Twitter for Libraries

I've seen and used a lot of useful Twitter resources recently so I thought it was only fair that I share them with you. The first is Twitter for Libraries a post from the What I learned today blog.

Then there is Twitter search in plain English, which is another great video from the team at Commoncraft. Thanks to the iLibrarian for alerting me to this. The iLibrarian has also posted about the Twitter Guide Book, which looks like a really use resource for anyone thinking about or currently using Twitter.

Enjoy!

Volunteering opportunities...

Are you a Law Librarian...who is a member of the British & Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL)...and would like to become involved with the work of BIALL...then I'd love to hear from you!

BIALL relies on its members to volunteer for committees that work on projects like the BIALL Website, The Conference, BIALL Salary Surveys and much much more.

But why would you want to become involved in the work of a committee? Well for one thing committee work is a great way to network with your peers and colleagues (there is normally a social element to any work on a committee) committees also offer the opportunity for you to benchmark the work you're doing with other Law Librarians and for you to share concerns and any issues you may have. Committee work also looks great when it comes to professsional development, just look at me here! and really aren't that onerous, three or maybe four meetings a year at most.

So if you like to become more involved with BIALL, drop me a line here, or on Twitter.

When Librarianship might not be a fit!

When you might think could Librarianship possibly not be a fit? well in the current climate it might be right now. So what if anything could Librarians be doing to keep their options open. Well this article from the FUMSI Website looks at what we should be doing and how "for the health of our careers, it's important to take time on a regular basis to examine whether our current jobs - and our current career paths - are still the right fit, and whether investigating new possibilities might help us move forward"

The article goes on to look at when Librarianship might not be a fit, how you could transfer your skills to a new role and pinpointing your new career path.

Should We Be More Social?

For anyone who wasn't at the BIALL Conference, the slides from my presenation are available below. The session look at how Social Media tools can be used by Law Librarians to become more productive...that's right more productive! Enjoy the slides...

Should We Be More Social

View more OpenOffice presentations from James Mullan.

Wildy-BIALL Law Librarian of the year 2009

If you weren't already aware, last night BIALL presented me with the Wildy-BIALL Law Librarian of the year 2009 award. I was honoured to receive this award, especially in the company of so many of my peers. At the time because I had absolutely no idea I was the recipient of this award I hadn't prepared an acceptance speech, so my speech when called upon was quite short and I didn't thank the many people that have encouraged me to become involved with BIALL and to develop my technical skills.

So in no particular order I'd like to thank the following. Chrissy Street of Clifford Chance for encouraging me to start a blog for LIG, if LIGIssues hadn't been born I doubt I'd be where I am now! Hazel Hewison previous BIALL Chair and previous LIG Chair who asked me to
be vice-Chair of LIG, from there so many things have happened.

I'd like to thank all of the members I have worked with on LIG but especially Emily Allbon Academic Law Librarian extraordinaire. Emily and I first met at the BIALL Conference in Edinburgh and since then have worked on a number of projects together. She probably knows this is already but she leads the way in Academic Law Librarianship and could and should win this award at some point. Emily and I have become close friends since Edinburgh. I've also made a lot of other friends through BIALL, they know who they are and I would like to thank them for supporting the work I do and encouraging me to do more!

Thanks ALL!!

BIALL Conference 2009

I hate to bang on about the BIALL Conference, both here and on the BIALL Blog but I'm uber excited about the Conference. Not only am I talking about one of my favourite subjects aka Social Media but the new BIALL website will be launched and I'll be catching up with a couple of friends who I haven't seen in more than 10 years.

I'm especially excited (call me sad if you will) about the launch of the new website. Not just because I have been working on the website, but because of the opportunities this will bring for BIALL to really utilise some of the technologies that have been around for a while but we haven't had the right platform to facilitate their use. I'm talking about tools like RSS, Wikis, Blogs, Photo galleries and some elements of Social Networking.

The website will also finally reflect the forward thinking organisation that we are and will showcase some of the skills that Law Librarians have. I for one cant wait!

Harvel 5 2009

Yesterday I ran the Harvel5, a 5 mile race round the village of Harvel in Kent. I hadn't run this race before so I wasn't sure to expect especially as the running club organising the race has the logo "A drinking club with a running problem"

The race also started at the very strange time of 2pm on a Saturday, if it had been really hot then I'm not sure I would have run as fast as I did. At the end of the race I'd finished with a time of 36:56 and was placed 179th out of 592 runners. This meant that my time for each mile was 7:23. I'm not sure I could keep that pace for 26.2 miles but I might be able to for 10 miles, only time and the North Weald 10 mile race on the 21st of June will tell!

Before then I have the Bluewater 10k and a holiday in France to look forward to!