UNT LISSA: The Interview

I was pleased to be interviewed recently by Angel Durr of the University of North Texas Library & Information Sciences Student Association - and she posted the interview today. Thank you for the opportunity, Angel, and for the kind words!

Effing Does Quiet

So, there's this guy, you know? the.effing.librarian. Irreverent, humorous, librarianish, all that stuff. He's also written a really interesting post on the history of "The Quiet Librarian," where he started out looking for the earliest published reference he could find on the shushing thing, and found a whole treasure-trove of information about the early days of librarianship and the never-ending battle with image. In answer to the questions posed at the end of the post, I agree, it's like a pendulum... but my favorite line is the last one:

"Maybe it keeps us interesting. It keeps everyone guessing about us. If so, that's kinda cool."

Indeed!

Not what you think!

Via the amusingly-named blog "How may I shush you today?" via-via @jokrausdu, I'm pleased to bring you a great public service announcement at Ignite Lansing from two staff members of the Capital Area District Library in Lansing, MI:

LSW does Code Monkey

I know, I'm late, but hey! Here we are! (Yes, that's me in the coffee scene, and my son's monkey in the coffee and job scene.) The LSW? Totally amazing group of folks.



Bow down to the LSW! Also bow down to Jonathan Coulton, because really, you just should.

Time for a New Design

I redesigned the blog site using some of the new Blogger templating tools and a CC-licensed Flickr photo from Ken Lund (who takes great photos of the desert). I like it a lot; for anyone who actually visits the blog to read it (rather than via RSS), I hope you like it too.

ObWeatherWoot: Monsoon's coming!

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming...

I Went to New Orleans and All I Got Was...

...a great SLA Annual Conference. Plus a helluva lot of humidity...


Now that it's been two weeks since the conference ended, it's time for a recap! Well, not a recap per se - I won't put you through every session I went to - but I will hit some highlights. It was a long conference this year - four and a half very full days - but it was good!

Saturday: Board Meeting #1! This was followed by the 2011 annual conference planner's meeting. 2011 is shaping up nicely! I'm pleased to be working with the divisions that PAM is cosponsoring with, and I'm excited about our sessions. I'm also extremely pleased that the Arizona Chapter is going to be participating in a session next year, with other Western State chapters. We're working out the details now.


Kudos to Khue D for the PAM Early Bird Dinner at Liborio's Cuban Restaurant! It was definitely a leisurely event, but the crowd had fun and the mojitos were amazing.

Early mornings ho - 7:30 meetings almost every day, bleah! The first one was Sunday with the Leadership Development Institute. (I have been developed!) Discussions about the direction of SLA, the upcoming conference, and other activities (Alignment Toolkit, anyone?) were held. More to come at January's Leadership Summit, I'm sure.

Sunday also brought Board Meeting #2 and the interesting opening session, with Mary Matalin and James Carville - they're entertaining speakers but I got the impression they didn't quite have a good sense of their audience. I tell you, though, I could listen to Carville reading a cereal box with that accent and enjoy it...


Monday was full of business meetings, roundtables, the exhibit hall, and a lively book group discussion while the heavens poured buckets and buckets of water on New Orleans. After dashing through the dwindling raindrops we enjoyed the PAM Open House. I missed four other things I wanted to go to - the whole conference sorted out schedule-wise quite well except for Monday at 5:30, when five things collided. One of those things - that I missed - was the West Coast Chapter Reception; I'm proud to say that the Arizona Chapter will be involved with it next year (after we sort out a bit of a name change)!

Tuesday... more business meetings, a co-moderated session on Data Curation, prep with my co-presenter for our session the next day, and a lovely book signing event during the French Quarter networking reception. The ladies in the walking table dresses were fun! And thanks so much to everyone who bought a book and had it signed. I hope you enjoy it!


The big deal Tuesday night was, of course, the IT/PAM/LMD Dance Party - a Masquerade! The turnout was great, the masks in use were even greater, and we closed it down, once more having to shoo folks out at midnight.This is a great event and I highly recommend that everyone just plans on putting it on your schedule!


Wednesday brought the last of the board meetings and a definite decrease in energy - until the adrenaline kicked in for my session "Embed Yourself: The Librarian is IN!" with Jake Carlson of Purdue. We had a good time and gave, if I may say so, a great session - we ran over our time slot with the Q&A session, and we've had a lot of post-conference interest in it as well. This was followed by the jam-packed Astronomy Roundtable - always one of my favorites - and then the closing session with Nicholas Carr. I was intrigued but too tired to argue at this point!

The Kentucky chapter was kind enough to include me in their post-conference celebratory dinner (these people know how to have a good time at a conference, I tell you what) but I pooped out before the Bourbon Street crawl. It was an exhausting week but really good in a lot of ways, and I'm excited to be working on the 2011 conference planning. I'm also continuing to plot library world domination.... mua-hahahaha!

It's not dead yet...

For everyone who keeps saying to me "But I thought that stupid stereotype was dead already!" - no, it's not...

When: May 21 and 23, 2010
Who: Marie at Library Garden and Kathy at The M Word0
What: "Librarian Stereotypes, Alive & Well, Alas." New Jersey's having a hard enough time of it... fooey to Brad Parks! (This post, and others like it, will show him how "unexcitable" Jersey librarians are, heh.) Followed up with "The Stereotypes Do Live On" - with pictures and excellent suggestions from Kathy on response tactics.

So, then, why do people keep working in libraries? The Librarian in Black wondered that, and asked, and got answers... and I love 'em.  Of the top five results, I agree with four of them! (My top one would be "Enjoy the work itself", to be honest.) What are your reasons?

Do you care?

From the LSW room on Friendfeed: "Do you care about stereotypes about librarians and images of librarians in popular media? Or not? Discuss." There's some excellent comments in here, from both sides of the question - and most of them continue to reinforce the thought that the dratted stereotype is far from dead.

But not professional librarian sex...

In case you haven't already seen it: Yes, amazingly enough, librarians (being people just like, well, people) have... sexual thoughts. Read sexy publications. And - gasp! - even have sex! Of course, just asking about this could get you fired back in 1992... just ask Will Manley.

And now for something completely different!

Are we professionals, or not? Ryan Deschamps poses the question, and (amongst many others) 3 Geeks and a Law Blog chimes in. I'm torn - on the one hand I feel I've worked very hard to get where I am, to be able to call myself a librarian... on the other hand there are days when I feel a trained monkey could do my job. (But not with the same élan!) Make sure to read through the comments as well... and then read David Rothman's rebuttal, too.

On reading through Ryan's ten points, I have to admit - they're very good points. #8 (“Accredited Library Schools Do Not Adequately Prepare Students for Library Work") got me - my very first presentation after library school was titled "What I Didn't Learn in Library School." And heaven knows #9 ("Competing Professions Are Offering Different Paradigms to Achieve the Same Goals") impacts me daily... am I a geek in librarian clothes, or a librarian in geek clothes? (Today I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Which category is that?)

Perhaps I'll just stick, for today at least, with "yes."

Celebs Go Librarian!

Short but sweet:

• Spike Jonze wrote and directed a librarian love story with a twist.

• Betty White's gonna play a cranky librarian on "The Middle"!

• Keith Richards always wanted to be a librarian...

Also, keep your fingers crossed for David Hoskins, a librarian competing on Jeopardy this week!

In the "not so much fun as cause for giant worry" column, don't forget that "When one library is in trouble, all libraries are in trouble." Do you have something to share with these grassroots organizers? Use the tag "savelibraries" in your content.

New Info on Rex Libris: The Movie

From James Turner, creator of Rex Libris:

"Mark Burton (Madagascar) turned in a screenplay to Warners for Rex, but they weren't happy with the result. He's out. The search is on for a new screenwriter.

I had a conference call with the producers (Mosaic; they produced Batman Begins, Dark Knight, etc) about direction and possible ideas. No idea how that went. Everyone in Hollywood says they love you, and when everyone says it..."

Keep your fingers crossed!

It's Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day - who is Ada, you might ask? Well, she's the first computer programmer. Today is also an "international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science" - and thousands of folks are doing that over on the Finding Ada site.

Pondering all the women in tech and science I know, who have encouraged or inspired me, is an interesting exercise. As I said last year, choosing just one would be problematic, so what I decided to do is list some of them, with a brief indication of why they inspire me.

• Jan R., then a Captain in an area I probably shouldn't talk about, for encouraging me to go for the Air Force scholarship when I was a junior in high school;
• My mother, for never letting me be afraid of math or science, and for insisting I could do anything I set my mind to. She lived up to that, too, becoming a systems administrator for her library when she was in her 50s. (*That* for anyone who thinks only the young can learn tech skills!)
• Sue H., a systems administrator at MPOW, who deals with hundreds of user accounts and cranky people complaining about access with nary a scream;
• Celine d'O., a laser systems/adaptive optics engineer and dear friend; and
• LeEllen P., a thermal systems engineer, for showing me you can embrace both sides of your brain and still do it right.

There are many more I could mention but I think I'll save them for next year's post. Thank you to every single one of you!

This Book is Overdue!

I'm assuming by now you've probably heard of Marilyn Johnson's "This Book is Overdue!" - a new book about librarians, data overload, and why we are the saviors of the future. I've had several tabs open all week to share about this great new book, but intelligent commentary just ain't happening right now - so here's the links and a promise of more to come!

* Wisconsin Public Radio's "To The Best of Our Knowledge" interviewed Johnson on February 14th - "Marilyn Johnson is the author of 'This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All.' She talks with Jim Fleming about how librarians are emerging as heroes of the digital age because of their love for the written word, free speech and open access."

* "Here's to librarians, saviors of the data-weary." Kim Ode at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune gives a really nice review of the book. I also quite like her line "Yahoo doesn't light up with a smile when we log in, but a familiar librarian will." Amen!

* Jed Lipinski over at Salon.Com also interviewed Johnson, in "Hot for Librarian" on February 21st.  "[T]here's bad news for those of you with a shushing fetish; as Marilyn Johnson explains [...] the uptight librarian is a species that's rapidly approaching extinction."

 * And Tommy Wayne Kramer in Ukiah, CA needs to read Johnson's book; he recently stated in an opinion piece for The Ukiah Daily Journal that we should "save the county, close the libraries." For someone who is clearly proud that he hasn't set foot in a library in ages ("But it's easy to go years and years without visiting a library - I haven't had a library card in a quarter century and can't recall a single time I wished I had one.") he certainly has some strong opinions about what should be done with them. I'm astonished at the negativity in this opinion piece, and depressed that a series of book stores provided support for the piece.


My copy of the book is half-read, and I'm sure I'll have my own review and opinion once I'm done. In the meantime, check it out, rejoice in the spirit in which it's offered, and keep fighting the good fight!

The Library Routes Project, or, How I Became a Librarian

Ned Potter, Digitisation Coordinator at the University of Leeds (bless his patient self), has sent me a few emails regarding his Library Routes project and his CILIP presentations on "Why are we still defined by our buildings?" (interesting concept, that) and "Realizing your potential: rising above the stereotypes". I'm way overdue in recognizing Ned's papers but I really want to take a moment to talk about Library Routes.

I like the idea behind the Library Routes project - to "bring together the thoughts and experiences of Information Professionals on how they got where they are today, and why they chose to work in libraries at all" and, of course, you know my thoughts on stereotypes and how they affect us even today. Reading the perspectives from our UK brethren was really interesting - yet all the stories had the same feel to them as others I've heard. Some folks went right into librarianship (under various names), others took the roundabout way through some more, some less exciting career paths - but they all feel now as if they're in the right place doing the right thing.

My own route to librarianship has its roots in my childhood, and follows a few roundabout ways of its own. My mother was a librarian - everywhere we went in the military she ended up working in a library, so I was surrounded by that all my life. I didn't set out to be a librarian, though - my first job was as an engineering aide (blueprints and concrete testing kind of stuff) and it wasn't until well into my second job that I started getting involved in information management. One thing led to another, I ended up in charge of all the documentation for the project, and then my questing path led me down the street to the University of Arizona's School of Information Resources and Library Science. I met my most excellent advisor and that, as they say, was that. Grad school was a blast and I've never looked back - I truly feel I'm in the right place doing the right thing, and I love my job as a systems librarian. It's definitely not much like the job my mother did in a lot of ways, but at the base it's the same - getting folks the information they need.

Take a moment, take a read, and join in the discussion at the Library Routes wiki. Thanks muchly, Ned!

What They Said

It's not quite a random collection of stuff today; rather, posts relating to the future (both things to do, and things to dream of):

* AndyW's posting "5 Universal Truths That All Librarians Can Agree Upon Right Now" is, IMHO, danged true.

* Blake's collection of "10 Librarian Blogs to Read" is always good, and I always find one or two more to add to my reader. Check it out, I bet you'll find a few too!

* LJ has a series of video interviews with Marilyn Johnson, author of "This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All," currently on my to-read list. (hi Sally!)

* For the first time in 1600 years, there is again a Librarian of Alexandria. (hi to Mandy, who's lucky enough to work there!)

* I am totally going to be playing around with concept maps.

What will you add in the new year?

Holy Apparition! Also: Say "Thank You"

Briefly, some bits & pieces of interest:

* Jonathan at Zen College Life gives us 85 Reasons to be Thankful for Librarians. There are some good ones in here! My faves would have to be #s 15, 29, 53 and - very important - 71.

* Watch the first-ever Batman episode to feature Batgirl! I love her casual use of library furniture for mayhem.

Musings on 2009

It's the time of year when we all think about the year that's passed, and what may come next year. I've been thinking about my significant events of 2009.

Professionally, it was a very rewarding year. A big event was the publication of my book. I still can't believe that I wrote a book, and that people are reading it! Thank you! I'm sure the SLA Alignment Project will be an equally large part of 2010; it flavored almost all my dealings with SLA events and issues in 2009. I'm going to continue to be deeply involved with SLA; in 2010 I'll be the Chair-Elect for the Physics-Astronomy-Math Division, and will continue as the Information Systems section chair for the Information Technology Division. Although it's in limbo while SLA shakes things out, I hope the Innovations in Technology Committee has a chance to do its thing again too; it was a fascinating process to be a part of last year. And the Arizona Chapter has some big changes coming, too!

MPOW passed some pretty significant milestones, the biggest one being approval to move to construction. (I get to keep my job! Yay!) And I learned a lot with MOPOW (my other place of work); my time with them has come to an end but they provided a large portion of new tech experiences for me in 2009. I had a lovely, stress-free year running our web site with Drupal; in 2010 I'll be taking us to Drupal 6, and then will finally start the migration of our parent organization into it as well. I'm excited! Hopefully I'll also be bringing a new file server online, and upgrade/migrate all our major systems (including our EDMS) onto it.


Personally, it was a more challenging year. I lost my father-in-law, a great guy who is deeply missed. We had a fun quirky less-than-thrilling experience with our first major house repair when the bathroom ceilings fell in. I ended up in the emergency room more times than I'm really happy with. On the up side, though, thanks to some new medications, I'm not getting devastating migraines nearly as often as I used to, so I'm pretty pleased about that. My family continues to be a source of amazement and joy to me. And, hey, I get to keep my job!

I met some great people this year, both in and out of the library world, and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring in all the arenas of my life. I hope it brings wonderful things to you, too.

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou - Feliz Año Nuevo - Happy New Year!

The Calendar for 2010

It's true, it's true! There's another in the long line of calendars that feature librarians available now to order: The Mildly Attractive Men of SLIS Calendar. Brought to you by the Library and Information Science Student Association (LISSA) of the University of South Carolina, it features male librarians in "iconic poses from the history of film." Get yours today!

SysGrunt, or, A Day in the Life of a Systems Librarian

Just, y'know, because. This was actually a fairly quiet (and abnormal) day, as I spent most of it working on just one task... aah, it was nice!


Make coffee.
Email (95 messages)
Spec out a new engineering laptop (mmm, Asus).
Cancel account for no-longer-used web conferencing system.
With help from programming friend, figure out bug in application script.
Web site update.
Tweak bogus registry keys for EDMS system, hopefully to fix a recurring bug.
Document processing (update database, update docs with approval info, share appropriately, PDF, post to web)
Lunch.
Email (32 messages)
Install new software.
More document processing.
Install yet more new software.
Last batch of email (22 messages)
Out.

Thank You, AzLA!

Thank You, AzLA!
Originally uploaded by desertlibrarian

So I put 280 miles on the car yesterday driving to Phoenix to present at the Public Library Division's business meeting at the Arizona Library Association (AzLA). I had a good time, and hope I entertained and informed the attendees; thanks to Mary and the rest of the PLD for having me up!

I then was fortunate to attend a SIRLS reception and boy, howdy, are we everywhere! That was pretty cool, and I met some great folks from the school who I hope to continue conversing with. I guess it shouldn't come as such a surprise to see so many of us there, but it was, and a pleasant one at that.

I'll be joining AzLA; have you joined your state library association?