Many of you who read my blog already know that I came to librarianship from social work, where I was a child and family psychotherapist. As a therapist, one of our major guiding documents (whether we liked it or not) was the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The DSM determined what things …
Last month, I had lunch with two friends who are also in academia. We talked a lot about professional ambitions and “extracurricular” professional involvement. One of them is starting a new book and the other is thinking about doing consulting as a side-job. In every job I’ve had (even before librarianship), I’ve been focused on …
This race must be familiar for many women: she’s overqualified for the promotion, he’s unqualified, and yet it’s still a contest. — (((Touré))) (@Toure) July 29, 2016 I had lunch with a friend recently and we talked about a guy we both know (let’s call him Joe) who rapidly rose through the ranks at the …
When I was young and bold and strong, Oh, right was right, and wrong was wrong! My plume on high, my flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. “Come out, you dogs, and fight!” said I, And wept there was but once to die. But I am old; and good and bad Are …
I have been very fortunate to address librarians nationally and internationally as a speaker. I love sharing my ideas, experiences, and things I’ve learned and meeting other librarians. I have gotten research ideas, column ideas, and made friends through my travels. I have visited places I’d always wanted to visit. I am not nearly as …
I know a lot of librarians who’ve suffered with depression or anxiety, take psychotropics, or who go to therapy. It makes me wonder if people with mental illness are drawn to librarianship in greater numbers than other professions. I was very happy — and a little trepidatious — when I saw that two fantastic librarians …
First, full disclosure: I am a columnist for American Libraries. They pay me to write columns every other month in which I state my opinion on various things relating somewhat to technology. What I’m writing here is my own opinion and represents me alone. As a professional librarian and a writer, I take my credibility …
I felt really sad when I read Kyle Shockey’s post on the Librarian Burnout blog about feeling burnout after library school and being in the midst of the job hunt. By all indications, he is one of those rare recent grads who followed the advice so many of us give to LIS students — don’t …
Late last week, I received an email from the culture editor at the New Republic about writing an article on the next Librarian of Congress. It was the first offer I’ve ever had to write for a non-library-centric publication and the New Republic has a political bent I really respect, so it was an offer …
Organizational culture is a very real and a very powerful force in every organization. I have worked in a variety of different organizations and each had had its own rituals, norms, values, and assumptions that influenced the way people worked together, shared information, and got things done. Culture is this weird, powerful, unspoken thing that both impacts …
When I graduated from library school, I worried about anti-online-degree bias. I worried that people would think my degree was somehow “less than” because I’d done it fully online. I remember being asked some questions about it at one interview that made the search committee’s biases pretty clear, but the people who eventually hired me …
ACRL was ridiculously amazing this year. I feel energized, affirmed, and hopeful (and completely exhausted and sick since it ended). The programming was so high-quality and relevant that, in most cases, I had at least four options in every time slot on my planner that I wanted to attend. Luckily, ACRL records all the sessions …
When my brain was completely full on Thursday at the ACRL Conference, Jad Abumrad’s keynote felt like a spa for my brain. For those who don’t know, he is the co-host of Radiolab, a very cool and innovative show on NPR, and the recipient of one of those fancy schmancy MacArthur genius grants. Good call …
I’m sure most of you have already heard that the ACRL Board has decided to adopt the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. What I think is more interesting is that they deferred action on the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, choosing instead to take a wait-and-see approach. I think this is a …
Update: I’ve been in touch with a Springshare representative who tells me that things like the contextually aware D2L widget from Portland State University will work in LibGuides 2.0 and apparently, the responses we’d received from support were based on hypotheticals (though we’d explicitly sent the link to PSU’s code in our emails to support). …
Teaching is such a solitary thing. Sure, you’re up in front of a bunch of students, and maybe an instructor if you’re doing course-integrated instruction, but the act still feels solitary. We try to make it less so by seeking feedback from instructors and doing assessment, but we rarely get feedback from people who really …
I know it’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve almost written a few posts on the vitriol I’ve been seeing from librarians on social media over the past couple of months, but in the end, I decided it was better not to. All I’ll say is that I expect a lot more tolerance, charitable …
Just gave a fun whirlwind instructional technology talk and I wanted to provide the slides and links below for the attendees (and anyone else who’s interested). Slides: Links: Tools for Point of Need and/or Mobile Instruction Library DIY ARIS QR Codes QR Codes Video Demo QR Code Generators Kaywa QR Stuff QR Code Readers Kaywa Quickmark …
I wanted to write about the Library Assessment Conference as soon as I returned, but unfortunately, life got in the way. I got barely a week and a half before I was set to leave my job and, not surprisingly, there was a lot of wrapping up of projects and getting things to a good …
Way back in 2005, I wrote a post about tenure for librarians in which I argued against it. Since then, I’ve spent six years as a librarian with faculty rank and no tenure and three years as a librarian on the tenure track, and I can say that my feelings against tenure status for librarians has …
