buh bye McGill!

a bigger post will follow later this week (once i catch up on sleep and the job-that-pays-the-bills) but as of this morning, i am finished my master’s degree.

i’m a bit stunned that it’s suddenly over. leaving my job in vancouver to finish my undergrad so that i could go to library school – that all began 4 years ago!

finished undergrad, got into various grad schools, chose McGill, worked my tail off, joined waaaaay too many associations (though the people i have met makes it all worth it), did some decent school work, explored somefun tech, and now…

we’ll just have to see what happens.

pecha kucha FTW!

pecha kucha (pronounced “hootchie kootchie” by those of us who were tired of sounding like idiots) is a rockin’ great way to present at a conferences.

here’s the dirt: you get 20 seconds to talk about your slides, and 20 slides for your presentation. the slides advance automatically (well they’re supposed to – aaron was taking care of this for everyone but then started cheating during his own presentation so greg took over) so you really only have 20 seconds to get your message across.

it rocks.

you have to be creative with both the visual and the aural presentation, and the time constraints gives the whole thing a sense of urgency which the audience picks up on and it really increases engagement.

the presenters at this hootchie kootchie were all rock stars:

• amanda – IM
• greg – podcasting
• david – videocasting
• meredith – wikis
• aaron – facebook
• greg n. – skeptic

i really think this format would be great for students – it allows you to practice a presentation, using tech, where you have to be succinct and entertaining at the same time. you could hold monthly hootchie kootchies over a lunch hour. you could choose a theme, or even better, turn them into skill-shares/unconferences where people would present on a topic which they know particularly well.

so much fun!

UPDATE

check out the hootchie kootchie for yourself. 

fun thing 2 – Jing

so i’ve been working on a project for class which requires me to make a mini machinima (machine + cinema – think SL movie). since i tend to spend most of my life on a Mac (i have an Intel iMac though, and for work i occasionally need to run programs using the “evil side” of the computer – aka Windows XP) i was looking for some screen capture apps that were:

1. wicked easy to use
2. able to record audio from a mic
3. capable of simply taking snapshots if i ever forget the cmd-ctrl-4 key combo

Jing to the rescue! you can choose to export directly to file, ftp or screencast.com which will host the vid for you for free. it’s got a sunshine-y interface (i’m not kidding) and is very easy to use. oh, and you can use it on Windows too. (sorry all my Linux peeps – no go yet.)

BUT

you can only export the files to .swf which is why i’m up at 1:21am on a monday night. i need to turn this bad boy into something that iMovie can import so that i can make a little YouTube-y video for class. i’ve downloaded a gajillion demos to try and convert it, and if they work (if!) they throw a watermark on it. erg. i know, i know, i should just gave and by SnapzProX and all of my problems will be solved, but since i don’t see myself as a total machinimaniac (unlike my friend HVX – check out her blog if you want more machinima info) i’m trying to do this on the cheapola.

so if anyone knows of a free app that will convert my .swf into .avi, .mpeg, .wmv… please let me know!

i helpz u with research?

photo credit: jambina

think my prof will believe that my assignment is late because my cat is impeding my highlighting capabilities?

ya, me neither.

Stephen abram is coming to McGill!

for those of you unaware of who Stephen Abram is, he’s the president of the Special Libraries Assocation and has an oh-so-fun blog (Stephen’s Lighthouse).

(as an aside, i attended the SLA conference in baltimore just prior to beginning my MLIS and it confirmed my decision to go into the LIS field. i still have all the business cards i collected at the conference and though everyon was from a different industry, doing a different job, they were all concerned with the dissemination of information. exactly the people i want to surround myself with.)

so Stephen is coming to talk to the LIS students of McGill (aka SISsies) and having seen him speak before, i know that a) it’s gonna be fun, and b) we’re gonna have lots to talk about.

i may live-blog it, since i’m addicted to Cover It Live.

procrastinatory post: CV writing is hard

thanks to some great folks i’ve met in the twittersphere, i’ve been able to check out what other soon-to-be MLISed people are doing CV-wise. both, like me, are looking at working in academia, and also like me, are technologically-inclined (though i really know very little next to them – i like what Meredith calls herself – a “cut-and-paste techie”). and all three of us have radically different CVs – both in appearance and content.

but is that a bad thing?

mine has a funky layout because i used to work in newspapers and can remake the scoreboard page between deadlines (which involves a ton of agate type and shmooshing text until it’s barely readable), so i guess i like people to know that i can do that. it also has only three bullet points detailing responsibilities after each job i’ve had. but i’ve had a lot of jobs (in my former life in publishing), and if i do 8-10 bullet points, the CV will be way too long for someone just starting their academic career.

but if i want to present myself as someone who loves tech and sees how it can help an academic library reach out to students and faculty, what format should i be using? can i be funky because i’m applying for emerging tech positions and thus want to project an aura of “i’m so cool and with it” (do people even say that anymore?) or do i go the academic-CVs-must-look-a-certain-way in a bid not to freak anyone out?

and cover letters… my GAWD cover letters. i am getting pwned by cover letters. i used to think they were no big deal.

Dear Señor Withjob Iwant,
I would like to apply for position A because I can do X, Y, and Z. I’m a hard-worker and a quick-learner and thrive in fast-paced environments.
I am eager to talk to you about the possibilities at working at AnywhereThatWillPay Inc. and look forward to our meeting.

Best,
Howdid I. Evergetajob
aka amy

then i found this post over at Caveat Lector

The question you are trying to answer in your cover letter to me is not “Why are you awesome?” It is triply not “What do you want?” I don’t care what you want right now. (I will care once I decide to interview you, but I’m not there yet if I’m just staring at your application package.) The questions you are trying to answer are “Why should I hire you? How will you solve my problems?” You had better speak compellingly to that, and “I am awesome!” is not a compelling answer by itself. How do you know whom I want to hire, and what my problems are? I told you in the job description I wrote. This is why your cover letter needs to repeat as many of my buzzwords as possible.

In other words, your cover letter is all about me. No, that doesn’t seem quite fair, but it’s what will get you an interview. Look, I’ll tell you a secret, okay? I’ve been on search committees. The way we do the first cut on applications is to sit around a table with a grid in front of us. Across the top of the grid is a list of the skills we asked for in the job description. Down the left is a list of applicant names. We sit there and we check off boxes. If you don’t have enough boxes checked when we’re done, you’re chucked. Get it now?

yowsa. back to the drawing board for moi…

twitter friends are really fun

yesterday i tweeted that i was not going to join any more associations unless they furthered my career, were fun, or were for a cause that i believed in.

in response Wayne (one of my Twitter friends) promptly invited me to join the Librarian Glee Club for the Homeless.

he even designed a tshirt for me.

thanks Wayne!

another recalled book

fifth recalled book in three weeks.

i am never gonna finish my research project if peeps keep recalling my books! (think i’ll get any sympathy from my supervisor…?)

omg i met Jessamyn

Jessamyn West was at McGill for two, count’em!, TWO days speaking to students and professionals at a workshop i had a hand in coordinating.

not only is she a rockin’ fun person who inspires spontaneous limbo competitions (think i’m kidding?) but her talk, especially to us library students, made us feel all warm n’fuzzy about our decision to become librarians/knowledge managers/archivists.

so if any of you out there in the blogosphere have a chance to see Jessamyn speak, hop on your pogo-stick and go go go!

welcome to the professional life!

i love twitter. i love it because i get updates on all the fun things fellow LISers and tech-types are up to. over the past few weeks, a number of these folk have been “tweeting” about professional development and online life.

Karin over at nirak.net (subscribe to the RSS feed NOW!) had a killer post about professional social networking (how killer – Meredith Farkas AND Walt Crawford both posted comments!) followed up by an ever so easy-to-read dos and donts list. given the trend towards “Facebook-stalking” (as my friend Jan calls it – and i’m sure she’s not the only one) and “google-ing” that occurs – even by employers, i am constantly amazed at how we, as techno-savvy LIS students, don’t take better care of our online life.

Lauren‘s recent post – titled “investing in your professional life” – discusses tips and tricks for the new professional: go to conferences, carve out a niche, and keep learning! her subsequent post is all about how it’s silly to only be a librarian from 9-5pm, because joining associations, attending conferences, blogging, all helps both your personal and professional lives.

“And in the end, everything enriches everything else.”

i find it hard to believe that librarians are ever truly “off the clock”. information is everywhere. we work with information. therefore we are always, to a certain extent “working” (but that doesn’t mean we are miserable – i’ve never heard about a librarian who wasn’t abnormally curious – you?)