Hope your holiday went well . . . mine did, now I’m back at work.

So, I basically ignored anything work or blog related during the holiday.  We went to CT to stay with my parents and Thanksgiving was at my brother’s house in MA (32 to be exact-Oy Vay!).  It all was very nice and I was glad to especially see my nieces and nephew again.  I ate too much and loved it and spent a lot of relaxing time with family.  I made jewelery with my mother (one piece will be given away at the ACRL/NY Symposium as a door prize or raffle . . . can’t remember which), finished knitting a sweater that has been in the making (off and on) for about five years now, got a radio for the kitchen, and raced cows with my parents and sweetie on their Wii.  It was pretty funny. 

Friday was shop for bridesmaids dresses day at David’s Bridal in Warwick, RI.  All three girls found what they wanted.  I decided to choose a color and let them pick the style.  They are going to very pretty.  My dress was chosen, purchased and came in about a month ago and is at my parent’s house.  I tried it on when we got back from shopping just to make sure we got the right size, thankfully we did.  Let me say, that is a huge relief.  I would hate to have to exchange it for a different size.  Now I need to shop for shoes . . . ugh.  Maybe in January.

Back at work yesterday I did my usual reference shift.  I felt a bit like I was at a public library reference desk.  There was a message on voicemail from someone in the city looking for someone else  to make sure they were ok and was wondering if we had an alumni directory with the person’s address.  But the information was only good if it was Sunday night . . . yeah, ok.  The second voicemail message was cancelling the first message saying he found the person and they were ok.  I guess that is good, seeing as we don’ t have an alumni directory.  Then another patron came from the restroom and announced very loudly to me that the toilet had overflowed because they had used it, because they ‘had to go,’ and it finally all went down but it did overflow and could a custodian take care of . . . well, you get the picture.  It was kind of funny because everyone around the reference desk clearly heard the person ‘announce’ the overflow.  I just thanked them and notified the building manager.  Ironically, they did not seem embarrassed at all.  Then again, why should one be embarrassed about an overflowing toilet?  Better to just get it cleaned up.

The rest of the day was kind of shot for me.  I had called the vascular surgeon in the morning to see if I could get an appointment soon and they could only take me Monday afternoon, or I had to wait until January.  So, I ran off to that appointment around 1:30.  And all is fine.  Recovery is ongoing. My right leg is kind of bothering me now but,  I take my Coumadin daily, wear compression stockings daily (I would prefer to wear cotton socks, not these nylon things, but for the winter they are wonderfully warm and they make my legs feel a whole lot better, they really are amazing), put my feet up at home to help the circulation, and get my blood checked regularly.  I have also started going to a hematologist.  Hopefully, he will help me figure out what caused all this in the first place.  So, overall, I am recovering, but it won’t all happen overnight.  Thankfully each day is better and better.

My mother asked us what we were most thankful for this year.  The first thing out of my mouth was “Not being dead.”  And, yes, that is true.  Granted, there is a lot more I am thankful for, but I couldn’t be thankful for any of that without the not being dead part.

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.

Happy National Information Literacy Month Everyone!!!

Steven Bell made mention of this on the ACRL blog on the 9th of October.  Then again, I don’t feel like I am completely behind the eight ball, the announcement from the president just came out on October 1st.  See it here.  Although, I wish libraries were featured a bit more prominently in this statement . . . oh wait, they aren’t mentioned at all!  As usual, we are left off the radar.  Well, at least I take some comfort in the fact that, for some, we are an indispensible resource for information literacy, even if the president doesn’t mention us in his announcement about National Information Literacy Month.

Your assignment, and mine: Saying and doing-keeping up with current topics in the profession

Not too long ago I was in a meeting where a colleague asked me what I do to keep up on the current issues in librarianship.  My response was almost immediate, ‘I read blogs and RSS feeds.’  In this day and age, it seems like the thing to say, yet my answer lacked substance and detail.  As soon as I said it I had the feeling that I had just fallen flat on my face.  Now, when think of that moment, I always feel as if I could have answered that better.  But beyond that I can do far better in my efforts to keep up with what is being discussed in the library profession.  Naturally, my next question is: ‘How does one really keep abreast of the current issues in librarianship?’  Everyone has their methods.  Yes, reading library-related blogs and rss feeds (and making comments of course, being part of the conversation)is important.  But also, picking up the latest (or not so latest but valuable) books being published, staying on top of what is being published in the journals, and of course going to workshops, symposia, presentations, and conferences are also key.  Ok, easier said than done?  You got that right!  I’m not sharing anything that is breaking news to the average librarian. 

That being said, there is something I want from all of you, fellow librarians (lurkers included!).  Post in the comments what you do to keep up on current topics in the profession.  And I want substance.  What do you do that works for you?  And, for those of you who are not librarians, what do you do to keep up on current topics in your profession?  We can seriously learn  a lot from each other if we can share some substantive answers.  So comment away!

For me, I need to adopt one colleague’s organizational methods.  While I am not what I would call organized I need to establish a bit more routine when it comes to staying well read.  The particular colleague I am referring to, while a fairly new librarian, had always been highly organized.  She even has a schedule for posting to her blog.  I need one of those too, but for now I am going to attempt a schedule for staying a bit more current.  I at first thought I would do an article a day and post my thoughts here.  But I realized that was far to ambitious to start with.  Instead, I’ll try an article per week.  Then, I thought it would also be nice to do a book each month.  However I’m worried that will be a bit too much to do four articles and a book.  I don’t want to set a schedule that is not, ultimately, going to work for me.  So I will start with four articles, plus a post for each, each month.  Maybe soon I will do the same with posting on others’ blog posts . . . maybe.  And I expect to be held to that goal by all of you.  If anyone can think of an incentive for me to keep to the goal, by all means make a suggestion.  Maybe if I have a giveaway for the first person who notices I haven’t done four articles in a month and points it out to me.  Good idea?  Or no?  If yes, what should I have as the giveaway?  Please, share your ideas!

Ok, now we all have an assignment.  I, am going to read and post on an article per week.  And you, are going to share what substantive ways you keep up with the current topics in the library, or your respective, profession.

Post-Blogging Workshop

Our blog workshop went well last Thursday.  See my pre-workshop post here.  We had a total of thirteen in attendance, mostly staff, and the conversation was wonderfully engaging. 

My colleague opened with talking about her very organized and well thought out blog.  How she came up with the idea, who her intended audience was (and is), what she writes about and the strategies she uses to attract readers to her blog, as well as increase the chances of readers finding it in an internet search.  Her blog encompasses her life as a librarian and artist.  So, what are some of the things she does to get people to come to her blog?  Well, she is wonderfully unapologetic about her name dropping.  She deliberately includes lots of artists and author names (known and less known) to increase the chances internet searchers will find her blog when searching for a particular name.  Additionally she takes everyone opportunity to talk about her blog (workshops, conferences), includes the URL in her email signature, sent an email blast to her art contacts once it was up and running, listed it on her Facebook page, and, through what she has put on her blog she has started to make some professional connections.  She does much more than this, and has lots of plans for the future.  I am definitely going to follow what she does as she has some great ideas.  The biggest thing that stands out for me with her blog is how organized she is with it and how she keeps a regular schedule for posting.  I, on the other hand, am not so good with the regular posts. 

I then followed with my part of the workshop.  I gave some background to the starting of my blog, why I started it, what I hope to accomplish, etc.  Also, during all of this the attendants had plenty of good questions that kept the conversation moving the entire time.  This is part of why I love doing faculty and staff workshops.  You can plan them down to the minute and you will never be able to include it all because of all the great questions and great conversation.  The things I do to make my blog better . . . writing (of course, like I noted before, I could always do this a bit more often.  If you don’t, your readers will disappear.  No new posts, no readers.), reading and commenting on other blogs (always include your URL!), linking to articles, blogs, and books I write about, I tag (a lot), my blog is linked to Twitter and my Twitter account is linked to my Facebook account so that all my followers know when I have a new post. 

Then we shared other things they could add to their blogs: polls, changes in design, pictures, include posts on ‘hot topics’ (i.e. stirring up controversy by expressing your opinion is not always a bad thing), thank people when they link to your blog, keep your blog organized with tags and categories, and consider inviting others to be a guest bloggers.

Really, the intention of the workshop was to share what we do with our blogs and give our attendants ideas they can adopt, modify, etc.  Naturally, one of the best things to do is talk to others about what they do.  But also visiting other blogs to get ideas is great, as well as reading up on ideas folks share on the web and in books.  I included some links in my last post prior to the workshop.  But we also showed some books we found to be useful in creating the workshop.  I’m not going to recommend any specific ones here but there are plenty to be found at your local library, through interlibrary loan and at your bookstore.  They are easy enough to find. 

It was really a good workshop.  Although, I was surprised by one thing, how many of our attendees didn’t actually have a blog yet.  Many of them were there to learn more about blogs because they have heard about them from friends and family.  Hopefully, we were able to meet their expectations.  And I’m sure we will be repeating this workshop next semester.

Preparing for a workshop on blogs

So a colleague and I are giving a workshop tomorrow to faculty and staff on ways they can improve their blogs once they have started them.  To start, we have decided to talk about our own experiences writing our own blogs by sharing the basic hows, whys and whats.  The intention is to get our attendees to start thinking about what they can apply/adopt /adapt to their own blogs by sharing what we decided to do.  We also hope that it will inspire them to talk about what they are currently doing, or want to do.  Of course we will give them concrete ways to boost traffic on their blogs and track success.  I hope it goes well.  Well, I’m not worried that it will go well.  I guess I’m just curious about exactly how it will turn out.  What will be really interesting will be how the presentation of each of our blogs come off, seeing as we took two very different approaches to creating them.  Mine was unstructured and had very little focus to start.  My colleague gave her blog far more thought and keeps it much more organized than I do mine.  Her posts are awesome, they are like mini essays.  Take a look for yourself.  And wish us luck tomorrow.

And here are a couple things I plan to share with the group.  Because there are multi-part posts on improving your blog I have included instructions on how to get to them and not just the links:

The Journalism Iconoclast  http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/  “So you have a blog.  Now what?”  vols. 1-3  (can be found under ‘Blogging’ category)

Social Signal http://socialsignal.com  Under blog tab, search ‘blog roi’ to get links to a ten part series called “10 ways to maximize your blogs ROI”

IDS conference, Monday 8.3.09

I’m up at SUNY Oswego today for the pre-conference stuff at the IDS conference .  Nothing really to report about the conference yet, we will be collecting for a pizza lunch soon.

Drove up from downstate NY yesterday in very rainy weather.  I got to campus about 5:15 and checked into the dorm.  It was a very quiet night, I was the only one there, but I brought my laptop and amused myself with the Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean DVDs.  Had a  lovely mushroom and cheese burger at the Press Box with a Bass Ale.  This morning I went for forty minute walk along Lake Ontario (yeah, my calf is not ready for intense exercise yet), a breakfast bagel at the Port City Cafe, and browse at the Rivers End Bookstore (I think that is the name).  Then I wandered over to the library to do some blogging and chatting with folks as they checked in and were wandering around.  I guess I should go get my name tag and bag (which will be consigned to grocery duty soon).  Seriously?  Another bag???

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. 

Things libraries should Tweet about

Just picked upon this post through Twitter this afternoon.  It is a short post with some good constructive advice on what libraries should consider doing with their Twitter accounts.

Six Things Libraries Should Tweet from Information Tyrannosaur

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.