Celebrating one year of blogging

A year ago I started this blog and really had no idea what I was going to do with it.  Well, of course I knew I was going to post stuff, but I had no overarching theme aside from writing about what it is like to be an academic librarian.  Now, I could write about what I have written in the past year, wax poetic about what my experience has been like this past year . . . nah.  I will say I am glad I started this blog.  But I’m still not sure what this blog is all about, I’m not even sure I have conveyed what it is like to be an academic librarian in the past year.  However, I think I am one year closer to defining what it is that I do here.  Can I convey that today?  Of course not.  But today, one year in, I am going to continue this blog and hopefully provide my few readers with something that may be constructive for them. 

So, thanks for reading and I hope you stick around for the next year.

What are “Feral Professionals” in librarianship? (Part 2)

So I read the James Neal article from 2006 in Library Journal.  He certainly fleshed out the conversations surrounding the topic of feral professionals.  But I am still confused as ever as to what a clear definition of a feral professional is.  Maybe there isn’t one . . . Although, I am still waiting for someone else to weigh in on the topic.

Neal, James.  “Raised By Wolves: Integrating the new generation of feral professionals into the academic library.”  Library Journal.  131.3 (2006): 42-44.

Register Now for the ACRL/NY Annual Symposium, December 4, 2009

Register Now for the ACRL/NY Annual Symposium 2009 

http://acrlnysymp09.wordpress.com/about/ 

Emerging Leadership in Academic Libraries Leaders inspire and motivate us. Leaders create vision and purpose. But what does it take to be a leader in today’s academic library? How do we mentor and sustain leaders within our organizations? How do we take charge of our own career paths and move into leadership roles? This symposium will address these questions while opening up a discussion of leadership across the different stages of librarianship. 

***Speakers will be Mary Carmen Chimato, Amanda Etches-Johnson, Damon Jaggars, and Brian Mathews***

Register online from the symposium’s web site (and find information for registering by check/mail):  http://acrlnysymp09.wordpress.com/about/  

Walk-in registrations will not be accepted.  

We hope to see you there!

The publication of our chapter is coming out this month

I am happy to announce that two colleagues and I have a chapter in a book that is coming out at the end of this month from IGI Global.  The title of the book is the Handbook of Research on Practices and Outcomes in E-Learning: Issues and Trends and comes in at a hefty 626 pages.  Our chapter is in Section IV: Professional and Disciplinary Implications and is titled “Librarian as Collaborator: Bringing E-Learning 2.0 into the Classroom by Way of the Library” (Chapter XVI or 16).

This book’s focus is on higher education, but does not cut it so fine as to only be about libraries.  We thought it would be nice to submit to a non-library specific, but academic, publication.  Happily, our proposal and eventual chapter was accepted.  I want to thank both my colleagues for allowing me to be a part of this project.  It was a great, although tough, experience that I  can now build on in the future.

Friday, 7/31/09, last day in the life post

{Yes!  I am finishing this up on the Monday after.  That is the life a librarian, a lot of last minute stuff or slightly late . . .}

Ok, yeah, this day in the life thing is a great idea.  I’m glad I did it.  But I wouldn’t want to do it everyday.

Today was a different day completely.  Seeing as I had my 11:30 thyroid ultrasound I decided to work from home.

Morning

• I spent the morning checking and sending emails and doing some reading.  And, yes, while watching TV.  Hey I can’t help it.  My mom has a picture of me when I was little, in the family room, sitting in a chair, in the play pen (any of you old enough to remember them?), watching TV.  Or, should I say, totally mesmerized by the TV.  It is a very normal reflex for me to grab for that remote control as soon as I am in from of the television.
• The ultrasound went ok, if you like lying in the almost dark with some woman pressing something on your neck so you feel like you are about to choke for about twenty minutes.  Cough!  Cough!  Hack!  Cough!  And you know what she told me, the results would go to my doctor on Tuesday.  Tuesday?!?!?!?  But I have to decide about my surgery soon!  Yeah, no luck.  The normal time is  two business days. 
• After the ultrasound I went to the grocery store to get some lunch and got in line at the self-checkout.  Unfortunately, I got behind the sloooowest older couple in the world.  They had never used one of these checkout stations before.  I watched while she scanned each coupon, checked the monitor to see if it went through, handed it to her husband, the husband tried to put each one in the coupon drop slot with one shaky hand until he realized he needed two hands, and the process would start all over again.  Meanwhile, people were whizzing through the lines on either side of me.  AHHHH!  And then, every once in a while, she would stop what she was doing to apologize for taking so long because they had never done this before.  Finally, I moved to another register and of course they were done by then. 

Afternoon

• The second half of the day I spent writing, emailing and catching up on some reading that I normally don’t get to when at the library.  A fairly productive afternoon.
• The other task I was involved with was calling my ear, nose and throat doctor to ask him what he thought of this whole checking my thyroid thing.  When I finally spoke to him we reviewed everything and agreed it was still logical to go forward with the surgery.  But, we will leave it open to change if the ultrasound results show anything.    Tuesday cannot come fast enough. 

Thursday, 7/30/09, A short day in the life

This day in the life stuff is not bad, but I will readily admit that I will be happy to finish it tomorrow.

Morning

• This morning was much like yesterday.  Although I knew I was leaving early so I did  very little Twittering and checking personal email and focused on getting interlibrary loan stuff done.  But that was after I had swung by Starbucks for a coffee and morning bun.  The strange thing was that as soon as I sat down at my desk with my coffee and bun I was accosted by a swarm of fruit flies.  I  mean seriously, this was like the fruit fly brute squad.  Were they some kind of militia?  I seriously thought one of them was going to grab my hand and shake the bun out of it.  So, I ate fast and got to work.  Stupid fruit flies.
• The other major thing of the morning was trying to solve my lack of administrative rights that I need to update ILLiad 8.  Yeah, no solution yet.  And no help on it either.  Well, there might be a solution, but what I am thinking of will be a hassle.  But that has got to wait for another day.
• Also worked on my 103rd blog post about my 100th blog post and a post about a website on the Google book settlement.

Noon

• A nice lunch with colleagues, but a bit too hot and sunny to sit outside.

Afternoon

• The afternoon was a bit of a wash because I had to leave between 1:30 and 2 to get to another pre-op doctor appointment before my tonsillectomy . . . or so I thought.  So, in the time I had, I did some more work in ILLiad 8 and some prep for the IDS Project conference next week.  I ended up leaving at about 1:40.
• There was some back-up on the Tappan Zee Bridge due to construction but I got to the doctor appointment early.  About fifteen minutes before my appointment my phone rang, I as hanging out in my car killing some time.  I answered it and it was the receptionist in the doctor’s office . . . my appointment was at 2.  S***!!!!!  Thankfully, they were able to take me at 2:45.  Whew!  This was for my pre-op physical.  The doctor’s assistant came in and took my weight, blood pressure, and three vials of blood for testing.  Then the doctor came in to do her part.  Basically asking me a bunch of questions and filling out the required form.  Then she looked down my throat.  And asked me why I was getting my tonsils out, they don’t look very big.  What?!?!?!?!?!?!  This lady sent me to the ear nose and throat doctor because she could not get to the bottom of the sore throat I have had since October.  And that doctor said one option was to take out the tonsils.  Really, he left it up to me, but he said it would probably solve the problem.  So on that I decided to go for it.  Well, today’s doctor asked me if I ever have heartburn (yes, occasionally) and then she starts looking at my neck and says  my thyroid looks a little big and sometimes problems with that can cause a sore throat.  And here I am thinking, why didn’t she ask these questions before sending me to the ENT doctor?!?!?!?!?  So I told her my surgery was in a week.  Well, she wants me to get an ultrasound on my thyroid tomorrow to see if there is anything going on there.  I am so confused.  So basically she doesn’t see a reason to for me to get my tonsils out unless it is necessary.  Although she also told me that she trusts the other doctor’s decision but cannot understand why he didn’t investigate my thyroid. Yeah, reallyconfused.  At this point I really do not know what to do.  And the ultrasound is at 11:30, which means by the time I get to work I will only have about three hours to try and accomplish anything.  Well, I better get some useful information tomorrow so I can decide what to do or I will not be pleased.  If I need to cancel it altogether I want to know before I buy the necessary prescriptions and inform the ENT office sooner rather than later.  I would also like to know if I am going to be away from work for the next three weeks or not.  I honestly cannot believe this is happening now. 
• So, my personal business took over the day and the library took a back seat.  After getting home from the appointment I called and talked to my parents.  My Dad was feeling worse today, they are still waiting to see if he has lyme disease, but he was able to chat on the phone while watching a baseball game. 
• Then I went to the pool for a swim to forget about the day’s frustrations.  Tomorrow has got to be better.

Wednesday, July 29th, Day three of day in the life

I have been so busy that this day in the life thing has become a burden.  My brain is screaming, “You should be working, not doing this!”

Morning

• Ok, this morning . . . what did I do this morning . . . Oh yeah, drove to work (as usual), got a good parking spot, went to Starbucks (as usual).  Was in the office by 8:45 and checked work email and logged onto ILLiad.  Processed some requests, packaged up stuff to be shipped, unpacked delivered stuff, processed delivered stuff and put it on the pick-up shelf.  Logged onto Pandora (why did it take me so long to get on the streaming music train?).  Checked Twitter, opened WordPress (didn’t feel like blogging, minimized it), checked personal email, read some feeds in Google Reader (man that is addictive),  aaaaannnnndddd . . . started trying to solve a problem that cropped up.  I have been waiting for instructions to get the latest ILLiad 8 client.  I need it ASAP because I need to be familiar with it before I go to the IDS Project conference (in New York state) next week.  Forgive me Atlas Systems, but I got a very unclear email the day before that would get me to the download, but the email did not spell that out.  So the morning was spent finding that out and then finding out how I could actually get to the link.  And, Atlas was very helpful in helping me with this.  But, I never got a chance to attempt the download because I had to be at a meeting.
• 10:30 was our staff meeting (they are typically every two weeks if schedules align).  We talked about building issues and a report our director has to make to our provost on the library’s goals for the year.  Our director asked for our input.  So we had a longish discussion about that.
• Following that meeting, five of us who have been doing faculty/staff workshops for a while now met about next steps with all of that.  It can get pretty complicated and is good we have several people involved.  We talked about an open house we are doing in August, how to handle food with that and getting the word out so people will come.  We talked about a panel we want to have about online identities, when to schedule it and whether we want wine and cheese.  Also, there was discussion about scheduling of other workshops, marketing, and when & how to send out emails for all this stuff.  That ended just after 12:15 and we all went to lunch.

Noon

• It was hazy out so I was brave enough to sit outside.  Actually, I was the last one to get through the food court line with my food and my four colleagues were all waiting for me because they couldn’t decide whether to sit outside or inside.  So I decided on outside for us.  It was humid, but not too hot.  I prefer to be outside, but I burn terribly in the sun.

Afternoon

• On our way back to the library from lunch we got into a discussion about this assignment bank for faculty that three of our colleagues have been working very hard on.  They are now looking for feed back (it has been created in a wiki).  I needed a little more background on it and to get a sense of some of their thoughts on it.  One of them was able to shed some insight into how they intend to use it with faculty. 
• Back in my office and back at the computer to check emails, ILLiad, and work on getting the ILLiad 8 client downloaded.  But of course my computer said, “Not so fast!  You don’t have enough administrative rights!”  Ahhhhhh!  Not the dreaded lockout again!  So, that lead to a call to my IT department to request a tech visit, today (am I dreaming?!?!?!?), to get it downloaded.  And to my lucky surprise (yes, I did just write ‘lucky surprise’) they said they would send someone right over.  Great!  Well, right over really meant about half an hour, but that is pretty darned fast for them.  So I got the client downloaded and started to open it up.  BUT, Atlas Systems has set it up to check for and push automatic updates to your computer every time you logon.  Yeah, not going to work with us.  The updates won’t work unless you have administrative access.  I can completely understand why Atlas decided to do this, but it is not going to work for those of us who are locked out of doing downloads.  So, I will have to talk to them about that at the conference next week.  There is a solution, I just don’t know what it is yet.
• So, after the download I chatted with the IT guy for a while and then got to start playing with ILLiad 8.  At first it is totally different and totally confusing but I can see how everyone is going to come to love it.  I am slowly on my way to being a convert.  Now, if we can only solve this update thing . . .
• The rest of the afternoon was complaining to a colleague about my lack of administrative rights, playing with ILLiad 8 while actually doing interlibrary loan work, screwing things up and posting questions to the new ILLiad 8 preview listserv, and then trying to get access to my work email on my Blackberry.
• The Blackberry connection thing worked beautifully for my colleague . . . yeah, not for me.  She tired to help me but it didn’t work out.  I emailed the IT department for help and am waiting to hear back.  Maybe tomorrow.  And then we realized it was 4:30 and I had to leave for the Chiropractor.
• The drive on 287 was beautiful, once I got through the 7 vehicle (including a trailer truck) accident that was across four lanes of traffic  right near my on ramp heading west.  The accident was so new there weren’t any emergency vehicles there yet.  I’m sure it is still backed up because of it. 
• I’m home now writing this up to post.  Just got a call from my Mom, my Dad is feeling better, still waiting to hear if he has lyme disease though. 

Tuesday, July 28th-Seems a bit of at time waster . . . but I’m trying

Day 2 of A Day in the Life of a Library . . .

Morning

• A very hot and humid morning.  So smart me decided to actually iron her clothes!  Yeah, should have just worn them wrinkled.  I hate sweating after a shower.  Ick.
• Got to campus at about 8:30 (relished the car’s AC) and snagged one of the last parking spots in the most coveted lot,  on campus.  Forgot the Smartfood in the trunk of my car for this afternoon’s webinar, will have to get it later.  Was disappointed at Starbucks, they don’t do decaf iced coffee . . . booo!  Got hot instead and a grapefruit IZZE.  Grrr. 
• Finally in my office and logged on, checked my email, opened ILLiad, opened Twitter, found the link for the Day in the Life wiki and blew my time until 10 am writing Monday’s post and adding my ‘name’ to the list on the wiki.  Then decided to start on today’s post.  Why not, I’m on a roll, why not blow the entire morning on semi-work related stuff?
• Only a few work related things came up, a student looking for instructions on how to access the wireless came in to my office to ask for help on that (this was before the Reference Desk starts at 10 am).  My office is right next to the Reference Desk and computing area, so through no intentional effort I have become the library’s default reference person when no one is at the desk.  A bit annoying at times, but it reminds me of why I am really here, to help our customers use our materials and services.  Then a colleague came in to say she was having a minor crisis because she got an overdue notice for book she already returned to me.  Crisis resolved, the notice was for a different book and I renewed the one she got a notice for.  We discussed Brian Matthew’s book briefly. 
• Sneezed and the morning’s reference librarian called me to say ‘Bless you.’  Pretty funny since she is close enough to say it without the phone.  Yeah, we are a weird bunch.
• Distributed books to their respective pick-up locations for today’s pick-up/deliveries, talked to a colleague about how my blouse doesn’t fix exactly right (she give me a bit of some sarcastic sympathy, which gave me a good laugh for the morning).  Talked briefly about this afternoon’s webinar and told her I’m bringing Smartfood.  She has never had it before!
• Back at the computer, I looked at techMETRO’s post for Monday and decided to check out Pandora as a result.  I am so out of the streaming music scene.  Processed some interlibrary loan requests, faxed an article, copied and scanned another, processed a few more books for shipping.  Tried reading more of “Fluent”, the Razorfish report, and realized it is all about Social Influence Marketing, Social Ads, and a way for Razorfish to market itself to commercial companies.  Some librarians may argue there is useful stuff in this report . . . I tossed it in the recycling bin.  Went back to reading more of Brian Matthew’s book.  The second half of chapter 5 is better than the first,  all very valuable.  Ordered some books on blogging through interlibrary loan for a faculty and staff workshop I am doing this Fall and for my own personal blogging improvement.

Noon

• Another lovely sandwich for lunch with two colleagues and then went to my car for the Smartfood for this afternoon’s webinar.  Lingered at the Circulation Desk to chat for a bit when I got back to the library.

Afternoon

• At the computer again, checked  work and personal email, processed a few interlibrary loan items.  Pretty quiet except for the workers who are still installing windows on the front of our building (we have been under some kind of construction for probably the last ten years with no end in sight).  Picked up the latest issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly to start  reading a couple articles.
• 2:00 and we began our group viewing of the webinar.  UGH!  Very useful for others attending at other locations, not useful for us.  Happily we were well supplied with Smartfood and chocolate.  We already knew everything that was presented, or are already doing it.  Over two hours later and three of us sat down to briefly talk about how we are going to establish a preliminary presence in Moodle, which is a new adoption on our campus.  We will be creating a general library box that faculty can put into their classes in Moodle and we have to decide what we will include in that box, how it will be worded, and what the layout will be.
• That quick meeting ended at 4:15.  Wrapped up my day, and my leg in my ace bandage to head home.  Tonight is a pre-op appointment for next week’s tonsillectomy and then it is off for a swim in the pool.  I loove having a pool at my apartment complex. 

Postscript

• Doctor’s appointment took longer than expeceted and then had to go immediately to hand in prescriptions at the pharmacy.  So no swimming today . . . boooo.
• Last thing for this post, a bit of editing at about 8 pm and then up it went.
• Oh, and not completely sold on this day in the life stuff but I will keep going for now . . .

Monday, July 27th-I’m not doing this . . .

So, yesterday I got into work and checked my Twitter account to see that some folks were participating in “A Day in the Life of a Library . . . “  I thought, interesting, but I don’t have time for this.  I’m leaving for a conference on Sunday and getting my tonsils out on August 6th.  The recovery for the surgery will supposedly take two weeks.  So, after this week, I will be out of the office for three weeks.  THREE WEEKS!  And none of it will be vacation, unless of course you call lying on the couch recovering from minor surgery vacation (Well, I guess it is better than major surgery).  Naturally, blogging about the details of my work life for this week, which is what this project is, does not seem sensible since I am trying to get some things done before I am out.  Another reason is I prefer to stay somewhat anonymous on this blog because I am deliberately blogging as a academic librarian but not as a representative of the institution I work for, or the library.  And the wiki for this project asks for your name (Although, there is no rule I HAVE to give my name).  As of last night at 4:30, when I left work, I was resolved not to do this.  Then, this morning, while getting ready for work (ok, ok, I was in the shower, for some reason my brain occasionally talks some sense into me in the shower) I realized it was a good idea to participate in this.  The main reason is because it is right in line with what my blog is all about, to share with colleagues what it is like to be an academic librarian, inside and outside of the library.  And, as one of my colleagues pointed out, it would give my blog more exposure.  So here I am, a day late (Tuesday) posting my Monday stuff.  And, in the spirit and theme of my blog, I’m not just including the work related stuff, my personal life blends in here, as I’m sure it does with all.  You can’t exactly not share that your Mom called in the afternoon before you left for home when, yes folks, she did.

Morning

• Got to work around 8:30 am, thankfully 287 was ok and kind to my leg.  I’m back driving my car (a manual) after borrowing my Dad’s truck (an automatic-THANKS DAD!) for a week to give my pulled calf muscle a rest.  Yeah, you try working a clutch with a pulled muscle.  So I ended up driving with my leg wrapped in an ace bandage and it worked out great, and a lot better than lying on the couch in pain (yes, looking for sympathy here).
• Checked my email, opened up the ILLiad client to see what requests needed processing and processed them,  I also ordered some books for myself through ILLiad and sent out overdue notices, checked Twitter to discover that this Day in the Life thing was going on and decided not to do it, checked one of my other email accounts (I get library-related newsletters sent there, honestly, that was all I was doing there . . . ), and caught up on reading some of my RSS feeds in my Google Reader account (my library ones . . .).   Then, started feeling guilty about the articles I should start writing.
• A colleague asked via email if anyone was interested in tomorrows 2 pm webinar titled “Academic Librarianship by Design: Enhancing the libraries integration into Course / Learning Management Systems“.  Apparently several of us are interested.  As a result she booked a classroom so we can view it as a group.  (I secretly resolved to buy Smartfood to bring to the event.)
• 10 am I started my weekly Reference Shift.  It was a sloooooow morning.  I got two questions, one was on the phone and was really interlibrary loan, which is good because I do all the interlibrary loan stuff.  But I counted it as a Reference question.  The only other question I got between 10 and 12 was from one of our Circulation Supervisors trying to find out who had their bike chained to the railing on the handicap ramp outside (It belongs to one of our student workers, I marked that down on our statistics too).  Other than that, I cracked open my borrowed copy of Brian Matthew’s new book: Marketing Today’s Academic Library.  Already, a very good read.  And, I worked on outlines for two articles.  So, despite the lack of questions during the last week of our last summer session, I was pretty productive.

Noon

• Left the Reference Desk at noon and logged into my computer to check my email.  Like clockwork, some of my colleagues had already sent out a lunch query.  When we have the time, we got to lunch together at the food court on campus.  Whoo Hoo!  Food!  I’m on a mozzarella cheese, lettuce, and tomato sandwich on whole wheat bread with oil kick lately.  They are SO good!

Afternoon

• After lunch, what did I do after lunch yesterday . . .  Oh yes, pulled, copied and scanned two articles for a faculty member.  Checked ILLiad again and worked on processing some more stuff.  I attempted to read some of the new report from Razorfish “Fluent” but I printed it in a small font and the content, although useful, is very dry (read it at your own peril) and in some ways a no brainer.  So I set that aside and went back to more of Brian Matthew’s book.  I’m almost half way through now.  A very good book, but I’m slowing down on chapter 5, it is about market research and a bit more dense than the first four chapters.  Asked the director’s assistant if the license keys for adding work email to our Blackberries (for me and a colleague) have come in yet.  She said she is still waiting.  Processed the interlibrary loan deliveries that had come in and packaged up some materials that need to be shipped out on Tuesday.  Discovered the Blogher conference, which will be in NYC next year and am seriously considering going.  Mom called around 4:00 to give me an update on my Dad (he has been sick and they discovered he has some kind of tick borne illness, too early to say exactly what, but he’s being treated already and starting to feel a bit better, although apparently the recovery will take some time).  Wrapped up my day, and my leg in the ace bandage, to leave at 4:30.  Off to the Chiropractor to get adjusted.  Hooray!  And then the grocery store for some essentials and home to saute a zucchini for dinner.

Do the kgb commericals bother you too?

Meredith posted some of her thoughts on the kgb service being advertised on the television recently.  I’m glad I’m not the only one that is concerned by this service.  The most recent commercial is one where a classroom is full of students having ‘brain farts’ after a professor asked a question.  And two kgb agents step into the room in what looks like hazmat suits and ’save the day’ by giving them the answer.  And then, of course, everything is ok.  Yikes!  It made the professor look like a blithering idiot and implied that you don’t even need to do your readings or homework to ‘get by’ in a lecture.  And what does it say about libraries?  Well, you connect the dots, they weren’t even in the commercial.