A Wandering Eyre

Don’t get too excited if this has turned up in your aggregator. Jane is not back in full time business. I am going to turn on Twitter updates to this blog because I have been able to write a couple sentences here and there some days.

I expect most people are drowning in post Annual information floods at this time, so I do not want to bounce back into your lives until you have all had a chance to recover. Besides, I am still recovering from the arrival of the Wee Bairn. Recovering in the sense that I always will be.

So, Twitter updates back on and movement around this joint is imminent. Next week.

Jane, can’t believe she took a break for this long

I have thoroughly enjoyed the small vacation of sorts that I have been taking the last month or so. I have immersed myself in the domestic needs of the Rochester household and concentrated on the business of gestating the child in my belly. I have not missed work, but I have missed being caught up on the goings on in libraryland.

I have already heard about some of the excitment from CiL including some not so Swift things and an incident involving the Brickskeller. I plan on catching up on everyone’s goings on in the next couple days. I am going to make an effort to be in this space more the next couple of weeks, until Baby Rochester makes his appearance. After that, I am taking about a month off for maternity leave and it will be very quiet around here, but a little more chatty over at Defying Genetics.

–Jane, must go get organized for the day has suddenly filled

(picture inclusion with a nod towards Helene Blowers)

This post has been a long time coming. If all works out accordingly, this post will be published directly after or right before I hand the interested parties my letter of resignation from the University of Houston Libraries where I have worked for three and a half years. I am sad to be leaving my friends and colleagues behind, even though I will see most of them often enough. Those who know me or have been paying attention will not be surprised at my departure. I have needed, searched for, even longed for a change in work scenery for quite awhile.

I am trading my crazy, traffic filled commute for domesticity and working from home. Instead of a Social Sciences Librarian, I will be a stay at home wife, mother, and Geek Librarian At Large. In addition to changing diapers and walking around with a baby attached to my chest, I plan on engaging in the following professional activities:

Friends and long time readers will surmise correctly that I am going to continue to do the things that I love the most about being a librarian, teaching and advocating for technology education in librarianship. Due to the impending arrival of Baby Rochester, I am placing a hiatus on most professional travel for almost a year and half. I expect my next conference to be ALA Annual 2009, though one never knows what life will bring you. Box of chocolates, anyone?

I plan on writing at least one more post reflecting on working in an academic library, based on my experiences in the one that fostered me these last few years, and the kind of job I would love to have some day. Those should be coming along shortly.

Until then, I am excited about this new phase of my life, happy for the change of pace, and pleased to be able to finally tell you, gentle readers and friends, my plan.

–Jane, tickled baby boy blue

Karen Schneider, who has always given me great advice, is sharing some of her wisdom about being “famous.” Timely, the post is, being just before Midwinter, when we will all scurry around trying to meet old friends and new ones in chilly Philly.

I really enjoyed the post and was reminded of all the people, like Karen, who have helped me in the past few years.

I liked that she placed “famous” in quotes. Famous is a meaningless thing compared to our lives outside of the limelight. What really matters is how we live our whole lives, not just what we do at conferences, in front of audiences, and when people are looking. I love all the things I do as a librarian, but getting to lounge on the couch with these handsome boys is better then anything else I have ever gotten to do.

Karen also mentions Bette Davis, who played the best bitches on the silver screen. I am partial to her portrayal of Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves Davis, old movies, or good, old fashioned, evil women.

My favorite piece of advice from Karen’s post was to help others. I think, whether you pull weight or not, helping others is always important. There is always someone who could use your hand or a smile.

–Jane, hopes she lives up to her ideals on more days than not

The past week has been a whirl wind of catch-up. I still have to post photos from the iHCPL fun that occurred last week. I finally put up a TechSource post on some misadventures I had with social networking.

This week, things will start to be more normal around here even though I am gearing up for two conferences and other assorted fun. And my day job. Can’t forget the thing that pays the bills.

It finally feels like almost Fall here which translates to a little less humidity and only 90 as the high. I am longing for October when I might actually get to wear a long sleeve shirt.

–Jane, back to the to do list

This Spring, you may have noted that I posted a little less and bitched a bit more than normal. I have long considered writing this, but Karen’s post recently and the evaluating one’s life posts that have been floating around for the past year convinced me that now was the time.

Karen’s post talks about what we do to our motivated leaders. We overburden them. We steal their shiny with promises that never come. I am sorry to say that this has happened to me gradually over the past year. I am still an optimist, often annoyingly so, and I still love my profession, but this past semester made we rethink what my job and my life was and where the lines needed to be drawn. I needed more lines.

In between TLA and CiL this year, I spent a day on my couch, crying, overwhelmed with anxiety that I would not get my house clean ever, and thus become the worst wife ever (and later a terrible mother) and that I would never finish all the things at work that were on my plate and thus be a terrible person. I had too much to do and I was only one little person in a big, big world.

Was my To Do list that terrible? Well, it was pretty full, but not crying over it full. I realized I had some anxiety issues that I needed to deal with and I found a professional to listen to me. I feel better about things and I am handling my To Do list better. Self Awareness is a powerful thing.

I also realized a few other helpful things:

• This is my job, not my life. I can go home and go home. I can leave all the drama, malfunction, and swamped To Do lists where they belong, in my office. It is hard, and some days I fail, but I try.
• I can say no. Boundries are a good thing. I am saying no at work a lot lately and to some of my professional organizations.
• I can say no to enabling malfunction too.
• Doing small chores every day makes house cleaning easier.
• I define my own success, it does not look like yours, and I am ok with that.
• My family (right now only consisting of a husband and a slobbery dog) is more important than anything else in my life. Period. No negotiations.
• I am still a librarian no matter what my job title says and what I do, because sometimes you just are.

All of those things are important, but the last one was what has really affected my thinking. I am starting to consider possibilities for jobs that I never would have pondered a few months ago. (and if you are surprised that I am looking, you should not be, most of us are always keeping our eyes open) A new addition to my blogroll is the Brazen Careerist, which I have mentioned before. Penelope Trunk has been writing lately about balancing work and home life and defining your own success. I find myself nodding emphatically to many of her thoughts. I would love to meet Penelope one day. She seems like a great person to share big ideas with over coffee.

I think that as long as I am doing something I like and can feel like I am doing something worthwhile, I will be content in my job. It does not matter if I have librarian in my title. I will always be one in my heart. *big sigh of relief*

I suppose the real point of writing this post is so that you, my readers and friends, would know why I have been behaving oddly. I also want to encourage those feeling overwhelmed to step back, let go, and find someone to talk to, professional or otherwise. It is amazing what a few words and a listening ear can do.

It also does not hurt that I have the Best. Husband. Ever. God knew I needed a man like Mr. Rochester. What a lucky wife I am.

What is next for Jane? I have a handful of projects I am working on this summer, some big, some small, small related to MPOW, and some not. I am excited about all of them and will share them as I am able.

Now, I am going to cross some things off my To Do list.

–Jane, thanks world

Friday, how I love thee. I am at home and looking out into a day so clear and blue it sears my eyes to look upon it. The temperature is a lovely 68 degrees.

My Five Weeks groups are keeping me on my toes. Our conversations covered everything this week from why superheroes should not wear capes to Microsoft Vista. We talked about wikis too. Many of them found wikis to be very useful, especially when pondering the creation of subject guides. This project never ceases to amaze me.

I think that people do not give themselves enough credit when discussing technology. Most of us are very smart and can learn things easily with time and practice. It is the time that is hard to find.

I am off this weekend to Dallas, home of my graduate school career and one of my best friends, who is turning thirty. There should be some great pictures and some unrepeatable stories. Have a great weekend.
–Jane, there always is

What is personal and what is private in a world where online is everywhere?

Today, one of our Five Weeks participants wondered aloud how we keep our personal and professional life separate online. My answer was, you don’t.

You can, of course, omit parts of your life online, but once you put any part of your life into the internet tubes, it will be found by people you never thought would think to find you. If you only put professional stuff online, people in your personal life will find it. If you put your personal things online, your coworkers will eventually find it. That is the nature of the world we live in.

If you are uncomfortable with people knowing your business, then do not share that particular business online. People will only know the secrets you put online for others to see. If you would not do it in public, do not do it online.

Online is the new town square; it is where the world goes to hear the town crier yell the news of the day, where we go to buy our goods, where we meet friends, conduct business, and gossip.

I think that this makes some people very uncomfortable. It is disconcerting the first time you write something and publish it online, for all the world to see. It is sometimes like walking through the town square naked, but participating online also means you are part of the community. There are benefits to putting a part of yourself online, to showing your human side.

Libraries can do this too. By exposing our human sides in the town square, we can cease to be the monolith and be the meeting place of the community, online and off. This past week, Michael said that 2.0 means being human, being real. Presenting yourself or your library online in an authentic way can have many unexpected rewards, not the least of which is a better relationship with those around you and with those you serve.

–Jane, is romping in the new town square

I know this salutation is a few days early, but tomorrow morning the Rochester household is packing into the new car and heading for the annual festivities at my family’s lake house. There is, of course, no toobes, and thus no posts in this space for a few days. Please contain your sorrow. There is no crying on the internets.

At the moment, we are watching the Holiday Bowl, which is in the 3rd quarter, and the Aggies are not doing as well as I would have hoped. We did just recover a fumble however, so maybe the fates will turn to favor us. Nope, it was a touchdown for Cal. Poo.

My resolution for 2007: I will strive to make things happen at MPOW and in my life in general. Less talkie more fetchie. A little more action with less stress. Wish me luck.

Many blessings to all of you in the New Year. I will toast my friends at midnight and wish you well.

–Jane, its going to be a great year

I will have a post about the ALA Web Planning Retreat tomorrow afternoon. I needed time to digest a bit and then there is always the pesky work that gets in the way. Here are some bits to tide you over, all having nothing to do with ALA:

• I finally finished A Storm of Swords. Geez. It only took me a year, off and on. And I promptly went on a reading binge. Three books later, I am feeling a bit better.
• I made kolaches.
• Cleaned my house.
• Participated in a Festivus Party, complete with metal pole and Bagels.
• Bought the last gift on my list.

Tonight, I am leaving Mr. Rochester to fend for himself, dropping my menagerie off at my parent’s, and joining some old friends for what should be a night of much laughter and unrepeatable stories. With drinking, of course!

Friday, I am making more kolaches, a molasses ginger cake with vanilla whipped cream (the real kind), and writing up my ALA notes. Good Times.

–Jane, Merry Jeebusmas