with there were less than many and I didn't have any experience in the field of non-profits, research or fund-raising, etc., etc.

I found a great job to pay the bills with, but I wasn't satisfied. I kept thinking about how people always said that I should be a librarian. I'm not quite sure why, maybe because I spent so much time in college, learning a variety of things creating a breadth of knowledge that reminds them of a librarian. [But my knowledge is kinda like that statement about web - It's as wide as an ocean, but only an inch deep.] I finally took it seriously and checked out the available programs. Minus a few classes that go against my natural characteristics I was in love again.

My job search landed me as a solo librarian at a private college only an hour away from my previous location. I'm in my first position by moxie, apparently I added a little extra oomph to my initial interview [or so my boss will tell you]. Apparently when I found out how the college operated I was very full of ideas for improvements.

I think that there is too much variation in the library field in order to take the sufficient number of courses and be prepared for it all! I hope to learn all that I can while in this position. I also hope to add a degree soon to my accomplishments in a subject specialty masters in social psychology. I dream of working in a large research university as the Social Sciences librarian; helping faculty and students with research, building collections and giving back to the community. And I see myself as a community college librarian in my later years.

I currently am set up with a mentor through the state chapter of ALA. I speak with her almost every 2 weeks and we discuss my activities and I learn about her projects. I can't say that I'm overwhelmed with the opportunity to run to someone I know and ask questions/share. It has been nice to know that someone is there just in case I have that kind of situation. In reality I am in such a unique situation (mentor isn't in the same one) that only other small schools in my predicament can really weigh in on trouble shooting. I have a listserv for that.

Thing #8 and #9: Google Calendar and Evernote

Calendars are a pain. I have the worst memory among all my friends and older relatives combined! I need reminders, but who want's to spend the time setting them, let alone write in in one calendar and then have to copy it to another one. What forgetful person can manage all of that!?

I have and do not use Google Calendar (expect for this cpd workshop). I’m more of a written calendar (for memory) type of person. I have a hard copy calendar that I use for both work and personal (the color coded pens bit). I don’t want to put personal information on a second calendar (Google) and Outlook (work) will not sync up with Google Calendars to have them all in one place. AND Outlook certainly doesn't need or want to know my personal business.

So I'm in a bind and I continue to deal with a hard copy (both personal and work), a phone (on the go reminders) calendar items (run on Windows), and a workplace Outlook calendar. I manage but one calendar that would agree all together would be great – Maybe one day I’ll get it down!

As far as Evernote goes; I am already using Diigo which has similar features - friends, highlighting, note taking, tagging - but I’ll check it out...eventually :)