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Blank Slate

January 5, 2013 by 0 Comments

Welcome 2013! A new year, a blank slate. I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions (they have a bad reputation and far too frequently tied to failure) and yet the beginning of a new year is a good time to think about goals, changes, and challenges for the year ahead.

I’ve read somewhere (bad librarian, I can’t recall where) that the mere act of sharing your goals makes you less likely to accomplish them. That there is a sense of accomplishment in the mere act of sharing that means you are less likely to follow through with your goals. I’m going to throw caution to the wind and share a few of my work goals with you. I’m not going to call the following resolutions, but I would like to try to accomplish the following in the new year:

  • Actually use the time I set aside for research, for *gasp* research. I’m great at penciling in time to pursue research interests but I’m terrible at keeping it, sacrificing it for the greater good (usually meetings).
  • Pursue more partnerships: in the library, on campus, in the library field, in unexpected places. I love talking with others about what they’re doing, finding out new ideas and having a sounding board for my own ideas. Partnerships can make ideas, projects, and presentations stronger.
  • Share more. Share my projects with my library and my users. Share my process with others in the field. Document and communicate will be key words this year.

I’m sure I’ll be adding and readjusting goals throughout the year. It’s easy to make goals, lofty ones and little ones, but the follow through is always the hard part. Good luck with yours!

odd stuff - social networks - social software

Old Spice on libraries

July 14, 2010 by 0 Comments

Well, I have lots to catch up on (Digital Odyssey, the Great Debate) but they will have to wait a little longer before getting blogged. This, however, could not wait. Andy Woodworth noted that the Old Spice Man was replying to tweets via video. He decided to ask him to promote libraries. Mad re-tweeting ensued and the final product turned out to be this. Kudos to Andy for taking the initiative and thinking outside the box. And yay to the power of social networking to help bring attention to it.

Update: Here’s an awesome parody of the Old Spice commercials. They really nail it on the head. Well done!

odd stuff - tech

Fun with Words

November 25, 2009 by 0 Comments

I’ve been encountering some terms lately that I’ve found intriguing – not necessarily groundbreaking, but interesting. The first term is informavore. I came across this in a post on BoingBoing, which lead me to an article on the Edge. I would like to consider myself an informavore, and I suspect most librarians would. What intrigued me in the article was the parallel of information to Darwin selection – in a world filled with information, how do we choose which information is important, what can be left out and what might this mean for culture, history and the future? I’m sure I can not do the article justice, so I will simply recommend that you go read the article.

I came across the other term in a Spark podcast. In this episode (episode 90), we learn of the term continuous partial attention (it also talks about email apnea – an interesting concept in itself). I think this explains a lot of what I do, certainly better than the term multitasking. I also think that many of the students I work with also fall prey to continuous partial attention. If this is the case, what does this mean for educating these students? Does it change they way we think they work – or should it? I think I will be spending some more time considering what the implications for this might mean for the students I teach. I’m becoming more and more interested in how technology affects our students and their learning and I think continuous partial attention is certainly one side effect of technology.

conferences - odd stuff

Shoving and Making

March 25, 2009 by 0 Comments

It’s been an interesting couple of months. This is largely due to the fact that I recently attended the Northern Exposure to Leadership. I met some wonderful people doing incredible things. It was an absolutely amazing experience and one that I’m still trying to fully digest. I do hope to post something more on this experience, as soon as I figure out how to put the whole experience into words.

Library Journal recently announced this year’s Movers and Shakers. I’m not surprised to find that I know many of the names, both in real life and virtually, on the list. Congrats to you all!

Many of you may already know about the Library Society of the World‘s new award, the Shovers and Makers. I think this is a great idea! While Library Journal recognizes some of the most outstanding work being done in our field, the Shover and Maker award celebrates the fact that many of us are doing great things too. All you have to do to claim a Shover and Maker award is post a profile celebrating the great things you are doing. I’ve done mine. Go! Do one for yourself! Celebrate all your hard work!

I will be attending Computers in Libraries this coming week. Hope to see some of you there!

odd stuff

A New Year

January 5, 2009 by 0 Comments

Happy New Year to all! A new year, time for new beginnings and all. Instead of resolutions (which I hardly ever keep, like 95% of resolution makers), I’ve decided to be a little more general. It’s a year of more and less. More of all sorts of good things (exercise, healthy eating, of course blogging, making some kind of difference be it volunteering, monetary, what have you, etc etc etc) and less of the bad stuff (reduce stress if that’s even possible, less crappy food, yadda yadda yadda). We’ll see if that’s too general to be effective but at least I might be able to feel I’ve done something. Good luck to you if you’ve done the resolution thing and hope to see you in this new year!

odd stuff - tech

Technoblindness

November 27, 2008 by 0 Comments

I just came back from catching a presentation done by a multimedia class. I’m sorry I missed the beginning and the rest of the presentations as this was quite enlightening. In a project called Lifecasting, students filmed a number of reactions to situations. I was most enthralled by two scenarios which filmed people staging things left behind/being stolen and invasions of personal space in a public atmosphere. In the cases where people left items behind or staged a theft, the people around them were generally oblivious to the action happening. Why? Because they were on their cell phones or staring at their computers. The same occurred when people invaded personal space – computer screens seemed to act as a barrier to the actions and conversations around them. I find it fascinating that we’ve used social technology such as cell phones and computers and use them in such anti-social ways, blocking out the world outside our small personal world.

This has implications for work on a reference desk. I know I am tied to my computer and while I try to look up and keep an eye out for people needing assistance, I wonder how many I’ve missed because I’m using technology as a barrier. I will certainly try to be more aware of my surroundings while I’m using technology.

odd stuff

Me and my tag

November 6, 2008 by 1 Comment

After a discussion with a colleague, I decided to change my blog tag for fun. It’s been a couple of years on this blog so a change is well overdue. I’m thinking I should do this more often. If you’ve got suggestions (be nice please!), let me know.

In case you’re wondering, the new tag is in reference to my new dual-cord status. I shall always have power now!

odd stuff

The Culture of Now

November 5, 2008 by 2 Comments

Lately, I find that my level of concentration has not been up to its normal level. I think there are a lot of things that contribute to this – I spend too much time online (where I don’t read as deeply as I would with a book), too much time checking for new email and too much time with the tv on in the background. I’m sadly falling out of practice when it comes to deeper thinking and concentration and I hope to remedey this soon. I need to start unplugging more and sitting down and spending more than 10 minutes on one activity.

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this relatively sudden lack of concentration. I love being online but I find that it is affecting the way I think. This turned my mind back to another topic that I often think about – history. My undergrad degree is in history and I continued my studies with classical history. I often find the historian in me emerging when I think about the Internet. Maybe it also has something to do with my work in government publications too. The Internet is changing the way history is written. We can not rely on the Internet to allow us to write history in the same way – we no longer have all of the documents that we once had. It’s far to easy to delete an email or an entire document. Webpages are constantly changed.

We have become a culture of now – we rely on tv, radio, the Internet for our information but there is little being done to preserve it. It is rare to go back and compare what was already shared, although there have certainly been more moves towards preservation through such things as Google Books and Internet Archive. I recently listened to a September podcast of CBC’s Spark (yes, I am behind on my podcast listening), which discussed the nature of the Culture of Now and the influence it has on us, including an interview with Brewster Kahle of Internet Archive, which I would recommend.

Libraries pride themselves on being guardians of our past – an important role. How do we compete with a culture of now? How do we make ourselves more relevant? Certainly we have a role in preservation but is there more we can be doing to help people see and understand in a culture of now? These are not new questions but they have been on my mind of late.

odd stuff

Blogs Abound

October 20, 2008 by 0 Comments

Yes, I read too many blogs (and often fall behind). I realize that I haven’t updated by blog roll since I started my blog, so I have added a link to my Google reader library list, in case you want to expand your own blogroll. Apologies if I’m not reading your blog … yet!