Yes, I knew I’d have to teach people how to use email. And unjam printers. And help people use copiers. But I don’t think I ever understood in library school how important sales and marketing would be to the success of our profession. Within a month of starting work as the Distance Learning Librarian at …
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 …
We are sadly losing our beloved Distance Learning Librarian to her family (but good for her!), so we are again in the position of looking for a new Distance Learning Librarian. The position reports to me and I’ve had a wonderful time mentoring our current DLL and growing in my role as a manager. I …
When I read David King’s post about Ask-a-Librarian services last week, I didn’t have a strong emotional response to it. That was, until he wrote a follow up which brought my attention to some of the responses people had made to it. With email reference, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not a synchronous medium. We …
Last April, I started in my new position as Head of Instructional Initiatives, though for the first four months, I was also still doing the job of Distance Learning Librarian. Since taking this on at the end of July as my only job, it’s been a wild ride. I took a lot of risks, tried …
I know people have been bemoaning the death of blogging in recent months. I certainly haven’t helped any with my lack of posting, but it’s certainly not from a lack of inspiration nor from my immersion with microblogging (which I’ve never quite managed to get into on a regular basis). I actually have lots of …
My last big library-related trip before baby is taking place next week. I’ll be jetting off to Chapel Hill, NC for the TRLN Management Academy, a week-long intensive learning experience for individuals looking to develop strong resource management and planning skills. I am absolutely honored to have been chosen to take part in the Academy, …
The part of my still new-ish job that causes my the most worry is assessment. I’d hoped to have time this summer to do some serious research on information literacy assessment and get some good ideas for how to best assess library instruction this Fall. However, I got too busy with other, more pressing, tasks …
Walt Crawford started his work on the PALINET Leadership Network site less than a year ago, but already, he has made it a terrific resource for people in our profession. Some of the articles on the wiki are original, while others are compilations of writings on a theme by a variety of innovators and leaders …
Last 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 …
It’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 …
Friends Lake Originally uploaded by ftzdomino Tomorrow morning, Adam and I are leaving for a vacation in the Adirondacks. This is the first time in AGES that our vacations haven’t either centered around a talk I’m giving or a trip to visit family. This is an honest-to-goodness no obligations, do-as-little-as-possible, email-and-feed-free vacation. And after the …
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 …
I 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 …
In spite of the fact that I’ve had one of those all-day sinus headaches, I’m walking on a cloud. Starting April 1, I’m going to be the Head of Instructional Initiatives here at Norwich, which means that I will lead and coordinate all instruction (and most assessment) work at the library. I’m also going to …
While I was working on compiling all of the survey data from our graduate students, I had what I thought was a crazy idea. The idea came from a common suggestion and complaint from the military history grad students in the surveys. The suggestion was that we provide more eBooks in their subject area. The …
Since our Coordinator of Public Services left, I’ve been the liaison to the social sciences along with being the liaison to the School of Graduate Studies (whose programs are all online). That means that I’m basically the liaison to over 2/3 of the Norwich population, but it made good sense because of my strong background …
Sometimes we start a project or create a new service and it’s an instant success. Other times, we try something and it becomes obvious that it’s not meeting patron needs. Too often though, a project is neither an obvious success or failure. Even with statistics, it can be difficult to know what constitutes success and …
Library Research Guides wiki Originally uploaded by librarianmer A while back, I wrote about the challenges I had in finding the right platform for our subject guides. Well, I’m pleased to say that I just linked to our subject guides from the front page of the library website, so they are live! I ended up …
As liaison to all of the distance learning programs at our University, I frequently deal with our Interlibrary Loan Librarian. We can’t do traditional book interlibrary loan with our distance learners because the loan times do not allow sufficient time for us to ship the materials to the student and for the student to consult …