A Wandering Eyre

The First Day

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre

Today, I have been happily married to the most wonderful man for two years. This picture was taken on the first day of our honeymoon in Edinburgh, Scotland.

–Jane, still pregnant

I am Out, One Last Time

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My last day at work on Friday was very nice. Some friends and co-workers took me to lunch and we stuffed ourselves silly with Greek food. I am not sure what they do to gyro meat, but I swear I could eat it everyday.

After much consideration, I also decided to have a conversation with my boss on my way out the door. I wanted her to know some things that have been hard the past few months for me. I must say, it was rewarding to finally be honest. She was pleased both with my honesty and my willingness to share. We talked about her ideas regarding the future of the group, which involves a lot more online support for students, and some trends on librarianship. It did not change my mind about leaving, but I think she has some great ideas about where to take Instruction in the future.

I have spent my first day home doing laundry and running errands. Nothing too glamorous. It is raining here and the dog and I are on the couch enjoying the dreariness of the day.

–Jane, her belly jiggles, like a bowl full of jelly

Barack Obama in Houston

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This is a picture taken by one of our student workers, Ursula, who was able to get a ticket to the rally.

There were 20,000+ people there and I heard it was fabulously amazing. One of my friends described the energy level like a tent revival. I saw one video on You Tube where the person holding the camera was so excited they were shaking.

–Jane, isn’t politics fun?

I am upgrading WP and messing with the theme. Sorry for any issues this may cause.

–Jane, backing up files

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

IMG_6849

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, dear readers. I wish you all many blessings of the season.

Today, Mr. Rochester, Pullo, and I are packing up to begin the trek from one side of Houston to the other and back again tomorrow. We will have a Christmas with all our favorites: lots of loud, jovial family, friends, egg nog, wine, whiskey sours, presents, and oh, the food.

Of course, some of the best parts, all the parts involving delicious liquor, I will have to pass on. *sigh*

Safe travels to everyone.

–Jane, must go finish packing

Booties!

Originally uploaded by Wandering Eyre

I know, not conference related, but Jenica made these for me. They are so adorable, I had to share them with the interwebs.

–Jane, needs to be heading down to the vendor recpetion

Academic Libraries 2.0

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I have been teaching a preconference with Amanda Etches-Johnson, Chad Boeninger, Meredith Farkas, and Jason Griffey all day today. I am actually typing this while Meredith is wrapping up her talk on Social Networking. So far, it has gone well, good questions, and no one is asleep, that I can see.

At the end of the day, we are having a free form round table discussion time that will be open and informal. We sort of took the BIGWIG Showcase idea and applied it to our preconference. I am looking forward to seeing what kinds of things come up in the small groups.

We have a wiki for this presentation with all of our slides and contact information. How 2.0 of us.

–Jane, a day of 2.0 fun

3rd Year Review Binder

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This very full three inch binder is the cumulation of three years of academic work. At MPOW, we have what many academic libraries have and what I refer to as “pretend tenure.” It is not tenure, but we are not staff. We go through a review process at 3 and 6 years, but we do not face the faculty panels, just a committee of librarians.

I started out enjoying the process. Remembering projects I worked on, some good, some that were excruciating, poke my eyes out bad. It was interesting. After a couple days of printing out screenshots (yes, printing, we are not allowed to submit electronic things) I was tired of it. Your work life should never be able to be properly represented by some pieces of paper. Those papers do not speak to the people I met at conferences. The conversations I have had with librarians from whom I have learned a great deal.

It is also a very prescribed process. All the papers must be in a certain order, prescribed by the governance documents of the library. The only creativity I was able to squeeze in was my theme and some clip art. I felt very confined by the process. There was no room for leeway. I am not a lover of rules, but you already knew that.

I am just glad it is turned in and over.

Now I have to go pack for Internet Librarian. Tomorrow, at this time, I will be in lovely Monterey, CA.

–Jane, safe travels fellow ILers

Welcome to the Library

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While I was at VBPL, I was given a tour of their main building. The library is very open and bright. There is a coffee shop by the entrance of the library with free wireless (hooray!), which I used while I was there. The staff at VBPL was great. During the presentation, they had wonderful questions and I enjoyed being there.

Many libraries say they want to do new things, but then nothing happens. It seemed to me that from the director to the shelvers, this public library really does want to serve their customers better and provide better technology services. I will be interested to see how their Web 2.0 training program goes. Every staff member who completes it will receive an MP3 player. Incentives are important.

–Jane, wishes them luck