Archive for July 2011
CPD23: Organising opening hours
The problem:
I’ve mentioned this before – I’m not a big fan of the library’s opening hours pages. They’re not particularly user-friendly, from a customer perspective, and they are horribly difficult to update.
The problem-solver:
Could be Google Calendar, which is what Thing 8 of the 23 Things for Professional Development course is all about. Over the last week, I’ve been investigating using Google Calendar as a interim fix to our opening hours pages problem. I have a Google account, so I’ve set up my personal Google calendar as if it were the library’s opening hours calendar. I’ve inputted some data as if we were undergoing a time where opening hours were changing from vacation, to term, to 24/7 opening hours. And this is the result:
Having not used Google Calendar before, I found it quite simple to schedule appointments, and you can set events so that they repeat on certain days of the week, or for a certain length of time.
There are certain problems, however, when you’re using it less as a diary and more of an opening hours database. When I scheduled appointments to reflect the times the Library was open, they only displayed the start time on the final calendar, like this:
Which looked quite odd. I couldn’t really find a way to get around this, although it might be just a case of digging deeper into the calendar settings, so I ended up scheduling everything as an all day event, and then manually inputting the times, i.e.:
But then this also has some limitations, because Google Calendar wants to order all day events alphabetically. I ended up changing ‘Help and Information Desk Opening Hours’ to ‘Service Desk Opening Hours’ to make sure information about the times at which full library services were available followed the information about the library’s opening hours.
Anyway, I meddled a bit with the display settings, and then Google produced some code so I could embed it into a webpage.
So, it didn’t take any technical wizardry whatsoever – and it should hopefully be quite easy to embed this into the university’s Content Management System. However, if we decide to go down this route without any technical work by the library’s IT team, it will be a bit of a dirty fix and we’ll need to be careful about how we input the data.
It’s not perfect, but it could be a better way of organising this information, particularly if we can add in Library events as well. Watch this space.
CPD23: Talkin’ about Things
I’ll admit it before I even start – this is sort of a cheaty post. Before I sail off into the sunset (well, before I spend most of August messing around in boats, at any rate!) I thought it might be good to reflect on how I’m doing with my CILIP Chartership work and professional development activities. And coincidentally, Thing 7 of the 23 Things for Professional Development programme is about professional organisations. It’s nice when things work out like that, isn’t it?
Last week, I had a meeting with Jackie, my CILIP mentor. We discussed my progress on my Chartership work – I’m not tackling everything on my Personal Professional Development Plan (PPDP), but I have added lots of things I hadn’t thought about at the start of the process, of which CPD23 is one! And the way I see it, your initial PPDP is a guide, rather than a definitive structure. I’ve got lots of things planned over the next 6 months as well – I’m attempting to keep up with the CPD23 programme, I’m tackling an Institute of Leadership and Management Award in Team Leading in November (another professional organisation!), organising possible work experience placements in public libraries, there’s a module of a Masters in Librarianship course in January… so I’m keeping myself occupied!
I just need to make sure that I remember to record and reflect on all the things I’m doing. Taking part in CPD23, I’m finding it tricky to keep up with everything Chartership-wise alongside work and general life. Jackie suggested that when I don’t have time to write an in-depth reflective piece, it’s ok to make notes – then, if I want to use that piece of evidence for my final portfolio, I can go back and write something more formal at a later date. As I go along, I’m creating an updated version of my PPDP and noting down actions and evidence, so I’m going to add a new column on this document to record my initial thoughts about training sessions and development work.
We also talked about organisational structure and how to reference aspects of the library’s strategy when I’m putting together my portfolio next year. Linking your training and development to the overall aims of your organisation was something I picked up on when I recently attended a Building Your Portfolio course. Having ploughed through the 20+ page library objective document for the next year, I was struggling to see how I could effectively include this in my submission. Jackie and I decided that I should include first two pages, which outline the library’s mission and five main goals, and then drill down into individual objectives as appropriate to each piece of evidence, so I’m feeling happier about this.
The other thing I’ve been a little bit concerned about is the level of reading required of Chartership candidates, which Jackie’s going to look into. I haven’t done a Library MA, so I haven’t read a huge amount of academic texts about librarianship and information management. It’s not that I don’t read, but I generally read CILIP Update, the odd journal article, lots of blogs, newspaper articles… is that enough?
And at some point, I’m going to have to draw a line in the sand, pause on the development activities, and start working on my portfolio. I think I’m going to aim for June 2012, after the exam term tails off. Almost a year away. Or less than a year away, depending on how you look at it…
CPD23: Working the net
This week’s CPD23 Things are all about networking, online and off. I’m going to take a look at Thing 6 today, which is about social networks.
Social networking
My first real experience of social networking was possibly myspace. Although the renamed ‘my____’ now pitches itself at ‘a Gen Y audience’ of music types, it was once a veritable museum of awful amateur web design (my first flirtation with HTML). Next there was Facebook, which I signed up to during my Freshers week at university in 2006. Unlike myspace, I still have a Facebook account. I barely use it and the only reason I haven’t deleted my account is that I need it to check and update the library’s Facebook page every day.
In fact, I’m not sure I get the concept of a social network. Why? Because I find them a bit anti-social. I actually quite like seeing my friends, talking to my friends and writing to my friends without being limited to 140 characters. If you’re from my primary school, and I haven’t spoken to you in person since I was about 10, you’re not really my friend, are you? You’re not actually part of my actual, real life, social network at all. I can’t be bothered to pretend that I have 193 friends (the number of friends I have on Facebook) when that is blatantly, blatantly not true.
Online professional networking
Ok, Facebook rant over.
Social networking just doesn’t really work for me, I guess. But online networking does. I get quite a lot out of my professional online network. I was persuaded to use Twitter after attending the CILIP UC&R and CoFHE conference last year, where I found that everyone was talking about tweeting. I use my Twitter account to discuss professional issues and talk about things that are going on at work, and I follow people who do the same. The support and information I get from my peers on Twitter is really invaluable.
I’m also part of LISNPN, the network for new information professionals. You can take a look at my profile here if you so desire. This is a brilliant initiative and it’s particularly good for longer, in-depth discussions about professional issues.
New networks
And this week, thanks to CPD23, I’ve started to explore 2 new networks. I’ve finally had the push I needed take the plunge with LinkedIn. I’ve been putting off creating a LinkedIn profile for ages, but I’ve finally done it. Take a look, and let me know what you think!
I’ve also started exploring Google+. After my tirade against Facebook, you’re probably wondering why I’m even bothering. Actually, its not that I dislike Facebook in itself, as a platform. The reason why I don’t use my Facebook account is because it represents me back in 2007, rather than me today (which is very much my own fault, and I can’t help thinking that at some point I should give it another chance, a la Cheryl and Ashley). So why have I created a Google+ profile? Because I’m curious, that’s what. And if it ends up being a big player amongst the online networks, it’s kind of my job to know about that. I haven’t done much with it yet, but I’m interested to see how I might use it.
I think online networking is beginning to work for me.
CPD23: Reflecthing
I have mainly one thing to say about Thing 5 of the 23 Things for Professional Development programme, which is all about reflective practice. And that is read my blog. This whole CILIP Chartership thing means I’m all over it. Oh yeah.
Ok, gloating over. I thought I’d use this Thing to briefly reflect on what I’m getting out of CPD23, and what I need to concentrate on in order to get the most out of the rest of the professional development Things coming up over the coming weeks.
So far, CPD23 has prompted me to revisit and review how I’m using particular online tools for personal and professional development. I’ve been trying to look at my online presence objectively and I’ve come up with some actions to help me get the most out of blogging, Twitter and RSS feeds, amongst other things. It’s also exciting to explore new tools, like Pushnote and later this week, LinkedIn, and I’m hoping by the end of the programme, I’ll be starting to use some of these.
The other positive about doing this is that lots of other people are trying these tools out at the same time. I’m enjoying reading about what other people think of online professional networking, and what’s working for them!
What I really need to do now is use these reflections to inform my actions and interactions, and get on and do the stuff I’m suggesting. The most difficult bit of the CPD23 programme for me is just keeping up, because the weeks and Things seem to move really quickly. However, I’ve subscribed to the single feed of all the CPD23 blogs set up by Shannon Robalino (I want her surname), and it looks like I’m not the only one out there who gets a bit behind from time to time, which is reassuring! And the way I see it, I can always look back over my posts after the CPD23 course finishes and spend some more time on some of the Things at my leisure.
The other thing I’m slightly concerned about is progressing with my Chartership work at the same time as taking part in CPD23. There’s definitely professional development activities I’ve been doing over the last few weeks that I need to spend some time reflecting on. Work and life doesn’t stop, after all!
CPD23: Feed me
Ok, so I’m already slightly behind on the 23 Things for Professional Development programme, despite being only a few weeks in. And the theme for Week 3, somewhat ironically, is Current Awareness.
I think that one of the most useful things about social media is that it helps me to keep up to date. Now, I tend to find out about industry, national and international news first through the people I follow on Twitter – the 140 character posts can’t give me all the details, but often link to further information. Before newspapers and television came word of mouth, and I think it’s interesting that things seem to be coming full circle in terms of the way news circulates.
And I totally love RSS feeds – I’ve supported teaching sessions for academics on using RSS feeds to keep up to date with new research, so I’m pretty familiar with RSS technologies. Subscribing to blogs and news feeds means that I don’t have to go to lots of places to find out information, or repeat searches – instead I can sit back, and relax, and current awareness material comes straight to me.
BUT:
I’ll admit it, I’m just plain lazy with the way I manage my Twitter account and the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Are things in useful folders or lists to keep my different interests organised? No. Do I ever go through and weed my RSS feeds, or the people I follow on Twitter? Not really. Do I try and match up the Twitter accounts I follow to the blog RSS feeds I subscribe to? Nope, although it sometimes happens by accident. I’m like a kid in a sweet shop – I just gobble up all the information I can get my grubby mitts on.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realise that as an information professional, I sure could do more about organising all that current awareness material. I do not want to become the information equivalent of Audrey Junior (the man-eating plant from the Little Shop of Horrors).
So I’m going to use Thing 4 to:
- Attempt to follow a few more organisations and other libraries on Twitter to keep up to date with current news
- Investigate my Twitter followers and followees – do any of them have interesting blogs which I haven’t explored?
- Audit my RSS feeds in Outlook. Which ones do I actually want to read every day alongside my work emails?
- Look at my Google Reader account, which I rarely log in to. I’m going to try to use this to organise most of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. I also want to create folders so I can find things more easily.
Feed me, Seymour…
Service!
(I watch far too many reality TV cooking programmes.)
I’ve been thinking about service levels and customer service quite a lot recently. I’ve always been passionate about good customer service – I began my working life on a bakery counter aged 15, and I learnt that being polite, friendly and informative in my approach to front-line services gave the customer a better experience and made doing the job a whole lot more worthwhile. Granted, there are differences between selling doughnuts and finding academic information, but in essence, the way I went about serving customers then is more or less exactly the same now I work in a library:
Rachel’s Golden Rules of Customer Service
– Make eye contact
– Smile
– Greet your customer (I think the word ‘Hello’ makes the world go round)
– If you can deliver on their request – that’s great.
– If you can’t help, but someone else in the library can, make sure you pass your customer on to the correct colleague (make sure you know who knows what). And follow it up – did your colleague respond to the query? Or do you need to consult someone else?
– If your service can’t meet a customer’s request, suggest an alternative. An example of this – as a library, we don’t buy used textbooks from students. But I know that the academic branch of Waterstones do, that some of the college libraries do, and that Purple Books, a website set up by some of our students, does. So I make sure I know about local services so that I can point my customers in the right direction.
– It might seem obvious, but when a customer comes to make a comment or complaint, make sure you listen. And make tell your customer what you’re going to do in response to their feedback, and follow through on that.
– Try to end the transaction on a positive note
– Say thank you, and smile!
The only thing I’d add to this model, which sets information services apart from retail environments, is that working on a library service desk, try to assess what your customer needs, not necessarily what they want. Your customer might come to you wanting to find out how to access a particular article on their reading list. But they might need to know what an academic journal is, how to find these on the library catalogue, how to find their reading list online, how to find full-text e-journal articles… and you need to try and judge what level of information they need when they’re asking you for assistance.
And actually, I don’t think that good customer service is very difficult. I don’t stray far from my golden rules, even on a really bad day (and I’m having enough of them recently to safely say that). As a customer, that’s the level of service I expect to receive. And if I can do it, you can do it!
CPD23: Branding – a piece of cake?
CPD evidently now stands for Cake & Professional Development. Image courtesy of M i x y on Flickr
Last week, I celebrated one year of tweeting using my missrachelsmith Twitter account! I’ve also just reached the 6 month mark with the missrachelsmith blog. The turning of a year is often a good time to reflect on the year past and think about the year ahead, so week 2 of 23 Things for Professional Development, and Thing 3: Consider your personal brand are quite timely for me.
Now, communications and marketing is kind of my bag, baby, so in theory, this personal branding Thing should be a piece of (tweetanniversary) cake. But for me, using social media for professional development was kind of an organic thing which just happened. I never really planned or structured my personal online ‘brand’. So what do my current professional social media profiles say about me?
What I think
Well, I think that I present myself in quite a straightforward way. Both my blog and my Twitter account are named after me and I also proudly display friendly mugshots of myself (although the photo I’m currently using, taken during the Toon (lib)TeachMeet, maybe isn’t the most obvious).
I write about what I’m doing at work, about professional development activities and about ideas I have about libraries and information. I don’t go into a huge amount of detail about out of work stuff, but I don’t divorce my work life and my personal life entirely, as it tends to creep in. And I write quite honestly; the whole point of my CILIP Chartership work is to be reflective, and that means telling you how I feel about the things I’m doing, as well as what I think about them.
I definitely think that there’s room for improvement, however. Visually, my blog and Twitter account don’t look all that enticing and a strong online visual identity could be easily achieved through using consistent headers and backgrounds. I’ve also been keeping an eye on my blog stats in recent weeks, and a lot of people seem to find their way to my About page, which currently tells you very little about me. These are things that I need to look into and would be quick improvements to my personal online brand.
What my colleagues think
I decided to be brave and go for the optional extra activity, so I asked a couple of colleagues for their opinions on my blog. My colleague Vicki called it (and I quote) ‘the most professional blog I’ve ever read’. I’m guessing this is because there are other people at my workplace who blog – see Helen’s Bright Inside, a blog about interior design, or Ben’s bloggin’ bones, subtitled ‘musings of unremarkable idiot’, for example – and don’t write about professional stuff at all. But still, as I’m blogging about work, professional is kind of what I’m aiming at, so I was fairly pleased with that response.
What Google thinks
I’ve learnt that I’m not amazingly easy to find or ‘googleable’ – I blame this mainly on having the world’s most common name. I did consider changing my surname as a teenager, to something a bit more exciting and glamorous, but my mother was quite offended when I suggested it. Actually, if you search ‘Rachel Smith’ on Google, you mainly come up with results relating to an American beauty queen (don’t be fooled – if I looked like that I wouldn’t be doing this job).
Can I improve my Google result rankings? Well, I’m sure there’s a few SEO-type rabbits I could pull out of my library marketing hat, but I don’t think I can improve my visibility that much, without changing names. I’m planning to use the missrachelsmith ‘brand’ for at least the course of Chartering, but maybe I should rethink this further down the line, as and when my blog and twitter activities have a change in purpose/emphasis.
And lastly, what do you think? I’d love to know.
missrachelsmith 