#cpd23, Thing 5: reflective practice

A while ago I overcame my somewhat sneery attitude to 'reflective practice' when I realised that underneath the (to me) management-speak-ish name it really just means 'thinking about what you've done and are doing'. Now, I may have my limitations in many fields but thinking about stuff is something I can definitely do.  Indeed, I can think about things so much that I end up having no idea what I think about them, or how I'd write that down in concise and comprehensible English. So what's my approach to reflective practice?

Reflections in Oxford

Why?
My reasons for reflective writing are three-fold:

1. To remember what I've done, and what I thought about it. Having some sort of written record, even if it's not a blow-by-blow account of an event, really helps things to stick in my mind.  It's useful, too, just to have a findable list of what you've been up to.
2. To sort the wheat from the chaff. Taking some time to reflect and write-up helps to work out what are the important things I should remember/act on/do differently next time.
3. To build up a body of evidence for my Chartership portfolio.

What?
I find that having a framework to use when reflecting is really useful in the battle against woolly (both unfocussed and tangled) thinking.  The 'what - so what - now what' model mentioned in Emma's post is a good place to start.  For more intractable reflections I make notes under the following headings, which are my adaptation from a Chartership course I went to last summer. If you think they'd be useful for you, then by all means use them!

• What was the event/visit/other (what were the circumstances, history or overview, facts)
• My involvement - what did I do (actions taken i.e. what and how)
• Feelings about my role/about the event or visit or whatever (reactions/emotions)
• Why is this event important to me?/Why did I go?/Why was it important to those organising it?
• Were there any significant problems that you/the organisers had to overcome?
• In what ways have your skills, knowledge and understanding developed as a result?/What did the organisers learn?
• What might I or the organisers do differently next time
• How have you applied/will you apply your learning in the workplace?
• What would I do the same next time?

I particularly like that very last point: what would you keep the same?.  It's important when evaluating things that you've done to recognise, and build on, the good stuff as well as improving what didn't go so well!

Gratuitous dog picture to illustrate woolly thinking

What now?
The one thing that would really improve by professional reflection would be to revisit my thoughts and plans a few months after events take place.  I need to find a way of building that in to what I do.  Maybe quarterly reviews on the blog? That's not such a bad idea, in fact - I'd need to pick a memorable date, though, so that the months don't slip by unanounced too often.  In the spirit of keeping alive old cultural references how about the Quarter Days, so long as no-one minds if the December one is late!

Building my portfolio

Yesterday I went to two seminars organised by the CILIP Career Development Group London and South East division: ‘Portfolio Building’, and ‘Chartership and Beyond’.  You might notice a slight Chartership theme there...  ‘Chartership and Beyond’ is the compulsory course for all Chartership candidates, so there are no prizes for guessing why I went to that one.  The Portfolio Building seminar was a voluntary half-day course (very reasonably priced at £11.75) which I chose to attend because I’m currently trying to turn a large pile of evidence into a portfolio, and I’m keen for any guidance on how to do that.

Both seminars ranged across a number of topics, but the key theme of the day for me was “How to make your evidence meet the assessment criteria through the intelligent use of reflective practice”, or “How to pass by making sure that your select, present, and justify to show yourself in the best light”.

A couple of things from the two session particularly stood out and deserve individual credit.  Sabelo, a Candidate Support Officer from the CDG group had compiled seven reflective diary questions tailored to evaluating an event you were a part of - I used those as the skeleton for this post.  Also Michael Martin’s presentation on the whole Chartership process was informative, encouraging and reassuring.  I felt relieved that nothing he said came as a complete shock - it’s nice to know that I’m on the right track!

Before the day started I was perhaps a bit cynical about the courses I was attending.  I had unfairly assumed that they would come across as being solely about how to tick the boxes on an assessment form.  I wasn’t expecting to find the reflective practice exercises so useful or enjoyable, or to come away feeling that I could apply what I had learnt in contexts wider than just Chartership itself.

From the two sessions I gained a much better idea of how to organise the physical evidence for each item included in the portfolio.  It’s not just about having a single piece, e.g. a certificate or review, it’s about creating a short narrative, e.g. an event flyer, a visitor feedback form and a critical reflection on what happened and what you’d changed.  I’m also now more comfortable with the requirements of the four assessment criteria, and have a clearer idea which evidence best illustrates each of them.  I’ve identified things that I’ve done at work that meet various of them, especially the two part of number 1, that I had previously considered for inclusion in the portfolio.  An example of this is linking the organisation of Open Libraries as part of Open Cambridge to the role of the library and the College within the University.

I’ve been converted into a fan of reflective writing (hence all this droning on).  I used to be able to see that it ought to be useful, but I’d never really got much from the reflection I tried to do.  I thought that working from a list of questions to ask yourself was probably a bit of a gimmick.  But now having been forced to try it out, and to listen to other people’s evaluations using the same scheme, I can see that a set of fairly basic questions in a number of areas can help you to think of ideas and connections that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

I would have liked to have had more time on the day to talk to the other participants (not that there wasn’t time allowed for that in the schedule).  Near then end of the morning session I had a really interesting conversation with a librarian from a London University with a large mature student intake about strategies for making inductions accessible and successful.  I wish now that I’d taken her details so that we could continue the conversation afterwards.

I’ll naturally be trying to use all that I learnt from the day as I work towards assembling my portfolio.  One of my first actions will be to renew my efforts to group my evidence under the 4 assessment criteria, and I’ll be writing up reflective thoughts on some museum visits quite soon too.  I’m also going to write up my own personal list of evaluative questions that can be used for most reflective situations, incorporating ideas from the different examples given throughout the day.  Lastly I’m going to get down and read a couple of portfolios and try to analyse the way in which their authors have organised them to meet the requirements.

Thank you very much to the event organisers and presenters.  Next time can we have better weather, please?

Thing 23: "If we shadows have offended"

I came to Cam23 expecting it to be a pleasant summer diversion, a feather for my Chartership cap, a chance to have a tinker with a few Zeitgeist-y toys. I come away from it better connected, better informed, excited about the future and (though I know not how to measure it) more professional.

'23' by sarah sosiak on Flickr

Then

Before the programme started I was already an occasional personal user of some social media, including Facebook and Flickr, but I had been reluctant to really engage with the 'social', preferring to keep myself to myself. I was well aware that ‘the future’ was having an ever-greater impact on library work, but felt intimidated by talk of e-libraries, m-libraries, mash-ups and the like. The Libraries@Cambridge conferences I’d attended had shown me that things were changing, and I could see, intellectually, that this was both true and worth investigating further, but I had stubbornly been refusing to do anything more than feel somewhat bewildered and overwhelmed by the idea of change in a profession I had only recently joined.

I'd heard of most of the Cambridge Things, though I had no idea what Doodle, Zotero and Mendeley were going to turn out to do. I was pretty confident that I'd be able to figure out how to use the tools - I was hoping during the course to learn why, and not just how, to put them to work, and to develop a coherent idea of what libraries are actually doing (as opposed to what technology advocates might suggest they should do).

Now

None of the Things (pace Tim Spalding) completely phased me, either technically or in terms of purpose, although I definitely prefer some of them over others. LinkedIn is the only Thing that I’m not sure I’ll revisit (although apparently there’s a strong CILIP presence there), and several have made it into my everyday life. I’ve not been as good as some at sticking to library use; this table shows that some tools have found a place in my heart outside work.

Everyday life (professional)	iGoogle (which I use as a portal to gmail), RSS feeds, Twitter, Delicious, Blogging
Everyday life (personal)	iGoogle (which I use as a portal to Google calendar), RSS feeds, Google calendar (which I use specifically for marking the dates of exhibitions I want to see), Flickr (which I already used), Delicious, Podcasts (which I already used)
When necessary (professional)	Doodle, Slideshare, Google Docs, Podcasts, Wikis
When necessary (personal)	LibraryThing (to maintain lists of books to read and those read from libraries), Facebook, Zotero and Mendeley, Google Docs
Need more convincing	LinkedIn

Trying out the Things, reading round them, and growing a list of library blogs to read has helped me to face up to the monster of ‘the future’, and I’m now much more confident to engage with, rather than flee from, the technological age. In my current role there isn’t tremendous scope for developing a social media marketing strategy, but I can imagine a future in which I use Delicious or maybe Zotero to compile and make accessible resources and reading lists, or I cultivate a community of interested readers near and far via a blog and Flickr. Or maybe I’ll re-imagine myself as a tweeting reference librarian answering the world’s questions, with the answers feeding into an ‘Ask the Library’ Facebook group. Or something.

'23 skiddo' by Darwin Bell on Flickr

A Surprise

What I wasn’t expecting from Cam23 was the affect on my own professional development. I’d long had a feeling that I was missing out on the stuff that was surely going on ‘out there’, and now I feel like I’m actually a part of it. Finally sorting out an RSS feed reader means that library news is coming to me, and becoming an active Tweeter has given me a sense of what the big issues, and the active librarians are. Articles in the CILIP magazines now make more sense, as I’ve often already heard about the events they report. I’m much better informed, and now have an idea whom I might ask for advice and tips if I’m thinking of trying out something new.

Concrete outcomes

One very obvious product of Cam23 is the forthcoming TeachMeet, the organisers of which might never otherwise all have met, let alone shared any useful ideas, let alone said, ‘right, let’s do it!’.

Future plans

As I said in my marketing post, I’m keen to investigate library Web 2.0 use outside techie circles. (Not that things like the University of Huddersfield Library's OPAC aren’t great, but Old Things really are my first love.) So I’m trying to find archivists and specials collections librarians to follow on Twitter, and am collecting relevant blogs to read, comment on and evaluate (reading the UL’s Sassoon Project blog has already put me in touch with those organising the UL’s fledging schools outreach work). Maybe, when I’ve located it, I’ll also throw myself into the front line of social media special collections.

I also plan to keep on blogging: topics already in the to-day list include Open Libraries, the cilipfuture report, and thoughts about exhibitions in libraries and elsewhere.

Acknowledgements

A very big thank you to the Cam23 team, who have clearly put in vast quantities of time, thought and effort into the programme. And a thank you to all the other participants - it would have been pretty dull doing this alone!

Thing 13: "Her silver visage in the watery glass"

Celine has already said so much of what I've been thinking about while reflecting, that it's hard to know what to write here without just repeating her points.  And the first repeated thing: I have a habit of trying to read everyone else's posts and then finding that everything good has been said, several things I disagree with have also been said, and my post has to grow to enormous lengths to cover everything I wish to comment upon (or, it has to fall short of what I'd really like to say). An obvious solution to this is to post before I read, but when my opinion's going to be public I like it to be considered, and the other cam23 posts are giving so much food for consideration. I shall try to be more selective when thinking about future posts.  It's difficult to write a full evaluation and not so useful for other cam23-ers - I'm most interested by the posts that respond to particular points about or features of each Thing.

At the start of 23 Things I wrote: "I hope to learn lots of practical skills, but also to have a much better idea about which gadgets are best for what." I've definitely learnt how to do new things, including embedding widgets into websites and combining RSS feeds, and I've seen what a number of tools I'd not used before actually do.  But more thatn learning which gadget does what, I've been thinking about the ways in which different sites are increasingly linked together (and being frustrated when some of them won't easily), and what this might mean for library service provision in The Future (I haven't worked it out yet).  So cam23 has helped me think critically about what skills I might need in the future as a professional, and what in which ways users might reasonably expect library services to be integrated into other online activites.

As for confidence, I was fairly confident that I would be able to figure out how to use the Things in the course, but I wouldn't have necessarily tried these new things without some reason greater than curiosity. So having a structure that encourages (I was going to say 'forces', but that's unfair) me to look at something each week has been really beneficial (I agree with Aidan on Blutmetry about the value of the look-try-think-comment structure of the programme).  Once I've made the first step into trying something out I'll keep tinkering away with it without further encouragement, so I don't need instructions any more detailed than those given.  The nature of the instructions - some written, some screenshots, some video tutorials - has made me think about the ways in which instruction can be given. I'll try in the future to think more carefully about which tool is best, and not to reject videos and other embedded widgets just for being flashy and modern!  Equally, the cam23 posts have shown the value of a simple list of things to do - it's a question of picking the right tool for the job.

Trying out the different Things has certainly increased my confidence to comment and contribute instead of being a passive absorber of content. I've really enjoyed diving in and taking part instead of sitting on the sidelines watching things fly past my nose.  I've signed up to the LIS New Professionals Network, and talked to @theREALwikiman about difficulties with editing my profile there.  I've looked at some documents put on line by Tony Hirst (@psychemedia) and talked to someone who had commented on them.  I now feel much more connected and involved with what's going on in the world of libraries (and aren't we cursed with living in interesting library times?). Discussion of Web 2.0, social media and the future of libraries at recent Libraries@Cambridge conferences (why isn't this link findable by navigating from the Libraries@Cambridge homepage, especially as the slideshows are now available? Am I missing it somewhere?) left me wanting to bury my head in the sand, but now I've dared to get involved with some of the Things, I find that I'm actually quite interested in some of the issues that were being discussed. Watching what other people are talking about makes me feel more confident to make my own judgements about what's good, bad, or indifferent, and about where things might be headed. Having gained this confidence, I'll continue to try to write some of these thoughts down and maybe engender a little discussion of my own.

This increase in communication has applied as well within the real world of Cambridge, and not just online. There is no shortage of communication means in Cambridge libraries (as discussed last month on Blurtmetry), but I'd previously felt a little 'out of the loop'.  Now I feel like I've got much more idea what's going on, and have even met up with some people face-to-face (with more of that to come in the future!).  This speaks, I think, to the value of the immediacy of many social media.  If someone writes a blog post, or tweets something, then the default assumption is that they're open to, and maybe hoping for, quick comments from other people.  With traditional forms of communication, if someone sends, say, an email bulletin it seems less appropriate to reply with something simple like 'yes, I found that too', or 'have you tried this...', so connections between people are less frequently made.  Or maybe I just feel less shy with the my cam23 guide to hide behind.

What else have I learnt? Over the last few weeks it has become unavoidably clear (though, in truth, I knew it already) that I am an inveterate tinkerer.  Nothing is safe when I'm around - it will be fiddled with until I have it just so (and not just computery things, either, you should feel sorry for the things I knit, and unravel, and knit, and unravel, and knit...).  This means that I need to set myself time limits and constraints when working on any kind of project, otherwise the time spent will balloon as I 'just test out one more feature' or 'try it laid out the other way round'.  This applies as much to blog layouts as setting up exhibitions, writing reports, or even cataloguing papers.  It has been useful to have this trait made so plain to see, so I can more consciously try to curb it when necessary in the future.

There's has been no Thing that I could see no point in at all, so I will bear them all in mind for particular scenarios and recommend them to others as they seem appropriate.  Scary though it might be to look into the future, I'd also recommend keeping an eye on early-adopters and 'web guru' types like Tony Hirst and Phil Bradley to see what they're talking about.  There's no need to try everything out right away, perhaps, but it's useful to keep an ear to the ground as to what might be coming round the corner.  Personally, setting up an RSS feed reader (Google as it happens, but I hear others are good, too) has been the biggest gain.  Now the internet comes to me (and isn't there a lot of it!) and I spend much less time cycling through my favourite sites to see if there's anything new.

What I would like to change about my approach for the rest of the Things is to pay more attention to the further reading suggestions.  I often find myself wanting to know more, and wondering where to look for it, when there's a perfectly good link or three waiting to be clicked on the cam23 page.  Truth be told, I'm sometimes just a bit lazy to read what I'm told to.  I've started as I mean to go on with this goal, and have revised this post in light of what I've learnt from reading B.A. Sen's article.

One last thing... On the day that Thing 13 was posted (aeons ago in Web 2.0 time), this blog post of resources for librarian bloggers was posted by thewikiman. It's based on a presentation at the CILIP CDG New Professionals Conference 2010 and is well worth a look!