Guardienne of the Tomes

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...

After an hour and a half of nerve-wracking discussion with my comps committee last Thursday, doctoral comps went swimmingly, I was given a pass, and I am proud to announce that I'm now a doctoral candidate for the EdD in Learning and Leadership here at UTC! There are four members of my doctoral committee, all have committed and now I just need to get them to sign the requisite Graduate School form. Dr. Ted Miller, my advisor for the past two years, has agreed to serve as my chair; Dr. David Rausch who coordinates the EdD program and specializes in leadership and organizational effectiveness theory is serving, Dr. Pamala Carter is serving as my methodologist, and Maureen Sullivan who serves as professor of practice and current ALA President is serving as my LIS subject expert. I have to get everyone's signatures on a graduate school form to make it Officially Official And now, I'm working on drafting the dissertation prospectus and proposal, and am hoping to clear bot...

I'm about a day behind myself on all the due dates I'm facing, but since I'm tired, and my mind is racing so badly I'm not very productive, I thought I'd blog a bit. This Thursday I have my comprehensive assessment for my doctorate. I've been working on the EdD in Learning and Leadership at UTC since Fall 2010. I'm in my last semester of coursework this summer (my courses finish the first week in August - two weeks!) And in our last semester, we also register for a "dissertation seminar," which is not actually a seminar at all, but a preparation for comps. Our version of comps is a bit different than some other doctoral programs that I'm familiar with. Instead of either receiving research paper prompts in our major and minor fields, or being grilled by a committee on a number of books off of a reading list. Instead, our comps (usually short for "comprehensive exams" or "comprehensive assessment") focus on the seven comp...

UTC's Lupton Library is moving forward with our transition to OCLC's Webscale Management Service. This is a transition we've been working on for two years as we've kicked the tires on the new service, asked for additional development and functionality out of the brand-new system, and tested it to within an inch of its (and our) life. Our ILS administrator, web guru and all around data-mogul-of-awesomeness Andrea Schurr has moved on to bigger and better things and now works for OCLC, but (thank the gods) is doing our data migration for us. I can't express how big a boon this is, especially since this is her third (?) time doing the data load, so she's an expert at it. No one else knows our data so intimately. Having Andrea with us for this massive move is something we are all grateful for. Andrea was also our former Head of Access Services before UTC hired me back, so having her upstairs in IT has been a huge help to me in terms of helping me figure out what ...

If you haven't yet read Nobel-Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow , get a copy and read it. Read it three times - it's dense enough, though written to be understandable for the average non-economist. For any academic librarian, educator, or anyone else interested in decision-making, critical thinking, and flaws in logic that people employ, it's an excellent book. I haven't even finished it yet (I'm about halfway through) so you won't get the full review until later, but go buy this book - it will change your life. It will cause you to reassess your own reactions to episodes in daily life and professional practice.

After returning from Computers in Libraries 2012 (another successful year in DC) full of energy and ideas, I slammed immediately back into end-of-semester madness, and as we finish finals this week, our library enters the madness of once again preparing for an ILS migration. If all goes well in terms of the next release and functionality testing, we'll make the permanent move OCLC's WorldShare Management System and WorldCat Local this summer. And there's that little project of the new building that is coming along and set to open next summer, which will also have an impact on our activities this summer. And I managed to close out this semester, so this summer also brings with it my last 3 classes in the EdD program before I comp and move onto dissertation. In any case, posts to expect in the next week or six: - Brief recap of my experience at CiL 2012 - ILS migration thoughts - ILL projects for the summer - New building thoughts - Thoughts on my worlds of librarian ...

6:10am - Ugh, too early. Dog steals the pillow as I roll out of bed. I brighten slightly knowing I have a breakfast meeting where the host usually feeds us. Ugh. Morning. Grunt. Hrmp. Mrf. 7:30 - walk into the library. Greeted by my day circ super who asks knowingly, "Early meeting?" I am not known to be a kind morning person, so he is not offended by my grunted response. This is about the time I wish I could stand the taste of coffee. I check the emails, grab my notebook and the list of items the Faculty Senate president noted that she wanted to bring up at the meeting. And an umbrella - it's misting, but with my luck by the end of the meeting it will be pouring. 8:10 - I'm in the Chancellor's conference room waiting on our 8:30 meeting; the faculty Senate Exec members usually arrive a little early, so I always feel like a latecomer if I get there at 8:30. I'm scanning through a case study on flu vaccinations that I'll need to write a paper on after work....

*writing this a day later - I have no idea what I did up through 10am yesterday morning - probably some combination of email, paperwork, checking in with staff, etc.* 10:00-12:00 - Working the circulation desk. I'm reading and sending emails when there's a lull, but it's pretty steady with slinging laptops, study room keys, and reserve textbooks. I take two fines, which keeps me from getting too rusty at using the cash register. 12:00 - 1:30 - Lunch with the Head of Reference and Instruction. Among other things we talk about her daughters (who are growing so fast - one is prepping for college already!), about work. I let her know that my EdD advisor has asked for me to design research instruction modules for the EdD students at two stages - one for incoming students, and one for students who make it to the pre-dissertation seminar. I okay it with her so that I'm not stepping on toes, and let her know I'll likely as to pick her brain; we discuss her work in a similar...

6:45 - Alarm goes off. Otto the basset slinks up from against my knees puts his warmback against my chest, and lays his heavy (very heavy) head on my arm at my elbow. I obey the dog. Hit snooze until 8:00am- Groan, knowing this means I will not get my desired early start on the day. Un-groan, as my joints seem willing to move today for the first time in awhile. 9:00-9:15 - Get into the office. Check in with my day circ manager to make sure everything is on the level, sign timesheets and drop them off in the Admin office. Talk shoes with Anna, laugh at the meanface my boss is giving her monitor when she thinks no one can see her, hit up the supply closet for tape. 9:15-10:00 - Email triage. Among the important ones is one from the faculty president; as secretary I need to get the discussion board up for the full faculty to do the second reading of the proposed Bachelor of Integrated Studies degree. 10:00-10:30 - After email, into Blackboard to post the degree proposal and executive summ...

I am thrilled to announce that Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching , a collection of essays by talented women poets that I helped co-edit with Carol Smallwood and Cynthia Brackett-Vincent, is ready for ordering from McFarland! (Amazon currently reads as out of stock, we're working on fixing that.) With a foreword by inimitable sonneteer and novelist Molly Peacock , and contributions from state poets laureate, Pushcart Prize nominees and winners, professors, workshop leaders, editors, and publishers, my hope is that this collection will have something for everyone. There are chapters for busy moms, chapters on using meter, chapters on publishing, blogging, promotion, journaling, contests, self-publishing, and more. You can see the entire table of contents here . I learned an incredible amount while working with Carol and Cynthia on this collection. I learned about the difficulties of soliciting work by email only (and have slightly more sympathy for editors w...

The libraryverse is a-twitter with talk of the town hall meeting about Harvard University Library's massive re-org project. Chris Bourg collected all of the commentary, sifting fact from fiction from hyperbole when #hlth was fresh (a #hlth search in Twitter will garner you lots of commentary). Tom Bruno's blog post on the facts of the meeting he attended is another must-read. Go see them now before continuing with this. It's necessary background info. I'll wait. Reorganizations can be a scary business. I was involved in a minor organization at an ARL, my last place of work. It was teeny compared to the scale of the project Harvard is taking on. But know this: the reactions, from librarians and staff, were eerily similar. Everyone wanted to know, at the very least: (1) Exactly what positions were being eliminated (2) What would happen to the folks in the eliminated position (3) How the reorg would affect everyone else in terms of reporting/employment/etc (4) When we wo...

Of the 98 books I remembered to log as read in 2011, the breakdown is as follows: 5 horror 5 paranormal romance 11 nonfiction 5 short story 6 scifi 14 fantasy 1 memoir 3 mystery 21 paranormal/urban fantasy 6 thriller 5 YA fantasy 5 poetry 1 parody Definitely heavy on the braincandy reading; most of the nonfiction were education and LIS books related to my coursework and research, with a few essay collections and books on writing thrown in. favorites included Kevin Wilson's short story collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth , discovering Cathrynne M. Valente, Peter V. Brett and Scott Sigler as new-to-me fiction writers (fantasy, fantasy and sci-fi/thriller, respectively), and Karen Marie Moning's Fever series in the paranormal/urban fantasy genre. The lowest points were Meyer's Twilight series and Janine Cross's Dragon Temple Saga series, whcih I would heartily recommend steering clear of. For 2012 I'd like to make sure I get a lot more poetry in (I have ...

When I tried to cast back on 2011, I found that it was a mighty blur. The primary things I remember: Lots of planning . We have a new library building going up that is going to cause some major changes in how we run things. The UTC libraryfolk also spent much of the year batting OCLC's WMS about, testing it, developing it (well, our IT gurus), and discussing the product. Lots of service work. I'm a Faculty Senate member as well as Senate Secretary. I'm on the Faculty Handbook Committee, which is engaging in a complete revision of our outdated handbook. I helped out with some of the SACS onsite accreditation visits. I'm on the Petitions Committee which handles students petitioning this, that and the other. I also served as a marshal at both graduations this year. Lots of searches. I served on the spring search committee to hire a new faculty member into the University's EdD in Learning & Leadership program. I served as chair of the Library's two most recent...

In a discussion in one of my EdD classes (Organization Theory and Development, I think), the seminar got into a discussion about how passionate professionals sometimes over-identify with their profession to the exclusions of themselves as a whole person. Talking about this phenomenon in class brought up all the problems inherent with this - in particular, that there seems to be a high incidence of burnout in non-profit workers, public administrators, and human service personnel directly linked to this strong identification of what we do with who we are . This hit pretty close to home; I identify strongly with being a librarian. (See the phrasing? "Being" a librarian. Puts me in mind of the difference in Spanish between the two "to be" verbs, estar and ser , where estoy usually refers to a temporary condition.) When someone asks me what I do, I do not say that I participate in the actions of librarianating (though when pressed for details I start talking about man...

Mom: "Stop making that face." Me: "I'm not making a face!" Mom: "You are making a face. Stop it." Me: "Mom, I promise I am not making a face." Mom: "You had better get that face off before I smack it off." Me: "I AM NOT MAKING A FACE THIS IS JUST HOW MY FACE LOOKS." And thus the conversation that occurred on a regular basis from age 8 through...well, I was going to say 18, but it occasionally pops back up, and I'm beyond 30. I suffer from the worst non-health-threatening affliction a public service person can have. (It's not so peachy to deal with in my regular non-work life either, but it has more repercussions in worklife.) My name is Colleen, and I suffer from bitchface. My face, when I am concentrating on something other than how I look to other people (like reading, or spreadsheets, or complicated conversations) falls into an unfortunate cascade of down-turned mouth and frowny-forehead that I simply refer to...

Inside Higher Ed's "Library Limbo" story, noting the backlash against layoffs at the USD library, has sparked some great conversations about professional development and management in the past few days. Positions such as inventory control official and reserves supervisor, seen as non-essential to the USD Library moving forward, were apparently done away with in favor of positions with greater technology responsibilities. People were laid off close to retirement. People were offended that one could be let go after serving a university for more than 25 years. Required background reading, if you haven't already read them: Gavia Libraria (The Library Loon)'s "Libraries: The Last Humane Employers" Barbara Fister's IHE column "You are not a tinker toy: Libraries and reorganization" Wayne Bivens-Tatum's post "Responsibility and Professional Development" Barbara Fister's Library Journal column "What do we want? Change! When ...

**This blog post is first in a series about job search advice as discussed by my happy band of fellow library hiring managers, and is not related to any particular individual applicant from actual past, current, or future searches. All objectives included below are largely fictional, and any resemblance they may bear to actual CV objectives is the fault of the CV writer** Let's talk about the "Objective" section on your CV or resume. (Or, I'll write, you read.) Delete it. No, really. It's a waste of precious page real estate, and while it offers you the opportunity to shoot yourself in the foot, it doesn't offer a similar-sized boon if you get it right. If you make it library-department and library type specific: "Objective: To obtain a technical services position in an academic library setting" you'll look like a fool if you forget to then tailor that line when you start applying for reference jobs and public library positions. (Don't laugh...

At an ALA 2011 emerging trends discussion group on training and retaining middle managers, an HR official noted that if a manager is doing their job and properly training and documenting, then the HR office helps in the disciplinary process, and there is no reason a manager should have any trouble. At an ALA 2011 pre-conference on the difficult parts of management, the refusal by some library administrations and HR offices to help managers properly handle disciplinary action with documented under-performing staff was a widely acknowledged reality among participants. I will admit that I have worked in libraries with fantastic administrations and great HR offices, weak administrations and weak HR offices, and various other combinations. Given that experience, I have to say that the experience of poor management practices at the upper levels of an organization can make the life of a middle manager hell, and it does us as a profession no good to pretend otherwise. The rest of this post is ...

I miss New Orleans already, as I prepare myself for a lunch that doesn't involve oysters, alligator sausage, fried things of any kind, daquiris, or my far-flung library colleagues. I am trying to suppress my disappointment. Before everything gets lost in the haze of back-to-work, I wanted to get down some lasting impressions: 1. New Orleans, I Heart You I don't know what I was expecting of New Orleans, but it is a wonderful, walkable, fantastic little city with great character and outstanding food. I could barely believe the tales of craziness (I never did make it over to Bourbon Street), until the evening I was walking back to my hotel and passed a number of folks in Santa hats. And they were immediately followed by a guy fully duded up as Santa - big hat, faux beard, heavy coat and gloves...and no pants, hollering "HO HO HO!" as he stumbled down the sidewalk. And apparently that's just an everyday occurrence, because no one else even raised an eyebrow. In any ca...