Barreling Toward the End of My First CSUCI Spring Semester

In order of importance, the things going on as the semester careens to a close:

On the library front:

• Finals are coming, finals are coming! Students are feeling the pressure, which means we at the library do, too. ALL OF THE PRINTING.  On an admittedly less-than-superior printing setup. And the last papers of the semester, so we're seeing some hail-Marys at the reference desk;


• This will be my first finals where I take lead on the end of semester feedback. We set up "graffiti" boards with giant post-it's on whiteboards asking what we're doing right, and what we can improve, and collect all that information. We also have a student survey, and a faculty survey. My colleagues all tabulate and organize the data, and we'll see what we can do to improve for next finals season;


• The 24-hour library. The week before and the week of finals, we stretch the library and its staff to 24 hours for our students. Thank goodness for the folks who work the overnight! I'm picking up some 6am shifts, but those are easier for me than the late evening or midnight shifts, now that I've apparently become an elder;


• The Party of the Year is later this month: The Faculty Accomplishments Party. Cited by faculty as THE party of the year, and something that spurs them to get some research published or presented by the deadline, this bash is where the library celebrates our faculty here at Channel Islands. There are awards, faculty who have published or presented something in the past year get a spiffy poster of their work, and there is general merriment. And wine and beer. And laughter. This will be my first, and I'm excited, since when I was here for the interview, nearly everyone cited it as The Most Important Thing to Know About Being A Faculty Member Here.

On the personal/life front:

• Lots of doctor appointments, since I've been feeling crappy. Turns out I'm gluten intolerant, and nightshade intolerant, and all-sorts-of-foodstuff-intolerant, so I'm going on the autoimmune protocol diet. A royal PITA in terms of food lists and preparation, but apparently it's what I need, so. Hrmp. Think super-restricted Paleo-style. No grains/gluten (but corn! But rice!), legumes, dairy, eggs. nuts, seeds, sweeteners, nightshades (white potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc.), modern vegetable oils, refined sugars,  and processed food chemicals. Since part of my reaction is histamine-related (a bad reaction and all of my tattoos actually raise up on my skin!), that also means no lemon, lime, kiwi, mango, processed meat (ONOES BACON), bananas, and strawberries, among other things. SAD. PANDA;


• Fabulous Husband and I have gotten into the habit of walking the dogs to the dog park. There's nothing quite so silly as a duo of basset hounds running a few laps, and then collapsing for the rest of the hour. Except maybe the sight of Fabulous Husband and I running, trying to encourage them to get up and chase us;


• Fabulous Husband and I are signed up to do a 5k at the end of the month, right before our 2-ear wedding anniversary. Which I have not at all begun training for (the 5k, not the anniversary), and is the result of a New Year's Resolution when I was feeling feisty. Oh, New Year Colleen. You were so optimistic. *pats self on head*

On the research front:

• The magical and hard-working copy-editors at The Journal of Academic Librarianship have done their work, fixed my gaffes, and that article should be coming online shortly;


• Today was the deadline for book chapter proposals from library directors discussion leadership skill lessons learned. 36 excellent proposals received (woohoo!), and now (well, likely next weekend) I have to go through them and do some selecting, and respond to the authors by May 1;


• I'm finishing up editing the chapters for another book on contemporary women poets and mythology. These authors have been extremely patient with me as timelines were extended due to my health, the move, the new job, my health, etc. I'm looking forward to having these out of my hands, and this project out into the world;


• I have a few articles in the works. One more coming out of the dissertation on leadership development at different levels of the organization (probably to submit to College & Research Libraries), one on using ritual theory to explore chronic illness (proposal accepted by New Directions in the Humanities), and one on intersections of myth, technology, and information literacy;


• I'll be presenting in mid-June at CaVraCon (California Visual Resources Association conference) on using digital images in information literacy instruction;


• I'm waiting to hear back about my proposals to present at the internet Librarian conference in October. I think those announcements usually go out in late June or early July;


• I have a full-length poetry manuscript out and under review at a few different small presses;


• I have 3 manuscripts in-progress and one data-collection project that I won't fool with until summer;


• Oh, yeah, still working on that Ph.D. in Mythological Studies. Which reminds me to pack my reading for the first spring session.

And in teaching:

• My last information literacy sessions are next week, early Monday morning and late Tuesday evening;


• Which means it's time to look back at the stats and see how we're doing, and who we're touching;


• And I'm in super informal discussions with the chair of the Freedom & Justice Studies minor about the possibility of my teaching FJS 340 in the Fall semester. Titled Explorations of Freedom and Justice, it's an opportunity to pick a wicked problem and look at it across time, cultures, and disciplines. I'd like to look at information access as the wicked problem, and am having a grand old time culling building a bibliography, structuring a syllabus, and thinking about how I can develop engaging assignments.

[caption id="attachment_376" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Possible sources for FJS 340 readings (minus the 50+ journal articles under consideration). Do you have recommendations?[/caption]