We have a winner!

Serving on a book award committee is always fun: reading books outside my comfort zone and talking about books with thoughtful, intelligent readers? Yes, more, please. And at the end, you get to call the winner. You’re emotional… they’re emotional. So many emotions. This time it was a Zoom, so in addition to the words…

Self-care is not optional

One of the sessions I attended at ALA Annual was led by Bobbi Newman. She's done an amazing job talking about self-care and working on stress in the workplace. Some of my colleagues and I remind each other frequently that self-care is not optional, that failing to take into account how stress, overwork, bad nutrition,…

Some post-ALAAC2023 thoughts

As I recover from ALA Annual and dive into the ARCs and Morris reading, I thought I'd share some things I’d like to see at future conferences -- and not just those sponsored by ALA: PR Exchange: first, let's make this an At Every Conference session, and one that gets heavily promoted; second, if you…

#WILU2023 takeaways

I wish the presentations were already posted online as there were tools and tips I was too late to get via my phone but here it is: What I Did At WILU2023. Rather than one Very Long Post or one-per-session, I thought it'd be easier if I wrote up my notes and linked to those…

Wow – #WILU23

I've already talked about feeling like a newbie at a conference, and yet... this was one of the best professional development opportunities I've been to in decades. Seriously. I took pages of notes (coming soon to a blog post near you!) on topics ranging from rethinking the first year introduction (and creating an after hours…

This land acknowledgement is your land acknowledgement

For the past few years I've seen an increase in land acknowledgements at the start of conference and workshop sessions. You know what I mean: This [building, event] is on the unceded and ancestral land of the [native tribe name] and ongoing members; the work of this presentation was doing on unceded and ancestral land…

Feeling like a newbie again

Today I'm heading to Montreal for the WILU Conference. It's only thanks to my LIRT Liaison Committee co-chair (the amazing Sarah Schmidt) that I heard about this conference and, well, the combination of topic and location made me eager to attend. Having said that, I'm less eager to feel like such a newbie again. It's…

Back in person #NEAISL23

No, not for work. For conferences - specifically, the NEAISL conference. Our hosts had planed to host in April 2020, but, well, a little thing called the pandemic lockdown interfered. It was a great way for me and the other librarians to reflect on what we'd done during the lockdown to reach students and faculty…

The Struggle is Real

There was this great article in the Walrus about tote bags that got me thinking about the ones I've gotten from conferences. There are the ones I've gotten for attending (what I think of as the GWP) and the ones vendors have available (great for carrying books, but also promoting their products). I've also purchased…

Challenging Times

I've been very lucky in my professional career with only two book challenges, neither of which went anywhere. And neither case went through our challenge policy procedure for very legitimate reasons. In the first case, an administrator challenged a book that their church had asked members to look out for because it said things about…