SLA Arizona Chapter S-Az Meetup!

Nine frisky librarians gathered at Dirtbag's in Tucson last night to eat, drink, be merry, and network like mad. I received another three or four emails from folks who wanted to attend but couldn't. Everyone enjoyed themselves (and agreed, the onion rings are great!)!

Many thanks to all who attended: Cindy Coan, Laura Carscaddon, Cheryl Cullier, Melissa Morgan, Jennifer Swift-Martin, Jim Martin, Cindy Elliot, and Deborah Beaumont. Hope to see you all next time, too!

Can I respectfully disagree?

Don't get me wrong (that's kind of like "bless his heart" in the South, I think) - I'm very happy Mandy's happy with her job, and she thinks you should be too. I personally don't agree with #2, but I'd be interested to see how many librarians do hit I on the Myers-Brigg scale...

It's a freakishly-cold 43°. (Yeah, I know, I could be in Minnesota, but for Tucson in the daytime, that's danged chilly!)

I knew I liked Roller Derby!

Meet Dewey Decimator, a member of the Nickel City Knockouts! "Whatever you do, don’t make the Dew have to shush you." w00t!

thanks to Shannon for the intro!

It's a brisk 50° but the sun is shining!

Are you a librarian in southern Arizona?

If so, come join us tomorrow (that's Wednesday, January 30th) at 5pm at Dirtbag's Bar & Grill for some socializing, library talk, beers, and great onion rings! This is officially a SLA Arizona Chapter meetup but anyone's welcome to join us :-) we'll be in the back!

The down side of systems librarianship

Don't get me wrong: I love my job. (Can't you just hear the "but" coming?) But... sometimes the tech support side of things can be a bit draining. Although the top priority on my to-do list is to get our new Drupal site finished and ready for public release, I have spent all of one hour on it in the last two weeks; I've spent the rest of the time rebuilding crashed systems, installing or reinstalling software, testing and retesting network hardware to see why things are so slow (turns out the switch is flaky), updating NIC drivers, blah blah blah...

On the up side, I've certainly been busy during this time; but oh how I miss being able to get back into the Drupal groove...

Maybe next week. </whine>

It's a balmy 60° and sunny. There's rain in the forecast, but right now, it's veddy nice!

Librarian Dress Up?

Hmm.... part of me is laughing out loud, part is going "Bwaaahhhh?"

Check out "Librarian Dress Up", a Java dress-up e-doll (what is the electronic equivalent of a paper doll, anyway?) run by LibrarianPlanet.com, "Information for the librarian generation" (also new to me, and the URL doesn't resolve to that). Drag-n-drop to create your very own shushing librarian! (Note you can also strip her down to her unmentionables.)

Again, I say, hmmm. I'm going to go with "humor" on this one, I think. (A dress-up doll to eparker on LU for the link!)

Updated the next day: the Effing.Librarian, sick of the female-only stereotype, has created a Male Dress-Up Librarian e-doll! (Kinda.)

One for the Guys

Yes, apparently gender is still a big deal. Sigh.

56° and the sun's going down.

Steve Jobs: Not a Reader

OK, so this isn't really about librarian image, or systems librarianship, but dang, it got my attention: In a post-MacWorld-speech New York Times interview, Steve Jobs said "the fact is that people don't read anymore".

*phffft*, Mr. Jobs. Tell that to the hordes of people I see checking out books and reading magazines every time I go to my public library, or the even larger hordes I see whenever I go into Borders or B&N.

Hrmph. I don't believe his "facts". Hrmph, I say!

Who knew?

I spent some time this past Saturday afternoon (as in, three days ago) at a local toystore called Yikes! - fabulous place, I highly recommend it! Amongst all the groovy cool retro fun stuff they carry are the Archie McPhee line of action figures.

Can you guess what's coming?

So, I'm in the store, and a young couple comes in (early 20s or thereabouts). The action figures are on the front wall right by the door, so that's where most people seem to start browsing. The woman starts laughing, and says "Hey! A librarian action figure!" and the man replies with, "Huh. Who knew librarians got action figures?"

It's 54° and I'm cold!

It's Friday, so it should be funny...

"Press button..."

thanks, Sixten!

Where old software goes when it dies

Where old software goes when it dies
Originally uploaded by desertlibrarian

Adios, question generators! ("Good grief, you still have Windows 2000 installation software?")

Links Du Jour

Nothing earth-shattering here, folks, just three links of interest:

* Announcing the publication of "Sexy Librarian: A Novel", by Julia Weist, which "introduces us to Audrey Reed, a New York artist who trades her hip urban life for a job at a small public library in Minnesota." Haven't read it yet, but I'm watching the listserv discussions and contemplating reserving it at the library (or at least requesting a copy).

* The Woeful Librarian has posted an essay on "Perpetuating the Librarian Stereotype" that discusses a couple of other librarian-related news articles that I missed over the holidays and discusses their impact. My fave line is "Most librarians are ordinary people who just happen to have superb organizational, and research kung fu." Yes!! (Note: Slightly NSFW wording at the end.)

*A 3-pager from the Grand Rapids Press touts the fact that "Modern librarians are hip, tech-saavy". Right off the bat, writer Morgan Jarema says "But maybe the thing librarians do best is defy stereotypes." Yes!!

Currently 57° and sunny.

SysGrunt: New Year's Edition

Today's the first day with a full staff complement back in the office, and boy, did I feel it... So here's the first SysGrunt of the new year!

Greet everyone who's back in the office after long holidays.
Email.
Update a few web pages.
Software key install for user.
DHCP reset.
Software installation.
Staff meeting.
Build and compare Apple and Dell file servers for a replacement machine.
Talk with IT dude about non-server options. Get excited.
Email.
Lunch.
Research question.
External hard drive lookup for batch purchase - can we get volume discount?
Meeting with boss.
Software installation.
Email.
Discuss non-server solution with Big Boss, get OK to proceed (yay!)
Last hour of day spent perusing the blog backlog.
Run away!

So hi, everyone, and Happy New Year! (It's currently 58°, grey, and gloomy. Maybe it'll rain!)