CPD 23 Thing 3: Personal Branding

This post is part of the  CPD 23 Things Programme.

Developing a personal brand or identity has always been extremely difficult for me. I tend to want to hide in the background, rather than putting myself forward. I also have a broad range of eclectic interests, and find it hard to narrow my focus. Personal branding is all about identity. This is especially important when developing an on-line presence through which you can be recognised and summarised, as it were. How do you sum up a librarian-in-training/biologist/interested in art and philosophy/cyclist/hiker/bibliophile/classical music afficionado-but also likes jazz and punk/occasional bellydancer? Probably as quirky!

A Google search for my name will bring up many results, including a glamour model and an astrophysicist, so extra search terms are necessary, such as "algae" (which brings up my biological research, Masters thesis on the elusive and wonderful Batrachospermum pseudogelatinosum and former lab web page at Ohio University) and "librarian" which actually brings up a childrens book about libraries written by another Sarah Stewart (I will have to look for this one - it looks interesting!). Luckily, it also seems to bring up the Theology Faculty Library website and my articles that I wrote for the Oxford Graduate Library Trainee blog whilst still a trainee last year. I will have to tweak my search engine optimisation in the meantime, and also gear my LinkedIn profile towards my library work now that I have gained more professional experience as a Library Assistant.

I realise that having a consistent personal brand is very important, and will certainly bring more brand recognition  in terms of maintaining a professional image on-line. Certainly, Ned Potter (AKA: the Real Wikiman) has done this with his fabulous and insightful blog. His images and even his website layout provide a consistent and recognizable framework which link all of his social media into a unified whole, providing a strong professional image on-line.

I will probably have to do a lot of tweaking in the near future, once I have a better idea where I will go in terms of my own career path. I have a bit of discrepancy at present, as I originally set up my Twitter account to tweet science-related news items whilst a trainee at the Radcliffe Science Library, but now that I work in the Theology Faculty Library, this seems irrelevant (although I am still very much interested in science and science subject librarianship, my tweets have generally fallen off, and I am using my twitter feed primarily to follow news in science and libraries). My name and photo on Twitter provide a good reference to my profile as a librarian, however, but I am currently tweaking my "apps" so that they are better "intertwingled" and therefore able to provide a stronger on-line presence. One of the problems that I have with social media like Twitter is that it is very easy to mix both the "professional" and "social" worlds. Of course, neither is mutually exclusive. Much professional activity involves networking, which, by its very nature, must be social.

Hence, the need for a strong, unified and professional on-line presence, created through a personal brand. 

CPD 23 Things 1 & 2: Blogs and Blogging

This post is part of the CPD23 Things Programme.

Following the completion of the Oxford 23 Things programme, and after hearing much ado on Twitter (#cpd23) and Helen Murphy's presentation at the CILIP New Professionals Conference in Manchester, I thought that I might give the CPD 23 Things a go. It is becoming increasingly important for information professionals to become tech-savvy, and having an on-line presence is also invaluable, both for prospective employers and as a record of professional development.

For Thing 1, I thought that I would be a bit lazy and continue to use this current blog, L-Space Lab Bench. I also blog on the Oxford Graduate Trainee blog, but now that my traineeship has ended, I hope to make my own way in the blogosphere. I have also set up another Blogger blog, Librarian Leap of Faith, on which I have yet to post, but hope to make a forum for my work in the Theology Faculty Library at Oxford University. 

Blogging has always been something which I find both interesting and also somewhat nerve-wracking. While I like writing, I feel that I need to do more of it, and I also worry that my blog posts are not very profound or merely state the obvious. I hope that the CPD23 Programme will not only enable me to "improve" my blogging, but also help me to develop and hone my current professional skill set whilst learning some new skills. Finally, I hope that the CPD23 programme will also enable me to connect with other LIS professionals and further both my commitment to librarianship and becoming an "information professional" in both the real and virtual worlds.

So, now that I have completed CPD 23 Thing 1 with this initial blogpost, I will list some of the blogs that I have explored for Thing 2. I really enjoy reading the posts by Simon Barron (@SimonXIX), as I find them both inspiring and insightful. His blog, Undaimonia, is well-written and thought-provoking. Likewise, Helen Murphy's blog, Library Wanderer is entertaining as well as "practical" in its structure. I regularly follow my colleague, Ollie Bridle (RSLBiochem) at the Radcliffe Science Library, as his ideas for uses of technology in the libraries is quite interesting, and often link to thought-provoking material of interest to a subject librarian in the biosciences (one of my career aspirations). I have also been followng the blogs of Sarah Maule (Sarah Said Library) and Laura's Dark Archive. Finally, as I have a great interest in natural history, museums and the sciences, I have been following the blogs of the Royal Society Library and the Library and Archives at Kew, among many others. These blogs provide a great glimpse into other types of librarianship, and are very useful resources. I'm looking forward to my next forrays into the blogosphere...