joy at moll projects dot com
My first presentation, Keeping Up and Reaching Out with Blogs and RSS, went well. Some fifty people showed up for it, even at the ridiculously early hour of 8 am. Lots of questions, discussion, interaction. I enjoyed it!
Jenny Levine on a post at The Shifted Librarian, observed about The Internet Librarian conference:
Several speakers noted that this was the year we were able to skip over the intro material (what is a blog) and talk about the more advanced stuff (what to do with your blog).
At the Missouri Library Association conference, you start with "what is a blog." I used the weblog definition on ODLIS, the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science.
I want to make three points with this post. First, there are lots of librarians who still want to learn what a blog is and go on from there--and lots of conferences where you can deliver that content and be the first to do so.
Second, it doesn't take a huge amount of background to be an "expert" on this. I'm not an expert compared to the speakers at Internet Librarian, but I am compared to busy practicing librarians in Missouri. If you are reading blogs in an aggregator, you already have the basis for giving a talk about using Blogs and RSS as tools for current professional awareness--you just need to do some research on other aggregators besides the one you use. If you have a blog of your own, you have the basis for a "getting started" talk for librarians and libraries to create their blogs.
Third, you can do it. MLA could have rejected my proposal, saying come back next year after you have your MLS degree. But they didn't. Apparently, my "title," listed as "MU-SISLT Graduate Student" in the program, didn't scare very many people away. It's all about the content. If you, as a student or new librarian, know something that other librarians want to know, do a little research to flesh out your understanding and go tell them about it. Librarians make a great audience for all the same reasons that they make great professional colleagues--they are intelligent, curious, and accepting.
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Sounds like another era, doesn't it?
Carnival of the InfoSciences #12 is up and running at Frequently Answered Questions. Ponder rural America's library needs, user surveys, and more news about GooglePrint.
My train leaves at 8:19 tomorrow morning--they want me there thirty minutes ahead of time, rather than the hour or more required for planes. If I didn't have luggage, I could walk to the train station, instead of the thirty-minute or more drive that it takes to get to the airport.
I think I can walk between the train station and the hotel in Kansas City. My cousin is picking me up tomorrow, but that might be something I take advantage of for the trip home on Friday.
I'll have my computer for this conference because I'm giving my presentations with it. I'm not sure if I will be blogging the conference while I'm there or not. It will depend on how much socializing my cousin wants, how much I hang out with librarians, and whether or not the Legislation Quiz ever shows up. I will blog the sessions I attend eventually--I get so much more out of them when I do that.
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Both presentations are ready that I will be delivering at the Missouri Library Association Conference on Thursday. If you will be at the conference, come introduce yourself--it would be nice to have a friendly face or two in the audience.
The first presentation, Keeping Up and Reaching Out with Blogs and RSS, is at 8:00 in the morning. I know that's early. If you're reading this blog in an aggregator, you have my permission to be late since you already know half of what I'm going to say!
The second presentation is half of the "Third Annual Graduate Research contest: Presentation of the Winning Research." The other winner is the Redhaired (Future) Librarian. We're both talking about blogs, so come hear what we found out!
My paper that's due tomorrow in Management Class is turned in.
All is done. Except...we were supposed to get a quiz in the Tracking Legislative Information class on Wednesday. It hasn't shown up yet. If we get it tomorrow morning, I could probably finish it before I leave. If we get it on Tuesday and it's due on Friday, I have a problem. Do I spend part of the conference holed up in my hotel room working on homework? Do I ask for an extension--which would mean I would need to be working on the quiz during Comps week? Oh well. I'll worry about that bridge when I come to it.
For now, the stress of the last couple of weeks has finished with everything in good shape.
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An exciting week on the web for MLS students.
Student, Heidi Dolamore announced her candidacy for ALA Council. I'll get her blog quiddle on the next update of the student blogger list. It should be fun and informative to follow her journey.
Michael Stephens of Tame the Web is teaching an MLS class--and he's assigned blogging as an assignment to his students. It's great to see how a group of LIS students handle this new challenge. I want to take his class!
This week's NextGen column in Library Journal is about distance education in library science.
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Last night, I went to a career reception that was jointly hosted by the local chapter of the Special Libraries Association and our library school. It was a wonderful event--lots of time to talk over food and beverages, resume reviews, and a panel discussion about the hiring process in three different types of libraries. And it got a huge turn-out--I'd guess at least fifty people.
I didn't know many of the people who came which brought up an interesting question among those of us who know each other well because we are always networking. Why aren't all these people showing up at our Saturday morning journal discussions, our student happy hours and parties, or SLA's other events? Those activities work well for career building, too, even when they don't have "career" in the title. I have two recent cases to prove the point.
Remember that job I didn't pursue? When I told the employer I wasn't interested, I also gave them the name of a classmate who I knew was interested. I knew because she told me about a year ago that working for this agency was her dream job. The only reason we had that conversation is because she showed up for a study group meeting during our gov docs class. If we hadn't had that conversation, I would never have thought of her when this opportunity came up. My classmate got that job and is starting her professional career this month, more than a year before she will complete her MLS!
Last week, a part-time job, perfect for a student, came up on the SLA email list. A fairly new student in our program got that job within hours of its announcement. She had shown up to a couple of our library student events. A student on the SLA list thought of her and connected her with the employer. It happened so fast that the job never appeared on the jobs email list for students.
In both of those cases, it was a student who was the connector between the employer and the new hire. Don't discount the networking power of a group of students. Maybe each one of us only has a few connections to the professional world, but by networking among ourselves and together with professional librarians, that network grows and grows.
Want some ideas on how to make those connections as a student? Take a look at these two posts I wrote in the summer, MLS Success, pt. 3--Making Connections and MLS Success, pt. 4--Where to Make Connections.
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Jakob Nielsen, web usability guru, focused his Top Ten Design Mistakes on weblogs for this year.
I hate that he's right in his corollary to Mistake 4:
A related mistake in this category is to use insider shorthand, such as using first names when you reference other writers or weblogs. Unless you're writing only for your friends, don't alienate new visitors by appearing to be part of a closed clique. The Web is not high school.
I like that casual, breezy aspect of the librarian's corner of the blogosphere. But I am becoming aware that it kills the readability of my posts. Considering that I have potential employers and my brother (hi Dale!) reading my blog, I really need to avoid entries like yesterday's where I didn't use the full name of Meredith Farkas or link to the top level of her blog, Information Wants to Be Free.
Another reason to use full names and titles of blogs is that many bloggers have ego feeds in Technorati, Google Blog Search, and other places. Some of these ego feeds are set up to pick up links to the site, but many rely on full names of people and blogs. So if I want that high school feel of people knowing that I'm talking about them, I need to make it as easy as possible for their ego feeds to pick it up.
I guess I need to find a photo I like of myself...(number 2 on Nielsen's list).
I got a kick out of Blogger's response to the list, particularly number 6 that says to use categories as an additional organization scheme. Blogger doesn't have categories, so they suggested that we Vote for feature requests, where "categories" is the top item. I did that. Lack of categories is what will push me to another blogging software solution in the next few months.
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The Carnival of the Infosciences #11 has a dazzling array of rides, games, and food booths. See how software might be considered an end user, speculate on how librarians could quantify that frustrating no-results search, and learn how Meredith determined that she is not a cat.
Speaking of Meredith, I was thrilled to read her account of a successful engagement of faculty at her university. Reading about a presentation that went well is very encouraging to me at the moment.
I have one week left to prepare my two presentations for the Missouri Library Association conference. The presentations are a week from Thursday, but I get on the train early in the morning on Tuesday, so I really need to be done a week from today. I'm pretty sure I have the content stuff done, but I will know better when I have a mind map of talking notes and slides (I'm aiming for zero bullet points) to make sure there are no holes in the material.
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Walt asks TV or not TV? and argues that the answer may be a lifestyle choice but is not an indication of moral superiority. I'll agree with that.
I watch some TV, less since I started graduate school, but we don't have cable. Refusing cable was a lifestyle choice for awhile, then it was a "too cheap" choice. Now that we have cable modem, adding cable TV wouldn't cost much so I can't claim that I'm too cheap anymore. At this point, I guess "no cable" is just our default and nothing has pushed us to a different position. I am too cheap for Tivo/DVR--or I was when I looked into it a few years ago and I don't imagine I will be revisiting that decision until after I graduate.
My favorite show right now is History Detectives on PBS. I consider it professional development since they frequently visit libraries and archives. From Friday night's episode, I learned things about how grown adopted children find their birth parents. I imagine librarians help people with that kind of research all the time.
Xine of Ask Nettie Day uses knowledge gained from television viewing in her technique for reader's advisory. Rochelle, in a comment to Walt's post, claims that watching TV puts her in touch with popular culture and makes her a better reference librarian.
Judging from the Nielsen ratings for October 3 to 9, my education is lacking, because I don't regularly watch any of those shows. I have seen multiple episodes of only one, Without A Trace, and I gave up watching that when I started graduate school. I have seen one full episode of Las Vegas when Crossing Jordan went there (and I missed this year's cross-over--it must have been last year).
I am surprised to see Commander in Chief up in 7th place. I was looking forward to that because I like both the premise and Geena Davis, but I watched fifteen minutes and said, "well, it's no West Wing." Maybe I'll try again.
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The Hierophant seems appropriate for a nascent librarian. This quiz, a Saturday night diversion, came to me via Mark at ...the thoughts are broken....
You are the the Hierophant card. The Hierophant,
called The Pope in some decks, is the preserver
of cultural traditions. After entering The
Emperor's society, The Hierophant teaches us
its wisdom. The Hierophant learns and teaches
our cultural traditions. The discoveries our
ancestors have made influence the present.
Without forces such as The Hierophant who are
able to interpret and communicate traditional
lore, each generation would have to begin to
learn anew. As a force that is concentrated on
our past and our culture, The Hierophant can
sometimes be stubborn and set in his ways. This
is a negative trait he shares with his zodiac
sign, Taurus. But like Taurus he is productive.
His traditional lore can provide a source of
inspiration for the creatively inclined, and
his knowledge provides an excellent foundation
for those who come into their own in the
business world. Image from: Morgan E.
Cauthers-Knox.
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/m/o/morganc/morganc.html
Which Tarot Card Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
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Item 1. A librarian graduate of an Information School (as opposed to a Library School) responded to my query about required courses. In her school, the required courses spanned the various specialties offered in the school, only one of which was libraries. This meant the required courses were highly theoretical. Not at all what I suspect Gorman had in mind for courses that would prepare librarians for work in the field. I hadn't fully understood the objections some librarians have to I-schools. Mizzou's department doesn't use the L-word in its title (School of Information Science and Learning Technologies) and offers an educational technology degree, but the library half of it is most definitely a library school.
Item 2. A friend of mine, who graduated from my library school almost a year ago, responded to my post about journal reading. Her breadth of reading material has increased now that she works in a library that has routing copies of professional journals. Something to look forward to....
Item 3. I am less emotionally involved with the tragedies in Pakistan and Central America than I was for the hurricane damage on the Gulf shore or for the tsunami damage in Southeast Asia. I feel bad about that. It's probably due to my current busy schedule or to some kind of overload--either way it's a shame. On the other hand, in spite of all the angst, the only practical help I have offered so far is money. I researched charities after the tsunami to decide where to make a donation and I selected AmeriCares. AmeriCares helpfully sent me email to ask if wanted to respond to this new tragedy in the same way, so I will.
Item 4. It hasn't been officially released yet, so I'll link to details later, but I'm on a team for ALA's Adopt a Library program and we just learned what library we will be assisting. I'm really looking forward to doing something that requires something of myself instead of just sending more money.
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Here's the latest version of the MLS student blogger list. If you are a student, why not join us? Earlier this month, Travis Ennis collected some reasons that students blog.
Here is the graduated student blogger's list:
And, here are some blogs that are good resources for future librarians:
Amy at viaProni asks Library journals: which do you read?. Since I'm suffering from what I've seen Walt call ltb (life trumps blogging), I thought I would try a relatively easy post.
The publications I get at home are all from my large number of memberships--something I'm taking advantage of while I can get the student rate:
I eventually look through all of them, catching up between semesters because I get too busy to keep up in the midst of classes. So far, I'm keeping all of them, but that may change.
I think I probably should read Library Journal and some others at a library, but I don't. I wonder if that will change when I'm actually working at a library or if I will still only read what comes to my house.
Okay. Back to work. I'll leave you with a tip: Never arrange to give two presentations at the state library conference the week before you are scheduled to take Comprehensive Exams.
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My library school has started an LIS radio show called First Tuesday. The first First Tuesday, in September, featured nextgen librarian Rachel Holt discussing library employment issues.
Last night's second First Tuesday was an interview with Robert S. Martin, coming off his stint as head of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Professor Seavey began the discussion by referring back to the Holt interview, so employment was a primary topic for this session as well.
The employment topic segued nicely into a discussion about the training of librarians, particularly about Michael Gorman's recently published opinions about "Why Library Education Matters" (part 1 in the August 2005 American Libraries and part 2 in the September issue--puzzling that AL doesn't put the President's Message up full text on the web like the other regular columns).
Part of the discussion seems to be about whether accredited library schools should offer a core curriculum of required courses or not. Gorman says that there should be a standard core curriculum in all library schools. Apparently, others disagree.
As a student, I'm not sure I have a broad enough perspective to discuss librarian education at the big picture level. I will say that my program has required courses and I feel they have served me well. We take Reference, Cataloging, Collection Development, Introduction to IT, Research Methods, and Management. We also have a practicum requirement.
Reference, Cataloging, and Collection Development seem like no-brainers as required courses to me--how could you be a librarian without a basic understanding of those aspects of librarianship?
I think Introduction to IT was originally meant to level the playing field when some students were coming into library school never having used email. It has obviously had to evolve over the years. It still seems a useful forum for getting across the message that librarianship is a pretty technological field and one should be prepared to keep up with it.
I wrote my thoughts about Research Methods last summer.
I'm taking Management right now and I'm way too enmeshed to have an intelligent opinion on how it's taught, whether it should be taught, or whether it should be required. I am finding it a useful vehicle for thinking about how I'm going to make my transition from full-time student to full-time working librarian.
So, fellow students and former students, does your library school have required courses? Was it a good thing? Did anyone have a program without required courses? How does that work?
For any podcast fans out there, I asked Professor Seavey if he could get them to put up a feed for the LIS radio shows. He thought they had already. I can't find it, but I may have more information about it later.
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LIS bloggers are on the cover of this month's Library Journal!
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Travis Ennis has put up his Carnival: Why Do We Blog? MLS/MIS Students. It looks like we blog for many of the same reasons. And, probably, for many of the same reasons that others blog. Except, I suspect that blogging-to-remember has a special urgency for students and may be one of the easiest arguments for recruiting more students into the biblioblogosphere. This Carnival is a marvelous recruiting tool. If you are an MLS student, or know one (or would like to know one), go check it out.
My vote for the most beautiful bit of writing in the student carnival is the last paragraph of what Laura wrote at lis.dom. Imagine.
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Mark at ...the thoughts are broken... put up our newest Carnival of the Infosciences--Number 9! Banned Books Week. On becoming a librarian. And other rides. Also fun pictures.
I have a strange and busy week coming up, so I'm going to try to get my Carnival post for next week done early. What are you writing for Carnival #10? Jane at A Wandering Eyre is accepting submissions now. Send them to wanderingeyre at yahoo dot com.
We have no hosts set up for after Carnival #10. It must be your turn....I can't take on anything until after Comps. I really enjoyed hosting the Carnival and hope to host again in November if other biblioblogosphere members can keep it going until then. Here are the easy instructions for hosting.
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