This was one of my biggest concerns before Adam and I decided to get pregnant, and, unfortunately, the women I talked to about being a parent didn’t fill me with confidence that I’d be able to balance work and family well. I heard from women who told me that they’d become less ambitious once they had children; women who hated leaving their child at daycare but didn’t have a choice; women who worked 9-to-5, took care of their children and never did anything else; women who could count on one hand the number of times they spent alone time with their spouse in years; and women who chose to stay home with their children. Since Adam and I both had mothers who stayed home with us, we didn’t have many exemplars of mothers who successfully and happily balanced work and family. My mother was actually horrified at first that I was going to send Reed to a daycare. I felt like I couldn’t win.

My biggest worry when I had Reed was that I would want to stay home with him forever when that simply wasn’t financially feasible. I was envious of my former colleague (who had her baby a week before I did) who decided to quit her job and stay home with her daughter. I felt like I would miss so much time with my son and wouldn’t be able to bond with him as well. While, at first, it was hard to comprehend being away from him, I am so glad that I go to work and that he goes to daycare.

A good daycare is one of the best things for a child’s social development. When I get the chance to watch Reed at daycare, I see all of the opportunities he has to learn about sharing, about interacting with other children and adults, about bonding with people other than his parents, and about social play. Just today, I saw him and a little girl trying to play with the same toy — learning how to deal with this simply isn’t something he’s going to get from being home all day, and (most) playgroups are often play mediated by mothers. I’m fortunate that Reed immediately took to being in daycare when we started him in it at 4 months — he’s an incredibly social and high-energy little boy, so being around different people perfectly suits his personality. I very quickly felt comfortable leaving Reed at daycare, because I didn’t feel like it was a second-best/no-other-choice option for childcare — I really do think he’s better off there. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with staying home with your child; this is just what works for us.

I also realized that I need my identity as a professional. I like going to work, interacting with adults and working on projects. I like giving talks, writing articles and taking part in professional conversations. While I think about Reed when I’m at work, I don’t wish I was home with him. Any concerns I had about my losing my ambitions after having a child went out the window shortly after going back to work. My priorities have not changed. Family was always first — I chose not to write a second book a few years ago because I didn’t want to put such a burden on my husband in taking care of the household. I’m still passionate about my work and it’s just as important to me as it was before. I think the only thing that’s changed is how I manage my time. I don’t have the luxury of coming home from work and writing a blog post or working on an article — I have a sweet little boy play with, feed, bathe and put to bed (and, frankly, I wouldn’t trade that time with him for anything, no matter how tired I am when I get home). I have to find little pieces of time here and there (naps, after Reed goes to bed, Monday mornings since I work a night reference shift, etc.) and obviously can’t do as much as I used to. But I’ve lost none of the passion I had before for technology and our profession.

With all of the (bad) advice being thrown at new mothers, it can be incredibly difficult to find your identity as a mother. I found that many mothers were all about guilt-trips and one-upsmanship. You don’t use cloth diapers? You don’t breastfeed exclusively? You feed your child baby food from a jar? You leave your child with someone else so you and your husband can spend some alone time together? I got the sense from reading books, articles, and (especially) discussion boards that my entire life should revolve around my child since one wrong choice could have terrible consequences, and that having a child would require me to be completely selfless and put my own desires at the bottom of the pile. And I bought into it for a while.

The hardest thing about the first few months after having Reed was letting go of all the expectations I put on myself because I thought that was how a mother was supposed to be. I made myself so miserable trying to be someone I’m not and trying to do things that simply weren’t working for any of us because I thought I had to. Part of it was crazy post-pregnancy hormones and postpartum depression (an issue I never talked to anyone about at the time other than my doctor and my husband), but I feel strongly that a lot of it was my unwillingness to let go of this idea that I had to martyr myself to my child’s needs. I have to wonder how much postpartum depression is caused by these unrealistic expectations people have for themselves as new mothers and what happens when their expectations don’t mesh with the reality.

If anything, I’m more selfish now than I was before having a child. I’m very protective of my time and say “no” to doing a lot of things that I would have said “yes” to a year ago. I work hard to ensure that my husband and I make our relationship a priority, even if it means leaving my precious child with his grandparents while we spend a night at a hotel (which is exactly what we’re doing this Sunday — woo hoo!). And I do things for myself or buy things for myself that make me happy. I realized after that very scary episode with postpartum depression (my first major depressive episode since I was 19) that I need to make myself happy to be a good mother to Reed. Happy mommy = happy baby. So I’ve learned how to balance taking care of me and my marriage with taking care of my little boy. And judging by how happy and mellow he is most of the time, I’d say I’m doing an o.k. job at it.

I’ll also say that having a good work/family/fun balance depends greatly on having a supportive partner (with an emphasis on the word partner). My husband is a partner in every sense of the word — we parent and take care of the house 50-50. He is so wonderful with Reed and there’s nothing I enjoy more than watching Reed climb on his dad and seeing the smiles they both have when they look into each other’s eyes. Without Adam, I can’t imagine making this all work. Thanks hon!

I wish someone had told me all these things when I was thinking about having a child. Yes, you can still be ambitious in your career — you may have to spend less time speaking at conferences and writing books, but you don’t have to give it up altogether. It’s not only ok for you to send your child to daycare, but it might actually be the best thing for him or her. You can be selfish and still be a good mother. If you decide to get an extra hour of sleep instead of making your child’s baby food yourself, he or she won’t be irrevocably scarred by eating food from a jar. That what’s most important is that your child is loved and well cared-for and so many of the other things you think are important when you read baby books or magazine articles really aren’t.

So if you’re on the fence about having a child because you feel like you might have to give up being who you are, realize that choice is up to you. You can still be the passionate, hard-working professional you are and be a great parent — the only thing you’ll absolutely have to change is how you allocate your time. I also wish that someone had told me how much fun it is to have a child. Everyone tells you it’ll change your life, you’ll never sleep again, you’ll never go out to the movies again, etc., but you never hear enough about the awesomeness of parenthood. Reed is really the most fun person I’ve ever known and I treasure every minute I spend with him. I feel so lucky to be his mom. Parenthood isn’t for everyone, but it’s a far more fun and awesome adventure than I’d ever expected.

I think many of the most important lessons I’ve learned are important ones for all of us in our careers:

1. Leaps of faith often pay off (or better to fail or succeed at the right thing than be successful at the wrong one) – When I first considered the possibility of leaving the social work field for librarianship, I was extremely nervous about it. I’d already gotten one graduate degree that didn’t lead to a satisfying career, and I didn’t relish the idea of getting (nor could I afford to get) another one in a field that I may not end up fitting into either. But something in my gut told me I should do it; that it would be a right fit for me. I took that leap and have never regretted it. I’d gone to graduate school for social work more out of fear than anything else — I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do after college, but I was interested in mental health issues and dove into that for lack of a better idea. Grad school was a safe space away from the scary world of work. Going to library school was the opposite of safe — leaving a professional psychotherapist position to go make $10/hr at a public library while paying for graduate school.

That leads me to the second lesson I learned — 2. the biggest growth experiences come from doing things that scare you – I spent so much time in my earlier years not doing things out of fear. In college, I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories, but I never submitted them to any of the literary magazines at Wesleyan. Because I was afraid of speaking in class, I avoided a lot of great seminars and instead took larger lecture classes that were far less interesting/satisfying. I let fear make my decisions for me. I guess now I do that too, only in the opposite way. I was so afraid to speak in public; more afraid than I can express. But because of my blog and book deal, people kept asking me to speak and I felt like I’d be a fool to say no. Anyone who saw me before my first talk at Computers in Libraries in 2006 can tell you that I was nervous beyond reason. But I gave the talk. And it wasn’t so bad. In fact, I found that I rather enjoyed the excited/nervous adrenaline rush I got from the experience. I’ve become a much better speaker than I was then, but I still get that nervous adrenaline rush before I speak, and I think it makes me a better/higher energy speaker for it. From leaning into my fear, I’ve learned that I’m so much more capable than I initially believed I was.

Recently, a colleague of mine forgot that he had scheduled an instruction session for an English 101 class at 11am and was not planning on coming in that day until 1pm. I only found out about this when the professor and her class showed up at 11am and no one was there to teach them. I had to sprint to get set up and taught a class I had done literally no preparation for and just found out about their assignment that very moment. And, ironically, it ended up being one of the best classes I’ve taught in recent memory. I was high-energy and I think the students really fed off that because they were much more engaged and involved than in most classes I teach. I realized that perhaps I’ve gotten a little too comfortable with my instruction work and that maybe I need to shake it up a bit and try new things that might be a little scary and that might blow up in my face. Because I’m at my best when that adrenaline is flowing.

3. Don’t sell yourself short – What in the world could someone who just got their library degree possibly have to teach experienced librarians about social software? What makes you think you could write an entire book and who in the world will read it? These were just a few of the negative thoughts that swirled around my head at the start of my library career. I didn’t think I possibly had anything useful to offer people, having only been a professional librarian a few short months before getting my book deal. I remember when I was going to give a keynote at UC Berkeley on what the 2.0 organization looks like, I thought I’d get laughed off the stage, since what the hell do I know, not having even been a manager? Even recently, I was asked to write a brief essay for a symposium at ALA Midwinter and wanted to back out when I saw the list of heavy hitters who would also be contributing. While I’ve heard some librarians call me a “rock star”, I still often feel like I just graduated from the kids table.

I may not have the depth of experience of someone who has worked in the profession 30 years. I may not be as tech-savvy as a John Blyberg or a Jason Griffey. I may not be as humorous as a Steve Lawson or an Andrew Pace. I may not be as brilliant and articulate as a Dorothea Salo. But I’ve learned (and am still learning) that it’s ok. I don’t need to be all those things. I don’t need to have all the answers. I bring something different to the table that also has value. People find my perspective unique and interesting, so I don’t need to be like all of those other people as long as I am myself.

I remember being on a panel last summer with a colleague whom I admire greatly. She said that she was so nervous being on a panel with “rock stars.” Funny, because she’s a rock star to me with her passion for the profession and effervescent personality. The fact is, we all have moments where we feel intimidated; even the people we admire do. We all bring something special to the table, and as long as we’re being ourselves and not trying to be Dorothea Salo, Roy Tennant or John Blyberg, we’re probably going to rock it. Because the other lesson that I learned is that 4. you’ll be much happier and more successful when you stop trying to be like other people and start just being yourself. Trying to be like someone else is a lot of work and is rarely satisfying. Embracing who you are and what you have to offer the profession/your community/the world is the best thing — both for yourself and the people who will be able to benefit from your “you-ness.”

5. Don’t get too stuck on a specific vision of your future – My husband is nothing like the kind of guy I thought I wanted to marry. I was into the “sensitive guy” type who liked literature, jazz, indie films, etc. My husband listens to Metallica, likes movies like “Escape from New York,” and hasn’t read anything remotely literary since high school. But he ended up being my soul mate, and had I been stuck on that vision of the sort of guy I wanted to be with, I would never have gone on a second date with him. I had a friend (in her 30s at the time) who was so stuck on a specific vision of what the man she would consider getting serious with should be like that she was constantly rejecting perfectly nice guys she’d date for the silliest of reasons. As a result, she was lonely, but felt that she could not compromise on these silly standards of hers.

You might think that there’s only one type of job that is right for you in the library field. You might be sure that there are other things you would hate doing, based on a hunch. Consider for a moment that you might be wrong. I thought that I absolutely did not want to do face to face instruction when I got out of grad school, and yet, once I gave it a try, I found it was one of the things I most enjoyed. Now I’m the head of instruction at my library — go figure! Open yourself up to interesting possibilities. In this job market, there may simply not be any positions in the area in which you’re interested in working. Being flexible does not mean doing something you absolutely won’t enjoy (just like being flexible doesn’t mean dating someone you absolutely aren’t interested in), but it means being open to the possibility that there could be other options out there that you’d like as much (if not more!).

6. You don’t need to keep going to school to keep learning — I remember thinking when I was in college that I’d like to go to school forever so that I could keep taking classes and learning new things. I wanted a PhD in History, not because I wanted to teach, but because I wanted to keep learning and researching and writing. While I’m not taking classes anymore, I’ve discovered that it’s easy to keep the learning going and recreate the experience of the classroom in the online world. While I may not have one specific teacher, the whole Internet has become my teacher. I’ve created my own personal learning environment (PLE) through blogs, RSS feeds, journals, books (well, not so much lately), and — most importantly — my network on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and in the blogosphere. Because it’s the conversation that really makes the learning meaningful — the reflection, discussion, disagreement, sharing of experiences, and learning from others’ experiences. I am so grateful to be part of a community of brilliant, thoughtful and generous individuals who have taught me so much over the past 5 years.

I’d meant to publish this on December 31st or January 1st, but, as usual, life (or Reed pulling books off the shelf, trying to open the kitchen cabinets, or climbing me) trumped blogging. I’m glad my life is trumping blogging, because it’s an awesome life and watching Reed grow up is a fantastic reason to not be online. That’s not to say that I don’t miss blogging. I miss having an outlet for my thoughts and the time to write them out/work them out online. I miss the conversations. I miss a lot of things. But I’m coming to accept that I can’t have it all. I hope finding a better balance between work/teaching/speaking/baby/husband/friends/blogging/etc. will be one of the things I learn next year. And hopefully as Reed becomes more independent (he’s crawling, standing and cruising already!) I’ll have more time for non-Reed things.

My New Year’s wish — may the good things in all of your lives trump blogging, tweeting, etc. this year. We should all be so lucky.

I cheated on this a little — I wrote this up on Thursday since I’m not working until Wednesday. Until mid-August, I’m only working 2 days per week so that Reed can wait until he’s 4 months old to start daycare. I’ll also write up the days I work this week (Wednesday and Thursday).

So here’s a day in my life as a Head of Instructional Initiatives. I don’t think this is a particularly typical day since the students aren’t here so I’m not teaching, but I also don’t think I even have “typical days” during the school year.

8:00 – arrived at work with husband and Reed in tow since I can’t drive due to a sprained shoulder. Colleagues oohed and ahhed over Reed (who wouldn’t?)

8:10 – Fed Reed while computer booted up and went through several updates

8:30 – Checked email and talked to colleague about redesigning our web portal for distance learners (which we just found out we got funding for – awesome!) . We’re going Drupal, baby!

9:00 – Engineering liaison and I met with Dean of the School of Engineering and Civil Engineering faculty member about information literacy instruction for engineering students. It was a great meeting because we all pretty much wanted the exact same thing (problem-based active learning, teaching students to critically evaluate sources, etc.). We’ll be teaching 6 3-hour classes in the Fall, reaching all of the Freshmen engineering majors. YAY! Also talked to them about getting library instruction in somewhere else in the curriculum, like when they have their big senior project and have to do all sorts of in-depth research. It was something they hadn’t considered, but they seemed open to the idea. I talked about what I’ve done with the senior History seminars.

10:00 – Checked reference email accounts and answered several reference questions that came in overnight.

10:30 – opened up spreadsheet of journals in the social sciences and continued to work on making cuts. Mulling over whether to cancel some journals that we get in EBSCO with a one year embargo, since we could get the articles for students and faculty through ILL. It drives me crazy to be paying $1000-$3000 for essentially one year’s worth of content.

10:45 – Emailed political science faculty member with a list of journals I’m considering cutting and requesting feedback. Put a few on the list that I doubt I’ll cancel, but I wanted his feedback as to whether it was an essential title or not.

11:00 – Pumped some milk for Reed (ah, the joys of being a working mom) – browsed RSS feeds during that time.

11:30 – Worked on a course guide for a senior seminar on the Civil War in which I’ll be providing library instruction in September. There are way too many resources on the Civil War and it can be hard to create a guide that includes only the best/essential resources.

11:45 – Spoke to a Drupal developer about the redesign of our library portal for distance learners. His company seems to be the Cadillac of Drupal web redesigns. Very impressive, but we don’t need all the bells and whistles and those bells and whistles come with a hefty price tag.

12:30 – Ate a quick lunch while going through the journal spreadsheet. Why is it that I love trimming the fat off our budget? It’s like spring cleaning. I’m hoping to cut enough that we can get some collections we really need that will likely get a lot of use. Students use databases much more than single title subscriptions.

1:00 – Worked on getting quotes and hourly rates from Drupal-experienced web designers. Hit up folks on Twitter and Friend Feed for suggestions. Got some crazy expensive quotes and some reasonable ones. Continued to check reference email accounts and answered a couple more email queries.

1:45 – D’oh! Forgot that I was supposed to be on Meebo. Quickly logged in.

2:00 – talked to colleague about cutting journals and making the difficult decisions. We both tend to not be as sentimental about the collection as some of our colleagues, so he’s always a good person to get advice from.

2:30 – Put in more work on the Civil War course guide.

3:30 – Asked colleague if we could get usage stats for political science journals I’m considering canceling as faculty member has requested them. Got click-through stats from Serials Solutions and sent them on. Ugh – only 5 hits in two years for one of the journals (and not a cheap one either).

3:45 – Emailed criminal justice faculty about journals I’m considering canceling. Got a quick response about a one that they consider essential and a few that they’d rather not lose if at all possible. Will really depend on how much the SAGE collection they want us to get costs.

4:00 – More milk making and RSS feed browsing

4:20 – Glanced at email and saw one about Freshman orientations (for which there is a library component). We did a fun activity last year, but it was a heck of a lot of work, so I’m a little nervous about prepping for it on my limited schedule.

4:30 – Shut down computer and ran outside to meet Adam.

6:00 – Checked email from home and emailed Criminal Justice faculty member back to reassure that I would not cut any journals considered essential by his faculty.

6:15 – Emailed Drupal designer that I’m considering hiring for the redesign. He seems to understand the scope and isn’t trying to up-sell us on stuff we don’t need right now. Draft email to the powers-that-be about getting the go-ahead to start working with him.

6:45 – Went through RSS feeds while watching Hell’s Kitchen in bed with Adam and Reed.

Here are the vital stats:

Reed Javier Farkas, born Friday April 17th at 6:32 am. 6 lbs., 13.9 oz., 19 inches (though by day 6 he was already well over 7 lbs and growing like crazy). I may be biased, but he is definitely the cutest baby I’ve ever seen.

While on days when his gassy-ness and fussiness only allow me 1 hr of sleep I’d probably say that he is my greatest frustration, he is also the greatest joy of my life. I never imagined that I could love anyone so much as I love this beautiful little boy. In spite of still being in a good deal of pain and not sleeping enough, I definitely feel like the luckiest woman in the world to have both Reed and Adam in my life.

This blog will probably not see many updates in the near future, but if you’re interested in what the Farkas family is up to, Adam and I hope to do a good bit more posting on our family blog.

This past week, I wrote a few posts that I think I’ll have post automatically over the next week (so I may or may not be checking and responding to comments). Other than those, I probably won’t be posting much here for a while and if you email me, please don’t be offended if you don’t hear back from me. I’m sure I’ll also become pretty out-of-touch with what’s going on in the blogosphere over the next few months while I focus on my growing family. I should be at ALA Annual though and look forward to catching up with everything and everyone I’ve missed. I never thought I’d love my career so much that going on maternity leave would evoke bittersweet feelings, and I do feel lucky that my work life and family life are so rich and fantastic. I couldn’t ask for more.

Thanks so much for reading my blog and I hope you’ll stick with it during my hiatus and as I find a balance between my professional life and family life. This blog has been a pleasure to write over the past 4 1/2 years, and I look forward to many more years of being part of this wonderful online community we’ve created through our blogs.

Free at last!

Now, if you all can just stop posting things for the next month or so, that would be great. K thx!

I know a lot of people out there have great ideas that they never try to make happen because they don’t believe in their ability to make them happen. I was always one of those people. I could always find a good reason not to do something and was always very good at talking myself out of things. So many opportunities were wasted. But when I stopped doing that — when my response to trying something new and scary went from “why should I?” to “why not?” — my life got about 100,000 times better than it was before. Everything hasn’t always gone right and most of the things I’ve done have ended up being a ton of work, but I’m now a true believer in doing things that scare me and I no longer make excuses for why I shouldn’t.

What I found is that every time you do something that scares you, you feel more capable of doing something that is even scarier for you; until the things that seemed insurmountably frightening feel quite achievable. Most of the time, having whatever the worst case scenario you’re fearing happen is actually worse than the fear you feel in the first place. Putting myself out there on the web with a blog was scary, but when I started that, I never would have imagined that I’d put myself out there with a book or on a stage with hundreds of librarians looking at me (that was the stuff of nightmares for me). Not in a million years. And each thing was scary at first. I spent hours crying over the book, worrying that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. I was shaking like a leaf (and sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News) when I gave that first talk at CIL. But once I did it, I realized that it wasn’t so bad and I could do it again. Now I love public speaking. I love the adrenaline rush I get from getting up in front of people and I love teaching. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing that someone learned something useful from you — it beats any award you can get.

What helped get me started was having people who made me think I could do the crazy things I’d been thinking about. I was lucky to be encouraged very early on (even before I had my first professional library job in some cases) by people who for some inexplicable reason believed in me. Paul Pival (without whose resume and cover letter coaching I probably wouldn’t have a job), Dorothea Salo, Roy Tennant, Rachel Singer Gordon, and Michael Stephens were amazing mentors and cheerleaders early on, and their faith in me was so instrumental to any success I’ve had. And through it all, of course, my husband Adam made me believe I could do anything. I’d never have started this blog without him. Thank you all so much! I’d like to say that I could have done all this on my own, but before I had evidence that I could achieve the things I dreamed about, I really needed that encouragement. I admire people who can do it all without encouragement from others, but believing in myself has never come naturally to me.

We are very lucky to work in a profession where someone fresh out of library school (or even IN library school for that matter) is allowed to achieve so much. I have respect for experience and have learned a lot over the past few years, but I’m glad that no one ever said to me “what does she know about social software in libraries? She’s a brand-new librarian!” It never happened. I was allowed and encouraged to create and contribute and I still find that extraordinary. So folks out there who are LIS students or are just settling into their first job: the only barriers to your contributing to the profession are you. If you have a vision and are willing to work hard to achieve it, you really can make it happen.

This award came at such a nice time. I know that once my baby comes (in less than a month — ack!) I won’t have much time to devote to my extracurricular activities. I know it will take me a good long while to get back to a place where I can start focusing on the million project ideas that are banging around in my head like pinballs. And I know that I will never be as single-mindedly focused on my career again because that’s the choice I made when I decided to have a child. But this award reminds me that I did make a difference with what I’ve done over the past four years and that I do want to continue to contribute in any way I can in the future. My priorities have changed, but contributing to the profession is still something I feel passionately about and will always be a priority in my life.

Just before the break, the Vice President of Academic Affairs came to visit the library to see what we do. I had about 20 minutes to talk to him about library instruction and the progress we’ve made in this area. He was seriously impressed (I loved when he asked us who created our tutorials — as if we’d used some outside company) and stated that he is committed to ensuring that library instruction is a required part of the curriculum for every Freshman (meaning that we don’t have to sell information lit to each faculty member one-by-one).

Meeting with the VPAA gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I’ve accomplished in this position over the past semester, something I haven’t had time to do during what was certainly my busiest semester. Here are some of the things I was able to get done regarding instruction:

Changing our Freshman Orientation: This was the first thing I worked on in with my instruction hat on over the summer. In our original tours, we dragged the (usually bored) students up and down the library talking at then. In our new tour, we showed them a funny movie and made them go on a crazy scavenger hunt that actually taught them how to use the library. It was a lot more work for us, but a big success and I wrote a post about it here.

Improving our Instruction Statistics: No matter what else I did this past semester, I wanted to make absolutely sure that our instruction statistics went up. While numbers aren’t everything, they do make it easy to show progress. And in the areas I had any control over, the stats did go up. Other than in English (which many of us teach in), subject liaisons teach the classes in their subject area and work with faculty to schedule classes. I would be overstepping my bounds if I contacted Architecture or Engineering faculty to market library instruction. While some subject areas were down in terms of classes taught, on the whole, we taught more in Fall ‘08 than we did in Fall ‘07. Working with folks in History and Criminal Justice, I more than doubled the number of classes we taught in the social sciences. We also took the percentage of students reached with library instruction in English 101 classes from 50-60% to 89%. How did we do it? I just kept contacting people. Some faculty are very proactive about scheduling instruction, while others need a nudge. After I sent out a reminder email around mid-semester, all but one of the faculty members contacted me to schedule library instruction. We only ended up missing out on three EN 101 classes and we plan to hold voluntary refreshers on research basics this semester in the hopes of catching some of that 11%.

I also marketed some less-structured forms of instruction to faculty. Not every class necessarily needs to spend a full 50-75 minute period with me learning about research. For this coming semester, I’ve developed course guides for several upper-level classes for which the students should already have the research basics but just need some info on where to start researching their specific topic areas. Some faculty members who I’ve never worked with before really liked the idea of this, which is awesome!

Making Learning Active: I get bored easily, so I empathize with Freshman who have to sit for 50 minutes while a librarian lectures at them about how to do research. One of my big goals was to get students more actively involved in the learning process during class so that what we taught wouldn’t go in one ear and out the other. The downside of this approach: we can’t teach as much. The upside: students might actually remember something, making the sessions more useful. I started with English 101, developing a worksheet that students would complete during the library session. We’d teach a skill (like finding books or brainstorming search terms) and then they’d practice that skill with their research topic on the worksheet. Then we’d go onto the next skill and so on. The worksheet not only got them actively involved in class, but it gave them a record of what they’d tried so far in their research. Faculty really liked this idea and many collected the worksheets for a grade. The Head of the English Department stated that the quality of his students’ papers this semester was better than ever before.

I ended up replicating this method in the classes I taught in the social sciences, modifying the worksheet based on what I’d be teaching in each class. In all of these classes, the faculty members collected the worksheets for a grade, which was fantastic. And even better, the faculty members gave me feedback on what students seemed to understand and what they had trouble with. I felt like students were getting a lot more out of the session because they actually had something to do and, in the end, they had a product of their work and learning.

Changing the Way We Do Assessment: In early September, I wrote a post about the way we’d done assessment for English 101 classes thus far, which was basically to measure satisfaction with the session at the end of class. While I like to be liked, I really don’t care if students like me so long as they learn something. Our assessment method told us very little about whether the student absorbed what we taught them and whether or not they could apply it. So, for this semester, we collected those worksheets that students completed in EN 101, quickly graded them, and handed them back. We graded each question on a scale of 0-3, zero being they didn’t fill it out at all and three meaning that they demonstrated comprehension of the concept taught. Each student in the class would end up with a total, but his/her scores for each question would be recorded on an Excel spreadsheet. That way, we could see where students were having trouble and it could inform our teaching. If most of the students were getting 1’s on the question about subject headings, clearly we didn’t teach subject headings well enough. At the end of the semester, I averaged up the scores students got in each class on each question and had some very useful data regarding what we are teaching effectively and what we need to improve on. Knowing what students can and can’t do after an instruction session is a lot more useful than a student answering “Agree” to “The information presented was clear and well organized.”

So what’s on tap for this semester? Well, I only have a few months to go until I start my maternity leave at the beginning of April, but it will definitely be a packed few months. I’m doing a lot of work with the History Department and am now getting into teaching 8 sections of History 108, in which Freshmen have to research a specific country’s involvement in WWI and the Paris Peace Talks (easy if you get, say, England, not so easy if you get Australia). They’ve had this assignment for years and for years I’ve observed confused students wandering through the library not having a clue about where to start. I’m very grateful that they asked for my involvement this time around. I’m doing my second year of teaching students in the Historical methods classes, for which I get three sessions with each class. I’m lucky to have some really amazing faculty to work with in the History Department who are really interested in students gaining the information literacy skills they need to be successful in their discipline. Would that every department were like that! I should have sessions with other departments and will probably teach some of the English 102’s, but I’m guessing that history will make up the bulk of my teaching load.

My big push for this semester is going to be marketing library instruction to faculty. We plan to hold brown bag sessions for faculty in specific disciplines where we talk about new(ish) online resources we have access to in their area, including EndNote Web. EndNote is going to be the hook that draws them in, but our real goal is to get some long-time faculty to become aware of some of the great databases we have and the necessity of teaching students how to use them. It’s all about just being on their radar so they think of us when they’re planning for a big research assignment. Some of the best marketing has actually come from faculty who’ve been impressed with our work. I got a call from a psychology professor who wanted me to teach her Experimental Psych students how to find peer-reviewed journal articles based on the recommendation of one of the history profs. I feel like we’re getting close to the point where marketing will get much easier because we won’t be the ones doing it.

Another big project for this semester is LibQUAL. I’ve been tasked with running our library’s LibQUAL survey (our second time doing this) and have formed a great committee of colleagues to help me out with the marketing, administration and data-crunching (especially since I’ll be away by the time we get our data). To be perfectly honest, I’m not a true believer when it comes to LibQUAL — I didn’t feel like we got that much out of it the first time we did it — but I’ll certainly do my best to make sure we get a really good response rate. The final big project will be an upcoming search committee that I’ll be on to hire for a pretty awesome position. I’ll be sure to post the info here about the position as soon as we get cabinet-level approval and the ad gets posted.

While I did like being a distance learning librarian, I’m loving the challenges that this job brings. I love teaching (far more than I ever thought I would), I love working with faculty, and I love change. This is a job I can’t get bored of since there’s always something new to do and no project is ever really finished. Integrating information literacy instruction into the curriculum of every academic program is a huge goal, and one I could chip away at for quite some time. In spite of the fact that nothing is ever really done, I feel a sense of accomplishment already. I can see positive progress and I know I helped to make it happen. I still feel like I’m flying blind most of the time, throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, but I don’t feel insecure about that anymore. While I’m still not as up on the literature of instruction as I’d like to be, I’ve learned a lot about what works at our library, and that’s a whole lot more important.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realize how much he’s rubbed off on me. For the past three and a half years, there has barely been a moment when I haven’t been involved in some project or other. It started with the ALA 2005 Chicago Wiki, went on to Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki, then the book, then HigherEd BlogCon, then Five Weeks to a Social Library, then the crazy speaking schedule, then teaching at San Jose State. This summer was the first time I felt like I had time to take a breath. And it was really nice. I finally had time to get my house in order. We’ve lived here for three years and I’ve barely had a moment to get things organized how I like it. So I really focused on that and on culling my collection of junk I don’t use anymore. It was nice to focus on home and family.

My next project is one I’ve been planning on taking on for a long time, but was waiting for the right moment. While it took a lot out of me, I really enjoyed the whirlwind of the past few years and don’t regret a moment of it. I love speaking at conferences, writing, teaching, etc. and I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing those things. But I’ve gotten to the point where I’m ready to slow down. I’m at the point where the thought of speaking in far-flung places like Chile and London just don’t seem as appealing as they once did (and you don’t need to tell me I’m stupid for turning down those opportunities; I’ve already heard it). I just really like being at home.

So after ALA Annual, the time seemed right to start on our next project: a baby. And I’m happy to say that we’re right on schedule with this project, expecting a miniature version of me and Adam in early April, 2009. We couldn’t be more thrilled! And while I’m really going to miss seeing my friends at ALA Midwinter, Computers in Libraries, etc., I’m ready to make sacrifices for my little one. I may actually be at Annual since Adam’s family lives in Chicago, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from friends who are parents, you never know what life will be like after baby, so I can’t make any promises.

If you’ve noticed that I haven’t been posting much over the past few months, this is why. I’ve been feeling pretty miserable — nauseous and exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever felt. I’m not complaining since feeling like crap in the first trimester is usually a sign of a healthy pregnancy, but it’s been difficult even to put in a full day at work, much less do anything beyond that. I’m coming out of the first trimester now, so hopefully I’ll be entering into those halcyon days of high energy, good appetite, and “glowing” (I wonder what I’ll look like when I glow). Hopefully that will lead to better posting frequency, but again, no promises. If I’m not feeling inspired, I’m not going to write “filler.”

Needless to say, the blog is going to continue. I am not leaving my job or my engagement in the professional dialogue. I’m sure I’ll be less involved for a good while, but I plan to go back to speaking and writing (though with a drastically reduced schedule) and will definitely keep up with the profession.

With my new focus on home and non-library-related projects, a brand new blog has been born. /var/log/farkas is a collaborative project between me and my husband, Adam. I’ve been bugging Adam forever to get his own blog, because he has such interesting insights on technology (he’s really the brains of this operation) and does so many cool organizational/productivity projects that others might be interested in replicating. I also have been wanting a blog to post about things that aren’t library-related but still interest me, be they technology-related or not. I don’t want to have a “baby blog” or a “mom blog”, but I wanted to have a space where I could post some news about my pregnancy and the baby so I don’t annoy the heck out of 99% of the people who read this blog. So I’d say that the blog is about everything Meredith-related other than libraries with a heapin’ helping of Adam’s absolutely frightening brilliance and great sense of humor thrown in.

It was a hard choice to decide to have a baby when I feel like I’m on an upward trajectory, career-wise. But what I realized is that there is never a perfect time for a baby, and you can spend your entire life waiting for that “just right” time to come. And when I saw the baby moving around on the ultrasound last week, it was very obvious to me that this totally beats a speaking gig in Chile, London, or even on Mars.

How did people first learn about your blog? Do you have a previous blog post on how it became popular? It would be an interesting read!

It’s a good question and one I thought I’d post here instead of just on the class site. At the time, it all felt like it was happening without me really doing much, especially since I wasn’t particularly savvy about how to gain an audience. Even now, looking back, I see where luck played a huge part in this blog becoming a popular read for people in our profession. But I think it also helped that I was writing for the love of it and not just to gain an audience.

I started Information Wants to be Free on November 16, 2004 with a rather uninspired first post. I’d had a blog for a single class in grad school (my policy class) where I wrote about open source software. It was called Code Wants to be Free (yes, I have a one-track mind). I found that I really enjoyed writing my own reflections on the things I was reading about open source software, but, at the time, there was no topic that really grabbed my interest beyond the assignment.

That all changed when I started reading blogs myself. In the Fall of 2004, I started following blogs like The Shifted Librarian, Tame the Web, Free Range Librarian, Library Stuff, The Librarian in Black, and Librarian.net. Back then, those were the major blogs in our profession (and, if you look at subscriber stats, things haven’t changed too much since). I started learning more about library technologies and especially about social software. I started playing with new technologies and found that I had a real passion for emerging tech. I started to drive my husband crazy talking about library technologies, since I didn’t know of anyone else who was interested and he was a semi-captive audience. He was the one who suggested I start a blog, perhaps because he was sick of my yammering on about the stuff or because he realized it would be a good way for me to connect with kindred spirits.

For the first couple of months, I posted almost every day, if not more. Most of my posts were just re-hashes of news I’d found online with a bit of commentary, but mixed in were some of the more reflective posts I write almost exclusively now. I wasn’t particularly strategic about getting an audience, since I wasn’t very blog savvy at the time. I didn’t know about TrackBacks, so it didn’t occur to me that linking to A-list bloggers might get their attention. I didn’t realize that when you comment on someone else’s blog, they might check out your blog to see who you are. Those things are probably pretty obvious to people who start blogging now and if it isn’t, you should realize that it’s a good way to make connections and build an audience (as long as you’re writing something of substance and not just gratuitiously link-doping).

Early on, I’m sure the only person who was reading my blog was my husband, Adam. Somehow, though, Jessamyn found my November 24th post about the bleak job market for new librarians and linked to it on her own blog. How she found it is beyond me, but the link from Jessamyn was crazy good for my blog and got me on a few more people’s radar. In a post three days later, I actually wondered what it takes to become an A-list blogger:

But how does one break into this core group? Will having interesting and relevant content and updating frequently do it? Or is it impossible to join their “clique”? Frankly, I’m just happy to have an audience beyond just me and my husband. I actually got giddy when I saw that Jessamyn had referred to my blog entry of the same name that I’d written earlier that day (meaning that she actually READ my blog). Good lord! It’s like high school all over again, isn’t it?

I wasn’t really sure of myself as a blogger back then. I often forced myself to write things because I thought that posting a lot would get people to read me. So nearly every vaguely interesting thing that came across my radar would merit a post. I actually wrote 63 posts in the month of January (probably helped to take my mind off not having a job)! As I linked to people’s blogs in my posts, I started to notice that those same people would often comment on my blog. And sometimes they’d even link to me, which would make my web stats shoot up. I looked at my web stats obsessively back then — don’t think I’ve checked them in a year or so now.

By February, my posting had slowed down a bit and was getting more focused on the things I was really interested in, like the so-called librarian job shortage, impressions from my job hunting (and interviewing), usability of library middleware, and social software. I noticed that the posts I wrote that were really from my heart or where I felt like I was taking a personal risk in writing it, were the ones that got the most comments and links from other bloggers. By mid-March, I noticed that I had reached 100 Bloglines subscribers, which had seemed impossible just four months earlier. And as I hit my stride with blogging, where it began to feel effortless, things just snowballed from there.

After four months of blogging, I had a pretty good sense about the sort of blog I wanted to write. It wouldn’t have a specific focus. It would be a professional blog with a personal bent. My posts would be medium to long, because I just don’t know how to say anything succinctly. I would be just as opinionated on my blog as I am in real life. And while I’m sure there are people who hate my style, there were others who enjoyed what I wrote. I’m grateful to the people who engaged me in blog conversation back then, who encouraged me to keep it up, and made me feel part of a community during a very frustrating time of my life (finding my first post-MLS job).

If I had to give advice to anyone trying to make a name for themselves in the blogosphere, I’d say that the number 1 thing to do is write from the heart. Write about things you’re passionate about. Put your personality into your posts. Good writing will come from writing about the things that interest you in your own unique voice. Also, link to other people’s blog posts that interest you and comment on them. This will bring those bloggers to your blog (since probably 95% of bloggers have ego feeds) and if they like what you’ve written, they might start following you. Also, comment on blogs that you like (or don’t like). I got to know a lot of bloggers (some even before they had blogs of their own — Ryan!) because they commented on my blog (these days, you probably could also do this on sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, which are great for networking). I usually will check out the blogs of people who comment on mine. However, don’t write comments or posts with the sole purpose of attracting attention to your blog. Those usually are pretty transparent. Just be yourself, write what you love, and love what you write. Good things will flow from that.

I’m actually curious to know how other people got started with blogging and I’ve never really started a meme before. So I’m going to tag Sarah Houghton-Jan, David Lee King, Michael Porter, and Jason Griffey. How did you get into blogging? How did you gain an audience? What advice would you give to new bloggers who want to make a name for themselves in the biblioblogosphere?