CC image courtesy of BlogMama on Flickr
I want to like it, I really do. But every time I get motivated enough to go on LinkedIn, I find that there are suddenly much more pressing things to do like making a cup of tea or staring out of the window. Let’s face it, it’s not the most exciting interface and the people on it aren’t posting amusing or terribly interesting things. It’s all very professional, which is – to be fair – why I want to use it.
It’s just that LinkedIn is not really doing anything for me right now. My fairly minimal profile hangs around in cyber space and serves the purpose of popping up as a pretty neutral top result when I google myself (see Thing 3).
In an effort to get more out of LinkedIn I added a photo and… well, that’s about it. The information on it isn’t out of date but neither is it putting everything that I do out there – I feel a bit uneasy about basically having my CV up for the world to see. Things that I have done though are to join groups, so I’m now going to make an effort to keep up with what’s going on in the library groups.
I point-blank refuse to use Facebook for professional networking. My profile has got the privacy settings ramped up as far as they go and I use it solely on a personal basis. I signed up in 2006 I think when it was fairly new and you could only join if you had a university email address. Since then it’s scary how big it’s grown. I use it for contacting friends and sharing photos. There are better mediums for doing both out there but everyone seems to be on Facebook so it’s just easier.
Although I’m not going to use Facebook for any sort of professional medium, I do see the merit in libraries having institute Facebook pages. It’s a great way to interact with users because, as I say, everyone seems to be on it.
LISNPN
I found out about the LIS New Professionals Network when I first started my traineeship and it’s been really useful. I’ve used it to connect with other graduate trainees and new professionals and a few months ago I visited Oxford and it’s libraries, an event organised totally on LISNPN.
There’s a lot of great information and it’s really good to have a community of well-wishing professionals that will help with any questions. It moves at a slower pace than Twitter and there’s no character limit so I’ve had some really helpful, detailed responses to queries that I’ve posted.
As for the Librarians as Teachers Network and CILIP communities, these are networks that I’ve been lurking around for a while and may continue to lurk for a little bit. And I guess some time in the future something may take my fancy and I’ll get involved.
But I do like cardigans 