Things 23: Making It All Work Together

Going through alle 23 Things has been a very interesting and rewarding journey. 

I have worked through things I already knew of and use regularly, LinkedIn or presentation tools, and I have had a look at things that I only knew about in theory, podcasting or video. It has left me with a wish to use more of these tools both privately and at work to stay up to date - but it's so time consuming! It would only be realistic to spend more time on the tools if using them had a real purpose and I would gain quite a lot of benefit from using them. Come time come opportunity, I'm sure.

For one thing I'll definitely keep Buffer in mind and check it out for when this course is over and I plan to become much more active on LinkedIn and on my professional blog. All the interesting and inspiring things that I find today are kept in a mess of browser bookmarks, pins on pinterests and even emails to myself with links! I'm sure it can be done a little smarter :-)

Flipboard was my choice of curation tool in Thing 8 and didn't go too well technically, so I've given it another try. It sounded appealling that I can follow my social accounts in one place - I tend to forget to check them all out on a regular basis. And it works! There's quite a lot of clicking and scrolling even to read tweets - but that may just be my miniature iPhone 4 screen! Anyway, thanks for pointing out that feature. As I flip my way through the feed I'll get to know the app better and I might end up having a new favourite.

Thing 22: Mobile Things

Thinking about the subject of apps I realized that I don't use any apps in my work life. I'm always in front of a pc and the nearest work-related app I can think of is LinkedIn - and I only use that for private career purposes.

My colleagues at the public library, where I work, teach different apps to our users - especially the e-lending apps providing books, magazines, films and music. With Zinio as the only exception they are all Danish solutions and hence not very interesting for others to read about.


I've had a look at Gum - A social network of things and the idea of using the app in a library context is great. Reader to reader recommendations are always popular. In my home I couldn't find any product with a barcode that had been scanned and commented on - not even a can of a popular soft drink :-)

I know the beacon technology and - middle aged as I am - I am a bit ambivalent. Fundamentally I don't like being disturbed by push messages all the time where ever I go. But on the other hand if I was notified about something I would really like to have known about and otherwise would have missed, that might of course be nice. But that's the classic dilemma with information technology: getting just the right amount of relevant information at any time.

Thing 21: Creating Infographics

Infographics may not be as new as one should think. When I searched for free-to-use pictures on the web I came across this Canadian poster from WW1.

If only this meant that creating infographics were easy!
I may have the anaytical skills, but I feel I lack creativity to convey the data in a compelling and understandable way at the same time.

It's great with the free tools with lots of templates - I would never get there if I had to start from scratch with some complicated, professional graphic tool.

At our library we definately could use som infographic - one explaining how to use the photocopier, for example - because more and more of our users are foreign or not good readers.

I've used Canva to design birthday cards an so on just like we used Microsoft Publisher many years ago. (Whatever happened to Publisher?)


I would like to rework my CV into a graphic presentation to make it more appealing and easy to comprehend.

But for now I've had a look at the website of The White House seen through the Wayback Machine.
This is my first infographic and I know it doesn't make use of the many visual tricks I've noticed in the good ones. But infographics are much harder work than they look like - even if you have a template! I guess I'll only start one if I have something really important to tell :-)

Thing 20: Presentations

For the most part I use presentations when I teach or present our department (a business service within a public library) to potentiel customers or collaborators.

 

Mountain climber by Magnus, 8 years

It is very true, that you should start with the story, the idea, the purpose of what you're going to say.
And it should definitely be custom made to your audience.

One thing I've also learned is to reherse the presentation out load. Thinking in my head is no where near the same as actually saying the things as I'm planning to say them to my audience. It makes it very clear if something is unclear, where I get insecure etc. - and just as importantly, I get a real feeling of how long my presentation takes, so I can keep to my time.

I've used Power Point before but now prefer Prezi. Not that I'm very creative, but after I've got the hang of navigation in Prezi I find this tool much more flexible and inspiring.







Here's my attempt to attract tourists to my little country ;-)
http://prezi.com/d2m7dasxapo3/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Thing 19: The Legal Side of Things

I discovered Prezi a couple of years ago as an alternative to Power Point. Apart from being a  presentation tool, Prezi is also a social media with a focus on sharing and collaborating.

 

I know we get to presentation tools Thing 20, so I'll briefly present Prezi as place to find stuff that you can use freely.

 

I have a public (free) profile, so my presentations are not only searchable and viewable to everybody but also reusable by default. Reuseable means that the presentation it's possible for anyone to save a copy and then reuse the content in a separate prezi.

I can't change these settings with af free profile - if I want my presentations to be protected from reuse or even hidden from the public, I need to upgrade to one of the paid accounts.
But public and reusable is fine with me. If I want to use other people's stuff, I have to contribute, too :-)



You can search for presentations on any topic and you can limit the search to "Show Reusable prezis only". It's very easy. If for example you search* for "teaching information skills" you get a lot of  presentations free to inspire you or reuse in any way you want.

When you find a presentation you want to save and maybe work with, you simply click the Make a Copy-button and it's saved into your own account.

Here's a really nice one by Kelly Grimmett - with embedded screen casts :-)
https://prezi.com/ledfrihgcqkg/information-literacy-2015/

* A note on searching in Prezi's Explore section.
The search facility in Prezi is very unsophisticated. You can't do phrase searches, so depending on what you search for, your results may be full of irrelevant hits.
Instead I recommend another way in: do a Google Advanced search on your topic and limit to domain: https://prezi.com.
Unfortunately the Google Advanced option of limiting to Usage rights: Free to use and share doesn't work.

Thing 18: Communicating through Photographs

Our library has an Instagram profile, and I think it's a good way to present new and propably surprising angles on our services to all of our 409 followers :-)

Presentation of e-books in the pedestrian street.

I am familiar with Instagram, even have my own sleeping account, so I'm going to have a closer look at Flickr.

I agree that the fact that you have to open a Yahoo-account and give a telephone number seems an unnecessary hurdle to using the service.

I didn't try the app, but the website feels rather heavy to work with. To me it feels more like a semi-professional photo database than a social media. I would go there to find photos for a purpose, not just to pass time like on Instagram.

As tools for libraries who want to engage with their user, I can't decide one is better than the other. But I think it's important that libraries are present on the visual, social media - often pictures tell our stories much better and faster. And if the photoes are good and creative enough, they wake peoples' curiousity and that's what we need.

I found a couple of creative common photos of The Royal Library in Copenhagen, the building is called the black diamond.

Thing 17: Reflective practice

Going through every Thing and having to write about the tool and my experience with it has been daunting and time-consuming but of course very, very helpful.

It has forced me to think about the particular tool in two ways: how it was to work with and how it would be useful or not to me in my everyday work. Especially the last is essential, I think, and what makes all the difference.

Writing the blog posts helps me remember each tool better and hopefully use them if and when they (or other similar tools available) become relevant and useful. 

But looking for example at the different collaboration tools has made it very clear to me, that my job is rather solitary and introvert. I don't do much collaboration with neither colleagues nor custoumers/clients. This has made me think more about whether this is in accordance with my nature and something I'm happy with - or if I just ended up in a job like this by accident but in reality would prefer to work closer with others.

The tools are just that - tools - but learning about them put a spotlight om how we work whether on our own or with others and the tasks we have. Do we do it smart enough and do we do enough of the right things?

At the library where I work, we almost exclusively talk about service and what our users get from us. That is important, of course, I'm not denying that, but I sometimes miss time and space to talk about how we work and how we cater to our own needs for attention, encouragement, and inspiration. How do we learn from each other, exchange experiences and ideas in a busy work place? For example our intranet is totally outdated. It is visually unappealing and only suited for giving messages - it does not work as a social media at all. And our work documents, i.e forms, schedules, project descriptions, strategies etc, are still buried deep down in an inflexible and confusing file structure.

I think I'll on y own start by using more of the tools and try to organise my work around them - especially the Things that are presented after this reflective practice. I probably can't change the way my work place is organized, but I can definitely put more new energy into my own tasks

Thing 16: Collaboration Tools

I'm old enough to remember floppy disks (vaguely, though!) and USB sticks and endless emailing between co-workers and my own different email accounts. But cloud storing is geniuos.

 

For a long, long time I've used Windows desktop for saving my most frequently used - and hence for the time being most valueable! - files. It's probably the stupidest mistake to make just after using my own name as pasword to my computer :-)

I've used Dropbox a bit, mainly for storing huge files, that were too big to send by email to customers. I've also started a half hearted attempt to move my valued files there.

But after this Thing I have fallen for Google Drives because it's very intuitive to use - unlike e.g. Google Plus. It looks and works like a mix between Google Mail and Windows Pathfinder - I particularly like that I can save right into Google Drives from e.g. Word after having downloaded Drives to my pc.


I can see how the many settings and sharing options in Google Drive could be very useful. And then you can create documents, sheets and slides directly on the site, which I like very much. I've had my own attempt at commenting and addint text to the Rudaí-document - funny how the latin dummy text spurred everybody's memory and imagination :-)

I just found out that Dropbox is coming up with a similar function in December, Dropbox Paper - a "collaborative document editing platform". But I've moved into Google Drives by then :-)

When it comes to collaboration I don't have much practical experience in cloud based tools - I usually work on my assignments alone.
Another thing is that untill recently we were not allowed to use external tools like Dropbox! The council IT department didn't allow it for security reasons, although my colleagues frequently cooporate with librarians at other libraries. Just antoher example of counter productive decisions taken in a large organisation.

Thing 15: Library Advocacy

I'm not sure where I belong. On one hand I'm a librarian at heart and truly believe in all the good things that librarians and libraries give to society. On the other hand I don't identify with other (public) librarians at all and I'm not much interested in working in a (public) library myself.

And I'm genuinely annoyed of having to fight prejustice and ignorance all the time when I tell that I'm a librarian. So you put books on shelves? No. I put knowledge into people's heads!

The fact that we feel we have to tell "look we're funny/chick/up to date, too" - makes me a tired and I tend to leave people alone with they misconceptions. They probably have clouded minds in other areas, too, and my life's too short for that.

But enough about me, I might just be having one of those days ;-)

I liked the Voices for the Library initiative very much.
Similarly, a Danish think tank, Libraries of the Future (webpage in English), has had a look at the economic value of (mainly public) libraries for society. 
The fundamental argument for libraries is that children who visit libraries are better readers - better readers are more likely to get a higher education - more people with higher edcuations mean higher productivity which is good for the economy. It's as simple as that.

Other than the educational contribution, the report also talks about a cultural/social contribution and a digitalisation contribution that positively affect our economy.
Get the report in English here.

This kind of businesslike argumentation appeals to me. It think it's essential that we try to quantify the benefits of our libraries and speak the language of decision makers in order to lose as little funding as possible.




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Jeg bliver træt, når jeg møder folk, der stadig tror, at bibliotekarer sætter bøger på plads og desuden har læst dem alle. Kom nu ind i det 21. århundrede! Men mit liv er for kort til at jeg gider prøve at omvende dem.
Derfor foretrækker jeg de factorienterede tilgange tila t bevise bibliotekernes værd og bibliotekarernes bidrag på mange aspekter i samfundet fra uddannelse til integration og lige adgang til digitalisering. Det er et sprog beslutningstagerne forstår, og som måske kan bremse besparelserne en smule.

Thing 14: Augmented Reality

Wuhu, I got the Anatomy 4D app to work and there was a little skeleton standing on my keyboard in front of the screen :-) Fascinating.

But I still have a treacherous feeling that augmented reality is a tad more cumbersome than real reality. Does the Anatomy 4D app really give me more information than say a book or an animation - or is it just more fun to play around with?

There may be something in the LibrARi app. I liked the idea of helping people to locate a book on the shelf and to point to other relevant materials elsewhere. But I haven't had any experience with augmented reality yet, so to me it's still all theory.

Thing 13: Professional Organisations

I have been a member of the Danish librarians' organization, Bibliotekarforbundet (BF), since I graduated in 1994. It's headquartered in Copenhagen.

Over the years I have used BF's different services on several occasions and if I lived in Copenhagen I would have used it even more. There are no local branches of the organization and eventhough we live in a small country it still takes me three hours to go to Copenhagen - it's a lot of time to spend on a two hours event on a Wednesday afternoon. Some of the events take place in other parts of the country but not nearly enough if you ask me.

 

Employment and salary

There's no collective agreement between employers and employees in the corporate world like between the local authorities and librarians in public labraries, so when I got my first job in a private company I got help from BF to settle on a reasonable salary level for me to negotiate for and to read through the contract of employment before I signed it.

Member of special interest group

When I was working in different companies I was member of a networking group of other librarians in the business world. We were - and still are - a minority among librarians and the focus of BF has been on public libraries. But even though private librarians have very diverse jobs according to industry, some things are common, e.g. marketing/positioning efforts in the organization or compliance to copyright and license agreements.

Courses and other professional input

BF arrange seminars or workshops on both "union stuff", e.g. retirement planning or stress management, and professionally relevant subjects like online tools and teaching skills.

National conferences

Every other years there's a national meeting for all memebers of BF - a weekend full of professional and social content. And it's free - so I usually attend to get something in return of my member fee :-) And of course get new impulses and meet old colleagues and fellow students.

Conflict with my employer

I have been lucky not to have had any serious conflicts with any of my employers but this years I've experienced some changes at work that I couldn't accept just like that, so I consulted my professional organization for counselling. They couldn't do anything to help me and the changes became effective nevertheless, but still it was a positive experience to talk to a legal consultant and discuss the situation.


As I went through my list of touch points I was surprised how much I've actually used my organization. But with 936 € a year  in member fee, I think I should, too! :-)



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Jeg blev medlem af bibliotekarforbundet, da jeg blev bibliotekar DB i 1994. Siden da har jeg brugt forbundet i mange forskellige sammenhænge. De er et forholdsvist dyrt forbund af at være medlem af, så jeg sørger for at få noget for mit medlemsskab - selv om det meste fagligt relevante foregår i København.

Thing 12: Conferences

Conferences - I can only dream about them for the time being.

Unfortunately, there's not much room in the budget of our organization for attending conferences. So thanks for the internet and the many (free) ways to obtain new knowledge and connect with other information professionals - like Rudaí23 :-)


I have attended two international conferences in my carrier, the latest was Online Information in London in 2011. In fact, we only visited the exhibition and the short seminars in connection to it - not the real conference. But it was very interesting and I remember that it gave me the feeling of belonging to a professional tribe :-) I realized I had gained enough work experience to know what most of it was all about - I benefited from the halv hour seminars and I could talk to vendors about their products. Nice experience.






Internet Librarian International 2015 in London in October would be really great to visit (in my dreams!).
The programme looks very interesting and especially day two would be relevant to me. Among other things I would have chosen to hear about Good customer relationships: proving value every day, The pressures on Google: why search isn’t simple any more and Librarians and information literacy: the key to first year student success.
I noted that there are quite a few Nordic speakers on the programme, nice to know that we can make a contribution to the international community :-)


As a semi-independent information professional I would like to learn from those who actually make a living on freelance information services, so attending one of  the annual conferences of AIIP would be genious!

Our own professional organisation for librarians in Denmark arrange national congresses every other year. In 2014 the overall theme was librarians' professional DNA focusing on identity and roles. What I appreciate the most, is that most of the speakers ususally are from outside library circle, so they contribute with other views on our profession - not always pleasant, but definitely true!


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At tage til internationale konferencer ligger ikke lige inden for rækkevidde - så jeg kan bare drømme.
Heldigvis ligger der masser af gratis, fagligt stof på nettet, så jeg bliver ikke helt udsultet.
Men jeg ville virkelig gerne med på Internet Librarian International i London til efteråret. Der vil være masser af nyttigt fagligt udbytte - især i forhold til search.
Den amerikanske organisation for selvstændige informationsprofessionelle ville være drømmedestinationen - dér kunne jeg lære så meget!
Herhjemme har vi Bibliotekarforundets årsmøder hvert andet år. Det er lidt en fætter-kusinefest, men der er da også et fagligt udbytte, fordi der kommer indlægsholdere ude fra, der bidrager med nye syn på vores profession.

Thing 11: Reflective Practice

I'm always the time optimist. Then reality comes around and things just take more time than I thought.

This is how I've always worked - I tend to linger for a long time and then I work intensely for as long as it takes for me to finish the job. That's just how it is and I've learned to organize for it.

I really enjoy this course even though I tend to fall behind at times and even though I could always do more, investigate more and write more about my experiences and considerations.

But today my family has left the house for a sunny day in Legoland and I have sat myself down in front of the screen and get things done (more or less thouroughly, see Thing 10!).

I like to be presented new thing, like tools on the internet, and I like that writing the blog posts forces my dive into the thing and  think about about how to use them instead of not just "have a look" at them.

I'm actually thinking about copying some if Rudaí23 into a series of short courses for start up companies at our public library. I think that when you're on you own as an entrepreneur and responsible for everything you could need some insiration and new tools to help you promote your business and perhaps make life easier.



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Dette kursus er en vigitg inspirationskilde for mig. Jeg elsker at få præsenteret nye værktøjer på nettet, som kan hjælpe mig i mit abejde og med at brande mig selv på nettet. Det er et godt greb, at man skal skrive posts om hver ting - det tvinger én til at sætte sig ordentlig ind i dem og overveje, vad man kan burge dem til, og ikke bare "kigge på" dem.
Jeg arbejder som regel i ryk. Lader tiden gå i et stykke tid og så får arbejder jeg igennem så længe som det tager at få opgaven færdig.
Jeg overvejer at kopiere idéen fra Rudaí23 og sammensætte en serie af korte kurser for iværksættere. Jeg forestiller mig, at når man er alene om at have en virksomhed og har ansvar for alt, så kan man godt bruge noget inspiration og gode tips til, hvordan man kan markedsføre sig selv og måske gøre hverdagen letter.

Thing 10: Live Streaming

I'm not going to spend much time on this one. For the first time during this course I'm going to just skim a Thing.

I have attended a few webinars with fair succes. Last autumn I took a class in online communation (!) via webinars and I'm all for it despite technical hiccups in the beginning.

I see the potential in attending events where you can't be physically present and I'll explore the options if and when I need or want to use it.

Thing 9: Video and screencast

This screencasting thing is something I have been looking forward to trying because this is really useful to me. 

I would love to make short instruction videos for all kinds of databases and other tools on the web. This is what I missed when we looked at podcasting.

But my first attempts with screencasting weren't very succesfull, I must admit.

For some unknown technical reason (firewall, perhaps) I didn't manage to launch Screencast-O-Matic directly from the website or download the app, either :-(
I would have prefered to use Screencast-O-matic, though, because of the editing options.

But I managed to shoot a recording using Jing, and I really liked the simplicity of it. I also think that a five minutes limit is a good thing - it forces one to focus and get to the point :-) Better make more vidoes, each with its own topic, if you need more time to explain e.g. how to find the way through a database.

This is my first attempt into screencasting:
http://screencast.com/t/wjIlh7TqQp

But then I never figured out to upload it to my Youtube account. I couldn't find the file itself (only the URL) and drag & drop didn't work. Since my little video is recorded without sound I would have wanted to play around with annotations in Youtube.

Anyway! Even though I got stuck - again - because of my limited tech skills, I'm still positive and I know people I can ask for help, so I'll get it nailed eventually. Because screencasting is something I really want to use!

Tradidional video is not something I can see myself using. But my colleagues used it a lot during the time our new library was being built. They were uploaded to a dedidated website following the progress every two or three weeks or so and it was a great way to present the project and create interest and expectations in the new and much more creative place for the future public library.

We also have different image videos on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/105872881


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Jeg har set frem til at lære om screencasting og det er helt sikkert noget, jeg skal have kigget mere på. At lave små instruktionsvideoer til databaser og andet er noget, jeg kan se et meget stort potentiale i.

Thing 8: Curation Tools

If my work place is my second home, Pinterest is my third! 

I spend hours on Pinterest. I've realised that one of the things I personally like about Pinterest is that I can choose to stay there - I don't have to surf off to other places on the web. Can just stay there and enjoy and collect pretty pictures and useful links to explore ... some other time ;-)

As with most of the other tools I mainly use Pinterest for my own personal entertainment, and my Pinterest account contains several DIY, crochet and sewing boards. But I do have a professional board with tips on social media - mainly Linkedin - and a board with tips on job searching.

Not many of my pins are library relevant, but then again my job isn't a typical library job. But I certainly see the potential in these content curation tools as a way to collect, order and display relevant stuff to library users, students or clients.

I don't see Pinterest as a social media if social means direct exhange and conversation between people. I know you can comment on and send people pins you think they should see. You can also collaborate and build boards together in a group. But the format and layout is not very suitable for longer discussions.

Because I already know Pinterest, I wanted to take a closer look as Flipboard and set out to start a magazine on information professionalism. Its look appeals to me and I find it more suited than Pinterest  for collecting articles.
But I regret to say that I can't make it work - neither the app on my phone nor the labtop version.

I'll leave it there for now, but I'll keep an eye on the tool and hopefully start using it eventually.



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Pinterest er kendt territorium, og jeg tilbringer en del tid der i min fritid. Men har da også et par boards relateret til job og jobsøgning.
Flipboard, hvor man kan sammensætte magasiner, ser tiltalende ud, og jeg kunne se en idé i at at bruge den til at samle faglige artikler - mere egnet end Pinterest, der primært fungerer som et billed-medie for mig. Men desværre kan jeg ikke få Flipboard til at virke. Jeg kan ikke "flippe" artikler ind i applikationen.
Så jeg lade den ligge for nu, og må se, om den bliver mere håndterbare hen ad vejen.

Thing 7: Podcasts

Podcasts have been part of my work life for the last five years. I have a one hour train ride each way to and from my job and I listen to audio books and radio programmes almost every day.

My purpose of listening to podcasts is mainly entertainment but also to prevent me from falling asleep - though I sometimes manage to do that anyway even with a person talking right into me ears!

I like to listen to novels or programmes about history and culture, mainly literature, and it's a great way to get to know about authors or unknown periods or events in history.

I listen to things that interest me personally and I don't use it in my work. I haven't thought of podcasts as a way to learn work related subjects or gain new skills.
I think that the things you could learn just by listening would be "softer" and more interpersonal skills like conflict management, assertion training, languages etc. Not "harder" stuff like information management, new software and things like that where you would need to look at a screen at the same time.

For the same reason, it is not part of my job to create podcasts myself - when occasionally I teach, the subjects are not suited for this media.

I am grateful that I have learned English well enough to listen to podcasts in this language - it increases my chances of finding interesting stuff endlessly! I didn't know Soundcloud but I have already got the app and look forward to exploring what's on the shelves when my life as a pendler starts again in a few days.

Thing 5: Online Networks

I created my Facebook and Twitter profiles less and a year ago and I don't use them much - maybe I'm just not that talkative.

 

Facebook is mainly for keeping sort of up-to-date with what my friends and relatives near or distant are up to these days - although it's usually old news when I finally check in. The rest is quite frankly almost always a waste of time - silly jokes and videos, unpleasant political statements, commercial competitions. I have been following a few subject related groups, but I feel there was too much noise, so I left again.

Twitter is ... interesting, but tiresome. I see Twitter's potential and why I ought to use it more to broaden my horizon and discover new things. But the format really annoys me - it's too short, too esoteric and too ugly. And then I'm reluctant to click through to webpages where I'm not sure what I get - I don't have the patience for it. So I usually end up just reading my favourite stand up guy's one liners.

As I said, I feel I ought to search out interesting professionals or institutions to follow on Facebook and twitter - I've heard a lot of interesting discussions are going on there about librarianship, society, politics etc. But I just don't find the time to spend on these two chatty media.

Now, Pinterest ... that's a whole other story!

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Facebook og Twitter har aldrig rigtig fænget mig - måske er jeg bare ikke snakkesalig nok. På Facebook er der for meget støj, så jeg burger det udelukkende som sporadisk oplysningskanal om mine venner og families gøren og laden.
Twitter har sadsynligvis potentiale til meget mere med en bredere horisont, men formatet irriterer mig. Det er for kort, for indforstået og for grimt til at jeg orker det i længden. Og jeg har ikke tåmodighed til at klikke på links, som jeg ikke rigtig ved, hvad jeg vil få ud af. Mediet egner sig godt til stand upperes one liners!
Pinterest derimod - det er en ganske anden sag!

Thing 4: Google

I'm a Google fan, too.

 

Yes, I know the search engine is not a one-stop search tool ... or at least it ought not be, but in reality it very often is.
I also know that the search engine is apparently deliberately deteriorated when useful advanced features are removed.

But when I had a look at the applications available I realised that I use quite a few of them in my everyday work.
Google Translate -- I'm a heavy user when searching for information from all over the world. I look up search terms - how else would I find out what wastewater plants are called in Spanish or furniture in Lithuanian? And I have whole websites translated so I can locate the information I need without too much guessing.


Google Images -- An image search is helpful when I'm not quite sure about the translation. A picture says more than a thousand words, and it tells me that a slurry storage tank is not the same as a slurry tanker - yes, sometimes I need to find out things like that!
I also search for images when I do novelty searches in relation to patent applications. Searching within images can be a great help to establish if the invention I'm investigating is new or already known in some form or other.

Google Alerts -- When I do news monitoring on behalf of customers, Googles Alerts are part of the package.

Google Maps -- Custom maps of e.g.research centres or competitors' productions plants around the world.

Google Scholar/Google Books -- That's a must when you're a librarian :-)

Oh yes, and of course Google Blogger!

I have created a profile on Google Plus, but at the moment I can't see any personal use of it when I'm on Linkedin and Facebook. But the Hangouts app I'll definately keep in mind.


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Jeg bruger mange af Googles apps i mit daglige arbejde - oversættelse, billedsøgning, nyhedsovervågning og meget mere. Uundværlige værktøjer. Men Google Plus som endnu et socialt medie har jeg pt ingen brug for. Ej heller Hangouts - men måske kommer det en dag.

Thing 3: My professional brand

I have been working on my personal, professional brand for a few months now.

I've had a Linkedin profile since 2007, but haven't really it used very much until about a year ago when I started to follow the activities of my connections and participate and contribute myself.

This is me now.



I am very aware of the concept of online branding and I have chosen to be active in this area as I am actively looking for another job.

I try to promote myself as a professional information specialist especially withing business information and to that end I have written a few blog post on Linkedin and try to find relevant information to share with my network - news and opinions that relate to my expertise but is also interesting to people in other professions.

One great experience with Linkedin I've had, was when someone connected to someone in my network asked for an introduction to acces to public data on the internet. When I saw that I volunteered to present the topic at Internet Week Denmark and was accepted by the organisers. That was an opportunity for me to reach further than my daily circles and share knowledge with others with the same interest.

Since May 2015 I have been working on my own blog, Markedsinformation.
It's a blog about how to search for and use market information and data in relation to business and export. This topic is one of my specialties where I have gained quite some experience in the last tens years or more.

Contrary to what I thought before I started by blog, the biggest problem is not to find subjects for new posts - in fact I have a long list of things I would like to write about. The biggest problem is finding the time and focus to actually sit down, do the necessary research and write it into a blog post.

But when it happens I find it quite rewarding to be able to articulate what it is that I know and actually do for a living. Hopefully others can use my advice. I don't have any followers yet - maybe I should start promoting the blog a bit ;-)

I believe in the long term investment it is when you engage yourself in a network like Linkedin. If you are persistant it will pay off in the end with new connections, opportunities for collaboration or maybe even a new job.



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Jeg har været på Linkedin siden 2007, men har kun været rigtig aktiv inden for det seneste års tid.
Jeg arbejder aktivt med at brande mig selv som professional informationsspecialist med speciale i forretningsinformation. Til det formål har jeg skrevet nogle posts på Linkedin og forsøger at finde relevante information at dele med mit netværk. Linkedin har også udvidet mit netværk og ført mig til muligheder for at nå længere ud og møde andre med samme interesser.
Siden maj 2015 har jeg skrevet på en fagspecifik blog om markedsinformation, der giver tips, tricks og gode råd om at søge og bruge markedsinformation, som er frit tilgængelig på nettet.
Jeg tror på effekten af en langsigtet indsats, der giver chancen for nye kontakter, samarbejdsmuligheder og måske endda et nyt job.

Thing 2: Why I became a librarian

Even if my life depended on it, I couldn't tell you what I was thinking when I sent my application to the Danish library school back in 1990. 

Yes, I read a lot of books and visited the public library a lot, but that was not the reason - at least not consciously - and I never persued that line of the profession after graduation. I guess I just had to choose some kind of education and librarianship became the one.

But I never regretted my choice!

The traits of the profession suit me very well :-)  The combination of fundamental and universal skills of handling information and the never ending challenge of keeping up-to-date with technology and resources.

I have worked mainly in private companies as an information specialist, servicing colleagues in R&D, sales and marketing or the strategic department with research and information management of different kinds.
I love it that my work has a direct commercial value.

I started out as a school librarian, though. My first job was managing the library at a Norwegian upper secondary school. I stayed for four years and it was a great all round experience as a librarian being responsible for everything from aquisition to teaching information literacy and setting up exhibitions and other activities in the library.

From there I got the chance to move into the corporate world, first in the wind energy business, then in a multinational food company and finally a law firm.

For the last five years I have worked in a quite unique position - at least here in Denmark - as I have been part of a business service embedded in a public library. We are specialized in performing information searches on behalf of all kinds of companies all over the country. And I get to do all kinds of different research: How are the pharmacies organised in Sweden? Can you identify special printing companies in the Baltics? I need the annual reports of a company based in Singapore, can you help me? How about Dutch housing associations?

It's funny end extremely rewarding every time I dive into a new, unknown area and come up with exactly the information my customer needs. It's like a treasure hunt where I get to use all my skills and experience and always learn new things to use next time a question like that turns up.

I want to stay in a job like this but would prefer to be part of a company again and help colleagues instead of customers.

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Jeg kan ikke for mit liv huske, hvorfor jeg sendte min ansøgning til Danmarks Biblioteksskole i foråret 1990. Det var ikke fordi jeg læste en masse bøger og tit kom på biblioteket - selv om det var det jeg gjorde. Men en uddannelse skulle jeg jo vælge, så det blev som bibliotekar. Jeg har dog aldrig fortrudt det.
Professionen passer mig godt - kombinationen af de grundlæggende kompetencer i informationshåndtering og så den evige teknologiske udvikling.
Jeg har primært arbejdet i private virksomheder, hvor jeg har hjulpet kolleger i udvikling, salg og marketing eller strategi med informationssøgning. Jeg kan godt lide at mit arbejde har en direkte kommerciel værdi. Jeg brænder for at hjælpe virksomheder til udvikling og vækst.

What is this blog about?

This is my Rudaí23 diary and I'm excited to get started.

I've signed up to the Rudaí23: A 23 Things Collaboration.
In 23 lessons I'll discover or revisit online tools that hopefully will enhance my professional life.

I am generally very interested in web 2.0 technologies and do my best to keep up-to-date, but there's never enough time to explore everything is there? So for me this is a great opportunity to commit myself to going through a selected list of tools - including ones I'd probably never have looked into on my own.

Read about Rudaí23 here.

It's the Western Regional Section of the Library Association of Ireland that's behind it, but all information professionals around the world is welcome to participate. Thank you for setting up the course, I can see you've put a lot of work into it already :-)


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My native language is Danish, so every post will also have a summary in my mother tongue.

Rudaí23 er et online kursus i 23 udvalgte værktøjer inden for web 2.0 og sociale medier. Dette er min online dagbog, hvor jeg sammenfatter mine oplevelser og det jeg har lært undervejs i kurset.
Jeg glæder mig til at komme i gang og være forpligtet til at lære nyt og sætte mig ind i aspekter, som jeg måske ikke ville have gjort af egen drift.