Blog - Jo Alcock Consulting
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Blog

30 Jul

Posted at 17:25h in Events, Library, Technology, Uncategorized by
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Wordpress iPhone app is clearly not the way to go, just crashed again whilst trying to publish and now I can't get to my post! Anyway, today's activities: Similar morning routine to yesterday with more snoozing of the alarm, a whiney attention-seeking Cookie cat, and minus the winter coat (too much hassle!). I'm off to Warwick today so a slightly later start as I don't need to be there until 10.30am. Got the 7.44am bus to get to the station. There seem to be plenty of trains to Coventry ( nearest station to Warwick Uni). Bought my ticket at the station and managed...

29 Jul

Posted at 19:29h in Events, Library, Technology, Uncategorized by
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For most people, Wednesday is day three of their working week, but my library job is part-time so Wednesday is the first working day of my library week (I spend Monday and Tuesday at home with my boyfriend working with him in his marketing/web design business, Cookies and Java). Here's an overview of my day today: 6.20am Alarm goes off. I ignore it a few times by snoozing. I'm terrible at getting up in the morning and have two alarms - one on my phone and one Lumi clock which provides light and is supposed to help you get up easily each...

27 Jul

Posted at 17:39h in Events, Library, Technology, Uncategorized by
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This week I'll be taking part in the Library Day in the Life project, which I followed last year and intended to join in but didn't get round to posting. It's a simple idea - people who work in libraries simply record their daily activities for a week and share these at the end of each day, usually via their blog. They add their name to the list held on the wiki so that others can read their blog posts, and they tag all posts, photos, videos etc. with the librarydayinthelife tag. I found it really interesting reading about what...

20 Jul

Posted at 20:00h in Library, Professional issues, Technology by
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At the New Professionals Conference I presented at last week, I spoke to CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) representatives who mentioned the CILIP Network of Expertise and Interests. Seeing as I was talking about online networking, they seemed surprised (and I was fairly embarrassed) that I hadn't heard of it before. I asked others on Twitter last week and was relieved to find that it wasn't just me who wasn't aware of the network. I decided to register, and thought I'd share a brief review of the service. The network is not part of the Communities area of...

14 Jul

Posted at 13:30h in Events, Library, Professional issues, Uncategorized by
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I thought it would be useful to share my experiences as a speaker at the New Professionals Conference last week. The talks were by new professionals, all of whom were first time speakers, and I was lucky enough to be one of them. I was pleased that my proposal had been accepted (apparently there had been 28 proposals and 10 were chosen to speak), but I was incredibly nervous about talking at the conference. I was even more nervous when I found out the week before the event that there were 90 delegates; I had only expected it to be a...

12 Jul

Posted at 15:54h in Events, Public speaking, Technology by
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On Monday, I gave a presentation on networking and marketing yourself using online tools at the New Professionals Conference in London. It was the first time I'd spoken at a conference and I really enjoyed the day; it was great to discuss my interests (i.e. new technologies) with other new professionals. I'll write a more detailed post about the day itself soon. I chose to talk about online networking and personal marketing as I thought it would be particularly relevant to new professionals,  and I could share my own experiences. My presentation introduced professional networking and then went on to discuss...

03 Jul

Posted at 12:00h in Events, Uncategorized by
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Last week I attended the University of Wolverhampton's e-learning celebration 2009. I blogged about the previous event in 2007, which I really enjoyed. This year's event had a number of themes around the concept of blended learning including collaborative work, content, ePDP, formative assessment, and e-submission and feedback.. The presentations were primarily from current University projects, many of which are coming to a close. It was interesting to hear about the work going on in the academic schools on e-learning, although it was a little disheartening to learn about some of them as I had no idea they were going on...

02 Jul

Posted at 12:00h in Events, Library, Technology by
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iTunesU and Podcasting Laurie Roberts, Liaison Librarian at QMU, explained the use of podcasting at QMU and introduced iTunesU (iTunes University) - watch introductory video for an overview. You can download a copy of Laurie's presentation, which includes relevant links as well as her notes. As part of Laurie's job role, she has the task to investigate use of Web 2.0 technologies and how they can be used to support the library services. Laurie therefore “plays” with web 2.0 technologies, explores potential use for library, and attends courses to discover new tools and share good practice. Currently, QMU are using a library blog,...

01 Jul

Posted at 12:00h in Events, Library, Uncategorized by
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Encompass: Workforce Diversity Ayub Khan, Head of Libraries (Strategy) at Warwickshire County Libraries, introduced the Encompass scheme, to encourage BME graduates to libraries. Encompass is a three way partnership between CILIP, PATH (a skills development agency) and employers. Employers are asked to convert existing post or create new one on a 3 year contract basis whereby the trainee would be in the workplace 4 days a week and spend 1 day each week studying. The aim is for the trainee to have completed a CILIP-accredited postgraduate qualification in Librarianship and gain their Chartership by the end of the three years. Benefits for employer ...

30 Jun

Posted at 12:00h in Events, Library, Technology by
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Building a customer centred space - using observation to inform library design Rachel Van Riel from Opening the Book gave a thoroughly inspiring talk about observing library users and how to adjust your library to suit your user's needs. This is something that I was particularly interested in from a work point of view as I am responsible for a special collection for our trainee teachers and I'm not sure how it is currently used but feel it could be better utilised if it was laid out differently. Rachel spoke about how libraries can learn a lot from retail and recommended Paco...