Promoting yourself, volunteering and reflection

Well, here we are at the end of CPD23. There have been times that I despaired of completing the course, others when I have been enthused and I have even taken the time to learn a few new skills.

Just a quick post to cover promoting yourself and volunteering. One thing I have learnt is to look at the things you have accomplished in life, not just those things that are definitely library related, and to "rewrite" them for any application that you are preparing. So, what do I mean?

Over the course of 7 years we moved house 10 times, most of those moves were organised and undertaken by me! What skills did I learn? I believe that I honed my negotiation skills, learnt about project management and brushed up my research skills (choosing movers, finding schools, checking curriculum). We went through some hard times due to the lack of work, started our own company where I was secretary, bookkeeper and studied AutoCAD so that I could do some of the drafting. Translate that into library skills: capacity to learn new software, project management skills, people skills (think customer service), financial skills, procedural skills, setting up a database plus I undertook my library qualifications.

I also took the time to volunteer at a not-for-profit as part of my degree, this entailed re-organising the office, writing a procedure manual and continuing the cataloguing of their small library. I enjoyed all of the things that I undertook and I learnt a great deal.

Looking back on where you have come from and how you did it can translate into a really professional looking CV and job application. Life-long learning doesn't just include libraries.

Prezi: I like to move it, move it

This is a tool that I came across a while ago. I haven't had much chance to use it as I had already completed my degree. If you want to impress in a lecture or conference nthen this is the tool that I would use. Just a couple of issues to remember, while it is fun to go round and round on a poster, try to limit the amount of movement and do the movements a little slower. We have all seen and felt the effects of a video with jerky movements!

Catching up

It's been quite a while since I wrote a post. I have looked at Jing, screen capture and podcasting. I haven't had a chance to do much with any of them, though I can see the benefits for library use, particularly when you need to show a series of steps. Maybe this will be implemented for our clients in the future but sometime they just need to be shown by a librarian.