writing

Follow my American Libraries columns online!

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

The folks at American Libraries have done a beautiful job with their Drupal-based website. It’s a heck of a lot more polished than their old site and contains not only content from the magazine, but additional news stories and terrific blogs from some great thinkers in the profession. A huge improvement over their old site [...]

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 [...]

Community-generated children’s book for charity

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

For the holidays, I bought Reed an awesome personalized book. While I still have the personalized book my dad made me when I was 3, I must admit that the storyline and illustrations are pretty lame. The one I made for Reed, Following Featherbottom, is beautifully illustrated and educational, teaching kids about geography (not that [...]

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 [...]

Great new books on my “to read” list

Monday, July 6th, 2009

I must admit that the last time I read a non-baby-related book was probably last Fall. And now all these great books are coming out from the LIS presses that I’m absolutely dying to read! This is torture!
The one I’m probably most excited about is Chrystie Hill’s long-awaited Inside, Outside and Online which is all [...]

On leave

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

Friday was my very last day at work and I’m now officially on maternity leave. Our little boy is due April 7th, so hopefully I’ll have a few days to relax and catch up on sleep before baby time (sleep has become more difficult in the last few weeks of my pregnancy, but I’ve been [...]

LIS Publications Wiki

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

Now this is a great project to come from an LIS class!
LIS Publications Wiki
Welcome to the Library and Information Science (LIS) Publications wiki. This wiki gathers information about publications that LIS professionals might want to write for — whether they want to reach their colleagues or their communities. All editors, publishers, and LIS professionals are [...]

Internet Cool Tools for Physicians

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

My friend, the incredibly awesome David Rothman, has co-authored a book (with another fantastic medical librarian and a physician) on Internet Cool Tools for Physicians. The book is designed to help physicians find the best medical resources on the web. Given the glut of medical resources online — some questionable, some excellent — this should [...]

I’m REALLY not the Annoyed Librarian (nor am I annoyed)

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine commented on the fact that I hadn’t written anything about the Annoyed Librarian being paid to blog for Library Journal. That was more a result of my having kidney stones and being in excruciating pain than my not wanting to comment on it. But also, I really [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

How I got started blogging

Monday, September 8th, 2008

A student in the class I’m teaching for San Jose State University asked me the following the other day:
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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Massachusetts School Library Association Conference

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

I spent last weekend at the Massachusetts School Library Association Conference in Sturbridge, MA. I didn’t get to spend much time there because I had to be back at work on Monday, but I still ended up having a wonderful time. The night before my talks on Sunday, I had dinner with the wonderful group [...]

Risk-taking for fraidy cats

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Adam and I have gotten into a new show on A&E called Confessions of a Matchmaker, which follows a matchmaker in Buffalo, NY in her attempts to find love for people who have some pretty big issues. This weekend, one of the people looking for love was a former professional wrestler who was too scared [...]