And then I went to Chicago... Part 2

Monday at SLA I was finally able to breathe a bit, although the morning kicked off early again with the PAM Astronomy Roundtable at 7:30am. Thank heavens for strong coffee! It was a great session, and having no projector really challenged the speakers - they did brilliantly! (I must admit, Lance's "slides" were one of my favorites.)

Chris and I talking culture.
Photo by The Photo Group, 2012.

Then I dashed off to the Fellows and Rising Stars Roundtable, where I was paired with Rising Star Chris Zammarelli. We decided to talk about culture in libraries, where culture is defined as "the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular group." Chris works for the Department of State, and as such works with libraries around the world, in embassies and out, and one of the things they must be very aware of is the local culture - societal, religious, ethnic, etc. He talked a bit about how that impacts his job, and how he deals with working with people worldwide who are often in different time zones. I talked about a different type of culture - that of the scientists and engineers I work with. Each group has a common language, habits, rituals, and expressions - and they are NOT the same, and are often in conflict. I'm in the middle, acting almost as an anthropologist and translator, to understand and bridge the differences between the two groups. I've had to learn the best way to get them what they want and need, how they search for things - basically, become bilingual.  The takeaway I offered was get to know the culture of your user groups, and integrate into them - then the users will trust you and see you as part of their group. This benefits everyone!

Happy 40th Anniversary, PAM!

After the great Q&A session at the roundtable was over, I headed for the PAM Business Meeting, where (amongst a great many other things) we started celebrating PAM's 40th Anniversary. I was in charge of the souvenir lapel pins, and it was a delight to pass them out to members! (We also had an excellently themed Daily Retreat, courtesy of IOP.) During the following INFO-EXPO time, I was finally able to meet the other members of the Online Content Advisory Committee face-to-face, and I'm looking forward to some of the things we have planned for the rest of the year.

American West Chapters Reception

Monday wrapped up with a couple of social events - first up was the American West Chapters Reception, at the Newberry Library, where I proudly represented the Arizona Chapter (and did a turn at the welcome tables). What a lovely library, and I really enjoyed the piano player - he so clearly was enjoying himself! Then I moseyed off to the PAM Open House, where AIP gave us a beautiful cake (see above) as part of our 40th Anniversary celebrations.

And then I went to Chicago... Part 1

(I can't believe it's August already!)

Last month was a very, very busy one; I moved offices (I'm out of the cave! Yay!), I went to Chicago, and I spoke to the incoming library school grad students at my alma mater. The biggie, of course, was Chicago for the annual Special Libraries Association meeting - although I did get a couple of days before the conference to play tourist with my family!

My conference started quite early, at 7:30am on Saturday the 14th. One of the hats I wear for SLA is that of the Professional Development chair for the IT Division, and PD runs the CE courses each year. I wanted to meet the instructors, make sure they had everything they needed, and thank them in person - it just meant for some very early mornings! I'm very pleased that both sessions went well - "Taxonomy & Information Architecture for SharePoint", with Seth Earley, and "Website Analytics and Usability Studies: Mastering Tools for Measuring Website Effectiveness", with Kate Marek.

Saturday was also the really productive 2013 Conference Planner's meeting - as the Spreadsheet Queen for the Annual Conference Advisory Committee, I was crazy busy, but it was really good. I think we're in decent shape at this point; there are some really interesting sessions in the queue for San Diego!

Leoma Dunn giving me my
Fellows award. Photo by The
Photo Group, 2012.

Sunday was my most over-scheduled day, but also the best! After greeting Ms. Marek and getting her CE course going, I had a quick breakfast with my family and headed off to the PAM Newcomer's Lunch. As past-chair of the PAM Division it was my honor to host the event, although I was only able to stay for about 15 minutes before I had to speed back to the convention center. The restaurant (Russian Tea Time) smelled absolutely delicious and I'm quite sad I didn't get a chance to go back and enjoy the cuisine! Then it was time for a Board Meeting, a Meet and Greet, and then getting ready for the Awards Ceremony - where I was officially made a Fellow of SLA! I'm delighted, honored, and still a bit stunned by it all. I'm very glad that my husband and son could be there - thanks, SLA, for their passes!

SLA President Brent Mai and I, before the award ceremony.
Photo by The Photo Group, 2012.

Girls in STEM

Because it's cool, because we need to encourage more girls to go into STEM fields in general, because we need to ensure girls know they can study any field a boy can, and because it's cool, I give you (with permission) "Girls are Smarter than Boys", by Jen Rhee via Engineering Degrees:

"The science, technology, engineering, and math workforce is crucial to the economy and even though women represent more than half of the world’s population, women hold less than 25% of STEM jobs. In elementary, middle school, and high school, girls actually take more classes and earn better grades in math and sciences. As women progress into college, a decline in interest in math and sciences occurs and declines further at the graduate level and yet again in the professional level.
While biological differences may play a factor, though it’s still not yet fully understood, they are not the whole story. This infographic will tell you what girls go through during school that ultimately has them careers outside of science, technology, engineering, and math."

Yes, please!

I'm lucky enough to be working in a job that satisfies both my interests (and degrees): library science, and astronomy. When I was in high school and applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering, I was told by quite a few folks (both classmates and a couple of counselors) that I shouldn't hold my breath, since that wasn't a "good field for girls". I tell you, at graduation I sure as heck strutted my stuff, as one of only four to get scholarships in this field, and the only female! I swapped from MechE to Astronomy & Physics as time went on (and I learned that no, MechE and astrophysics really didn't have all that much in common) and while there were more women in the classes, it was still very heavily male. I look around the research institution with whom MPOW is housed, and there's a lot more men than women... but that trend is starting to change, as MPOW at least has several female astronomers on staff, and my direct project has a near half-and-half balance in the engineering staff. So there's hope!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Vote for me as an Agile Librarian!

It's been a craaaaazy month but let me just reiterate: Drupal ROCKS! Also, DOORS isn't as horrible as I was led to believe, and summer has come early to the desert... hello, 108F!

And now, for the real news: Voting is now open for the SLA Agile Professional Snap & Win contest - please consider casting your vote for me!  Check it out - and many, many thanks!

An Agile Librarian

An Agile Librarian, a photo by desertlibrarian on Flickr.

You've seen what a librarian looks like - now's your chance to show it!  SLA has teamed up with Dow Jones/Factiva to bring the "Agile Professional Snap & Win" contest to a camera near you. Show how agile you are in your profession, capture that with a photo, and you could win $1000 and a year's SLA Membership! More information is at the SLA Snap & Win site.

The Lady is a Vamp, Indeed

"The lady is a vamp: Helena Bonham Carter plays a sexy librarian in new music video", posted earlier this month at the UK Daily Mail Online site, shows us Ms. Carter in a way we may not have seen her in before, but have seen plenty of times. "The King's Speech star appears for most of the clip as a geeky, uptight librarian awaiting a mattress delivery," and then under musician Rufus Wainwright's direction, ends up following the whole repressed librarian path. Check it out:

Pearle Vision, what are we going to do with you?

While it did make me chuckle (mostly from the salespeople's reactions at the end), here we are again, using the sexy librarian trope to sell things. Sigh.

#SLAchat: Drupal vs. Wordpress

For SLA's Online Content Advisory Committee we're hosting a series of Q&A questions on the SLA Blog - there's still time to pitch into the first one, about Drupal vs. Wordpress. What do you think? Come share your musings! Feel free to share them on Twitter, too, using the tag #SLAChat.

(Current score is 3 for Wordpress, 1 for Drupal... mine. Get your own thoughts in!)

A Day in the Life: Systems Librarian Edition

I know it's not the usual time for Library Day in the Life, but some management folks were asking me just what it is I do all day! So here's my sysgrunt (hat tip to RefGrunt, which I miss), a typical day in the life of this slightly atypical systems librarian:

    •    Start: 7:57am. Email (and coffee, lots and lots of coffee)
    •    Initial config of new computer's Windows OS
    •    Confirm committee receipt of new web site online form submissions
    •    IM with my boss
    •    Scrub old version of DOORS from local virtual machine (VM, my Windows machine)
    •    Confirm agenda for SLA Fellows meeting
    •    Email manager regarding spam system settings
    •    Registry scrub of all DOORS & related mentions on local VM
    •    Email new staff member regarding vault account
    •    Install Office on new computer
    •    Regclean on local VM
    •    Install Project on new computer
    •    Reboot local VM
    •    Install Visio on new computer
    •    Updates on new computer
    •    IM with my boss
    •    New job ad on websites
    •    Email
    •    SLA Fellows teleconference
    •    Emails re: new online web form
    •    Clean install of DOORS 9.3.0.6 on local VM
    •    Validate Office, Project and Visio on new machine
    •    Reboot VM after changing network adapter settings per IBM tech
    •    Install Symantec on new computer
    •    Report failure to connect to DOORS licensing server from local VM :-(
    •    Edit/format staff member's technical note
    •    Install Acrobat on new computer
    •    Create new staff member's vault account; confirm another new staff member's account exists; remove departed staff member's account
    •    Install vault software on new computer
    •    Start safety review web page
    •    Set up VPN on new computer
    •    Discover VPN server is not responding to access requests or pings; get with IT to sort out why. Further discover it's not server, it's the network config of new machine. Argh.
    •    Skype with safety officer about the safety review page
    •    Email with managers regarding files on web site
    •   
    •    Lunch!
    •   
    •    Email
    •    IM software crash & restart
    •    Check in technical note & notify staff member it's ready
    •    Changes to safety review web page
    •    Route ICD for approval
    •    Number assignment & format fixes to Report with Responses before posting
    •    Skype/join.me with new staff member to install vault software & give basic training
    •    Email
    •    Im with IT about VPN problem
    •    Change Request processing: returning some to editing for further changes, noting rejections & filing appropriately, pinging for status of still-awaiting-signatures ones, and updating the web page
    •    Realized that past process for denying CRs will no longer work with the recent changes to the workflow. Added a new "CR Denied" final state, and added two new transitions to the "Waiting for CCB" state, allowing return-to-edit and denial states directly rather than having to go back through syseng first.
    •    Email to manager re: CRs awaiting his approval
    •    Email with staff members regarding meeting next week
    •    Browser (involuntary) reboot
    •    Update observing schedules on new NSO website (and poke staff member about training so he can do it now)
    •    Email re: ICD drawings still awaiting proper signoff
    •    PAM strategic plan articles, first review
    •    CR # request; update web page.
    •    Email & filing of answered messages
    •    Fix location of accidentally-moved file in vault.
    •    Email with manager re: PMCS files on restricted instrument pages
    •    Locate DOORS Web installation & configuration instructions
    •    Route ICD for approval
    •    Done! 5:03pm

And now... I'm off to write my new Spectacles column!

Beyond the Core

I want to tip my hat to Bill Jacobs and the Science-Technology Division of SLA for putting together this great list on "Expanding Sci-tech librarianship beyond the core duties." It's a great starting point for answers if you're asked "Well, what do you bring to the party?"

From finding obscure references, through helping someone get or keep their CV up-to-date, to scientific literary analysis - we ARE your superpower! Don't be afraid of our skill sets - put them to use!

This is what a librarian looks like!

The ever-amazing Bobbi Newman, of Library Day in the Life fame, has created a new web site to bust the stereotype, one picture at a time - This is What a Librarian Looks Like. Yes! Look at us all in there, hiking, playing, dancing, eating, drinking, being serious, being goofy - wow, yep, just like "normal" people. Love it!

This is my own entry, to try and better illustrate my own job a bit. The hair color may change, but the second office stays the same...

Wait, what? February?

Holy smokes, I haven't written since I thanked SIRLS back in November! Things I've done since then:

• Presented "Especially Embedded: Integrated Librarianship in Special Libraries" at the SLD Business Meeting at the Arizona Library Association conference;
• Had a lovely holiday season;
• Started to become one with JIRA and DOORS;
• Attended SLA Leadership Summit in lovely Atlanta, GA. Not only did I get a lot of neat ideas and some really good networking in, SLA made me a Fellow!

And now it's February and hey! Librarians are in the news again, this time for defending their no-filtering rule. The latest, "Seattle libraries: No sleeping or eating allowed, but porn-watching OK", brings up the usual problems... we are not censors, and fight for the right for anyone to access whatever information they wish. But... how do we keep the innocent from seeing things the not-so-innocent may be viewing on a public computer? It's a thorny issue for sure, and I feel for the Seattle librarians.

Thank You, SIRLS

On November 3rd, as noted earlier, I participated in the SIRLS 2011 Dickinson Lectures. I'm pleased to say that lectures were recorded and are now available, along with the final slide decks, via the SIRLS website.

• Download the podcast from iTunes
• View my slide deck on Embedded Librarianship as a PDF

Beware the Sixth-Level Cataloger

I like the online comic Questionable Content anyway (not to mention the fact it's the source of a great library-themed Tshirt) but today's just rocks, on several levels. One, it's QC. Two, it's a guest comic by Bill Barnes, one half of the Unshelved creative duo. Third, well, hey! Laser eyes!

The Dickinson Lectures

I am very pleased to announce my invited talk, "Insights into the Life of an Embedded Librarian", part of the 2011 SIRLS Homecoming Event Dickinson Lectures. It will be this coming Thursday, November 3rd, from 4pm-5:30pm in the Ares Auditorium (Room 164) of The James E Rogers College of Law. Also presenting is Dr. Bryan Heidorn, who will be speaking about "Repository as App: Functionality to Attract Dark Data."  Following the Lectures will be a reception for all attendees.

I'll be posting an annotated copy of my talk after it's given. (I'm still fiddling a bit, and these always take on a life of their own at actual talk time.) I hope we'll see you there!

Internet Librarian: Day 3

And here we are at Wednesday. The day kicked off with yet more coffee (I was pretty much on a steady IV of caffeine by this point) and a great keynote panel called "Internet 2020: TrendWatch Smackdown". Roy Tennant, James Werle, Liz Lawley, and Stephen Abram - how could it not be engaging and entertaining?

My takeaways from amongst my mad scribbles during the panel:

1. We must remember that all the innovations in the last 15 years are really just a blink of an eye in terms of librarianship (Werle); 
2. You are not Google's user, but their product (and this is true for more than just the Big G) (Abrams); 
3. Does your service make people say this is really great, or I'm really great? Does it make them feel successful? (Lawley);
4. Look for the magic! (All, pretty much.)

Lawley showed a really amazing movie showing how researchers are now able to insert artificial objects into archival photographs. What first got her attention is that one of the rooms an object is inserted into is... her dining room! (Made me laugh.) The video is jaw-dropping.

The rest of the morning passed learning about Inno'play'ion (the mashing together of play and innovation, by Helene Blowers), where I saw the best use of bubbles in a professional conference yet, and roaming the exhibit hall before the gnomes rushed in and disassembled it.

Time for lunch and then a scramble to make sure I was at the ITI booth by 1pm, on the off chance I was one of the three winners of the iPad raffles. #1? Nope. #2? Sadly, not me. But... I have to admit I'm a bit sorry for winner #3, who was not present... so ITI drew a fourth card from the fishbowl and IT WAS MINE!!! Yes, I did jump up and down and squee mightily.

The conference capped off with another great closing keynote from Liz Lawley on "The Great Gamification Debate". What Liz and her crew are doing at the Rochester Institute of Technology is downright amazing: they created a game ("Just Press Play") for the incoming students that engaged them in learning about the campus, the teachers, art, all kinds of stuff. It all started with the idea that "students should get achievements for being awesome" and ran from there. It's an astonishing idea for engaging both the students and the teachers and I have to admit, I want to play!!!

I had to boogie out of the closing keynote a bit ahead of time in order to catch a cab for my flight home. Another year, another trip to Monterey - and I'm already thinking about what could be done next year!

Internet Librarian: Day 2

Tuesday at Internet Librarian was a kind of hiccup-y day for me. I had plans, people! I missed the opening keynote by Lee Rainie and, based on the tweetstream, really really really wish I hadn't. But I was gearing up for my session at 11:30 and just got caught up in it. But hey: it's online, so we can all see it now!

At 11:30am in Track C, Session C202, Cary Gordon and I presented "Drupal to the Next Level" (link goes to an annotated PDF of our talk), about the choice of and migration to Drupal of all the National Solar Observatory sites. I think it went pretty well - the crowd was smaller than I'd hoped for, but we got some very good questions and feedback. All in all, a good time.

Then I tried to get some more work done (the internet access in my hotel was less than stellar, I'm sad to say) and took a walk out Fisherman's Wharf. Where did all the sea lions go? I didn't see a single one this trip, and that's a first for me. I did enjoy watching the bay for a bit, though, and the seagulls and pelicans. (Damn, those birds are big.) I also recommend the farmer's market that runs down Alvarado Street on Tuesday afternoons.

Then it was time to gear up for what could be either the best or worst evening sessions: The Great Web Tools Face-off. I was on the Red Team with Captain Amy Buckland and fellow teammate Jeff Wisniewski, against the Blue Team of Blake Carver (Captain), Michael Porter, and Lisa Carlucci Thomas. It's very hard to sum up the antics of that 90 minutes - I strongly suggest reading the twitterstream if you can. (It's worth it, I promise!)

I, of course, firmly believe that the Red Team won.

Internet Librarian: Day 1

Last week was the annual Internet Librarian conference in Monterey, a marvelous conference and one of my favorites. (One of these days I have to go to a Computers in Libraries so I can compare them...) Now that a week has passed I want to get my thoughts down, and share a summary of the sessions I attended.

I arrived Sunday afternoon to sunshine and sparkling waters, and only got lost once on the way to my room at the Hotel Pacific (awesome place, I highly recommend it). I had a delicious dinner with a friend (hi Donna!) at the Old Fisherman's Grotto then settled in back at my room to get in gear for the conference.

Monday kicked off with a very thought-provoking keynote session by John Seely Brown (JSB), who talked about how learning has and is changing, and what impact it'll have for all of us. He said we're moving away from an "I think therefore I am" paradigm and into "We participate, therefore we are" - made me think a lot about not only how I do things differently now than ten years ago, but how my son is learning in a completely different way in school than I did. Play has become more and more important - not just play for fun and relaxation, but as a very real way of learning. I see the truth of that in how I learn new tools and then show them to my staff, and I see it every week in my son's schoolwork. Another thing JSB said is that life skill sets are also greatly changing - what once was a skill set that could take you through the next 30-40 years of your professional life now will take you through no more than 5. (That tidbit just about blew my mind, but it rang true when I thought back on my own career.) "Play is key!" Play with your framing of the world, in all aspects of your life. Think about the emerging "Networks of Imagination" - think about Harry Potter, or World of Warcraft, and what kind of collaborative world-building is happening there. Bonus! InfoToday taped his talk, and you can watch it online.

After that, I grabbed a cup of coffee with my mentor (hi Stephen!) and chatted for a bit, then headed into the "Super Searchers" session with Mary Ellen Bates. I always learn a new thing to try in her sessions; this one was focused on how different search engines - and sometimes the same search engines - return different results on the same query, because of location-targeted results (whether you asked for them or not). She also stressed the importance of fighting the monoculture - use different search engines and multiple tools. The new things I'll be trying out of this session are Google Public Data Explorer and http://blekko.com/ - take a look! (I am definitely going to play around with Blekko some more.)

I took a break to get some work done before meeting my co-presenter for lunch to review our session on Tuesday. Peter B's Brewpub has some tasty salads!

Monday afternoon was about clouds and CMSs - I went to "Using the Cloud to Power Library Sites and Services" and enjoyed hearing how the Vancouver Public Library had implemented this. One thing I didn't know is that their hosting solutions were limited since not all countries (and Canada is one of them) allow private data (such as patron information) hosted on servers outside the country - i.e. the cloud. VPL was very limited in their options because of this.  Miami University folks talked about Libguide usability testing, as well. A good discussion option for these kinds of things is "We can't build this for ourselves for $X, but look what this hosted service can do for that…"

I then stuck around for the "CMS Smackdown - Drupal vs. Wordpress vs. Joomla" - I was probably not the target audience for this session, having gone through this myself a few years ago in choosing our CMS, but it was a lively and entertaining session. Poor Joomla, hardly anyone in the room was using it so it seemed a kind of wallflower CMS -

After that I was off to the Grand Opening Reception and ITI Book Signing Event - I sold some more books, woo hoo! I also had fun chatting with Lori Bell and David Lee King, and the Shanachies are always fun to hang out with. When that wound down I headed off to a planning session for the Tuesday night Face-off event…. and that's enough said about that for now!

Monterey, Here I Come!

It's that time of year again... time when thoughts turn to brisk ocean breezes, barking sea lions, and Internet Librarian! Should your thoughts turn to Drupal, come hear my colleague and I hold forth about it on Tuesday, in Track C, right before lunch. Hope to see you there!

McBrarian

Apparently, McDonald's is dangerous to your decorum ... thanks for the tip, Kathleen!



Untitled from christi cagle on Vimeo.