Thing 6 - Online Networks

LinkedIn
Right, just resurrected my LinkedIn profile, which I briefly set up in June 2010, then promptly ignored. At the moment, I don't know how much I'll use it, as I'm not one for spending hours online in fora and discussion groups. This is another public network where visibility is either a blessing or a curse. If you put all your information online, then people can find you, which is both good and bad. If you want to enhance your professional network, LinkedIn may be the way of getting yourself out there. But, if you're not aware of the Settings which are all defaulted to send you advertising, you could just end up getting spammed.

Anyway, I've asked a couple of people I know to be part of my network, and joined some groups. Let's see how long it takes me to get bored of this one.

Facebook
I've been a member of Facebook for ages, and it holds very few thrills for me any more. I'm an admin for a community group page which we mainly use for promotion and advertising, and somebody else does that for me now, so I probably look at Facebook once a week, on average. I don't think I'm missing much by not looking every day. The novelty has worn off for a lot of friends as well, who no longer post as much as they used to.

LISNPN/Librarians as Teachers Network/CILIP Communities
I've joined the New Professionals Network, and faffed around with my profile (not as easy to customise as my blog, which is a bit annoying, considering the points made in Thing 3 about branding) and wondering whether it will be worth it. I'm not a teaching librarian, so LaT holds no interest for me. CILIP communities seems very much like LISNPN - same old, same old (probably more of the old). I'm not joining CILIP just to access a message board (and I'm not joining CILIP full stop because it's too expensive).

Opinion
The trouble with all of these online communities is that you really have to be in love with them to make them work. I'm far from overwhelmed by online networks, and maybe it's because I took off my rose-coloured spectacles a long time ago and hid them in a filing cabinet in a dark cellar behind a door with a sign on it saying "beware of the leopard" (apologies to Douglas Adams fans for paraphrasing). I am far from believing that getting involved in professional networking will enhance my career prospects (because at the moment, library staff are lucky if they have jobs, let alone careers) and I have too full a life outside of work to be doing work-related stuff at home.

I am the person at the party who prefers to stay in the kitchen next to the gin rearranging the fridge magnets, so all those carefully crafted profiles will probably lie dormant until somebody nudges me to use them.