CPD 23 Thing 3: Personal Branding

Beccalovesbooks - I remember the day I created an e-mail account with that phrase. I had no idea at the time though that it would morph into being my "brand" for every social platform I joined, and prophetic into my librarian career.

I was working on my undergrad degree in piano performance at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and remember sitting in the basement computer lab of my dorm the night I created my online entity. I needed to get away from my former e-mail alias, sweet_beccalee (although I'm not sure beccalovesbooks is much better), and beccalovesbooks is what I came up with. So, in creating this new account around the year 2001, it was as if I had a predisposition to my library career...but of course at the time, librarianship wasn't even on my radar, and I was most certainly one of the idiots that thought we of the profession became a librarian because we love books. **shakes head at my own stupidity**

Fast forward to years later where I now have identities on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger, FriendFeed, Ravelry, Flickr and probably more that I can't remember...all with this new handle and with a new found sense of what librarianship really is about (it's not all books people!). In fact, doing a simple google search of my name with the word librarian behind it (beccalovesbooks librarian) brings up pages of search results where people have retweeted information of mine, as well as providing access to some of my online identities. For now I'm ok with this, but privacy concerns are also a key topic. All of this is to say that I have begun to make a name for myself in the library community, mostly with thanks to the Library Society of the World (LSW for short).

*********LSW Plug*********
I don't remember the exact time frame that the LSW came about (I think I joined around 2008), but since the original gathering, there have been many branches and avenues of the LSW that have morphed. From this original site, the LSW is said to be:

"A world-spanning group of library professionals and library advocates, dedicated to furthering the role of librarians, archivists, information professionals, and information educators through communication and collaboration. The LSW is about people, not buildings (although some of us think architecture is sexy). It's about friendship, not organization. It's about creating and fostering opportunities, not building barriers and divisions."
It truly is a fantastic free organization that I have learned so much from, and I've met a lot of amazing people along the way. If you're interested in joining this group of people, take a look at the following links:

• The Official LSW Site
• Meebo Chat Room - last log-in March 2011 as of this post
• FriendFeed Group - run as fast as you can to join this...it's where all the action is!
• Good Reads Group - this one has great potential, but hasn't really taken off

There are other areas of the LSW too, but these are the one's that I am most familiar with and have used. So I do hope that you take a look at a few of these areas (especially the FriendFeed group) and join up with a great group of library peeps.

*********End of LSW Plug*********

So I guess for me, branding just sort of happened. I hope to continue finding my "voice" and I'm really enjoying the reflection aspect of this CPD23 Program.