Thing 12 - Putting the social into social media
Working in a prison library is quite isolating, our work is different to most library establishments, and our main obstacle is that we rely on prison regime and staff to bring our library users. Many activities we try to get under way can be halted at a moment’s notice, which for ambitious library staff can be very infuriating. A lot of prison librarians work with no internet access, let alone a library network for stock reserves and branch communication.
In May 2011 the Prison Libraries Specialist Group held a training day entitled ‘Let’s Get digital’. The day highlighted that all though prison library staff are isolated in many ways, it is down to individuals to pursue professional development including keeping up to date with internet communication and development sites. 23 things was discussed by Helen Leach who highlighted that this is a brilliant way to get up to date skills for internet use, social networking etc., and that it was free to take part.
Before 23 Things I used Facebook to communicate with people, but not necessarily in a professional manner. There is a now a CILIP North East page, where I can keep in contact with different library professionals within my local area. I have a twitter account, and although I have not found this useful for communicating with the library world, I am able to pinch websites that others recommend such as book review areas etc. and post these on the north east page. I will still use my social networking sites for my career development, it is a useful tool to bounce around ideas and give and get support when required. This in itself brings library communities together, even if it used in a different way than intended, been a bendable tool can only be a good thing!
The downside for me in social networking is the blog I created which doesn’t give me what I was expecting it do. It seems hard work, and I’m guessing that what I post will only be picked up if someone googles a certain topic I may have posted about. If this is incorrect, I’m obviously not using it the way it should be used!
On the whole I am enjoying doing this project. It is something that my colleagues aren’t doing, but I feel that for my own future development, it has given me good grounding to move forward and it has given me the confidence to be more inquisitive with internet networking.
