Thing 15 Advocacy for Libraries

First of all, thank you to the writer of the blog post for gathering all of those sites, I had only heard of a couple of the campaigns, so it is great to have this listing for future reference.
I had a look at some of the sites, the first one being the  Library Campaign website.
One thing that struck me was the power of social media as a tool for spreading the word, and promoting librarys and events ...such as the rally they have planned for the 9th of February. Before social media I would imagine that it was a lot harder to get the word out about events such as this rally. I liked the short video on library usage in the UK, by comparing statistics for attendances to libraries with attendances to football matches, the cinema, A & E, and libraries came out on top. It is a clever way of showing how important it is continue allocating funds to libraries.
I then read some of the Librarian day in the life posts, I always like to hear about other librarians roles and day to day activities as roles can be so diverse depending on so many factors. It's also a way of thinking about how you could incorporate some of these activities in your own work perhaps. I can see who these accounts are important to show others all of the work that is being done in libraries as it is not always obvious to the naked eye..ie the public, I still get asked why do you need to go to college to be a librarian/ what do you need to learn etc

I was involved in a campaign with a library for Library Ireland week in the past. The initiative involved a like and share style offer on social media which resulted in free use of one of our services which usually there is a fee for. It proved to be  huge success and we ended up creating increased awareness of our service, we gained some new users who ended up being consistent users.
Library Ireland week is great opportunity to remind yourself the importance of advocacy and reminds you that there are many potential users out there who may not be aware of your library or if they are aware, they may not have awareness about all of your services.

Thing 14 Augmented Reality

Honestly, I was not familiar with the concept of augmented reality or how I could use it.
I read through the blog post and had a look at some of the articles and links that were provided.
I decided to try using aurasma. There are plenty of training videos and I spent some time wathcing these and learning what you needed to create one. First of all I registered on the site for a free account. In order to create your campaign, it seems you need two main images to start with - a trigger image and an overlay.  The process seems quite simple, one of the videos that it takes only 45 to start a campaign. The most time I think would be gathering your images. I had a look online and I didn;t want to take use any images in case of copyright, I think it is better to take your own photos and create your own images, so this is a stumbling block for me at the moment,
You can then add hashtags to your campaign so that people can follow your campaign as well as search for it. I looked at some of the other campaigns.  I found some library ones that I was intersted in reading about. I clicked into them, on my laptop. But in order to benefit from the 'aura; you need to download the aurasma app on your phone and point your viewfinder at the image.
I cannot complete this step at the moment as I need a new memory card for my phone, my memory is full, so it will interested to see how this works, I feel I won't really understand it until I complete this next step.

Thing 13 Professional Organisations

I have been a member of the LAI since shortly after graduation.
I find it helpful to keep updated and get emails through the HSLG section. This is how I found out about Rudai 23 starting - if I hadn't been on the email list I wouldn't have known and would have missed out on doing the course, so that is a benefit straight away! I find it's important for gaining knowledge on things like SHELLI and also seeing what other librarians views are on various topics.
I find a lot of information comes through the email notifications that I may not find elsewhere so easily. I see lots of ideas and conversations bouncing about, although I am more of a spectator, I have never contributed myself.
Being from Ireland, I have just really thought joining the LAI -  I thought this was the only relevant one to me to join but I am going to follow CILIP and IFLA on twitter just to keep updated on what's happening outside of Ireland.

Thing 12 Attending Conferences

The first conference that I attended was the Health Sciences Libraries Group in April 2013.

The application process was quite straightforward, as every year someone from our team attended, and in 2013 I got the opportunity to attend.

I found it was great to see what other librarians were working on in their workplaces and the diverse range of projects was overwhelming and very impressive.

I met a few people that I knew, I met a lovely librarian on the day who I had done some work experience with in the past, she was very good to me and really encouraging when I was looking for a job, so it was great to meet her.
I also met a librarian who I had spoken on the phone to about Interlibrary loans with so was nice to meet her too.  I spoke to a few others on the tea breaks and a small group got to go on a tour of the Edward Worth library so I got talking to a few more there.

I did take some notes on the day and I am glad as there is so much information to take it it would be hard to remember everything, I remember some HSE librarians speaking about Cliks, the librarian from Irish Hospice Foundation and the Blood Transfusion service. I also remember a presentation on on the different types of research and evidence and an update on Shelli. I know there was much more but it's not coming to mind right now. It was only 2 days but so much was covered and it gave you so much to think about.

I would like to attend more conferences as things are ever changing, you will never know it all or be completely up to date so in order to move with the times CPD is essential and as the writer of Rudai 12 said, conferences can cover so much in a short amount of time and give you ideas about what would work in your workplace.

Thing 11 Reflective Practice

I found the tips in the Thing 11 blog post very good, lots of good tips on time management.
I am very behind at this moment in time but it is possible to finish all the Things before the end of January so I am going to set aside some decent chunks of time and get them all done. When I started the Rudai,  I was doing another online course at the same time and I was half way through that one, so I think really I should only do one at a time from now on! As mentioned in the blog post, you never know how things change and how other parts of your life can increase demands on your time so I think one course at a time is the way to go.  I think this is a great chance to do some library CPD and especailly seeing as it is given a stamp of approval from the Library Association of Ireland so I would love to work my way through all of the things by the closing date.

Thing 10 Live Streaming

I have viewed a lecture before online which was live streamed but that's the only experience I have with live streaming.
I can see how it would be very valuable for conferences and lectures. It would be especailly useful for overseas conferences that you might not have the opportunity to attend in person.
I followed all of the steps with logging into google and the creator studio. I know how to set up a live stream if I ever needed to. Unfortunately, I missed the Rudaí 23 hangout on air as I hadn't reached this point in the course by August.
I decided to try and use Periscope for my task.
I read all of the how to guides on it and tried to install, unfortunately my phone didn't have enough space for the app so I had to abandon ship an this occasion.
I definitely would use live streaming as an audience member but I would still feel a but unsure of using it to broadcast my own videos. I'm a bit unsure still how to set up the camera so that it is facing outwards rather than facing you ie. if you wanted to livestream a library instruction class how to video ''outwards' and how to make this look professional.
For now I am happy to be an audience member rather than a participant, perhaps when I am more familiar with how it all works I would be see other uses for Periscope.
I had a look at Thing 10 on Pinterest and found some Ted talks, I'm a big fan of Ted talks and doing this Thing has reminded me to keep a lookout for library Ted talks and to look out for more conferences that have live streaming available.

Thing 9 Video

Thing 9, I am embarrassed to say that I am only on Thing 9 at this stage when many people have finished Thing 23. Up until this point I seemed to fit each Thing in quite easily, but this one required learning how to use screencasting and also the task of finding something that you could make a video on...so I thought I would spend some time thinking about what to make my video on.
I did not envision taking this long to figure it out... Various demands on my time meant that I found each week slip by without making the video so here I am finally attempting Thing 9, and hopefully I am back on the road to Thing 23.....almost halfway there...
While looking for inspiration on what to make a video of, I thought I would cheat a little bit and have a nosey at what everyone else's videos were about. I found myself learning about so much more than how to use screencastomatic, I found out how to use Gimp, Nexis and various resources from other libraries. I am very impressed with all of the videos I have watched. There are hours of reading and learning to be done through the creation of everyones posts.
I can see how video is so useful for use as a 'how to' guide, as they can be short and concise and  can be shared easily and also can be useful to reaffirm what may have already been explained in a class.
I decided to do my video on Pinterest, not because I am an expert on it but because I am new to it and from the doing Thing 8, I think I will would like to explore it further.
So here is the video ...finally.

https://youtu.be/ZzzWaG-TAAQ

I found Screencastomatic straighforward to use, I didn't want to record my voice (stage fright!) so I made use of the annotations on YouTube instead.