Writing for publication

In July 2010, I realised a five year long ambition - to actually attend a training session on Writing for Publication. It's been a standing objective on my annual appraisal since I began working as a Clinical Librarian. Once, I signed up for a course only for it to be cancelled. Another time, I totally missed one by virtue of not reading a conference programme properly. In fact, I was so convinced I would never manage to achieve this at my last but one appraisal, I set about looking at things from a different angle - more on that another time.

But this Summer, I finally managed to find a session and go to it - at the Health Libraries Group Conference 2010, run by Maria Grant, Editor of HILJ, and Andrew Booth, from ScHaRR.

This came back to mind today for two reasons. One, I just received the post, and found this:
On the back was the writing objective I set for myself in the session. I've written "Project: MSc dissertation (and article?) - systematic review of PDAs. Audience: Examiners! And hopefully clinicians/librarians. Timescale: End of Sept for dissertation; end of year for article". And I've already achieved the dissertation part, which makes it all the sweeter. I have an Outlook reminder to start thinking about the article part next week. I love it when this happens, it makes me feel efficient.

I was in the group that did the "nutshelling" practical, which basically meant sitting down with a blank sheet of paper and just writing down what I wanted to say. There's meant to be no going back & crossing out, you just write and get over the fear of having that blank sheet in front of you! Editing can be done later. I've used it to draft this post today too; I've found it very helpful indeed.

I have had some other recent experience of writing for publication. Back in May I was asked to write a chapter for a new Facet Publishing book on Web 2.0. It was incredibly daunting, but with a bit of nutshelling, and a lot of research, I've just about managed it. It was another learning curve, using the style guide and instructions for authors and trying to make my point clearly. Between the chapter and the dissertation it's also meant I've got to grips with Refworks which has been really useful.

Another thing I have learned from the process of writing the dissertation, the chapter and this blog is that writing regularly is the key. Even if you do screw up that piece of paper & toss it in the bin.

Bye bye Bloglines

I have to admit, I switched to Google Reader a couple of years ago, but I do think the demise of Bloglines should be lamented. I found it incredibly useful when I did use it, and I can't actually quite remember why I switched anyway. I do remember it being fairly easy to export all of my RSS feeds, so hopefully anyone having to make the switch now won't find it too onerous.

It appears RSS feeds are on the way out, but why? Twitter is fine, but:
1. I had to get special dispensation to be allowed to use it at work.
2. It's a bit of a jumble with professional/personal crossover, and I don't want to deal with more than one account.
3. Sometimes it just moves too damn quickly! I'm not permanently plugged into it, I have other things to do.

I like the option to dip into my RSS feeds two or three times a week and find everything there, just waiting for me (I also really liked being able to publish useful stuff on my own Bloglines blog, but I didn't think anyone else was looking, so wondered what the point was). I've built up my RSS feeds over time, and don't know where else I would be able to find that wealth of information just waiting for me to read it when I'm ready. The Krafty Librarian agrees.

Google Reader does a decent enough job for me to keep up with all of my feeds in one place, although as the Health Informaticist points out, it has an annoying habit of asking me to upgrade my locked-down, NHS-issue IE6 browser on a regular basis. I'd love to dear, but I can't!

The blogosphere

I've been doing a little bit of handholding with a friend setting up her RSS feeds, and in return, she's been sending me links to some really good resources she's found.

I'll be perusing this list of medical library blogs this afternoon, and will be logging myself in to add this blog!

I'll also be having a look at the wealth of medicine-related RSS feeds on Medworm to see if there's anything I should add to my own feeds. This is a search engine of RSS feeds, so it may be something I add into my protocol for searches on new and emerging clinical techniques. There's also Libworm too!

As I also do a lot of current awareness (is the right term anymore? I have heard it's outmoded) work, I am going to try saving some of my PubMed searches as RSS feeds. I'm told it automatically updates the search everytime you log into your aggregator, which sounds interesting. I can't believe I hadn't investigated it before now - I've really taken my eye off the ball!

How to use web 2.0 in your library by Phil Bradley is a book that's been sitting on my desk unread for months. I need to schedule myself a catch-up on all this new stuff!