In this post I am going to write about both thing 6 (online networks) and thing 7 (offline networks) of the 23 Things for Continuing Professional Development programme. This is partly because I’m so far behind, but mostly because I don’t feel I can talk about one without mentioning the other. I am also going to flip things around and write about offline networks first.

I am a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), within that my special interest groups are the CDG (Career Development Group) and CoFHE (Colleges of Further and Higher Education).

I started my membership when I was doing my masters. My reason for joining was because it seemed like a good way to get an insight into the profession I was about to join and really who could say no to student membership for £38 for the year? What I found from that year of membership was that I didn’t really get much out of it so when it came to renewing, as a full-time worker on a moderate income, I didn’t feel it was worth the cost, and I didn’t miss it for the couple of years that I was on the outside.

I rejoined a couple of years ago because I had planned to charter. I haven’t done that yet, and increasingly am thinking that I never will, but I have found that I’m getting more out of CILIP now than I did before. Why is that? I think partly it’s down to the new regime under Annie Mauger who seems to be working hard to make CILIP relevant and useful to its members. Mostly however I think it’s because I’m more engaged with what’s going on in the special interest groups and my local branch. The West Midlands branch is really active and there’s a lot of good stuff being done.

In addition to CILIP I am also a member (through my institution) of the BLA (Business Librarians Association) and this is an absolutely invaluable network to be part of. The events run by the group are second to none as they have direct relevance and application to my day to day work. The conference, as I have mentioned before, is the highlight of my working year. You might say I am biased because I am also on the BLA committee. Being so involved in this group has played a major part in my development in the profession, it’s given me opportunities and challenges that I feel have helped me to become better at what I do.

You know that motto ‘you get out what you put in’? I think this is especially true with professional organisations such as these.

  by  clydeorama 

 
Other than Twitter I can’t say that I use any other online network to its full potential for professional networking. I am a member of LinkedIn, LISNPN and CILIP Communities but the truth is that I just don’t use them unless I’m directed there to look at something. Largely I use them as an add-on to the face-to-face interactions that I get through the offline networks. On LinkedIn I a member of the CILIP and BLA groups which provides an oportunity for communication between events. I contribute to CILIP Communities as a blogger, but the forums are something which I’ve never really got in to.

With the BLA I have tried to initiate more online discussion. I revamped the forum when I took over as Web Officer, but it rarely got used and has wasted away. We’ve got a hashtag on Twitter which is used a little. I think the reason none of these has taken off is because of the success of the LIS-Business email list. Between events this is where the community lives and interacts, and it works so why change it.

So what’s my conclusion? Before I started writing this post I had this in mind as my closing statement:

Online and offline networks each have their own benefits, neither is superior and together they make an awesome team.

As I have been writing though I’ve realised that without Twitter in the equation the online networks just don’t do it for me. The offline networks have by far the most value for me as a professional.

The result
Offline: 1
Online: 0

I mentioned in my reading round-up for July that a lot of the article I have read over the past month have been about Google+. There are links to the best and most useful articles at the bottom of this post.

What I want to share with you here is my first reaction to Google+ and my experience one month in. And that can be described in one word…

Meh!

I just don’t get it, or perhaps more accurately I just don’t need it. I got an invite quite early on and set about creating some circles. What I found was that I was just replicating my networks from Twitter and Facebook. But what’s the point in that?

  by  ekcragg 

Facebook works perfectly well for me as a way to communicate online with my friends and family. Twitter works perfectly well for me as a way of sharing information and getting involved with my professional network.

  by  ekcragg 

Yes, I see that the theory behind Google+ is to bring both of those networks into one place to make it easier to share and communicate with selected groups. But at the moment it’s just not working for me, and why is that the case? I don’t want to have to specify for every single post I make who that content gets shared with. It’s as simple as that.

Julia Turner summed my feelings up perfectly in the Google+ segment on a recent edition of the Slate Culture Gabfest (which I would thoroughly recommend you listen to, it starts at around 17min):

“you can’t compartmentalise your public self from your private self with Google+”

If there is to be one social network to rule them all then that compartmentalisation needs to be doable and easy.

Further reading

• Could Google Ruin Your Online Personal Brand – PC Sweeney
• 30 Google+ tips to enhance your Google+ experience – webtrickz
• Several tips to help you get started with Google+ – Mark O’Neill
• Google+ tips and tricks – Janet Fouts
• Google+: And you thought Facebook is a privacy nightmare – ConceivablyTech
• So what is Google+ all about then? – Phil Bradley

Recently I read a blog post by Brian Herzog, the Swiss Army Librarian, about Being personal and professional on Twitter. It got me thinking about how I often blur the lines on Twitter and whether I should try to keep it more professional.

I think Brian is right, it’s easy to remain professional on the library accounts. Whether you’re tweeting under the library’s name, replying to a comment on the library Facebook page or posting on a library blog, it’s business. I really liked how he defined his aim when updating library social media accounts:

My goal is to be personable, not personal.

I would say my goal with these accounts is the same. To convey information from the library to our users whilst applying a human touch.

by  practicalowl

For my personal Twitter account however I apply different rules. Although it is essentially a professional account, created to allow me to engage with my peers in the information profession, it is also a personal account. It is mine, it bears my name and has no connection to my job, or my library. I therefore also express my personality and my personal interests through it.

Unlike Brian, I don’t think I need separate Twitter accounts, one for professional stuff and one for personal stuff. The main reason for this is because I feel that being a librarian and having in an interest in information and education is too large a part of me. Having two Twitter accounts would be like splitting my personality.

Today I read an article by Martin Weller and George Siemens, Higher Education and the Promises and Perils of Social Networks, which confirmed my thinking about the blurring of boundaries on Twitter:

Some users of Twitter try to have multiple accounts for instance, to differentiate personal and professional comments, but it is precisely the personal element in SNSs that gives them value and interest.

And so I shall continue to intersperse my professional networking on Twitter with stuff about quiffs, cats, sport and LGBT issues.

Yesterday Facebook announced a couple of major changes. Most notable are a new design for Pages and a real-time News Feed.

I am quite excited about the changes to the News Feed. Basically, instead of your News Feed updating every 10-15 minutes, it will update automatically. I’m hoping that this will stop updates from weeks ago randomly appearing on my feed (a problem which seems to be happening more and more frequently for me).

You can watch a video of the announcements at AllFacebook

I’ve been asked a couple of times in the past few weeks what I use Facebook for and why I think it is a good communication tool and so since people are interested I thought I’d post my answer here.

I personally use Facebook to keep in touch with my friends. Friends from different periods in my life, friends who no longer live nearby and friends who I’ve met online. I am a selective Facebook user. I don’t accept every Tom, Dick or Mary who friends me and likewise I don’t friend people who I have no real intention of actively communicating with.

What I like about Facebook as a communication tool is that I can keep up to date with the small, everyday things in my friends lives that I wouldn’t get to know in a weekly, monthly or yearly email or phone call. I guess it helps me feel connected to my past and this is something I found very important when I moved cities a couple of years ago.

You’ll notice that I’ve not used the word “network” yet and that is because I don’t use Facebook to network. I have a very strict rule of not friending anyone who I work with. My feeling is that Facebook for me personally is just another, very useful, way of communicating with my friends and family.

I am however not completely against the use of Facebook in a professional context. I think there is an argument for the use of Facebook as a networking or marketing tool. When I walk around our library on a busy weekday afternoon I would say that Facebook can be seen on at least half of all computer screens. My feeling is that if our readers are already using Facebook then giving our library a presence on the site can only help our cause – rather than making them come to us, we’ll go to them.