Guardienne of the Tomes

Having spent the last few months on my very first academic librarian search committee at NCSU, I've found it has been an invaluable experience seeing the application and decision-making process from the inside. Some of my previous ideas were confirmed. Some things I hadn't thought about overmuch came up. All in all, it has been a great experience (and one that's not over yet!). Some things I'd like to share with those on the job hunt, or considering it, from my perspective as a committee member. Of course, my opinions are mine alone, and don't represent those of my employer, my friends, colleagues, coworkers, staff, management, or anyone else on the planet. I hope someone finds these items helpful: 1.We do not believe you have attention to detail when you have spelling and grammatical errors. Nope. This one's too easy, and there is ZERO excuse for it, especially when you can share your app letters with friends via Google Docs and ask for editing advice. It may b...

*Sigh*. Iris Jastram always has the very best blog posts. Well thought out, organized. (In complete opposition to my random grab bag of items.) Her latest is something everyone involved in social media - as consumer or voyeur - should take a look at. Her Best Bad Marketing Ever post is something to behold. Social media is not like Hollywood, where infamy is just as good as fame, so long as it gets you facetime on camera. If you are a business intending to provide a service - especially in the case of the company mentioned here (I will not be linking to them nor mentioning their name - you can hit Iris's post above or go to the source and read where it all started in Nikki Detmar's Starry Ethics Fail ), the only thing you have to build on initially is trust. Social media is a tool to build that trust and create rapport with those folks who might spread your message and advertise your service. Because I'm known for stating what should be commonsense, and I do hate to disappo...

I've been thinking quite a bit about the "attitude problem" toward management that Jenica Rogers-Urbanek addressed in her July 2 post . (Ahem. Side note. If you are a librarian and/or in library management, you should add her to your feed.) Anyway, having joined the troop of those in "management" just six months ago, Jenica's post prompted some self-examination. I'll readily admit that while I appreciate those in library management, I never actually expected to *be* one. I had planned to putter blissfully through a reference and instruction professorship into tenure. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and still miss that work. Being the AssHead of Access & Delivery at an ARL is very, very different. The parts of librarianship I prided myself on being very good at (teaching and reference) don't apply as much to the work I do now, which is mostly fielding organizational change, facilitating/adjusting/quality-controlling the work of my staff, planning servi...

Things have been downright crazy. May was annual evaluation time at work. Evals weren't actually due until the beginning of June, but I was out of town for my MFA residency from May 21 through May 31. (Another thing to get used to at this level of management: managing the bajillion emails that accrue when you're out of town and otherwise occupied!). My book has gone to print in the capable hands of Robert Ward at Bellowing Ark, and I couldn't be happier. (Those of you who pre-ordered weeks ago should find your copies arriving shortly.) The past few weeks I've been struck with an odd malaise where I am utterly weary, and it's all I can do to drag myself out of bed and be as energetic as I need to be at work. I blame a confluence of factors, like the heat and humidity of summer (you'd think I haven't been living in the South for the past 10 years the way I react to this every year), utter lack of sunlight in my life *despite* it being summer, the post-residen...

Exciting news! (Not really library-related, but it involves an ISBN. Close enough for government work.) God in my Throat , my first book of poems, is available from Bellowing Ark Press . The short story is that it's a collection of persona poems from the perspective of Lilith, purported in some legends to be Adam's wife before Eve came along. I've slapped together a quickie website in my sloppy html with some basic info about the book, its artwork, and locales where I'll be reading. A giant thank you to my library peeps (and to invisible internet people in geeral) for the generous and enthusiastic reception my announcements on Facebook, Twitter, and Friendfeed have received. My first ISBN is 978-0-944920-68-8. The book is available through the publisher's website , as a small press, the book will not be available on Amazon. (Support your small presses, folks! Well, as best we can, anyway, given the budget crises we're all facing.) Anyway, I'm happy to share...

There’s been a great deal of talk about the recently posted Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians . Kathryn Greenhill, Cindi Trainor, and John Blyberg got together and waxed a little poetic about the fundamentals of libraries and librarianship. I’m not talking earth, fire, water fundamentals…more like atoms and electrons. The absolute fundamentals. The primordial ooze and Platonic Form of Library, if you will. I’ve done a good deal of mulling the Statements over. I’ve been wondering about this lately, about how I connect to the larger idea of Library in general and to Academic Library specifically. It was much easier when I was a reference and instruction librarian – I could easily draw the lines that connected me to student and faculty learning, improved scholarship, publication for faculty and graduation for students. I could connect myself and my work easily to the Idea of Library as Bastion of Information Record of Humanity. I was in the very mix of library use and educat...

My plan was to discuss both the Taiga 4 and Darien statements, and then to offer my own statements on libraries, but that turned into a monster of a post, so I’m breaking it up. Today, my take on Taiga, that harbor of AUL and ADs, the invite-only crowd that purports to decree the future of libraries five years hence, and puts its statements out in, you guessed it (or clicked on it), pdf format. How very futuristic. The Taiga 4 Provocative Statements are just that. Provocative statements. Note that they didn’t say *what* they were looking to provoke. I mean, hell, Jerry Springer is provocative, but that doesn’t mean I think about it in the shower, or during my workday. A few items: Item 2: “… collection development as we now know it will cease to exist as selection of patron materials will be entirely patron-initiated.” I find this fascinating, especially fiven that these are ginormous ole ARL folks. Really? You’d entrust building your academic collection to the handful of faculty who...

I know, you're looking for a much more management-oriented post than this one, but you'll have to wait til I get some breathing room. This is a quick note/hint/nudge/whatever to let you know that yes indeedy, font is important. You hopefully already know that wingdings is not what you use when you send out a cover letter, resume, or other important document. (Unless you use it *really* cleverly, but it's safer not to try.) More librarians should know that while the Comic Sans font is fine when you send out your family holiday newsletter, most professionals consider it inappropriate for resumes, cover letters, reports to directors or other bigwigs, and anything else that is work-related and not intended to be a joke. Really. I cannot count the number of discussions I've had with other librarians who are bemusedly horrified when any document that purports to take itself seriously arrives on their desk in Comic Sans. I could go into how the textual representation of yourse...

A guy I'm proud to call a friend has made a difficult decision. Greg Schwartz has announced That Uncontrolled Vocabulary will be on indefinite hiatus as he re-prioritizes things in his life to maximize his happiness. I've had the good fortune to participate in UV as a caller, and a blog post has shown up on the agenda, and it is a wonderful show where enthusiastic and engaged libraryfolk gather late on Wednesday nights (or listen to the cast later), and it's been a raucous good time, and has made me think about some issues from new perspectives, or reminded me of issues coming up that are outside my sphere of expertise in the library world. I will miss the show, but happily have the contact info for many of the participants so I can bug them *grin* While I'm sad to see the show go (and hope someone has the chutzpah to try to pick it up), I admire Greg greatly for prioritizing life items and ordering them accordingly. Lesser - or perhaps weaker - professionals don't...

Fun news! The book in which my chapter appears is available for order. Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and Educators is out from Neal-Schuman. My piece is Chapter 1: "The Haves and the Have-Nots: Class, Race, Gender, Access to Computers and Academic Success." Thank you very much to Theresa Liedtka, Dean of the Library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and the committee who offered me the days of research leave I needed to write the chapter. This is my very first ISBN (Vibiana Bowman Cvetkovic and Robert Lackie are the editors on the jacket, but I'm claiming the ISBN as mine too *grin*), and I am thrilled!

More from me soon (I have a couple of posts percolating but not the time to flesh them out yet). I did want to pop in and announce that I was just offered admission to NCSu's Graduate School in the MS in Technical Communication . In my application, I expressed my interest in specializing in Organizational Information Systems, since that seems most closely related to the actual work I do now that I'm back in Access - communication back and forth through the organization between IT about the catalog, technical services about processing workflows that hit us in Circ, and communicating with staff about not just our own workflows but about technical aspects of other things going on in the library that impact service. I'll be starting the program in Fall 2009 if I accept, which means it'll overlap my MFA by a few months, since I graduate with that in November. I'm still waiting to hear back from the EdD in Higher Education Administration (also at NCSU) - if I don't ge...

Today's issue: tears in the workplace. On this, folks either wholeheartedly agree with me, or think I'm an awful ogre. My stance is this: There is no crying in baseball. Or librarianship. Or in any other career you want to be taken seriously at. Don't do it at work. Really. (Note: I am not talking about the rare bout of tears that occurs when exhaustion overtakes you because you've been dealing with long illness, when you receive news of a death, that sort of thing. We're human. I understand that. What I'm looking to address here is the issue of tears that occur during professional conversations at work that are not related to: your surprise hysterectomy, your cancer diagnosis, your wife leaving you for the mailman that morning, etc.) It's quite popular to get up in arms over this issue, stating that a "no crying at the workplace" attitude is inhuman, doesn't take into account the fact that people are human beings, and may have issues outside ...

There's been a random meme going around called "25 Things," where folks list 25 random things about themselves. I first saw it on notes in Facebook, lately it's hit Friendfeed. I figure I'll just post mine here and then from now on I can just link to it in other venues. I'm a cheater like that *grin* 1. Someone else has the domains warmaiden.com and warmaiden.blogspot.com, and I was the Guardienne long before I became Warmaiden. We'll just have to deal with that. Occasionally, I also go by the name Colleen. It confuses my online peeps. But today I go by Warmaiden almost exclusively online, unless someone has already sniped my name. Grr. 2. My dream job isn't to be a librarian. It's not even to be a poet, which some of you know I do in my free time. Nope. It's to be an NFL head coach. Of the Oakland Raiders, so I can restore them to their glory days of battle, when they led the league in penalty yardage, but won anyway.Because they were that goo...

I feel a bit like I've gone back in time, even as I've sort of catapulted my career a bit. I'm in the midst of my second week as the Associate Head of Access & Delivery at NCSU, and already loving it. I started in Access back in 2004 at the University of Kentucky, and once I had my MLS I bounced to reference and instruction, the "fun" side of library work. Not, of course, that Access isn't fun. it's just a different *kind* of fun...sort of like rugby and baseball are both sports, they're just different. And in one, you're more likely to get heavily bruised. *grin* Anyway, my initial reaction has been: YES! While I was in reference and instruction, I got to stretch my creative side, I loved teaching, I didn't have the headache of supervising folks, and other than refdesk time, I had nearly complete control over what projects I worked on and how I spent my days. I will say, that sort of thing is handy if you want to get research done, get pub...

A fare-the-well to 2008. The past week has been hectic. Along with the move (the movers came today and my mom is now sitting at home in an empty apartment), my wallet with my entire life in it (including social security card, credit cards and cash to tide me over to next payday) was snatched on the eve of Christmas Eve. I'm slowly getting my identification back, bit by bit. After the initial freakout and extraordinary display of righteous anger, my mother (who is the anti-crisis) reminded me that she has a birth certificate for me, cards and ID can be replaced, and money is just money. I'm still stinging from it, but mom's right. In the scheme of things, a small annoyance, really. Tomorrow I'll be driving to Raleigh, and I start the new job on Monday. In effect, I'm leaving behind reference and instruction for a bit and starting the new year getting back to my access roots at NC State. I will show up on Monday ready to rock and loaded for bear. I'm really lookin...

For those of you who haven't met me, spoken with me on the phone, or heard me on my occasional call-in (with Otto in the background) to Uncontrolled Vocabulary, I figured I'd link to an interview I did with a local radio station, WUTC. It was focused on my poetry-writing, so it's not actually very library-related since they edited out the parts where I waxed poetic about how creative writers should do research and use their libraries (curses!), but hey. The audiofile is here and you can either click it to play or right-click to download. Mondo thanks to one of my favorite library systems dudes, Infosciphi , who didn't laugh at me when I revealed that I have no way of hosting this and offered to both host it and send me the link when I revealed my inadequacy. He didn't even laugh, though there may have been snark to the effect that I should ask NEWLIB *wink*.

These are rough times for everyone, and higher education is taking a huge blow right now. Decisions on cuts need to be made, and more and more institutions of higher ed are looking at cutting faculty, staff, removing certain degree programs, and even reducing the amount of scholarships and merit aid they offer. I figure this is as good a spot as any to air some of my issues about this, since I'll be losing my seat on the Faculty Senate here at UTC when I leave, and will have no greater body to pester for a bit with efficiency and annoying common sense. You know, automaker management decided that if they needed to take the bailout for their companies, they would draw a single dollar a year in salary until the crisis was over (thought what they say and what they do may differ . Funny, I haven't heard anything about looking at former administrators who fell back to regular faculty with no more administrative duties, but are still drawing a six-figure salary while their colleagues ...

This may be quite the unpopular post, but since when have I worried about being unpopular? My last post (which discussed not being ass-ish on a public non-anonymous list) was taken by some on the NEWLIB-L email list as an attempt to muzzle new librarians posting to the list, and as an attempt to infringe upon freedom of speech, which is, of course, anathema to the entire idea of librarianship. I figured it would be useful for me - if no one else - if I worked through my thoughts on this here. You can join the list and scour the archives (an unfriendly task if ever I saw one the way NEWLIB is set up - pitiful for librarians who are supposedly into the whole "access" thing), but comments were made to the effect that my chastisement of unprofessional behavior on the list was an attempt to "muzzle" the young librarians (of which I consider myself one, as I haven't quite hit 30 yet), stomping all over their right to free expression in the name of my own interpretati...

Le sigh. Le groan. I logged into my work email to cull it a bit near the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, and woo-hoo, NEWLIB flamey goodness. A soon-to-be MLS grad posts a question asking how to convert a Word file to PDF. Some make suggestions. Some make fun of that person for not googling the answer. Some flame the fun-makers. The fun-makers flame general idiocy. Delicious holiday goodness, including folks who decide it could be fun to post as different people (but, alas, from the same ISP and identified. D'oh!) I swear I tried to keep my mouth shut and my typing fingers still. I did. And then people who expected to use the list as a professional resource started leaving the list. This happens occasionally when things get too Romper Room-esque, it's natural. This prompted yet others to snark at those who couldn't handle the capricious nature of internet commenting. And then, of course, I jumped into the fray. You knew I would, didn't you? You were hoping I would. One...

Dear Haworth, I am embarrassed for you. I am embarrassed on behalf of everyone who has ever published in Journal of Access Services and anyone who has ever had an article rejected by you. To publish an entire issue written by the Annoyed Librarian - an anonymous, acidic persona whose main intent is not to improve library and information science but to take glee in its struggles - is a slap in the face to those of us in the profession and those we serve. I will not be linking to the issue nor to the AL's blog. I will not reward you, though you might appreciate the publicity of this post. You have just admitted that you are not a scholarly journal to be taken seriously. And as someone moving back over to Access after a long stint away, I'll be certain to send my work to the Journal of Library Administration , the Journal of Academic Librarianship , or hell, even to that cute little kid 'zine Highlights before I let my professional work be associated with you. Nice stunt, ho...