Zotero, Mendeley, CiteULike - Referencing

Thing 14, Zotero, Mendeley, CiteULike

Long long ago, in a country far far north of here, I used to write essays which came out similar to this:

Thank you Chinaman88 for allowing use of this item.

My essays were much, much more illegible, and in addition had more scorings out, deletions, and thick gooey lumps of Tippex!  One Computer would fill half a large room (and we didn't have access to them anyhow) and I did not have access to a typewriter (not a problem as I couldn't type either..)  Pity the poor lecturers!

Anyway, back to the present day and the point in hand.  From a document looking very similar to that above, all of us students had to show what references we had used, and then create a bibliography manually. The result was almost invariably a mess.  My aren't you young-uns lucky to have all these referencing tools to work with! And yes, I am a sad old git....

Before going into my largely unwanted opinions of the tools being introduced here, I need to point out I have played around with Refworks and Endnote Web already, so am not a total novice, more like a toddler really. Also I personally do not really have any reason for using referencing tools as I no longer write essays, am no longer studying, however in my current post I need to help others using Endnote Web.  

Zotero looks well worth using.  It looks easy to use, more intuitive than Endnote, has lots of handy functions, and is free!  In fact, I do not see any particular reason to be using Endnote rather than Zotero, except of course many have been using the former for years and are happy using it.  Found an interesting article on a comparison between the two; link below.

Zotero versus Endnote

Now for Mendeley.  Fraid I don't like the look of it at all, do not think it gives anything extra which I would want to use, though willing to be corrected here of course.

Now for CiteULike. Like the way you can upload PDFs (though haven't yet taken the time to look at it fully), but the lack of 'cite while you write' seems to me to make it not a serious contender in this category, though may well be worth looking at in the context of other Things covered in the programme.

Wikis

Thing 13 and a bit

Have used wikis before to a certain extent - one of the many things I should be looking into further!  So here, in order to be able to remind myself easily about what they are about in future, I'll just nick the excellent Ladybird Guide to Wikis type YouTube video from the programme and drop it here and move on.  Thanks!

Ladybird Guide to Wikis

Video on using Web 2.0 technologies in education

Diverting a little from the programme, but thought this worth sharing (especially if I can get the link to it to work!).

Thanks to @rgardner on Twitter for sharing it.

Teaching with web 2.0 technologies: Twitter, wikis & blogs - Case study

Dropbox

O.K., so I am totally out of sync! Having already used Google Docs I thought I would move on to Dropbox to compare the two.  Took rather a long time to download, in fact I had just about given up and moved on to looking at Jing when it decided to open.

It seems to me that Google Docs has the advantage that a lot more people I know use it than use Dropbox, not that that is a reason to use GD if Dropbox is better. We in the team in the library are currently looking at Sharepoint as well, so that would also be added to the list.  I think Dropbox does look an easy to use and useful resource and will look initially at using it for saving documents which I regularly update both at work and in the house.

Prezi

Have skipped a little here though will come back to the missed 'Things'.  Took a look at Prezi the other day as it was being discussed in the library, so some non-work time playing around with it, at the end creating a first (extremely amateurish) Prezi with the subject being my chickens.  It looks great to work with though do not understand it yet, and is definitely something I would intend using at times as an alternative to Powerpoint.   Got to get my head round it first though.  As someone who has difficulty watching some Prezis because of the 'seasickness' effect, I can appreciate the problems, but can see they are not insurmountable.

Mentoring

Useful links to reading on this thanks. Will hopefully find time to do so.....

Onward and upwards.......

Routes into Librarianship

Routes into Librarianship - Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

Not really relevant for me personally, but lots of useful information to pass on to others thanks.
I more or less drifted into the job I am in right now, making use of my interests and skills I had picked up.  I had worked in the University Library on a very part-time basis for many years while bringing up my children.  During the years when I did not choose to work day-time and rely on child-minders etc I attended classes to, among other things, improve my IT skills.  When my circumstances were different I moved from Customer Services within the library to Academic Support.  Over the years I have watched the profession change to the extent it is almost unrecognisable from when I started, though this of course is covered in detail by many, many others.  


Right now I am in a fairly new and very varied post, giving support to the Academic Support Librarians and working on Academic Service Development, and am feeling rather drowned in the wealth of really useful tools and information out there, hence am taking part in this programme to see how others in a similar situation are handling it.


So after covering this briefly  I will skip straight on to the next thing - Mentoring!  Here goes....  Now, can I work out how to continue on the new Blogger interface?  Yep, there is the Publish button - here goes!

Evernote

Hey, this is brilliant! Took me a wee while to get the account set up, then the click on the icon bit caught me out as I thought I had already done it by clicking on the toolbar button, but once I had gotten my dozy self past that one it looks really easy. Will definitely look at using it.

Incidently, has anyone worked out a good way to remember all these passwords which are mounting up at a seriously scary rate of knots? I have then coded on a word document at present, but there has to be an easier way....

Google Calendar

Talking about leapfrogging, I have been using Google Calendar for a long time now and rely on it totally. It is picked up by my mobile and reminds me when I have forgotten something, sending me an email a selected period beforehand. It also nags me by sending beeps regularly (though to be fair this could be the phone and not GC) until I work out how to tell it to shut up! I had it linked to my work (outlook) calendar for a while, but then decided I didn't actually want to mix work with personal so deleted this part, though it could be very useful. And on top of this it reminds me of the birthdays of people I hardly (or don't) know but am Facebook 'Friends' with so that I can remember to not send them a birthday message (removed my own birthday from Facebook when I realised it was doing this as I don't want a random selection of people to know I have reached another milestone which I, as a wrinkly, would prefer to forget...

Anyhow, this sounds a bit negative when it shouldn't. I really like Google Calendar, really prefer it to Outlook, and would recommend it.

I have also added it (in addition to my Google Mail account) as a gadget to my iGoogle page and share it with my uvver 'aff.

Face-to-face Networks and Professional Organisations

Loads of interesting information here thanks - will put it on the back burner for now thought and look at it properly at a later date.

Now that's a real cop-out! Just leap-frogged over Thing 7.

warty swamp frog (Litoria raniformis), a photo by dcysurfer / Dave Young on Flickr.

Thanks to Dave Young for the use of this image under Creative Commons licence

Oops!

Aargh, have just realised I have been supposed to use the labels given at the bottom for the blog posts, and I have been making my own up........

They Sowshal Netwurk Thingymajiggies again

Ok, continuing where I left off -

Regarding Facebook privacy issues, feel the need to share this warning which is going around today:

NEW PRIVACY ISSUE WITH FACEBOOK. As of tomorrow, Facebook will creep into your bathroom when you're in the shower, smack your bottom, and then steal your clothes and towel. To change this option, go to Privacy Settings > Personal Settings > Bathroom Settings > Smacking and Stealing Settings, and uncheck the Shenanigans box. Facebook understandably kept this one quiet. Please Copy and Paste on your status to alert the unaware.

Well, made me chuckle anyhow...

LISNPN looks a really good online network and it seems to encourage wrinklies like me too!! Have joined it anyhow, under the really imaginative username of 'Lindsay Green' - good choice I think!

Similarly Librarians as Teachers looks an incredibly useful way of sharing ideas and experiences so I have put me name down for that one too! Wow, I'm going to feel popular when all these emails keep coming through - when I am going to have the time to read them, never mind answer and contribute, is a mystery. Roll on the cold dark wet evenings when I can't work in the garden - oh, silly me, this is August in the UK and the evenings are cold, dark and wet already!

Anyhow, onwards and upwards I go - the dizzy heights of Thing 7 next!

Online Networks

Spending a little time on this this evening. Have now taken some action on the Thing 3, Personal Brand, thingie, and have looked at my profile and tried to improve it - see, I am listening after all. I now have a profile photo which is being used everywhere one is required for professional purposes and have added more professional details to these sites. One problem with photo - 'im outdoors says he took it so it belongs to him and I am in breach of copyright as his verbal permission for me to use it does not count. He is therefore threatening to sue me, though I think this is unlikely as he would end up paying himself as he earns considerably more than I do.....

Anyway, onto the next thing.

Thing 6, Online Networks

Have a fair amount of experience with Twitter and Facebook, and am on LinkedIn though not using it a lot. I can certainly see the point in these for sharing information and getting to know people working in similar areas to yourself.

Twitter I use a lot for these purposes, and am now getting into the way of using LinkedIn too, gradually putting a lot more into it. Have just joined a couple of groups in LinkedIn, including the cpd23 one, and will monitor how these are going.

I have a work-email linked Facebook account (and a personal one separately) though have not really linked in the professional one to many people other than those I am working with already, which I don't think is really the purpose. The way I am using the personal one for linking to people with similar interests I can see I should carry over to the professional one. i common with a great many people I have serious concerns on privacy issues with Facebook, and have put my privacy levels so high it is quite difficult for people to find me, which sort of defeats the purpose...... Also I find amending your chosen privacy levels not intuitive in Facebook so it is easy to have information much more visible than you wish it to be.

to be continued....

Reflective Practice

University of Warwick Lakeside Residences

Lakeside, University of Warwick. Photo L Green

Well, time for reflecting on what has been done so far. I am aware that with life being so busy I have a tendency, at the completion of a difficult task, to heave a sigh of relief and put it both physically and mentally in the back of the cupboard. I am however probably better than most at writing notes on what I have been doing for future use, mainly because I have a memory like the proverbial sieve. Sadly I am guilty of not reviewing regularly and must learn to take time out more often to do so. Lots of interesting links to look at when I have some spare time..... I find winter much better for this - right now the garden weeds beckon!

The value of reflection in blogging was something I became much more aware of while doing the UoW23 things programme, the very informative sharing with others of our findings on what we had discovered or used.

Current awareness - Twitter, RSS and Pushnote

First, Twitter

Will whisk through this one as I already use it for both library/professional information sharing and more personal interest (back to chickens, wildlife, etc.....)

Note the huge Twitter birdie. Not me being clever - more not being able to work out how to shrink it to size!

I find Twitter very good for picking up what other people have found useful, sharing these by ReTweeting, and passing on information myself. Took me a long while to work out you can create lists and not be totally snowed under with information, checking only what areas (which Tweets or fellow Twits) you want to check at any one time.

The recommended lists of groups to follow is handy so am now following some most relevant to me in my library work.

Next RSS feeds....

Again am already using Google Reader but find I have little spare time to check it properly - being in a half-time post does not help! I have now added the feeds to blogs suggested by cpd23 things.

Now for little Pushnote....

I have no idea why the Pushnote icon is teenzie-weenzie when the others are big!

Have now signed up for this but will have to do some work on it to decide how good it it. This will have to wait until another day I fear, though certainly looks a good idea.

Considering Personal Brand

Well, ain't I common! I am not one of the many male Lindsay Greens; nor am I the woman who is a Performance Improvement Manager; nor any of the other women (including those who spell their name 'Lindsey'). In fact I had some difficulty in finding me! Eventually I found a photo which used to be on my Twitter profile, this being of me with a chicken on my shoulder (as you do..). Unfortunately this photo (and the chicken who is now in the free-range field in the sky) are no longer around. Interesting that though removed it is still retrievable by anyone who is sad enough to look for it - beware all of you who believe you can delete something from the internet - looks like it is there forever! So Phoenix chicken, you have your own little bit of immortality!

(photo, Phoenix chicken, taken 2008 by Lindsay Green)

Yep, this shows what Phoenix thinks of that!!!

Eventually I found my profile on LinkedIn, which, to be honest, has very little on it and should be expanded. This is one which I take much more seriously than most of the other ones I have (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter etc). Although I am a pretty private individual (definitely much more private than pretty....) there is nothing I object to people finding; anything embarrassing would likely have been posted by my dysfunctional extended family (so there is a Facebook account which I keep personal and private, privacy levels akin to those in the vaults of the Royal Bank of Scotland.......) Probably I should be looking more carefully at what information I have on all the profiles. My privacy paranoia means few can find much about me other than that I keep chickens and am a veggie-type person. Really useful information of course....

Anyhow, this has made me think of my personal brand, something I had not really considered in the past, and will try to do better in future! Thanks folks!

Mair Bloggin' an' lookin' at ithers' blogs

Have now had a look at the list of blogs - wow, aren't there a lot of them! Difficult to decide which to look at, but have chosen a couple of very different ones and left comments. I am impressed by the range of people who are taking part. Need to move on - thing 3 beckons....

Thing 1, Blogging

A brief introduction to myself and what I am about....

I work in University of Warwick Library as an Academic Support Officer, and am already using many of the skills I picked up in UoW23 to help with my job. The ASOs are part of the Academic Development wing in Academic Services, so look to improve the service in addition to aiding the Academic Support Librarians.

Having made my way through the UoW23 23 Things (Warwick University Library) programme earlier in the year I have already set up and run blogs so have already 'done' Thing 1. I find Blogging a really good way to keep track of what I am doing myself, but also to allow to share with others, and to compare what each of us is doing and thus benefit from each other's experiences.

I have started this programme in order to get practice and a refresher on what I learned already. There are also a lot of areas being covered which I have not touched on and I look forward to learning about these. I look forward to working along with the other participants in the programme so please feel welcome to comment on anything I have put in the blog or just contact me to discuss things.

In addition to aspects of my job, I am interested in green issues, sustainability and wildlife. I have a wildlife-friendly garden (i.e. weed-filled!) and keep chickens, five at present. I am a Scot living in Coventry, and love going back to Scotland to hill-walk and enjoy the air and scenery in the glens.

I am on Twitter already, @lindsmgreen, and will be using the same account to tweet about the programme.

Preparatory post, Thing 0

Have set up the blog and spent rather a long time trying to work out how to get the Header text and photo looking right, so that one is not blocking out the other. It doesn't seem to be exactly intuitive. Never mind - looking forward starting the programme proper with Thing 1!