CPD thing 4: Becoming aware

As I mentioned before, I already have a Twitter account which I set up on my graduate trainee year but have never used. I went to log back into it and couldn't remember my user name or password..... not helpful. So I have created a new one. I had difficulty in choosing my user name because, as discussed in thing three, my personal brand is not very specific yet. I went for @22lucyjane because Lucy Jane is the name I use mostly online. I don't really use my surname much online, though I'm starting to think perhaps I should as it's much more recognisable than Lucy Jane.

Twitter is something I feel could be very useful but slightly addictive, hence my slight delay in making it a part of my life so far. I am an information sponge, I love to learn and I love keeping up to date with current affairs and news. RSS feeds are great, I have used them a little before but not as well as I think I could.
My current awareness so far has mostly been supplemented by reading newspapers and websites. But I usually go to them and source the information myself. The prospect of having up to date information fed to me through Twitter and RSS feeds, on a whole host of topics I'm interested in, seems quite exciting but also daunting. I don't want to be overwhelmed with information I don't need or am not interested in and miss out on the things I do want to read. I think am going to experiment with adding just a few feeds to my google reader page and following just a few Twitterers (is that a word?) and see how I go.

It is difficult to do much of this thing four at work because our firewalls, like many other FE colleges, do not allowing social networking sites to be used. However, I have installed Twitter on my phone and can use it on there. Pushnote is yet to be explored, but I intend to give it a go soon.

CPD thing 3: My cyber self

I have come to the conclusion that my online presence is quite confusing. After googling my name, Lucy Broddle, quite a number of links came up. More than I was expecting actually and relating to different areas of my life. My odd-bod surname ensured that most of the first links listed are to me personally, interspersed by a few ancestry sites which have found some ancient Broddle relatives (which were actually quite an interesting read!)

The first link that came up is to my facebook page, which like many others on here is private and shouldn't be able to be accessed by anyone and everyone.
The next link is to a music teachers directory site, which lists my professional music and contact details.
After that, it is my very old Myspace account that appears- which I thought I had deleted?!
Then my Twitter account- which I have never used. I set it up as a social networking experiment on my graduate trainee placement but didn't get very far with it.
Next are a couple of local newspaper and art gallery links about some hand made jewellery exhibitions that I have done, this also links to my own jewellery website.
After that it is a link to a conference I attended at the British Library back in 2009, called Unlocking Audio 2 (which incidentally was a fascinating few days ending with an excellent tour around the BL sound archives).
Next is a link to an old blog I used to contribute to at Middlesex University library whilst on my trainee placement. I was working for a subject librarian on the Complementary Health Sciences blog where we posted new resources and general useful information.
Finally, there is a link to me at my current workplace.

So, what is my brand? I really don't know. I appear to be a bit of a mixed bag, which is probably true and how I like it really. But I would like to develop my professional 'library brand' a bit more. Perhaps I could rejuvenate my Twitter account for library purposes and along with this blog, aim to streamline my online presence. I hope the CPD 23 things will help me with this.

CPD thing two: The chosen ones (part two)

So, after much deliberation, I have chosen seven blogs to follow. I may find a few more as we progress, but I’m happy with my choices thus far:

http://charlotte-byrne.blogspot.com/ This caught my eye from the title (Words and Music) and I was excited to find someone else with musical interests.

http://drusmum.blogspot.com/ This is another FE land-based college blogger.

http://exploringtheinfoworld.blogspot.com/ This is another FE college, the author of which commented on my blog first.

http://laurel-23things.blogspot.com/  I work with Laurel at my library and thought it would be interesting to see how our blogs differ/are similar working in the same place.

http://multifaceted.wordpress.com/ I found this blog through a comment left on the Words and Music blog above, it is another music related blog.

http://neonlibrarian.wordpress.com/ As I said in my previous post, I love this blog and have followed it before.

http://originalsearchengine.blogspot.com/ This blog belongs to a librarian who used to work at my college library (and interviewed me for my job), who has now moved on to another FE college- I found it by complete coincidence!

I have commented on most of these blogs. I look forward to reading their posts and hopefully contributing to them usefully.