Monday 20 June 2011

Why another 23 things?


When I told people that I was taking part in another 23things programme after completing Cam23 last year the most common reaction was - WHY?! Usually said with varying degrees of horror. I can understand their reactions a little since the programme is a large commitment to make. I think that with something like this you have to enter in the collaborative spirit in order to get the best out of it. It is not something where you can just follow the instructions and that is it every week, it's about sharing your ideas with others who are on the same wavelength. I have noticed that people who don't work in libraries tend to glaze over when I talk about my job, even though I really love it. It will be nice to get to know people (even just virtually) who understand what it is like to love working in a library.

To that end I am making a belated New Years resolution - I promise to get more involved this year in terms of interacting with other participants. Last year I was one of the guilty ones who only commented on the blogs of others that they knew, just because we had to do it! I am already much more involved than last year since I am helping out the programmes multi-talented organisers by presenting a poster about the programme at the Umbrella conference next month - feel free to stop by and say hello!

As my name would suggest, I am currently studying for my masters. I am just about to start the dreaded dissertation so hopefully one day in the not too distant future I can change the name of the blog to "Trained Librarian". I have worked at Cambridge University Library for nearly ten years but feel that I have let myself down in terms of career development. I have held various jobs but not really involved myself as much as I should in the library community. Hopefully cpd23 will be a way to change that for the better. I am especially looking forward to comparing notes with colleagues in other countries and seeing how practices vary (or not as the case may be!). I think that's one of the best things about this programme - that is is truly international. Other programmes that I have seen have all been quite local in nature and whilst that's no bad thing it will be nice to be global.

Having studied the list of things, I am most looking forward to those which relate to the more traditional methods of cpd since I feel that this is often lacking in training and can be hard to teach yourself. I am also particularly looking forward to the week on developing your brand since I think that this will become more important than ever in the current climate.

Wow - I think this is the longest post I have ever written and it's only week one. Go me!

3 comments:

  1. Aha! Now I know who you are! One of the mysteries of #cam23 has been solved. Thanks again for presenting the poster at Umbrella and writing one of the programme posts.

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  2. Oops, yes - sort of killed the mystique with that post didn't I? ;o)

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  3. Hello! (Belated comment as I'm having a being a good cpd23/cam23 participant day and working through the Google Reader backlog.) Looking forward to being a poster-presenting colleague this week.

    I meant to say before that there's been some talk on Twitter of cpd23 participants at Umbrella using the poster as a meeting point - so don't be alarmed if people come and loiter! Think of it as networking coming to you. :)

    Katie

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