Inspirational grace

For a variety of reasons, it has taken a few days to post about a loss to our community: a colleague had a recurrence of cancer and decided to stop treatment and enter hospice. A short time later, he died. His last message to everyone read in part: That message resonated with so many of…

What happened to Spring Break?

I’m sure I’m not alone i’m wanting another week off. Living in Boston and seeing snow Monday morning?? It was, as a colleague said, adding insult to injury. On the other hand, I did create a presentation for the MSLA Conference: The best part was the opportunity to really look at the guides we’ve created…

Self care?

This year's big trend in libraryland (among many other places) is to focus on self care this year. I definitely agree. To get a little personal, I have several "hidden" physical disabilities (for example, my eye), what's now known as ME/CFS in addition to a tendency to being overstressed and depressed. Milton has created a…

Time Flies When You’re Not in Lockdown

Two people today mentioned how fast time seemed to be going: wasn't it just yesterday school was starting for the year? how could it possibly be over an hour since the school day started? That's not to say we're not all excited and exhausted and ready for Winter Break, just that the time between the…

Fourth time’s the charm!

I've been at Milton for seven years, and in that time I've overseen a real revamp of the collection. b: serious weeding of old, outdated, caterpillar infested, falling apart books. It looked a little like this: Years Two - Four: Second and Third passes through the collection, cleaning the "junk drawer" and moving books into…

Finally!

Happy New Year?

What does "new year" mean to you? And when is it? Obviously, there's the Big New Year when the calendar year flips over. And then there's you're birthday, a great time to start new thinking (or having an age-related crisis). There's also the Jewish (or Chinese or Muslim) New Year, times of celebration and thinking…

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…

Up from the ashes (part eight)

As I've been going through the process of rebuilding the collection and the facility (neat pictures of our "permanent" temporary space to come next week), attending meetings and so forth, one question keeps coming up: what does a 21st-century library look like? How do we plan for what students are doing today and think ahead…

Up from the ashes (part two)

Very Important Idea: 100% replacement valueSeriously, if you don't have 100% replacement value as part of your insurance policy get it now. We have it and it's going to help us with our rebuilding. What does this mean in practical terms? It means that I have until I leave work tomorrow to re-create POs for…