Thing 19 This little pig went to market....

Going to market

Good point about the difference between marketing and advertising. Advertising raises awareness of what you are and what you do but marketing is so much more that this. Understanding our users and their needs is essential in libraries.

Thinking about the services we offer in our library - different types of space, facilities, training programmes, website & Library blog, vle resources, resource fairs, circulation policies, self-issue, copiers/printers, and so on. All that we do should be based on knowledge of our customers and therefore meeting their needs but then also anticipating new things that they need and providing them almost before they are aware of it.

Creating content via social media has interesting associated problems. As is described in the 4Cs, content that is published via a context such as a blog can make connections which lead to conversations. BUT better take care that the throw-away comments made so easily on a blog are accurate and carefully researched! In the 'old' days publishing information about a display through normal printed methods would probably have meant a lot of care taken over content and accuracy of information and grammar etc. After all it cost money to print information. Blogs cost nothing to put together, apart from time. In all the 'easiness' of using social media we need to have at the back of our minds the potential for slips and mistakes, much more easily made.

Take the Library's blog post on Sir Wilson Harris. The display was a great idea and has attracted a great deal of attention, and was very ably put together by a work experience pupil. However, being made so public so quickly there were some issues that had to be resolved after the event which happily are all sorted out now. A small error on a facebook announcement, although encouraging comment, was something that shouldn't have happened (all my fault, I'll confess now). It's just too quickly done.

Still it's the speed of using social media that in itself is so appealing!

It's an interesting tension.

To comply with the 'to do' of this Thing we are going to make more use of a blog in our library, linked to our current website, in order to produce bite-sized online learning tasks. The context of the blog seems ideal for this - after all 23 Things has made use of blog technology extremely well for this very purpose - so we're going to give it a bash. I would also like to explore LibraryThing for new acquisitions.

Thing 13 Reflection

Light dawning.....

One of the exciting things about 23 Things is that the ‘and so what’ question that I rashly asked people to think about has actually produced some very interesting thoughts and conversations. We veer from complete enthusiast, to ‘good for collaboration’ to yes I’ll do this, or that or the next thing but not others. I think this is encouraging!

For me, the journey (to use a rather over-used term these days) has been quite mixed. Some of the Things I have already ‘done’/played with and actively use, others I just got cross with and wondered what the point of them were. I suspect that this reaction does me no credit whatsoever as it is probably the ‘things’ that I am least familiar with that make me react in this way. Mea culpa.

However, one thing that I have become quite excited about is the simple act of blogging and making use of blogs for library pages and for other purposes such as online tutorials. After all the committee will have written 23 mini tutorials for the library community over the course of this programme, which many people have managed to do – so why not use this friendly, free tool for library tutorials? Several conversations with our Computer Officer about our library website have all pointed in this direction as well. Blogs are easily edited by anyone really and with our Library News already based on a blog we are half way there.

So –somewhat to my surprise I have a real goal for shaping what we do next in the Library, and I don’t feel all that bad about ignoring such things as twitter and delicious – for the moment at any rate! So there is good stuff out there.......

Thing 4 I'm on a roll

Well! Blogged about Things 1 & 2, now on to Thing 4 - all in the last half-hour. Phew, almost caught up.

There is a definite feeling that it would be easy just to say - oh well never mind, it seemed like a good idea to do this but I'm not so sure........ Is there anything to say to change our minds and get us all up and running and on to the next. Well Thing 5 is not so far away and it's all about organising a cup of coffee for yourself and your study buddies or just anyone really, so maybe that will boost us all beyond the parapet?

I love the other 23 Things blogs - such inventive people around. Wish I could find time and energy and techie-ness to do it too! Ah well - and see now I need to stop and go and man the issue desk.

Am I still just peeping over the parapet - yes probably.

Thing 3 Just visible above the parapet

It’s a tricky thing to take the first steps and raise a head above the parapet. Words like exposure, vulnerability, and anxiety battle against confidence and self-esteem. Judging by how many times I’m deleting a half-constructed sentence I’m clearly worrying about what to say, wondering whether I have anything to say, and yet needing to say something! The challenge is how to say nothing in an engaging and stimulating way!


It doesn’t help at all when you see some blog posts that are witty and engaging and making extremely useful and challenging points. If you’re in that place, rest assured that you’ll not get much of that here. Just a few random musings – now and again. It’s possible I’ll get carried away once in awhile and even say something that is worthwhile but that’s hopefully forgivable and easily ignored.



Cam23 - what do I think so far? Well, I already use iGoogle quite a lot, not at work , but at home. It's too distracting at work even with all the 'important' feeds that I have there like the English Subject Centre and the English Faculty Library News (I am often the one that adds the news so not sure why I have that there). However I did give in today and put the penguins up...which means that I will either have to remove them or tell myslef that it really IS just for home and not work! I find the facebook gadget irritating, but the Google calendar gadget absolutely essential as my whole working and home life is mapped out through 4 shared calendars and a task list there (see another Thing for google calendars but rest assured my life could not happen without it)



My very worst problem on this will be time despite the fact that I thought this style of learning brilliant. It still requires some discipline.........