DIY Librarian

A couple years ago, I wrote about infiltrating a tech conference. I did it again today, this time attending my college’s IT conference. I was a bit nervous about it, since everyone else in the room was classed as an IT professional while my job is in the library group (but not in the library – go figure).

Partway through his opening remarks, our university CIO was addressing a problem and said, “We need a librarian in the room. You wouldn’t believe how badly we need librarians right now.” (Little did he know there was a librarian sitting right in the middle of the room!)

This is just one anecdote, but it’s not the first time I’ve heard an IT professional say they need a librarian to work with them. It reinforced my belief that “the L-word” has a lot of value and meaning and was very timely considering the proposed SLA name change (which I wrote about yesterday).

Later, I mentioned the SLA name debate to one of our system administrators who also happens to have a library degree. He said he didn’t like the idea of dropping the L-word from the name, and that he specifically wanted library training to complement his IT training.

SLA may be changing its name, depending on the outcome of a vote currently underway. The proposed new name is Association for Strategic Knowledge Professionals.

Since the proposed announcement, Twitter and other outlets have been buzzing with reactions and discussion.

In the midst of all this, I was catching up on some back reading and read an article about the One Book, One Community in Library Journal. I happened to notice that the author works for “a firm specializing in strategic communications for knowledge organizations” – and thought, I have no idea what that means. It just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords mixed together to me. Now why would I want to belong to an association whose name sounds like a bunch of buzzwords to me?

Anne Barker has posted her “lengthy thoughts” at her blog. Like me, she was in favor of the proposed name change in 2003 but doesn’t like the current proposed name. While I don’t agree with her on everything, I think she makes a lot of good points. (As of her last post, Anne had not yet decided which way she would vote. Kendra Levine, Dan Cherubin, and David Shumaker, three librarians with very different experiences, wrote thoughtful posts explaining their “no” votes.)

I don’t have a traditional library job. My working job title, which I did not choose, is “Information Core Director.” When people ask what that means, I explain that I am a librarian. It means something to people, and explains the kind of work I do.

I’m not against a name change, but I’m holding out for one that feels right to me.

At the SLA conference in Seattle, I got talked into signing up for SLA’s 23 Things. While I don’t consider myself on the forefront of Web 2.0 (I’m convinced that once I found Facebook, it instantly became yesterday’s news), I’m pretty comfortable with a good number of the tools (my library has been blogging for over 2 years now and this humble blog has been around in some form since 2003) and I’m not afraid to try new ones out. I thought 23 Things might get me out of my comfort zone and get me to try some new things – plus the organizers were pretty persuasive.

I haven’t blogged about the first few things (blogs and wikis), mainly because I was so familiar with them. I have more blogs than I can handle already, and I started using a wiki for SLA Social Science Division program planning last year. (This year I’ve invited more people to use the wiki, and am happy to see most of them at least reading the wiki and a good number contributing to it.)

Now we are on to tagging, which I’m not quite as comfortable with. Oh, sure, I tag things, but I’m never quite sure about it. Is this the right tag? Will I ever find this again?

Mostly I am good at coming up with my own special tags. For example, I tag books in Library Thing with currentreading and use that to display them on my blog. I tag posts on del.icio.us with staffpop and plug that feed into my intranet site for my staff. But actual meaningful tags? I’m a little behind on that.

Next up: Folksonomies and Technorati, where the current top story is “Dick Busted on Sex Charges Outside Chicken Joint”. You can’t make this stuff up.

One of my favorite things about going to a national conference is that it often takes me to a city I would never visit otherwise. Sometimes I come back and think, Well, I never have to go there again! But often I am pleasantly surprised.

When I have a day to myself, I try to visit the zoo if there is one I can get to on public transit. The Denver Zoo is well-known and did not disappoint, but I’ve also been to some very nice smaller zoos, like the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque. Animals that are often verging on comatose in warm, humid East Coast climates, like the polar bears and arctic fox, were quite active on a chilly January morning in Albuquerque.

The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa has some great interactive exhibits (feed the stingrays and lorikeets) and a manatee hospital. At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, I took some close-ups of the ravens. And at the Toronto Zoo, I spent a lot of time with the snakes.

I have arrived safely back in Pennsylvania, where I no longer hear the slot machines yelling “Wheel! Of! Fortune!” 24 hours a day.

Jill Hurst-Wahl has already blogged about the summit for the SLA IT Division Blogging Section as well as at Digitization 101.

The summit had some good sessions, some sessions I didn’t care for, and a lot of opportunities to network. Networking at bigger conferences too often means walking around receptions clutching a wine glass, working up the occasional courage to introduce yourself to someone, only to find you have nothing to talk about. Not at the Leadership Summit.

I mentioned an issue my local chapter is facing to a colleague from my division, and was promptly introduced to someone from another chapter who was facing the same issue—and had solutions. I met other conference planners for Seattle. I talked to vendor representatives. I met SLA board members. I reconnected with my fellow division and chapter leaders. My only complaint is that the packed schedule doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for this kind of activity. (Well, I have other complaints, but mainly having to do with catering and wireless access and other mundane things.)

I don’t generally get bowled over by keynote speakers, but Chip Heath’s talk actually helped me with a request I received while I was in Reno (er, Sparks). The request is to communicate about a service my library offers to our faculty. Rather than craft my usual informative but uninventive message, I’m going to attempt to create a “sticky message”. Chip Heath quoted Frank Sinatra on New York: “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” If I can get faculty to read an email message and remember the library when they need us, I’ll say I’ve made it.

I’m here in Reno (well, technically Sparks) for the SLA Leadership Summit. I arrived a day early because I was worried about making two flight connections in January, and then promptly spent several hours trying to get my laptop to talk to the hotel’s wireless network. I just recently got a wireless card for my laptop—watch out, 21st century, here comes the DIY Librarian!

Unlike the last time I was frustrated by a hotel internet connection, I was almost relieved when I couldn’t get the laptop to connect. Suddenly, my extra day was wide open. Instead of working, I could go running, check out the public library, read a book, or work on my writing…

Ah, but now I am connected, so here I am checking my email, blogging, and charting my mileage on MapMyRun.com. While I was unconnected, though, I did write a long letter to my dad (to be mailed when I get home) and almost finished my book.

Much as I like being connected (now that we have high-speed at home, it’s just so easy to go check a recipe on Epicurious!) these unconnected moments are very special, like a moment of silence, or the feeling of wandering aimlessly in the library stacks. There is something simultaneously scary (I can’t check the hotel restaurant’s menu online! I’ll just have to go down to the lobby!) and peaceful about it.

I’ve just started a blog for the SLA Central Pennsylvania Chapter. It’s nothing fancy—just a TypePad blog set up through SLA. It’s primary purpose is to make it easier for me to get new content on the chapter home page (using Feed2JS). I used to hand-code a news archive page and then copy the most recent content into the index page. Not a lot of work, but it gets tedious, especially when you have to squeeze it into free moments at work. I’ve already noticed I’m more likely to post things than I was before, and I think this will make things much easier for whoever succeeds me as chapter webmaster.