the rest of my #libday4

cc licensed flickr photo shared by jambina

[well, at least i posted something this week!]

tuesday

since i try not to schedule meetings on mondays, my tuesdays tend to have at least two of them. i think i run fairly productive meetings. i always have an agenda, take minutes, and rarely go over time by more than a few minutes. i’m also a big believer in only having meetings when there’s something to discuss – i’m not a fan of the standing meeting. but then, i don’t run every meeting at mpow.
these meetings had to do with sorting through work needing to be finished by the digitization team. my ABSOFRICKINLUTELY amazing programmer has created a database that queries both our catalogue and Sherpa/Romeo while tracking the process of depositing items into our IR. it is a thing of beauty and when we’re done testing it i’ll tell you more about it.
i also met with my direct supervisor to update her on the the past month and to sort out priorities for now until may 31 (end of fiscal year, chez moi). we’re going to focus on our new “on demand” service – printing on demand and digitizing on demand. (will post more about those when they go live.)
over lunch i rewatched larry lessig‘s talk about copyright in higher education – cuz sometimes librarians need to be reminded that they ARE fighting the good fight. also, i’m a huge fangirl of his, so watching a talk is never “work”. while watching larry, i took my first stab at a packing list for my trip, based loosely off of jessamyn’s (i know i talked about her in the last post. deal.)

other stuff done during the day:

• realizing that we need to get better support from a hardware vendor, and trying to figure out the best way to get what we need. they are a new company, and have great customer service, but they’re still growing so only just now figuring out all the demands of their users.
• answered a survey sent out by a library considering using one of our products, to help them make the decision.
• came to terms with the fact that my office is a berloody mess and i really need to do something about it before i lose my mind. note: this will probably be repeated in #libday5.
• thought about downloading some reading material for my travels tomorrow, but then realized that because i use zotero, i had all the PDFs/screenshots with me already. in my world, zotero = productivity.
• once home, worked for another few hours finishing up emails and letting folks now that i wouldn’t be back in the office until next monday.

finally fell asleep around 2am. i was restless thinking about going to the SLA Leadership Summit and seeing some great friends (who i only see at conferences due to geographical shenanigans, but who i talk to daily.) also, St Louis has ribs and blues bars. sweet.

wednesday to sunday

i’m at the SLA Leadership Summit in St Louis, MO.
i decided to come because i’m the Communications & Social Media Chair for both the IT and Academic divisions. being on the advisory boards means getting to help plan future directions for the divisions, which is interesting because i get some insight into the organization.
the leadership summit is very different from the annual conference. there are only about 250 people who attend leadership. they are all on chapter or division boards and are really the folks responsible for implementing and “living” SLA. thanks to the tiny size, it’s dead easy to meet folks.
leadership is also different because the summit is about developing the leadership capabilities of the attendees. we skillshare on topics like recruitment & retention. board meetings look at programming for the annual conference. the invited keynote is always someone that has an interesting take on organizations and how best they can serve their members. essentially, it’s about developing SLA leaders (both those who are appointed to boards, and those who self-identify as leaders) to ensure the association can respond to its membership.
this was my first leadership summit and on the whole i found it a good experience. it was great to hear what other folks have planned for the annual conference in New Orleans. it was interesting to hear about, and then really think about, the concept of loyalty when it comes to large organizations, and even further, what this means in academic libraryland.
and of course, SLA events are made for networking. some people i know i will only see at SLA events, and i’m always eager to catch up with them. the LSW had a sizable cohort at leadership, so much so that there was talk of having an LSW caucus – if only to have some beer money for the meetups at annual!
i’ve been a part of a number of library organizations since first starting library school – SLA, CLA, ALA, QLA, LSW – and to be honest, SLA has helped me the most in terms of growing into a professional. [i don't want to sound like a shill, because this is all very sincere.]
for any LIS students reading this, think about the associations to which you belong (and if you don’t belong to any, you are missing out on a crazy opportunity to network and gain insight – especially since students dues are usually insanely cheap) and be sure the association is working for you. can you find mentors? are there free resources available to you? are there scholarships available to cover your expenses to the annual conference? library schools can only do so much – becoming an information professional is all about being resourceful, both in terms of finding answers to questions, and seeking out opportunities for yourself.
to students who complain that their school “does nothing” for them, i say two things:

1. that sucks. a lot of us have been there. it’s frustrating.

1. do something about it. host a conference (those who are “big names” in library-land love talking to students and will come to your school in the middle of the winter when it’s crazycold out and speak because they love LIS students). join the local chapter of whatever association seems to be the best fit. hop online and join in the discussion about libraryland (and no, I DO NOT MEAN NEWLIB-L.) reach out to info pros in your area that have jobs you want, and take them for a coffee to pick their brains. whatever you do, do not expect someone to do this for you. it’s your career – own it.

things i didn’t learn in library skül

i’m currently taking a course to familiarize myself with copyright since so much of my day involves depositing work in the IR, digitizing & printing rare texts, and publishing scholarly journals.

UofT LIS students make my day

i love dares. doing scary things (hello battledecks…) is fun.
University of Toronto library students seem to like dares as well – and have taken it to the next level by publicly documenting their dare in order to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa.
the dare? take photos of strangers holding a honkin’ huge “i <3 librarians” sign. the flickr stream is filled with great pix.
guerilla marketing for a good cause.

(thanks Aaron for posting about this!)

update: these photos would be extra awesome if they were licensed under Creative Commons (hint! hint!)

hello SLA2009!

i’m in town for the SLA Centennial Conference. i love the SLA conferences – it’s always wild to meet librarians who work in “non-traditional” gigs. this year i’m on the boards of two divisions – IT and Academic – so i’ll be getting my first glimpse at the inner machinations of things.

more soon!

fun thing: picnik

i am addicted to modifying photos using picnik – especially since every social network requires you to have some kind of avatar for you profile.

picnik is free and doesn’t require you to register (though there are some perks if you do). you can crop and rotate and fix colours (you can even use curves), as usual, but picnik also allows you to add filters to your photos, text, funny pix, and frame things in a bunch of different ways.

so you can make a boring picture like this:

look like this:

(there’s lots more you can do – i just wanted to give you a rough idea. this was cropped, rotated, had the Orton-ish effect applied, speech bubble and text added, and i gave myself a loverly ‘stache.)

adieu uncontrolled vocabulary

the awesome Greg Schwartz has decided to put his show, Uncontrolled Vocabulary, on hiatus.

this saddens me because the show was one of the first LIS-related but non-library school things i discovered out there on the intertubes. talking about real life LIS issues! getting the dirt on new tech and how it might actually apply to librarians! listening to LIVE LIBRARIANS! amazing!

so to Greg, i have this message: i owe you much. listening to that first episode of UnVocab was one of those “OMG i made the right decision in becoming a librarian” moments.

you rock.

do things that scare you

such as present at a workshop where you’re on the slate with seasoned veterans like Stephen Abram and Michael Stephens.

i would say that i am fairly comfortable presenting in front of a group. we do a lot of teaching at my branch, so i have had a lot of practice explaining somewhat complicated things to folks.

i also read up on presenting (slide:ology and presentation zen are two recent faves) and while i don’t consider myself as proficient with powerpoint as Larry Lessig, i certainly don’t force my audience to suffer “death by powerpoint”. or as Dorothea puts it, “i don’t think i’ve ever wasted the audience’s time”.

so though i’m okay speaking to  people, and know that my presentations are, for the most part, not-so-bad, being asked to speak at this workshop was still scary.

scary because…

• both Stephen and Michael know how to engage an audience.
• i wasn’t presenting at some far-off  conference to peeps that i will only ever see again at another conference. i was presenting to local librarians and library school students – my colleagues and friends!
• i didn’t get to rehearse nearly as much as i had hoped (note to self: your procrastinatory skills are epic. you must fix this).

but scary is good. scary makes you try harder. scary makes you prepare better (plz to disregard my 3rd point above). scary makes you try things. scary pushes you to do something!

and then the next time you do it, it’s less scary. and then the next time, even less scary. and so on, and so on…

so how have you scared yourself lately? (alright alright, use “challenged” if that sounds better in your head.) i am well aware that it is easier to say you are going to do something new than to actually do it.

what if a double-dawg dare you?

print vs online

sometimes print really is better. (Photo credit: inju at www.flickr.com/photos/35468141938@N01/112082907)

CBC’s Spark (i love Nora Young!) had a recent episode discussing the value of offline formats of communication: basically, stuff printed on dead trees.

hearing about Ben Tennett’s project Things Our Friends Have Written on the Internet, where he selected blog posts and published them as a newspaper, made me think about the things that i prefer to read in print. (bias: i worked in the newsroom of a major metropolitan daily newspaper for 8 years, so i like pretty much everything about newsprint, from the smell to the inky fingers. also, i am an EXPERT at refolding a newspaper so that it looks unread. talents, i haz’em.)

thinking about my love of newsprint, i looked at all the paper on my desk: memos, catalogues, course outlines, to-do lists, and a bunch of pieces of paper which i don’t remember putting there but which have magically appeared on my desk.

• how many of these bits and pieces could be delivered in a different format?
• maybe more importantly, how many of these pieces of paper should be delivered in a different format?
• would i treat them differently if they weren’t printed and in a pile on my desk?
• with my inbox (all of them) already overflowing, do i want previously-printed items to be delivered electronically?
• do we feel differently about things we read in print? things we read online?

while blogs serve many purposes within an organization, they can’t do it all. i worry that some of us are jumping on the blogging bandwagon because we think that it will solve all of our communication problems.

how often does your organization evaluate your communication needs and address which can be met best with online vs print information?

me, school, and job interviews

note: this is a verrrrry long post. i don’t know who i think i am, cuz as far as i’m concerned only dorothea and meredith can really pull this off – but here goes. grab a beer, cuz if you choose to read the whole thing, you’ll be here for awhile. (i wrote a summary so you can skip to the guts).

i’m en route to internet librarian in monterey. [well i'm here now.] plane rides always make me pensive. well, they make me pensive after i’ve checked out the movies. (gotta say i’m pretty impressed with air canada’s canadian movie offerings. less impressed with the fact that even a headset now costs 3$ and that during the safety demo, the lifevest of the flight attendant was branded with the logo of the long-defunct canadian airlines.)

so much has happened over the past few months and i really haven’t had anytime to blog about it, but i promised to talk about library school and interviewing for jobs in a post, so here it be.

back in may i graduated from mcgill. i think i’m still in shock that it’s over. the decision to go back to school to become a librarian meant that i had to finish my bachelor’s degree, something that i had left years before in favour of full-time employment. i had 5 semesters to finish before i could go to library school, which i completed in 2 years by going to school full-time during the summer. it was brutal, and my rugby playing suffered immensely, but my grades didn’t and i managed to hold onto a job a the same time, so i considered it a success.
applying to library schools was more of a shenanigan than i would have liked. i had planned to go to mcgill. i wanted to go to mcgill. and i thought mcgill would want me to go there. but i was wrong (kind of). after sending out applicatoins to university of toronto and university of western ontario (just to cover my bases) i heard from mcgill that i was accepted… to be on the waiting list. utoronto and western both gave me early acceptance spots, but mcgill, part of “the dream to become a librarian” had me on a waiting list. less than thrilled, i was. thankfully it all sorted itself out and i didn’t have to do my library degree sans hubby (as i would have at western) or while going catastrophically into debt (as i would have at utoronto). and i think in the end, mcgill is happy they accepted me, and i’m certainly happy to have gone there. (note to alumni association: though i am now gainfully employed, i am not ready to be giving you any money. plz do not call me for a few years. kthxbai.)

just prior to graduating there was a posting at a university in montreal for what i (then) considered my dream job: digital services/outreach librarian. not only would i get to play with new tech and figure out how the library could use it to improve services, but i would be involved in lots of instruction and general outreach to the university community. (note: there was no possibility of relocation – we had just bought a house in montreal. yes. i bought a house before finding a job. everyone who freaked on me – i hope you’ve since relaxed.)
i spent days on my cover letter and curriculum vitae. (at the beginning of my final semester of school, i called the directors of both anglo universities in town and asked if i could have an informaitonal interview with them. i highly recommend this. both directors were very willing to meet to discuss what they are looking for in a candidate, what my c.v. should look like, and what to include in the cover letter. both of these directors were looking for very different applications, so i was pretty stoked that i had done this.) having worked in publishing for quite awhile, i had prepared resumes before, but never a curriculum vitae. the experience is both exhausting and exciting as you catalogue your qualities and accomplishments and tweak them to shine for the selection committee.
back to dream job. i get an interview. once i stopped jumping up and down and “w00t”ing myself, i realized that i now had to prepare a presentation which was open to the staff, and get ready for a marathon interview with the selection committee.
the presentation prep was fairly easy as the question was obviously not a stumper: how could the library make use of some emerging technologies? (actually, now that i think back, i think this was the univeristy’s way of swiping ideas for whoever ended up with the job. SCAMMERS!) i tried to make it as unpowerpointish as possible, but must admit i just couldn’t do it without some slides. ick. i know. and the best resource for this prep was definitely my twitter peeps. (ya ya ya, i’m all about the tweep love.) some folks told me what they thought of their discovery tools, others gave me the dirt on tagging (can you really do it in your catalogue? YES), and others just gave me buttloads of support.<
the presentation itself went pretty well. i was pretty nervous but managed to keep it together and deal with the 15 (OMG!) questions at the end.
on to the interview. the panel had four people on it – two associate directors and two librarians. everyone was wicked friendly and disarming. then i saw the stapled stack of papers each had in front of them – it was the list of questions they were going to ask me! ZOMG!
suffice it to say that i don’t remember many of the questions. i remember being given lots of time to formulate answers, and when asked for clarification the tone was never “what the hell are you talking about?” so i was feeling okay. they asked the traditional “if we call your references, what will they tell us is your worst quality?” (my answer: i don’t easily say no so i frequently find myself juggling more balls than i should be. though i rarely miss deadlines – first real job was in the newsroom of a metropolitain daily = homey knows about deadlines – i can become a big ball o’stress if i don’t keep myself in check.) but they also asked some fun questions like “what do you think about the semantic web?” (my answer: i babbled something about information no longer living in boxes and then got really into it and tangential and totally needed to be reeled in.)
three hours later (by which time my stress had actually manifested itself in a string of zits across my forehead – apparently i’m still 15 years old) we were done. everyone said that it went well. much relief was felt by me, and my bladder cuz you know i needed to pee from the moment i sat down in the interview.
up next? interview with the director of libraries. now since i had already done an informational interview, we had some rapport already. i was asked what i considered my biggest accomplishments in life (the decision to go back to school to become a librarian – and actually complete it, the M&S honour, and being the youngest and first female president of my 50 year old rugby club). we then talked about my future, the future of libraries, and where those two might intersect.
and then it was over. and i went home and drank some beer and fell asleep.
and then i waited.
and i waited.
and still i waited.

i knew they were interviewing six people for the position, so i wasn’t surprised to only hear eight weeks later.
i didn’t get the job.
i found out while in seattle at the sla conference and i was severely bummed. but the LSW and SLA peeps that were there snapped me right out of that. and so i was not sleepless in seattle. (joke fail!)

i let the dust settle and then emailed some of the interview panel members and asked for feedback on what to work on for the next interview (didn’t get much help there – “both your interview and your presentation were strong, but we decided to go with another candidate.” uhhhh, okay. but, why?)

so i took a short-term contract at mcgill (which had been offered to me before i graduated) because i had been working there for my final semester and i really enjoyed the work and the people, and though it wasn’t permanent, i had my fingers crossed.

finally there was a posting for a bunch of liaison librarians. again i spent days on my cover letter and curriculum vitae. again i get an interview. again i w00t myself.
i get to the interview where the director says that usually they get the presentation over with right away and then proceed to the interview. and then it dawns on me – they think i have prepared a presentation, but no one sent me a topic to prepare! [insert quiet internal freak out HERE.] so like oh-so-many thing in my life, i winged it. again, not a hard topic (what do you think about roving reference?) so i wasn’t that worried, but this was to the senior administrative group of the library so… un peu stressant.

anyway, they bought whatever i was selling cuz i got a gig at mcgill.

summary

• spend time on your cover letter and c.v. – it should echo (with the same vocabulary) language used in the job posting
• show them to people – both fellow students and those already working (you’d be amazed at how friendly librarians are and how much they are willing to help)
• like in that glorious movie “The Librarian”, everyone will know HTML, LCSH, all about Kuhlthau’s ASK, and have an MLIS – what do you have that makes you different from everyone else? (and you do have something, trust me. i bet it comes from your non-library life. *gasp*)
• if possible – ask for informational interviews with directors/associate directors in charge of HR to find out what they are looking for
• if you’re not comfortable presenting, figure out a way to make yourself comfortable. I know it sounds harsh, but you will almost certainly be doing this as a librarian, so if uber-preparation makes you feel best, then do it
• there are LOTS of jobs out there if you are geographically mobile. if you aren’t, expand your horizons, baby. think special libraries, think records management, think competitive intelligence, think of all the berloody information needs out there and how you can help out with them!

my friends are better than yours

i kid, i kid.

but i just want to publicly thank a bunch of people without whom my degree would NEVER have been possible.

first, naturellement, to my hubby™ who loved me when i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life (and was doing very little), and who continues to support me now that i think the world is my frickin’ oyster and i am invincible. (i even have a superhero – you should too!)

second, to my bestest ever friend, who will remain an online-enigma, save to say that if Alexander McQueen ever went straight, she would be first in line to marry him. and he’d be one lucky dude to have someone so intelligent and creative at his side. velouria FTW!

third, to my rugby posse. who tonight surprised me not only with sushi and molson export (YAY!), but earrings from the Frank Gehry collection at Tiffany (love me some Frank) to celebrate my graduation. the card read:

with so much love & pride.
congratulations on everything amy.
love cathy, shelly, gij, susy and jess

given the accomplishments (leaving their rugby achievements aside) of these women (anyone need an accountant, social worker, teacher, graphic design firm owner, or philosophy professor?  just holler) i can’t believe they have the time to look out for me – but i know they always have my back.

and to my online network of librarians and ed tech folks. [i was thinking of linking each of your blogs to a word in the following paragraph - but i don't have enough words to thank everyone...] you played a significant role in my success in library school. i couldn’t find all the components of the professional network that i wanted to create from the peeps i knew in Montreal/at McGill, and all of you have managed to answer questions, lend support, tell me when i’m doing something stoopid, and share your lives. you are all part of one of my fundamental beliefs, that knowledge requires collaboration.

finally, there are many folks from grad school who made academia WAY more fun – you know who you are, JJaCL. the day-to-day would have been excruciating without you. i am forever in your debt.