Kiyomi in Philadelphia

As some of you may know I had a rather whirlwind summer which led to me starting a new job August 2nd as an Assistant Professor with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.

For those of you who read my previous post, Sunday June 27th at ALA Annual was the day I attended my committee meeting for the Residency Interest Group, this was great fun and I think the group is starting to move in a very positive and useful direction.

Sunday was also the day I decided to accept the offer of employment I received from Dean Joan Giesecke of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries.  This great piece of news really capped the whole ALA Annual experience for me and since August 2nd I have had the great pleasure (and occasional moments of terror at being an Assistant Professor with the Research and Instructional Section as a Subject Librarian for the areas of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, and the Cedar Point Biological Research Station.

I highly recommend that anyone else considering a cross-country move try and take more time than I did as it was the definition of chaos to find a place to live, pack, and move in about 3 weeks from the paperwork getting on file with administration.  I have to give a lot of credit to the staff in the Dean of Libraries office, and to Bekins/Thornton Moving & Storage for moving both my furniture and my car way faster than the originally estimated.  I received everything within 5 days of pickup instead of the 7-15 days I was told to expect.  I have to give credit to the university for contracting with such a great moving company (but if you try them and have a problem please don’t blame me

So now I’ve been here just over a month and this is my first post, why is that?  Well there are really two reasons. 1) Unpacking an entire 2 person household mainly by yourself takes forever and the boxes stare at you mockingly, thankfully my husband arrived a couple weeks ago and things are shaping up well, we even bought furniture this weekend at the famous Nebraska Furniture Mart (Yay, I’ll have something to sit on other than a folding chair at home!).  2) The University of Nebraska Lincoln, and its library resources, are huge!  Even though I’ve had multiple orientation activities a week (plus 8 thirty minute subject specific one-shots) I expect I won’t complete all of them until November or December which sounds and occasionally feels a bit overwhelming, but overall it’s really great to work somewhere that people want to teach you how they do things so that you can succeed.  Between work and home I’ve been running around like a whirling dervish but that is mostly out of my system and I can start moving again with more deliberation as I find my place in the faculty of UNL, as a Librarian, and in Nebraska.

So now that you know basically what I’ve been up to how are you?

What is professional?

Here are a few items to contemplate, with color commentary.  These posts examine: how we dress, leadership styles, how we promote ourselves, and professionalism.

Dress for Other Reasons by R. Lee Hadden

While I agree with the commenter who said that it depends on the office culture, I do think that how you present yourself changes how people view you professionally.  I’m highlighting this article not because I agree with all of the assumptions made about appropriate dress, but because it demonstrates how some people view what we wear professionally.  Take any advice on how to present yourself with a grain of salt, and remember that if you want to stand out and be viewed as professional, strive for a put-together look.  When in doubt dress up not down, it’s easy to take off a jacket and roll up your sleeves, but hard to change a t-shirt into a blouse or dress shirt.  Remember you can add a bit of personality to any style with a bit of embellishment, professional does not mean boring.

A Plague On Both Your Hepburns?: Leaders, Change Agents, and Library Archetypes by Leigh Anne Vrabel

Disclaimer: This post was written about the archetypes of Audrey and Katherine Hepburn, not the people, the archetypes, and is a “philosophical ramble, and not a scholarly study”.

In the context of this post, I think many leaders are not pure Audrey or pure Katherine, but a blending of the styles presented in the article.  I myself have always admired both archetypes and strive to meld Audrey’s grace and compassion, with Katherine’s forthrightness (Like Katherine, I don’t like being pigeon holed).  I doubt many reading the above post will fit neatly into one category or the other, but I think it’s helpful to reflect on who we are so that we can determine what, if anything, we’d like to change about how we do act, both as individuals and as librarians.

Don’t let it go to your head by Laurel Tarulli

I have always enjoyed reading Laurel’s blog, she is level headed, interesting, and always worth reading.  This post generated quite a bit of debate in the comments section on the difference between confidence and arrogance. It is important to note that neither I, nor Laurel, disagrees with self-promotion, her post and the discussion it generated can be viewed as being a debate about how you promote yourself.   One of my favorite quotes from Laurel in the comments is:

“At the end of the day, you need to deal with the consequences of your actions. What feels right to you? I am more inclined to gravitate toward strong-willed, confident individuals that still believe that integrity and a dose of humility are stronger characteristics of a professional and a leader than that of self-serving, calculating individuals.”

What is professionalism? by Laurel Tarulli

This is a follow-up to the previous post, Don’t let it go to your head.  This post presents a review of the Professionalism Initiative: The University of Kansas School of Medicine, and provides links to a few other readings on the subject of professionalism.  I encourage anyone interested in the professionalism to read this post.

In the end we all must make our own decisions as to what we consider to be professional, the people we choose to emulate, and how we treat others.  It is easy to feel superior when things have been going our way, to brush others aside, but it is a mistake to do so.  The best leaders I have seen lead by example, they care for the people whom they lead, the work that they do, and they ask about you instead of talking about themselves.  Next time someone asks about you consider giving a brief answer, and then asking about him or her.  It is harder to listen than to talk, but it is something that is worth practicing.

8:15 AM  Log-on to computer.  Check Twitter feed for any relevant library news or job postings, read those.

8:32 AM  Move on the school E-mail, decide RSS feeds can wait till later.  Most of my e-mail was ACRL: Residency Interest Group related, offered to hook up applicant with current resident to help review their material before submission.

8:48 AM Login to Blackboard and catch up on message board posts for 3 classes and Graduate Student community.  Only light posting, not unexpected for the beginning of the week, decide to see if I can’t finish listening to and reading my Social Science Resources Lecture for the week (Drexel Weeks run Monday – Sunday).

9:15 AM  Not quite done with lecture, but will have to save the rest for later, time to go be a volunteer intern at RSABG.

9:45 AM Arrive at RSABG’s research library.  Sign-in and catch-up, it’s my first day back after a 3 week break due to the start of classes coinciding with ALA MidWinter.  Start researching the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a possible grant proposal and open access repository models.

10:30 AM  Get handed a Japanese serial publication for original cataloging, plus 3 other Chinese titles.  Look up Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC and start looking up characters by radicals.  Realize how long it’s been since I’ve studied kanji. Eventually get all the publication data in Japanese input correctly in Connexion.

1:30 PM  Take a lunch break.  Finish Social Sciences Resources Readings and posting for the day.

2:30 PM  Back to cataloging the Japanese serial publication.  Now that I have the correct characters it’s time to start putting the information in the correct fields.  As I start inputing the item description I realize that the book contains articles which are given in both Japanese and English,  with some Latin descriptions, look up Latin language code, it’s LAT.  Start checking fields for all necessary foreign language additions, measure size of book.

4:00 PM  Decide to call it a day since it takes a while to work my way through the CONSER website to check my serials cataloging.  Get gas and groceries on the way home.

5:30 PM  Log-on to computer, check school e-mail and discussion boards while eating dinner.

6:05 PM  Decide to start writing my 3-4 page Learning Context Paper for Information Literacy Instruction Class.  It feels overwhelming, but I’ll just start and follow the directions and then it’ll stop being so intimidating.

6:45  PM  Finished a little over a page of my paper.  Must stop for now, time to go be Assistant Director for the play Self Help.

10:52  PM  Back from rehearsal, time to check the Drexel message boards and then work on that paper again.

11:39 PM  A little over 2 pages are written, with a little light editing.  Fading fast, time to call it a day after a quick look at my RSS Feed, mainly library related.

A recent article in the New York Times featured information about putting a bar code on places.  I think this would be an easy fun way to reach out to the more technologically inclined patrons in your community.  All you have to do is decide what information you want to put in your barcode (a URL,Text(250 char.), Phone Number, or SMS) and enter the information at a site like Kaywa which will then generate your free bar code which can be placed near the entrance to your library.  You can use this to promote events, link people to your events webpage, or make announcements. All it costs is a few minutes of your time, a piece of paper, ink, and some tape.

There was also an interesting article on WIRED: How the iPhone Could Reboot Education by Brian X. Chen.  While I do not think that paper books will go away, I do think it is important to engage students in a way that shows we are paying attention to their interests, and how they learn.  Another interesting article, from Library Journal, covers the new EBSCOhost Mobile, and Summon mobile, smartphone interfaces to their electronic resources.

There is a large focus, and rightly so, on how technology changes interactions with our patrons, but what about how it changes the interactions between librarians?  Without the advances in technology we would not have listserves, Twitter topics (#librarians, #cataloging), or Facebook pages. Check out Library Web Chic’s recent post: Tools for Remote Collaboration and Interaction, and remember that your fellow librarians are an invaluable resource.

I encourage anyone interested in technology to check out Alan Maynard’s 2020Science.org.  Starting today, Monday December 14, 2009 he will have 10 guest bloggers, with differing points of view, answering the question “How should technology innovation contribute to life in the 21st century?”.


Tips & Tutorials:

7 Tips to Make Your Web Site Mobile-friendly by Igor Faletski

10 LOL Cat Laws of Web Services for Smaller and Underfunded Libraries from the Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan

50 Free Open Courseware Classes for Web Designers by Best Web Design Schools

Full Web Building Tutorials by W3Schools.com

How to Build a Social Media Cheat Sheet for Any Topic by Marshall Kirkpatrick

How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website from digital inspiration

Modern CSS Layouts: The Essential Characteristics by Zoe Mickley Gillenwater

Web Accessibility from the American Library Association

W-E-B-S-I-T-E, Find Out What It Means To Me by Brett Bonfield

Five Essential Apps for Your Nonprofit Facebook Page provides guidance on how to market your nonprofit(library) on Facebook more effectively.

Six Things Libraries Should Tweet by Andy

100 Ways to Use Twitter in Your Library by Mobile Libraries

Twitter for Organizations by the Lowrider Librarian.


Leaders of Academic Libraries:

Bookless Libraries? by Steve Kolowich

Libraries of the Future from Inside Higher Ed

View from the Trenches:

Reviving the Academic Library by Johann Neem

The Hyperlinked Library in Times of Change and Challenge by Michael Stephens


Sources of News & Information

ACRL Tech Connect
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/proftools/techconnect/index.cfm

Campus Technology
http://campustechnology.com – Website
http://campustechnology.com/RSS-Feeds/All-Articles.aspx – RSS Feed

David Lee King
http://www.davidleeking.com/ – Website
http://www.davidleeking.com/feed – RSS Feed

Journal of Information Architecture
http://journalofia.org/

The Librarian in Black Sarah Houghton-Jan
http://librarianinblack.net/ – Website
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Librarianinblack – Choose Your RSS Feed Here

Library Web Chic
http://www.librarywebchic.net/

Libraryman
http://www.libraryman.com – Website
http://www.libraryman.com/blog/feed/ – RSS Feed

Library Tech Talk
http://libtechtalk.wordpress.com/ – Website
http://libtechtalk.wordpress.com/feed/ – RSS Feed

LibWorm: Librarianship RSS Search and Current Awareness
http://www.libworm.com

The Loose Canon Librarian
http://loosecannonlibrarian.net/

Tame the Web
http://tametheweb.com/

TechKNOW a quarterly publication by the Technical Services Division of the Ohio Library Council
http://www.library.kent.edu/page/11226

Web Science Trust
http://webscience.org


Need more ideas of how to combine new technology with library service?  Check out:
Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data
Edited by Nicole C. Engard
ISBN 978-1-57387-372-7
http://books.infotoday.com/books/LibraryMashups.shtml

Who do you look to for technological innovation?  What issues do you find interesting?