Sunday 26 June 2011

Thing 2 - explore other blogs

Well, I'm just managing to squeeze Thing 2 in before the end of Week 1! I spent much of Sunday afternoon reading through many, many fantastic blogs. The variety of designs are amazing & I have resolved to start tinkering with my blog page to make it more interesting visually. Given the huge number of blogs, I had to narrow down the field for my perusal otherwise I would never have made it to Thing 2. I decided to look at blogs with similar experiences to mine or at least a connecting thread (as I have limited experience). I'm very much looking forward to reading more from the 4 blogs that I left comments with: Calon Lan is absolutely at the other end of the experience spectrum to me, but we have our old college in common & it was the mention of the college's former librarian that caught my eye; Monika-C's blog interested me as she is a latecomer from another sector to the profession which is the situation I am finding myself in; Ruth's Library Blog talked about her experiences starting out as a school librarian, & as a volunteer school librarian I am keen to hear of other people's learning curves in that sector; and finally More Adventurous (23 Things) struck a chord as a fellow volunteer looking for a professional post. I know that I have only touched upon these blogs superficially rather than making any in-depth comments, but I wanted to show what sparked my interest. Anyway, must post this before we arrive in Week 2. 

Saturday 25 June 2011

Thing 1

Well, here goes - my first ever blog. It's taken me a week of humming & haa-ing, reading the other blogs for cpd23 & wondering whether, technically, I qualify for participating, but I've finally taken the plunge. I feel a bit of a fraud because surely to continue one's professional development, you have to have started it first?! And I haven't...yet.

I decided to participate in cpd23 ("a self-directed course aimed at introducing you to a range of tools that could help your personal and professional development as a librarian, information professional or something else") for several reasons - I heard lots of good things about it when I attended npid2011 recently, the weekly projects sound  great particularly for a Web 2 learner like myself (I've spent a long time being 'faceless' on Facebook & silent on Twitter), but mainly because last year I decided to try & change career from the world of theatre to the library & information sector. I shall leave the reasons why to one side for the moment, but the journey over the past 12 months has been a steep learning curve. I have yet to achieve my prized goal of a paid job in the LIS sector, but I haven't given up trying. The first 6 months of applying for entry level jobs & graduate traineeships(I should point out that I am definitely not in the first flush of graduation!) were slightly delusional as I attempted to continue with my theatre work & had no library experience to speak of. I then realised that if I was to get anywhere I needed to show more commitment. So for the last 6 months I have given up the theatre jobs which are all-consuming & taken on voluntary library work including a very rewarding position as a library helper in a primary school. The search for paid library work continues, along with my hope of completing a postgrad qualification in LIS someday. I'm hoping to use cpd23 & blogging in general as a career change diary which will have practical benefits in the process.

Writing this first blog has been quite cathartic so maybe blogging is not quite so scary as I first thought.