Guardienne of the Tomes

Hey all, a quick morning update while I laze about until my 10:30am program. (I have taken copious notes on paper, because I'm not awesome enough to pay for the interwebs everywhere I go, and will post those when I get home and organize some more brilliantly constructed posts.) Friday - Friday I attended the Business Reference 101 preconference put on by RUSA's BRASS, and it was great. I met some fun people (shout-out to Patrick from UNLV) and received some really fantastic bibliographies. As the liaison to our econ department, a lot of the material was also useful for me in that vein. It was very very basic, though, so if you're a starting-out business librarian, you probably already know everything that's covered. Would have been good for supernew fresh out of MLS librarians. Final thoughts: Not recommended (it was an expensive preconference), but could be useful if you're brand spanking new. Friday night - I attended the LITA Happy Hour at the Menage Hotel (whi...

Plane got in over an hour late, so it was 10:34pm (Pacific) before I even got onto my shuttle. *yawn* The poor guy next to me on the plane was concerned about my fidgetyness - so was I, since sitting on planes all day had me feeling like I was going to birth a full grown alien from my lower back. Hotel is fine, but my roomie's flight was cancelled, so she won't be in until tomorrow. I was pleasantly surprised to find a fridge in the room (because I drink about 6 bottles of water a day, and imagine this won't change much in the Anaheim heat). I just traipsed over to the gas station and paid $12.43 for a 24-pack of Dasani bottled water. (And that only because the Aquafina 24-pack was going to set me back - I shit you not - $30). Good lord. Guess who has two thumbs and will be taking advantage of the free breakfast at the hotel daily? You can't see it, but I'm pointing to myself. Vehemently. On the bright side, I'm here, my luggage was not lost, and as the first r...

Squee! (That is my 'excited' sound for the internet world.) I just got a confirmation email that another proposal got picked up for Internet Librarian 2008. My Twitterpal Rudy and I have been confirmed on the Learning Track about reaching underskilled users (which jives nicely with the book chapter I just put together on the continued presence of the digital divide). The details, for those who are planning on Internet Librarian-ing in Monterey: Tuesday, October 21 11:30 – 12:15 RoomC202 2.0 Learning & 1.8 Users: Bridging the Gap Rudy Leon, Instruction & Collection Development Librarian, SUNY Potsdam Colleen Harris, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga For many instruction librarians, the challenge of Library 2.0 isn’t the technology, it's the users. Despite the extreme 2.0 savvy attributed to the Millennials in the buzz that dominated early 2.0 reports, the media is finally catching up to what many instruction librarians have ...

Remember Madonna Constantine, the Columbia professor who committed egregious plagiarism who then accused others of plagiarizing her? (You can read my original disgust with her and her manufactured situation here. ) Well, it looks like Columbia finally cowboyed up and decided they should terminate her butt, effective December 2008, according to The Columbia Spectator. About danged time. It's nice to see academia finally getting around to purging one of the undesirables. And by "undesirable" I mean a plagiarizing liar who sullied the name of her profession, her department, and her university before someone finally made the decision to boot her. Constantine of course has the last resort of filing an appeal, and she'll likely sue for defamation of character or whatever, since that seems to be the thing to do once people publicly announce that you are, indeed, of poor character. Still, nice to see that this one didn't stay under the rug for the rest of time.

I know you were waiting with bated breath for my schedule. (I know I have been; this is the first time I've gotten to sit down with the schedule and plan for the conference.) Anyway, here is where I will be: Thursday June 26 Arrive Santa Ana airport 9:05pm, head to Comfort Inn Maingate. Friday June 27 8:30am - 5:30pm: RUSA/BRASS Business Reference 101. Location: Hyatt Regency Orange County, Royal A/B. 5:30pm - 8:00pm: LITA Happy Hour. Location: Mist Pool Bar at Hotel Menage (1221 S Harbor Blvd). Note: This is a maybe. I am not a LITA member, but a whole lot of very cool peeps are likely to be there that I would like to meet irl. Saturday June 28 8:00 - 9:00am: RSS Open House. Location: Sheraton Park Hotel. 9:00 - 10:30am: RSS User Education & Info Lit Committee Meeting. Location: Sheraton Park Hotel, Palm ballroom. 11:am - 1:00pm: Free for lunching - will likely check out exhibits 1:30 - 3:30pm: Learning Virtually panel session. Location: Hilton Anaheim Pacific Ballroom D. 4:0...

What would you do with 162 billion dollars? I know, I'd spend it on more war in Iraq and Afghanistan . Oh, wait, no... Seriously. Our government throwing money numbers like that around makes me a wee bit sick to my stomach. $162 billion. That's Scrooge McDuck-style money, the sort you can put in a pile and swim in. That is more than a number of countries' Gross Domestic Product for 2007 . Headlines like this are slowly turning me into a liberal (which should please my libraryworld colleagues, who consider me a wee bit of a fascist for my conservative notions). Consider this: every single university that I have read about or spoken to colleagues and Twitter acquaintances about is about to be on an austerity budget, losing money from their legislatures so the government can attempt to keep itself afloat. We are slicing the jobs of education workers and throwing a bajagazillion (which $162B might as well be) at our incompetent mushmouth of a President. *sigh* If this money ...

In airline news, other than the massive dropping of numerous flights and raising prices ridonkulously, Delta is merging with Northwest . I have to admit that my first (admittedly ungenerous) reaction was, "when you add crap to poop, you still don't get ice cream." Delta has been the bane of my existence as an airline traveler. I've lived in Long Island, NY, as well as Atlanta, Lexington (KY), and currently Chattanooga, among other places. My family remains in NY, so I fly to see them quite often, and then there's the various professional conference-type things. Not once have I flown Delta that they haven't lost my luggage. Not a single time. (I credit them for my penchant to fly with copious amounts of underwear in my carry-on.) Not only have they lost my luggage, but the service desk is always quite snotty about it (which horrifies me as someone committed to good customer experience). I had the temerity to ask, given that they had barcode-stickered my lugga...

A friend of mine just reported that at my former place of work (MFPOW), President Lee Todd of the University of Kentucky just received a bonus to the tune of over $145,000 due to his highest score ever on his annual evaluation. Todd, in his generosity, will be returning $50,000 back to the university to support various programs. (To Todd's credit, he does give back a portion of his bonus each year.) This leaves him with the measly bonus of $90,000. Which, to put it in perspective, is more than I (and many other professors, not to mention staff) make in two years. This is the same University of Kentucky that is offering its employees - who generally make less than half of the president's BONUS - no raise, and is slicing 188 positions . This is a University in a state that is just as hard hit as the rest of the country and has sliced its education budget to the bone, because, hey, states like Tennessee and Kentucky can afford to snip at education, right? I find it reprehensible...

That's right, hotmenz. I do not cavort with folks who do CliffsNotes. Ever. I may be single, but I do have *some* standards.

This post is going to sound a little bit harsh, and I apologize in advance. I promise I'm not trying to offend anyone. If you believe in evolution (I happen to, and think it can coexist with a belief in whatever Higher Being you wish), aren't you disturbed by the way humans are going? We're letting folks with serious genetically passed on diseases live longer (consuming resources) and procreate (propagating said diseases). What does this have to do with academia or academic librarianship, you say? I'm glad you brought that up. I've mentioned in another post that telling students in K-12 that they are each a very special little snowflake who deserves the best and should never get disappointed is a crock of poo. What I'd also like to mention is that tagging kids via GPS to reduce truancy rates may be missing the point a little bit. The point being that some little monsters should not be in school. (As someone who taught at a high school for half a year, and atten...

Awright, folks. I am back from a week and a half in Louisville for the 'res' part of my low-res MFA program. Funnily (or horribly) enough, I actually missed MPOW. It's a busy summer, with the projects we've got going on (which include developing podcasts, building a plan for our instruction program to break into upper level courses, collection development, etc.), Annual coming up in a few weeks, and the book chapters I need to get written. Factor in all of my June weekends out of town (I just returned from a trip to Lexington to see my best pal), and, well, let's just say I'm really looking forward to July. Random news from the Guardienne's world: June 3rd was my birthday, and I felt absolutely loved between my Twitterpals' wellwishes and all of the people writing on my Facebook wall. An Internet Librarian 2008 proposal put together by Cindi and involving myriad Twitterpals has actually been picked up as a preconference for Monterey in October, so we...

Let me preface this post by saying that I *love* to see children in libraries. It gives me hope that not all of the new generation will grow up to be illiterate idiots. Teaching children to learn to love libraries while young is something that lasts their entire lives. I encourage everyone to bring their children to a library regularly and grow their love of learning and adventure. On the flip side, while we generally welcome children, we don't always welcome the absentee parenting that comes along with them. We are librarians, not social workers or daycare employees. We are not qualified to tend your children, other than to sit them down and provide storytime, craft-time, or some fun and games. While we welcome children of all ages, we do *not* welcome their behavioral problems, and for parents to expect the library to shut up and deal with whatever comes through the door - um, I think not. that's what I have security for. "I'm tired of hearing from librarians who don...

My first participation in a meme! In librarianchat via the LSW wiki, a few folks decided that, in the interests of helping new graduates (and to amuse ourselves), we'd dust off some old cover letters and post them, with advice. The wonderful Rikhei (who shares my last name, even, and thus is doubly cool) started the meme here . I decided to post the cover letter that got me my current, most-excellent job. At 3 pages, I realize that this cover letter is far longer than what is usually prescribed. I received cover letter advice from one Professor Lisa O'Connor that recommended the strategy of bullet-pointing each requirement from the job ad and addressing it directly, so that's exactly what I did. I got over seven interviews for academic reference/instruction positions, and more than one offer, so while this length likely isn't the norm, it worked for me. Cover Letter I am interested in the position of Reference and Instruction Librarian at the University of Awesomeness...

Let's chat, folks. I know there are tons of things in LibraryLand we could discuss, but for a moment, let's talk about e-mail lists. I know quite a few people (like Griffey ) who think that email lists are the (outdated) devil. I happen to like receiving things in email because I haven't yet figured how to acceptably integrate feedreaders into my life, and I prefer conversations via e-mail than via the comment section of blogs, whcih I never remember to go back and check after I've left some inflammatory comment. Anyway, we can discuss fuddy-duddies like myself and our love of the e-mail later. We need to chat about lists, though. If you've been on the NEWLIB list lately, you likely know why. Lists are good things, if only to keep yourself updated on conversations/arguments/discussion/resource lists that generally make the rounds when people query via email. Lists are very often archived somewhere for future reference, which is super-useful is you know that someo...

Okay, so my professional bio is a lot more sparse than my creative writing bio. I'm supposed to send one in to book chapter people, and after reading everyone else's (which is all 'director of this' and 'president of that' and 'been presenting on this topic around the globe for 15 years', I'm feeling kind of bummed. I can't list my publications & presentations yet because everything's still in the works. *sigh* I feel like sort of a loser. I was going to say I could never use teh follwing bio, but all of my TwitPeeps liked it: "Colleen is a chunky library sort who stays at home and writes with her bossy dog on her feet when she's not teaching ungrateful ghetto kids how not to plagiarize their shit or use Wikipedia & Google as scholarly sources. When in doubt of her prowess, she distracts onlookers with her fierce bosoms." Thanks to tinfoilraccoon for reminding me about my fierce bosoms! And to everyone else for admirin...

Writing this book chapter on the digital divide made me consider my university’s current push for offering increased online learning opportunities. Because we serve students who generally come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, I’m wondering if administration isn’t going about this the wrong way. Is it really about offering more online classes and more online-only degrees and gen-eds? Or would it be more useful to decrease the digital divide that exists within our student body, between the higher-income kids who grew up with computers and gadgetry and those who may have had to make-do with less access? Many of our students still don’t own computers and make constant use of those available in our student labs and library. Many of our students – at least, the ones I see in our library – are not terribly comfortable navigating technologies used in learning environments, including BlackBoard and the library databases they are expected to use to conduct their research. These are the stu...

I am always better about getting things done when I write them down. And when I have some sort of accountability factor. Since I hate looking stupid, writing these here for public consumption will force me to get all my shit done. I am also attaching aspirational deadlines in cases where hard deadlines do not exist. Book Chapter abstract: deadline 4/30. (That's not aspirational, that's fact, per editor) Proposal for LI Cookbook: May 15. (Also not aspirational.) ALA poster, "Academic Library 2.0: Self-Paced Guided Training for Faculty and Staff," for Annual: deadline 6/16. Book Chapter: deadline 6/26. (Actual deadline is 6/30 per editor, but am leaving for ALA on the 26th.) Scholarly Article 1 (full 1st draft): deadline 7/18. Scholarly Article 2 (full 1st draft): deadline 8/1. Scholarly Article 1 (final manuscript): deadline 8/22. Scholarly Article 2 (final manuscript): deadline 9/5. Of course, this doesn't take into account various library projects like develop...

Coming from a private liberal arts background, I do have to admit that I didn't immediately understand why universities would offer for-credit classes in information literacy. Isn't all that information essentially interwoven through the courses students take? I mean, it's essential for any discipline. Let's back up. I went to a very small, private, expensive (I will have student loans to bequeath my grandchildren) liberal arts college. You know the sort - kids who drive cars daddy bought practically (if not actually) new, who clerk at daddy's law firm during the summers, and who don't drink beer because frankly, that sort of thing is for state school fraternity boys - Crown and Jack welcome, all others will be booted at the door. On the other hand, it was an extraordinarily rigorous academic atmosphere: if you missed three classes, you automatically failed. Fifteen page papers were the norm. There was no such thing as multiple choice, and we regularly hobnobbed...

I know how to write an academic article. I train people how to do their research, and how to structure their papers. I'm a peer reviewer for a number of journals, and I read such articles on a regular basis. Given all of this, why is it so gosh-danged hard to compose myself and get myself together to write one myself? I have a good seed of an idea. I've printed all my research and have ILL-ed the books we, of course, don't own. The problem is that I cannot seem to pull my brain together in similar fashion. I can't decide where to start. I can't stop the hamster on its wheel in my brain for long enough to sit with the articles and just READ. My trouble is that I have developed work-induced ADD. I have grown accustomed to putting out fires and working in fifteen minute blocks of time (generally interrupted by meetings, emergencies, backing up at the refdesk, teaching, and random folks wandering into my office). This is the nature of the beast. I recognize that, and I ...