Thing 23

I've thoroughly enjoyed the 23 Things experience, and really feel like I've learnt a great deal about Web 2.0. As both a computer scientist and a 'young person' I feel it's expected of me to understand all these technologies, and I now feel that I do! I've got a whole new set of skills and platforms to add to my experience, and if in the future a need for a certain technology arises, I feel confident I would know how to use it.

Some of my particular favourite things were Twitter and Google docs. Twitter has provided a great opportunity for me to network with library staff both at Warwick and further afield. I had a conversation with a cataloguer in Cambridge, who turned out to be on the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing committee, and might be a useful contact. I've enjoyed tweeting about various aspects of my day to day job, hopefully making people more aware of the job of a cataloguer. I think Google docs is a great tool for collaboration. Unlike Twitter, I can't see an immediate use for it, but I'm very glad to have found out about it and I'm sure it will be useful in the future. While I can see little use for some of the tools at the moment, such as Slideshare, or Flickr, it is great to know that they exist, and that I could use them if I needed to.

It was also interesting to assess how relevant the tools were for use in libraries. Investigating, for example, the British Library’s use of Facebook has made me more aware of the benefits Web 2.0 can bring a library. I was very cynical at the beginning of the course, believing that librraies pushing things onto Facebook and Twitter, that were never read, was actually not getting any where. I can see how certain tools are brilliant for individuals within libraries, but I'm not sure whether a library having a Facebook page or a Twitter account makes a lot of difference. Maybe I will discover new ways that a library can utilise these tools in the future. For now, I'm happy to make use of the tools as an individual librarian, and I'm sure that they will contribute in some way to my future working life.