And now, time to relax!

The end of June is never really the start to the summer vacation, is it? Yes, the pace is slower and students are gone, but there's usually Stuff To Do before real relaxation stats. For me, that meant a number of things. First was the AISL Summer Institute on Incubating Creativity in the Library. This…

Yes, I’m taking time off this summer…

I think I am... I think I am... Between now and the end of Break, I have a number of planned "days on", including: AISL's Summer Institute, focusing on Incubating Creativity in the Library ALA's Annual Conference (I'm part of a panel conversation) Tier One Circle Training LiLi's Conference Planning the virtual 2022 AISL Conference…

Professionally Developing

Every year I look forward to having the opportunity to learn from experts and peers, to hear about great programs and books and ways to doing the normal library thing that are different from the way in which I'm doing them. Of course, that in person learning and sharing simply isn't going to happen in…

The past five years in 21 slides

Ok, maybe not everything that's happened in the past five years, but this is a short distillation of the Really Big Project we've been working on in the library. One of the other librarians and I presented this today at the NELA 2020 conference. There's so much more I could say about the nitty-gritty but…

Ready? Set?

We're not quite at "go" yet - classes officially start on the 14th, but the faculty is now in meetings and new students are orienting, so the start is creeping ever closer. It feels both just like yesterday I was working on last year's stuff... oh wait, it was! Seriously, it's been the oddest summer.…

An #alavirtual20 fail tale

When the COVID shutdowns started happening, I fully expected ALA to at least shrink the annual conference -- bringing 20,000+ librarians and vendors together was not the best plan. Ultimately they decided to cancel the physical conference and go virtual. Hearing that, I didn't know what to expect because there is such a difference between…

The average day, fall version

Last October, the AISL blog had a post called What do you do all day? (sort of similar to the Library Day in the Life posts I did years ago).  I thought it might be interesting to share what an average day in my library looked like but quickly realized that we have two very…

What I Did on Spring Break

In addition to staying snug during the last three of the March nor'easters, I read 32 books: And that's not all!  I've cleared my DVR, my taxes are almost done (they're a little complicated for 2017), I went to an exhibit of maps of imaginary places, got enough loose tea to make it through to…

Busy November – NELA and YALSA

Now that Fall Conference Season has passed, and I've had some time to think about what I learned and saw, here's a wrap up of the NELA Conference (about which I've blogged a little) and the YALSA Symposium.  After this, nothing until February's ALA Midwinter (March brings MSLA, April has NEAISL, May will be ACRL/NE and…

Gearing Up

I've been diligently trying to update this blog regularly, and I intend to keep trying but wow!  School starts and that seems to take over my life despite my best efforts.  Between now and Thanksgiving, for example, I have two personal trips out of town, then two conferences (NELA and YALSA's Literature Symposium).  Plus my…