The Accidental Systems Librarian

I am pleased to say that Nicole C. Engard's and Rachel Singer Gordon's book "The Accidental Systems Librarian," second edition, is now available!

"The Accidental Systems Librarian takes the approach that anyone with a solid foundation in the practices and principles of librarianship and a willingness to confront and learn about changing technology can serve effectively in a library systems position—with or without formal technology training."

I was delighted to share my opinion of the book in a blurb for it, and I'm happy to point it out as an invaluable resource for anyone who's either been dropped into this happy field by accident, or is thinking of choosing it down the line. (It's a great review for the kind of things you'd be doing!)

Give it a look!

Call for Papers: PCA/ACA

The Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association annual conference will be held March 27 - March 30, 2013 at the Wardman Park Marriott in Washington, DC. Scholars from a wide variety of disciplines will meet to share their Popular Culture research and interests.

The Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Popular Culture area is soliciting papers dealing with any aspect of Popular Culture as it pertains to libraries, archives, museums, or research. Possible topics include descriptions of research collections or exhibits, studies of popular images of libraries or librarians, relevant analyses of social networking or web resources, Popular Culture in library education, the future of libraries and librarians, or reports on developments in technical services for collecting/preserving Popular Culture materials. Papers from graduate students are welcome.

Prospective presenters should enter their proposals in the PCA/ACA 2013 Event Management database at http://ncp.pcaaca.org. The deadline is November 30, 2012. Please direct any queries to the Libraries, Archives, Museums, and Popular Culture area chair:

Allen Ellis
Professor of Library Services
W. Frank Steely Library
Northern Kentucky University
Highland Heights, KY  41099-6101
USA
859-572-5527
ellisa@nku.edu

Surprise!

I know I've said this already, but: WOOT! I get to go to Australia and talk to a batch of librarians! About all kinds of groovy, funky stuff! Who we are, where we work, where we're going, how we're going to get there... pontifications galore!

NLS6 released an announcement about it, and I'm floored by the graphics; check this out!

Ideas for my talk have been madly pinging around my head - I'm so excited about it I'm going to have to work very hard to not talk a mile a minute. And I want to say, Kate and Vanessa are awesome. (Just so you know.)