We’ve all suspected it. We’ve all talked about it. Some have even written and spoken at conferences about it. But now we have hard evidence that there is incredible variation in terms of the amounts libraries are paying for the same content and that the variation doesn’t come close to relating to FTE or the …
I’ve been thinking a lot about how people choose to define themselves and what happens when things in their world challenge that definition. This is probably because I spent the weekend with someone close to me who pretty much defines himself by his work, and also read a blog post by a friend with a …
I was pleased to see that the latest Ithaka S+R U.S. Library Survey looked at how libraries are conducting assessment and how useful their results have been. Even better, they found that “those respondents whose libraries have taken on evidence gathering and other forms of assessment are more likely to be confident in their strategy …
This semester, I’m teaching I new course I developed for San Jose State’s MLIS program entitled “Embedded Librarians/Embedded Libraries: Embedding the Library into the Fabric of Higher Education.” It’s been a pleasure so far because the students are so ridiculously smart, insightful, and engaged that I can’t help but be excited about the future of …
I wanted to let everyone know that we have just open sourced the Drupal-based Library DIY infrastructure. You can find it at https://github.com/pdxlibrary/Library-DIY We have documentation on how to get it installed on a server, how to get started using the system, and how to add/organize content. Unfortunately, we do not have the staff time …
At the end of my last post was a little love letter to the “pocket of wonderful” at my work; a group of librarians I think of as my learning community. At first, when I was the Head of Instruction, these people reported to me and/or were part of my Instructional Design Team. This was …
I don’t have all the answers. There, I said it! I’m a pretty smart person who did well in school and has been relatively successful in her career, but I don’t consider myself an “expert” in anything. However, when you teach, write a column for a major magazine in your profession, or even express yourself …
I don’t really think of myself as a victim. I feel exceptionally lucky when I think of the life I’ve had so far. I grew up in an upper middle class family, got a fantastic private liberal arts college education, and am now living the American dream with a family of my own, a house, …
In September, I went to a lecture given by Allison Head of Project Information Literacy fame at a local university. During the lecture, she offered a preview of the research report that would be coming out soon on first-year students. I hadn’t realized until then that none of the other PIL research had examined this …
Over four years ago, I wrote a post about how EBSCO had shut off my institution’s links to all Harvard Business Review articles after we declined their “generous” offer to let us pay to use articles already available through a database we were paying for. At the time that we were asked about this, we …
This week I’m in stunning Oahu speaking at the Hawaii Library Association. I’m super thrilled to have been invited to this amazing place and to have been lucky enough to bring my family along. Mahalo HLA!!! This post contains my presentation slides and links to the things I mentioned in my presentations. I hope these …
I’m not a hero. I’m not an open access warrior. I’m not one of those people who would risk their career on the cross of Open Access. I’m not a badass who makes demands of publishers. I ask nicely. I’m on the tenure track and the idea of walking away from an opportunity to publish …
This is just a quick note to say that Library DIY (which I wrote about in a previous post) has been released! I am so very proud of this project. This research tool is still very much in beta, so please feel free to share with me any feedback you might have.
People incorrectly using “big words” has always been one of my pet peeves. When I see a fancy word used incorrectly in a cover letter (and I have seen way too many… we’re librarians people!!!), I cringe. There’s something about it that rubs me the wrong way; like someone is trying to be something they’re …
I’m working with a colleague of mine (Amy Hofer of Threshold Concepts fame) to create a suite of tutorials that are going to be integrated into online University Studies (think General Education) classes. One of the learning objects we plan to create is envisioned as being called “good for what?” Students tend to look at …
I’ve been wanting to write about managing people for a long time. This post has been marinating in my head for years and a few things managed to knock it out of me. The first was this post from Wayne Bivens-Tatum that talks about how much his institution (and specific people within) enabled his recent …
One year ago, I became our General Education Instruction Coordinator, which meant that I was in charge of our instruction to Freshman Inquiry and Sophomore Inquiry (our first and second year general education courses), 100 and 200-level writing classes, Speech classes, and the Intensive English Language Program. Last summer, I wrote about the new model …
I recently realized that while I write about a lot of things, I do not often write about the work I’m doing at Portland State and through the Oregon Library Association. I think it comes partly from a desire not to toot my own horn, but it also reflects my nervousness about writing about work …
It’s easy to be self-righteous when you’re pregnant. At least it was for me. It was very easy for me to clearly define in my own mind what sort of a parent I would be and what sort I would definitely not be. I still wince when I remember throwing away formula samples thinking that …
ACRL was a terrific conference experience for me. Not only did I get to see a lot of good friends and have a lot of deep conversations with other instruction coordinators, but I got so much out of the vast majority of sessions I went to. I will freely admit that the conference was overly …
