CPD23 Thing 5 - Reflective practice

So now on to thing 5 and time for me to think a bit more about my reflective practice. I have been participating in more reflection since beginning the CPD23 course using this blog as my reflective canvas but now is the time for me to follow a clear structure in my reflection, a consistent cycle to follow.

At present, I tend to reflect on my work quite a bit but anecdotally, developing a structured approach to reflection in my work will be really useful for me and help me develop it as a professional tool. I always find the most important element for me with a bit of reflection is the process of how the task could have been improved. I do this when I help a user in the library, after the enquiry is over I think about how the exchange went, how well I feel I met the information need and if there was anything else I could have done to improve and if there were any areas I then go on to improve my knowledge of the enquiry topic.

However, this being said, it is also a good idea for me to go over the positives as I believe they contribute to the learning experience.  A lot of reflection tends to focus on negative aspects but there is a lot to be gained from reflecting on how well we have done on any particular task.  Quality of reflection is key, having read a bit on reflection as part of CPD23 I need to put into practice a quality framework of reflective practice and learning and start to put this into practice not only in my work but also my course work and study style as a way of improving how I go about my distance learning studies, finding out what works well for me and developing it.

Image © Linda Hazle, 2011

CPD23 - Thing 4: Current awareness

Current awareness of the library field became big for me just prior to starting my Aberystwyth distance learning Library and Information Studies Msc.  But it is a minefield out there, there are just so many ways to follow what is going on and without really knowing where all the people in the know are, it is difficult to choose which 1,2,3 or more online resources to use, no one really wants to be the kid picked last for sports and that's exactly how I thought it might feel to be left on the social network sideline.  However, there really is no other way to find out where the information flow is than to just start looking, sign up and start to write, read or tweet. It's a great way to bring all the relevant, filtered content straight to you and well, in an increasingly busy society with ever increasing amounts of information available to us, this can be no bad thing.

When finding my feet in the library and information online world, I started reading Phil Bradley's blog which really helped increase my awareness of the online tools available for professional use.  I then signed up to Twitter and have found this a great way to keep up with current developments.  This is especially the case on the move, as I have found my Twitter Android app an invaluable tool in keeping posted even when I am away from my pc or laptop. The lists of people to follow on Twitter within the CPD23 thing 4 post have given me some good suggestions of others worth following in my field of academic libraries and I will go back and add others from other library backgrounds for general professional interest in libraries.

RSS feeds
I have never really gotten into using RSS, I have had a look a few times, subscribed to a few feeds and that's about as far as it ever went.  Then a few weeks ago I downloaded Google reader phone and was impressed by the ease of integration, when logged in with my Gmail account, all of the blogs I follow here were listed.  This ease of use between platforms and being able to store links and keep relevant website updates in one easy to access place has changed my mind about the use of RSS and I will be experimenting with it as a tool to keep up-to-date with library and information news.

Pushnote
This is something I have never used, so time to check it out and report back once I have experimented a bit...

Trying to pin down the most useful tool for me in terms of keeping informed of the latest developments in the library field is hard, I like to use a variety of tools, networks and platforms as I find it is the best way to get a wide and varied view of what is going on. The process of reflecting on current awareness has been a useful task for me as I have found a few more tools to use and by reflecting on current awareness I have fine tuned how I use the tools available to me for professional development in the library and information field.