la bella ali tagged me for this awhile back… (sorry babe!) i skipped a few Qs as i am currently sans kids.
so here we go.
1. Is there anything you’ve ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?
my mom’s yorkshire pudding tastes like joy. (and at a zillion calories, why wouldn’t it?)
2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?
until my mid-teens i adored living in the suburbs. lachine was filled with parks, kids playing in the streets, and a real sense of community. and when i think of raising kids, i would want to do that in the ‘burbs, at least for the first few years. (note: i didn’t go to high school in lachine. best decision i ever made.) (not because lachine high wasn’t a great school, but because it got me out of the usual.)
as an adult – city. please.
4. What’s the loveliest place you’ve ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.
loveliest would be a tie between barcelona and guadeloupe. as for my new fave place to live? edinburgh. in a heartbeat.
5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?
a rag sprayed with white vinegar stops almost all static in the dryer.
wash bright blue items with white items to increase the “whiteness”.
6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?
everyday i want to be happy – adjust life accordingly. when that fails, review life, adjust accordingly. (basically – i roll with the punches.)
7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?
i think they would definitely recognize me. and for the most part, we’d still get along. and like ali, i’m still friends with a bunch of them. (including ali)
8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?
ali’s list is pretty good. i could prolly pull together a list from some youth librarians for you. these days, graphic novels are very popular and they have been proven to build literacy skills just like traditional texts. </endofmyliteracyspeech
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:
that sucks. a lot of us have been there. it’s frustrating.
do something about it. host a conference (those who are “big names” inlibrary-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.
yesterday was a long day. all-in-all it was about 10 hours in my office. that’s not really normal for me, but i definitely do more than 9 to 5 (‘sokay for now – i’m such a keener right now i scare myself).
i try not to have any meetings at all on mondays. so far this has been pretty successful, and it means i get the time to sort out my week while drinking lots of coffee.
so here is, roughly in chronological order, what i did.
laptop was all kinds of crashy over the weekend so got in and talked to the tech guys to see what can be done. (not much, it seems. i have a lemon.)
trudged through the email that came in over the weekend, tagging stuff for follow-up. i really do need to implement a GTD system because my inbox is a disaster.
i’m currently taking a course on Canadian copyright so i got this week’s lesson and realized i hadn’t finished last week’s assignment. nurts.
fought with the university’s personnel software trying to mark down some staff absences from last week. realized i don’t have permissions yet, so sent emails to rectify that.
dealt with some rush ILL requests to digitize some theses.
looked at a quote we gave a campus group for digitizing some archival photos. made a note to talk to the group about creative commons licenses for the photos.
the superfun bobbi newman is running “library day in the life” for the fourth year.
i signed up to do this for round 3, but i was in the midst of changing jobs, so i really didn’t have a “day in the life” at that point – especially since one day involved packing & moving my office.
i also signed up for round 2, but realized i didn’t have a “day in the life” yet either, since i had only been a librarian for 5 months and some days involved minutiae that new librarians need to learn, but aren’t really part of your job (like, which rooms you have to teach in have wifi access when there’s no list anywhere…)
so this round, i’m in. i’ll be travelling to st louis 1/2 way through the week for the SLA Leadership Summit, and the first 2 days of the week will be used to catch up with my boss who has been on vacation for 2 weeks, but – that such is the life of a librarian, there is no “regular” week to show folks. which i guess is why bobbi planned this whole thing in the first place. *lightbulb moment*
i am hoping to upload a few posts as part of the library day in a life blog-o-rama that is going on this week (go sign up!) but i don’t think that’ll start today, because this day in my life is filled with lots of changes (AWESOMELY GOOD ONES) and i need to wrap my head around things. stay tuned.
no one tagged me but we all know how much i love a bandwagon – there’s a meme going around…
here are seven things you might not know about me.
i can sing the alphabet backward as easily as i can forward. i was a bored child and took to reading books backward once i had read them the “proper”. if you buy me a beer i’ll even serenade you with “mary had a little lamb” backward. if you want me to do this on karaoke night, it’ll cost you more than one beer.
i can read hebrew (with the vowels, pls) and russian but have no idea what i’m saying.
i was in a “reverse-integration” (holy gawd i hate that term) program in grade five where i was lucky enough to go to Mackay Centre with kids with various physical disabilities as well as share a building with a deaf school. my sign language, at the moment, is atrocious.
my cousin is a bit of a rock star in quebec. for the record, i hated him between the ages of 9 and 13 because he was always being told how awesome he was for being able to sing so well. now, however, i think he’s a big sweetheart.
this was the first gizmo i ever used to get on the internet. (actually, my uncle had a coupler so i could get on it at his house, but this was the first thing we had chez nous.) my parents had no idea how to work it. i won a samantha fox cassette answering a quiz on a bulletin board.
i was on the opening crew of the Disney Wonder and loved everything about it. i trained at Disney World for a month (working in the Magic Kingdom). then was flown to the Fincantieri shipyard in Venice to pick up the ship and sail it first to Southhampton (where Sir Richard Branson sponsored an “open ship” event and we had the most amazing fireworks EVER), then to Porta Delgada in The Azores, then across the Atlantic Ocean for a week (sans guests) to home port in Port Canaveral, FL. i sailed through hurricanes and worked with 3 year olds. i consider this some of the best management experience i’ve ever had and actually feel the company gives (some of ) their employees an awful lot of autonomy to make people happy. cult-like corporate culture, i eats it up.
due to my diastema, i have amazing accuracy when spitting water out through my two front teeth. i love knowing that i share a bar trick with the Wife of Bath, Cleopatra, and Madonna.
according to the rules of this meme – i have to tag seven peeps. so here ya go!
Things you’ve already done: bold Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to – leave in plain font.
1. Started your own blog. 2. Slept under the stars. 3. Played in a band. 4. Visited Hawaii. (my aunt lives there!) 5. Watched a meteor shower. 6. Given more than you can afford to charity. 7. Been to Disneyland/world. 8. Climbed a mountain. 9. Held a praying mantis. 10. Sang a solo. 11. Bungee jumped. 12. Visited Paris. 13. Watched a lightning storm at sea. 14. Taught yourself an art from scratch. 15. Adopted a child. 16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty. 18. Grown your own vegetables. 19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France. 20. Slept on an overnight train. 21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Hitch hiked. 23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill. (hellz ya) (to current employer: i mean, NEVER) 24. Built a snow fort. (i live in montreal. our country place is an igloo.) 25. Held a lamb. 26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Run a marathon. 28. Ridden a gondola in Venice. 29. Seen a total eclipse. 30. Watched a sunrise or sunset. 31. Hit a home run. 32. Been on a cruise. (well, i was working, but i was on it.) 33. Seen Niagara Falls in person. 34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors. (been to ireland and england. still have to hit scotland.) 35. Seen an Amish community. 36. Taught yourself a new language.(taught myself to read hebrew.)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied. (this is a weird one.) 38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person. 39. Gone rock climbing. 40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person. 41. Sung Karaoke. (just not at IL2008.) 42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt. 43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant. 44. Visited Africa. 45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
46. Been transported in an ambulance.
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing. 49. Seen the Sistine chapel in person.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. 51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling. 52. Kissed in the rain. 53. Played in the mud. 54. Gone to a drive-in theater. 55. Been in a movie.(when i was 8 i was an extra in Street Smart.) 56. Visited the Great Wall of China. 57. Started a business. 58. Taken a martial arts class 59. Visited Russia. 60. Served at a soup kitchen. 61. Sold Girl Scout cookies. 62. Gone whale watching. 63. Gotten flowers for no reason. 64. Donated blood. 65. Gone sky diving. 66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp. 67. Bounced a check. 68. Flown in a helicopter. 69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial. 71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt. 73. Stood in Times Square. 74. Toured the Everglades.
75. Been fired from a job.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London. 77. Broken a bone. 78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person. 80. Published a book. 81. Visited the Vatican. 82. Bought a brand new car. 83. Walked in Jerusalem. 84. Had your picture in the newspaper. (once for being part of a stamp club [pic of me holding a stamp with a rugby player on it - i was 7], then again at 18 for playing rugby!)
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited the White House.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating. 88. Had chickenpox. 89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury. 91. Met someone famous. 92. Joined a book club. 93. Lost a loved one. 94. Had a baby.
95. Seen the Alamo in person. 96. Swum in the Great Salt Lake.
97. Been involved in a law suit. 98. Owned a cell phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.
