Who?
My name is Kara Jones. I’m Research Publications Librarian at the University of Bath in the UK. In this role my remit is to establish an institutional repository of research, and promote open access to scholarly communication, amongst other things. My background is as a librarian, and I have worked in academic libraries for over ten years. Professionally my interests include using social technologies with information literacy. Outside of work I enjoy hiking, swimming, reading murder-mysteries and travelling.
Why?
Why this blog?
I started using blogs with my work as a Subject Librarian for Maths, Computer Science, and Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath Library, UK. You can find that blog over at Bath Science News.
Blogs are a way of journalling or reflecting on experiences, thoughts and practices. They perform all nature of useful things like:
-
Community building
Highlighting a path of progression
Helping to keep up to date
Providing a different perspective
Provide a place to perform critical analysis and information synthesis
I hope that this blog will capture the thoughts, reflections, links-that-I’m-meaning-to-have-a-better-look-at, and other things related to institutional repositories. At best it will be a resource for those who are working on an institutional repository themselves to share experiences – at worst it will be a place for me to get my thoughts straight and put things where I can remember them for later.
Which brings me to my next point – who is my audience and how do I draw attention to my ramblings here in the hope of some constructive communication and community building? As I said, others who are working on repositories might be able to best appreciate the posts here. I would also be very happy for anyone at my workplace and university – academics, researchers and so on to read these posts as I hope it helps to illustrate the work going on behind the scenes.
How do I join the blogosphere and advertise my presence? This is where the tall-poppy syndrome kicks in – not wanting to big-note myself! So how to advertise my blog:
* link from my ‘staff contacts’ library page.
* add the link to presentations I do.
* add the link to my email signature
* advertise my blog’s existance on mailing lists i.e. lis-bloggers
* get linked from someone else on their blogroll
* add this blog to my Facebook entry (done)
* …
The Fine Print
This blog is not an official blog endorsed by my employer – hopefully there will be another place for that along the way, which I’ll point out. I will try to check my spelling and not blurt out inappropriate things in order to keep some semblence of quality. I reserve the right to change my blog policies and scope as necessary.
The photo in the header is of Japanese Acer’s at the Westonbirt Arboretum, 2007.
