I blogged over at Re:Generations again — this one a review of QR Codes. I posted about QR Codes here awhile back, but thought it might be a good Re:Gen topic too. In doing research for the blog post (a.k.a. Googling — librarians get to be lazy when they’re on vacation, okay?) I found an interesting article from College and Research Libraries News that is a Continue reading →
Ahhhhh the new year — A time to reflect on the year that’s passed, and look forward to the year that will be. I always think of this song, but for the record my New Year’s Eve was far more fun than the those in this video.
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? I have a few, both personal and professional. My personal goals are to call people more (I am terrible at staying in touch) and cooking more (I am close to lots of tasty restaurants in Ottawa — so much temptation). However my professional goals include the following:
1) Find a flow: I need a better workflow. When I was a grad student (and sosososo busy) I had a work flow that was really effective for me; it included a paper agenda and a Google calendar, and some clever tagging in my Gmail account. It was based a little bit on the GTD principles (from the book Getting Things Done, which I — ironically– never finished reading), and it worked. But now I have several more tools that I need to use for work — an Outlook calendar and work e-mail account, several wikis (both personal and organizational) and others. It’s confusing and I still manage to screw stuff up. I need to find a workflow that flows a bit better.
2) Take risks: Being a librarian in a bureaucrat’s town is a double-whammy of risk-aversion. Plus, being a new librarian can make it scary to forge relationships, speak up in meetings, read the riot act to an unruly student (okay, I do find that last one deliciously easy). But I’m going to try to mute the nervous voice in my head that yells at me every time I start daydreaming about a neat info lit innovation, or put my hand up at a council meeting. It’s hard to see myself as an “equal” with people who’s kids are my age. Or to ask a favor of a colleague who’s won prestigious library awards. Or talk shop with someone who has a PhD. But of course lie-berrians are among the gentlest breed of professionals, and usually withhold harsh judgement. And maybe something I say will be useful or will be what other people were wondering about too… Surely worth the risk of opening my mouth and possibly saying something stupid.
3) Blog more: Hahaha, right??? I’m off to a good start, you gotta admit.
Let me tell you a story about a group of third-year marketing students who came in a few weeks ago, looking for help finding consumer attitudes and market information pertaining to smart phones and wireless chargers (yes, wireless chargers, specifically this one). I was able to help the students find some pretty great resources, created and sent an e-mail with a few links, and sent them happily down the path of successful research.
Just so ya know I work with the bestest CLA committee eva, and we have TWO count ‘em TWOOOO sessions accepted at the CLA Conference in Halifax in May, 2011. Yay, us!
The Digital Campus podcast is one of my favourite podcasts — and considering it’s going up against Ira Glass and Michael Enright, that’s saying a lot. The latest edition of the podcast includes a really interesting discussion of a new phenomenon sweeping Library Land — PDAs. I know, I know — you’ve been busting PDAs at the lie-berry since the dawn of time! This is a new PDA, and one being piloted within OCUL: Patron Driven Acquisitions. This system allows users to (in a very structured manner) directly buy ebooks for their library. There is a nice overview of PDAs on the eBook Library Blog, as well as from YBP, which is the acquisitions vendor that is helping to provide the service to libraries.
I posted over at the Re:Generations blog this past weekend about Open Access. I’ve blogged about OA before, but thought it was a timely topic what with Open Access Week taking place last week. Check’er out!
My summer break stretched into a first-half-of-Fall-semester break because, as you can probably imagine, things were a touch busy during September and early October. However it’s now Fall reading week here at the U of O, which means things have quieted down significantly thank the GOOD LORD. No more twelve hour days okay, work? Ugh.
Graham Lavender
