Wednesday 29 June 2011

A blog about blogs

I've spent a lot of time this past week reading blogs.  Not exactly a newsworthy statement and I'm sure if any other cpd23-ers read this they be "me too-ing" about now.  One thing I have come to notice is that blogs are like pringles, once I click I can't stop, one blog leads to another, and another (no mono-sodium-glutamate required)  As well as the blog reading, I have spent a fair amount of time perusing the list of blogs on cpd23, clicking on the ones with interesting titles or written by people who have a first name that also belongs to a librarian that I know (only once so far has this been the same person).

I must admit that I'm finding it pretty overwhelming.  Until last week I had a few core blogs that I used to make time to read and reflect on and learn from where applicable.  Now I'm a bit head spinny with blogs coming out of my ears and I'm spending so much time reading them, I don't know when am I supposed find time to write my own?  At the moment the majority of posts seem to be quite introductory, standard welcome to my blog type fayre, but what about when it starts getting meaty?  What if I miss something?  What if someone who's blog name hasn't caught my eye writes something that rocks the library world to it's core?

So, I'm thinking, what do I do if a student comes up to me on the enquiry desk, their facial expression often speaks before they do "so much information, so little time".  Are they not in a very similar predicament? I will explain the importance of being selective and evaluating their sources, the need to refine their strategy until they get what they need but I'm not exactly following my own advice; reading through hundred of random blog titles, clicking willy nilly.  Not good practice - fact. 

So I will not let myself become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cpd23 blogs on delicious.  I certainly cannot read every one and I am not going to miss something important by not doing so. Library folks are awesome at sharing best practice and I know that I can't know everything.  My brain only has a limited capacity.  So if anyone else is feeling similarly, I hope that this makes you feel better about it.  Librarians are humans too!

4 comments:

  1. Hi Lou,
    There are over 600 participants now, madness! I'm going to read blogs written by people at Welsh Universities, Russell Group Unis (I work in Cardiff so I want to see what the other group uni's are up to) and blogs by new professionals like myself. There are just too many to keep up with so I'm trying to be selective.

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  2. Thanks Gem, feeling a little calmer about the blog-splosion today. I'm going to stick to UK HE for my primary reading. It's just so difficult!
    Love your blog by the way :-)

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  3. Hi Lou
    I signed up a week later than everyone else so I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed with the number of blogs to be looked at. Like you I had my first experience of getting hooked on clicking and linking everywhere and this is just Thing 1. It did make me realise however that there is so much good information out there contained within these new mediums that I have been missing out on. Like you I am just going to have to figure out how to be selective in order to try to get the best from the amount of time I am likely to have available - don't know the answer to that as yet so if you come up with any tips please share them!

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  4. Love the word blog-splosion :)

    I like this article by Cory Doctorow on information overload: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/22/information-overload-probabilistic

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