Something I'm learning...

and will probably have to keep learning again and again because I'm cool like that: there really isn't enough time to do it all. You've gotta set priorities and schedules and just do it. Whatever "it" is. My current case in point: going through my reader. Here I am, a member of SPLAT, promoting education and awareness through reading blogs, and until this week, I hadn't even logged into my reader for months. Months! It's so incredibly easy to be completely engulfed in the day to day. But other things are important too and I've gotta practice what I preach. Well, I'm off to play reading catch up...

Rev Your Engines

Less than a week and I'll be starting my program at UW. D, M, and I will be flying up on Monday and staying through Friday. The week will apparently be full of orientations, classes, and homework. I have great hopes though that we'll be able to squeeze in some awesome food and fun shopping - even if it's only the window kind. I also really want to see the Seattle Public Library - from what I've heard and the pics I've seen it's like a librarian's fantasyland.

I'm not sure, but I imagine that I'll be writing here a bit more often as a means of processing what I'm learning.

Oh and a quick note, cause I'm so darn pleased - I now have the word librarian in my title!!! That's right I was promoted to Associate Librarian. HooraY!

Virtual Hallways, Simulated Classrooms, Titles, and other Made Up Things

Well, I got great news this week: I've been accepted to my grad school of choice - UW. This fall I will start working on my Masters in Library and Information Science. w00t! I'm psyched and nervous to be re-entering academia. I hope that I quickly find the right balance between work, school, and life. One of the things I'm most excited about is that even though I'll be getting my degree through a distance program, I won't be alone. I'll be joined by a few great local librarians, including D! I loved getting my English Lit degree, but I've waited years to be studying this. I'm interested to see if the theory we learn will actually be relevant and useful.

I've often wondered (quietly of course, to avoid being shunned) how much an MLIS really affects your abilities as a "librarian". Will I really learn more in school than I do on the job? Will it really allow me to tap into SuperLibrarian abilities I've had to do without up till now? One of the things I already know I don't like about our profession is the rampant elitism. People are always asking, "Where did you get your degree?" So many people are so careful to distinguish between "librarians" and "library support staff" or what ever phrase is in. I find the whole thing really confusing as I never know what to call myself. If I say I'm the Teen Center Assistant it sounds like there's someone else higher up that I'm assisting, even though I am Teen Services. If I say I'm the Teen Center Librarian...well I don't, because I've been made thoroughly aware by other librarians that I would be over stepping my bounds - but that's what the public thinks of me as. I guess one definitely good thing that will come along with my degree is a little less ambiguity.

Upcoming LibraryLand Adventure

Darnit! If I had only posted this a few days ago I could have tried to cling to the shreds of my blogging dignity by claiming that I at least posted every month...oh well...

Well I'm excited and a little nervous about my upcoming adventure (the positive spin is purely for my own benefit.) I'm leaving tomorrow with two other SPLAT members for a library conference in Twin Falls. I will be co-presenting on "Emerging Technologies" and will mostly be covering online social networks with a little bit of IM thrown in. The one thing I found most frustrating in prepping and putting together my PowerPoint was trying to find useful current statistics regarding social networking in general and MySpace in particular. I lucked out on Facebook as they recently put out a blog post that had lost of good info in it and I wasn't really looking for anything particular on Ning since it's so new, but as for MySpace - good grief! I eventually found some of what I was looking for, but I really expected to find better stats more easily. It's interesting the information you don't find in that supposedly endless sea known as the internet.

When I find a bit more time, I'll have to blog about something I'm really excited about. But until then...

a tiny encapsulation of L2.0

I was catching up on my reader when I came upon this YouTube video. It blew my hair back (as the saying goes). You've just gotta watch it.



Well? What did you think?

It's a New Year!

Well, it's a new year and one of my resolutions is to actually post to this blog with some regularity. Since I last posted I graduated with my B.A. in English Lit from BSU and started working full time at my library. YaY! I'm excited about what I'll be able to do at work now that I'm full time. Now I won't be quite so overextended with only a few hours a week to do it in. I've already managed to start one project I've had on the back burner for a long time. I've created a MySpace page for SPLAT. You can check it out HERE. It's not much yet, but I'm hoping that with the help of D we can create a really neat, really functional page. I have a personal MySpace, so it's not all foreign to me, but what I want to do with the SPLAT page goes beyond what I've done before.

I'm also working on getting a MySpace page for my library. It's a process though. I get the feeling that our Board is pretty hesitant about it due to the scare that was going on last year with DOPA. While I can kind of understand it, I can't quite accept this fear as a reason to not create our page - because I don't think we'd be able to comply with DOPA even if it were passed. There's just too much that it restricts. Even commonplace sites like Ebay and Amazon, that are used by most everyone, would get blocked. I honestly don't think we'd be able to lower the quality of service to our patrons that much. We'd have to forgo the E-Rate funding. Hopefully it all resolves itself soon (in the way I want it to) and I'll be able to create a kickin' page for my library.