Thing 23 (yes!): Making it all work together

I tried to add social media to Flipboard. I failed. I put the app on my tablet but I couldn't find the 4 squares. I also checked online how to do it but I clicked into everything and couldn't find what I was supposed to. So I then tried Hootsuite. Success. It was hard and a pain to set up and all, but I did it. It has access to some Facebook accounts and Twitter. I clicked on the owl and went as if to send a message but I didn't actually send one - it was just for the practice. I don't think I would use these tools in my job because it's a small library and patrons generally phone or email. However, I might use them - or they may be more useful for - event planning outside of work. Plus, we never know where our path may take us and where they may be just what we need!

Thing 22: Mobile Things

The app I'm going to blog about is Hello Brain. It gives you an activity to do every day - I think for 100 days - to improve your brian health. In our journal club in work we had a talk about Hello Brain. I'm on the journal club committee and heard a colleague talking about it and asked her to give a talk. It was very interesting. In doing the hello brain challenge with the app different parts of your brain are put to work. All the categories improve your brain health. Some of the challenges involve doing something physical, some are about doing something social, they may be about getting your memory working (learning something off). I was doing well at it until my phone stopped working and until Rudaí 23 took over. But I can go back to it! I have done many of them. They included share a funny story with a colleague or learn the words of a song off by heart and go and do some exercise etc. I would recommend this to everyone and hopefully we will have healthy brains as we age!

We don't have a beacon in our library. I think it's good to have a screen in a library with the day's events on it like they have (or at least had) in Tallaght Library. I do think reminding people of books due back by phone is a good idea. I text my users who are not on the email system if they have books that are overdue.

I never did learn about Zotero so from that perspective I think 23 Mobile Things would be useful.

Thing 21: Creating Info-Graphics

I have twice made infographics. I used Piktochart. I used them for library stats. However, I didn't send them out as the stats are quite low. I don't believe they actually reflect the work of the library. As with most statistics, there's more than meets the eye. I made the 2nd one only in the last week or so. It's fun to make them! I was going to include it in my Library Ireland Week mail

out but have been cautioned against it. This is it - with the numbers removed. The space at the top is deliberate as I was cropping it off. I would like to do an infographic instead of my traditional Word annual report as I think it might be easier to read at a glance.

I had an infographic from Australia displayed in the library for a while. It described how much health librarians really save money. This is it. http://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/images/Worth-Every-Cent-and-More-INFOGRAPHIC.png However it didn't print out in a straightforward manner. I had to shrink it down a lot.

Thing 20: Presentations

This is a presentation which I gave in 2013. I'm fortunate that the HSLG committee have it up on Slildeshare. http://www.slideshare.net/hslgcommittee/community-based-bookclubs-grace-hillis-hslg-conference-2013

In reality, I didn't use these slides on the day. Instead I only used 4 slides and they would not have been suitable for sharing online as they were only to supplement me telling the story.

I am fortunate to have a friend who both worked in HR and is a positive psychologist. She knows all about giving a good presentation. She helped me turn my fairly boring and mediocre presentation into one I am proud of.

Instead of talking at the audience she really got me to engage with them. The presentation was a lightening one (5 minutes) at the HSLG annual conference. It was about a book club for people with intellectual disability that took place in community locations such as cafes. So how my friend got me to start was by asking who in the audience is in a book club. I then described possible difficulties for people with intellectual disability to be in such a club. This, hopefully, helped the audience connect with the topic. I gave examples of how specific individuals (my friend really emphasised the need for me to do this - to personalise it) benefited from participating in the club, and I demonstrated a piece of assistive technology used by some of the members. Please note that I was very conscious of protecting the identities of the book club members and so was careful about what I said.

One librarian who was a student at the time praised the presentation in her student blog. I was so happy when I accidentally came across it online.

I was comfortable with my topic and I had practiced my speech with a good friend and I was pleased with my delivery on the day. Actually, I arrived late to the conference because the "talking pen" prop needed new batteries and the maintenance team in work helped me out. I would advise people to ensure any props are working before the day of the event! And while it wasn't nice to be told my presentation needed to be changed a lot it did pay off in the end.

Thing 19: The Legal Side of Things

My next task is to:

• Write a blog post about the possibilities/issues/concerns which this post has raised for you regarding the content you have personally created in this course. 

It doesn't get any easier, and time is running out! I am conscious about my responsibilities so I think I am ok. I can't answer this so I will try the alternative:

• Write a blog post about a website (other than Pixabay, Flickr or Opsound) which offers Creative Commons or Public Domain content and what it has to offer information professionals. Discuss how easy, or difficult, you found it to use and any issues you encountered in applying the necessary attributions. 

I know of one website: https://openclipart.org/

Information professionals can use the images for work documents like posters or newsletters. The images are limited. It's not going to have everything you want. No attribution is required. My best friend told me about it. When I was involved in producing a magazine there was an issue with using public domain images (or not using them more like!) and she suggested this site. 

Now to find another site: http://library.pnca.edu/images/creativecommons. I will try  

http://openphoto.net/  There are pretty photos such as of flowers and when you click into the image it tells you how to attribute it. &copy; <a href="http://mike.openphoto.net/gallery/">Michael Jastremski</a> for <a href="http://openphoto.net/gallery/image/view/6385">openphoto.net</a> 

Books: &copy; <a href="http://sarabbit.openphoto.net/gallery/">Sarah Klockars-Clauser</a> for <a href="http://openphoto.net/gallery/image/view/22454">openphoto.net</a>