THING 16 - COLLABORATION TOOLS

Like many others, I clicked on the link to the Google Doc for Thing 16 and wondered if I'd somehow managed to get onto the wrong document ... didn't mean a thing to me but I've read people's comments and left one of my own, as instructed!

I love collaboration tools and have used them for all sorts of things. Interestingly, I don't use them very much at work in the school library. We have an internal email system whereby we can contact staff though sometimes I'll use the old-fashion way and leave a note in their pigeon-hole or just go and see them ... I'm conscious of how many emails staff get and how busy they are so this is often easier. It also means I get an immediate answer - and often I'm waiting on that answer before I can get on with my work - so this method does make my life simpler and I waste less time. We also have a VLE whereby we can share things and this is used extensively in school ... I think if I tried to use Google Docs, many of the staff wouldn't have a clue as to how to access it!

But I've used Google Drive to share documents, forms and slides on many occasions. The most common use has been for collaborative projects involving other school librarians across the country. There have been many joint activities that I have helped to organise or been involved with (such as Twelve Words of Winter competition, Guinness World Record attempts) and Google Docs has been the easiest way to share guidelines, nomination forms, etc. both within a committee or panel or as a public document. However, I've also use it to share public documents via my blog or professional articles I've written.

I am currently on the judging panel for the Pupil Library Assistant of the year Award and we are using Google Docs to share the required forms with a link from the award website.Easy, convenient and accessible for everyone.

I have also used these collaborative tools in my CILIP role, again to share documents or to make organising meetings easier via Doodle (which I think is a fantastic tool and wish more people would use it - so much more efficient that a stream of emails going back and forth trying to arrange dates).