speaking

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Finding the work/family/fun balance and identity as a librarian/parent

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

This is a post mainly for those professionals who are passionate about their careers and are considering having children but wonder/worry what impact it might have on their life and their career. I’m going to talk about my own experience finding an identity as a working mother over the past year. Remember that your mileage [...]

A rant about men (like Clay Shirky)

Monday, January 25th, 2010

A lot of people have written about Clay Shirky’s post “A rant about women” and I’m here to give my two cents FWIW. First of all, who in their right mind entitles a post “A Rant about women”? While he made some valid points in his post, the title and his gross over-generalizations really made [...]

Big things I’ve learned 2000-2009

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Going into a new decade (I know technically it’s not a new decade until 2011, but don’t be such a kill-joy!) is a good time for reflection. After seeing all of the #10yearsago posts on Twitter, I started to think about where I was 10 years ago vs. where I am today. My life could [...]

Chicago here I come!

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

I still don’t quite think it’s hit me that I’ll be leaving in a few days for ALA with my husband and baby. Not only is it Reed’s first flight ever (and I sure hope he likes airplanes!), but it’s my first time speaking at an in-person conference since October (I gave two talks online [...]

It’s not all about the tech – why 2.0 tech fails

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

Yesterday, I gave a talk for the ACRL Virtual Conference entitled Can’t Get There From Here: Achieving Organization 2.0. If you’re registered for the Virtual Conference or the regular ACRL Conference, you can access the archive of the talk, and if not, my slides and links to what I discussed are provided on my presentation [...]

Why not?

Sunday, March 8th, 2009

I have been so touched by the kind words people have written about me with respect to my winning the LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology (or as my father-in-law started calling it to everyone he saw last weekend “tech librarian of the year” — lol). I always feel [...]

Online conferences – the future is now

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

I’ve been lucky to have had some recent involvement with two online conference models — one that recently happened and one that will be happening soon. I’m really pleased to see more organized professional development opportunities being offered online in light of the current economic situation and, selfishly, the fact that I personally won’t [...]

Inmates running the asylum?

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

At the beginning of the conference I went to in Iceland, the President of Iceland’s Library Association discussed how they’d assembled all of these great experts from around the world to speak on their areas of expertise. Whenever I hear that word — expert — I get a lump in my throat. The fact is, [...]

Fomenting revolt in Iceland

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

I got back from Iceland this weekend just in time for a storm to knocked our power out at home. It’s back on and I’m slowly recovering from the travel, jet lag and mountains of emails and to-dos. Iceland was absolutely amazing! The landscape is so unique — I got to see lava fields, double [...]

The Abbreviated Fall Speaking Tour

Monday, October 13th, 2008

With the pregnancy, I tried to keep my speaking schedule light for Fall. However, all three of the talks I’m giving fall within a two-week period, so it’s made me a bit harried in October. Last Tuesday, I gave a webinar for METRO NYC which was very fun, but it’s always weird to give a [...]

My next big project

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

I often tease my husband about his need to always be involved in a project. He’s always got to be working on something outside of his “day job”, whether it’s cleaning out his storage room (better known as the troll room), digitizing his parents’ slides, digitizing all of our documents, or creating the most awesome [...]

Future of LIS education?

Monday, September 8th, 2008

In October, I’m speaking at a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland entitled The Future is here: Are we prepared? New thinking in education for public librarians. (PDF). My talk is entitled “Librarian 2.0: The Future of Library Education and the 2.0 Organization.” I want to look at the skills/competencies librarians need in a 2.0 world and [...]

Anaheim-bound

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Oh Thursday I’ll be heading to ALA Annual. I wish I could muster up more excitement about going to Anaheim, but the location doesn’t exactly thrill me (nor does the amount of flying and driving it will take to get there). Then again, ALA isn’t really about the location so much as the people. And [...]

Building Academic Library 2.0

Friday, June 13th, 2008

I am on a roll with this travel mojo! On Monday, I visited the Annual Conference of the Association of Christian Librarians in Quincy, MA to give a preconference entitled Building Academic Library 2.0. Like Puerto Rico, it ended up being a terrific experience. Everyone was so friendly and I was fortunate to have a [...]

How Meredith got her travel groove back

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

Last week, I was in Puerto Rico, speaking all-day at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez (on the Western side of the island). I’ve gotten pretty tired of traveling over the past year, but this trip reminded me of what I loved about doing all this in the first place. The whole experience was [...]

Followup on Is this how we encourage people to contribute?

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

I’ve been thinking a lot about the discussion last week about speaking, being compensated for speaking, transparency, the profession and it’s (perhaps?) inferiority complex, and so much more. Everyone contributed such unique and interesting perspectives, some I agree with, some I don’t, some that made me change my perspective a bit. We’ve all had different [...]

The Monkey Song (with a hat tip to Louis Prima)

Sunday, April 20th, 2008

Every few months, I get an email from someone in library school or a new librarian basically asking me how I’ve accomplished all that I have in this profession in three years and how they can do the same. It’s an awkward question to answer, because there are always so many factors that come into [...]

The VT Lecture Circuit

Monday, April 14th, 2008

My father-in-law — who was big on the lecture circuit before he retired from optometry — always says that you are valued as a speaker in direct proportion to the distance from your home. So, the further away you are from home, the more you should be valued. If that’s true, then speaking locally is [...]

Computers in Libraries (CIL2008) – My Brain is Full

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

the group – for Connie

Originally uploaded by cindiann

I had a really wonderful time at Computers in Libraries, as always. While there are always certain talks where the delivery is disappointing or where you don’t learn anything, I went to a lot of talks that were [...]

Computers in Libraries: In the Beginning

Monday, April 7th, 2008

This week, I’m at Computers in Libraries, one of my very favorite conferences. This year’s schedule seems to be even better than usual an I found myself torn between two (and sometimes three or four) talks during most time slots. Kudos to Jane Dysart and the organizing committee! I was also thrilled to see that [...]

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