Friday 26 August 2011

Line of Cite

I meant what
I meant what I said, and I said what I
meant; RefWorks is shitty, 100%
"It was time consuming and error prone – who would chose that?" So asks Isla Kuhn in this week's brief, referring to manually referencing an assignment. However, from my own experiences with reference-management software, I feel it also applies to several of the products out there, RefWorks and Endnote in particular. After several different people told me that it saved time, handily collated sources and allowed for greater precision of referencing, I took the plunge and used RefWorks when working on the research skills/dissertation proposal assignment for my MSc last year. Everything went in (pretty much) okay, and storing PDF versions of articles alongside the reference was admittedly pretty useful for multi-PC essay-writing. But Write'n'Cite (at that point at least) rendered the essay-in-progress a mess of quasi-HTML tags which made quickly finding a section difficult, and RefGrabIt (or whatever it was called at the time) often didn't pull all the required information from web pages, meaning everything had to be double-checked.

However, for me the worst part of the experience was when I had finished the assignment and tried to export the bibliography. It. Was. Junk. My department used an admittedly-awkward version of Harvard referencing, so I knew I'd have to tweak a few things, but random elements (fine in the RefWorks record) were absent from citations, author attributions were muddled and the style of the output made the bibliography looks more like a random collection of cut'n'paste web links than an academic record of reading. In the end I had to export the bibliography as plain-text, clean off residual formatting through Notepad and manually re-write pretty much every reference. Time-saving my arse.

So, obviously I'm going into the exploration of reference-collation software with an open mind... I need to install and play with the software over the weekend. Really, this post doesn't answer Thing 14 at all, but it does conveniently allow me to avoid including all the above negativity in my response.


tl;dr - I hate RefWorks; I can write references more quickly than exporting and re-editing output.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Wikis, Docs and Dropbox


I dig Docs; I've mentioned it a fair few times over the last few weeks (although I'm still having intermittent problems opening spreadsheet Docs, which is beginning to irk me...). I've even decided to use Docs to store all my Chartership documents, including:

  • drafts of my PPDP and working notes towards portfolio commentary; 
  • PDF scans of notes and handouts from events I've attended; 
  • notes and ephermera resultant from meetings with my mentor. 
I've got most of these things in physical form also, but I tend to leave these at home and use digital copies when working on MCLIP stuff during spare moments at work. I've set the relevant Docs to be shared with my mentor, who can also edit if he wishes to, but mostly it's for my own organisational purposes. I've used labels to organise and sort away most of the documents, though my initial Docs does run more than a screen-length of recent(ish) documents which suggests I should probably organise some more away! I also use Docs for several other things, including a running shopping list which I can access from my phone when I blank on what I need, which is great but can't be relied upon as most Sainsbury's are 3G blackspots. Overall, Docs does [most] of what I want it to do, and that's good enough for me.

I suppose in several ways Dropbox fulfills the same functions I use Docs for, and possibly does so more elegantly as, with all the will in the world, Docs formats don't (yet) have all the rounded functionality of their Microsoft Office antecedents. It would be of even more use but for the need to install software; as I have said before (and as has been reiterated quite strongly by a colleague from IS), I cannot install software on work PCs without great palaver - so that's right out. Also, I feel that to get the most out of it, all parties would have to be signed up and invested enough in Dropbox to have downloaded the client, which becomes more of a gamble as project groups grow in number. I will have a play with it at home at some point, but don't feel it's likely to take the place of Docs in my heart.

Wikis are something I've never quite 'got'. I understand the principle behind crowd-sourced knowledge-collation, but in practice they always seem flawed in some way. The obvious headline star, Wikipedia, has a reputation for unreliability and malicious editing of records about public figures; this reflects what I suspect to be the wider truth - that wiki information tends towards the subjective viewpoint of its author/s. Wookieepedia, a relatively high-profile geek-variant wiki, clearly strives to be authoritative, and covers every aspect of the Expanded Universe in minute detail; however, often the information lacks sources and referencing, making it unclear whether the covered material is 'canon' (or as canonical as EU gets anyway) or speculation based on oblique references in some slash-fic about walking-carpet-loving sarlaccs [shudder of memory, hung head of shame].1 I should never have written 'it's probing tongue hungrily explored his matted anal region; he let out a roar of horror, tinged with intrigue - his uncle Lumpy had warned him of such things back on Kashyyk].

Wikis are clearly included here for their ability to host collaborative work via documents and dicsussions, however. We use a wiki at work to store information about every aspect of what we do, what other teams do and what procedures to follow in many imagined circumstances. It can work well: however, it is not without its drawbacks. It is password-protected, as it carries a lot of sensitive information etc; however, this alone is sufficiently disincentivising to massively impact its use by less computer-confident colleagues. It is laid out somewhat-obliquely, frequently requiring guesswork about which section or keyword the subject you want information about will be under. It is also authored by only a few designated individuals. This last factor probably serves to add authority to the contents: however, it also means that this content has not been written by the most competent person in the given area, and can frequently lead to bottle-necks in the wiki being updated with new information. Finally, the wiki is the primary source of information, but it is not the only source, which fundamentally undermines it as the first port-of-call when problem-solving.

So, in conclusion, I don't think any collaborative working tool is perfect. But then, I don't play well with others, so would rarely need to work collaboratively anyway! [Professional self would like to highlight that this is levity, and Tom is in fact a great team player who would be a perfect addition to any library team; employ him now!]

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1 'It's probing tongue hungrily explored his matted nether-regions; he let out a strangled roar of horror, tinged with intrigue. His uncle Lumpy had warned him of such things back on Kashyyk, but he had never said that the beast's horned protuberance would feel so... good'. I have intense regrets about ever writing this: the Wookiee homeworld has three y's in it...]

Monday 15 August 2011

Social(ist) Media


What a difference a week makes; were I to have written about this Thing on the day when it was posted, I would have mistakenly exhorted the virtues of social media, gambolling in joy through its verdant pastures of communication and collaboration, smelling the fragrant daisies of community-building; now, I have been put right, and can see that social media is a post-apocalyptic concrete wasteland which requires strict control lest the knotweed communities which grow therein start to spread and choke what life is left from the penuried serfs of Albion. Can we seriously risk allowing thousands of communities of professional practice to exist when these very same tools can be used by ruffians to orchestrate vandalism and civil unrest? Enlightened peers in China and Syria have shown us the way; throw up great walls and hunt down those dissidents who persist in playing amongst the wreckage of so-called 'freedom of expression'

I can't keep that tone up forever; many people have already done a much better job of pillorying the ridiculous statements which Cameron has made regarding new media technologies over the last week. I'm not the biggest evangelist for social media, but it is clear that the myriad good purposes to which Twitter and its ilk are utilised far outweigh any potential anarchist-organisation angle. Over the last week, my network of library folk has expanded on the several services thus far discussed within the 23 Things, making me feel plugged in to a wider community of like-minded individuals even whilst I toil away in this fluorescent tomb, the walls battened against the inchoate rage of a generation raised at the twin teats of MTV Cribs and Jeremy Kyle, to a score of gangsta-rap which has eaten away their reasoning ability like parasitic worms to the extent that they forget to cover their faces when attacking the local Dixons.

I'm done now.

Thursday 11 August 2011

Mentors: half-horse, half-human, all badass


For the last 3 months, I have been under the formal mentorship of a kind liaison librarian called Jon, who works in the same library as myself. I know that MCLIP candidates are frequently advised to get a mentor from outside their own niche of librarianship if possible; whilst there are obviously benefits from having that breadth of experience, I feel I benefit from having frequent contact with my mentor, not just in meetings with an agenda to discuss (which we have every 4-6 weeks). I have found the relationship to be positive and useful so far; he sends me things which he thinks might help or interest me, and I bounce ideas off him and talk about job applications etc. I'm still working on drafting my PPDP, so we're not that far into the process yet, but from his discussions of work with his other current mentee I'm confident that we'll rub along nicely.

As for informal mentorship, I've had several people who I have found supportive over the last few years who deserve recognition here (I'm excluding tutors, as it's their job to be supportive and motivating!).

- My former line manager, Martin, was very helpful in letting me implement what I learnt when working in the evenings, and allowed me the opportunity to do several things which would generally be considered beyond my grade; there was a degree of laziness in his willingness to delegate, but it was helpful all the same!

- My current line manager, John, is helpful in much the same way, letting me take on tasks like staff training which would generally be carried out by someone in a supervisor position or higher. He has also been instrumental in arranging for several days of professional development leave to attend events with razor-thin relevance to  my current position.

- Finally, the much-maligned Maureen, who showed me the ropes from the off, quickly getting me up to speed with how libraries worked and what needs the stock had from staff, and has recently let me seize control of several of her projects to add to my project-leading experience.


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A slightly negative post-script. One of the longest delaying factors in my beginning Chartership (aside from apathy) was finding a mentor. My experience of the CILIP mentor list was not a positive one, with the information out-of-date (one mentor reported to work for my service had been retired for a year at that point) and a relatively small amount of mentors available considering the size of, and amount of libraries in, the East Midlands. Looking at the list now, it is much improved, so maybe my timing was unlucky. Nonetheless, I emailed several people and got no responses which soured me on the idea of the MCLIP for a few months. So, if anyone is just starting this process, don't give up as easily as I did!

Wednesday 10 August 2011

Pieces of expensive paper; being a librarian


I have written recently about how I became a librarian, so won't repeat too much in this post. The tl;dr version: it was kind of an accident. I started my MSc in Information & Library Management at Loughborough University after working as an Information Assistant for less than a year, and worked and studied to develop my skills in tandem. I felt this worked pretty well, putting theory learnt in the day into practice in the evening (as there was generally no-one around to stop my crazy schemes), and I feel it gave me a good, rounded idea of HE libraries in particular.

There was an entry requirement on the MSc of a year's experience in libraries; speaking to a tutor towards the end of the year, she said that this was less to do with giving enough grounding in the realities of libraries (though it undoubtedly helps in this regard) and more to do with making candidates employable after they graduated. I know that a few of my coursemates are still struggling to find library work (at any level); by and large they were the ones with less pre-course experience, which reinforces the importance of starting in library jobs as early as possible.

I'm now starting off with the process of Chartership, which I feel inspired about immediately after meetings with my mentor but then quickly lose enthusiasm and don't do much about it for a few weeks. I'm currently writing out my personal development plan, and trying to decide how strictly to embed the Professional Body of Knowledge (and indeed which definition of this to use, as there are several on the CILIP site alone). My inclination is to target the areas which I feel I need developing in in order to get the jobs I want, and tie it back to BPK later. This inclination changes every time I think about it. The process is ongoing, and will be for some months I think. There's a Chartership support event coming up in about a month, and I'm aiming to have a pretty-much final draft of the PPDP by then, to check against the advice and to have something to talk about! There's also a more informal group of Chartering infopros, who meet in Coventry - I'm considering going along to their next meeting, in a week or so, but Coventry is still quite a way away, and it would mean having a 17-hour day...

Stuff #1: August 2011

Moved here, due to repurposing of this blog for purely-professional concerns.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Ever note? Or; what's up [with] Docs?


CPD23 catch-up week is upon us: it's spooky how they knew I would fall behind at this point... I'm not sure that it's wise to try to start up again on the part where I got stuck, but I'm going to plough ahead anyway and see what happens.

I had always planned to post the Evernote Thing a little later than usual, as I had never used Evernote and wanted to have some time to play with it before writing. Unfortunately, I never got around to registering and using the product; still haven't in fact! [goes off to correct this and read cpd23 briefing]. First thing: don't talk down to me, Evernote. If I want patronising, I'll use an Apple product. Don't pass off fairly common technology as 'magic'.


I may not get the full experience of Evernote, as I cannot install the client on my work PC (not without a great deal of hassle involving Information Systems colleagues, forms to evidence why I need said software and sacrificing a sentient mammal to Quetzalcoatl anyway). For this same reason, I cannot use the 'web clipper' either. I could install these on my home PC, and on my Android handset and maybe my iPod if I was really ambitious, but the web version would still be where I spent 90% of my time using Evernote, so I'll base my appraisal solely on this. I'm not sure how much I'd really use the 'on-the-go' versions of Evernote, as I'm largely sedentary and detest typing anything longer than txtspk on my phone; I see the value when out and about at events, but I don't attend that many, and my current strategy of frantic scribbling and later access to slides/resources covers 95% of sources/notes I want to capture.

I can see the usefulness of keeping notes from several sources (web, email, twitter, real life posters/whiteboards/business cards [via photo]) in one place. I've tried to do much the same thing in the past using Google Docs (scraps of data as text documents, often with little content in the doc aside from the title), but obviously this is a very different experience, with a more pleasant GUI and functionality more suited to notetaking. I doubt I would make much use of the photograph-manipulation features, as I'm rarely in that kind of context, but appreciate its existence.

Overall, I can see the merits of Evernote as a tool to answer lots of problems; they're just not problems which I particularly have. I can get by fine note-taking in Google Docs (as long as it doesn't keep seizing up as it has for the last week or so...) and, if I desperately have to make a note whilst I'm in the field, I can either jot it in my phone and sync it as a note later or just scribble it on my hand. It may be something of a snap judgement, but Evernote isn't for me.

Monday 8 August 2011

A Day in the Life: #libday7

I wrote this a while ago, and have posted it as a separate page as it was a long post even by my standards. It has now been enhanced by the addition of semi-relevant pictures, making it around 9% more exciting!