Good description of information professional role

On the Prospects career advice website.
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/information_officer_job_description.htm

Shows the wide range of tasks that may be involved. Not all of them in one job!

Many are core tasks for information professionals and librarians.  Others are maybe less likely to be done by librarians in traditional roles.

And its not about being an IT nerd. Experts in knowing what need it to do, including developing specs for nerds. Dont need to know what's 'under the bonnet',

 

The 23 things

I hope its OK to copy and paste:

The cpd23 Things

Here are the Things that we will be exploring during the 23 Things for Professional Development course this summer. There is real a mixture of stuff: some web 2.0 and/or social media gadgets and gizmos, and some ways of developing your career by more 'traditional', less technology-focussed, means. 

The Plan

Week 1  - Blogging

• Thing 1: Create your own blog, write about what you hope to get out of the programme
• http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/06/thing-1-blogs-and-blogging.html

 Thing 2: Explore other blogs

• http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/06/thing-2-investigate-some-other-blogs.html

Week 2  - Online presence

• Thing 3: Consider your personal brand

Week 3  - Current awareness

• Thing 4: RSS feeds, Twitter, Pushnote

http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/07/thing-4-current-awareness-twitter-rss.html

Week 4 - Reflection week
A bit of a breather to think about what we've covered so far.

• Thing 5: Reflective practice

http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/07/thing-5-reflective-practice.html

 Week 5 - Online Networks / Real Life Networks

• Thing 6: Online networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, LISNPN, LATNetwork, CILIP Communities)
• Thing 7: National/Regional groups, Special interest groups and looking outside the library sphere

Week 6 - (25th July) Organising yourself

• Thing 8: Google Calendar
• Thing 9: Evernote

Week 7 - Librarianship training options

• Thing 10: Graduate traineeships, Masters degrees, Chartership, Accreditation
• Thing 11: Mentoring

Week 8 - (8th August) Catch-up week / reflections

• Thing 12: Putting the social into social media

Week 9 - (15th August) Filesharing/Collaboration

• Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis & Dropbox

Week 10 - (22nd August) Organising your references

• Thing 14: Zotero / Mendeley / citeulike

Week 11 - (29th August) Getting involved

• Thing 15: Attending, presenting at and organising seminars, conferences and other events
• Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published.

Week 12 - (5th September) Presenting information

• Thing 17: Prezi / data visualisation / slideshare
• Thing 18: Jing / screen capture / podcasts (making and following them)

Week 13 - (12th September) Catch-up week / reflection

• Thing 19: Some time to think about how you might integrate the Things so far into your workflow and routines.

Week 14 - (19th September) Careers

• Thing 20: Library Day in the Life and Library Routes/Roots
• Thing 21: Volunteering to get experience

Week 15 - (26th September) Promoting yourself in job applications and at interview

• Thing 22: How to identify your strengths, how to capitalise on your interests, how to write something eyecatching that meets job specs.

Week 16 - (3rd October) Final reflection

• Thing 23: What have you learnt and where do you want to go from here?

All change!

I've only just started to learn this and its changing!! It better be an improvement.....!
http://buzz.blogger.com/

Blogs as time bandits..? Need to be organised

It was interesting looking for images but I spent quite of lot of time doing that. I remember it's been the same when I wrote my (rather basic) webpages, which sometimes went into the wee small hours without me noticing. That may be OK, but that needs to be a conscious decision. Its certainly true that time seems to pass much faster as you get older. Weeks just seem to slip away. And also more aware that there's a limit. Not that I therefore have stopped being a couch potato, tho!

Pictures of sparrows from UK

I like the enthusiasm, alertness and chatty behaviour of sparrows. Its sad that they are not as common as they were. I am lucky as there is a small flock that comes to my garden.

Copyright  Adrian Platt

Copyright Steves images
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24429795@N04/5947308004/

Copyright Mike Pennington

Keeping going

So easy not to persist and do the activities promptly. Then suddenly it can be too late. I am very lucky that the materials will stay online, but it would be good to get it all done on time.

Link for more info about '23 things'

http://cpd23.blogspot.com

If you are an info prof, its well worth a look! The course has already started but all the content from the beginning is available

Boldy Going

I've been meaning to learn about blogs, and set up my own, for ages. I'm finally doing one as its the first part of a free online course for information  professionals/librarians, called '23 things for professional development'.

I'm very grateful that the course is free and can be done online as otherwise I wouldnt be able to do it.  I've worked as a health info prof for ages, but I was made redundant due to funding cuts at the organisation I worked for. I am jobhunting, but meanwhile am doing voluntary work. It gives me some of the benefits of work. I do use some of my skills, but not usually at the professional level.

Libraries/ information services have been having a tough time. The first voluntary post I did after being made redundant was in an information service that was closed for funding reasons too.

Things change fast, particularly with IT, so its important I keep up.

So this course is great and I am Poised to learn more!