Things 10 & 11: My route into Librarianship & Mentoring

Well, it seems I might be a little unusual as I didn't do a degree and then a Masters in Librarianship, I went straight for the undergraduate course at 18 and studied for a BA in Library and Information Studies at Loughborough University.

Why? Well, I had decided on a career in Librarianship quite early on. My aunt is a librarian, and maybe there was some subconscious influence there, or maybe it was my love of books. Whatever it was, I remember telling the schools career advisor at 15 that I planned to be a librarian - and like all careers advisers at the time - she tried to discourage me!

Undeterred, at 16 I got a job as a Saturday assistant at the old Norwich Central Library - I loved it, and ended up working there all through school holidays too. I had a discussion with my aunt about the best route to take (BA or Masters) and concluded that as I knew what I wanted to do, doing an degree in something else would be a waste of time!

I enrolled on the BA(Hons) in Library and Information Studies, at Loughborough University in 1990. At the end of the first year, we had to do a four week (I think!) library placement. I went back to Norfolk libraries and was fortunate in that a programme of work experience was created for me. I spent time back at Norwich Central Library, but moved around a bit into different areas, like the reference section.  I also spent a week at county hall, looking at services such as cataloguing and the school library service, plus I had a week in a small branch library.

I was originally set to do the 3 year degree, but at the end of my first term met my future husband - an engineer on a 4-year sandwich degree, and so swapped onto the four year sandwich course myself.  This meant I would spend year 3 on a work placement. As I wanted a placement near to his in Chelmsford, Essex, the placement advisor at university couldn't help me, so it was down to me to find myself a  placement. I wrote to practically every library in Essex and East London, including the Warner Library at Broomfield Hospital and I was offered the position of Trainee Librarian there.  I suppose this was much like a pre-MSc trainee year, though as it was part of the degree there were certain criteria I had to meet, and I also had to write a development report. I spent just over a year there, went back during holidays, and was even offered a temporary position when I graduated.

That placement year in the NHS shaped my career as I have always been in health libraries to some degree. I was Subject Librarian for Health in an FE/HE college, then Librarian at the British Association of Occupational Therapists (BAOT) in London, before returning to NHS and the Warner Library in 2000 to my current post.

For me, the undergraduate route suited me best, and taking the year out certainly helped me career prospects and gave me valuable experience. I'd be interested to know if anyone else following 23 Things took the undergraduate route as most of the blog posts I've read so far took the Masters route. 

As far as mentoring goes, I have never had a formal mentor, though of course during my career I have met people I could turn to for help and advice. Looking back, I think it would have been beneficial to me in first professional post and I would certainly have made use of a New Professionals Network back then had one existed! I chartered in 1996, and though it seems chartering now requires a formal mentor, it wasn't a requirement back then. When I chartered I was working as librarian at the BAOT. My manager was an occupational therapist, the Head of Research & Development, and was a fantastic support not only in the chartership process, but also in my day-to-day role and overall professional development. Having a mentor now is not something I have considered - I feel I get support from my own manager and also support from the EEHIST network of trainers.

Thing 8: Google Calendar

I already have Google calendar set up, but for personal use rather than work.

At work I tend to use an old fashioned paper diary, and have a calendar on Outlook - this is shared with colleagues and seems to do the job quite well. The only downside is that I can't access it from home, and as I work a couple of days a week at home this would be useful! Google calender would be a better then, and I'll look into this when I return to work in September.

Thing 7: Face to Face Networks and Professional Organisations

I have been a member of CILIP since my student days (rather scarily over 20 years!). It's much easier to keep up to date with CILIP and feel more involved since their presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. I think I've only attended a couple of actual training courses at CILIP HQ, and those were during previous posts - the costs of their courses are quite prohibitive to NHS Libraries! It's good to see the East of England branch getting more active on Twitter and Facebook - I hope I will be able to attend more local courses / events in the future.  I feel I get more from my membership of Health Libraries Group - the bulletin is useful and I was fortunate to attend their conference in 2008.

My most useful networks are my local ones. I'm a founding member of EEHIST (East of England Healthcare Information Skills Trainers) and we meet four times a year. We work collaboratively on projects such as our collective pre and post training evaluations, and our set of "Searching the Evidence" training guides plus the meetings are a good opportunity to discuss issues and share solutions and information.  EEHIST is a special interest group (SIG) of the East of England Health Libraries Network, and I have recently worked with other colleagues from the network on redesigning our website EEL.

I would have liked to attend the Cambridge meetup but had prior plans that evening, and the online chat was scuppered by the death of one of our guinea pigs! I'm not a natural networker, but will try to make any future meetups.

Thing 6: Online Networks

I joined LinkedIn sometime ago, on the recommendation of my husband - as an Engineer it's his main online network. I initially failed to see the point, so did little with my profile, except a photo, my current position and one previous post. My opinion has changed recently, particularly after Thing 3 where I thought about my online brand. Like many others, I found my LinkedIn profile near the top of my personal Google search - if someone was searching for me (and I think that's a big IF!) then that would be one of the first things they could look at. I'm not currently on the job market, but who knows what the future holds! I have worked on my profile a little over the past week, and have tried to find more contacts. This I'm finding tricky! I've gotten fairly used to Twitter and following people who just seem interesting - can I do the same with LinkedIn or do I need to know the person I connect to? I'm not too sure on LinkedIn etiquette! I've joined a few groups (23 Things for CPD) being one of them, as well as CILIP, and find these quite useful.

Facebook is mainly a personal network where I connect with family and friends. Though recently professional stuff is creeping in as I follow pages, such as Voices for the Library and C4LPT (Learning Technologies) and of course 23 Things for Professional Development. I also manage a page for the Warner Library - I try to promote this as another way of keeping up to date with library news, and as a method of contact, but it's difficult as my Trust (like many other workplaces) block access.

I am a member of the Librarians as Teachers network - teaching is a large part of my job. However, I must confess to not visiting regularly and after taking another look I know this will be a useful network.

I knew about LISNPN - it gets lots of mentions on Twitter but I haven't joined. I graduated in 1994 - I am not a new professional! However, I have taken a look, and may check in from time to time.

Another confession - I'm a member of CILIP but I did not know about CILIP communities!  I have taken a look - the home page was quite confusing with the list of "Anonymous blogged about...." - what help is that?!  However, using the links at the top of the page to blogs and forums was more useful. I found a blog for CILIP East of England so added the RSS feed to my Google Reader. It would be useful if Health Libraries Group could have a blog too.

Thing 5: Reflection

Thing 5 is about reflective practice. Over the years I have  come across enough books on reflective practice - it's certainly a big topic in the health professions - but I must admit to never taking the time to actually read any of them!

 I think I first came across the term in my first professional post when I was Subject Librarian for health in an FE/HE College. I was the library representative on the team putting forward a new degree in occupational therapy for validation. The degree contained a module on reflective practice and during the discussion one panel member dismissed it as just "navel-gazing" -which I remember did not go down very well!

I suppose after this I've always though reflective practice must be quite complex but Thing 5 has actually made me realise that it isn't! I like the simple "Plan - Do - Review". I can do that, in fact I am doing it already, maybe just not in a very organised way. 

Well, some things are organised. Such as gaining formal feedback from people attending my training courses. Attendees are sent a post-training survey 6 weeks after attending training so I gain feedback that way.

I think I am just not organised at doing reflective thinking  myself - at actually taking time after training or after attending an event to think critically about it and look at what went right and what went wrong, and more importantly, what am I going to do about it.

Thinking about CPD23 - I'm enjoying it. I have my very own blog - my first blog. I have been writing and (some) people are reading it! That's amazing in itself.  I probably need to make the bold step of blogging about non-CPD23 things, but I think that will come as I get more confident.  It's certainly a space I can use to reflect on what I'm doing, and maybe getting feedback from others. I'm reading a lot more blogs myself - and I've even left comments! That's something I had never done before.  I found reflecting on my online brand particularly useful, as again that was not something I had considered before.

So, from Thing 5 I will take away reflection is not scary, but it is just something that I need to work harder at building into my everyday practice.

Thing 4: Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

Thing 4 has been about current awareness: Twitter, RSS and Pushnote. The first two I already use, but Pushnote was new to me.

I have been using Twitter for a couple of years (DebsL72). To start with I didn't quite get it or see the point, but now I find it's my main source of current awareness and I mainly follow library, medical, e-learning and social media professionals (as well as a few famous faces!).  I also follow conferences and discussions, and find Hootsuite a good tool as it allows me to have multiple columns open to follow different hashtags.

I have set up a work Twitter account (WarnerLibMEHT) and try to promote this to Trust staff whenever I can, though there is little uptake at the moment. I run a "Keeping up to date" course where I talk about Twitter, but as yet have found very few hospital staff using it. There is a general view amongst staff I speak to that it is frivolous, and the fact that it is blocked on most PCs in the Trust doesn't help!  I'd be interested in other health librarians experience of using a library twitter feed and how many actual library users follow you.

I use Google Reader for RSS and have done so for some time. I subscribe to blogs, journal contents, news sites, and now the CPD23 single feed. I find many of the blogs I subscribe to via RSS can now also be followed on Twitter, so maybe don't check Google Reader as regularly as I should.

As I said, Pushnote was completely new to me, but I have managed to download it both at home and work. Still getting to grips with it, and have a couple of CPD23 people added to my contacts. Not entirely sure how useful it's going to be, but will give it a chance.

Thing 3: Online branding

Before reading Thing 3 I hadn't given much thought to my online presence or considered myself a brand at all so this particular exercise has been particularly interesting and it is certainly something I need to give more thought to.

I started this blog because of participating in CPD23 - it didn't take long to come up with the name (can you tell?!) and I had no worries about using my real name as I plan it to be a professional space. I'll have to see how it develops after this programme has finished, and whether it will need a change of name sometime in the future. I was pretty quick to choose a design to start with, but have now changed it to the autumn leaves design. I do see the benefit of having an easily recognisable brand that can be replicated in different areas, such as Jo's penguin and purple flowers.

My main online activity is Twitter and I tweet as DebsL72. I do not use this name anywhere else, in fact I am a firm Deborah everywhere but home! I guess I chose this because when I signed up to Twitter I was a bit unsure as to what it was all about, and thought it would be something more suited to personal than professional. In fact, after signing up I actually didn't use it for a long time, and it was only through the recommendation of Isla Kuhn that I got going with it. I now use it mainly as a professional tool, with some, but not much, life stuff thrown in. I'm certainly always conscious of what I say in a tweet, certainly as I think most people follow me because I'm a librarian and probably aren't overly interested in my home life! I think it's time for a change of username, so I'll need to think about that and tie that in with the blog.

I have a LinkedIn account, but have not really explored this fully - hopefully Thing 6 will get me on track with it.

I'm happy to use a photograph of myself, albeit a few years out of date and wearing sunglasses! I am certainly not very photogenic and it was the best of a bad lot! I'm using the same one on Twitter and this blog, so they should be easily connected, but have a different one on LinkedIn. Probably time for a new photo all round.

So, onto the Google search. Either I have an unusual surname, or I have more online presence than I thought as the first page of results were mainly about me (more likely the surname and I have my husband to thank for that!) The top result was Twitter, followed by Facebook. I only use Facebook for personal stuff, so may need to look at my settings. LinkedIn came up, as did my entry on HLISD, a CILIP biography for the Health Libraries Conference in 2008 and the presentation I gave (with Isla Kuhn) at Lilac2010. The next page had some links to my local activity. There was a Myspace entry that wasn't mine, and a couple of directory type entries (192.com) which are inaccurate.

A Sheep on Happy Hills Farm

There are a few other Deborah Lepleys  but my favourite was the owner of Happy Hills Farm in Florida, which sounds just lovely! It's a sheep farm and as so far I have not added any pictures to my blog, here is a picture of Deborah Lepley's sheep.

So, I feel I have some work still to do on Deborah Lepley the brand, and would welcome any comments.

Thing 2 - Exploring other blogs

Wow - what a lot of blogs! Isn't fantastic that so many people are doing this? And isn't the name of my blog so dull compared to many others? Daffodils in the Library was one of the first I looked at, because of the lovely name!

I started my wanderings by looking at some other health/medical blogs and left some comments here and there. Quite daunting really as I don't normally leave comments, even though I read quite a few different blog posts. This seems quite a common theme on many blogs though - being new to it all.

So I looked and commented on some fellow NHS librarians:
The Ayre Line
Leanne, Library and other Ls 
Life in the fair-middling Lane

It will be interesting to compare our experiences as we progress through the programme.

I then branched out a little into the Charity/voluntary tag and found
A Librarian Learns about Web 2.0 who has a very interesting sounding job!

and then Christina Harbour as she works down the road from me but we first met in Limerick at Lilac2010!

Still need to play around with my own blog and add some stuff to it, so far I've only added my Twitter feed.  I like the map in the stats section of blogger though - you don't get that in wordpress.

Hello World!

Welcome to my blog!

I have set up this blog so I can participate in 23 Things for Professional Development - an online, self directed learning programme for library staff. Each week I will be investigating a new "thing" and using the blog to share and reflect on what I have learned.

First, a little about me! I work as an Information Skills Training Librarian for Mid Essex Hospitals NHS Trust & am based in the Warner Library at Broomfield Hospital. I've been here just over 10 years. I work part time (and term-time only) as I have 3 school age children.  Life is sometimes a bit of a juggling act!

I belong to a group called EEHIST (East of England Health Information Skills Trainers) and we are looking at running a 23 things for NHS Staff in our patch. Whether we can, what with NHS restrictions on accessing some websites, (and the huge access differences between Trusts)  remains to be seen, but as well as helping my own CPD, this will be a useful test to see what I can and can't access from the NHS. I shall also be dipping into the CAM23 programme running at the same time as this, as are some of my colleagues.

I've not used blogger before, but have a wordpress blog for the Warner Library which tends to be more notifications and updates rather than personal stuff. It will be quite interesting to be using them both at the same time.

I do use some social media already (love Twitter!)  but could do a lot more so looking forward to learning about the things and having a go - particularly screencasts and Prezi (not tried that at all yet).

So Thing 1 - create a blog - done! I'm going to have a play around now and see what else I can do with it.