Thing 13: Google Docs, Wikis and Dropbox

Thing 13 of cpd23 is about methods of online collaboration and file sharing. First of all Google Docs and Dropbox, which to some extent do the same thing. You can:

• Upload documents.
• Share documents, either with other users or via a link like so http://goo.gl/VqHke - this is Max, one of our house rabbits who is clearly more interested in the pint glass than the dot.com article he's sat on.
• Organise documents into folders.
• Search for documents by file name.

That's where the similarities end. Dropbox is primarily a storage solution, allowing you to access uploaded documents from any computer. It's easy to use and seems secure. Google Docs is more about collaboration and therefore has much more functionality.

Why I didn't want to like Google Docs

  

digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mainly because I don't trust Google with my documents and wouldn't feel safe uploading files containing personal information such as my CV. A couple of things added to my paranoia. When I first logged in I was surprised to see that documents I had been sent links to were already stored there, although to my knowledge I'd not used Google Docs before. Poking around my Google account I also realised that Google saves my browsing history, naive I know but I didn't realise. Although being able to see the searches I have carried out on my work pc at home could come in handy, it makes me feel a little uneasy about the amount of data Google collates and has access to.

Why then do I like Google Docs?

A few things impressed me:

• The functionality of the documents you can create in Google is pretty good. Whilst you can't work on them offline (as far as I can tell), you can do all the basics including adding tables and columns to word documents etc.
• Being able to create documents from scratch makes it easy to collaborate with others - it doesn't matter if one of you doesn't have Microsoft Word on your pc.
• Changes are saved automatically.
• You can see how documents have been revised and by whom.
• You can search for keywords within your files.
• You can tag your documents using the description feature.

How will I use Dropbox and Google Docs and why do I need both?

At the moment the only people I need to share documents with are in work. We have a shared drive, with an established folder structure and it's all secure. It's also extremely rare we need to work on things at the same time. I'll therefore only be using Dropbox and Google Docs to share documents with myself. They will provide a great storage space for anything relating to my Chartership and allow me to access files in work and at home without emailing them to myself. I'll probably use Google Docs for all the general stuff as it's easier to organise and Dropbox for things like my CV and PPDP which I will want to work on off-line.

I haven't been able to try out the collaboration side of Google Docs or Dropbox, but at least I now know how they work.

Wikis

Things seem to be changing rapidly in work and in time I think we will be pushing more information out to our users. Initially I thought a wiki could be our solution, however I'm now thinking IT may already have an in-house system that we will need to utilise. Whilst keen to explore wikis I don't have a reason to at the moment and will leave it until I have more time.

I have however recently contributed to the Library Day in a Life wiki which was surprisingly easy to do.

Thing 12: Reflecting on Social Media

Thing 12 provides an opportunity to reflect on social media. As I never really had an online presence before taking part in cpd23 I thought this would be a good opportunity to access how things are going so far.

The positives

Meeting people - there's a LISNPN meet up planned for later in August which will give me a chance to meet people who I wouldn't have come across if it weren't for LISNPN. My intro post on LISNPN also lead someone who works in the same sector as me to get in contact.

More in the loop - thanks to Twitter I now feel I have a better understanding of what's going on elsewhere in the library profession. LinkedIn has also alerted me to some useful resources. I've spent time this week adding more blogs to my Blogger reading list which has proved to be time well spent.

Blogging - whilst my posts aren't really of interest to others, thanks to cpd23 I am getting into the habit of posting regularly which will help when I get going with Chartership.

The negatives

I feel like a stalker - especially with Twitter. Whilst I'm finding some of the conversations interesting I don't feel I've much to add and I'm fed up of eves dropping. I'm slowing coming to the realisation that I just haven't found the right people to follow. Next week's task will therefore be to find some new Tweeters to get into conversation with.

Time - I noted in one of my earlier posts that you only get out what you put in, to build your online reputation you need to tweet, respond and comment. At the moment I'm struggling to find time to do this effectively. I'm wondering whether the solution is to take a more structured approach to when I check into different sites?

Will I continue using social networking sites?

Definitely. Working in a commercial library in the South West makes it more challenging to network face-to-face. Whilst I don't feel what I'm currently doing constitutes online networking I can already see the benefits. It doesn't replace face-to-face networking but is helpful.

Does social media foster a sense of community?

This was the final question thing 12 posed. I think it's a bit early for me to answer this with any authority. I can see that the prolific tweeters of the library world have a strong online network which is both encouraging and a bit daunting for a newbie. Whether I'll ever find the time to truly feel I belong to this particular community I'm not sure.

Thing 11: Mentoring

Thing 11 of cpd23 is all about the importance of having a good mentor and the qualities of a good mentee.

It's on my to-do-list to find a suitable mentor to guide me through the Chartership process; I'll therefore keep this short and post again when I've found someone.

Away from the formal mentor required for Chartership I'm lucky enough to have a supportive boss who takes a keen interest in my development. She understands how isolated you can feel working in a commercial library and has recently suggested I become involved with our local CILIP branch. Without this support I really would feel like I was just doing another job and not part of a profession at all.

Positives aside I think it's advisable to remember (however good your workplace relationships are) that there are always politics at play. I therefore think it's important to have an outsider who you can talk to. At the moment my other half fulfils this role and of course always will do in terms of big life changing decisions. I'm however lacking someone who can objectively advise on my development and the finer detail. Hopefully my Chartership mentor will fill this void.

Thing 10: I Never Thought I'd be a Librarian

Thing 10 of cpd23 is all about routes into Librarianship. It's as good of excuse as any to tell my tale as to how I came to be a Librarian.

Growing up I never thought of Librarianship as a career. I always wanted to be a solicitor or a barrister, but in the final year of my law degree I decided it wasn't for me.

I worked part time in the travel industry whilst at uni and was lucky enough to get a full time management post on completion of my law degree. It was only a stop gap until I worked out what I really wanted to do, however a year later I'd still not worked out what that was. I took a career break and started going to my local library to use the internet. Penniless and with a mortgage to pay I realised I needed to get back into work even if I hadn't found the perfect career. All the time spent in my local library made me think that a library would be a great place to work.

I ended up working as library assistant in a Gloucestershire library and was hooked. I finally felt I was doing something enjoyable and worthwhile. 

A few years on I was looking for a change of scenery and soon learnt that an Information and Library Management Masters would open up my career options. I realised that I might even be able to make use of my law degree in a commercial library. I applied for the course at the University of the West of England and continued to work almost full time throughout the one year course. Many sleepless nights later (there's nothing like leaving assignments to the last minute), I swore I'd never go back to uni again, never.

Whilst finishing my dissertation a post came up in Bristol at a commercial property firm, whilst not law I knew it was going to be hard to find a commercial library job in the South West. I applied and convinced my now manager to give me a chance, although I wasn't yet qualified and had no experience in a business library. Almost 4 years and a promotion later I'm still there. I love it. No two days are the same and the variety of enquiries we receive help keep it interesting. I probably should have moved on by now, however the jobs just haven't been there and I'm settled in Bristol.

We've recently been given an opportunity to change the service we provide to something more akin to knowledge management. Whilst it's early days I'm really excited, I feel like I'm getting a chance to start a new job, without having to move.

So Why Charter?

I've only just applied so have little to tell apart from the reason I have registered for Chartership.

Whilst I'm passionate about my job I feel more up-to-date with the surveying profession than I do librarianship, I have well and truly become disconnected from the profession. The formal and structured approach is just what I need to make myself get up off my backside and start developing myself professionally. It's about time I think about my career and not just my job.

I know many people don't hold Chartership in high regard and I agree that you shouldn't have to be a Chartered member of CILIP to prove yourself - there are many people out there who aren't Chartered, who are truly inspirational and much more engaged with the profession than I will ever be. For me it's about the process and hopefully what I will get out of it.

Thing 9: Evernote - A Librarian's Best Friend?



Evernote's strapline is Remember Everything, hence the Elephant logo. It allows you to clip websites, tag them, add your own notes and store them for later consultation. You can also capture photos, screenshots, scanned documents etc., all of which are automatically indexed and are fully searchable. Sounds like a very useful tool indeed.

Initially I was rather disappointed though, the look and feel of Evernote isn't great. Although there isn't much to it, it's not that intuitive to use, none of the buttons tell you what they are for if you hover over them and the formatting of clipped pages can go astray. I also found myself annoyed with the fact that if you delete a note, tags that only apply to that note don't disappear. The ink notes are great fun though, even if your writing ends up like this...

All that aside, I can see it's potential, not so much at home, but definitely at work. Currently I add useful links to my favourites and have some notes scribbled on index cards, however it's often difficult to find things when I need them and my favourites list has become too unwieldy to browse. Being able to tag links, make notes and for it all to be searchable is a real coo. It's like having all your bits of information catalogued with metadata but in draft form.

Once up and running in work (if IT agree to install it on my machine) it will be really good to see all links/info that are stored using the same tag in one place. This should make it much easier to repackage information for our intranet.

With the way in which Evernote works, if anyone can make the most of it, it has to be Librarians. Now all I need to do is convince IT.

A day on Enquiry Duty

A post for Library Day in the Life 7

As already mentioned in my earlier post Monday for a Commercial Librarian, I work as a Senior Information Officer at a commercial property firm in Bristol. Our small team (just me and the Information Centre Manager) provide an Information Service to around 1,500 employees.

My previous post explained a non-enquiry day. Whilst I don’t wish to bore you with a blow by blow account of every day I thought it would be useful to write about an enquiry day.

On an enquiry day I deal with any requests for information from within the firm. Generally the requests come by email, however some people prefer to call and occasionally people in the Bristol office will pop down to see us in person.

This what happened on Tuesday 26th July:

8.30 – in work already, although I don’t start until 9am. As nothing urgent had come in I took the opportunity to start writing my Library Day in the Life post for Monday.

9.00 – the following enquiries had now arrived in my inbox;

How much was paid for an industrial unit just outside of Cardiff?

They had already checked some of the specialist property databases we subscribe to with no luck. A quick land registry search provided the answer.

Please can I have a credit report for XYZ company?

Another quick enquiry using a paid for subscription service. The company report only had 2009 financial info on it so had a quick check of Companies House which told me 2010 accounts wouldn’t be available until the end of October.

A request for some articles from Property Week.

9.30 – we run a number of daily/weekly/monthly searches. 90% of today’s searches were press searches which we run through Factiva. It’s always good to get them done early as you never know what the day will bring and if you’ll run out of time to do them later.

10.45 – set up login details for a surveyor to Goad (a paid for retail mapping service).

10.50 – another land registry request. This time I was unable to get any electronic results from the Land Registry database so had to mark up a plan and submit it to the Land Registry, we’ll get the results in a couple of days.

10.55 – planning search using a subscription database.

11.05 – two more land registry searches. Until the recession hit in 2008 we had an Information Assistant who carried out these searches. They are searches surveyors could carry out for themselves with adequate training. This is something we’ll be looking at in the future.

11.25 – yesterday we received a request for information relating to airports. My colleague had already passed it on to one of our researches who she thought would have some relevant data. I called to check what they could provide and if there was anything we needed to do. It looks as if they had enough information to answer this query. Spoke to the surveyor to explain that the researcher would be in touch and asked him to get back to us if there were any gaps – we can check for market reports, run press searches etc.

11.45 – request for company financials. The surveyor knew the trading name, but didn't know what the company was registered as with Companies House. First I checked for a company website, there wasn’t one. A press search didn’t help either. Google bashing finally gave me an answer. I downloaded the latest accounts and checked that the information corresponded with what I knew about the company. It did, hoorah!

11.55 – another land registry search

12.05 – no more enquiries had come in so I took the opportunity to contact a colleague in procurement regarding paper based subscriptions. Whilst we manage subscriptions centrally, the company we have merged with use SWETS, with each department managing their own subscriptions. The librarian in me shouts noooo! Managing them centrally has allowed us to reduce duplication and cost and we have a complete record of what everyone subscribes to (invaluable for a tricky enquiry). However, in reality managing subscriptions involves a lot of paper pushing, chasing people and chasing payment. This isn’t a good use of my skills and in the future I will not have time to do this, so I need to let go.

12.45 – started looking into a request for the top 100 financial firms in the UK.

13.30 – downloaded a company credit report and dealt with one more land registry search.

14.00 – lunch.

15.00 – yet more company credit checks, land registry searches and another press search.

16.00 – no new enquiries, so start to do battle with my in-tray. Dealt with some subscription renewals, invoices and caught up on my reading; I scan through Property Week and Estates Gazette each week to try and keep up to date with what’s going on.

17.30 – time to go home. An unusually quiet day in terms of enquiries with nothing too complex. It’s rare to be able to catch up with other things whilst on enquiry duty, but makes a welcome change.

Thing 8: Google Calendar

Thing 8 of cpd23 introduced us to Google Calendar, a web-based calendar that allows you to share your diary with anyone who has access to the internet.

I'm sorry to say at the moment I really have no use for this. At work we use Outlook which enables me to share my diary with anyone in the firm. My social life is not complicated enough to warrant an online app (I prefer a dubious combination of a paper calendar and committing things to memory) and I'm not involved in any organisations or a member of a committee.

I can see that it could come in handy one day though, so will keep it in mind.