Fun with Words

I’ve been encountering some terms lately that I’ve found intriguing – not necessarily groundbreaking, but interesting. The first term is informavore. I came across this in a post on BoingBoing, which lead me to an article on the Edge. I would like to consider myself an informavore, and I suspect most librarians would. What intrigued me in the article was the parallel of information to Darwin selection – in a world filled with information, how do we choose which information is important, what can be left out and what might this mean for culture, history and the future? I’m sure I can not do the article justice, so I will simply recommend that you go read the article.

I came across the other term in a Spark podcast. In this episode (episode 90), we learn of the term continuous partial attention (it also talks about email apnea – an interesting concept in itself). I think this explains a lot of what I do, certainly better than the term multitasking. I also think that many of the students I work with also fall prey to continuous partial attention. If this is the case, what does this mean for educating these students? Does it change they way we think they work – or should it? I think I will be spending some more time considering what the implications for this might mean for the students I teach. I’m becoming more and more interested in how technology affects our students and their learning and I think continuous partial attention is certainly one side effect of technology.

Thank You

Remembrance Day is one of the few days that I find I can get quite emotional, thinking of all of the brave men and women who have sacrificed themselves, their time, or their loved ones. Thanks is not enough but it is all I can offer. We will not forget your sacrifice.

Roundup

Again, far too much time has passed since my last posting and far too much has happened. Here’s a roundup of just some of the things that are happening.

OLA is undergoing some strategic planning discussions at the moment. I love being able to take time to stop and look at the big picture, to figure out what it really is that we want to accomplish as individuals, an association, as a profession. We rarely have the chance to stop the daily routine to see where we are going. This scares a lot of people, or at least makes them uncomfortable but this isn’t a bad thing. Some of this comes down to a fear of change but that could be a whole blog post for another time. You can take part in the OLA discussion on  the ola site, facebook and twitter.

We launched the big project I was part of this summer. We made a series of 6 short, humourous videos promoting library services to new students. You can check them out on our youtube channel. One even made a top 5 list!

I just came back from presenting at Internet Librarian. This is one of my favourite conferences – amazing people with great ideas. You can find my presentation here – feel free to contact me with any questions. One of the highlights of the conference was the launch of Michael Porter and David Lee King’s video Library 101 – be sure to check it out!  I attended the unconference and my first preconference (on digital natives and digital immigrants) – both great events with amazing discussion. One of my favourite things about conferences is the chance to sit around with smart people and discuss the issues we all face as librarians. As usual, I came back from the conference full of ideas and energy – something I was in great need of. It feels like it’s been busier than usual with instruction this year, which is a sign of liaison success I suppose.

I recall thinking “ooh, I should blog about this” in the past few months but in the busy-ness of life, they have gotten lost. At least you’re a little more up-to-date on the state of things though!

Library Day in the Life: wrap up and Floods

Better late than never.  This was an interesting exercise for me, as I hope it was for you. It’s been an eye opening experience as I got a chance to see what my colleagues in this profession are up to (a lot!).  I hope you’ve gotten a new appreciation for libraries, librarians, and all they do. For myself, it gave me a chance to reflect back on what I accomplished in the day – something I don’t often leave time for and something I should perhaps be doing more often. It does seem I’m rather all over the place in my day and while that may be expected during summer, a time full of committee work, projects and First Year Experience things, I don’t think it’s very productive. I think I need to work on scheduling my time better, when I can, in order to help my productivity move along. I know I work well under pressure and this may be hard fought battle, but I’ll keep you posted on how that scheduling goes. My days also show I like to be busy (yes) and I like to have variety (also very true). Trying to balance all of this may be a challenge.

On another note, many will have heard of the flood that hit the Louiseville Free Public Library. The Library Society of the World is trying to raise money to help out the library and you can find out more about it here and on Boing Boing. It’s great to see the library community, and others, coming together to help out!

Library Day in the Life: Friday

Ok, I’m cheating a bit and posting this just after midnight, but here’s my day for Friday

• vacation!!

So, I hope you’ll forgive the early post as I take a day off!

Library Day in the Life: Thursday

Here’s what today looked like:

• in a surprising twist, the day did not start with checking email,etc. Instead, I was up and at work for 7am so that we could shoot our latest video. We need to be there early to shoot before the library opens. It went well – we had some great actors.
• meeting to talk about consultation process/guidelines for blended service
• finally catch up on email, etc
• set up for group participation in Handheld Librarian Online Conference (#hhlib)
• listened to keynote of the #hhlib
• meeting
• attended remaining sessions on #hhlib. Lots of info on using SMS/text for reference service and other mobile goodness, which of course, got me thinking about it. Canada is behind when it comes to cell phones and half decent plans. Unless you have a plan, and admittedly most people I know do, texting costs to both send and receive. While it would be nice to offer service through text, one of the dominant ways students communicate these days, I wonder if this service would create a digital divide. Not everyone may be willing to pay to use the service. Of course, we offer IM service and many are without computers still, but libraries also offer access to computers; we do not offer access to cell phones. I doubt that this line of thinking would affect too many, but it did make me pause and consider who it is we are trying to serve and what about the rest of our users?
• 1 hour shift on email/im

Library Day in the Life: Wednesday

I hope you’re not bored of my days yet. Here’s how today went:

• catch up an emails, etc – you know the drill
• met with colleague from First Year Experience Office to discuss library involvement in Welcome Day and let them know some of the cool things we’re doing (First Year Experience wiki, videos, etc). They will be linking to our resources from their own pages (yay!) and I’ll now be part of the first gen session on Welcome Day, as well as the Parent Panel (another yay!). Also arranged to work out some first year research/writing courses, partnering with a prof (one more yay!) for FYEO.
• listened to latest Adventures in Library Instruction podcast
• finalized high school instruction request form
• attempted to participate in part of ACRL’s OnPoint Chat series, “Are Reference Desks Passé?” but it was full (I guess I need to sign in much earlier).
• networking lunch with colleague in learning technologies. As always, a good time that got ideas flowing
• researched guidelines for consultations/referrals for blended services and looked for good examples
• picked up another liaison area (arts and science inquiry) and will have to look into instruction sessions

Library Day in the Life: Tuesday

Another day in the life of the wee librarian. Here are the minutia of my day (probably more than you ever wanted to know):

• unsurprisingly, went through email, rss, social networks, etc to update myself and got ready for the day
• posted meeting minutes on wiki
• accepted a role as part of the training team for blended service and possibly as a mentor
• worked on collection development
• worked on updating our First Year Experience wiki
• 2 hour research help desk shift
• finally checked out bing
• set up doodle poll to decide sessions for upcoming Handheld Librarian Online Conference
• added projects for incoming co-op students to work on
• fought some more with volunteer scheduling
• dealt with various email throughout the day
• called it a day

Library Day In the Life: Monday

Well, I’ve been silent for a while now but I’ve decided to come back and take part in Library Day in the Life. It’s been around before but this is my first go at it. I figure it’s good to share what I do, realize what I do, and gives me a great reason to start writing here again. So, here’s my Monday – pretty typical for this time of year for me. Note: I have cheated a bit, in that I tweeted much of what I did, mostly because I figure I’ll forget later. Apologies for the repetition to those who follow me on twitter.

Monday

• start the day by catching up with the library world and the world in general (rss feeds, social networks, news, etc)
• meeting with our teaching with technology group, where we’re looking at library integration into our new blackboard system
• had wikis set up for committees I’m on (thanks Amanda!) and put content in them
• got confirmation of full move to blackboard in fall, which means updating library quiz and helping out faculty as needed
• updated online form for high school instruction requests
• worked on conference proposal
• ate lunch at my desk (bad habit – must break)
• hour shift on im/email reference
• coordinating volunteers for next week’s Welcome Day
• meeting to script out next library video (we’re doing a series which I’ll post more on when they’re all done)
• biked home to avoid nasty looking clouds

Shoving and Making

It’s been an interesting couple of months. This is largely due to the fact that I recently attended the Northern Exposure to Leadership. I met some wonderful people doing incredible things. It was an absolutely amazing experience and one that I’m still trying to fully digest. I do hope to post something more on this experience, as soon as I figure out how to put the whole experience into words.

Library Journal recently announced this year’s Movers and Shakers. I’m not surprised to find that I know many of the names, both in real life and virtually, on the list. Congrats to you all!

Many of you may already know about the Library Society of the World’s new award, the Shovers and Makers. I think this is a great idea! While Library Journal recognizes some of the most outstanding work being done in our field, the Shover and Maker award celebrates the fact that many of us are doing great things too. All you have to do to claim a Shover and Maker award is post a profile celebrating the great things you are doing. I’ve done mine. Go! Do one for yourself! Celebrate all your hard work!

I will be attending Computers in Libraries this coming week. Hope to see some of you there!