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 …
Update: Just realized that our article is this month’s cover story for LJ. WOW! I know some people really want to be named a Mover and Shaker by Library Journal. It is a great feeling to be honored like that… or at least it should be. But I think few people who have not yet …
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 …
From the library school survey, looking at the list of skills and competencies people think are important for librarians to have , there are a lot of “soft skills” on that list. You probably won’t find classes on customer service, openness to change, flexibility, commitment to continuous learning, developing a willingness to beat things with …
A few weeks ago, I posted a survey to Survey Monkey to get people’s views about their library school education and what they think should be taught in library school that isn’t (or wasn’t when they were in school). The 91 responses I got were really interesting and I wanted to post them so everyone …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Run, don’t walk to check out the Darien Public Library’s awesome new Drupal-based website along with the John Blyberg-designed new-and-improved SOPAC 2.0. I, for one, am totally impressed with the site and the catalog. One of the biggest things about SOPAC 2.0 (short for Social OPAC) is that its component parts are going to be …
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 …
In the Spring, I taught a class for San Jose State University on social software in libraries. Last week, I received both the student review of my teaching (which is anonymous) and the peer review of my teaching by a permanent faculty member at SJSU. I was beyond pleased by the comments and by my …
Breaking the glass Originally uploaded by librarianmer Four years ago today, Adam and I stood up on a mountain overlooking the Napa Valley and promised to spend the rest of our lives together. I remember thinking that day that I couldn’t possibly love him more than I did at that very moment. I’ve been pleased …
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 …
A week and a half ago, I was giving a talk in South Florida (where I used to live) and it’s made me a little reflective about how much my life has changed since then. Four and a half years ago, I was a Library Assistant I at the Boca Raton Public Library, working in …
Seriously, I just don’t get it. So, Google used to have a blog just for librarians called Librarian Central. I remember hearing about it from lots of folks way back when, but I didn’t read it because I figured if Google came out with something cool, I’d hear about it from someone’s blog. Apparently, the …
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we value online things in light of a few interesting posts I’ve read recently. The first was Walt Crawford’s post about some negative reactions people had to his charging money for the electronic version of his book. One critic wrote: But seriously, Walt, $29.50 for a paperback is …
There is a very small, select list of people who I really see as role models in this profession. One of them is Mary Chimato, Head of Access Services at North Carolina State University. Her generosity, her strength, her humility, her sense of humor, her unwillingness to be steamrolled by anyone, her focus on being …
Wordle is a fun little tool! You can put in your del.icio.us username or paste in some text and get a pretty neat-looking word cloud. Here’s my CV as a cloud: Here’s a list of the titles of my presentations over the past 2 1/2 years as a cloud:
Would you like your creative work to be immortalized on a major website in our profession? Here’s your chance! LISjobs.com LOGO CONTEST LISjobs.com is seeking submissions for a new logo that reflects its mission of job hunting and career development for librarians and info pros. This logo will be featured on the upcoming redesign of …