Thing 1 - Blogs and blogging

I know I'm late to the party - I flew out to New Orleans for the American Library Association Annual 2011 conference just as the programme was beginning so I haven't had chance to blog for a while. I'm still in New Orleans, currently writing this post in the lobby at my hotel (yay for free wifi!). The conference has ended but I'm visiting Louisiana State University library tomorrow so killing time this afternoon waiting for my Greyhound bus to Baton Rouge.

Anyway, thing 1 asks me to reflect on blogging and why I'm joining in the 23 Things for Professional Development programme. I've been a fan of the 23 Thins programmes for a while now, and last year organised a Christmas themed programme with Damyanti called 24 Festive Things (it was during advent hence 24 not 23!). I've never actually joined in one as a participant however, so I thought I'd give this programme a go.

I love the fact that it's open to all, and that it covers a variety of different topics about professional development. It's relevant to people at various stages in their career, and I am in the relatively early stages of my career (worked in libraries for 6yrs, been qualified for almost 3yrs) so am planning to use the programme as an opportunity to reflect on my skills to see where I am at the moment, where I would like to be, and how I can get there.

By nature I'm a reflective person and I find blogging a really useful way to record my reflections. I've been blogging over on my Joeyanne Libraryanne blog for just over 4 years now and find it an incredibly useful tool for personal reflection, sharing opinions, and gathering other people's ideas.

I'm currently a researcher/consultant at Evidence Base, Birmingham City University. We're part of the library there but we are a self-funded sub-department so I don't work in a library and my job isn't typical for a librarian. I love it, I get to do research into some really interesting areas of the profession and share the findings in lots of different ways. I enjoy presenting at conferences/events, and I enjoy blogging and microblogging, so I use each of these as part of the research dissemination as well as the traditional reports.

I'm just writing up my MSc dissertation on strategic marketing in academic libraries (I'm currently waiting for feedback from my supervisor), and at some point in the future would like to charter through CILIP. I'm hoping that the 23 Things for Professional Development programme will act as a way of brushing up my skills and identifying my weaknesses to help me focus future efforts.

I also hope to make new contacts and learn more about my existing contacts through other people's blogs (more on that in thing 2!).

Oh, and in addition to being a participant, I'm helping organise the programme so let me know if you have any questions (you can comment here or I'm @joeyanne on Twitter).