Thing 17: Casting a Pod into the wide, wide sea of information

I was hoping to present something a little more exciting for this Thing by actually creating a podcast, but sadly staff shortages and the training duties that have come with a new trainee have put paid to that, and my attempt at a podcast remains at 4 short, quiet clips of a croaky-voiced and unusually posh (posher that normal, anyway) me, chatting away about how many books we have in the Classics library (around 68,000 items in total, don'tcha know).

Not the same kind of shuffle, but
entertaining nonetheless.
Photo by The Loopweaver

My own podcasting aspirations may have to wait, but in fact I used to be quite a prolific consumer of podcasts, of the audio variety anyway. I don't download and listen to them on a regular basis, as I tend to be a reader more than a listener when it comes to news, and an iPod shuffle isn't conductive to coherent listening.

However, in my final year at Sheffield, podcasts came in very handy in the entrancingly entitled Transcription, Translation and Subtitling module (no prizes for guessing the four-lettered shorthand name for that one). The aim of the game, once in January and once in June, was to transcribe a short French video clip (usually a news report) and translate the result into coherent subtitles. There were lots of conventions : two lines per 5-6 seconds, absolutely no more than 39 characters per line, two hyphens for new speakers, et cetera et cetera ad nauseam. But before you could dream of this stage, you had to turn what you could hear into coherent and competent French. Bearing in mind that this is a language which has twenty spellings for every vowel sounds, this is easier said than done (literally), but podcasts were invaluable for practising picking up on all those pesky sounds that get swallowed away in normal speech. My podcast of choice was "Savoir être" from France Info, "the psychology of daily life", apparently. My parenting skills improved as I listened to half of France's daily troubles, but the firsts I received in each exam were testament to the effect of the podcasts on my language skills. Podcasts were also used in Sheffield as accompaniments to lectures, and in one Linguistics module, a method of assessment.

Are you listening?
Photo by McBeths Photography

Podcasts, unsurprisingly, appeal in particular to those who learn through listening, and it is important to cater to all types of learners in libraries and in academia in general, not to mention making use of all the technology available to us, including mp3 players. For this reason, I am looking forward to becoming more au fait with the software and the conventions, until maybe I too can present an inaugural lecture as a podcast, like Paul Cartledge did here. Of course, by that point, technology will have taken another leap lightyears into the future...

Thing 18: Cam23 2.0 - useful stuff in abundance

A stunning reflection on
Indianapolis Central Library.
Photo by Serge Melki

A little late maybe, but there's a lot to reflect upon. In fact, I think there's more to think about this week than last time, as this second block of 'Things' has seen me try a lot more new stuff than in the first.

The most useful Thing so far has to be Delicious. As I said at the time, I was dubious as to how useful it would be, considering the implicit panning it took in the first Cam23 programme, but it has turned out to be a gem. At work I move between three different computers, and of course my laptop at home makes 4, and being able to access all the interesting stuff I've come across in any of those 4 places is a boon. The tagging system took a while to get used to, in terms of the punctuation and in terms of working out the most efficient naming method for my purposes, but it's now doing exactly what I want it to do, with little added things popping up all the time, for example the ability to make notes on bookmarks for future references.

Transcribing poorly-handwritten Greek. All in day's work for
a librarian.
Photo by lemurph, manuscript at Trinity Hall, Cantab.

The other Thing seeing more use than I could have imagined is Twitter. I only use it at work, as the vast majority of tweets that come through relate to libraries (with the odd whimsical aside to keep me smiling during the long vac!), but it's already proved its worth : lots of people helped me with my research for this week's list-making app post, and a Twitter plea from lemurph about a strange Greek character* was answered using yfrog, a JRF and an Honorary Citizen of Sparta (who happened to be knocking about the library at the time).

It's not over just yet though. I have only just embarked on my Prezi journey but I can definitely see legs on that one, I've yet to perfect either of the reference management tools that we're looking at this week, and whilst I'm greatly enjoying Cam23 2.0, I will be putting in the effort after the programme has finished to try and continue to blog solo...I hope I can manage that!

*Character in the orthographic, rather than idiosyncratic person sense, of course. And if you're at all interested, it was a quote from Galen taking a dig at "the followers of Moses and Christ". Nothing to do with a moose's upper echelons at all, Helen and Katie...

Application application application...

The start of the end of my traineeship was confirmed on Tuesday by the interviews held in the library for my successor. However, the subjection of 5 poor people to a tour by yours truly, a written cat-'n'-class test and off-the-wall interview questions from the esteemed Prof. Paul Cartledge was the end of a long application process for us in the office, because it took us around 3 weeks to select these 5 names from amongst 176 application forms.

Yes. 176 applications for a 1 year fixed contract trainee librarian post.

Job applications can seem like a lottery,
but you can take control...
Photo from http://koongajobs.co.uk/

Without focusing too much on what this statistic says about the job market more generally, we received applications from a huge range of ages (5 different decades), nationalities (Zambia to Canada via Lithuania) and levels of experience, from the 21-year-old graduate-to-be to people with doctorates, or those looking to change careers altogether. Yet all these people are filling in the same form for the same job and looking to catch the eye of someone at the other end. So where did 5 succeed where 171 failed? Here are my tips for filling in application forms (as a disclaimer: these are based solely on my personal observations and my (exceedingly limited) experience of the job search) :

1. Just like in exams, read the form and all instructions on it properly. Writing your education history down in order with the most recent first may seem like a minor trifle, but when it gets difficult to narrow forms down, then attention to detail can be vital.

2. Lots of forms include space for a personal statement or a blurb about your suitability of the role. Within the constraints of an application form this is your opportunity to show off your personality and your interest, so make the most of it!

• Don't leave any blank space (but do resist the temptation to write 20 pages). 
• Address all essential AND desirable criteria stated in the job's further particulars. 
• Make your statement as specific and as relevant to that one job as possible (and if you're filling loads of forms in, make sure you send the right ones to the right places!). 
• Apply everything that you say about yourself and your experience to the target job. 
• Try to convey your enthusiasm for the position without using increasingly cliched phrases; as an example, the word "passionate" loses its punch after the 50th reading...

3. Proofreading is as important with a form as with a CV or covering letter, and remember that it ISN'T cheating to ask a friend or family member to have a scan through.

4. Typing the form is probably better than handwriting it (especially if your handwriting is hard to read - be self-critical on this one!) but then make sure that the formatting on the form works. There's nothing worse than claiming to be computer literate when the form doesn't fit on the page properly and half the boxes on it are misshapen.

5. Lots of books about job searching techniques recommend making first contact with the employer, but really it's better only to do that with a genuine query, for example, "Am I overqualified for this position?" or "A family member is my employer, is this an acceptable referee?" If you ask really basic questions just to touch base, you risk looking like you can't make decisions for yourself.

It's an incredibly tough job market at the moment and frankly, the estimate of 83 applicants per graduate job seems conservative at best in the face of my recent experience.

But to all jobseekers, and particularly the very worthy people who weren't successful with us : please don't give up hope, keep taking the time to produce quality applications and your opportunities will come...

(P.S. Congrats to the one that did make it - I look forward to working with you in September!)