Library Workaholics Anonymous: Notes on Work and Play

November 17, 2009 at 3:59 pm (blogging, humor, philosophizing, presentations, professional development)

“I wake up every day torn between the desire to save the world and to savor the world.  This makes it hard to plan the day.” –E.B. White

My name’s LAV, and I’m a library workaholic.

By this I mean I have a hard time saying no to anything.  I get to work early, I stay late, and I have to be reminded to take my time back.  I struggle to make time for breaks and lunch, and sometimes I’m so involved with what I’m doing, I forget to eat.  I volunteer for things no matter how many things I’ve already volunteered for, and I’ve never met a committee assignment I didn’t like.  Every day I get at least twenty brilliant ideas that are going to inevitably result in more work for myself, so of course I try to do them all at once.  Finally, whenever I try to set boundaries, say no to assignments,  and delegate tasks to other people, I end up caving faster than a master spelunker the first time I meet any resistance. 

Behold, the shadow side of finding your life’s work:  the inability, sometimes, to let it go and get a life. 

I imagine this would trouble me more than it does, except for one thing:  I play just as hard as I work.  And I’m always looking for opportunities to incorporate play into my work.  Let us take, for example, the presentation I gave last week at The School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh:

A quick flip through those slides tells you something about my sense of humor, but also demonstrates my commitment not to take any of this too seriously.  I love our electronic resources, and I want to do a good job, but I want to make sure I keep the work within its proper perspective.

Did you wince at that, just a little?  Me too.  It sounds…sacreligious, almost, the idea that we could take anything we do too seriously.  And yet, there it is in a squirmy nutshell, the need to be devoted and passionate without becoming a monomaniac, the kind of person people avoid at parties because they can’t stop talking about library service for five seconds.

Hence the silence here at Alchemy:  there’s been a lot of other work to do, and I’ve sacrificed library blogging in favor of play.  This year I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month, colloquially known as NaNoWriMo, and I’m having the time of my life. I just crossed the 30K word count over the weekend, and I can’t even begin to tell you how liberating it feels to cast aside the fear of “not being good enough” and just let the words ripple out.

In fact, I feel taller, somehow, and much more confident about my library workload.  After all,  if I can write a 50,000 word novel in a month (albeit a bad one), what else can I do?  Heaven only knows.   And NaNo actually has a whole plan for library programming, so it’s not all that far afield from library work after all – ah, those slippery slopes!

Reading Zen Habits has also proved helpful in my never-ending quest to balance work and play.  If you’re looking for a kinder, gentler productivity blog, try sampling its advice on taking action, cleaning up your workspace, and even the whole workaholic thing at large. It’s even good for a hearty laugh from time to time (of all possible workplace challenges one could face, that one never crossed my mind).  The overriding theme of the blog is achieving more by letting go, which sounds counter-intuitive.  I suggest, though, that you approach this notion the same way you approached the last Library 2.0 innovation you tried – test it out for a month, see how it works, discard if necessary.

How do you know if you’ve got the work-play fulcrum set right for you?  You’ll know.  You’ll know because, in spite of everything, you will feel joyful, even when you are not always happy.  If library work doesn’t make you feel joyful at the core, well…that’s a blog post for another day.

I’ll have a quick update on Friday to announce my next crazy little experiment, and there will also be a poll in which I ask your opinion on a matter of critical import.  Stay tuned.

2 Comments

10 Things I Will Do When I’m A Library Director

October 28, 2009 at 5:03 pm (blogging, creativity, ethics, humor, innovation, intellectual freedom, leadership, management, philosophizing, professional development, social justice)

I think about the future a lot.  The present is a good place to be; some would argue it’s the only place to be.  But I also believe in lifelong learning and growing, and I already know that, someday, I want to be a library director.  So I spend a goodish chunk of my time thinking about that goal, and how I will get there.

Part of said thinking involves visualizing myself in certain situations.  What would I do if X, Y, or Z happened?  How will I interact with my board?  With my community?  With my patrons?

The result of all that thinking is this somewhat idealistic list of things I solemnly swear I will do when I am a library director.  Those of you who currently wear that hat may smile or correct me as you please, but these are my thinks based on my perspective in the here-and-now.

  1. I will know the first and last names of everybody I work with.  Yes, even if it’s a big library.  Yes, from the person who cleans the toilets to the president of my board.  I will take an active, genuine interest in their lives, seeing them not merely as employees, but as people with hopes and dreams who, properly cultivated, can make the organization more excellent via their personal growth and development.
  2. I will treat everyone on my staff with dignity and respect.  If I am wrong, I will apologize.  If I have to do something unpopular, I will explain why, and clearly.  I will communicate with them clearly and frequently, and I will respect everyone’s inherent worth, regardless of race, religion, gender, class, or favorite sports team.
  3. I will nurture and encourage innovation and change.  I will support my staff when they have wild and crazy ideas, give them the opportunity to test out their theories, even–perhaps especially–the ones of which I’m skeptical.  I will trust that they love the library and the community too, and that they have its best interests at heart.  I will actively seek out staff and volunteers who can help me create a 21st-century library for 21st-century patron needs, and I will be fearless about trying new things and making mistakes.
  4. I will pitch in and help with whatever task needs done, no matter how big or small.  Something that left a big impression on me as an undergraduate was an event the college president organized every year during homecoming.  He called it “Lance Cooks,” and it means exactly what it says:  he cooked and served food in the cafeteria line, and made conversation with everybody who passed through.  It blew my mind that the college president would do that, and it made me feel good about the future of our campus.  It also makes me want to be the director who opens the front doors every morning, a la Will Manley, or who works the circulation desk regularly.
  5. I will live in the community I serve, and become an active, engaged member of it.   No ridiculous commutes for me.  I want to be right up close to the action, shopping in the community’s stores, volunteering at its other non-profits, and getting to know its people in all sorts of situations, not just director-patron ones.  If my job is to lead a library, then I want to do it in the most accessible fashion possible.  The title of “director” should be a bridge, and not a barrier.
  6. I will dress up like a pirate on Halloween.  Okay, to be fair, I’m already planning on doing that anyway–but that’s not the point!  Leadership is a very serious business, especially during difficult times.  However, I don’t ever, ever, ever want to lose sight of the fact that, despite its difficulties, life has plenty of fun things to offer, and I will bend over backwards to create an atmosphere of fun, trust, and bonhomie in my library.
  7. I wil bend over backwards to make the arcana of librarianship transparent and comprehensible to my board.  Face it:  there are going to always be some things that only librarians care about, and that would make the community’s eyes glaze over if we tried to explain, no matter how much we prettified it.  That being said, we ARE degree-holding professionals with a particular skill set and particular rationales for why we do things.  Sometimes, that will need to be explained to a board, cheerfully, and with patience.  This is the area where I have the least expertise, but I’ve served on one strategic planning committee, and got a good introduction there to the scope of the task ahead.
  8. I will be a loud, aggressive, passionate, fearless advocate for libraries.  I will blog.  I will write collection development policies that uphold the community’s freedom to read.  I will podcast.  I will take advantage of every traditional and emerging technology to get the word out about the value of my library.  I will cultivate relationships with my local and state senators and representatives.  I will work with my Friends Group.  I will get more deeply involved at the state and national levels of library advocacy.
  9. I will embrace transparency whenever possible.  I will make it easy for community members to contact me.  I will have an open-door policy with the staff.  I will hold open houses and community meetings, and I will communicate early and often about any service changes that might come along.  I will be candid about library finances.  I will ensure, whether or not I’m actually responsible for website maintenance, that my library’s website contains the most up-to-date information about the library, its policies/procedures, and its resources.
  10. I will stay humble, grounded, and focused.  I will constantly question whether or not the actions I take are in the best interests of my staff and the community.  I will earn my salary with blood, sweat and tears, down to the last penny.  I will surround myself with intelligent people who will gently, but firmly, correct me if I am drifting off course.  I will network with other library directors and learn from their expertise, not just when I’m a newbie, but for as long as I have the privilege to lead.  I will aggressively pursue continuing education opportunities, and my default setting will be that there is always, always something more to learn.  And finally, I will be open to the lesson in all life experiences, including the gut-wrenching, painful ones.

That’s a tall order, I know.  Break it to me gently, if you must disabuse me of my idealistic notions.  But I would argue, once again, that if we give up our ideals, we are lost.  Even if they are impossible, it is in the striving that we will become better library leaders.

Er, right?

But what about the fundraising part, you ask?  Ah, fundraising.  That’s a whole post in and of itself.  Given that I’ve wanted to be a fairy godmother since I was a child, it’s yet another one of those things I muse about all the darned time.  If I get a breather, we’ll discuss it.

23 Comments

Library Alchemy Outsourced to Alchemy Cats, Inc.

September 16, 2009 at 5:17 pm (blogging, humor, leadership, personal)

Greetings, gentle reader.  I am writing to inform you that, as of this afternoon, the Library Alchemy blog has been outsourced to Alchemy Cats, Inc. 

As co-owner and chief literary cat of Alchemy Cats, Inc., I would like to apologize on behalf of my mistress, the Library Alchemist.  However, she is currently steeped in a higher-than-usual number of tasks and responsibilities.  This is regrettable but, alas, part and parcel of being a public librarian in the last state to pass its budget.  Ergo, my lady is:

  • scenario planning
  • writing her legislators and governor
  • attending meetings, meetings, meetings
  • performing reference, reference, reference
  • mentoring, mentoring, mentoring
  • filling out 1/4 of the 23 Things CE certificates
  • number-crunching as fast as she can
  • making the most of what’s left of her book budget

And so on.  You get the idea.  Many of you are, to be sure, in the same boat, with the exception that your state had the good taste and breeding to pass a budget in a reasonable amount of time.

Despair not, however!  Alchemy Cats, Inc. is committed to delivering the same high-quality content as Library Alchemy, with the exception of the increasingly frequent references to tuna, naps, and polls about which surfaces in milady’s house are most fun to jump on top of.  My sister insists the windowsill holds pride of place, while I am a staunch defender of the Kingdom of Fridge-top, from which I survey my domain with the hauteur that befits a gentlecat.

To your health, and to the amusement that is sure to result from this outsourcing!  I remain, your humble servant,

Steve “Smoky-cat” McQueen, bart.

for Luscious “Lucky-cat” Jackson, and

LAV, the Library Alchemist

[The moral of this little story is, of course, that if you have a choice between laughter or despair, you should always choose laughter.  I'm staging a coup, and will, hopefully, wrestle the blog back from the feline contingent sometime after October 5].

4 Comments

You can’t spell intern without “ni!”: Stuff I’ve learned.

August 25, 2009 at 4:28 pm (blogging, collection development, creativity, databases, humor, leadership, management, professional development, web resources)

If that subject header had you scratching your noggin, click here for elucidation.  For the rest of you, on with the story!

For the past few months, my workload rose to such a pitch that half-joking plea for an intern had become part of my regular rotation of requests.  Call it manifestation or plain old nagging, but when an opportunity appeared mid-summer, yours truly was given an intern…er, 1/2 an intern.  In Solomonic fashion, Tanya split her time here at Main between the stacks and shelving department, and helping me with tasks in Ref. Services.

Having her around has been educational.  For one thing, Tanya’s not planning to make librarianship a career, though she was intrigued that there were such things as medical libraries and librarians.  Working with her has forced me to re-examine everything I do, because I know I’m going to have to explain/justify it to a non-library person.  It’s also forced me to be even better organized, because I want to make her time here useful and educational – that means having tasks ready, and not just tasks, but a variety of tasks, so that she gets a well-rounded experience.

On top of that, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to model that one behavior I hope to someday perfect–the art of dropping everything and paying attention to her when she has a question–as well as other behaviors worth having in the bag of tricks:  patience, a sense of humor, problem-solving skills, diplomacy, flexibility and creativity.   We had a teachable moment just this morning, in which I was having difficulty exporting data from Millennium Create List, and I had to ask one of my peers for a reminder/refresher on the spot–not sure if that was more educational for her or for me!  But still, the point was made:  even the nominal leader gets stuck, and needs to ask for help.

Here are some of the things Tanya’s helped me with so far:

  • mass mailings
  • weeding (literal and digital)
  • creating digital booklists
  • creating displays
  • database evaluations [seeing how a non-library person perceived our electronic resources was insanely valuable]
  • collection development (print and digital)
  • searching for missing items
  • shadowing at the reference desk

She also wrote a very nice Eleventh Stack post describing her internship, both at Main and at the Carrick branch, where she spent the first part of her summer. If the point of internships is to educate folks on just how important library service is to the community, I’d have to say “mission accomplished” on this one. I can’t really take the credit for that, per se, but I’m glad I played a small part in helping her have a good library experience.

As for me, I was a lot more comfortable in a leadership role this time than I was last time, when I supervised the Help Desk workers. Funny what time and, hopefully, a little maturity, can do! I am still not 100% convinced it’s the direction in which I want to take my career, but I now know that I could become a good manager if I were willing to work at it. So the real question is, what would make me happy?  Although I’m pro-money, and fond of regular meals, I’m a little more concerned with other levels on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at this point in my life.

If and when I ever get a handle on that, I’ll let you know. And if that last paragraph shocked you, you should hear about my backup plan just in case this whole librarian thing doesn’t work out. No, not the goat farm – that’s the retirement plan.

I have a few writing topics I’m going to defer until September, as they revolve around specific timed events.  There are a few things saved in my newsreader that I want to warble about, but for now, let’s leave it open-ended.  Your alchemist also takes requests, so if there’s something you’d like me to write about, do leave a comment.

5 Comments

Soylent Green (day in the life, part II)

July 31, 2009 at 3:33 pm (blogging, creativity, databases, day in the life, leadership, management, personal, philosophizing, professional development, traditional library services)

Fables of the Reconstruction

The problem with part I of this “day in the life” recap is that, despite my best efforts, it still doesn’t capture what passes for normal around here. Monday was very tech-heavy, which could lead to the mistaken impression that I get to play with cool 2.0 stuff all day long while my colleagues are sweating away at the refdesk. Not so.

A normal day around here also usually involves a lot more walk-and-talks. This is a term used to describe the state of affairs when one is conducting business while walking around, as seen on Sports Night and The West Wing. Teamwork and collaboration are the order of the day around here, and while there are many thngs I do independently, like buy books in my subject area and tot up those darned database stats, there are also a lot of things that only come together when my compatriots and I team up and form Voltron.  I also get more phone calls these days, and my presence is required at more meetings.

On top of that, I’m forever charging into people’s offices with a crazy idea, philosophical question, or shameless request (how do you think I got an intern? Ask and get!). The two people I consult regularly — my boss and one of the other senior librarians — are great models for leadership because no matter how many times I go in to talk to them, they stop whatever they’re doing and give me their full attention. They do this for everyone else on staff, too, and I’ve tried to emulate this behavior because I think it’s a valuable one.

Another dimension of the new normal around here is the ongoing advocacy effort. There’s a staff blog and wiki where everyone can contribute their ideas and ask questions, and I log in to read these and contribute whenever I can. It’s comforting to me to see the organization use emerging technologies for the common good, to keep everyone on the same page, spread accurate information, etc., and no matter how our particular situation turns out, at least we’re using all the tools at our disposal.  This morning, in particular, it was amazing to log in to the advocacy wiki and see all the great ideas coming from people all over the system. 

In other words, library service is people!  It’s all people!  Whether the service benefits a peer or a patron, everything I do on a so-called normal day revolves around helping a real person.  And that’s often chaotic, messy, and hard to pin down.

Zone defense

I’d hoped to type up my refdesk observations from the other day, but, life happens.  I know they’re on my desk somewhere.  Problem is, so are a lot of other things.  Like small press catalogs, to-do lists, piles of books, spreadsheet printouts, booklists, newspapers, etc.  The rest of my time this week has been occupied with totting up 2nd quarter database stats – I’m about 3/4 done – and preparing for the meeting we had around 1 p.m. today.  It went well, I think.  I’m getting more comfortable with planning and running meetings, and actual work is getting done, which is the goal.  There’s almost nothing worse than a meeting that’s a waste of everybody’s time.

So, that was a day – literally and philosophcially – in my library life.  It’s crawling chaos.  It’s madcap zany.  It’s headache-inducing, spirit-lifting, skippy-dancing, goat-farm-dreaming, puzzle-pondering goodness.  I feel very fortunate to be here, and I wouldn’t change a single thing…except, maybe, to have one whole wall in my office that was nothing but whiteboard.  That would be pretty cool.

Things I want to talk about if I ever get 5 seconds:

  • Having an intern
  • Book reviewing
  • Why Walt Crawford is awesome
  • Gen X leadership

The reach must exceed the grasp.  Isn’t that what library blogs are for?

I’ll be on staycation next week, though.  The play I’m in goes up Friday and Saturday, so I’ll be focusing on delivery and diction rather than databases and desk work.  I maybe might chime in with some of the more abstract, bigger-picture ruminations I normally don’t have time for, but that’s a longshot-darkhorse prospect.

1 Comment

Sorkinesque (a day in the life, part I)

July 29, 2009 at 6:04 pm (ALA Annual 2009, Twitter, blogging, collection development, conferences, databases, day in the life, humor, leadership, management, news, personal, philosophizing, professional development, reader's advisory, traditional library services)

Intro/Backstory
Yes, it really did take me that long to finish and post those meeting minutes!  The reasons why will become apparent shortly.  But first, some backstory.

Last week various colleagues posted the news in various forums that another one of those “day in the library life” blogging events was going to take place.  I love those things.  I never sign up for them, though, because, realistically, if I stopped to write down everything I was doing in a given moment, I’d never get anything done.  And then I thought, well, what better way to demonstrate that a normal day in my life is very much like an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night than to take a crack at it?

[Those of you who don't know from Sports Night are cordially invited to check out the DVD and see what all the fuss is about - even though starting with anything other than the pilot might seem counterintuitive, I highly recommend starting with "Dear Louise," "Shoe Money Tonight," and "Small Town" to get a feel for the characters, their workplace, and their relationship to each other. It's a wonderful show about a close-knit group of professionals who are extremely passionate about what they do, to the point of appearing like complete ciphers to folks who don't work in their field. Sound like any other professional folks you know? :) ]

So, without further ado, here is a reconstruction, based on my frantically scribbled notes, of everything that took place in my library life on Monday, July 27, 2009.

Library Alchemy: A Day in the Life

Part I – Off-desk

9:30:  Check the desk schedule, add my desk shifts to my Outlook calendar.  Exchange witty banter with colleagues.  Laugh self into pancreatic pain.

9:40:  Finish up ALA expense report and bring it to my boss.  Chat with boss about database stuff, which segues into a philosophical discussion of future staffing models for the reference department.  Return to office.  Field questions from colleague about the exact same stuff was just discussing with boss.  More philosophy ensues.

10:00 Open up e-mail.  Answer the time-sensitive stuff.  Answer flurry of questions about Twitter and HootSuite.  Get another chunk of the Twitter gang signed up with HootSuite accounts and schedule trainings for those who want it.  Discover the “most popular Tweets” feature in HootSuite and squee over it.  Put aside a whack of database reference cards to give to a branch colleague at the Friday meeting.  More e-mail with various blog staffers in an attempt to coordinate some guest posts for September. Decline to take a call from a vendor and proceed to feel guilty about it.

A colleague drops by to check in with me about the school tour I’m giving this afternoon.  The group  has changed its mind several times on whether or not it wants catalog and database training.  The colleague and I decide that asking them what they want is the best solution.  Photocopy catalog and database training handouts for tour group.  Run over training in my head while at the photocopier.  A colleague walks by, greeting me with the mysterious phrase, “PEANUT SAUCE!”  I respond with the countersign, “SCALLIONS!”  Tamp down nervousness about giving catalog and database training, which never seems to go away no matter how many tours and trainings I do.  Accept that fear is normal.  Recite the Litany Against Fear anyway.

11:00 Break time. Decide to take a walk around the building. Ask colleague how her Friday evening presentation went. Ask another colleague about bloggish things. Say hello and good morning to countless other colleagues. Receive a lovely gift: an inspirational photo of a dandelion with the phrase “I release all that does not serve me” written on it. Hang photo on bulletin board.

11:15 Head over to book order. Discover that all of the non-fiction books mentioned in the 7/26 New York Times Book Review have either already been purchased, or are on order. Do vague skippy victory dance. Dive into the other ordering tools with gusto.  Decide that I should probably call back the vendor whose call I dodged and just tell her “thanks, no thanks” right up front. Get vendor’s voice mail. Quietly rejoice. Deliver polite, professional message and hang up, feeling 100s of pounds lighter.

12:00 Lunch. Chat with colleague in lunchroom about violins and music librarianship. Consume leftover peanut noodles with zest and start reading Work the System. Approve wholeheartedly of its emphasis on systems thinking and personal responsibility. Speculate on how its principles could be applied to my work life. Finish peanut noodles and head to the post office to mail a package to my mom. Study lines for the play I’m currently acting in while stuck in line at the post office.

1:00  Log into Eleventh Stack. Clean out spam filter, look at stats. Start rearranging widgets in sidebar based on a conversation taking place on the blog team distribution list. Start draft of next week’s blog post. Proofread a few scheduled posts. Read the post du jour and marvel again at how many awesome, creative people I’m surrounded with.

Log into the library’s Twitter account. Check for new followers. Block spam followers. Read followers’ tweets. Make mental note to remind everybody to use #pittsburgh in their tweets. Ping the rest of the Twitter team about HootSuite signup and training.

2:00 Meet the school tour group in the teen department. Immediately lose all normal vision when contact lens slides off center. Attempt several times to correct this subtly. Fail miserably. Start tour anyway, blind. Ignore rude noises produced by high school males and charitably assume that they are involuntary. Give tour of first and second floors, with special emphasis on Job and Career Center, based on group leader’s interests.

Ask about catalog and database training. Teacher says, “Whatever you think is best.” Decide to give the best catalog and database training ever and lead students to computer lab. Turn on projector. Wait. Fiddle with projector, silently coaxing it to cooperate. Decide projector has developed selective deafness. Give training without projector, using the computer at the lab attendant’s desk. Give thanks once again for theater and improv training.

3:00 Reassure long line of patrons waiting outside computer lab that yes, they can use the computers now. Check e-mail and discover that the wireless is down. Discover, also, that there are questions about my ALA reimbursement form. Silently consider starting a goat farm.

Start planning for Friday’s database committee meeting. Finish writing up June EREC meeting minutes, send to group, and post to ACLA wiki. Skim newsreader. Read an article that makes my heart sink and e-mail it to pertinent (and impertinent) parties. Skim “kept as new” items and decide to keep them marked because someday I will pay them the full attention they deserve, really!

Run downstairs to get coffee. Run into teen patron at coffeeshop. Engage in casual, stealth readers’ advisory with said teen. Run into hard-to-schedule colleague and set up a training time that is technically after my regular work hours, but is the only thing that will fit her schedule. Run back upstairs to my office.

Make list of tasks for my intern to work on on Tuesday. Walk down the hall to resolve the questions about my ALA reimbursement. Notice that the hallway smells strongly of french fries. Observe to colleague that, if the library were a musical, it would be at this point that we all burst into song about the joy of french fries. Stand still with colleague for a few seconds and imagine what this would sound like. Clear up questions about ALA reimbursement. Walk back to my office, inhaling deeply and smiling to self.

See? And we haven’t even made it to the reference desk yet! That deserves its own special installment, which I hope to deliver on Friday. Stay tuned!

1 Comment

June Presentation I: Eleventh Stack

June 30, 2009 at 4:53 pm (blogging, philosophizing, presentations, professional development)

Part of the ongoing staff training at CLP consists of peer-to-peer info sessions in which various people give short talks on their areas of expertise, current projects, etc. I was asked to give one of these last Friday, on the Eleventh Stack project, and I was happy to do so. Here are my slides:

The bulk of the presentation was devoted to me tinkering around under the WordPress hood and showing people exactly how we write, post, and keep stats. However, the slides give more information about points I’ve been making since the beginning of this process, namely:

  • A lot of old-school planning went into this process, and HAS to, for such an endeavor to succeed.  This includes reading library research, and continuing to read it.
  • Everything has to go back to the library’s strategic plan, or some other supporting document.  You can’t have shiny for shiny’s sake.
  • The fact that this project does not “belong” to one department, and is not overseen by a manager, gives the team a greater sense of both ownership and accountability.

When I think about the blog’s future, I just keep getting more excited.  Why?

  • Even though our user stats are slightly down for summertime, we still have more than twice as many visits for May and June than we did this time last year.
  • We’ve just added two new writers to the regular rotation, which will increase diversity of appeal.
  • The Facebook possibilities are staggering.  Already we get more comments on the Facebook stream than we do on the actual page, and that’s just me streaming it into my private account.
  • Budgets being what they are, we have a real opportunity to do some grass-roots advocacy.  Congruent with the library’s message, of course.

If somebody were to ask me what I felt my greatest accomplishment as a librarian has been thus far, I’d have to say “organizing this project.”  Every time I log in to check stats and do maintenance, I’m humbled by what a team can create when you set up the proper conditions.  I didn’t want us to just have a blog–I wanted us to have a great blog, and I think we do.

I am, of course, more than a touch biased.  Hence the following poll, in which I hope you’ll participate.  Why do you read Eleventh Stack?

I want to leave this poll up for a while, to make sure I get adequate feedback.   Feel free to share this entry with those who might be interested.

When I return, I’ll talk about the other presentation I gave last Friday.  Yes, they had me back at the library school.  Yes, I was glad to go.  And yes, I plan to be more than a touch philosophical about it.

2 Comments

Working Harder AND Smarter – Thursday Update

May 28, 2009 at 4:35 pm (23ThingsN@, Emerging Leaders 2009, Learning 2.0, Twitter, blogging, collection development, databases, leadership, news, professional development, social justice, traditional library services)

Did I say Wednesday?  That didn’t happen, clearly.  But, rather than let this blog become a bluesy litany of “where does the time go,” I’ll confine myself to a quick project update:

Collection development:  The one sane thing in my workday.  It’s nice to go through NYTBR and see you already have all the hot nonfiction either in the collection or on order.  Score!

Eleventh Stack:  Also holding steady.  Hit count is slightly down, but still above last year at this time.  It also mirrors last year’s slight decline.  I don’t mind fewer readers over the summer, as long as it’s part of a larger pattern.  Still, all the more reason to sit down and think of ways to kick it up a notch..

23 Things N’@:  Week 4 is all about wikis, and everybody’s happy!  The range of experience and abilities continues to educate me on how we can do this better next time.  Definitely a move to a tiered-activity system is in order, IMHO, something along the lines of beginner/intermediate/advanced, so that people have options to choose from according to their experience/comfort level. That being said, holy project success!

Twitter: I have mixed feelings about how this is going, and would like to write more about it at length.  Long story short, it’s an easily managed, low-maintenance project, but I don’t know if it’s achieving our objectives.  More time may be called for.  We shall see.

Database Stuff (CLP):  We haven’t met for a while because our new quarterly renewal schedule has made the committee process more efficient.  It’s time for 3rd-quarter renewals, though, and a look at 1st-quarter stats.  Plus, me being me, I have some wild and crazy ideas to throw at the committee to see what they think.  Secretly I want a database promotion task force.  I will pay for jackets that say “Database promotion task force,” if given free rein. :)

Database Stuff (EREC/ACLA): Good news!  The deal went through, and the county has purchased a subscription to Mango Languages.   Our patrons really miss Rosetta Stone, and for the life of me, I still don’t understand WHY they chose to stop selling the database to public libraries.  We are hoping, however, that Mango will fill this critical gap – language learning is very popular here, and the wait list for materials is very, very long.  We’re working out the hookup kinks as we speak – stay tuned, because you know I’m going to try to learn about seven languages myself. :)

Oh, and all that above about task forces and jackets?  Add a blog and multiply by ten, and you’ll get an idea of what I’d love to achieve at the countywide level.  Girl’s gotta dream…

Emerging Leaders:  You’re probably wondering why I have barely discussed this at all.  I’ve been meaning to, but now I don’t have to, really, because the fine folks at In the Library With the Lead Pipe have spread it all out for you in a nutshell.

Emerging Leaders has been like boot camp. I am getting a lot out of it. I am not sure that what I am getting out of it is exactly what the program planners intended, but such is life. :) It’s difficult to capture the zeitgeist of this kind of experience in medias res, so I’ll probably not even try until after annual, when it’s all over and done with.

Alternative Media Task Force/Event Planning: My other ALA project! The group process on this particular project has been amazing. We are putting together the Alternative Media Reception / SRRT 40th anniversary celebration, and it’s going to be awesome. Stay tuned for the official announcement, because you’re really not going to want to miss it.

And just because it’s not nearly busy or exciting enough around here, guess where the next G20 summit is going to be held? It’s going to be one crazy summer at Alchemy, so stick around…bonus points if you can identify the Sports Night references in this post…

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(Approximately) 88 Lines About 29 Bloggers.

May 15, 2009 at 2:59 pm (23ThingsN@, Learning 2.0, Library 2.0, blogging, creativity, humor, professional development)

This week on 23 Things ‘N @, the ultimate library reality show, our intrepid participants created blogs. Some were blogging for the first time, and others were taking the opportunity to add depth and breadth to their prior blogging experience.

In what may seem like a surprise twist to some, but not to me, a number of participants chose not to create a blog at all. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, part of the course does require starting a blog. On the other hand, folks who have concerns about privacy–and yes, Virginia, they do exist–have the right to opt out of any activity that makes them uncomfortable. And on that third hand, which most of us have not got, the sad truth is that between Pennsylvania’s library budget woes and the insane crush of increased activity the consortium’s seen since the economy went south, some of the participants simply don’t have the time to finish the exercise.

All that being said, those who did rise to the blogging challenge demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that Allegheny County is full of creativity, talent, wit, and humor. The blogs featured below are well worth a visit, and if you’d be willing to encourage the bloggers with a comment, well, that would be right kindly of you.

Suzy, The Little Librarian asks an excellent question about blogging.

Cathy Behm is having fun with fonts…

Kara’s Universe is off to a thoughtful, yet still creative, start.

Don’t Panic is not just good advice, it’s a great blog!

The tech-savvy bibliokaren goes to bat for Allegheny County teens.

Regina’s Reactions is off to a strong start with an interesting observation.

i’d rather be quilting is an excellent 23 Things metaphor!

Nonsenssikl Skript makes excellent use of the letter “K.”

Dani’s 23 Things Adventure demonstrates depth (and cool design).

Marilyn Jenkins poses the excellent question, Where in the World are we Going?

Flying Monkeys With ADD wins at blog naming…

…as does Lost in the Future.

You can Just Add Text with Megan Fogt…

Or get your Penny Arcade references fresh off the griddle at meg’s 23 things.

Team Celery Stick gets into the act with Daughter to College….

…and I Heart String Cheese.

Debi’s Readit Blog looks like it’s going to be about books (woohoo!).

23 Things for Dinosaurs tells it like it is…

…scottkids continues the motif…

and Sharon’s 23 Things shows signs of relief!

Helen’s Garden provides yet another lovely analogy (leafy green!).

Sha-poopie multi-tasks and works it.

Inside the Stacks is thoughtful and literary.

Natalie’s 23 goes above and beyond.

For a proud declaration, see I’m a Lifelong Learner.

Wilkinsburg/Marc sends you to a print source for clarification…

Take a peek at a normal day in the life of a librarian with library life, shelflisted.

In case you were wondering, Here’s Waldo!

Learning really is lifelong at Techie Grandma’s Blog.

I can’t even tell you how much it bugs me that time constraints forbid linking to some of the other fabulous blogs that bloomed this week. Feel free to drop by the 23 Things Blogs page on our official program wiki and do some exploring on your own.

Next week, the alchemist calls shenanigans! Stay tuned.

ETA/NB: There was a whopper of a lulu in the above, which I have since changed. This is yet another good reason not to try to tackle long posts on a busy day! Mea culpa, and my apologies.

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Where I Blog, and What I Blog For

May 11, 2009 at 5:51 pm (23ThingsN@, Learning 2.0, Library 2.0, blogging, humor, philosophizing, professional development)

Week two of 23 Things ‘N @ is off to a strong start. Responses from participants have run the gamut from “No way am I blogging, I’ll sit this week out” to some really creative, fun blogs. Team Celery Stick has learned once again that some things that are very obvious to us frequently need to be explained in a different way, or done differently. We’ve also discovered that a number of participants retain a fondness for Douglas Adams, bless his soul, wherever he may be. But who doesn’t, really? :)

I feel like I can’t really take a CE credit for this week’s exercise, because I’ve been blogging for a long, long time, starting in my pre-librarian life, with one personal blog, and working up to now with, heaven help us, a personal blog, a professional blog, and two group blogs. Mercy.

But just because you’ve done something for a long time doesn’t mean you don’t have anything more to learn. And professional blogging is very different from personal blogging. So I thought I’d give my reasons for professional blogging and muse aloud a bit about it.

To demonstrate that it can be done

Given my workload, there is absolutely no way I could write every day, or do justice to half the things that go on around here.  That being said, I wanted to demonstrate to skeptics that it really is possible to keep a professional blog and still get all your other work done.  From the day I started until now, I’ve managed to balance collection development, refdesk time, database stuff, and more meetings than you can shake a very big stick at with, on average, twice-weekly entries.  Keep your fingers crossed that I can keep that up, and rest assured that, if I can’t, I’ll take breaks. :)

To keep track of my professional accomplishments

Writing and tagging has been really helpful when writing up my self-appraisals, updating my resume, applying for programs like Emerging Leaders, etc.  It’s also something public that my boss and peers can look at when they wonder, “What’s she doing when she’s not at the desk?”

To explore things that don’t make sense to me

As the quiz in last week’s 23 Things ‘N @ activity revealed, I’m a verbal-linguistic learner.  Writing things out helps me make sense and understand them.  Blogging about projects I’m working on, or making observations about other 2.0 issues, has helped me clarify for myself what I need to do now or next in any given situation.   I also get feedback from my CLP/county colleagues and other library professionals, which is awfully nice, and helps me reframe my thoughts and get over “stuck” places.

To become a better writer

Given how easy it is to blog, why not up the ante?  It’s simply not enough to have opinions - one must express them artfully if one is to make an impact.  I’m not foolish enough to believe that the ramblings of one librarian mean a hill of beans in this crazy world, but I think that if you’re going to speak publicly at all, you might as well take the opportunity to hone your craft so that the people who stumble across your work have a better chance of benefiting from it.  When I blog, I try to say things in such a way that my reader will be left with, at the very least, a smile on his/her face, if nothing else.

To express an under-represented point of view about Library 2.0

I ddin’t set out to do this on purpose, and I certainly don’t fancy myself some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel.  However, I started noticing, as I was reading Library 2.0 bloggers, that my experiences and opinions weren’t exactly lining up on the same page.  So I figured I’d better engage with that.  I find myself disagreeing with the “rock star bloggers” more often than not, not to be a pain, but because my experiences here–and those of my peers, and those of our patrons–are often so radically different from what’s presented as “normal” that I can’t, in all good conscience, NOT say something sometimes.

Print, for example, is far from dead, especially here in Pittsburgh.  Teaching folks about blogging and RSS is laughable when many of them are still annoyed that we got rid of our floppy drives and went to USB drives.  And don’t even get me started about Twitter when we spend so much of our time teaching folks what a URL is, how to sign up for e-mail, and how to apply for jobs online.  If I had a dollar for every expression of techno-confusion and bewilderment I’m met with, I could retire tomorrow.

I’m not saying we don’t have power users, and I’m not saying librarians shouldn’t learn about these things, because we do, and we should.  What I’m saying is that the professional digital divide is starting to really scare me, and now I know how the kids in the so-called “lower” reading groups must have felt, back in the day:  the “Cardinals” were frustrated with the “Robins” because the former wanted to charge ahead, and the latter still needed some time.  The “Robins,” meanwhile, felt like there was something wrong with them because they weren’t “Cardinals.”  And it ain’t necessarily so.

So I’m committed to continue speaking about what’s true for me and my peers and patrons, and I’m really hoping that 23 Things ‘N @ will encourage other Allegheny County librarians to do the same.   The more diverse the library blogosphere becomes, the better off we will all be, as professionals.  And more speech–provided it is responsible speech–is always better than no speech.  Long maywe all discuss, debate, and ruminate!

I’m sure my reasons for blogging will grow and change as my career does.  I have no idea where I want to go from here as a librarian, and I suspect I’ll probably be writing about that in months to come – for example, the next logical step “up” from where I am now is (eek) management, but “up” is certainly not the only direction there is (I’m secretly hoping that, like a quark, my next position will be “charmed”).

Later this week, the post-play on the presentation I’m giving tomorrow, coupled with some thoughts on the diplomatic art of setting boundaries and saying “no.”

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