#Scio12 Pt 1: Family Reunion

#Scio12 aka Science Online 2012 is an annual event held in North Carolina that brings together librarians, scientists (all disciplines), students (k-12, ug, & grad) researchers, publishers, non-profits, communicators, authors, journalists, videographers, tech geeks, podcasts, comedians, and anyone else you can think of that is involved with science.? I was fortunate to grab one of about 450 spots to attend this conference for a second year in a row.? For every person who had to cancel and couldn’t attend another two were added to the waiting list.

I met many more people in the online community than I did at #scio11,? the fact that there is a constant community presence online means that you are never without your science family.? If you’re interested in joining in the current hashtags in use are #scio12 and #scio13 (the tag for next year’s conference).? In many ways we are kinda like the science version of the Island of Misfit Toys, if you read the #IAmScience stories (started by Kevin Zelnio) curated on the I Am Science Tumbler (both on twitter and long form on blogs) you’ll see that over 140+ stories have been shared and very few if any of us fill the science stereotypes.? I suspect in part that people who are drawn to Science Online are the misfits, the risk takers, the innovators, the people who never stopped asking why.? If we were square pegs in square holes we’d never be interested in attending a conference built by a community, ran by a community, and based on discussion instead of presentation.?? If you have a chance to attend next year I highly encourage you to try and grab a spot, but even if you can’t you can join the online family of science communicators that is Science Online.

To give you a taste of how diverse the participants on this conference are in every way please check out this fun and quirky music video put together by the smart, talented, and oh so witty @DrBondar

Notice the large number of people in the video, I know about half of them, what other conference video can you say that about?

People don’t usually understand why a science librarian would go to such a conference, here’s why I attend:

It’s the only conference I attend where I get to meet top people in every discipline I work with.? This is incredibly valuable to me, it gives me friends who I can trade advice with, insight into how researchers and students view specific resources, and increases my knowledge of their subject areas so that I can better serve the faculty and students at my school.

There is a huge science librarian contingent. Being part of the Science Online Science Librarians subfamily is a fantastic experience, these are the peers who do what I do, who solve the same problems, deal with the same challenges and many of them are not only subject specialists but also library directors and managers.? We always try and have a group lunch one of the days so that everyone knows what each other look like and then we seek each other out as time permits.? We dish the dirt on our pet projects, we ask for advice, we encourage, and we plot world domination through information dissemination :-)

There is a huge Open Access Open Data contingent, I get to find out what just came out, and what’s in the works from the people who are working on these great projects.? I learn so much in just a few days about which projects are hot, what people think is really great that I’ve never heard of.? There’s so much great stuff out there that you can’t find it all on your own.

Networking.? Everyone who attends is amazing and with this group you never know when a request will come for career advise, peer-review, a speaking engagement, an invited paper or article, or for collaboration.? You may even get to help advise or become part of a new science non-profit or educational group.? But beyond the career benefits it’s simply wonderful to make friends with a group just as obsessed about science and diverse in their interests as you are.

I’ll write more another day on some of the things I learned at Science Online, but for today I’ll leave you with a question.? Who are your communities?? Where do you go for unconditional professional support, guidance, and friendship?

I’m very fortunate to have additional support communities through ALA, ACRL, and ARL.? That might seem like overkill but if we were honest we’d admit, people are rarely truly successful without support.

The Incidental #Scimom

Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family
Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family

As far back as I can remember I’ve always managed to take alternate routes in life. From friendships and education, to career path, I’ve always marched to my own invisible (and possibly neurotic) drummer. My path to being a #Scimom is typical of my life, but different from most.

Whatever the reason I’ve never felt the urge to procreate. My oldest friend reminded me recently of a conversation we had about 20 years ago when we were about 12 where I expressed my disinterest in being a birth parent but was willing to adopt if needed to ensure my friends and relatives children always had a home. I have always been passionate about education and mentoring, and had a reputation for “being good with kids”.

In spite of this lifelong lack of desire to procreate I have found myself in the position of being a #Scimom through marriage. Fortunately, I enjoy a very positive relationship with my step-children. Perhaps it is because we’re closer in age than is usual, I’m more like the young hip aunt than a step-mom. Basically I skipped to the fun part, no diapers, no teen age rebellion, I came on the scene just in time for my step-kids to be in or starting college. Both of them have successfully graduated from college and been on their own for several years. The biggest challenge for me is to maintain my slightly older and wiser rep with the kids, and not foist my views of what they should do on them. I think it’s a little easier for me than for their parents, because while I love them dearly I did not spend years protecting them from life, dreaming about what they might do. What I see is their potential, all the different and varied careers that I imagine them succeeding in using the skills they are passionate about, and I know that even though I can think of several careers that I think both of them could be successful in there are probably a dozen more that I haven’t thought of that they’d probably love even more.

The major family issue we deal with is that I am the faculty member who drags their “trailing spouse” around with them. The whole family has been very supportive about my career, but I know it’s hard on everyone that we moved from California to Nebraska. Thankfully the kids have been really supportive of my career change; being a science librarian is very different from being the quality control manager at an environmental testing laboratory! And even though they’re starting to spread out geographically themselves, I know they miss having us in the same general location as their mom and step-father. So how do we (my husband and I) try and mitigate our absence? It’s less than one year since our move and my husband has gone back to visit family twice. We have also made a deliberate effort to be extra early with birthday and Christmas cheer so that even though we’re only able to call on the phone instead of meeting up for dinner, at least the presents are there early/on time. Thanks to the internet and smartphones we are able to keep in touch through Facebook, text messages, and the odd phone call, but it’s really not the same as visiting in person. Hopefully once things settle down we’ll be able to bring them out to see us periodically or set up a more regular visitation schedule.

Am I good #Scimom? I don’t know. But location aside, I put my family first because they really are the most important thing.

P.S. I list our names as Jeff and Kiyomi in that order because that way our names are in alphabetical order, can we say compulsive? There’s a reason I was drawn to physical chemistry and cataloging ;-)