Tatoos!

Ok...I think I must get these for myself and other librarian friends. :)
http://www.mcphee.com/items/11696.html

MLA

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted here. Sorry about that, and I'll do better in the future. :)

The MLA confrence this year was very good and I learned a lot. I also did a lot of good networking, which is never a bad thing. Got to know quite a few area public librarians which was also nice. I will be posting notes from the different break-out sessions I attended later this week. Quite a few of my friends from both MILE & St Kate's led some classes, which makes me very excited to do so next year. Hopefully I'll have an article about blogs under my belt by then as well!

Messy Desks

I was not cut out to have my desk be in the public sphere. Depsite all my best wishes, my desk & shelves get cluttered and messy looking. I can find what I need, but it ain't pretty and tidy.

Serials

Why, oh why, is it so hard to find a street that is new and hasn't existed before? One of the MSB campuses moved to a new building, causing strife and chaos for our newspaper deliveries there. I never thought it would take THREE calls over almost a month to customer service to get to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about!! Talk about frustrating!

I am also frustrated with program directors who think they can cancel &/or start up subscriptions to journals whenever they want. HELLO! Didn't they get the renewal information in April? Couldn't they take 10 minutes to look at it then and request their changes?? How do other academic libraries deal with this I wonder? Our policy is that these should all be done with the new ernewal cycle, but things happen sometimes that alter this.

Saddle up to the bar...

I never knew I played the same role in society as a bartender. I help people order thing (books instead of drinks unfortunately!) & I listen to their problems. I never knew that my MLIS came with a gratis degree in human behavor! :)

One of my students/patrons, I'll call her Claire, came in today to check her email. No problem - all the computers were open since we don't have classes this week. She was able to log right on and take care of her messages. Of course, she couldn't just leave it at that. She had to fill me in on the latest happenings in her life - which involve her leaving her loser boyfriend who takes all her money and watches adult pay-per-view all day. As a captive audience, I got to sit and listen to her tale, and make the appropriate suggestion that it may be time for her to get closure with this relationship and move on. She's ready to do so, which is a good thing.

What I don't get is my role as librarian. I never knew that being a caring person would lead to people unloading their problems & issues on my desk. I don't mind really, but I am always surprised that they want to share them with someone they don't really know. Maybe it's just a non-biased sounding board they are seeking. *shrug* Just one of those things that make you say HMMMMM...

365 Library Days Project

I just found out about & joined this 1/2 crazy, 1/2 interesting, 1/2 archival project. Here's what it's about from Libraryman himself:

Will you join in? What do you think of the idea? The group is up and ready to go, so why not learn more? Here’s the idea:

Let’s get as many libraries as we can to sign up for and actively participate in a customized, library friendly version of the 365 project. That would mean that if you decide to participate, you would commit to downloading at least 365 pictures from in, around or about the library you work in, for and/or with. Uploading a picture every day for 365 days in this case wouldn’t be practical for most folks, but committing to 365 images in a year could be done fairly easily. It could also have HUGE value for your library.

Just imagine what a valuable historic document you could create for your library with this project! And while you’re at it, at the end of your year commitment, you could contact your local newspaper and tell them about the project, where they could do a story and print selected pictures that you took over the year. Such a substantive advocacy project! It would demonstrate in very real ways, ways that get lost to many people in your community, that you and your library are doing important work every day of the year!

If you decide to take part, please add the photos you upload for the project into this group.

If you take part, please also tag the pictures you take for this project with the tag: 365libs

Finally, if you have any questions, I am willing to help. Drop me (Michael Porter, libraryman on flickr) a line via flickr mail or email me and I’ll help you get things running if you have any trouble.

Take pictures in/about/for your library! Share them! Join this community! Use this project and it’s collection as a powerful advocacy tool!

See you around the 365 Library Days Project Page!

If you're interested in seeing the images I'm taking for it, I've started a flickr account and folder for it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/9127506@N02/sets/72157600412456751/

Serial's Strife

I love my job...really I do. Why is it that I'm less than enthused about dealing with being the serial's librarian?

Could it be that there are lots of ins & outs to it and one has a lot of tedious little tasks when working with them? Could it be that its overwhelming that there are 8+ campuses each with around 100 titles?

Ack! I think it's all of the above. I guess I just get to buckle down and get serials done this afternoon.

The Library of the Future?

I got this from a fellow librarian. It's a wonderful 7 minute piece on the possibilities of libraries in the technological age. I'm not sure where this library is, but I'm thinking a Scandinavian country somewhere. I hope to see something similar in the US sometime. It looks like a lot of work, but if it is successful, I can see the work being worth it completely!

Blog blatherings

The blog article prep is going well. We've compiled a list of blogs mentioned in the Laughing Librarian's "Blogga Song". Jonya & I just have to tweek a couple more things with this list of 40+ library blogs to move onto Phase II, which will include winnowing down the list by 1/4. We hope to take 10 or so of these bloggers to get their help in brainstorming & developing the survey for our study.

In addition to having the list of blogs done, we also have permission to use the song & video for our MLA presentation. So we are well on our way to having our groundwork laid for an excellent article & presentation!

Professional Development

I have been asked by Jonya Pacey @ SELCO to take part in a state-wide professional development library for librarians (others involved in this project are Pauline Siem, Jess Laares, and Brenda Carriere). There was a MN State Library that was shut down a couple governors ago, but the Friends of the Library has leftover funds of $30,000. Some of the library districts around the state (there are a total of 12) have these kinds of collections already started and funded as well. SELCO, for example, dedicates $500/year to this kind of collection. We hope to get both the district and the Friends funds as sources of funding for this project.

Things are still in their baby planning stages, but we are going to be putting together a proposal to create this new collection to present to a CRPSLA subcommittee to get this funding. Things we have to take a look at are where this collection will be housed (either at a central location or distributed around the state at the library district offices), how items in the collections will be shelved (either with existing collections located at the district offices or separately) and if we will be able to use the $500/year some districts are already putting aside to add to this collection. Of course, this is by NO means a complete list!!

I am really looking forward to the challenges ahead in working on this proposal.

Monday Musings

You know, when it rains, it really does pour.

I have decided to write an article on blogger readership with a good friend on mine Joyna Pacey. It will be a study that looks at people who read blogs & why they do. We hope to present it at this year's MLA convention and also get our final findings published. It should be very interesting and a good way to get my name out there in the MN library community.

Jonya just emailed me today with another project she is working on that has to do with an area I really don't have much background in - Collection Development. The project has something to do with the state library closing. I don't know details yet, but it sounds very interesting. More to come when I learn more myself!

Blogs

The reason behind this blog is to force myself to put my ideas and feelings about librarianship & being a library down to see if I can make any sense out of them. I would love to be able to write an article that's published in a library journal sometime, so I really need to figure out what inspires me.

One idea that a friend of mine (Jonya Pacey) and I are tossing around is a study on library blog readership and seeing how many/what kind of people read them on a daily basis. Here is our preliminary working concept:

We are examining the readership of library blogs to see what kind of librarian reads them and what topics are the most interesting for them. In doing this, we will look at outside interests, other technological interests they have (video games, mp3s, etc.) and also other interests (sci-fi literature/film, social groups/organizations, etc) to see if there are correlations about who reads blogs.

I think this should be very interesting to work on. If anyone has any articles they think will help us prepare for this, please let me know!

I am a librarian - really!

"I am a LIBRARIAN!" ~Evie from The Mummy.

I can only agree with the above quote. Being a librarian is not just a job, it's a way of life. Unfortunately for me, that means people think I'm an organized type of person. Not so my friends! I am one of the more outwardly disorganized people I know, but if I need to find something in my misc. piles on my desk or at home, I can usually do it in 3.5 seconds. Give or take a few minutes.

But back to living life as a librarian. I love the fact that I know how and where to find information on a wide variety of topics - not just online either! I also love the fact that my education for this lifestyle included classes on how to catagorize information - just please don't ask me to catalog anything! Have you guessed yet that my passion is reference? I thought you may have. :)

I love helping others. I really do. It was a natural choice for me to go through the MLIS program at St. Kate's to combine my love of books/learning and helping others. I've been a professional librarian for 17 months now and I love it. Really. I am glad I've found a niche for myself and that I am able to do what I enjoy doing for a job. And also be able to live the exciting life of a librarian.
Excuse me, but a student needs help turning on a computer now.