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About Meredith Farkas
Meredith Farkas is a faculty librarian at Portland Community College in Oregon. From 2007-2021, she wrote the monthly column “Technology in Practice” for American Libraries. Meredith was honored in 2014 with the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation Award, in 2008 and 2011 with the WISE Excellence in Online Education Award and in 2009 with the LITA/Library Hi Tech award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. She has been writing the blog Information Wants to be Free since 2004.
Conspiracy theory meme from the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Posted infree the information! librarianship management Work

So I’m a conspiracy theorist now? A call for retraction

I know a lot of librarians get mad about poorly informed articles about libraries all the time. It's rare that I ever really get truly angry about an article. I…
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Picture of two paths diverging
Posted inlibrarianship management slow librarianship Work Work-life balance

When to say yes (or no)

Workaholism is a hard addiction to recover from. It's not like some addictions where you can avoid the places or substances that played a role. Most of us are not…
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Mark Lindner
Posted inblogging General librarianship

Losing my friend, Mark Lindner

Our profession has lost one of its best. My friend, Mark Lindner, died on Monday. Mark wrote one of the best library blogs during that lovely golden age of blogging in the aughts…
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“Listening theater” and employee voice
Posted inlibraries management Work

“Listening theater” and employee voice

I’ve been reading a lot about employee voice and silencing in organizations and there’s a phenomenon I haven’t really seen discussed explicitly in the literature, though it's possible I've missed…
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What is slow librarianship?
Posted inlibrarianship libraries slow librarianship Work Work-life balance

What is slow librarianship?

Last week, there was a lot of chatter about slow librarianship on social media. People were looking for writing on the subject and I realized that my work is scattered…
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snail image
Posted inBook librarianship slow librarianship speaking Work-life balance writing

Slow life, slow librarianship

It's been a quiet summer over here, focused on family, recovering from the stress of the academic year, and doing a lot of reading. I'd had fantasies of getting a…
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My first column in American Libraries
Posted inabout me ALA american libraries career librarianship writing

Saying goodbye to American Libraries magazine

I’ve been pretty good about not making big life changes during the pandemic. We didn’t get a pandemic dog, even after finally getting our yard completely fenced-in last August. I’ve…
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Dog dropping the ball
Posted inabout me librarianship libraries Work Work-life balance

Drop the ball

When I visited my parents in December of 2019, they asked me to go through a box of old stuff they wanted to get rid of. My mother had kept…
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Dandelion spores beginning to fly off
Posted inhi libraries Work Work-life balance

In all the bad… some good things

Wow, this has been a hard year. No one's life has been untouched by 2020 between the pandemic and unrelenting proof that the social safety net has been dismantled by late-stage capitalism, the…
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Making Customizable Interactive Tutorials with Google Forms
Posted infree the information! Higher Ed instruction librarianship online education reference Work

Making Customizable Interactive Tutorials with Google Forms

Please note that the copies of these tutorials have not been updated since 2020 and Google Forms has many new features that have come out since then. In September, I…
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Picture of a mom working
Posted incareer libraries management Work Work-life balance

The crushing expectations on working women and where’s my fucking village?

On Friday and Saturday, my Twitter feed was full of anger and frustration over a blog post on the ALSC (Association for Library Services to Children) Blog. Entitled "How Motherhood Has…
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Recognition doesn’t have to be a zero sum game
Posted inlibrarianship libraries management speaking Work

Recognition doesn’t have to be a zero sum game

As usual, the week the 2020 Library Journal Movers and Shakers were announced, I saw plenty of complaints about the award and, in some cases, awardees. I’ve been reading this…
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Thoughts on work, well-being, solidarity, and advocacy in our current… situation
Posted inALA hi librarianship libraries management Work Work-life balance

Thoughts on work, well-being, solidarity, and advocacy in our current… situation

I have been wanting to blog for weeks. I have several blog posts I started that I just couldn't get through. My attention span reminds me of my son's at…
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#LISMentalHealth: That time my brain and job tried to kill me
Posted inabout me classic blunders librarianship Work Work-life balance

#LISMentalHealth: That time my brain and job tried to kill me

Happy LIS Mental Health Week friends! I want to start this post by recognizing someone who has done a great deal to support library workers' mental health in the face of…
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Cover of book Red, White, and Royal Blue
Posted inabout me hi

My year in books (and podcasts) 2019

This was a pretty good year for me. Nothing particularly amazing or wonderful or eventful happened to me, though my son has been such a source of pride and light for…
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libraries are not neutral pin
Posted inintellectual freedom librarianship libraries

When libraries and librarians pretend to be neutral, they often cause harm

Two recent events made me think (again) about the toxic nature of "library neutrality" and the fact that, more often than not, neutrality is whiteness/patriarchy/cis-heteronormativity/ableism/etc. parading around as neutrality and…
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Floating on my back in the pool
Posted inabout me librarianship mid-career social software Work Work-life balance

Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 5: Where to From Here?

This is the fifth in a series of essays. You can access the rest here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order. "To me, the only habit worth ‘designing…
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Painting of an idle woman entitled Dolce far niente by John William Godward
Posted inabout me career librarianship mid-career social software Work Work-life balance

Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 4 – The Cult of Productivity: You’re Never Doing Enough

This is the fourth in a series of essays. You can access the rest here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order. “These days, I just want to slow…
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Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 3 – Our Achievement Culture: What You’re Doing Will Never Be Enough
Posted incareer librarianship libraries management mid-career MPOW Work Work-life balance

Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 3 – Our Achievement Culture: What You’re Doing Will Never Be Enough

This is the third in a series of essays. You can access the rest here, though it’s not necessary to read them all or in order. Of all my annoying qualities, my…
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Image of a treadmill
Posted inabout me career gender management mid-career Work Work-life balance writing

Thoughts at Mid-Career Part 2 – Ambition: You are Not Enough

This is the second in a series of essays. You can access the first here, though it's not necessary to read them all or in order: “So maybe my great…
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