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…

The future of ALA

I've been thinking about this for a number of years, and after two years of COVID cancellations followed by the in person experience I'm still wondering what are the people at ALA thinking? Just over a year ago, this post about ACRL's conference appeared: Service Ceiling: The High Cost of Professional Development for Academic Librarians.…

The strangest #AISL22 ever

(for me, anyway) Usually this is the time when I'm going through my chicken scrawl, typing up my notes and trying to make sense of what presenters are doing in their schools that I can transfer to my school. Not this time. After Tampa presented a virtual #AISL21, the call went out to all members…

100 Days and counting

In 100 days, AISL's 2021 Conference will start - all virtual, as it was last year. However, this year it will be three days, not one, and there will be a fairly robust technology platform. How do I know all this? Because I raised my hand to volunteer... became tri-chair... due to someone dropping out…

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.…