Blog - Jo Alcock Consulting
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Blog

30 Aug

Posted at 18:16h in Technology, Uncategorized by
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Found out about a great resource today which you can use to get an iPhone version of your blog (found via Ned Potter). Bloapp is a tool you can use to create a customisable mobile version of your blog (great for institutional blogs although the customisation is a little limited). I followed Ned's instructions to create a mobile version of the Joeyanne Libraryanne blog as shown below: [caption id="attachment_1396" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Joeyanne Libraryanne on Bloapp"][/caption] If you'd like to read my blog this way, you can download the Bloapp app to your iPhone (it's free) and then scan in the QR code below. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="150"...

23 Aug

Posted at 16:00h in Events, Library, Technology, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="553" caption="Handheld Librarian Online Conference V (click on image to go to website)"]Handheld Librarian V[/caption] A couple of weeks ago I attended my first full virtual conference - Handheld Librarian Online Conference V - yes, they have held five of them already! I've attended webinars before and tracked numerous events online that I have been unable to attend in person, but this was my first fully fledged online conference. It was really good value for money ($45), and although it meant working through the evening (due to time zone differences the conferences was 4 - 11.30pm in UK time!) it was definitely something I would do again. The software (Adobe Connect) worked really well, there were very few sound problems (ironically, the only ones I experiences was when the keynote speaker from Mashable was presenting), and the fact that is was all online meant that you could join in all aspects of the conference, including a virtual exhibition.

13 Aug

Posted at 12:00h in Events, Library, Professional issues, Reflection, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Professor Charles Oppenheim with keynote speakers"]LIS DREaM Launch Conference[/caption] I recently attended the LIS DREaM launch conference about developing research excellence and methods in library and information science. I wrote a blog post about my experience, but now I've had chance to reflect on the day I'm going to share my reflections using the basic method I learnt during 23 Things for Professional Development - what? so what? now what?

30 Jul

Posted at 13:57h in Events, Library, Professional Organisations, Study, Uncategorized by
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This week I’m participating in the Library Day in the Life project which charts the day-to-day activities of library workers at different points of the year. This is the fifth time I’ve participated; you can see my earlier posts from July 2009, January 2010, July 2010 and January 2011. I’m currently a full-time Researcher at Evidence Base, Birmingham City University, UK. Although my job title doesn't include the word librarian and I don't work in a library, I still consider myself very much a librarian - our research helps support the library and information communities. I decided to do Library Day in the Life a little different this time round; partly because I've been busy, and partly as I'm not sure verbatim accounts are the most interesting thing to write or read. So instead I'll be writing a summary of what I've been up to this week (using Nirvana, my to do list, to help me as I can check my logbook to see what tasks I've finished). My work life and professional interests often cross over so this list includes some pure work tasks, and other professional related tasks such as committee work and studying.

28 Jul

Posted at 08:30h in Events, Library, Professional Organisations, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Greeting after 1 mile (yes, 1 mile!) of convention centre"]Greeting after 1 mile of convention centre[/caption] Well, it's been almost a month now since my visit to the ALA Annual 2011 Conference in New Orleans and study visit to Louisiana State University. I know some people were following my tweets (although I expect some people followed my advice to mute them!), and my Tumblr that I used before, during and after the conference. If I'm honest though, the 8am starts and midnight-ish finishes meant I was exhausted so didn't get to blog as much as I had planned to during the conference. Having said that, I really wanted to take in as much of the sights and experiences of the conference that I possibly could, and I definitely did that.

20 Jul

Posted at 15:02h in Events, Library, Public speaking, Technology, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="from misterbisson on Flickr"]an SMS message from the catalog[/caption] As I mentioned in a previous post, I was invited to present a session at the 2011 Colleges of Further and Higher Education (CoFHE) conference last month (Staying positive in difficult times: Maintaining quality services). My session focused on mobile technologies. I probably spend about half, if not more, of my online time on mobile devices - usually on iPhone or iPad. I use a lot of different apps for various different purposes - document creation and editing, emailing, blogging, photo management, planning travel, time management and more. But how can we utilise these technologies in libraries? Many of our users (and staff) already have mobile devices, so it's useful to consider how we can use these to support the library service.

11 Jul

Posted at 16:30h in Events, Library, Public speaking, Uncategorized by
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I was recently invited to speak to a group of school librarians in Hatch End about how they can start to prepare students for university. I gave a similar presentation last November at the Digital Natives event for school librarians, though I updated my presentation and added views of other academic librarians.

15 Jun

Posted at 08:45h in Professional issues, Uncategorized by
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I'm very fortunate to be in the position where I am able to get involved in a number of professional activities - committee work, presenting at conferences, publishing articles etc. I really enjoy these activities and like to be involved in the profession both for my own personal development and to help others; it can be very rewarding. However, sometimes you have to say no to things. It might be something that you don't feel capable of doing (or you know someone else could do a far better job); it might be that it's something you're not as passionate about as your other commitments (or maybe even something you don't agree with or have ethical issues with); or it may simply be that you can't fit everything in. Laura wrote an excellent post recently about prioritising activities and finding time for yourself - something I have recently come to realise is incredibly important. I've had to think recently about my priorities to help me manage my time effectively and ensure I have time to do the activities which are important to me, and I thought I'd reflect on this process.

01 Jun

Posted at 23:05h in Events, Professional issues, Professional Organisations, Uncategorized by
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As a personal member of both CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) based in the UK, and ALA (American Library Association) based in the US, and being involved in a CILIP branch committee and a group committee, I'm always interested to find out about what the professional organisations do and how I, as a member, can keep up-to-date and get involved where appropriate. So when the opportunity to attend ALA's first Virtual Town Hall, an online webinar, I was interested to find out more and signed up. I'm a relatively new ALA member so I don't know much about the structure of ALA yet and I'm still learning about the different groups and round tables, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to find out more about central ALA issues and some of the priorities of the organisation. It happened tonight (I'm writing this as it happens!) and I am so impressed that I wanted to share some thoughts about the organisation of the session and something we can maybe bear in mind for similar CILIP events.

31 May

Posted at 08:30h in Productivity, Technology, Uncategorized by
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="To do list by dmachiavello on Flickr"]To do list by dmachiavello on Flickr[/caption] One of my resolutions this year was to integrate the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology into my work and home life. I'm a bit of a productivity tool geek, I'm always downloading a new to-do list or note taking app on my iPhone or iPad to check out. My journey with to-do lists has taken me down a long and winding road. I was an avid fan of good old pen and paper (and to-do list notepads and post-its!) for a number of years, dabbled with using Microsoft OneNote a few years ago, and started my online discovery with Toodledo in about 2007. It integrated with my start page (Pageflakes at the time) and I could use it on my iPod touch; I really liked the fact I could access it from anywhere and keep it updated. So much so in fact that I blogged about it. After a while I got fed up of Toodledo (let's face it, it's functional but pretty ugly) and wanted to see what all the fuss was with Remember The Milk (RTM), which had been growing in popularity. This is a really simple, yet feature rich customisable service and a lot of people love it. I used to be one of those people and had a pro subscription for two years.