Two weeks down (50 + 156 to go...)

October has passed me by almost completely, in a whirl of lectures, reading lists, journal articles, train tickets and, happily, a little lindy hop.

They did say it would be hard work...
Image by The Prudent Cyclist

Two weeks into my Masters, I'm very pleased to say that I'm enjoying what I'm doing so far. Some of it is a bit of revision (never a bad thing, especially after a year out) but there's a lot of new stuff in there too. I'm heartened by the fact that we're on the threshold of knowing more about the brain and how it does what it does, and I hope I can contribute to this new venture in the years to come. I'm finding that postgraduate study takes you from the realm of confirmed fact and certainties to the brink of real discovery - a little disconcerting, but very exciting indeed.

However, getting to grips with new theories and the latest research requires a LOT of reading - eye-crossing, mind-scrambling, fatigue-inducing amounts of reading. At time of writing, I am up to date with my reading...but give it a couple of days and a weekend in Richmond and I'll still be frantically trying to understand Cinque's 1990 account of Clitic Left Dislocation come Monday.

On the more pastoral side of things, I'm getting to know the campus and the city much better, and I'm settling into a kind of extended friendship group, thanks largely to the people I met at the York GSA's Meet a Housemate event as well as some very lovely people on my course. In fact, regarding the latter, I'd like to thank them for electing me as the MA representative for the department's Graduate School Board - I will do my best to represent them and their views as the year progresses. I've also taken up playing netball for my college, Wentworth...having not played for 8 (!) years, I was actually quite pleased with how I played at Goal Defence, my spectacular full-length face-plant across the goal third notwithstanding. Of course, we were still beaten by Vanbrugh 15-10, but they're all 18, so we win morally, I think.

Lindybombing the Festival of Ideas underneath the
Raised Faculty Building
Photo by Minh Hai Tran


In other news, CLX 2011 (that's the Cambridge Lindy Exchange, to the uninitiated) took the Sidgwick Site (and most of the rest of Cambridge) by storm last weekend. I particularly enjoyed the opportunity to see a lot of lindy hoppers, both those who are still Cambridge-based and other itinerants like me, not to mention about 12 hours worth of dancing. Cambridge itself is looking as stunning as ever this time of year (autumnal colours + 20 degree heat? Yes please!) and I have to add in an honorary mention for the East of England Ambulance Service, who came wonderfully to my aid on the Sunday morning (note to self: ask future dance partners if they've been eating Brazil nuts...)

Anyway. I should not be here, I should be at a desk getting my head down and attacking Cinque with highlighters. Poor man, he was only trying to clarify CLLD...

P.S. For a good read about PhD reading vs extreme procrastination, read here...

The eve of the beginning of the rest of my career

Hm, lots of prepositions in that title, but it's true! Lectures start with a vengeance on Monday (that's tomorrow, at 1.15pm, to be fair, no 7am alarm calls for me until Tuesday) and my MA in Psycholinguistics will be well underway.

So what have I been doing for the last week in York? Other than acclimatising to the dramatic drop in temperatures (which, to be fair, is mostly due to freakishly warm weather across Northern Europe in early October), I have been gradually finding my way around the compact yet confusing Heslington West (or main) campus - whoever designed the signposts needs a serious talking-to - and finding out what it has to offer in the way of resources and support for me and my fellow new postgrads at York.

Berrick Saul by night
Image by itspaulkelly

And the answer to that is: quite a lot, actually! A huuuuge amount of money has been invested in learning resources over the last few years and, fortunately, a sizeable portion of that has gone towards the arts and humanities. The most obvious use of this money can be found in the shape of the Berrick Saul building which houses the Humanities Resource Centre.

Can I hope for some of this on a
Thursday?!
Photo (and cake!) by the magnificent
Jo Bradley

It's a beautiful building (a rare thing on York's campus - sorry, but it's true!) with lots of bright, airy, silent* workspace for postgraduates only. We Masters students are allowed to "perch" at any free desk, whereas PhD students can apply to create a "nest" at a specific desk...we really are the Tweeting generation, it would seem. If that wasn't enough bird terminology, the HRC also has its very own Treehouse, a round, multipurpose space which is mainly intended for seminars, small conferences and receptions. It's not all about the building, however; the HRC is a hub for setting up and running reading groups, has its own blog and houses various research groups as well...and, as a further suggestion that librarianship is closer to the postgraduate lifestyle than it may seem, Cake Thursdays encourage people to get together away from their desks...I'm selfishly pleased to see that a lot of people have already volunteered to bake on Wednesday nights. I love eating...just not so keen on the baking myself. I'll bring the bottles :)

Right, less about cake. Of course, the HRC is not York's only offering. It's a little difficult to pass judgment on the JB Morrell Library and Harry Fairhurst Building just yet, as there is still a lot of construction work going on around the two. However, I have already found the library staff to be extremely helpful (I speak nothing but the truth, I'm not just sucking up to the wikiman and colleagues!), the Humanities Reading Room is a good space for silent work and I think that the Research Lounge** in the Harry Fairhurst could become the site of some very successful group work (and more than a few reviving cups of tea).

This is not to mention the labs in my department, the incredibly welcoming and friendly staff and the (fairly) secret e-lab, which looks like it will be useful for grabbing a networked-PC in hours of need. No, I'm not telling you where it is, because I'm that bad.***

In short, I have no shortage of places in which to read, think, write and generally attempt to get my head round everything that will be thrown at me this year. Now I just have to find out where everything ELSE on campus is (toilets, for example, seem to elude me!) and all will be well.

Not my nest, but a very comfortable looking-one indeed.
Image by CaptPiper

*Not so silent when the ultra environmentally-conscious windows decide to whirr shut.
**Next to the Research Hotel. I am yet to work out what this is, but I somewhat doubt it's the same as the wonderful Library Hotel...
***Only messing...I'll tell you for a cupcake.

The wanderer reappears...in North Yorkshire

No, the sublime Helen has not abandoned Cambridge (I'm the one guilty of that), but after a week and a half lying-in in Chester, four days sunbathing and seeing friends in Paris, and a lot of unexplained stressing, I am now settled in York and just starting off on my MA journey.

Another gratuitous baby elephant,
the trepidation of taking the plunge!
Photo by urbangarden

I'm no stranger to moving house (this is my 7th address in 7 years), and I had no compunction either in decamping to France, or in disappearing off to Cambridge alone on little more than a whim. So why did my move to York fill me with such trepidation? I knew the city a little and am enchanted by it, I had three very pleasant housemates in a very pleasant house waiting for me, and I had already had two very successful and encouraging meetings with my new supervisor, George.

There are a couple of explanations for my nervousness, which my fantastic family and friends helped me deal with. As superb bride-to-be Fliss explained, after 5 problem-free moves, I was due a little wobble! But she has faith in me, so why shouldn't I have faith in myself? My mum and dad listened to more than enough self-doubt and talked me through it and Julius is endlessly supportive too. Together, they all helped me realise that my main reason for being so scared was precisely because I know what I want to do now. My year at the Classical Faculty Library was a fantastic learning experience and an enjoyable first foray into the "real" working world with some excellent colleagues. But it was particularly useful in that it made me realise that postgraduate study and ultimately, a career in academia, was the route that I really wanted to pursue. Subconsciously I think that I've known this for some time, and so embarking upon the first step towards this career, not to mention the daunting task of getting back into studying and writing, was the real reason for my wobbles.

Me and my new housemates

And, just in case you were wondering, my first week in York has dispelled most of my fears; my housemates and the other new postgrads that I met at the GSA (Graduate Student Association)'s Meet a Housemate event are great fun, we're just getting going with departmental inductions and receptions and, like the well-behaved ex-librarian I am, I'm off on my tour of the JB Morrell library and other facilities later today.

It's early days yet but lectures start next week and I can't wait to get going.

Thing 23: The end of the beginning

The summer has gone away as quickly as it arrived, my time in Cambridge is coming to an end, and what better way to round it off than with a bit of reflection about our rerunning of the Cambridge 23 Things programme.

I have greatly enjoyed blogging on a regular basis; it has helped keep me writing and reflecting in my post-graduation period and I hope I will manage to keep it up during the years to come, even if the focus of the posts might shift a bit. 

My blog, in Wordle format! Created using http://www.wordle.net/

There is no doubt that a lot of the Things which I have learnt about in the programme will come in handy in the years to come, though admittedly, some will see greater use than others - I'm going to start my reflection with the less successful Things (but only so I can end on the good ones!)

Bottom of the class

• LibraryThing was an unmitigated disappointment for me. The design was poor, the interface complicated, and the results inaccurate at best. A great idea wasted, in my humble opinion.
• Google+. I know this wasn't a "Thing", but it popped up during the programme and again, promised so much but delivered...not a lot. It claimed to be "the" successor to Facebook and 101 other media tools but frankly (FB's new update and all), it really has to step up to compete with existing applications, not to mention taking a good hard look at its privacy policy...

by  rich115

My Cam23Things end of term report

Must try harder
(N.B. It's really me that should try harder, rather than the applications...)

• RSS feeds are a fantastic idea and I am using them in a small way via my Netvibes homepage. However, I am yet to find a reader/streaming program that really works for me, but I'm sure there is one out there.
• Evernote is a great resource, but I've yet to make it a real part of my online routine. Initially I used it for links, but Delicious overtook it. I have saved some images to it but I'd rather just keep them all in the "My Pictures" folder on my PC. I really like the idea and the design of Evernote but is it really useful to me? The jury's out.
• I need to get into the habit of using Creative Commons licensing tags because a) it's far more professional, b) provides more information for people who might see my reuse of stuff and c) it's an excellent idea that needs promoting! The problem is getting the formatting to match up to the picture, but once I get to grips with Ange's very useful workaround, I will develop better CC-tagging habits (see above for my first attempt!)

Gold stars all round

• Lightshot - lauded by all, so I won't bore you with any more hyperbole about the incredibly easy-to-use, superb, immensely useful and all-round Best App in the World Ever. 
• Prezi's popularity is attested to by its prominent position in the Wordle cloud above, which was unexpected...but then I really did enjoy all the neat tricks and formats it provides (to be used in moderation, of course)
• The Thing I use with the most regularity is probably Delicious - so much clearer than browser favourites and accessible from everywhere, it's simple but superb.
• I'm ready to hang my head in shame as I admit that Twitter is the second most used Thing that I have used in this programme. I only use it during work hours but as a medium for sharing professional information and engaging with others in the profession, it's unparallelled. I have also benefited from it in a personal capacity in terms of hearing about culturally exciting things (the Short Story Tweetathon, for one) and understanding certain issues better (mental illness, for example).
• Finally, all the amazing Cam23 bloggers, who have brought their own take on the Things offered and presented them in their individual and inimitable styles - it has been a privilege to read so many interesting things by interesting people that I had never heard of before.

On that note I'm going to finish with an homage to on of the other participants, my fabulously supportive boss Lyn, who has inspired me with her fantastic final post from last year's programme:

Blogging 'bout Things
Like a Doodle or two
Things
Like iGoogle for you
Things
(Things?) Like a Wordle cloud
Turn that podcast right up loud

Things that Flickr makes so pretty
Things that make a blog so witty
Screencasting for all the world to see
Though wikis may not be the Thing for me

Read about Things
On an RSS feed
Things
On Delicious to read
Things
Filed in Zotero
(Oh Oh) Reflecting on the Things you know

Things
Like the Lightshot feather
Things
That Link(ed) us In together
Twitter is the Thing we're talking through
And Facebook is one Thing we like to do.
(You can find Bobby Darin's somewhat more lyrical original "Things" here)

Thanks for the good times.

Becky :)

A glut of extra things (but lots of pretty pictures)

It's a bit of a last-minute rush, but I simply couldn't bear to leave all the pretty Extra Things undone before Cam23 is over for another year.

Starting with the prettiest of all the Extra Things, the data visualisation section has cheered up many of our blogs, as well as celebrating blogiversaries and even, crucially, promoting libraries!

I have used Wordle in the past and will be using it as part of my final post (*sob*) so I decided to give Tagxedo a go for this extra thing. I like Wordle very much but Tagxedo allowed me to produce this:

Although Tagxedo is a little less straightforward to use, it offers a much more simple way to shape your word clouds and create something perhaps more coherent with it. I chose a lightning bolt because the Cam23 programme has been full of little flashes of inspiration, as well as the occasional bolt from the blue! 

I was looking forward to Gliffy after seeing all the lovely floorplans that have popped up liberally across the Cam23 blogosphere. However, whilst I could try to recreate my lovely new terraced house in York, I've only spent about 15 minutes in it to date and therefore can't really remember what it's like. Instead I've decided to try something a little more serious with a Venn diagram about the overlap between librarianship and academia:

Created using www.gliffy.com

As a disclaimer, it is, necessarily a bit of a generalization on both sides. It's actually quite a difficult topic to expand upon though, because there are so many almost-correlations, and a lot of myths on both sides. I used this helpful post by Betsy and a careers case-study to help, not to mention sending my Classics colleagues into a right old debate in the office - so I hope that you agree with some of my ideas, and if you disagree with other, please let me know why and we can carry the debate on here!

Back to data visualisation for the moment - what better way to promote your library/webpage/blog/links than with a personalised QR code? The codes in themselves are a very clever marketing ploy (as long as your target audience is smartphone-savvy!) but are eeeeven cooler if they reflect the product (for want of a better  word) as well. Something along these lines, perhaps...

Created at http://vanity-qrcode.com/

Shameless, shameless (and in this context, slightly pointless) self-promotion.

What's left for this whistlestop tour? I blogged about list-making software and, naturally, tried out all the ones that I blogged about. In fact, some of my opinions are pretty thinly veiled in the Cam23 thing post here. My favourite was TeuxDeux, and I'm pleased to report that it has been successful...at the other end of the office, where Lyn raves about it! But me, I'm devoted to my scrappy bits of paper and notes stuck to the computer monitor - call me a luddite, but there's something very satisfying about tearing up a completed task, altering an ongoing one, or doodling all around the job you're putting off (as opposed to on Teux Deux, where your outstanding tasks chase you from day to day!)

Another very pretty Thing (or couple of Things) is the Tumblr/Posterous brand of short blogging. I haven't used either of these programs but I can definitely see the usefulness of them. I think the kinds of images and quotes I like to share are a little too random and unfocused to warrant a whole Tumblr page, for instance, and so I tend to share them as individual weird ideas on Facebook or Twitter (this was today's offering, which really made me smile!) I find that Facebook also allows me to discuss such things with friends more easily, because of the extended contacts that I have built up over 5 years (!) of using it and because it is an accepted (maybe expected?) way in which my friends and I utilise the Facebook News Feed. However, I think this site is a brilliant use of the software (even if the premise itself confuses me a little) so if I had a coherent and clearly defined point to make, I would definitely look to these kinds of tools.

And finally, I cannot forget Dropbox from weeks and weeks ago - I have an account because a friend sent me some large files using it some time ago. I must admit that it worked very well on that occasion...and that I haven't used it since. Photos I send via email, documents I share using Google Docs, resources I have posted up on Wikis...these all seem like perfectly viable ways of working, so for the moment, Dropbox is a bit redundant. Never say never though.

Thing 21: The End(note) is near at the close of this (Zot)ero...er, era...

Er...not sure that one's going to hold up, my friend...
Image by Papertrix

Cam23 2.0 is coming to an end and so is my traineeship...so it seems incredibly apt to focus on what happens at the end of a long effort...in academia, that's usually the dreaded bibliography. It seems so simple but the perils and the pitfalls are many; one too many sloppy references and you're headed for a plagiarism charge, so it makes sense to spend your time ensuring that everything is as perfectly referenced as possible.

But how do you get to that point? And why should you take all that time when, really, it's not necessary? I actually used to enjoy compiling my bibliography as an undergraduate (Gareth, you're not alone...) - I've always found formulaic things relaxing, but of course I was really just procrastinating, and I still managed to get some of the punctuation or the formatting wrong. Besides, the accuracy was dependent on my keeping good notes on everything I'd read, and the bibliographies that I'll be producing in York will be considerably longer than my undergrad efforts.

Is this how time will seem, as my postgraduate years stretch out
before me? Image by Darren Tunnicliff

Luckily, there are quite a few different options out there to help ensure that your bibliography is relatively stress-free. I'm not going to look at Mendeley, though I've heard good things about it; instead I'm going for two extremes - the intuitively easy Zotero, and the ridiculously complicated Endnote. I define them based on the ease with which I was taught how to use each program; Zotero took around 15 minutes with an excellently prepared session by Catherine at FAMES, versus a two hour session at Computing services accompanied by 40-odd pages of notes for Endnote. It seems ridiculous when the end result is virtually the same, plus Zotero is free, PLUS it is accessible from anywhere. Endnote is developing its "web" arm but the registration process is onerous. In all honesty, I'm fairly sure that I've forgotten most of what I learnt already...apart from the fact that the one thing that was incredibly easy to do in Endnote was deleting everything you'd been working on. And this is how they must be judged - the main advantage of reference management software is the time-saving aspect, and if the software is so unwieldy, complicated and linked to one lone PC, then I might as well have done it myself and got my geeky kicks at the same time.

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...