Connecting Librarian

I am presenting at NLS4 and are in the process of writing the paper for it. My topic is keeping-up-to-date. Below is a quick review of what I am planning to cover.

Why keep-up-to-date? Why it is important that we as librarians stay current.

Taking responsibility for your professional development. In conjunction with your employer and in your own time.

What area(s) should you cover? Be selective about which areas you want to stay ahead on. But also have an awareness in other sectors. May be quite different depending on the sort of library you work in and your role within it. Also will depend on your personal interests.

How much time should it take and whose time should it be?

Where you will find the content to keep you up-to-date. This is a long list, but far from complete and in no particular order: journals, ejournals, books, elists, blogs, screencasts, vidcasts, podcasts, forums, rss feeds, wikis, seminars, webinars, training, conferences, conference papers, further education, professional associations, continuing professional development programs, library tours, networking - both online and in person, instant messaging/microblogging, learning 2.0 programs, library training.

How do you find the right content? Finding about out it and then accessing it.

Dealing with information overload. Practices to ensure you can still find time for a life. Continually reviewing and revising your information flow.

Is there anything that you find vital to your own professional development, that is not covered here? I don’t have a lot of time for presenting, but I want to overload the readers of the paper with as much information as possible.

Your wise words, great ideas and overall expertise are sought in this endeavour - proper attribution given of course!

Thanks!

I have been doing some work on a few different things - a paper for an upcoming conference, an application for a course and I have learnt something new about myself again in the process.

I often find it difficult to get started on a writing project, regardless of whether it is a journal article, paper for a conference, etc.  Once I get started, I’m usually OK, its the starting that’s the issue.

So anyway, I have just had annual leave, with one week at home mostly by myself and two weeks with the kids during school holidays.  So I had all this extra time at home in which to get started on these latest two writing projects and I didn’t get much done.

Why not?  Here’s my revelation.  I get distracted, by the possibility of being distracted.

My kids are both in primary school and are well able to keep themselves amused, even for an hour or more at a time (especially with the promise of a treat or outing to motivate them).  Yet despite that, I couldn’t get any work done, because it was in my mind that they would keep coming in and disrupting my flow.  So because of that, the flow never started.

I have managed to get this blog post done in minimal time, even though I am expecting a visitor any moment, so I know its possible.  The writing tasks I have on my plate at the moment have deadlines which are fast approaching, but I know they will get done too.  But generally being an organised person, I really, really, really hate leaving things to the last minute.  So I really am contradicting myself with my own actions - hate to procrastinate, yet here I am doing it.

I never realised my mind could be so quirky, but I’m sure I’m not the only one with little idiosyncracies like this.  Please reassure me that I’m not the only one, by telling me about your quirks and help me out by telling me how you work around them.