Thing 22: Reflective Practice (Applying for Engaged Professional Badge)

Some people are happy to stay as they are throughout their careers and do what they are asked to do without worrying too much about the bigger picture.  Others are keen to stretch their boundaries, explore new ideas, and make a contribution to their profession.  Yet others seek to become beacons of their profession, break boundaries, and create change as they move along illuminating the way ahead for others.  The Engaged Professional segment made us think where in this continuum each of us exists and reminded us that - to paraphrase John F. Kennedy - it's not just about what our profession can do for us but what we can do for our profession.  To my mind, this segment bore a certain parallel to Critical Thinker, particularly Thing 16 Your Digital Footprint (which highlighted the professional profile that exists of us on the internet) and Thing 17 Sharing Your Work, and I am wondering if perhaps they would work better grouped together.  Then again, there are many ways to skin a cat and equally many to group Things together!

Thing 19 introduced us to podcasts and how they could be harnessed to promote our work and place of work.  Whilst I am a great fan of podcasts and love listening to them, including library-related ones such as Metric, I have some misgivings about using them as an advocacy tool.  My main reason for saying that is that I have a notion podcasts are quite time consuming to put together, particularly if one aims for a weekly or monthly serial.  On the other hand, they require no complex equipment or software to produce, and people who are easy going, good at ad-libbing, and not inclined to sweat the small stuff would probably throw one together in no time!

Thing 20 focused on advocacy and engagement, and was one of the most important and thought-provoking Things on this course.  My first thought on reading through it was that not everybody who works in a library has an opportunity to engage in advocacy.  Then I stopped dead in my tracks as I realized what a foolish notion that was.  The way we interact (or fail to interact) with our patrons, the way we provide (or fail to provide) a service, and the way we conduct ourselves daily at work, are all forms of advocacy and contribute to the way archives and libraries are perceived by the wider society.  It reminded me of the public library where I worked for some years.  We were joined by a new staff member who had never worked in a library before and felt nervous about her new role.  However, she had great people skills and a genuine love of books, and very quickly she learnt to combine these two assets.  I have no idea how she did it but she was able to match anyone struggling to find something to read with just the right book.  Her popularity rating among the library users shot through the roof and with it so did the positive image the users had of the library.  It really brought home to me how being an advocate of one's profession doesn't require a lot more than the right attitude.  A big smile and willingness to help can do as much as if not more than an infographic or a podcast.

Having said that, reaching beyond the local library service and advocating the seminal role libraries and archives play in society requires a bit more than a friendly smile.  Here, advocacy campaigns and the work of professional organizations such as those discussed in Thing 21 pay a key role.  Joining a professional group adds weight to this work and is something that every information professional should consider doing.  These organizations also provide an ideal platform for anyone interested in continued professional development as they arrange training courses and development programmes, organize conferences, and can provide funding for research projects.  I was encouraged by my course leaders to join the Archives and Records Association on the first day of starting my degree course in archive administration, and I think it was the best advice they could have given me.  Joining this group has made me feel part of a wider community of people in the same profession, enabled me to continue my professional development in a structured way, and kept me up to date with news and current issues affecting the archival world.  It has also made me think more about what I referred to at the start of this blog - what can I do for my profession?  At the end of the day, libraries and archives are fragile institutions and dependent on support from the wider community.  Should not each of us contribute in our own way, no matter how small, to ensure that these institutions have a future and that we as a profession have a future?

Two months ago I didn't think I had a hope of getting this far but by some miracle this is my last post and I'm still within the deadline!  I would like to thank the Rudaí 23-team for yet another invigorating and thought-provoking course, and for the many interesting, challenging, creative, frustrating and frightening assignments you devised to keep us on our toes!

Images:

Image 1: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff on Flickr by Lectionary under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0

Image 2: Wikimedia Commons

Thing 21: Professional Groups

For Thing 21, I have selected Option 4 as my task.  I joined the Archives and Records Association (ARA for short) as a student member in 2006, when it was still called the Society of Archivists, became a full member when I graduated in 2011, and a registered member in 2017.  ARA is the lead professional body for archivists, archive conservators, and records managers across the UK and Ireland, and has about 2,500 members.  On its website, ARA lists its main functions as follows:

1. To represent the interests of the profession nationally in discussions with central and local government, with allied information professionals, and with the archive user community.
2. To set standards of professional conduct.
3. To provide, monitor, and develop training for the profession.
4. To promote the exchange of expertise and experience among its members.
5. To market the skills of its members to potential employers.

Among other things, ARA organizes an annual conference for its members, provides research funding, runs accreditation schemes, runs and supports campaigns to raise the profile of archives, and distributes awards to teams and individuals who deserve recognition in their achievements.

Strength in Numbers!

I have nothing but good things to say about joining ARA.  It makes me feel part of a professional community (particularly important in a profession where you often work alone or as part of a very small team); keeps me informed about job opportunities, upcoming conferences, and current issues; offers training opportunities; and provides the chance to promote projects and share news through its magazine and newsletters.  In 2012, I signed up for ARA's Continued Professional Development Programme (then called Registration Scheme) in order to become a registered or 'chartered' member of the association.  It was quite a tough experience, as it meant I had to undertake twelve different projects which had to fit into one of four different categories - training courses, study and research, work achievement, and contribution to profession - so that each category was represented by at least one project.  It took me five years to complete the process but it was worth every minute.  I learnt a huge amount and spent much of the time totally out of my comfort zone which is always a good thing!  I might add that completion of the 2015 Rudaí 23-course was one of the projects I undertook, and I had no difficulty in having it accepted as part of my accreditation portfolio.

I should very much like to be more involved in the activities of ARA's Ireland Region but the fact that these are mostly centred around Dublin makes it complicated for somebody living in County Cork!


Image from Pixabay under Creative Commons Licence CC0 1.0.

Thing 20: Advocacy and Engagement

This Thing dealt with advocacy for libraries however the issue is no less relevant to archives. In fact, public libraries have the advantage of being public and familiar, whereas archives are generally perceived as something more mysterious or less easily accessible.  Advocacy is an important tool for breaking down such misconceptions and presenting archives in an approachable and visitor-friendly light. Few people know what archivists do, and raising general awareness of this, and of the vital contribution archives make to the preservation of and access to information, is another thing advocacy can enhance.  Elsie Freeman Finch, a prominent figure in the promotion of archives, has gone as far as to suggest that marketing and customer relations should supersede the traditional functions of acquiring, describing and preserving records as the core activities of archives.  It makes sense, for what is the point of preserving records if nobody uses them?

I confess I broke out in a cold sweat when I saw the exercise for Thing 20!  I am not sure if I can complete every section, but I'll give it my best shot.

Exercise 1: Name three detrimental effects to a local community when a public library is closed.

1. The community loses a safe space where children and teenagers can relax, engage in learning activities, and learn to enjoy reading

2. The community loses access to free resources such as computers, internet, wifi, and opportunities for training and further education which these resources facilitate

3. Senior citizens and people with special needs lose an important space for social interaction and recreation, and access to special resources such as free newspapers, large print books, and audio books

Exercise 2: Find a Library Strategic Plan in Ireland or beyond for a library of any size.  Identify three ways in which the strategic plan also advocates for the Library Service.

I have taken a look at the 2016-2012 strategic plan for the National Library.  The plan acknowledges the financial constraints which affect libraries throughout Europe and seeks to develop innovative solutions to enable them to continue delivering public services.  Advocacy plays an essential role in the strategic plan and is woven seamlessly through every aspect of it.  Here are three strategic aims listed in the plan which demonstrate this:

1. Provide equal and safe access for everyone
2. Build on the research and educational strengths of collections
3. Trial innovative forms of engagement with online and physical collections

Exercise 3: Name three ways in which you can demonstrate the impact and value of the library service that you work in or use.

1. Collecting statistics through surveys and footfall counts, and distributing this information or making sure that it gets into annual reports
2. Circulating positive feedback received from patrons
3. For archives and academic libraries in particular, keeping track of theses, books and articles which cite material held in your repository and sharing this information with management

Exercise 4: Identify three key people (name their role) outside of the library in the wider organisation/community that you need to network with in order to advance the development of the Library Service.

1. Local politician, ideally one who has shown demonstrable interest in or support for libraries and archives; and/ or the local county or city manager
2. Prominent writer or journalist who hails from the area
3. Heads of other libraries in the area/ region - there is strength in numbers!

Exercise 5: Write down in 200 words or less an idea for Library Ireland Week for a library you work in or use.

Archives have a similar week called Explore your Archive which takes place at the end of November each year.  For a couple of years now we have run a very successful event during this week called Attics to Archives.  It's a hands-on workshop for people who have photographs and family documents at home and are looking for advice on how to organize and preserve these.  In addition to low-cost archival preservation tricks, the workshop teaches participants how to digitize and share records.  We have held workshops in our reading room and in the city, and find it a wonderful advocacy tool: people get to see what we do, and gain personal benefit from our knowledge.

Exercise 6: In your opinion what are the three best features of the My Library, By Right Campaign and why?

1. It raises public awareness of the importance of a quality library service and gives people an opportunity to lend their support; mass pressure from the grassroots level is the one thing politicians are apt to listen to and act upon
2. It brings together national and local government, library users, and professional bodies; this encourages open dialogue, creates momentum, and opens the way for working together towards a common goal
3.  It highlights the role libraries play in society, and the false economy of library cuts, which may in turn invigorate libraries by encouraging people who don't normally use them to become patrons

'What do libraries mean to you?'

Exercise 7: In 200 words or less, describe a new area of librarianship that you are passionate about. How would you go about promoting it within the library that you work in and/or the wider library profession?

Speaking as an archivist, I have become passionate about engaging with people who don't normally use archives and encouraging them to participate.  Considering the increasing popularity of social media and other forms of online activity, making collections available on the internet is one way of approaching this challenge.  Finding new and imaginative ways of communicating with potential new patrons is one of the reasons I participated in this course.  Engaging with existing users and inviting them to comment on the existing service is also important in order to find out what the service is doing well and what it could be doing better.  I try to promote this idea by highlighting that making holdings easier to discover and access is the best way to increase physical and digital footfall in the Library.  I also point to the fact that in the age where e-books are becoming the norm and the role of books as physical objects is diminishing, a library with unique archival holdings has a distinct advantage in attracting users and keeping up visitor numbers.

Exercise 8: Choose an area of library practice that you feels requires debate.

Again speaking as an archivist, the issue I would like to debate is whether the training currently offered to prospective archivists is fit for purpose.  When I graduated six years ago, my modules focused on collection development, description, management of archive services, and specialist skills such as paleography.  These are all valuable and worthwhile skills to possess yet my work revolves more and more around digitization, online exhibitions, and digital curation.  The only part of my course that in any way touched upon these subjects was a module on electronic records.  The situation has not changed.  Although modules on digital information and digital preservation have been added, they are not compulsory but can be selected as optional extras.  I often feel that anyone wishing to become an archivist in today's world would be better off acquiring a degree in IT than traditional archive administration.  The work archivists do and the way in which they do it has changed dramatically in the past ten to fifteen years yet archivists are still trained within the old framework.  A small example: my five-year course included about two hours's training on archival management software, yet it is a tool I have to use almost daily in my work.  I understand that the fundamental building blocks of archival principles have not changed - nor should they - and learning them is important, but I feel a bit hard done by the fact that virtually everything I know about digitization, content management systems, social media, and archival management software, I have learnt outside of college through my own initiative.  There is nothing wrong with that either but I do feel that archival training should not exclude these issues or make them optional.

Exercise 9: Open up the ALA Frontline Advocacy Plan. Complete the plan for a real/fictional advocacy campaign.

I am going to give this last exercise a miss as time is running short.  Apologies!!!

Image: 'What do Libraries Mean to You' by ijclark on Flickr under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY-NC 2.0

Thing 19: Podcasts

I am a big fan of podcasts!  They come in every size and topic, they can be informative or entertaining or both, they are portable and easy to use, and make great listening on long journeys or while doing boring stuff like housework.  I am always on the lookout for new podcasts to listen to and was thrilled with the long list of recommendations at the end of this Thing.  I can't wait to check them out!

That said, I am not sure about using podcasts as an engagement tool in a library or archives environment.  For one thing, people tend to listen to podcasts for entertainment rather than professional development.  If you want to direct your podcast at fellow information professionals, are you sure you have enough new or interesting content or can add a new twist to familiar topics?  If the podcast targets library or archives users, how can you promote your service in an entertaining and captivating way?  This leads to the second issue, and that is that it takes time and effort to create a good podcast, let alone a regular serial, and not many institutions would have the time or manpower to commit to such an undertaking with any regularity.  I had a look at the list of library-related podcasts on LisWiki and of the 30 links provided, eleven had become defunct or contained no podcasts, three had not posted a new podcast in the last six months, ten had not posted new content since at least 2015, and only six were active and had posted new content within the last 30 days.  It goes to show how much time and commitment podcasts take.

For those keen to experiment with podcasts but struggling with limited resources, there is one option that might be worth exploring.  Podcasts are effectively blogs with sound, and technology is available to do just that - to turn your blog into a podcast.  Terry Ballard experimented with this on his blog Librarian on the Edge and had nothing but good things to say about the experience.

I was struggling a bit with the two options given for this Thing.  As I already subscribe to several podcasts, Option 1 wasn't really for me.  I was tempted to go with Option 2, and make use of the detailed instructions we were given on how to put together and publish a podcast.  However, knowing me I don't think it is something that I could throw together in an hour, and as I am already a month behind schedule and struggling to complete the course on time I couldn't very well opt for this either.  As a compromise, I have decided to review the first ever podcast that I subscribed to, called Thinking Sideways.  It was created in 2013 by two American guys and a gal, Steve, Joe and Devan, to discuss and debate unsolved mysteries of all kinds - murders, disappearances, strange natural phenomena, ciphers, ancient myths, and so on.  Each episode lasts for about an hour to an hour and a half and follows the same formula: presentation of the case and various theories that have been put forward, followed by discussion.  The three participants take turns to host the episodes.  The first one was published on 1 August 2013 and the podcast is still going strong, with 243 episodes released to date.

I started following the podcast in 2015 and was initially completely hooked.  I like the length of the episodes, besides which the topics are really interesting and the interaction between the three hosts is entertaining.  The discussion is in-depth but lighthearted and not too intense so that even when the topic is quite macabre you don't run the risk of losing sleep!  On the downside, the show is poorly edited and the hosts either keep interrupting each other incessantly or wander off topic on all sorts of weird and irrelevant tangents and take ages to get back on track.  This can be funny at times, but in the long run it becomes irritating.  Some of their jokes can be quite offensive (like laughing at the way someone has died).  There are also often serious flaws in their logical reasoning, sometimes to the point of utter ignorance, they make sweeping judgments, and their analyses of the cases seem to lead nowhere.  My biggest beef is with Devan who is the most vocal and opinionated of the three hosts but unfortunately also the least informed.  Her tendency to hijack each episode and shout down the two guys with uninformed inanities has gotten on my nerves to such a degree that I have taken a break from listening for about a year now.  However if true crime and unsolved mysteries are your thing, this podcast is worth checking out.  Others in this genre that I have enjoyed include The Trail Went Cold, Unsolved Murders, The Generation Why, True Crime Garage, Trace Evidence, and In Sight.


Image from Flickr by Casey Fiesler under the Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0

Thing 18: Reflective Practice (Applying for Critical Thinker Badge)

The third segment of this course explored the concept of critical thinking from various angles.  Thing 14 introduced us to personal information management.  Although it contained interesting detail, it seemed an odd fit as its focus was on organizing rather than evaluating information.  I appreciate that an orderly arrangement of facts aids critical thinking, but on balance Thing 14 may perhaps have been better suited for the Online Communicator segment, particularly as there was a certain overlap between it and Thing 12 on collaborative tools.

I was really excited about Thing 15 on evaluating information. It took a close look at Wikipedia, an information resource that I like and use a lot, and explained how Wikipedia articles are created and edited, and how they can be used as a tool for teaching critical assessment skills to students.  I had always wanted to learn more about Wikipedia, and learning how to edit and contribute to it has been the highlight of this course for me so far.  At the time I couldn't find any articles to edit but I have worked on Wikipedia since and made a couple of small edits here and there.  Wikipedia is often disregarded as an information source but I have always found it a great starting point for learning activities, and working through Thing 15 has only increased my respect for it.  If my work role involved teaching critical thinking to students, this is definitely a tool I would use.

I was a bit sorry to see however that Thing 15 was the only one in this segment that dealt with critical thinking, or, to put it in another way, that Wikipedia was the only aspect that was explored.  In this era of fake news and misinformation, the ability to evaluate facts and discern accurate information from biased or downright false is crucial, not least for those of us who work in information professions.  The internet is an invaluable source of information, but it is also a sticky spider's web that can trap you.  Tracking cookies follow you online activities, resulting in targeted advertising; YouTube remembers the videos you watched and makes recommendations based on your choices - the examples are endless.  This sort of insidious manipulation can be dangerous.  If you hold strong views on certain topics, you will find that the Internet will feed that view, and in no time you will be solely focusing on articles that strengthen it and ignoring those that offer an alternative one.  One way of protecting against this is by not using the social media as your primary source of information, and, if you read online newspapers, making sure you understand the possible political or other affiliation or bias they represent.

Fake news a la 1894

I had just finished working on Thing 16 on digital footprints when the Cambridge Analytica scandal began to make headlines, revealing that personal data of some 50 million Facebook users had been captured and improperly used to influence the 2016 presidential election in the US.  It is one thing to get into trouble over an ill-considered tweet or Facebook post, it's quite another to come to terms with the fact that personal information you have supplied in good faith to a social media site can be collected and analysed without your knowledge or consent, and then used to manipulate you.  As a consequence, people in their thousands have been deleting their Facebook pages.  Those who do not wish to take such drastic measures should carefully scrutinize their security settings.

The worst thing is that the Cambridge Analytica scandal is probably not the only instance of this sort of abuse, it is simply the one that has come into public scrutiny.  Thing 16 made some very valuable timely points about internet security.  I have always been a cautious, even reluctant, user of social media, and rarely if ever provide personal information to websites.  The revelations of the past week, coupled with reminders of Mark Zuckerberg's references to Facebook users as "dumb f***s" back in 2009 have done nothing to relax my attitude.  I was really pleased with Thing 16 and can only hope that when the next Rudai course is rolled out the issue of personal data and internet security will be given even greater emphasis.

Thing 17 provided information on hosting sites that allow you to share your professional work with a wider community.  While I rather enjoyed exploring the sites to which it introduced us, this is another element which I feel would have been better suited to the Online Networker segment.

The Critical Thinker segment was interesting and thought-provoking, and touched in a timely manner on some very serious issues which affect us all.  Never did I think I would live to see the day when presidents use Twitter to hurl abuse, when lying is presented as "alternative facts", and when politicians blatantly insist that truth doesn't matter, only their voters' perception of truth.  It has been heartening to see a gradual emergence of common sense in the midst of this chaos, and I feel increasingly reassured that truth will continue to matter.  More importantly, we as information professionals have a key role in ensuring that information based on facts, not on opinions, wins the day.

Image by Frederick Burr Opper on Wikimedia Commons

Thing 17: Sharing Your Work

Whenever I finish cataloguing a particularly interesting collection I tend to create a PowerPoint slide show and use it to give a presentation of the collection highlights to interested staff members in the library.  These presentations consist solely of images which I use as cues to remind me of what to say and when.  Because of this, they wouldn't really work on a shared platform as they wouldn't make sense to anybody other than me!  I did however create one PowerPoint presentation with sound for an assignment when I was studying for my archive administration degree.  The presentation deals with the value of estate papers as primary source research material, and my colleagues liked it so much it ended up on our Special Collections LibGuide.  That's my only claim to fame in terms of sharing stuff with a wider audience.

Working on this Thing, I decided to take a closer look at the listed hosting sites.  Slideshare is well laid out and really user friendly as you can either browse slideshows alphabetically or by topic.  Because it's connected with LinkedIn, the slideshows it contains tend to be very business and management orientated, but there's also good content on food, health, sports, art, and personal development.

Authorstream can be searched by category or by keyword, or by clicking on various options such as 'most liked' or 'most viewed'.  The one thing that struck me however is that most of the presentations on this website seem to have been created to promote a service or a product.  So if you happen to be looking for cleaning services in Toronto, or the best bridal make-up services in Dubai, Authorstream is the site for you!  It's also worth noting that the presentations won't work on Internet Explorer.

While Slideshare and Authorstream allow you to view slide shows without having to log in, with ResearchGate you have to create an account or sign in with LinkedIn or Facebook before you can access any content.  If you choose the latter option, ResearchGate wants permission to use your name, photo, headline, current positions, and email, and if you say no - you've guessed it, you cannot access the service.  So long, ResearchGate.

Sandbox gives free access to content, which differs considerably from the previous three.  This hosting site acts as a repository for something called Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and contains lesson plans for that Framework, or ideas and examples to teachers for incorporating the Framework.  You cannot really browse the content, instead, you search it by selecting options from a fairly complex set of drop-down menus.  The resources are all in PDFs which you can download for free.

The Jisc Store website has a nice clean design.  It contains a mix of free and fee-based resources and these can be videos, photographs, PDF-files, word documents, slide shows, or a combination of all or any of these.  However, except for the presentations highlighted on the homepage, you can only explore content by a keyword search, which I found a bit difficult since I didn't quite know what type of material the website contained.  I tried a few random keywords, and 'archives' brought up among other things a PDF-guide to the National Archives in the UK, a video guide to sharing, archiving or re-using sensitive data, and photographs from the official archives of the United Nations.  You will need to download the files you want to your PC or mobile device before you can view them.  As an educational resource, this seems to be the best and the most useful of the sites listed in Thing 17.

I found this Thing quite interesting.  I had no idea there were so many hosting services available for presentations, and I enjoyed exploring their content.  However, my overall impression is that many of them are either very generic or very specialised, and before sharing your work it's worth ensuring that you pick the right hosting site for the purpose.  For example, if I wanted to share my presentation on estate collections with a wider audience, of the sites that I explored only Jisc Store seemed like a reasonably good fit.

Image credits:

Image 1: Pixabay under Creative Commons Licence CC0
Image 2: Wikimedia Commons

Thing 16: Your Digital Footprint

This Thing raised an important issue which frankly I think deserves more attention.  In fact, the curious dichotomy of this entire course is that on the one hand we are taken through all sorts of online tools and taught how tweet and bleat and whatnot, and then on the other hand we are warned how dangerous all of that is!  I think integrating the two rather than treating them as separate issues would drive the point home more effectively. For example, when doing a Thing on Facebook and Twitter, it would be helpful to get pointers not only on how they can be harnessed to work for you professionally, but on the potential pitfalls and not so smart ways of engaging with them.  That would give participants a more informed idea of the tools at their disposal.

Now to the list of diagnostic points.  I never, ever give personal information to unfamiliar websites.  I rarely shop online and when I do, I only use tried and trusted websites such as Amazon.  I have on occasion purchased stuff from less-known website but only on recommendation of friends who have used the same service, or after having googled around and satisfied myself of its safety and reliability.

I never respond to any phishing emails or click on links attached to dodgy looking emails.  Having said that, phishing emails can sometimes be tricky to identify but a good rule of thumb is if it's from someone you don't know, don't touch it.

I don't download software unless I am a hundred per cent satisfied that it comes from a reliable source and is fully above board.  I have invested in good antivirus software which among other things scans all downloads and prevents me from downloading anything stupid, should I experience a moment of madness.

Wi-fi is not an issue for me as I don't possess a smartphone, and the antique mobile that I have can only be used for making and receiving phone calls and sending and receiving texts.  I have a laptop which I occasionally take with me but only as a note-making tool, I have never connected to the internet with it outside of my home.

Terms and Conditions - ah, there's the rub.  The trouble with these is that if you want something that comes with Terms and Conditions, unless you click that you agree with them you won't be able to get what you want!  It has always bugged me that people using services are at the mercy of those offering them and have no say in anything.  And do I diligently read through Terms and Conditions every time they are slapped in front of me?  Heck no!!

I avoid using Facebook and Twitter and never post any text or images about myself unless it is something completely neutral or work-related, nor would I dream of making comment about anybody or anything else on social media.  Years ago, my best friend became the object of a vicious smear campaign by a colleague who took a dislike to her, and she went through eighteen months of hell in a struggle to get all the offensive material removed from the internet.  It made both of us very, very social media shy and for a good reason.  Thankfully it also made us aware of how the internet works and how to go about tackling a problem of this nature should it ever happen again.

I am reasonably good about passwords, using random alphanumeric combinations and completely different ones for each website.  The massive downside of this is of course that I cannot remember a single one of them so have to keep a file on my computer on which they are listed.  I know there are various software packages available for storing and using passwords but I don't trust them sufficiently to use them.  I do try and change my passwords once every couple of years, at least for sites like Amazon and PayPal, but I admit I could be a lot more diligent in this regard.

Image: 'We ALL Leave a Digital Footprint' on Flickr by OllieBray, Creative Commons License CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0

Thing 15: Evaluating Information

I have never understood the negative press surrounding Wikipedia as an information source, or the sniffy attitude of educational establishments towards it.  I do a lot of work of academic nature and use Wikipedia incessantly.  As Rebecca O'Neill mentions, it is best used as an encyclopedia - not for citing in a publication but as a useful first port of call when you want to get your head round a new topic or to refresh your memory of an old one.  Wikipedia's greatest strengths are the bibliography and external links at the end of each article which open the doors to exploring the subject in greater detail.  For example, if you are interested in Charles Dickens, the relevant Wikipedia page gives you a whopping list of 90 books and articles cited or recommended for further reading, and 22 links to works by Charles Dickens and to museums, organizations and portals dedicated to him.  Even if you don't trust the article itself, what better place to start your own exploration of Dickens than this?

While Wikipedia may not appeal to the learned academics, it is an ideal resource for young scholars to get started on.  Wikipedia also serves as ideal teaching material.  Rebecca O'Neill mentions how students can be asked to evaluate the contents and references of individual articles.  Another way would be to get them to compare a well researched and well cited Wikipedia article with a poorly compiled one and note the difference.  I can't think of a better way to enhance critical thinking.

One of the fears that people have is that because of the open nature of Wikipedia, individuals can edit and manipulate text at will and by doing so mislead readers.  Well, my colleagues and I learnt the hard way that that's not the way it works, when we wanted to add our Long Way to Tipperary online exhibition as a reference source to one or two articles.  Within hours of inserting the information, it was edited out.  We tried it several times and every time we were caught out and removed.  I can't remember what the final outcome was but we actually had to make direct contact with Wikipedia to plead our case.  This experience further strengthened my respect for the reliability of Wikipedia as an information source.

I have also learnt that information published in prominent academic sources is no guarantee of its accuracy.  I recently had occasion to consult an academic paper in a peer reviewed journal and was shocked by the quantity of errors it contained.  Sources were quoted out of context, or referenced to articles from which they clearly did not come, and bibliographical entries were riddled with errors, from misspelled titles to wrong volume or issue numbers.  It really drives home the need for critical thinking and for keeping your eyes wide open when searching for factual information, particularly in the  jungle of "alternative facts" in which we currently exist.

I was keen to try out the Wikipedia editing exercise but to my disappointment couldn't find anything that I felt competent enough to fix, or anything that could be fixed quickly.  In spite of that, I really enjoyed this Thing.  Critical evaluation is a topic close to my heart and I really appreciated the opportunity to dwell in it in greater detail.

A Point of View Bias

Image from Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons License CC BY-SA 4.0

Thing 14: Personal Information Management

I like task lists and workflows and organizing my work, and have spent years looking for the perfect personal information management system.  I have experimented with dozens of different ones but without success.  The ones I tried out didn't fit the type of work that I was doing, or the way I preferred to organize my stuff, or the kind of stuff I was trying to organize.  Then there were those that were so complicated to use that I would waste hours trying to get a handle on what I was supposed to do - hardly a recipe for saving time.  I also found that many of these tools are quite addictive.  You spend ages organizing, filing, planning and making notes, and come back from it thinking you have made huge progress when in fact all you've managed to do is procrastinate.  When I looked at Evernote, I felt that - for me at least - this was one of those tools.   It's actually quite similar in its general concept to OneNote which comes with Microsoft Office and which (needless to say!) I have tried and failed to feel comfortable with.  There is in fact only one tool that has worked for me without fail, and that is the good old one-day-to-a-page appointment diary coupled with a pen.  It's portable, reliable, simple to use, easy to navigate and doesn't require a battery.

I am also an awful hoarder of information.  I save press cuttings and recipes, and copy things from books for reading later on.  I have umpteen folders in my filing cabinet for all these different items and the only time I open any of them is when I shove in more stuff.  Not once have I opened them to take out something to read.  Once it goes into the filing cabinet, I forget all about it and never, ever look at it again.  Nowadays, if something interests me I read it there and then, and then discard it, unless I find it so useful that it merits keeping.  If it's an online thing, I save it under Favourites or bookmark it, depending on the browser I'm using.  I had a look at Feedly but I'm afraid I would have no use for this tool.  The same thing would happen as with the folders in my filing cabinet.  I would keep storing things for later reading and never read a thing.  And anyway, I don't obsessively follow news feeds - in fact the only RSS feed I have on my PC is for BBC World News.  We live in an age of information overload and I have enough going on in my life without taxing my brain with a million other things happening around me.  If it is sufficiently important, it will eventually find me, whether I go looking for it or not.

Remember the Milk is like a digital task list and seems like a fun application, but unless you actually act on the reminder it won't get you far.  And there's the rub.  Having read through this Thing and experimented with various tools it dawned on me why they don't work for me.  My life isn't all that complicated.  I don't need half a dozen tools to set tasks and store information and remind me of what I need to do when and where and why.  I can handle all that.  My problem is with getting up and actually doing it.  Instead of taking action on all my notes and task lists and reminders I waste time waiting for inspiration, motivation, the right moment, or the right frame of mind.  Now, if someone invented a tool for generating that, I'd be the first in the queue to use it!  In the  meantime, I think I'll just stick with my appointment diary.

Ah, the good old days of simple technology...

Image sources:

Image 1: Pixabay, Creative Commons License CC0.
Image 2: GTDrawings Blog, 25 January 2006.
Image 3: Busyman's Magazine, July-December 1906, p. i.

Thing 13: Reflective Practice (Applying for Online Networker Badge)

For the Online Networker badge, we had three Things to do before the reflective practice.  For Thing 10, we were asked to choose either Facebook or Twitter, find a group, page or list that interests us, and join or follow them; or, send a hashtag on Twitter.  For Thing 11, we were asked to create a bio for an online profile; or to set up a LinkedIn or ORCID account and highlight aspects of our personal brand.  In Thing 12, we were introduced to a number of collaborative tools and asked to consider the usefulness of these in our own professional lives.

I was in two minds about applying for this badge as I know all too well that I cannot be called an online networker by any stretch of the imagination.  I set up a Facebook page years ago and cannot even remember the last time I visited it - I think it was back in 2012 or so - and the same goes for the Twitter account which I set up two years ago and have used to send a tweet precisely once.  I am somewhat more active on my LinkedIn page which I keep up to date as regards my professional development.  I have even gone as far as liking a post or two (living on the edge, man!) but as for posting on it myself, forget it.  It's not that I don't know how, it's just that I don't quite see the point.

Having said that, I am glad I went ahead with these tasks as they gave me much food for thought.  Thing 10 has made me rethink my views on Twitter and Facebook and appreciate their value as institutional networking tools.  It has also made me see the benefits these tools can give to individuals who want to raise their career profile and are prepared to work hard towards that goal.  Even though at this stage of my own career I would be slow to use them personally, I would not dismiss the prospect of resorting to them at a later stage to promote my work, and Thing 10 has given me the know-how to do that.

Thing 11 inspired me to customize my LinkedIn profile address and update my professional profile to bring it more in line with my current work situation.  I was also excited to learn about ORCID.  Research and academic writing is something that appeals to me a great deal and is something that I would like to explore in more detail over the coming years.  I was a bit disappointed that Thing 11 didn't go into more detail about ORCID but then again that's what Google is for!

Thing 12 provided a very useful introduction to collaborative tools and while some of these I am already familiar with, others - Trello and Slack in particular - were new to me.  I was interested to read up on these and would certainly like to learn more and experiment with both tools.

Beyond the practical skills that Things 10-12 provided, they also made me think more seriously about my own professional footprint in the digital world.  Googling myself in incognito mode was an eye-opener and made me realize that my professional online image is a bit patchy.  Some aspects of what I do are perhaps over-represented while others are almost invisible even though in real life they all carry equal weight.  Seeing this made me think more closely about my career and where I want it to take me in years to come.  I realized that there are perhaps too many strands to what I do and that now might be the time to decide which of these strands to focus on and strengthen, and which of them to let go.

I still have a degree of antipathy towards social media and online networking tools, but there is no denying that when used right they present an excellent means of branding and promoting one's skills.  I don't think I'll ever see the point of going all out and randomly operating every imaginable social media tool - Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and whatever new ones are sprouting up around us as we speak - but I do see the benefit of choosing one or two and using them systematically.  It has also struck me that different networking tools serve different purposes.  Twitter is great for networking ideas - spreading news, sharing information in real time, or finding the latest topics that are trending.  Facebook is great for networking people, building social relationships, and for ongoing topics or conversations that are not dependent on time or timing.  People who are more achievement-orientated and interested in a career change or very focused on promoting their professional skills are more likely to benefit from LinkedIn, while ORCID is the obvious choice for those interested in academic writing and research.  In today's increasingly competitive world it is hard to make oneself heard. To me it would therefore make sense to pick the tool that best meets your own career goals and run with that rather than fire haphazardly on all cylinders in the hopes that somebody somewhere will hear you.

Image: HD Wallpapers

Thing 12: Collaborative Tools

I'm not often involved in collaborative projects, and those that I participate in don't as a rule include individuals outside of the library.  This makes meetings simple as everybody is sitting face to face, and between meetings communication can be easily managed via email.

I do however have one project experience in the course of which I would have given my right arm for collaborative tools.  Two years ago, we were asked to create an exhibition based on one of our collections.  The exhibition was to be held in the Hunt Museum in Limerick City, it was designed by a Dublin-based company, and co-authored by a historian who at a critical time of the project was lecturing in America.  It was a communications nightmare.  We never managed to have a meeting with all team members present, and email chains worked poorly as nobody had real clarity on what tasks were the responsibility of which people.  We did manage a couple of conference calls but these only seemed to add to the confusion.

In the end, we managed to create a cracking exhibition but with the right tools the whole process would have been a lot easier, not to mention quicker.  Google Drive would have enabled us to scan and upload the exhibition items for the absent historian to see to make the exhibition narrative easier to write; instead, the narrative bore little relation to what was put on display and had to be extensively rewritten.  Trello would have been fantastic for keeping tabs on who was doing what and how the project was progressing.  Slack would have made communication a lot easier and ensured that nobody was mistakenly left out of the loop.  For conference calls, Skype would have been perfect as it would have enabled us to create virtual meetings with everybody present at the same time.  These are certainly tools I shall keep in mind if ever I am involved in a large-scale project involving a lot of people in different geographical locations.

I am a bit more weary of sharing documents online, particularly if these are of personal or sensitive nature.  I also find it a bit difficult to imagine a scenario in which a number of people would need to be working on the same document simultaneously.  The only example that comes to mind is a book in which every chapter is written by a different contributor, but even then one contributor would surely not start meddling with chapters written by others.  Anyway, that's just me being thick!  On the whole, I think collaborative tools are brilliant and increasingly relevant in a world where remote working and long distance travel have become a daily reality to many.

Image: Pixabay

Thing 11: Your Professional Brand

One of the first things I did when starting this Thing was to google myself in incognito mode.  I found it quite unnerving but was glad to discover that everything was above board and more or less matched my professional activities.  It is however quite disturbing to see how much information about you ends up on the internet without you having put it there.  Books I have written, talks I have given, archival catalogues I have prepared, qualifications I have gained - all of this is available at the press of a button without any active contribution from me.

This brings me to LinkedIn.  I set up a LinkedIn page with some apprehension during the last Rudai course.  I understand the need to make oneself visible in a professional capacity but this must also be weighed against the need (not to mention right) to privacy.  With cyber trolling, identity theft and online abuse on the increase, too much online presence is neither healthy nor safe, which in part explains my antipathy towards Facebook and Twitter as outlined in the previous blog.  Having said that, LinkedIn is the one online tool that I actually like and this is probably because it is professional rather than personal.  There is nothing on my LinkedIn page that is not available online about me anyway, and none of it is what I would regard as personal information.  I am OK with that, even though my personal preference would still be for no online presence at all but at this day and age that simply doesn't seem to be possible.

Once again, I have not been active on my LinkedIn page, but this Thing inspired me to customize my address and to update my profile which I have been meaning to do for ages as the old version didn't quite match my present situation.  If ever I become more ambitious in my career development, this would definitely be the way for me to go rather than Twitter or Facebook.

I don't have an issue with thinking of myself as a brand because I tend to see this as a tool which enables me to control what people know about me in the online community.  Whether you like it or not, information about you is likely to find its way to the internet.  That being the case, it is better to harness the tools that enable you to control that information rather than letting it control you.

Image: Joint Base San Antonio

Thing 10: Networking Tools

I have a Facebook page and have had it for years but I keep it strictly private and only share it with family members and a few of my closest friends.  To be frank, I don't really use it for communication as I prefer to keep in touch with friends and family more directly via Skype or email.  At any rate, Facebook to me is more a social thing and I have never considered using it as a professional tool.

As regards Twitter, I set up an account two years ago on the previous Rudai course and picked a few groups to follow but have never used it since.  To be effective, Twitter requires a lot of effort - crafting the post, responding to posts by others, and casting about for news to tweet or retweet - and after all that there is no guarantee that anybody will take a blind bit of notice of you.  It's like being lost in a vast canyon shouting, and hoping that the echo will carry far enough for someone to hear you.  To stand any chance of that, one should send several tweets a day and exercise constant vigilance, and to me personally it seems like an awful waste of time.  The work I do is quite monotonous by nature and I can't see anyone getting excited about news of me finding yet another rusty paperclip or filing a piece of paper in a shiny new folder.  I would only be creating pointless noise, and there is too much of that on Twitter already.

Can anybody hear me?

This is not to say that I don't appreciate Facebook and Twitter as networking tools.  Twitter in particular is brilliant for keeping up with the latest trends and developments, spreading news fast, asking questions, and connecting with people and institutions who share your views or post about similar topics.  As an institutional social media tool I don't think there is anything to beat it.  My department has had its own Twitter feed for the past two years now and it has done great things in raising our profile and making us feel as part of a great network of libraries, archives and enthusiastic information professionals.  The feedback and statistics have boosted our confidence and made our feel good about our collections - it is a great feeling to discover that they are appreciated not just by us but by the wider world!

I have also grown to value Facebook as an institutional social media tool.  When we created our Long Way to Tipperary blog, we set up a Facebook page to go with it.  One of the great benefits of this has been that Facebook allows people to make comment and interact with the project which the blog itself doesn't facilitate.  It has been a curious revelation to me that there are also those who don't read the blog but follow it enthusiastically on Facebook.


Image credit: Jay's Thought Stream

Thing 9: Reflective Practice (Applying for Visual Communicator Badge)

I went for Option 2 of the Visual Communicator section.  This required me to complete Things 3, 7 and 8.

For Thing 3, I was asked to explore one of the image banks mentioned in the blog and download an image from it.  As an added option, I was asked to write a blog about my experience, which I did - the blog can be accessed here.  I was really excited about this Thing as I use image banks a lot and was keen to experiment with Pixabay, which I hadn't heard about before.  I felt confident to use this tool and found it easy to do, mainly because I had used image banks before and they all work in pretty much the same way.  One interesting thing I learnt from this Thing is that image banks can differ quite a lot from each other in terms of their content - some are strong on contemporary images, others on clip art and so on.  Image banks are a wonderful resource and a great tool for creating infographics, LibGuides, how to-leaflets and websites, and I can see myself using them a lot in the future.  Another aspect I enjoyed about Thing 3 was firming up my knowledge on Creative Commons licensing which enables me to use images with greater confidence and to better understand the context and manner in which they can be used.  In the copyright jungle that exists today it is wonderful to have a resource that won't get you into hot water!

For Thing 7, I hit a snag, or rather several of them.  First, although the title of this Thing was 'online exhibitions', the instructions I was given didn't seem to match that concept as I was asked to recreate a poster or booklet online using a blog and re-imagine it in different contexts.  I asked one of the course directors what this entailed and was told that I should not scan any images but literally recreate them and use them for inspiration.  This threw me altogether (was I supposed to do an infographic or something?) so I decided to wait a few days to see how other course participants tackled this Thing.  Eventually I realized that the idea was simply and literally to create an online exhibition.  I think one of the reasons for why it took so long for the penny to drop is that I have previous - albeit not first-hand - experience of online exhibitions and knowing how incredibly time consuming they are I couldn't quite believe that this was what we were asked to do.  Things rapidly went from bad to worse as I had no idea what sort of an exhibition to create and it took me three months to come up with a suitable idea.  By then I was so far behind with the course that I nearly threw in the towel.  However, this was a skill I really wanted to learn so I decided to stick with it.

For my online tool, I opted for WordPress as I had done a beginner's course in WordPress basics a couple of years previously and wanted to put what I had learnt to good use.  On the whole, I found WordPress easy and straightforward to use, even though the free version differs quite considerably from the paid version in which I had received my training.  I did have a bit of trouble figuring out what to do when I was finished working on a page, and frequently ended up accidentally closing down WordPress rather than just closing the page tab. I also found that the options for manipulating the template in the free version are very limited.  This is fine for a simple, functional no frills website, but for anything more ambitious the paid version is a better option and one that I would opt for in the future.  I was quite nervous at the start as I wasn't quite sure what I was doing and was afraid of making a total mess of things but I am glad to say that going through the exercise has taken out the fear of using WordPress and given me a fantastic new skill to utilize.  It was really good to combine the training I had done with an actual experience of using this tool.  The Thing 7 blog on online exhibitions was also truly inspirational and packed with good information.  By far the best piece of advice was to plan the website before beginning to put it together.  I had a clear idea in my mind how I wanted the website to look and this made things like selecting the right template a whole lot easier.  Apart from the initial confusion and delay, I found this a truly positive experience and one that I would like to repeat in the future.  I honestly don't think there is a better way to promote archival collections and the wonderful stories they tell than through an online exhibition.  The exhibition I created for this Thing can be found here, and here is a link to the blog which accompanies it.

A snip of my online exhibition

For Thing 8, I was asked to experiment with Piktochart or Canva and put together an infographic on an easy topic.  I felt a bit wobbly getting started as this was completely uncharted territory for me but I was also intrigued and excited to learn something new.  I was relieved to discover that both online tools were really easy to use and this time I was even able to come up with an idea for the infographic in rather less time than three months!  I opted for Canva because it had a better range of templates to choose from.  On the negative side, the bank of free images available to users is very small, but having done Thing 3 I knew where to go and was able to download good clip art images from Pixabay.  I was also able to utilize some of the skills I had learnt from Thing 7, including the need to plan before you jump.  It was really nice to see all the new skills I had acquired coming together in this exercise!  Although I enjoyed learning a new skill, I am not quite sure how I could apply infographics in my line of work except perhaps if I were to attend a conference or put together a workshop and needed to bring along something easy and eye-catching as guidance or to promote our collections.  You can view my blog and the infographic I created here.

To sum up, earning a Visual Communicator badge has been a rewarding journey even though it required a far greater time commitment than I had anticipated when signing up for the course.  I am glad to have learnt how to create online exhibitions and infographics and awfully proud of myself for having stuck with the course when I felt it was slipping away from me.  Getting through the three Things was a big commitment but on the plus side I feel I have truly earned my badge!

Thing 8: Infographics

We touched upon infographics two years ago when we were asked to create one using Easel.ly.  I remember disliking it because in spite of its name I found this tool anything but easy to use.  I was a bit apprehensive having to tackle the subject again but it turns out my fears were unfounded!  I experimented with both Piktochart and Canva and found them super-easy to use.  I ultimately went with Canva because it had a much greater range of free templates to choose from.

I initially thought about turning a report which I prepared a few years ago into an infographic but this didn't work out.  The report was too long and had too many graphs in it, and squeezing it all into an infographic would have resulted in a cluttered mess.  Having said that, I think an infographic would be a great way to make a report or statistical data more digestible.  It would also be a great tool for providing step-by-step instructions for just about anything, or for presenting the key points of a difficult topic in an easy to absorb format.

Having discarded the idea of turning a report into an infographic, I had a moment of panic.  I am not the greatest in the world to come up with random ideas for projects and having wasted the best part of four months meditating on Thing 7 I couldn't afford to repeat that experience.  I therefore decided to go for something very simple and devised an infographic on the benefits of print books, the idea behind it being an attempt to entice people to pick up a real book instead of an e-one.  I found a template that suited the purpose nicely and found it very easy to manipulate.

As with WordPress in Thing 7, the one drawback of the free version of Canva is that the extent to which you can manipulate the template is quite limited.  For instance, I wanted to have the last two lines of the infographic in bold but this was not possible because the template was designed with non-bold text in this area and that was non-negotiable.  Another disappointment of Canva was that while there are plenty of brilliant images to choose from, the range of free ones is so limited as to be almost useless.  In order to make the most of this tool one would need to upgrade from the free version to Pro, or to pay a dollar per image which let's face it isn't a whole hill of beans!  However, Canva does allow you to upload your own images, either by saving them from a file or simply by dragging them across from your desktop, and there are plenty of good free clip-art images available in image banks such as Pixabay (as we learnt in Thing 3!).

This Thing has introduced me to a new way of conveying information and I found it a really enjoyable experience.  Here is the infographic I prepared:

Thing 7: Online Exhibitions

Well!  That only took four months...

I have mixed feelings about this Thing.  On the one hand, I was really keen on it because knowing how to create an online exhibition opens up an entirely new world of visual communication and with this skill the possibilities for promoting and showcasing archival material are almost endless.  On the other, I feel it was too much work for the confines of this course.  I had the advantage of having done a WordPress course a couple of years previously but even with that under my belt, scanning the images, writing up the text and then building and populating the website took me a solid eight or nine hours to complete.

Initially, I also had trouble understanding what exactly we were asked to do.  While I really enjoyed reading the blog for Thing 7 and learnt an awful lot from it, I found the instructions for the task given to us a bit vague.  Recreate a brochure?  Reimagine the material in different contexts?  It didn't really make sense.  I tried checking how other course participants had tackled it but very few of them had ventured into the realm of Thing 7 (can't really blame them!), and those who had seemed as confused as I was.  At least that was a relief!

Once it dawned on me that what we were really asked to do was to create an online exhibition I froze altogether.  I hadn't a bat's notion as to what kind it should be, and it took me a full three months of dithering before I came up with a suitable idea.  This I readily admit was my own fault and nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Thing 7!



Just finished Thing 7...
Image by Jessica Cross, Creative Commons Licence 2.0



What I finally decided to do was to bring together and showcase the collections in our archive which relate to the First World War, Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War.  There are nine of these altogether and I felt that the best way to present them was to give a separate page to each one.  It sounds like a lot of work, but it wasn't really.  For the text bit I simply extracted paragraphs from the existing catalogues, and as most of these collections have been fully or partially digitized I initially only needed to source and scan five images.  However some of the images did not look right or were the wrong shape, so it took a bit of toing and froing to come up with the final set of illustrations.

For the online service I went for WordPress for the simple reason that I half knew how to use it.  I had a very clear idea in my mind on the layout I wanted and was thrilled to find that WordPress had a free template, called Twenty Fifteen, which exactly matched it.  It was so good in fact that it required very little customising - all I needed to do was to change the background colour and remove some of the built-in widgets which I didn't feel I needed.  Uploading the images was easy, and the text I had prepared I could simply add by cutting and pasting.  I did come across some oddities though.  I nearly lost the plot trying to centre the image captions, which looked fine on the post editor but were always left aligned in the preview.  I wasted nearly half an hour ranting and raving until I discovered that the Twenty Fifteen theme has been designed to allow left aligned captions only.  What a waste of sweat that was.  I also nearly lost the will to live trying to get rid of the 'leave a comment' bubble which appears in the footer of the homepage.  I finally accepted that I could either jump off a cliff or just get used to the bubble so there it sits and bugs me.

The free version of WordPress is a great way for beginners to start learning about creating a website but it does have its limitations.  For example, there are only 100 themes to choose from, you cannot add any plug-ins, and you will have to put up with ads on your website which I personally find disagreeable.  The free version also limits what you can do with templates.  The Twenty Fifteen template for instance only had five colour palettes to choose from, and these in turn could only be manipulated by changing the background colour.  However, if you are happy with a simple and straightforward website, this isn't necessarily an impediment - I frankly am much happier choosing one theme out of a hundred than one out of several thousands!

So that was my experience in a nutshell, and here is a link to the result.

Thing 3: Image Banks

And we're off again!  Thrilled to start a new course - thanks and congratulations to course organisers.

For the Image Banks thing, I decided to take a closer look at Pixabay.  I have never used this image bank before, or frankly even heard of it so I was curious to see how it works and how it compares with Google Images and Flickr.

My first impression was - wow!  This site is a goldmine for really good, vibrant contemporary images and the site is very easy to use.  You can browse by category or do a keyword search and then define your search by orientation, size, colour and whether you are looking for a photograph, drawing, vector graphic or a video (this last one blew my mind altogether!).  I tried lots of different keywords and combinations of keywords and was really impressed with the results.  I did find that there is a certain sameness to images in some categories but that is perhaps unavoidable.

Downloading an image couldn't be easier - just click on the image you want, then click 'download' and you're good to go.  If you are not a registered user you are asked to type in a captcha before you get your image but that's no big deal.  I really like the fact that one can freely use this image bank without having to sign up.

Image by Ohurtsov, Creative Commons Licence CC0 

One thing that disappointed me a little about Pixabay is that it does not contain any old material - early photographs, postcards and suchlike - or if it does I couldn't find it.  In that respect Flickr and Google Images are better.

For those who are interested, below are a few other websites which will allow you to download and use images for non-commercial purposes as long as you acknowledge the original source.  Make sure however to check the copyright status of each item before you use it because not all of them are free from copyright.

Imperial War Museum
National Portrait Gallery, London
US National Library of Medicine's Digital Collections (contains some images to which copyright may apply)
Library of Congress Digital Collections (as above)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (look out for the CC0 icon for images which are free to use)