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.)

The Librarian Wardrobe

Just discovered this site... in a similar vein to "This is What a Librarian Looks Like", the Librarian Wardrobe site seeks to collect images of librarian style:

"Not always buns and sensible shoes, librarians at various types of libraries have different styles (and dress codes). Check it out here or submit your own."

 It's a great collection showing the many and varied styles of modern librarians - check it out and submit your own!!

An Open Letter to the Look That Slowly Forms On Your Face When I Tell You I Am a Librarian

Becca Brody nails it over on McSweeney's with her "Open Letter to People or Entities who are Unlikely to Respond:"

"Dear Look That Slowly Forms On Your Face When I Tell You I Am a Librarian:

The raised eyebrows and intake of breath fool no one. As a librarian, I am well aware that most people do not find my job an interesting topic of conversation at a neighborhood barbecue, music festival or, to use a more keenly relevant example, the cocktail party we both attended last Friday night..."

Go forth and read her (sadly, scarily) accurate account of how way too many interactions for us still go these days...  and bear in mind that, if you're in a good mood and feeling forgiving, this is a great time to share a quick note about how fantastic we are.

So. How 'bout that Dewey Decimal System, huh?

Yep, still carrying on.

Friday, September 7, 2012, roughly 8am local time, via @ScrewyDecimal on Twitter: 

Lady: "So what do YOU do?" Me: "I'm a librarian." Lady: "A librarian? That's still a 'thing'?"

Sigh. And people ask me why I feel I still have to carry on about our image and perception these days! THIS. This is why.

Brisbane, Here I Come!

I am honored and delighted to announce that I have accepted an invitation to keynote the 6th Annual New Librarians' Symposium, February 10-13, 2013, in Brisbane, Australia. The symposium's theme is "Think Different, Be Different", and I am looking forward to being just that!

The intended audience for NLS6 is early-career librarians and information professionals,  and the sub-themes are:

•     Inspire (opening minds, expanding horizons)
•     Imagine (the future of the information professions)
•     Create (creativity, risk taking, innovation)
•     Lead (in our profession and beyond)
•     Climb (professional development)
•     Leap (diverse career options for information professionals)

I have the opportunity to talk for an hour on embedded librarianship, special libraries, and our professional identity in any combination and shape I wish - hitting all six themes along the way! Given the incredibly changing nature of the profession, the opportunities available inside libraries and out, and the increase in visibility and interest in embedded positions, I have a lot to talk about! I've already begun outlining my talk, and plan (hope?) on doing it TEDx style.

The really amazing part, that I'm still stunned by? I was crowdsourced.

And then I went to Chicago... Parts 3 & 4

Tuesday and Wednesday at SLA were primarily unit-leader focused; I didn't get to any sessions except the IT Business Meeting, where as division secretary I took some mad notes, yo! I was able to spend some time in the INFO-EXPO collecting information for future vendor relationships with MPOW, and it was kind of nice to be able to talk to a vendor and not say "No, I'm not buying from you, I won't be buying from you, please don't give me a sales pitch". Then it was the Leadership Orientation meeting, and I was surprised at how much Gary LaBranche's presentation on association models got my attention. I also liked Bethan Ruddock's presentation on "How to Parlay SLA Experience into a Promotion" - I realized I had been downplaying all I do with SLA to MPOW and needed to change that, stat! The Leadership program was followed by the Division and Chapter Cabinet meetings - as the only Arizona board member at SLA, I went to the Chapter Cabinet meeting, then onward to the Joint Cabinet Meeting. It got pretty lively in there! (I now know a lot more about "Committee of the Whole" and what it can do.) At this point it was after 8pm and I was starving - so my friend Kathleen and I headed out for a bite to eat, and ended up at Lou Malnati's Pizza.  ZOMG now I see why people rave about Chicago deep dish pizza - this was DAMN tasty stuff! I had intended to head back for the IT Dance Party, but I ran out of energy as we were contemplating dessert so missed the shindig this year. (Dang it!)

Wednesday included a stop at the local FedEx office to ship my Fellows award back home - I didn't want to hand-carry it and take a chance on it getting broken. Plus about twenty pounds of conference-related stuff - books and papers and schwag and stuff - it felt good to get it off my shoulders, literally. I went to the Operation Vitality meeting, where the most excellent Daniel Lee shared the final bits and pieces of the great Wordpress migration, and some tidbits about the forthcoming overarching SLA website overhaul. I'm looking forward to it, and I know I'm not alone. The conference began wrapping up with the SLA Business Meeting, where I learned about and donated to the SLA Loyalty Club, followed by the Future Now Panel, which was entertaining and thought-provoking. I quite enjoyed the discussion about stereotypes versus value. The Closing Reception, thrown by the Kentucky Chapter and partners, was quite enjoyable - it was nice to be able to chat with folks with all the pressure off!

Thank you, Chicago, for a lovely visit. We'll be back!

Family Portrait at the Cloud Gate Sculpture.

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.