Guardienne of the Tomes

Remember that post where I mentioned that I wanted to move back to instruction work ? Well, it looks like I will have that opportunity. As of July 1, 2014, I'll be an instruction and reference librarian on the tenure track with the team at the CSU Channel Islands Broome Library. Let there be confetti and chair-dancing! More exciting news: due to the ongoing UTC Library re-org, I will be joining the Instruction and Reference department here, and will be able to contribute in that capacity at UTC until the move in late June. I've desperately missed the classroom and reference work, so I'm thrilled to move into a more hands-on-instruction role. Some brief notes about the experience at CI, which was vastly different than the other interviews (which followed standard academic scheduling): CSU:CI had a very unique interview process. They bring every candidate for a faculty position to campus on one of two weekends, which means you get to mill about and talk to candidat...

What excites you about librarianship? Most of the readers of this blog are fellow librarians. Most of the librarians I know do the job for the love of it. In conversations I've had in hallways, at conferences, near firepits, by instant message and phone calls I've learned that we love libraries, the idea of libraries, the ideal of information access and transparency to help people make better decisions, to create a more informed citizenry. We love service, knowing that our work contributes to improved lives, improved decision-making, to degree completions and lifelong learning. We love curating information to make sure future users will be able to find and use it, we love advocating for resources that serve our communities. We love that each day is different, that our work tracks hand in hand with technology changes and the march into the future. We love our users, and their oddities, curiosities, we love being able to reduce their stress levels, educate them so they can be ...

While I have been doing water aerobics per doctor's orders for the rheumatoid arthritis/spondylitis issue, I've been wanting to pick up swimming as a sport. Moving in the water is much easier than the impact on my joints of working out in open air. The pool is also a place where (despite having to be in a swimsuit) I'm far more comfortable than the weightlifting or aerobic/floor exercise areas, where I feel like a ridiculous impostor and completely out of my depth. I grew up on Long Island, and spent most of my childhood underwater in the Atlantic or in our huge pool at home. Water I can do. Water I know. I may be chunkier than some others in a Speedo, but all I need for this sport is to show up. I don't need to be buff to even begin thinking about participating. I also like that it's an individual thing; I can compete with myself but not feel like a loser for not being as good as, say, Meaghen Harris , my sister and accomplished triathlete. (See her blog for real...

Fall semester is here! We started off with a bang, and the Library was packed on Monday and Tuesday. Things have slowed down enough to allow us to breathe between to-dos (or pee; Monday and Tuesday that wasn't a guarantee at all), so I thought I'd pop in with an update. We've hired the entirety of our Work Study student allocation; I believe the final tally is 28 new student members of the Library team (and that's only the Work Study folks!). The Library is in the throes of training them up and putting them to work on our service desks, in our stacks, on our scanners, and everywhere else we have work to do. In Access Services, we've been running down two positions for a few months, I'm thrilled to report that we've hired an Evening Circulation Specialist, Mr. Elliott, and that our interviews for the Day Circ Supervisor position will be completed this week. *does the happy dance to appease the gods of staffing* In the past two months we've also acquir...

While I'm sure this isn't a topic Andy meant when he wrote his recent blog post about wanting to see more librarian writing on issues of import , reading his blog did kick me in the pants a bit, because I've been sitting on a handful of drafts that I couldn't bring myself to hit "Publish" on. I hesitate for various reasons - some of the posts are too close to home, and it's hard to tell what's appropriate to discuss and what's not. For some, I need some time to let things settle so I don't publish something in the heat of the moment. Other times, folks like Iris Jastram have simply done the topic justice and there's no need for me to serve my readers leftovers. Sometimes I hesitate because I wonder if it's something that's more personal than librarianship-oriented, or because I know it throws a wrench into any future job hunts. This is one of those, and it goes into being a professional with a chronic illness. I've spent...

I did it again. I forgot. I forgot I was less-than. Texas Republicans reminded me. I don't consider myself disadvantaged. I'm white, which insulates me from all manner of discrimination and prejudice. My parents didn't divorce until I was in my early 20s, giving me and my siblings a stable home, where we were queried on the status of our homework nightly, fed three squares a day, and generally grew up healthy. We weren't rich (though many think that those of us who lived on Long Island must be Hamptons kids - not so) - Dad often had to travel out of state for work, leaving Mom to deal with three relatively well-behaved but still energetic kidlets. Though my parents never went to college, my siblings and I all hold graduate degrees and, considering the state of the economy, are doing well for ourselves. My brother is an accountant, my sister is a sponsored and internationally-competitive triathlete, I'm a faculty librarian. I have been lucky in many, many ways. My...

Frustrated with some data and fed up with my own inability to locate an appropriate statistical technique, I finally posted to Facebook in the hopes that a friend would commiserate with me: "Bending my brain around ILL stats and thinking about exploratory factor analysis with categorical variables, despite the issues with it. Desperately missing [my old group of Emory PoliSci nerdbuddies and profs who were excellent at stats] and brainstorming these sorts of things." Five seconds later, the prof I had tagged in the post replied, "Three words: polychoric correlation matrix." And I had four distinct reactions in rapid succession. They were as follows: First reaction : sarcasm. Well OF COURSE polychoric correlation matrix, duh. Who WOULDN'T know that? Certainly not I. Pshaw. Second reaction : confirmatory exploration. A quick Google search of that conglomeration of words, a quick scan of the Wikipedia description , and yep, this is much closer to what I ne...