Final Cam23 Round-up

Back in May when I excitedly began the 23 Things Programme, I could not imagine the hot day in August when I would round-up my thoughts to write the final blog post. Although the hot long summer day did not really materialize, my experiences during this programme have far outstripped my expectations.

Although I was quite familiar with most of the Things from personal experience, it has been really worthwhile to consider their application to the library setting from the user's perspective, not just from the perspective of my own professional development.

The sense of community and shared aims that has emerged from the Programme has been a constant source of reassurance and support. The growing army of Cam23-ers on Twitter allows us to grow into a social movement positively and yet critically embracing emerging technologies.

I have learnt a lot about technologies with which I am familiar as well as learning about totally new ones. Delicious is a tool that I have heard a lot about without ever getting round to using; it is fascinating and the potential for organisation of knowledge is something that I shall be exploring further on both a personal and a professional level. I am an avid Twitter fan for professional awareness but now I am hoping to use the tool to keep in contact with our readers.

Google worries me in that it is taking over our online space and yet I still use it daily. However I am not a fan of Google calendars; I would rather use a paper diary and as I work in a small team, we have a shared physical diary to alleviate the problems of double bookings.

Cloud computing is something that I envisage changing the way that people work in the future. Remote working might become easier. However, unless we all install library management systems on our home pcs, there is a limit to what we can do in the electronic ether. Collaborative documents via wikis are the most useful form of cloud computing as far I as I can see, closely followed by technologies which allow documents to be stored 'in the cloud,' so to speak. As an aside, I do hate the phrase 'cloud computing'; it is unavoidably techy with the implicit pseudo-humour of techy people. Perhaps, 'remote storing' would be better. The 'library in the sky'? More work is needed.

Overall then, the Cam23 Programme has been a success; it has allowed Cambridge library staff to form different types of connections both physically and within the social media space. I hope that other such bottom-up intitiatives for professional development will occur.

One final thing: