Wanderings of an online librarian

Chautauqua

2008-04-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

Chautauqua is an entertaining cultural event -- portrayals of historical figures by actors, usually in an outdoor venue. In early June, Kirkwood Public Library is hosting That's Entertainment! -- a Chautauqua put together by the Missouri Humanities Council. I volunteered in memory of my parents who were big supporters of the Pike County Chautauquas. The summer before he died in 2001, my dad sent me emails each day about what he learned at Chautauqua. I attended the 2005 Chautauqua in Pike County with my mother and kept an online diary.

I'm very excited about the That's Entertainment lineup -- Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Margaret Mitchell, and P.T. Barnum.

I was first tapped to find people and equipment for lights and sound, but it looks like most of that is going to get pulled in by the person in charge of the facility. So, instead, I'm going to work on the website.

We need money in case anyone is looking for a good cause. Our community was exceptionally generous after the shooting tragedy at City Hall. The normal sources for funds are pretty well dried up, having gone to support the families of the police officers and other victims. We could use some angels from afar. My hope is that Chautauqua will be a healing event.

A passel of programs

2008-04-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

The Computer and Information Technology SIG sponsored or cosponsored 17 sessions submitted to the Missouri Library Association Conference Committee. That's just over twice as many as last year--and I was happy with last year's number. It may be too many sessions, given limited time and space for the conference, but I'm hoping the Conference Committee will appreciate having a choice and being in the position to put things together in a way that makes an exciting conference program. Meanwhile, we're thinking about how to turn some of these into Table Talks or Poster Sessions if there's just no way that all of them can be program sessions.

So, here's how to get lots of progam proposals:

Brainstorm early, involving all the SIG officers and anyone else who wants to play along.
Encourage SIG officers to submit at least one proposal, either a presentation of their own or one by a recruited colleague.
Send the call for proposals to all relevant email lists.
Send a copy of the call for proposals to last year's speakers and encourage each of them, with a personal message, to answer the call.
Be bold -- we wanted a program that required a non-library expert and found a good one with a big name in local circles. Another program will happen only if the Conference Committee is willing to pay a lot of money for a big name, but if the circumstances work out, they might. Both of those required us to approach the speaker and to write up the proposals ourselves.
Be lucky -- at least one program came in through a different pathway than all of the above.

Foodsville

2008-03-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

For food lovers, librarians or their patrons, Foodsville is a new social network for foodies built around a library of out-of-copyright digital cookbooks. If you join, friend me: gardenerjoy. Via Infodoodads.

Call for proposals

2008-03-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

The Missouri Library Association office provided us with a generic call for proposals late yesterday so many SIGs and Divisions sent out their call for proposals today. Here's the one the Computer and Information Technology SIG sent out to a couple of appropriate list servers. Please feel encouraged to answer the call yourself or to send it to others who might be interested in presenting at the Missouri Library Association conference.

What is your library doing with technology? Other Missouri libraries want to know!

The Missouri Library Association (MLA) is seeking proposals for presentations for the 2008 Annual Conference to be held October 1-3 at the Millennium Hotel in Downtown St. Louis. The theme for the Conference is “Freedom to Soar...with Books and More!”

The Computer and Information Technology Special Interest Group (CIT SIG) of MLA requests your proposal for a conference program on technology in libraries. The program can be a preconference, presentation, table talk, or poster session.

Please submit your technology-related conference proposal (program title, description, and presenter information) to my Yahoo email (joyweesemoll) by Monday, April 7, 2008. You will then work with me or one of the other officers of the CIT SIG to fill out the details required for the application (http://molib.org/Conference.html) that goes to the Conference Arrangements Committee and is due on Friday, April 11.

Joy Weese Moll
Chair, MLA CIT SIG

Work and mourning

2008-02-09T18:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I started a new job working at a special library in downtown St. Louis. I'm temporarily helping out while one of the librarians is out on medical leave. It looks likely that I'll work for the rest of the month, updating the Liber8 website , helping out on the Liber8 newsletter, and anything else that they can train me on fast enough for me to be useful.

Having a job to go to yesterday was a bit of a relief, given that I live in Kirkwood where a mass shooting took place at City Hall on Thursday night. Endlessly surfing the internet news reports to piece together the facts was not serving me well -- going to work was an improvement.

Kirkwood really is a small town.

I know the mayor because he owns a rental house on the same street as our old house. I disagree with him on several issues, but he is always a delight to chat with. The rumors in town today are that while he suffers from two bullet wounds in the head, neither are in the brain. At 69 years of age and not particularly robust health, recovery is not certain, but there is hope.

Sgt. Biggs wrote up the accident report when I was rear-ended last year. I remember him just as he is described in this memorial article on STLtoday, a calm and friendly presence, everything I want a Kirkwood cop to be.

I didn't know Connie Karr personally, but I was planning to vote for her for mayor in April. She often voted in the minority on the council, usually to make everyone take notice that there were ordinary Kirkwood citizens who weren't being listened to as well as they could be.

All the names of the other victims and the shooter were familiar to me from regular reading of the Webster-Kirkwood Times.

Perhaps the best answer to "why?" is this account by the former Kirkwood High School principal, Frank McCallie, of his interactions with "Cookie" Thornton over the years. The situation is complicated; there are racial issues but it's not just that, not even, I believe, primarily that. I believe that there is a lot of room for unity and for healing together as a community if enough of us choose to enter that space.

2008 Calendar for MLA CIT SIG

2008-02-02T06:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post gave some background for this one, which is essentially a to do list arranged in the form of a calendar for the Missouri Library Association Computer and Information Technology Special Interest Group. Let me know if you catch any errors or anything missing. Also, let me know if anything is confusing. It's taken me three years to figure this out, I'm hoping to give other people a shorter learning curve.

Edit: The dates have been removed from this post since they are subject to change. Please see the Missouri Library Association website for official information.

January
Send in report to Executive Board for Feb 13 meeting

February
Due date for March MO INFO (announce email list server, CFP)
Stakeholders Planning Meeting in Columbia (this is the orientation meeting for the October conference)

March
This month we'll want to recruit speakers in advance of the April 11 deadline for submitting programs
Deadline for officers to pay MLA dues

April
Program/Event Request forms due to the Conference Coordinator
Deadline for May MO INFO (maybe nothing to report)

May
Stakeholders' Session Approval Meeting location TBD (this is the one where we find out which of our programs were accepted by the conference coordinator and a preliminary location for each one)
Send in report to Executive Board for May meeting (list of programs)
Executive Board Meeting (this is the one where the conference program is approved and might be an interesting one to attend)

June
When notice is received that the Executive Board has approved the conference program, let speakers know that their program has been accepted (or declined)
Deadline for July MO INFO (promote one or more of conference programs and/or encourage people to submit technology topics for Table Talks and Poster Sessions, due July 31)

July
Remind the nominating committee that a nomination for recorder is needed 30 days prior to the SIG annual meeting at the conference and that a written ballot should be provided at the conference (see Article V of the SIG Bylaws)
Send in report to Executive Board for July 25 meeting (probably little new to report)

August
Deadline for September MO INFO (promote conference programs)

September
Things to do before the conference:

Make evaluation forms for each program
Recruit a host for each program to make the introduction, help with handouts, handle the evaluation forms, and get an approximate attendance count for the session
Communicate with speakers about the room where they'll be speaking and any other details
Recruit someone to attend the New Members orientation at the conference to promote our SIG

Nomination(s) for Recorder submitted by the Nominating Committee to the email list server
Preregistration and hotel reservation deadline for fall conference
Send in report to Executive Board for October 3 meeting - and consider showing up in person at the conference

October
Conference, including SIG annual meeting
Post-conference things to do:

Thank all speakers
Thank all hosts
Examine evaluations and attendance numbers to learn what might work better next year

Deadline for November MO INFO (thank yous and other reports from conference)

November
Annual report of the SIG is due
Stakeholder Debriefing Meeting, several videoconferencing locations (this is where everyone reflects on what they learned - some very useful information can come out of this for future conferences)
Send in report to Executive Board for November 21 meeting

December
Deadline for January MO INFO (in practice, however, they really just want the annual report of the SIG which was already submitted in November)

New year organization for a SIG chair

2008-02-01T12:52:00.000-08:00

This is the first of two posts helping me get organized for my year as Chair of the Missouri Library Association Computer and Information Technology Special Interest Group (MLA CIT SIG). Writing it here allows me to share what I know with the other two officers (knowing they read my blog, for which I'm grateful, makes this a good communication tool for us). Also, I hope that having it out there may help other people who are active in MLA. Most of the information in these posts apply to every other SIG and, to a lesser degree, to the Divisions. It might even help people active in other state library associations. They're not all the same, but some of the functions are pretty similar.

My information sources are the information packet that I just received in the mail as a new leader of a SIG or other unit of MLA, the calendar I got because I attended a meeting of the Conference Arrangements Committee in January, a variety of items from the MLA website, and notes I took last year when I was Vice Chair, including this blog post.

This first post is some overview items which will provide background to the next post, a calendar.

Here are some assumptions that I'm making about me and the other officers of the CIT SIG. I'm writing them here because I know they'll correct me if I'm wrong and because it might be useful to other SIGs to see how our situation is similar to or different from theirs.

As the Chair and the officer with the most flexible time, I'm assuming that I will do much of the work while keeping up a constant patter of what I'm doing so that next year's officers will know what I did and be able to learn from my successes and failures.

Our Vice-Chair started a new position in her library a few months ago. She lives closest to Columbia, Missouri, where many of the meetings of the association happen and is the most technologically savvy of our current officers. I'm assuming that she has less time to devote to this, but would be willing to occasionally attend a meeting or perhaps do a technology project like get our web page up and running.

Our Recorder is a new librarian, eager to be involved. I'm guessing that she'll willingly take on the traditional jobs of Recorder in the SIGs -- writing the SIG reports for the association newsletter and taking minutes at our meeting in October.

Officers, I just learned from my packet, are required to be members of the Association (I would have guessed that) and to have their dues paid by March 1 (didn't guess that). Here's the membership form.

There are two activities that require attention every couple of months.

The first, I just learned from my packet, is to submit a report to the Executive Board two weeks before their meeting. We could, of course, attend the meeting, but a written report is all that's necessary. As chair, I plan to write and email these at the appropriate times.

The second, is to submit articles to the association newsletter, MO INFO, (published every other month) about our SIG and its activities. This isn't really required, but can be a useful way to promote the SIG. The first deadline of the year is February 15 -- that might be a good time to promote our new SIG email list server. The submission details are in pdf form on the website and were also part of my information packet.

Almost everything else we do as a SIG is targeted to getting good technology programming at the annual conference in October.

Okay, that's enough for today. Tomorrow, I'll post a calendar with the Executive Board report deadlines, the newsletter deadlines, and the many different activities for putting together conference programming.

Timely Topic

2008-01-31T12:46:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I heard that our local hospitals are full and our local schools our empty due to a flu outbreak in the region. Today's Liber8 newsletter (pdf), brought to you by the library staff at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, covers the scarier scenario--what if it were the big one, a flu pandemic like 1918?

Conference Site Visit

2008-01-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

I joined the Conference Arrangements Committee last week for our first site visit to the Millenium Hotel in downtown St. Louis where the 2008 Missouri Library Conference will be held in October. We learned interesting things that you can't really learn except by going, like:

the most direct way to arrive from the Metrolink train station involves jaywalking, but the hotel employees do it that way so I imagine many conference attendees will, too--it is a lovely route taking you right past our new beautiful ballpark.
lunch was leisurely and expensive (fine for that day but not so good in the middle of a busy conference), so we investigated possibilities with the hotel staff -- they can do a cash-and-carry lunch cart on the conference level to speed things along (and, hopefully, have some lower cost alternatives).
the registration area isn't visible from the elevators and escalators -- we're going to need good signage!

Guess who was the only person to bring a camera to this meeting? I put the pictures up on my flickr account. They're lousy as photography, but will help us remember where things are and how they look when we're planning over the next few months.

We also received the Annual Conference Manual -- Working Draft, a document that's been put together by Conference Arrangements Committees over the past several years, delineating duties and responsibilities of the subcommittee chairs and discussing other important items like speaker arrangements and the budget.

And, here's a little background information I learned. This year's Conference Coordinator will be tapped to head the site selection committee for the next time the conference is held in St. Louis.

The year behind, the year ahead

2007-12-13T06:14:00.000-08:00

I know it looks like I've totally abandoned this blog, but I do have a plan for it in the year ahead. As of January 1, I'll be the chair of the Computer and Information Technology Special Interest Group in the Missouri Library Association. I'm also going to be on the Hospitality Committee for the 2008 MLA conference. I plan to log my activities here since I know that the inner workings of state conferences is of interest to some.

In the meantime, if you miss me (and aren't you sweet?), I'm blogging slightly more frequently at The Spiral of Seasons and I'm revealing way too much information as Librarian on 43 Things. This is an exciting time of year to be on 43 Things. We're doing things like list 43 things that made 2007 a good year and contemplating how to Make 2008 my best year yet.

Understanding Subprime Mortgage Lending

2007-09-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

Don't miss the inaugral issue of the Liber8 newsletter issued by the Research Library of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This newsletter is designed for librarians to provide a quick overview of a current economic issue with pointers to authoritative sources. I'm currently on the Board for Liber8 so I can tell you how hard they are working to make this current -- we saw two different possibilities for the inaugral newsletter a couple of months ago and neither were on Subprime Mortgage Lending because that story hadn't broken into the news yet.

Here's the official press release for the newsletter with links to the pretty pdf issue. Don't forget to add the announcement feed to your RSS reader or sign up for the email version.

Announcing Liber8 Economic Newsletter: "Subprime" issue released
today

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is pleased to announce the Liber8
Economic Newsletter, written for librarians, on the latest economic topics.

"Subprime," the inaugural issue, was released today and is available at http://liber8.stlouisfed.org/newsletter/2007/200709.pdf.
This issue discusses the current problems in the subprime mortgage market,
provides links to articles with more detail, and lists the major sources of data
for researchers interested in housing and mortgages. RSS and email
subscriptions are available for the newsletter (http://liber8.stlouisfed.org/newsletter).

The two-page newsletter will be published 9 times per year, January through
May and August through November, to coincide with the academic calendar.

More on Liber8: The Liber8 Economic Information portal
(http://liber8.stlouisfed.org) provides a single point of access
to the economic information that the Federal Reserve System, government
agencies, and data providers have to offer. Liber8 also offers the International Economic Statistics (IES) database (http://liber8.stlouisfed.org/iesd) with links to individual
economic indicators for countries worldwide.

We hope this timely information will be of use to you and your users.
Suggestions? Send e-mail to liber8@stls.frb.org.

Which Austen heroine are you?

2007-08-13T06:31:00.000-07:00

Take the Quiz here!

via Kaijsa

xkcd

2007-07-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

I don't always understand the xkcd comic, but when I do, it's the smartest comic around (I could probably use it as a gauge of how sharp I am on a particular day). It's a comic with a warning:

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be
unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults),
and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Anyway, today's strip is one of my favorites since I heard about the comic on Twitter a few weeks ago.

Good mornings

2007-07-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

When I quit my job, lots of people asked "are you looking forward to sleeping late in the morning?" I said "yes," but it didn't feel like quite the right answer.

Morning Luxury 1. Unless something is wrong, I sleep about 8 hours. I am getting up a bit later these days, but only because I'm going to bed a bit later. Of course, it is a huge luxury that I can sleep late on the days when something is wrong -- when my sinuses are out of whack from allergies or when I've been overambitious, again, with increasing my exercise.

Morning Luxury 2. The real luxury, most mornings, isn't sleeping late, it's that I don't wake up to an alarm. I wake up when I wake up.

Morning Luxury 3. The most notable luxury in the morning, though, is the slow start. The luxury of eating breakfast when I get hungry, often an hour or more after getting up, instead of first thing because that's what fits best in the getting ready for work routine. The luxury of reading feeds and email and generally goofing around online until I feel like doing something else. The luxury of doing all of this in my pajamas.

I suppose I could have figured out a way to have all this luxury when I was working -- go to bed earlier in order to have longer, more relaxed mornings -- but I didn't. The only thing I miss about work mornings is sharing the "Good Morning!" greeting with several people before I sat down to my desk. All in all, though, mornings are good.

pushing Uncontrolled Vocabulary

2007-07-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Cindi, blogging at Chronicles of Bean, wrote a heartfelt request for some link love for the librarian talk show radio, Uncontrolled Vocabulary, and InfoSciPhi seconded the motion.

The fourth show was last night. Greg Schwartz announced during the after party (which is a ton of fun, by the way, and worth downloading the TalkShoe application to be in on) that it's looking likely that there will be a blessed event in his household sooner than expected and two people volunteered to handle the show when he can't. So, it looks like this idea's got legs. It's worth a listen if you haven't (it can be downloaded as a podcast after the event). It's worth a plug on any library commentary blog whether you've listened yet or not because it's one of those "Library 2.0" things that will benefit from a critical mass.

The technical details are all layed out on the Uncontrolled Vocabulary blog. Greg seems very happy to help with any technical problems - and would rather know about them than found out afterwards that someone tried to get in and couldn't. There's also a Facebook group.

Twitter

2007-07-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

The July MO INFO (pdf, online newsletter of the Missouri Library Association) is out. It has an article I wrote about recent technology things of interest to librarians. A big chunk of it is about Twitter. I like what I wrote, but I like even more the personal experience of Jenica Rogers-Urbanek. I offer in the article to help people get set up in Twitter with some librarian friends -- that offer is good for anyone reading this blog as well. Email my yahoo account, joyweesemoll.

Second Episode

2007-07-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Join us for the second episode of Uncontrolled Vocabulary, live librarian audio chat, at 9PM Central this evening.

Librarian Talk Radio

2007-06-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

The first episode of Greg Schwartz' brain child, Uncontrolled Vocabulary, an internet streaming audio show for libary discussion, was last night. You'll hear me once or twice. A call-in show is not my best forum for expression (you're reading my best forum for expression), but that's okay. Sometimes, life really is just about showing up and being part of things. I had a great time hanging out with other librarians and I'm looking forward to doing it again next week -- same time (Thursday at 10PM EDT, 9PMCDT), same place.

You don't have to call in to participate. You can simply listen. You can register and download the software so that you can also use the typed chat feature and see the list of participants. You can listen to the MP3 recording after the live event. All of that is explained on the Uncontrolled Vocabulary blog.

Which am I?

2007-06-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

A couple of games via Off the Mark to amuse me on a day when my best friend is a Kleenex box. Both quite on track.

Which Punctuation Mark Are You?

Your Score: hyphen

You scored 38% Sociability and 52% Sophistication!

You are comfortable around others. While you don't have to go out every night, yet you take pride in being easy to get along with. This should not, however, be misconstrued as believing (as many do) that you are without subtlety. In fact, you have the power to inform the anal retentive that, indeed, they are discussing an anal-retentive issue. Who else can do that? Quotation marks intimidate you a little bit.

Link: The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test written by Gazda on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

The Brutally Honest Personality Test

Your Score: Freak- INFJ

6% Extraversion, 93% Intuition, 20% Thinking, 60% Judging

Well, well, well. How did someone like you end up with the least common personality type of them all? In a group of 100 Americans, only 0.5 others would be just like you. You really are one of a kind... In fact, I do believe that that's one of the definitions for the word "FREAK."

Freak's not such a bad word to describe you actually.

You are deep, complex, secretive and extremely difficult to understand. If that doesn't scream "Freak!" I don't know what does. No-one actually knows the REAL you, do they?

You probably have deep interests in creative expression as well as issues of spirituality and human development.

You've probably even been called a "psychic" before, because of your uncanny knack to understand and "read" people without quite knowing how you do it. Don't fret. You're not actually psychic. That would make you special and you'll never accomplish that.

You're also quite possible the most emotional of them all, so don't take this all too hard. Nevertheless you most definitely have the strangest personality type and that's not necessarily a good thing.

*****************

If you want to learn more about your personality type in a slightly less negative way, check out this.

*****************

The other personality types are as follows...

Loner - Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Pushover - Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Criminal - Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
Borefest - Introverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Almost Perfect - Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
Loser - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Crackpot - Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging
Clown - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
Sap - Extraverted Sensing Feeling Judging
Commander - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving
Do Gooder - Extraverted Sensing Thinking Judging
Scumbag - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
Busybody - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
Prick - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving
Dictator - Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging

Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Liber8 Library Advisory Board

2007-06-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'm a Board Member on the Liber8 Library Advisory Board for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. I've never been on a Board. Apparently it means I get lunch, great professional discussion, and schwag. The Federal Reserve Bank has cool schwag--a baggie of shredded money!

Don't know much about the Fed? This is my third visit since starting library school, so I'm finally figuring it out. Here's an easy explanation. The Fed shows up in the news when the Board of Governors sets the discount rate (not quite so simple an explanation) and twice a year when the Chairman of the Board of Governors (currently Ben Bernanke, formerly Alan Greenspan) speaks before Congress as required by law.

Each of the 12 branches of the Federal Reserve Bank has a specialty--San Francisco specializes in the Pacific Rim, Dallas has immigration, etc. The St. Louis Fed specializes in data. Since the Fed is a quasi-federal agency, that data is freely available. The data is compiled by economists for economists, not particularly accessible to the rest of us.

This is where Liber8 comes in--a website designed to be a portal for librarians and other non-economists interested in economic data. Before Liber8, I might have started at the overwhelming Bureau of Labor Statistics website or the confusing FedStats website. Liber8 will lead me to those sites as necessary, but through a directory structure that makes more sense to me as a librarian.

The reason the Liber8 Library Advisory Board met this week was to discuss a new effort by the librarians responsible for Liber8--an e-newsletter. We saw a couple of drafts and it looks really exciting. Each month's issue (9 times a year--roughly when schools are in session) will have a theme and include a brief (2 or 3 paragraphs) explanatory article signed by the economics researcher who wrote it, links to recent articles about that theme that are selected to be accessible to the non-economist, and links to free sources of data on that theme.

We saw these newsletter drafts in print form and they fit on two pages. The plan, however, is for them to be distributed electronically. You can guess my significant contribution to the discussions: RSS feed. Watch for it in August!

MLA conference planning season

2007-06-19T06:27:00.001-07:00

Following up on my Organizing for Conference Programming post, here is some advice for myself next year (as chair of the MLA Computer and Information Technology SIG) and for Robin Hastings (the officer coming along after me). This advice will be of some use to others participating in the Missouri Library Association and, to some degree, any state library association. I'm still fuzzy on some details. I hope to participate next year in at least these events so that I have better advice to pass on to Robin this time next year.

January - Stakeholder's Meeting. This introduces the parties to each other. Being at this meeting sends a signal that our SIG intends to be a player this year and gives us a heads up on the scheduling, including, I suspect, how to do budget requests.

March - send out a Call For Proposals for programs for the conference.

April - submit the proposed programs to meet the deadline.

May - Stakeholder's Meeting. This is where the preliminary schedule is presented and discussed.

May - Board Meeting. The preliminary schedule is approved at this board meeting.

May - After the Board Meeting, let speakers know that their program has been approved.

8 Random Things

2007-05-31T09:29:00.001-07:00

I was tagged by Christen, the Pink-Haired Librarian.

1. Since some have asked and others have wanted to, I'll share that my recently announced decision to be job free, an announcement which included no visible means of support, is possible because of my husband's family's business.

2. I've been a cancer survivor since 1985 (undifferentiated lymphoma), a fact which I'm now capable of forgetting for months on end unless I have to fill out a health insurance form as I did recently in order to make the decision in number 1 possible--got the insurance, have to pay more.

3. Since Christen shared her "secret" desire to run a marathon, I'll share mine to do a sprint tri. As of today, I can walk 5K so this is an unlikely goal, but it's a motivator and that's good enough for me.

4. I grew up in Louisiana, Missouri, and, thus, must always say the name of the state and not just the town.

5. My husband, brother, and I published the short-lived magazine, The Robotics Practitioner: the journal for robot builders. I just checked--it's in WorldCat. Thanks, Colorado School of Mines.

6. I'm allergic to most animals and have never had a pet as an adult--but I've fallen in love with the neighbors' newfie-lab puppy, Nana, and she loves me back.

7. I collect and use Tarot decks, but I prefer the goofiest ones possible. My current favorite is "Housewives Tarot."

8. At one time, I could identify the majority of native Missouri trees in the winter by the bark. My skills have gone rusty in the last few years, but I may sharpen them again.

I'm tagging Robin (A Passion for 'Puters), Jane (A Wandering Eyre), Amanda (blogwithoutalibrary.net), Dorothea (Caveat Lector), Rikhei (Nevertheless...), KristaB (The Librarian's Lounge), Martha (The Vital Library), and Walt (Walt at Random).

Looking for guides

2007-05-27T09:45:00.000-07:00

When I give talks about social software, I warn people that the best approach is not necessarily to just dive into any community that looks interesting. It's kind of like moving to a new town--you don't know what groceries have the best produce, which stores overcharge because they cater to tourists, or which neighborhoods are right for you. If you try to discover all of that on your own, you're bound to have disturbing experiences or find yourself in boring situations before you encounter the places that cater to your levels of adventure and comfort. In a new town, it's helpful to have a guide and it's the same in a new online community.

So, I'm looking for guides to friendly, active online communities of people with these interests:

gardening
writing
reading

I appreciate any help you can give. Thanks!

Job Free

2007-05-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Having never fully adjusted to the 40-hour work week lifestyle after years of graduate school and home-based businesses, I'm quitting my job to get back a lifestyle that works better for me. My last day is June 15.

One of the worst things about being deliberately jobless is being confronted with the question "What do you do?" The question can trigger in me a warped version of the Protestant Work Ethic and feel like a judgment on my choices. But, since it's really a simple conversational opening, I work at not feeling defensive. One possible answer is in the new name in my blog title: online librarian.

Another answer is take the advice that maisie posted on one of Barbara Sher's forums on July 11, 2006: "My reply usually starts with 'well at the moment I'm into…' and talk about whatever interest, hobby, research, etc. that I'm scanning at the time." Barbara Sher wrote Refuse to Choose for "scanners," people who are always into new things. I've found a similar book to be useful, too, in making this decision: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine.

Here are some ways I expect to complete "at the moment, I'm into..." in the next year:

Growing herbs
Using herbs we've grown
Fixing up our new house the way we want it
Fixing up our old house to sell it
Fixing up our cabin the way we want it
Gardening
Writing a novel as a NaNoWriMo participant
Eradicating honeysuckle at the new house
Writing for professional library literature
Speaking, particularly in Missouri and southern Illinois
Teaching, same geographical area and on-line
Volunteering on Info Island in Second Life
Participating in the informal network of librarians using social software
Working part-time at a community college library or public library
Consulting or contract work for libraries
Blogging about libraries and life
Learning about WordPress
Learning about Drupal
Reading
Writing about reading
Rediscovering my natural work rhythms which don't conform at all to regular office hours
Exercising
Eating healthily
Cooking and baking
Observing the changing of the seasons, particularly holidays and Sabbats
Observing the phases of the moon
Throwing parties in our new house and at our cabin
Contributing to my community
Volunteering with my local chapter of the Special Libraries Association
Volunteering with the Missouri Library Association
Taking more photos and putting them on Flickr

Five Why Nots

2007-05-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

Picking up the meme from the LibrarianInBlack.

Why not....

make your student workers your best customers by offering 10-minute mini-training sessions with library staff: "Behind the Scenes in ILL," "How to Become a Librarian," "What's a Subject Encyclopedia and What's It Good For?"
have a "Take a Photo with a Librarian" table available after Commencement and hand out bookmarks that promote life-long learning using libraries?
host a weekly NaNoWriMo writing group during November in a meeting room, providing refreshments and reminding everyone how useful reference librarians are to writers?
sponsor (and write the questions for) a Trivia Night to raise money for a good cause?
use vacuuming robots to clean the floors overnight (have a naming contest and provide a small prize to the student who brings the robot to the circulation desk in the morning) and pay the cleaning staff to wipe tables instead (then allow food in the library!)?

So, what are your five?