Thing 15: Collaboration tools

Evernote

Of the three tools described in the post, Evernote is the only one with which I was unfamiliar.  I have taken it for a spin, listing the roads one would use for a car journey from a Yorkshire place to a Berkshire place while adopting a selective approach to motorways. But I, like Librarian at Heart, know the value of "the very low-tech but aesthetically pleasing option of an actual paper and pen notebook".  I can whip out a notebook and pen quicker than I can do the login(s) necessary for reaching the Evernote app.  The notebook, being a stage removed from the online world, is a little bit more secure.  The "elephants graveyard of notes I can’t understand anymore" recognised by Research abc would, in a notebook, be likely to have at least the virtue of chronological order.

I hope my view does not sound too much like the claim, in a 1990s spoof, that undesirable results from a mythical Microsoft product were "a feature not a bug".

I will continue trying with Evernote and see if I get to like it any better.

Doodle

I told of my enthusiasm for Doodle in the 2010 round of 23things.  I continue to use it today.  Doodle is not to be blamed for the user error of forgetting that anything requiring a Doodle poll probably needs more than a Doodle poll: a poll to set up a meeting will not necessarily ensure the meeting takes place, and is not a major action on the issue behind the meeting.

Google Drive

I use Google Drive extensively.  It is very helpful for the planning committee of an event, allowing details of venue &c to be circulated rapidly and acquire modifications and comments.  I'm not sure of the best answer to the data-protection questions that Google Drive can present.  Is there a place where private individuals can store things like a Christmas card list or address book online?

Thing 19: Marketing

Or, in another word, everything. As Andy puts it in his instructions, marketing is "about how we position ourselves and what we do for our customers". That reminds me of the recent brown-bag lunch around Emma Woods' suggestions for how subject librarians could raise their profile. One of the comments, over the baguettes and fruit, was that these techniques for raising the subject librarian's profile were essentially techniques for being a good subject librarian. The steps, presented by Lori Reed, for devising a library marketing plan look almost like those for devising a wholesale library strategy. One imagines them as grist for several stakeholder meetings, rather than a single blog post.

Mercifully, the brief for this assignment pulls back from such an undertaking -- asks us to write "specifically about one tool or strategy you are going to adopt to promote your service". Mine would be Doodle, or some more elaborate surveying tool such as SurveyMonkey. They were not Cam23 discoveries for me -- SurveyMonkey surveys have informed discussions about Haddon Library funding and plans for a makeover -- but Cam23 has confirmed and enriched my view of them.

Finding out where people are, metaphorically speaking, and what they need, is not something that happens by magic. Assuming or pretending that one is of their company is an approach that has a way of turning squirmaceous. Survey tools enable one to ask the questions straight out.

Thing 5: Doodle

Screenshot shows evidence for my use of Doodle. I think I first came across this device when Rowland Thomas at the Marshall used it to schedule a meeting, and I have been using it myself, probably, for a couple of years now.

I have looked briefly at the other meeting schedulers referred to in the Cam23 blog: Meet-O-Matic and Tungle. I once took part in a Meet-O-Matic poll, and was struck by how very 1950s it seemed, in its name and in the font for its name. Unlike Doodle, Meet-O-Matic seems to offer no option for letting participants see one another's choices, and that is a drawback.

I might come to look at Tungle more closely, and I dare say I will soon be taking part in polls organised by people for whom it is their Doodle.

I admit that, on my first or perhaps second encounter with Doodle, I experienced some disappointment at its simplicity. It lets you take people's votes, as to a date, or a policy, or some other decision. It doesn't, as I'd started to imagine, let you key in factors or criteria & offer suggestions towards the decision. Is that a fantasy of mine, or have I heard of web sites that do as I describe? Phil Bradley's list of Web 2 sites doesn't appear to include anything quite like that. Do you know of any?

But what Doodle does is indispensable, and Doodle does it better than the other means that are available. I remember trying to organise meetings by means of birdcages.