CPD23:6,7 Showing Some Leg

I watched the 1940s melodrama Madonna of the Seven Moons today. It's on iPlayer 'til next Friday should you fancy it too (it's also on YouTube). At the start of the following clip, Maddalena and Giuseppe Labardi await the return from boarding school of their daughter Angela and her new friend, Evelyn:

NOTE: Highlight the spoilers to read:

Maddalena is a straight-laced and devoutly religious society woman, and the anxiety her liberated daughter causes her soon proves too much, ultimately contributing to a mental and physical breakdown. She awakes from this breakdown as a different person : Rosanna : an atheistic gangster's moll and very much the opposite of everything Maddalena represents. It transpires that Maddalena has been subject to previous long-term disappearances during which she has established a parallel life for herself among the Florentine criminal classes. Things come to an operatic head during Carnevale. It's a film of dualities, masks and mistaken identity; from the early reveal of the assumed-to-be-female Evelyn to the climactic fatal mistaking of a rapist for his similarly-clad brother, the whole film dabbles with ideas of society, image and self-representation. The central narrative premise may be a touch shaky, but the thematic elements of the film spoke to me a great deal.

Like Maddalena, I present different faces to different audiences. The way I behave with my parents is different to the way I behave with my work colleagues, which in turn is different to the way I behave with my close friends. This is not an unusual state of affairs, though Google+ appears to be the first social networking tool to really get to grips with it. Pretty much everyone who has an opinion on the matter seems in agreement that the best thing about Google+ is the circles feature that allows one to restrict ones comments to particular groups of people. I do this on a wider level already (as, perhaps, do you). Consider the following approximation of my social groupings (where red represents my closest friends):

For myself, as for many of my peers, Facebook is a place where old school-friends display baby scans. I almost solely use it for its (clunky but effective) message client. Meanwhile, my work colleagues are largely unrepresented in my on-line relationships. The Twitter circle incorporates two near-discrete accounts (yet another way in which I temper my personality with respect to my audience). There are other net-based networks that I have not included in my diagram: forums, for instance. In general, though, I am a 'lurker' in these environments rather than an active participant. Not since the early days of Wikipedia have I taken a reasonably active role in such an on-line community.

One social network I have not joined is LinkedIn, which for a couple of years I assumed was the name of a naff teen-rock combo. Reading Samantha Halford's experiences (Twinset & Purls) generally confirmed my prejudices that this is not a site for me: I like my privacy, and certainly don't want to go waving my CV and my physical identity in the face of anybody who happens to be passing. The place stinks of the Masonic Lodge, but without the perks of copious drinking, tongue-in-cheek ceremony and ribald bonhomie that I suspect accompany the real-life orders. It's far too dry and 'business'-like; not real business so much as that parody of business peddled by Alan Sugar and his Filofax followers. I exaggerate for effect, but the formal tone and market-floor pitch does nothing to convince me that putting my employment history, identity and location on a particularly exposed bit of the internet is a sensible thing for me to do (though do please see this response for a counter argument).

Two chartered librarians exchange LinkedIn 'connections'.

I do have a profile on the LISNPN, though I've never really used the site (it's forum structure is a bit too clunky for my like, and most of what goes on there gets mirrored on Twitter). Except for the recent New Professionals Conference I've not attended any library-related social events excepting those organized by my Library School social society. I considered going along to one of the cpd23-related events this week, but my schedule got the better of me, and there was nothing that wouldn't've required more travelling than socialising. I do enjoy getting out there and meeting people, although I am always rather shy at the offset, and terrible at small-talk. This initial timidity on my part is something I need to overcome, and is complicated by an anxiety about how I am perceived. I can't help but worry if, not unlike my namesake in Madonna of the Seven Moons, I might not quite meet the expectations of my peers. This problem is further compounded by the fact that I only sent off for CILIP membership in the last fortnight, and have still to receive my introductory pack and secret handshake instructions. I look forward to their arrival with relish.