March is almost over...

This is crazy and hard to believe. Since I last posted, my husband and I both turned 30, I took a week-long trip up to MD to hang out with family, I applied for and didn't get a job, and I started looking into renewing my school library license for NC. Haven't gotten too far with that one, yet. We also hired an electrician for the first time, and got a wonderful one, so if you need electrical work done in NC's Triangle area, let me know. Otherwise, not much happened. When home with kids, there is a lot of activity, but not a lot to report to the outside world. It's fun and maddening by turns, and the kids are hilarious to watch as they try new things out and add words to their vocabulary and skills and ideas to their repertoire.

I have my drafts of children's literature-related opinions still saved, so let me try to get one up...

Getting by and The Way We Live Now

So, it's been almost two months since I last posted. Going back to work has definitely been hectic, so a lot of days are still devoted to getting the bare necessities for keeping the household together done. Paired with Christmas (we mailed our last Christmas cards somewhere between the 7th and 10th of January!) and a cold going around, blogging has fallen by the wayside.

One excuse is that I've spent most of the last two months reading one book: The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope. I got interested in reading something by Trollope after reading Stanley Hauerwas' memoir, Hannah's Child, where he mentions being a Trollope fan. Since in my experience, professional theologians who still regularly read fiction are rare, I thought I'd try Trollope out. I'm not sure I quite realized what I was getting into (he's a Victorian novelist--that means long novels!), but I really enjoyed the book and am posting my review at the end of this post.

I'm also about to update my blog list to include two blogs I've decided need to be there:

• Shannon Hale's blog Squeetus
• The children's lit blog Secrets and Sharing Soda, by the friend of a library school friend

Please check them out!

Ok, here's the review now (which I forgot to include the first time around--hooray for post-posting editing options!):

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Inspired to try out Anthony Trollope by Stanley Hauerwas (who describes himself as a big fan of Trollope in his memoir).

1/6/11 Have just gotten past the 400 page mark and am now sufficiently drawn into the story that I'm eager to read every new chapter, not just the ones that deal with my favorite characters.

1/18/11 Almost there....almost there...

1/23/11 Whew. The Way We Live Now definitely embodies the stereotype of the Victorian novel...it's LONG!! However, when I finished it's 824 pages, I felt like I had spent the time well and enjoyably.

As noted above, I had to get about half-way through before I could really enjoy the full story. I didn't know on starting, but was unsurprised to learn, that the book was published serially, so it makes sense that the story would follow a character for a few chapters, then skip to another character. Once half-way through, however, the different storylines started to weave together more and that made even those chapters that just followed Melmotte (the villain of the story) around interesting.

I liked that Trollope portrayed realistic characters who had plenty of faults--several of them more faults than virtues--but he still managed to make most of them sympathetic. Even Melmotte had some sympathetic moments, but I feel that he richly got what he deserved. I also feel that Trollope didn't cheat by letting characters have sudden changes of heart and character--he would describe their motivations and their feelings, and they stayed true to those.

Most of the characters got happy endings--even a few who didn't quite deserve them. Paul Montague and Hetta Carbury were the central romantic couple, John Crumb and Ruby Ruggles had a somewhat more exciting, yet less tortured happy ending, Roger Carbury did not get the ending he desired but rose to the occasion quite well--only Mrs. Hurtle's fate left me sad. I found the marriage of Georgiana Longstaffe to be too precipitous to be really interesting. Felix Carbury didn't quite get what he deserved (in my opinion, a swift kick in the pants), but was at least prevented from dishonoring any more young ladies or ruining his mother financially. Lady Carbury's happy ending was perhaps not deserved, but satisfying nonetheless. Since I'm a happy ending kind of girl, this is largely what made the novel enjoyable for me!


View all my reviews

June 2010

Phew, it's been awhile.

Our little girl arrived on June 5, so I've been out of the loop for awhile. We've had family visiting, a family wedding to attend, and just regular getting to know our new daughter and figuring out how to parent 2 children instead of one.

I've found it surprisingly easy to "unplug" most of the time, but this is mainly accomplished by not going on the computer at all when the kids are up--I'll check my e-mail once in the morning if I have a specific reason to, but I've been trying to confine my online time to naptime and after bedtime. Once I do sit down at the computer, it's very easy for me to be too distracted, as a recently destroyed library book can attest to.

(I was also inspired to try to be more unplugged by this article in the NY Times, which came out just after our daughter arrived.)

In any case, I will probably be on here a little less during the 5 months remaining in my leave (a month down already, ahh!). However, I will try to get some book reviews up, if nothing else.

Cheers!

Predicting busy-ness (extremely boring post!)

There is some pattern about how library use goes. The end of the semester tends to be busier than the beginning; Sunday and Monday nights tend to be busier than Thursdays.

Still, there's no real predicting how busy any given night will be. The Thursday night with all the Public Health students was super busy for me, more so than most Sundays. This week seems to be defying end-of-semester normalcy. Saturday is the last day of classes, yet the library is very quiet tonight, and was last night as well.

I guess most of the major projects have already come due...

Silent screaming

The rest of this post will be in all CAPS. You have been warned.

I DON'T CARE IF YOU TALK ON YOUR CELL PHONE, BUT IT'S POLICY AND I HAVE TO ENFORCE IT, SO PLEASE JUST DO US ALL A FAVOR AND TOE THE LINE.

WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, DON'T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE BY HIDING YOUR PHONE BEHIND YOUR HAND OR A BOOKSHELF, ESPECIALLY IF YOU TALK AT NORMAL VOLUME.

AND PUSH YOUR CHAIRS IN!!

Ah, I feel better now.

Nights that make me love my job

Last Thursday was one of them.

I had about 10 public administration grad students, who all had papers due Friday, in the reference area. Now, it would have been BETTER if they had not waited until Thursday to do their research. But that did not stop me from reveling in finding articles and books for them, helping them use their sources as support for their arguments, and teaching them APA style. And giving them peppermints and encouragement. I was definitely on a high at the end of Thursday evening (but was out of time to blog, and didn't get around to it until now).

Part of what made this experience so satisfying for me was that the students didn't have unrealistic expectations. They KNEW they were late, and they were ready to make due with whatever information we could find in a limited time. They also understood that they were all in the same boat, and were very patient as I went back and forth between them to help.

Hooray for 11th hour reference triumphs! :-)

Student workers

I've personally experienced 4 student workers at this point in my academic library career. There are several more who have worked when I work, but if they are stationed downstairs, I don't get to know them as well.

It's kind of rough for the students, because they are stuck in a fairly quiet--as in less frequented--part of the library (serials), often without any particular assignment except to be present at the desk. I think this led to some students being unreliable in showing up to work on a regular basis, which created trouble for them both in terms of how much they were paid and in being re-hired.

We have more work assignments for our evening students this semester, but not enough to fill a four hour shift. Over the past week, I had a student filling out book order cards, which is tedious, but still doesn't last very long (I think she spent 3-4 hours total to go through a whole review journals worth of orders). I think if we had a more standardized, comprehensive training program for students, we could assign more work to them (which would be great considering how short staffed we are!). As it is, we train them as we have assignments for them, but it seems that finding work for the students almost creates more work.

Ideas for student worker projects? Did any of you spend work-study or just plain student employment time at a library desk?

"Leaving the Ego" vs. "Pride in Your Work"

Egos definitely play a bigger role in the world of work than I would have guessed in my innocent (that's actually pretty much true) high school days. Even in college, the few one crazy job experiences I had, I chalked up to the fact that summer jobs are supposed to be crazy.

Really, though, I think the American workplace has set itself up for failure in this regard. You're supposed to "check your ego at the door," and be a team player, but there's also an ideal of self-made business-men and -women clawing their ways to the top. On a less dramatic note, part of the quality of our work is supposed to come from taking pride in our work--it's not very far from pride to ego.

Generally, I feel like I am pretty good at working in groups and putting the good of the library above my own ego. Still, there are times when I catch myself on an ego trip--such as when a project I've been working on suddenly has a portion replaced with work from someone else.

I have experience jobs where egos seem to be a non-issue, and jobs where they are the elephant in the closet, and I'm trying to figure out how this happens. I'm sure that ego-less workplaces partially arise due to how an organization is managed, but I think there's also a concerted effort from the hoi polloi to be nice and make sure everyone else is nice, too!

Do any of you have insight into how this works?

Busy students, busy library

Well, I didn't update as quickly as I thought I would.

Here are some current goings-on in the library:

• Students are here! They've been on campus for awhile, but there has been a definite increase in library use since coming back from Labor Day: assignments have started to be due, students are settling into their study patterns, and computers continue to be in short supply. The reference desk seems busier to me than it did at the beginning of last semester, but I can't make a complete comparison, since I wasn't here at the beginning of the last school year.
• Classes have been coming to the library. I've taught two sessions for professors, and given one open workshop (only one student; sigh). Our daytime information literacy/instruction librarian has been even busier with classes. These are great chances to form a more direct connection with students.
• Everyone who's interested, or just part of the Reference Department, has been trained in our state's virtual reference system. Now we have to practice and start answering chat questions! Hopefully this is a step towards offering our own virtual reference service.

All in all, it's business as usual, but I like it when business is really busy-ness around here!

Excused

I was excused from serving on a 3 week jury because of childcare issues. Whew! It would have been very interesting, but finding someone to watch Nathaniel all day would not have been fun.

I hope to be excused in another way, too: I had a serious reference desk blooper last night.

A very nice patron came in trying to find out if we had a book by a specific author (we didn't). I was able to find out that the local public library had 1 copy of the particular book she cited, and gave her instructions on getting a card (as a university student) and requesting the book from a branch that was a little further out. Then I found out that she just wanted something fun (preferably a western romance) to read that night.

Well, if I were at a public library, I would have shown her the romance section, shown her the western section, and let her have at it. I am not at a public library, and I have to say that our collection is very light on the genre fiction books.

I tried searching for the author. I tried searching for a couple other authors that popped into my head. I tried to find one western book and then copy the LC subject headings from its catalog record. I tried to find some suggestions on Novelist (this link just goes to their advertising site--see if your local library subscribes to this super database!). None of these worked.

I had a brainwave about halfway through and sent her upstairs to the library school's library, where they have an actual fiction collection. However, I don't know whether or not she found anything.

The most frustrating part? These are the kinds of questions I LOVE! I love it when people come it to a library looking for something good to read. This is why I'm a librarian, for crying out loud!

Today, in order to try to learn from my mistake, I did two things. First, I went and played with Novelist some more to get a few more of their features under my belt (I used to rely mostly on the "read-alike" feature, but you need a specific book for that to work). I've learned both about their genre search and the really fabulous "feature articles" that highlight a genre and/or topic. There was one on western/frontier romance, too!

Next, I got on ACRL's "collib" (college libraries) listserv and asked for advice on doing RA (reader's advisory--the fiction side of reference) in an academic library. One librarian sent a list of official subject headings for some genres, which I have duly printed off and highlighted, to be ready to grab next time.

I just hope the same patron comes back...

Yikes, need to update...

The "yikes" is because my last post was so completely devoted to tooting my own horn, and then I LEFT it there for over a week.

There is not very much to report in library land. The summer lull continues, even though it's the last week of summer classes (apparently the computer lab downstairs is slightly fuller, but that's the only sign we've had).

There's also very little news on the chat reference service. We will hopefully have a conference call with the coordinator of our state chat reference service, which our director would like us to work with before completely setting out on our own. I haven't played with LibraryH3lp much recently, due in equal parts to other work, lack of motivation and diligence, and lack of possible further steps until we are ready to actually try out some chatting with more staff, if not with patrons.

Otherwise, all is quiet on the reference desk front. Students begin their fall semester in two weeks, and hopefully more stories will abound!

Motivation

Obviously, I haven't been motivated to post recently. Partly because there hasn't been much to post recently...because I haven't been motivated very much at work.

Issues with motivation I've noticed lately (because a list always helps me feel slightly more motivated):

• Boring work.
  
• This is really the least of the issues--most of my work is not boring (occasionally not having work to do is boring, but that is also less of an issue as I get better acquainted with the job). Even tasks that are in themselves boring (barcoding items, shelving reference books, coming up with a list of books to weed) can be fulfilling in small doses ("I did a shelf today!"), and, since they are rarely tasks that can be completed in one go, often naturally lend themselves to being split up into bits.
• Assignments that are over my head.
  
• I don't think of librarianship as a particularly difficult field. Yes, there are things you have to know and skills you have to have to do it well, but most of these are easy to learn the basics of, and fall into place with practice. But recently, I've had two assignments that really are hard to me: preparing to present to a library class on science and technology resources (eek!) and getting a clear picture of southern American collections (in all different disciplines) at my library. The problem with these is not just their difficulty but my difficulty in figuring out where to start. The first is, thankfully, done (I "chat" with the class on Sunday evening, so I am crossing my fingers and will report back--unfortunately, I am not chatting with them in LibraryH3lp). For the second, I luckily have a team of people from other libraries gathering the same data (people who know what they are doing with collections) and have helpfully suggested sources of information.
• Lack of external motivators.
• I know, I know, internal motivation is supposed to be better. I'm not even talking pats on the back, though (but I do like them). I'm talking deadlines. In both of the cases above, deadlines have been nebulous up until this week. I like hard deadlines.
• My own tendency to procrastination.
• This is probably the big one that tips all the others from lack of motivation to lack of productivity. Lists help, to some extent, as do self-proclaimed deadlines. It's getting myself to believe those deadlines that is difficult.

Anyway, the last few days seem to have improved, but I'm not quite sure what I can do to keep it up. For those few of you who are reading, do you have any motivation-inspiring tips?

Busy day!

What I've done today:

• Attended a "webinar" (online FREE seminar) about using web 2.0 tools (like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) in academic libraries. It was excellent, and it was co-led by one of my classmates/Christian fellowship colleagues from library school!
• Responded to e-mails from psychology professors and a patron looking for a bit of history/biography about {My university} (patron was directed to the university archives department).
• Read a really informative e-mail from a library school colleague who is also a science librarian. I am NOT a science librarian but am going to be helping with a class period for an online Science and Technology Resources course because I am somewhat familiar with online/distance ed. resources. I am excited but nervous! I know next to nothing about helping with science questions!
  
• Typed up the information I have gathered thus far about what we collect related to the American South for a meeting with a consortium group I'm working with. Discovered areas that I still need to investigate.
• Helped some patrons (mostly visiting high school students).
• E-mailed a few other people I know who are either scientists or science librarians to ask for help on above-mentioned assignment.
• Read some blogs and am updating this one.

I feel like a real librarian today!