THING 19..... CATCH UP

 I have found doing 23 Things for professional development a really easy to follow exercise. I wasn’t a novice in using the internet, I use face book and research constantly on the net, but this opened new doors for me while doing my ACLIP. I have had a go at all the exercises except for Thing 14, I had a dabble with Thing 17 and I have totally omitted Thing 18. I have been doing this in my own time, at home, so if anything required been downloaded or bought, I declined the task. Also due to my job, I do not want to broad cast myself for all to see, for personal and employment reasons.

My favourite articles to do and what I am still using are Twitter, which keeps me up to date with CPD, CILIP, and other professionals, along with Google and Evernote.  Twitter is and  can be seen as what it is, just a lot of famous people twittering but from a career development point of view, it has opened new doors to other library professionals, feeds into relevant news items and keeps me up to date with how all library sectors are doing in the current climate. Google I used just for email before, but now I use it for calendar reminders, and also for dropping my word articles in to it for my projects. Evernote I use for bibliographical references and I find once saved they are easy enough to find. All these items are beneficial to me, for my career development, where previously I never would have known they were there to be used by someone just like me.

I first heard about 23 Things at a Prison Libraries Group training day by Helen Leach, Virtual Content Manager for Surrey Libraries.  She had encouraged her staff to take part in this exercise and seen it has a useful resource for the service.  She gave her presentation using Prezi, and I found it an amazing tool to see been in use.  I decided to do 23 Things as my own professional development, while I work for a prison library, there are restrictions in what can be accessed over the internet, and library resources are quite far removed from the majority of fast moving sectors like academic libraries. I would recommend anyone to try this project, just to keep abreast of what is happening in the World Wide Web, and in the process it is fun to learn.