Screenshot of the blogs where I contribute
I currently contribute to two public blogs: the University of Leicester library blog, where I work, and this one. This one has been rather neglected since I started blogging all my professional development events over at uollibrary, with the exception of my recent contribution to the Library Day in the Life project. As events are one of the major points of focus of this blog I’ve not been driven to post here so much.
However, in my chartership plan I’ve indicated that blogging is one way I’d reflect upon my development. Why hadn’t this blog become a place of reflection? I’ve realised that I’d grown out of touch with blogs. I’ve been using Twitter quite heavily for some time, and I’d stopped using my feed reader and was relying on Twitter to point me towards blog posts of interest. About once every two months I’d visit my Protopage site and feel guilty that I hadn’t read anything. I’d try to catch up, but always felt I’d missed the conversation.
So I’ve made an effort to rejoin the conversation, by changing the way I read blogs. When blogs first came to my attention I preferred using a page-based feed reader, but then I was looking at blogs for entertainment, not professional development, and didn’t want to keep track of what I had and hadn’t read. But for my professional development it’s nice to be prompted to keep up-to-date, and encouraged to discuss and reflect. So I’ve switched to Google Reader, which keeps track of how many posts I have and haven’t read, and encourages me to keep up-to-date.
And lo and behold, three days later, here I am writing a blog on the process. Because it turns out that having read others reflecting on what they do prompts me to think about what I do. And reading others thoughts day-to-day prompts that far more than trawling through a backlog. Plus (for bonus points) Google Reader is really easy to access from my Android phone on the train, meaning it’s easier to keep up-to-date too!
From a wider perspective, I think it’s really interesting how changing the tool I use to do something really changes how I see it. I’m going to see if I can apply this elsewhere. Next step: changing the format of my presentations for teaching… and I promise to blog on how that goes too!
