New year, new reference management system

After the festive season, it is time to get back to work - and to take a quick look at the reference management systems presented in Thing 14.

I read the Thing 14 blog post and decided I would be trying out Zotero rather than Mendeley or CiteULike: I am a Firefox user and I liked the fact that Zotero is integrated in my browser. I should specify straight away that I do not currently need a reference management system, but I was curious to try one! So... well, to me it looks a lot like Evernote (which I have been trying to use regularly since Thing 9) except that instead of storing content, it stores references (duh!) I have not actually tried creating a bibliography with it and integrate it in a Word document, but I do think it is a very useful tool for people writing essays and papers. So much so that I have already recommended using a reference management system to my flatmate who will be writing a dissertation for university this year!

Ready to share

There I am, finally: Thing 13 - Google Docs, Wikis and Dropbox. In that order!

Warning: my examples might not be especially work-related because I do not often have the chance to actually use these tools in my current post. I try to apply them to things I do in my personal time instead, so at least I can test and use them. Oh, and in case you are wondering why I am talking about holidays so much, it is only because I am actually on holiday next week and I am getting excited about it!

I have used Google Docs in my last year at university. We were doing a group project for which we had to write a report. Our problem was: we needed to think about it together and see what the others had written, but since we lived quite far apart from each other, it wasn't easy to meet. So we started putting our ideas in a Google document, each person using a different colour. We then met to put some order into it and share the tasks out. We ended up writing most of our report in Google Docs.

More recently, I have used Google Docs to, err, organise a holiday! Again, it was because we lived too far away from each other to meet. Using Google meant we had a kind of notepad where we could jot down ideas of visits whenever they came up or add more details to our journey whenever one of us had a bit of time to do it.

To me wikis are like a more elaborate Google document: one that's turned into a website. I have read some stuff off wikis before (mostly Wikipedia, of course) but I believe the first time I actually participated in one is when I shared my cake recipe on the wiki for Library Camp UK 2011!

I have registered with and downloaded Dropbox, but I haven't really been able to test it yet. The idea looks great: it's like a private network, accessible anywhere over the Internet, with parts that can be shared if necessary. It's easy to see how it can be used in one's job, if people work in different locations (including at home) on different devices.

In mine at the moment, I have put some documents I might need when I am away on holiday... "just in case". Also, I might ask my friends to share their photographs with me in this way: copying the original files from Dropbox onto my computer would be much easier than downloading smaller versions from Facebook or Picasa and much quicker than waiting to have them on a USB stick!

Going back before moving forward

I am motivated, I have the time now, so I am going to finish the 23 Things for Professional Development programme! Before moving on to Thing 13, however, I decided to actually do everyThing properly. Therefore, I am going back to the one Thing I skipped: Thing 8 - Google Calendar.

As I mentioned in my post on Thing 9, I have no need for a Google Calendar. As a humble Library and Information Assistant, I do not need something to organise my time at work: I can be found on whichever floor my managers have decided to put me on, and this can be viewed by anyone on the library's daily timetable. I am rarely invited to meetings, and when I am my attendance is decided less by myself than by the timetablers, depending on the level of staffing at that time. As a result, no one will purposefully look up my calendar, if I had one! And if no one wants to see it, no need to share it...
If, however, I was in that position that requires me to use a calendar for others to see, I would be using the one linked to Outlook, as it is the one everybody uses at my workplace. As far as I could judge, it is similar to Google Calendar. The only Google Calendar in use at the Library is the one on our blog, which shows our customers upcoming events across the library service.

Just to give it a go, I have created myself a Google Calendar which I have filled with details of my social life over the next three weeks. This period includes my holidays, and I have shared my calendar with friends I am planning to see during those holidays. The results are... mixed. Yes it seems easy to use and I agree it must be great when you actually need to share your calendar with others. Also, since I use an Android smartphone, I can see the appeal of going all-Google to have everything at the ready on my phone. But apart from that, I'd still rather use my paper diary... My diary may be old-fashioned, but it does its job, it doesn't need its battery charged and I can even hold several pages open at the same time and still see each of them properly! Maybe for me - a girl who does like a bit of nice stationery - Google Calendar's great downside is that it will never have a cover sporting a witty phrase by Ben or a beautiful illustration by Gaëlle Boissonnard!!

NE CILIP Mini Umbrella, 23rd November 2011

I wasn't going to write a blog post about the Mini Umbrella. I didn't take that many notes and I knew others there (with more followers!) would be writing about it anyway. Instead, my plan for tonight was to get on with Thing 13 of the 23 Things for Professional Development programme and try out Dropbox. But something happened: I was inspired - by reading louiselib's own blog post about the event. So here we go!

The Mini Umbrella was organised - for the 3rd year running - by the North-East England branch of CILIP and Northumbria University, at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is called "Mini Umbrella" after the biennial CILIP Umbrella conference, which is THE conference for library and information professionals in the UK. This year, it was a half-day conference, running from 12-5pm. It started with a buffet lunch and time to look at the stalls at the back of the room representing some local library services and CILIP groups.

• Keynote by Isabel Hood, CILIP Trustee

Isabel gave us an update on CILIP: its mission, as set out by its members in a recent big survey, its organisation and the changes it is undergoing. [Also in my notes: "Check eHustings + sort out ballot paper." Gloups. I guess it's too late now... In my defense, CILIP and I have had a slight misunderstanding as to what is my current address; in their defense, I should have sorted it earlier. Erm, let's move on...]

• Rachel Steele : NHS Clinical Librarian project

 I do not know very much about working for a firm or in the health sector. Therefore, I am always curious to hear about librarians in those areas. Rachel described the role of the Clinical Librarian as keeping up-to-date with research in the particular medical fields of health professionals she works with, and in this way facilitating their access to the latest breakthroughs. She also undertakes literature searches, evaluates information and is involved in user education and training. To me, it sounded a lot like being what we'd called in French a "documentaliste" applied to the health sector.

• Mark Freeman (now Stockton Libraries) and Kathryn Armstrong (South Tyneside) : Tyne2Seine² 

Tyne2Seine² is a programme between schools and libraries in North and South Tyneside and in Epinay-sur-Seine, in the suburb of Paris. It all started with Epinay-sur-Seine, which is twinned with South Tyneside. There was a school project in the French town which involved pupils in creating stories that were then made into books that were then made into... gardens! This project was then shared with a school in South Tyneside and, thanks to a Comenius (European) grant, a link between schools and libraries, on both sides of the Tyne and across the sea, was established. For the children, the project included discovering the others' culture, activities based around reading, storytelling in a different language, author visits, ... Since the children themselves could not travel, it was the British and French librarians and authors who made several trips!

I have to admit, I was very interested - not least because I'm French. A couple of years ago, Newcastle City Library had a visit from representatives from twin city Nancy (in North-East France - where I have been to university!) Already at the time, I thought how great it would be to set up something in collaboration with the libraries there - even something as simple as gifts of books chosen by readers; something that would really link the residents of the two towns, open their minds to a different people, a different culture, a different language and share their own. I thought Tyne2Seine² was a brilliant project - it's something the kids involved will always remember! - but unfortunately, it demands a lot of resources, and I guess it would not have been possible without the grant. 

• Dilys Young and Christine Willoughby : Rising expectations - using customer feedback to deliver strategic objectives

Both from Northumbria University Library, the speakers shared their experience of using statistics to prove the service's value and set out objectives for improvement.

• Sharon Reeve : Services for visually impaired users

Sharon talked about the North East Accessible Library and Information Services (NEALIS) project and presented the wide range of services available to visually impaired persons at Newcastle Libraries. [No notes for this presentation; I know all about it!]

An outline of the project, which was a finalist in the CILIP Libraries Change Lives award, can be viewed here.

• Middlesbrough College LRC team : The new curiosity shop - what's on offer today?

The team from the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) at Middlesbrough College told us about their use of new technologies. This includes using free online resources for promotion (such as Prezi, Twitter, Inforgraphics) but also getting teachers to know about them via a newsletter. [They had some newsletters to give out... I was eager to grab one of course, but the angle is different from I write for our internal newsletter, so I won't be able to borrow/steal their ideas... Haha] They also admitted to resorting to the "wow" factor to engage pupils: part of the induction is a 3D film tour of the library (with 3D glasses and big screen), a quiz and a QR code tour. The QR code tour uses only coded text so it's quicker and it keeps pupils focused on following the trail: the text is a clue to the location of the next QR code, and leads them to all the different sections of the LRC.

Colin Raistrick, the chair of North-East CILIP, concluded the conference with, among other things, some funny anecdotes on good old-fashioned information users meeting new technology ones - and the suggestion that the Mini Umbrella's name should be changed to "Party under the Parasol"! Hehehe!

For my part, as always, I enjoyed meeting and talking with colleagues from other organisations and sectors, learning about what everyone is up to and going away with a couple of ideas...