There was a big part of me that loved Library 101 (for those of you who don’t know, this is a video produced by Michael Porter and David Lee King — with a group of essays from others in the profession — designed to encourage people to keep up with new technologies). I love Michael and David’s enthusiasm and creativity — I think of them as the profession’s greatest cheerleaders. I was on a panel with them at ALA and I felt like a curmudgeon sitting there in the face of their true belief and optimism. The Library 101 video was really fun, though perhaps a bit long. I certainly appreciate the time and effort and passion that went into it and wish I had the video editing skills they have. I also love how many people in the profession love libraries and love Michael and David enough to photograph themselves for the project and how many really cool, smart people took the time to write essays for it. My contribution is less than stellar in my opinion because I dashed it off at a time when I was dealing with family illness and lack of sleep (pretty much the one constant in my life these days). I wish I could have written something better for the project. A lot of the other pieces are far better-written and more thought-provoking.

While I loved it as me, Meredith Farkas, friend and fan, I didn’t quite understand it when I tried to look at it through the lens of a library worker who is not that into technology. Or a library administrator. Would that inspire me to start learning about technology or to start a Learning 2.0-type program? Probably not. And when I commented that I didn’t understand the project, that’s what I meant. I don’t really understand who they’re doing it for. If it’s for people like me, they hit their mark. If it’s for a library administrator who doesn’t see the value of continuing technology education or a librarian who just doesn’t care about all this web 2.0 stuff, I don’t think this is going to reach those people. It just feels like preaching to the choir, because I think the people who are going to love the video are already drinking the kool-ade about the importance of continuous learning about technologies. I guess what I would have liked to see is something constructive coming from the Library 101 site — like a call to create a continuing education program like Learning 2.0 or Five Weeks to a Social Library, where the video could direct/inspire lots of people from all over the profession to share their knowledge of library technologies through creating educational content that anyone could benefit from. It just seems to be missing that “next step.”

While I’m all for criticism, and some people have leveled some very constructive criticisms of the project, I really hate how mean some people have been about Library 101. I know what it’s like to put your blood, sweat and tears into a project and then have people say mean things about it. Even when 90% of people are saying great stuff (or at least constructive stuff), it’s that 10% that you hear the most (at least I do). I’m not saying “don’t criticize people,” I’m just saying that when you do, you should think of how much effort that person put into their work and criticize in a constructive and humane way. Because the last thing we want to do is discourage creativity and risk-taking in this profession by beating people up for it.

My little guy just woke up from his nap, so I’d better run before I write something stupid again.

1. My grandfather taught me to drive when I was 13 or 14. If you can drive a gigantic Jeep at 13 on a dirt road in the mountains with a big ditch on your left and a creek on your right, you can drive anywhere.

2. At age 5, I learned how to drive a tractor (thanks again to my grandfather who had to attach a wooden block to the break so I could reach it). I find it strange that I was perfectly capable of changing gears when I was 5, but I can’t drive a stick-shift car now.

3. I have always had a fascination with squirrels and ducks. I have no idea why, but I could spent hours watching them interact with each other. I actually researched owning a pet duck (they even have duck diapers for indoor ducks!) but Adam wasn’t too crazy about the idea. I’m still working on the pet squirrel angle.

4. I read Jenny McCarthy’s book on pregnancy when Adam and I decided we wanted to have a baby. It scared the crap out of me as she had an unbelievable number of highly unpleasant pregnancy symptoms and side-effects. From that book, I came to think that every pregnant woman would have those same symptoms and that pregnancy would be the worst 9 months of my life. Fortunately, I’ve not found any of that to be the case. Other than being so tired now that I can barely function at work, I’ve loved being pregnant. My pregnancy advice is don’t read that crappy book!

5. While all my friends wanted cool sporty cars when they turned 16, I wanted a Volvo 240 Station Wagon.

6. I spent almost a year studying in Denmark when I was in college and it was one of the most important experiences of my life.

7. I love Bruce Springsteen. I once flew from Florida to North Carolina to see him in concert and would do it again in a heartbeat (even though I normally hate concerts). He has this incredible energy (in his music and his performance), which is even more impressive when you consider that he’s around 60 now.

8. I went to an arts high school, which was a fantastic experience. While I could have gone to the school for singing or writing, I chose to pursue writing because you have to have good posture when you sing and I was lazy. It ended up being a good choice, since singing would not have taken me nearly so far as my writing has (I wasn’t that good).

9. I’m really doing this to avoid writing my column. I told myself I was going to write five months’-worth of columns today so I could get ahead before the baby comes, and I just can’t seem to get started.

10. Adam and I got married in a small destination wedding in the Napa Valley. It was small, intimate, and the most fun ever. I’m definitely glad we did it that way since big weddings can get out of hand and become more about making other people happy than about celebrating your love for each other.

11. I was born in New Jersey and lived in the Princeton area until I was 12.

12. I’ve had a two dollar bill sitting in my wallet since shortly after I met Adam, and since really good things have happened to me ever since putting it in there, I’m convinced that my luck will disappear if I take it out. Well, I’m not convinced, but I’m not taking any chances either.

13. I really miss going to conferences and seeing my librarian friends. I didn’t realize how much I would miss it as I was getting a bit tired of travel when Adam and I decided to get pregnant. I’ll probably be at ALA Annual, though with a three-month-old in tow, I won’t be spending too much time at the conference.

14. Adam and I lived in Chicago for six months and it convinced me that I never want to live in a city (though if I had to, Chicago would probably be the only one I could tolerate).

15. I have always had this weird fascination with food gift-baskets even though no one ever bought me one. I love looking at gift basket catalogs and seeing the salamis, cheeses, crackers and sweets in perfect combinations. Adam finally got me a basket from Harry and David last year and it was awesome! I’m trying to find a subtle way to convince someone in my family to buy us this gift basket when our baby is born (I love Zingerman’s).

16. I never thought I’d get married. When I was in college, I spent a lot of time alone (by choice) and thought that I’d end up like Emily Dickinson. Unfortunately, my poetry is not nearly as good as hers. And while I still enjoy being alone, I enjoy being with Adam much more.

17. My favorite book for the past decade has been Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and I am absolutely terrified to see the movie version. Even with a solid cast and director, I just don’t know how they could do justice to such a beautifully tragic story.

18. Next Saturday is the anniversary of the day Adam and I had our first date. Since it’s only a week away from Valentine’s Day, we always celebrate February 7th instead. It’s probably saved us a fortune at restaurants over the years and it’s a much more meaningful date to us.

19. Adam and I are addicted to really bad television. We watch all of the trashy VH1 reality shows with washed up celebrities and the women and men who (claim to) love them. When I hear people say that TV makes you stupid, I think about how much TV I watched as a kid (and now) and how it doesn’t seem to have harmed me in any way. Still, I hope to keep my son from watching so much TV. Yes, I am a hypocrite.

20. When I was a child, I was a really picky eater. I basically lived on grilled chicken breasts (with nothing on it), spaghetti (with nothing on it), and peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly). I didn’t eat beans or fish until about sophomore year of college, which is funny, because I pretty much eat beans every day now.

21. I still do have some food hang-ups. I can’t eat shellfish because they usually look like what they were in life (I can’t eat anything that looks like what it was). I absolutely hate eggs unless they’re in cake or something. When Adam makes an omelet, I have to leave the room as the smell of eggs cooking nauseates me.

22. My brother and I used to play dress-up a lot when we were little. I have so many pictures of him in dresses and funny hats and I put one of them up on Flickr a while back. Apparently, for his birthday, his friends took him to a restaurant where he found that they’d put up a life-sized copy of that picture. Ooops!

23. I was a vegetarian for many years but was pushed back into meat-eating by a series of boyfriends. First it was just fish. Then one guy got me to eat chicken. Adam was the final straw. He took me to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and it was all over. I still won’t cook meat myself, so it’s usually a “going out” thing.

24. I’ve lived in a lot of different places, but Vermont is the first place I’ve lived where I really felt a sense of fit. At this point, I can hardly imagine living anywhere else. This is home.

25. I can’t wait to meet my son.

Close to a month ago, I wrote about the awful experience I had with Pottery Barn’s customer service. Since a bunch of things have happened since then (and I’ve had people ask if anything has changed), I thought I ought to update folks on this.

I didn’t give up on Pottery Barn the day I wrote that post. I called them again and explained to the customer service representative that I’ve been a really loyal customer for years and already had plans to order other items through them for myself and my child. I specifically asked if they could replace the furniture I purchased from them. The customer service rep said that she would check with her supervisor and get back to me within an hour. She sounded pretty positive, so I actually started to have hope that this would all be fixed.

After waiting six hours for her to call me back, I called again. Turns out, not only had she not called me back, but she hadn’t even logged my call in their system. I was livid. I got transferred to another rep who again suggested that I just drill the holes in the furniture myself. When I said that I didn’t pay almost $1000 for furniture that I had to drill holes into (and also that I didn’t want to destroy the furniture), she suggested that they have a furniture medic come and drill the holes. Furniture medic? Apparently, Pottery Barn has people all over the country who are on contract to fix their furniture when it arrives screwed up. Why this wasn’t a possibility suggested to me by the 6 people I’d spoken to previously is a mystery to me. She let me know that the furniture medic would be in touch with me within a week. I figured I’d update my post as soon as the furniture was fixed.

At that point, I was pretty happy with the resolution, though I still wasn’t feeling too crazy with the company and what I had to go through to get there. So now I was waiting for the furniture medic. I waited a week. One week turned into two. After almost three weeks, I called again. After being on hold for about 30 minutes, I finally got through to someone named Janet who was the first person to be nice to me the entire time I’d been dealing with Williams Sonoma/Pottery Barn Customer Service Team. After kind of blowing up about how ridiculous this whole process has been, how badly I’d been treated and how much I’ve spent with their company, she called the furniture medic herself and arranged for him to come next week. Next Tuesday, I will finally have our changing table attached to the dresser. I’ll believe it when I see it.

I still doubt that I’ll ever buy anything again from Pottery Barn. The fact that I had to talk to close to a dozen people to get any sort of resolution is absurd. Other than in my dealings with Janet (who clearly should have a job whipping their other reps into shape), at no time did I ever feel like my business was valued. Why be loyal to a company that clearly isn’t loyal to me? There are a lot of companies and service people who I will always be loyal to because they’ve provided excellent customer service and have always made me feel like my business was valued. Those are the companies that will get my money and with a new baby on the way, I’m sure I’ll be spending a lot of it. It just probably won’t be with Pottery Barn.

Update: Yesterday, I received a call from Melanie Huigen at Williams Sonoma Corporate Customer Relations. She was really apologetic about the experience I’d had and explained that since my order they’ve made changes to the way that customer service is handled with all of the Williams Sonoma brands. She also explained how seriously they take complaints like this at the corporate level and that all issues like this are reviewed monthly by brand managers. I felt like she sincerely cared about my business and my feedback, which was refreshing. While I still feel a bit gun-shy about making major purchases from Pottery Barn in the future, I do feel a lot better about the company and I wouldn’t doubt that I’ll get over it eventually since I really do like so many of their products. I dealt with a some not-so-great customer service reps during what may have been a transitional period for their customer service team (since not calling someone back or suggesting that a customer drill holes into a unit themselves is not good customer service, any way you slice it) and hopefully my dealings with Janet towards the end of this odyssey are a sign that things are getting better. I wish that the first person (or second, or third) I dealt with was as kind and helpful as Melanie, but I’m relieved that this all got resolved. I have a beautiful dresser that I love and now a changing table topper that is actually secured to the top of it. Had I not persisted — had I returned the dresser (losing all the money I paid for shipping) and/or just written off Pottery Barn after my first call — I would not have had a good outcome in the end. It just goes to show that persistence can pay off and that while the person you originally deal with may not have cared about your business, someone in the company very well might.

On Friday, I was down in Rhode Island giving the keynote for the NELINET IT Conference. My talk was entitled Can’t Get There From Here: Achieving Organization 2.0 and it was fun to focus on how organizations need to behave in order to start innovating, keeping up with patrons, and implementing new technologies effectively. Thanks to the folks at NELINET for the opportunity to pontificate on one of my favorite topics. You can see my slides below.

After that, I took a trip down to Connecticut to visit my alma mater, Wesleyan University, and do some serious apple-picking. At Wesleyan, I had two really odd experiences. The first was being asked to pay reparations by some Wesleyan students, which I guess shouldn’t have surprised me since I did spend four years in that environment. The second thing happened in the library, which was my home away from home when I was at Wes. I was showing Adam some of my favorite spots in the library when all of a sudden, someone said, “excuse me, are you Meredith Farkas?” It turned out the Science Librarian (hi Andrew!) reads my blog and somehow recognized me from my picture on it. That was really bizarre! I let him know that I’d sell my soul to one day work at Wesleyan; it really is an awesome library and an amazing academic environment. I still wouldn’t pay reparations though.

Next week, I’m supposed to be going to Iceland to give a talk on library education in the 21st century. I’m getting increasingly nervous about going though considering the state of their economy. I’ve been reading about possible food shortages because grocers can’t get foreign currency, and other pretty serious possible consequences of their rather extreme credit and currency crisis. Of course, I’m also seeing articles about how it’s the best time to visit Iceland. Normally, I’d probably be game to go either way, but now that I’m responsible for another human life, I’m a little more hesitant about going into a possibly unsafe situation. I plan to wait and see how things look later in the week and if the situation there is looking a bit more promising, I’ll definitely go. It would be a bummer not to go since I’d lose a bunch of money, would let down the organizers, and would miss going to both Iceland and Internet Librarian. But baby comes first.

If you are going to Internet Librarian, say hi to my colleague, Toni Josey. She was hired as our Distance Learning Librarian when I was promoted and she’s absolutely fantastic! She even has a blog where she writes about distance learning librarianship.

After October, I don’t have any other speaking engagements until January when I’m giving a keynote for an online conference for rural librarians in Iowa. I’m glad to see there are more online conferences happening; not only because I won’t be able to travel as much as I used to, but because it makes professional development so much more accessible to every librarian. Rock on, Iowa!

Four years ago today, Adam and I stood up on a mountain overlooking the Napa Valley and promised to spend the rest of our lives together. I remember thinking that day that I couldn’t possibly love him more than I did at that very moment. I’ve been pleased to find out how wrong I was. I always thought marriage would take the excitement out of a relationship, but I’m really just as jacked-up crazy about Adam as I was when we first met. It helps that I’m married to the most lovable person in the world.

Happy Anniversary, Adam. I would not be where I am in my life, career, or general head-space without your generosity, encouragement, support, humor and all-around wonderfulness. I’m so lucky to get to spend the rest of my life with you.

LISjobs.com LOGO CONTEST

LISjobs.com is seeking submissions for a new logo that reflects its mission of job hunting and career development for librarians and info pros. This logo will be featured on the upcoming redesign of the LISjobs.com website, as well as in additional print and online materials.

Guidelines:

Please keep the design in a landscape (wider than it is tall) format, and use lighter colors to help it stand out against the redesigned site. While creating your design, keep in mind that the new LISjobs.com expands coverage of career development and library education issues, serving all stages of info pros’ career cycle. I’m seeking a logo that best represents that mission.

Please submit your design as a .jpg file to rachel@lisjobs.com by Monday, July 7. If your design is chosen, please be prepared to submit a high-quality Illustrator (.eps) or Photoshop (.psd) graphic (vector preferred).

If your design is chosen, you affirm that you will transfer all rights over to Rachel Singer Gordon/LISjobs.com. By submitting a logo design, you affirm that you are its creator and have not used others’ protected work in its design. You will be credited on the LISjobs.com website as the logo designer, with a link back to your own web presence if desired. You will also receive a free resume posting on LISjobs.com (lifetime, or as long as I still offer this service) as well as an autographed copy of What’s the Alternative: Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros (ITI, 2008).

The winning design will be chosen by Rachel Singer Gordon. If no design is selected, there may be no winner of this contest, and LISjobs.com may stick with its old logo.

Adam on the dock

Originally uploaded by librarianmer

I have to say that this was one of the best vacations I’ve ever been on. Staying in a beautiful place, taking hikes, eating great food, meeting nice goats and eating their delicious cheese, becoming friends with one of the best dogs ever… pretty darn close to perfect.

One week is never enough.

Tomorrow morning, Adam and I are leaving for a vacation in the Adirondacks. This is the first time in AGES that our vacations haven’t either centered around a talk I’m giving or a trip to visit family. This is an honest-to-goodness no obligations, do-as-little-as-possible, email-and-feed-free vacation. And after the year we’ve had, we both really need it.

After that, I’ll be getting back for the second week of our distance learners’ Residency (the first time I ever get to meet the students I’ve worked with for two years previous) and then will be leaving on the 26th for ALA Annual in Anaheim. I’ll be covering the exhibit hall again for American Libraries and am on two committees so I expect to be pretty busy. But I’ll definitely be part of the LITA Top Tech Trends panel on Sunday afternoon and wouldn’t miss the blogger salon for anything. Hope to see you there!

With all that going on, you can expect this blog to be pretty quiet for a while.

Since then, I’ve had two opportunities to teach for InfoPeople and on January 23, I will start teaching my course LIBR 246-13 Building the Social Library Online for the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University. Like Five Weeks, I built my classroom using Drupal and I’m pretty excited to see how it works in a for-credit 15-week course. I spent a lot of my break working on creating the first four lectures for the class. My lectures are Quicktime movies made using Keynote (it’s a new feature in Keynote ‘08), and I’m really happy with how they came out. If there’s one thing I learned this year is that I love to teach. This is my calling. Whether it’s giving a talk, teaching an online class or teaching a live information literacy session to English 101 students… I feel in my element and I feel like I’m making a difference.

A lot of good things happened at work too. I unveiled our redesigned website in January and we started providing reference services using MeeboMe that month as well. I started the embedded librarian service in just three classrooms in March and now am embedded in 14 classrooms, with one colleague embedded in another one. I created a wiki for military history students to share resources. We expanded our reference assistance availability on weekends. We fixed all of the access issues we had with students in the military authenticating into the databases. We implemented a link resolver. We got a terrific Electronic Resources Librarian who is helping me to launch our wiki subject guides when the students come back in 2 weeks. When I think about all of that, I’m amazed we got it all done in only a year (and with such a small staff). I’ve got about a million ideas for 2008 too; my idea for changing the way we provide ILL services to online learners will be particularly disruptive to us, but particularly beneficial to our users. It’s being able to do work like this that makes me excited about being in this profession.

I gave 22 talks in 2007; a number I hope never to repeat. While it’s great to visit new places, it’s exhausting and often takes me away from my husband. We’re not newlyweds by any stretch anymore, but I feel like I’m missing half of myself when I’m not with him. Adam is the inspiration in everything I do. So one of my plans is definitely to be more selective about the speaking opportunities I choose. I started doing that in late 2007 and it’s been a good thing. I’m certainly not complaining about the amazing opportunities I’ve had. Speaking has afforded me the opportunity to travel to interesting places (New Mexico was a highlight this year) and to meet some fantastic people. To go from someone who was afraid of giving the smallest presentation in class to someone who can give a keynote at UC Berkeley without sweating through her shirt is just unreal. Thanks to everyone who gave me opportunities to become more than I thought I could be. It’s been wonderful meeting all of you.

I’m not a big prognosticator, but I know I’m going to come up with some trends for the LITA Top Tech Trends panel in less than 2 weeks, and again for the OLA Superconference in Toronto on February 2. I have a few ideas already, but if you have any suggestions of additional trends, I’m definitely open to other ideas. I’ll share my list with all of you once I’ve come up with my trends and I’m pretty sure the trends at Midwinter will be podcast.

If I thanked everyone who enriched my professional life this year in this blog post, I’d probably spend the rest of the year writing it. So many people I once idolized (still do, really) took me under their wing, mentored me, and talked people into giving me opportunities that changed my life. You know who you are and you know that I’m forever in your debt. Others (people I know well and others I only know through the Interwebs) have inspired me, challenged me, argued with me, stood up for me, made me laugh, made me cry, made me think, made me feel hope. Thank you all. My life is so much richer for having known you. Never could I have imagined that by starting this blog I’d become a member of a community full of smart, passionate, wonderful professionals.

Just as I’m not big on prognostications, I’m not big on resolutions. I make it a point to only make promises I know I can keep. I expect things to change for me at least as much in 2008 as it did in 2007, and I’m pretty excited to be a part of a profession that never gets boring. The only thing I will promise is that I’ll keep trying to make things better; to create change at work and in the profession. The only thing you can count on is change. And I like that.

Happy New Year everyone. May 2008 bring you great success, fun and learning.

Ok, I’m easily amused! Before Adam and I moved to Vermont, we’d usually spend the afternoon of Christmas at a movie. Here in Vermont, all of the movie theaters within an hour of our house are actually closed for Christmas Day until 6:30 pm (not too many Jews in rural Vermont? Surprising!). So we’ll be attempting a gingerbread house and watching the most recent season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. We already did our holiday celebration around the Festivus Pole yesterday.

However you celebrate (the winter solstice, the birth of Jesus, the menorah oil lasting 8 days, African-American heritage, how your relatives and friends have disappointed you, etc.), hope it is/was fun!