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« Previous EntriesAssessment on the brain
Thursday, March 7th, 2013This has been a crazy year, full of a lot of research and activities centered around assessment. From my participation in RAILS last Spring, to my Assessment LibGuide, to my presentation at LOEX of the West, to my paper (forthcoming) and presentation (with Lisa Hinchliffe) at the Library Assessment Conference, to my just-published article in [...]
The entrepreneurial library
Thursday, November 29th, 2012Years ago, I visited the libraries at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After lots of conversations, the one word that stuck with me was entrepreneurial. The library faculty there were a truly entrepreneurial bunch, creatively finding opportunities to improve services and raise the profile of the library through collaboration, experimentation, partnerships, grants, etc. When [...]
Reflections on year one at PSU
Thursday, April 26th, 2012Yesterday was my one-year anniversary of working at Portland State. I’d wanted to write a post yesterday reflecting on it, but I was driving three hours (to Bend, OR) to give a four-hour preconference. Since the whole experience was accompanied by a migraine that just wouldn’t die, I crawled into bed as soon as the [...]
Up to my neck in… well, everything.
Monday, April 9th, 2012You know you’re a real blogger when, no matter how absurdly busy the rest of your life is, the thing you can’t do that you miss the most is blogging. It’s been a crazy almost two months and isn’t looking to get any better in the near future. Isn’t it funny when you look back [...]
Inventory of info lit instruction/assessment: Your feedback needed
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010I mentioned in my most recent post that our VPAA (Vice President of Academic Affairs) recently gave me the green light to form an information literacy committee chaired by myself and made up of faculty representatives from each of the six academic Schools and a representative from Academic Computing. It took me a while to [...]
What’s the deal, JSTOR?
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010I’ve written some posts in the past about vendors that have done some pretty slimy things in the name of making a profit. At least that makes sense to me. That’s their model — they’re profit-driven. Then there’s JSTOR. JSTOR is not an EBSCO or an Elsevier. JSTOR is a non-profit. JSTOR is a “service [...]
Tips for library job applicants in a tight market
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Another semester of teaching at San Jose State’s SLIS program has ended. Many of my students are graduating and others are starting to think about applying for jobs so they’ll have one when they do graduate. For so many of them, the job search is going to be a struggle. It wasn’t an easy job [...]
Looking beyond the technolust
Monday, April 6th, 2009Let me preface this post with the statement that I hate the term Luddite. I think it’s often used to dismiss people and ideas that differ from our own. It’s much easier to dismiss someone as being anti-tech than to try and understand what may be their very rational argument against something you love or [...]
Reinventing the Rook Tour
Monday, August 25th, 2008Last week was one of the most stressful, but also most satisfying, weeks I’ve had at work. That week, we did our “rook tours” which are orientations to the library for the new Freshmen entering the Corps of Cadets (our school’s population is around 50% ROTC). For three days a week before classes start, we [...]
The best laid plans of mice and Meredith
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008It’s amazing how I manage to delude myself year after year. Every spring I make a list of projects I want to get done in the summer when I “have more time.” And every year, I barely get through any of them. This year I was really optimistic about what I could accomplish and I’m [...]
Help Wanted!
Thursday, April 10th, 2008I just got back to work this evening and was pleased to find that the job ad for the Distance Learning Librarian position at Norwich has been posted. If you’re interested in a job where you get to do a little bit of everything, work in a change-oriented environment, and get bossed around by me [...]
Online learning and its impact on public libraries
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007I’ve been wanting to comment on this thought-provoking post by Carleen at Woodsy + Wired (a pretty new blog) for a few weeks now and just haven’t had the time. But almost every day, her post has been on my mind. In Effects of distance learning on public libraries, Carleen writes about her library’s struggles [...]
A day in the life of a distance learning librarian
Thursday, December 14th, 2006This morning, I received an e-mail from a librarian who is applying for a position as a distance learning librarian. She asked me what a distance learning librarian does. I would guess that every single person with the title (and some without it who work with online learners) have somewhat different job responsibilities. I’m the [...]
Shameless self-promoter
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006I have been reading the discussions regarding “movers and shakers” and the “self-promoting elite” with great interest. See these posts (and many comments on the first two) at The Shifted Librarian, Walt at Random, Caveat Lector and The Liminal Librarian. I find it very interesting how a post about how libraries can keep the people [...]
Technology Implementation: My Brilliant Failures
Sunday, December 4th, 2005I’m never afraid to try something and have it fail. I’d rather learn from a mistake than learn nothing because I was afraid to make a mistake. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly, in the four months I’ve been at my job, I’ve learned a great deal (in [...]
Coders wanted.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005I’ve talked a lot in the past about the gulf that is growing between libraries that are change agents and libraries that are change averse. Lately, I’ve been seeing a new gulf growing in libraries, that has less to do with one’s attitude towards change and more to do with the skills of one’s staff. [...]
My year in blog
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005Today is the anniversary of my blog (Adam laughed at me when I used the word “blogiversary”). Part of me can’t believe it’s already been a year since I first started this blog. The other part of me can’t believe it’s only been a year for all I’ve written and for all that has changed! [...]
New communities, physical and virtual
Sunday, October 30th, 2005For background, this post was inspired by Laura’s (of lis.dom) excellent post on the uses of the biblioblogosphere, which was in response to posts by Mark Linder, Angel, and Joy Moll. It’s now been almost three months since Adam and I moved to Vermont and since I started my job at Norwich (note that I [...]
Tick marks or high tech?
Friday, October 28th, 2005I have a problem remembering to keep track of my reference transactions on the little clipboard we keep at the reference desk. My office is three floors above where the reference desk is and, more often than not, I am answering reference questions from my desk (or even from home). By the time I get [...]
Public speaking and wiki-evangelizing
Sunday, October 16th, 2005I am not one of those people — like Steven Cohen or Jessamyn — who is very comfortable giving talks. No matter how well I know the material, I still get insanely nervous when I have to get up in front of people to talk. I’ve never had a talk go badly, but it doesn’t [...]
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