CPD23: Thing 1 and Thing 2

Who doesn't love a Dr. Seuss reference?

This week kicks off Week One of 23 Things for Professional Development. As I indicated in my opening post, 23 Things is aimed at introducing tools that could help development (professionally and personally) as a librarian or information professional.

I decided to participate, and create this new blog, because of my work as a librarian. I don't work in a library anymore. I work for an automation network that provides ILS (integrated library system) and other technology services for about 150 libraries in central and western Massachusetts. My official title is Access Services Supervisor and I oversee the department that handles the online catalog, digital repository, reference databases, OverDrive digital catalog and online presence (website, intranet, Facebook page). Beyond that my department is part of a larger group that handles any helpdesk calls for library staff support with the library management system. We are in the middle of a crunch time as we get ready to migrate to the open-source system Evergreen in two stages in July and October.

Since time is of the essence, I wanted to participate in CPD23 on my own time and pace. While some of the tools that will be introduced I am familiar with, others I am not and probably wouldn't have as much of a chance at a guided tour of them without this program. I hope to not only be a resource for colleagues who may want this information in my consortium, but use them myself as I start speaking more and more. This year I presented for the first time at a conference, and I have stepped into a leadership role in the Massachusetts Digital Commonwealth. I am looking forward to continuing to develop professionally.

This week's topics are Thing 1: Blogs and Blogging and Thing 2: Investigate Other Blogs. I am well-seasoned in the first topic as I have been blogging for almost four years at Books, Yarn, Ink and Other Pursuits. This is blog has seen a transition from strictly personal to personal and book reviews, and I have been very pleased with its direction. There are many wonderful book bloggers out there, but I wasn't finding blogs about the topics I like to read and get recommended to, so I started doing some of my own. It also brings me back to reading and gives me a connection back to the work I used to do in public libraries in acquisitions and reader's advisory. While I have some professional blogs in my feeds, I am pleased that CPD23 gives us access to Delicious bookmarks of all the participants for Thing 2.  There are several hundred participants, and the bookmarks have been tagged by specialty (public, academic, corporate, network, location, etc).

If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment. Thank you for stopping by!