Week 4: Organisation AKA Helen tries to get everybody to love Evernote as much as she does #RHUL23

Image via CrunchBase

This week’s 23 things is on Evernote Organisation. Which has given me the chance to talk about my favourite thing Evernote.

I’m not a naturally organised person but Evernote has helped me no end. This is the post I did for 23 things RHUL on Evernote to give some background about what it is.

There is far more to it than just a notebook. I asked Twitter for examples of innovative uses and the following replies came back:

@melon_h not sure if this is what you’re looking for but NCSU libraries use Evernote for their induction scavenger hunt bit.ly/VQUspL

— Jo Alcock (@joeyanne) February 7, 2013

@melon_h depends on your idea of interesting, but use it for recipes using tags for retrieval. Also knitting, as can use checkbox for rows.

— Lynne Meehan (@_moo_) February 7, 2013

Not being a knitter I have no real idea what Lynne means but it sounds good! I also use it for recipes. This notebook contains them. What is absolutely brilliant about this is that you can search by ingredient. You might have chicken to use up, search your recipes and all the recipes with chicken are there. Brilliant.

Samanatha Halford takes it further and tags ones in cookbooks:

@netaxia @melon_h My current favourite use is tagging recipes inc ones in my print cook books for max findability. #spotthelibrarian

— Samantha Halford (@samanthahalf) February 1, 2013

Or there is the fact you can create a blog post and share it to WordPress:

@samanthahalf @melon_h I’m liking that I can write a blog post on Evernote & share it to WordPress.Great if you don’t like an interface!

— Jessica (@netaxia) February 1, 2013

There is also a facility called Evernote clearly which strips away websites so you can see it clearer which has real educational advantages for people with some additional needs. Here is this blog’s home page:

This is a video about Evernote Clearly which shows a bit more about what it does:

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Week 2: Social Networking #RHUL23

I’m catching up with 23things myself. I have blogged in the past about social networking so don’t really want to repeat myself but I think Social Networking is important for libraries and librarians both for promotion and for networking. Personally my key professional network is Twitter.

When I started work on 23things RHUL I asked for tips from other people who had run it in the past – this request went out via Twitter and the responses came thick and fast. Some from participants of 23things as well as people who had run it. But this isn’t the least of the reasons to interact professionally with Twitter.

Why should you be on Twitter?

Learn about library – Find out what influential people in the library world are thinking and doing.

Networking – start conversations and get to know your peers.

Keeping up to date – often Twitter is the first place people find out about major news events. It is also very useful if you commute or have to travel at all as this post I did illustrates.

Sharing – not just funny pictures of cute animals or you tube videos of dogs chasing deer but ideas, information and opinions (be careful on the opinions bit though. Tweets have a long lifespan).

Get answers – if you are stuck with something ask Twitter and often the answer will appear. There are a lot of clever people on Twitter.

Entertainment – Twitter is full of jokes, funny videos and quick wit. Follow celebrities, especially comedians and you will laugh a lot.

Compliment / Complain – had great service?  Tweet about it and let others know when a brand does well. Had bad service? Same applies. Also most companies take Twitter seriously so they will respond to complaints as they are public.

 

 

23 things at Royal Holloway – is go! #RHUL23

 

 

The week before Christmas we launched Royal Holloway’s 23 things programme (RHUL23). For those who don’t know –  23 Things is an online learning programme designed to introduce library staff at Royal Holloway to new media and technologies (more information is on the About page of the 23things blog)

 

I am a bit nervous about it – I know how brilliant it can be as a concept and I really want this to work as well as it did at City but as with anything you can’t tell until it is well underway how it is going.

 

I have to thank Emma Cragg, Laura Wilkinson and Rowena Macrae-Gibson for their advice and encouragement in getting this started – all their tips from their own experience was invaluable. I can only hope this goes as well as their iterations.

 

The first week concerned blogging and RSS feeds. I used to think blogging was an indulgent frippery, all navel gazing and self-importance but have found that it has become a more and more essential part of my working life. Sometime things can be a bit introspective but I have also found the use of reflection as a learning tool has helped me a lot.

 

I’ve blogged before about professional versus personal in social media and RSS Feeds both posts say much of what I would say now in reflection on week one of RHUL23 – blogging saved my sanity two years ago after major surgery and gave me a different perspective on blogs. Couple that with the fact this blogging has helped me find an outlet for my film reviews as well as interact with my profession and I really feel a place for blogging.

 

Professionally I also think that blogging is an important tool which helps maximise the library’s reach to our users as shown in my work on the Cass Library Blog – it works because it is part of a set of tools, including Twitter and Facebook (and Libguides). There is no point in only having one of these outlets in isolation – you might miss a whole swathe of your users but I shall blog about that next week when we do Social Networking …

 

This is the Prezi introducing the programme:

 

http://prezi.com/7f3ok_bctm8h/23-things-rhul-rhul23/