Thing 6: Online networks

I've slipped further behind so will keep this short.

I find Facebook very useful to keep or get back in touch with family and friends, but not for building work-related networks. I've enjoyed my daughter's photos very much and recently started posting my own as a quick way to share what I've been doing. It's also a good way to write to other family members for whom you don't have an email address.

In the course of my work I've looked at public profiles on LinkedIn, but as a non-member my access was restricted. LinkedIn should prove very useful once I carefully set up my profile. I've had temporary contracts since coming back to Britain from New Zealand so may find that I have a few people to network with. I've resolved that by the end of this week I will be set up on LinkedIn.

LISNPN has some interesting discussion publicly available and would be good if I was a new professional, and may be worthwhile for me to join as a relatively recent returnee to Britain.

Librarians as Teachers - appears to be useful for those who teach. I'll remember this if my next or a future role involves teaching.

CILIP Communities: another one for me to join by the end of the week. Despite joining CILIP when I returned to the UK, I haven't got involved. This looks like something I need to do.

I'm also a member of LIANZA and was on the ITSIG committee that set up a Wiki in 2003. Not exactly a community, but a resource supposed to be edited by the community, but takeup was slow and there have only been 4 edits in 2011. There are some groups on the redeveloped LIANZA website, but it looks as if discussion still takes place in the email lists. I've just signed up to see if more becomes visible.

I personally do not want to use yet another social network from Google. For many years I also have had free limited membership of Friends Reunited, a means of finding people I was at school with and being notified about reunions, but I have not paid to join and do not visit often. I regards it as arms length contact rather than the closer contact of Facebook.