YouTube: "The Librarian Song"

I read, actually read and listened to, two very different things regarding librarian's and searching this morning. The first was an ACRLog post There's More to Finding Than we Thought that discusses a Pew Internet & American Life Project study concerning search engine users.

The second, a YouTube video featuring "The Librarian Song."

"First she, showed it to me
Then she, did it with me,
And she smiled so happily when I could do it for myself."

"She's the interactive kind,
When there are things to find,
My librarian, she's so fine!"

"Song from the Joe Uveges - When Freedom Calls concert on November 2, 2007 in Colorado Springs." (YouTube - The Librarian Song)

Yearly report

I am not an enthusiast of blog posts whose purpose is to lead readers to other blogs, unless of course that is the purpose of the blog in question; it seems to be an "easy out" for posting. This post is going to be one of those posts, apologies to everyone in advance but you will soon see why.

Yesterday afternoon, librarians received their yearly email from the library director asking for updates on our professional development to complete his report for the 2006-2007 academic year (ending June 2007). We were to forward information concerning our campus committee involvement, professional affiliations (ALA, ACRL, & ALAO), presentations, publishing, conference and workshop attendance, and anything else that speaks to our professional development.

I have been lucky in recent years with opportunities to work with our College of Education on search committees and as an adjunct instructor. With ALAO, the Academic Library Association of Ohio, I have been able to be an active member with Interest Groups (CMCIG) and the board. Committee involvement on a national level with ACRL/EBSS has been a recent development that I am enjoying (though winter meetings in Philadelphia?). As to presenting, after several state-wide presentations, I took the professional leap last year and was accepted to present two poster sessions in D.C. Those poster session led to potential publishing prospects that I will discuss more at a later date. I was excited to be able to send this information back to the director and show I had made progress with my professional development. However, I am cognizant of the fact every year will not have the same opportunity. I am grateful to have support from the library director in question enabling me to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.

That said, it was with interest that I read Are You Where You Want to Be Professionally? by Steven B. on the ACRLog this morning. In part, Steven mentioned:

"All of this may be a long winded way of saying that I urge you not to worry about where you are professionally. If you think your career needs to be progressing faster, I say think of it as a long run. You’ve got to pace yourself. And keep in mind that the road is a series of hills and valleys. Sometimes you will get things right at the right time and you’ll be on the hill. But then it will be someone else’s turn, and you’ll be in the valley. It’s much better to look at the long view, and focus not on one time recognition but developing the ability to acquire and nuture ideas and inspiration." (Steven B, ACRLog, 12/5/07)

The valleys are coming; I know this without a doubt. I plan (and hope) to weather them with a bit of aplomb and dignity ... and the knowledge another hill is ahead. Take a few minutes and read Are You Where You want to be Professionally, it is both a thoughtful and insightful view of librarianship.

Tags: ACRLog, Academic Librarianship, Academic librarian - professional development, Academic library

Read this: Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries

ACRLog has posted this article link, ACRL Summit Report On Changing Role of Academic Libraries Now Available, to the following essay, Changing Roles of academic and Research Libraries. The essay was "derived from a Roundtable on Technology and Change in Academic Libraries, convened by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) on November 2-3, 2006, in Chicago" (ACRL, 3/20/07). ACRL is soliciting, née welcoming, "comments, thoughts, reflections, and reactions" submitted on their blog posting.

A response to the essay was prepared by Julie Todaro, ACRL VP/Pres-Elect and is linked from the article. Unfortunately, the link is broken (I tried it just a minute ago) and leads readers to ALA's infamous web redesign message and Todaro's ACRL VP page is comprised mostly of "coming soon."

I am sure the link will be updated.

Tags: ACRL, ACRLog, Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries, Academic Libraries

Conference Bloggers

ACRLog is looking for ACRL Conference Bloggers; check it out if you are interested. There are specific topics to be covered (tech services, new librarians, new technology in libraries, and community college libraries) and a deadline for volunteering of February 16th.

I would be willing, even happy, to volunteer if I can find a hotel with a vacant room (as opposed to pitching a tent in the convention center). All of the conference hotels are booked and I have not had the best of luck with various online travel sites, Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, and Hotwire to name a few. The same thing happened with ALA midwinter last year in San Antonio. My hotel, though nice, was quite a distance from the Convention Center and there were no conference shuttles until the last day. I realize conference planners have to err on the side of caution when reserving blocks of hotel rooms because if the rooms are not used, they often take a financial hit. But there has to be a better way. I am still hopeful about attending ACRL, but if I find nothing today I may just turn my attention to ALA annual and register early.

Just my little gripe for today.

Tags: ACRL, ACRLog, ACRL conference, ACRL hotel accommodations

Looking good

The ACRLog has a new look for the New Near. Along with the new look are a few new features I particularly like are an events calendar for ACRL items and a link for story ideas, the ACRL Tip Page. It will be interesting to see how these changes help the blog to evolve. I'm not so sure I like the recent comments section, but as long as people take responsibility for what they are commenting it should be interesting. The ACRLog blog team is listening to its readers.

Today is day two of the "new" Blogger (it is not Blogger Beta any longer!) and I have yet to use many of the highly touted enhanced features. The drag and drop option template customization requires an upgrade to the existing template.

"We've introduced a new tool for customizing the appearance of your blog. Before you can use this tool, you'll need to upgrade your template. By upgrading, you will lose many of the changes you previously made to your template. However, we will save a copy of your current template so that you can access it later. " (How can I use new layout features, 1/3/07)

Yikes, lose changes made to the template? When the Blogger gods highlight this particular notification in red it gives me pause. I am curious to see how these features work, but plan to practice upgrading one of my lesser used blogs first. Plus, Library Cloud is a team blog and template changes will not be made until Rebecca and I have a chance to make that particular
determination.

In addition to the post label options discovered yesterday, among the several changes I noticed are the dashboard layout, photo upload, and ease of publishing. As of now, I am not overly thrilled with the new Blogger dashboard. It is nice to be able to choose post, setting, and view blog from the initial screen, but it is a bit cumbersome. Something interesting I noticed when adding my dashboard screen shot to this post is the new terms of service option you must agree to before blogger will upload any photo. One more thing on the definite plus side is how much quicker publishing is with new Blogger.

Tags: ACRLog, Blogger beta, New Blogger, Update blog templates

ACRLog Survey

To celebrate their first year in existence, ACRLog is conducting a readers survey. As of this morning there is still time to participate. If you are a regular reader of ACRLog, or are simply interested in learning more about it, now is a good time to see what they are doing and make suggestions for topics.

Tags: ACRLog, ACRLog readers survey, ACRL, Academic library blogs