DIY Librarian

Library Day in the Life, Round 6 will be Monday, January 24. I’ll participate here and on Twitter – maybe even on Flickr as well.

For Round 5, I had just started my new job. It will be interesting to see how things have changed 6 months in. And of course, I look forward to finding out about what other librarians do all day.

This video, posted by the Minnesota chapter of SLA, has been making the rounds.

Many people were amused by the librarian with his little black bag and amazing photocopier. Others noted that his work is not that different from what we do today; it’s just the tools that have changed.

I noted that my job is very similar. Philatelic libraries are, in many ways, old-fashioned. While my library’s catalog is online, we routinely use print and card indexes to access the journal literature. Very few publications are digital, and very little of the older material has been digitized. We just started publishing our own journal online this year.

We are making progress, but there is a definite digital library divide. The New York Times recently ran an article about where American libraries stand in terms of digitization efforts: Playing Catch-Up in a Digital Library Race.

This Wednesday, Oct. 27, I’ll be presenting as part of a panel on Blogging to Develop Your Digital Identity at the Pennsylvania Library Association conference in Lancaster. If you’ll be at PaLA, come hear from me and three other library bloggers about how blogging can help your career.

Blogs have gone from hot new thing to just another communication channel. They’re not dead – in fact, after reading Walt Crawford’s survey of the library blog landscape, But Still They Blog, I conclude they’re very much alive.

I don’t blog the same way I used to. I don’t post as many personal things, mainly because I have other, more appropriate channels (like Facebook) for those. I don’t post as often as I used to, which could be because I have other channels, or could be because I’m busier than I used to be. I don’t follow blogs the same way I used to; I’m more likely to find an interesting post via Twitter or Facebook or even a Google search than I am to find it by reading my RSS feeds. (Perhaps relatedly, the popular feed reader Bloglines announced it is shutting down on November 1.)

But, there are some things for which my blog is still the best channel. I think (based on the number of comments I get) that more people follow my blog, or find my posts somehow, than did in the early days. I’m used to thinking of myself as a pretty small-time blogger, but I have been around for a while. (I was somewhat surprised to find that DIY Librarian is included in the pioneers section of Crawford’s book – but I have been blogging since mid-2003!)

Mac Slocum quotes from an interview with Anil Dash about why blogging still matters:

That was the promise we had when we all first discovered the web. Someday it would bring us all together and we’d be able to have these conversations. It’s not perfect. It’s not ideal. But in some small way here’s somebody like me — with no portfolio, I didn’t go to an Ivy League school, I didn’t have any fancy social connections when I started my blog — and it has opened the door to me having a conversation as a peer, as somebody taken seriously, in realms that I would have never otherwise had access to. That’s the greatest privilege in the world.

My blog has allowed me to have conversations, both real and virtual, with people I wouldn’t have otherwise had a connection to. In the early days of this blog, I contacted Jessamyn West of librarian.net (one of the true library blog pioneers) for advice, and she wrote back to me.

Next week, I’ll be speaking on a panel at PaLA about blogging and personal branding. Back when I started this blog, it was still unclear whether blogging helped or hurt your professional reputation. This blog has helped me professionally, and I hope to demonstrate how with a little self-awareness blogging can help other young professionals too.

APS booth at StampShow 2010

I’ve written before about my experiences attending technology conferences as a librarian outsider. Last week I got another perspective on conferences and trade shows as I sat on the other side of the booth at the American Philatelic Society‘s StampShow in Richmond.

It was an exhausting–but exciting–four days. Many APS members came to the booth looking to meet “the new librarian.” It was great to meet so many library users in person, because most of them use the library remotely.

I got used to saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can find out,” pretty quickly. When interviewed for this job, I said that I would learn about philately in part from library users, and I learned quite a bit at the show, both from talking to people at the booth and from listening to my coworkers answer questions.

I’ve gotten a taste of being behind the scenes at conferences before, by doing program planning for APLIC and for the SLA Social Science Division, but now that I’ve done everything from shake hands with a famous keynote speaker at a fancy dinner to pack up the booth at the end of the show, I have even more appreciation for what it takes to put on an event like this.

Last week I started a new job as librarian for the American Philatelic Research Library, and this week is far from the typical quiet week in the library because it is our first Volunteer Week and we have four volunteers in the library sorting old journals.

Volunteers sort journals at the American Philatelic Research Library

So when I first saw that this week is Library Day in the Life, round 5, I thought that I wouldn’t participate because this is clearly not a typical time in this librarian’s life. Then I decided it was actually a good time for me to participate, as I begin to explore what exactly a day in my life will be like. I’ve been keeping a diary at work, so this is kind of a public extension of that.

Here’s a little recap of my day, from my Twitter feed:

Run, breakfast, bike to work, say hello, talk about volunteer work week at the library. THEN check email.

Met member of board of directors for the first time. (This is my second week on the job. Trying to remember names and faces!)

Also, I actually do get to read a lot at this job. Reading up on the library and society history to start.

Morning train just went by. I love my new office.

Met with board member about library blog, digitization, union catalog. Volunteers busy sorting journals. No time for snacks.

Biked home for lunch. Came back and sent introduction letters to other philatelic libraries and librarians, because I’m new.

The volunteers already finished their first project! Wow.

I also learned how to send mail. Important when you work for a philatelic library!

Finished my correspondence. Went out to help volunteers sort old journals. Favorite title: The Precancel Optimist.

While people discuss the value of embedded librarians versus centralized libraries, and the value of having an information professional within the department versus the value of having a library as study, research, and meeting space, I’ve had the best of both worlds for the past 9 years.

I’ve been embedded in a research center, along with my library. Really, this is not so different from the department library model, except that I work at an interdisciplinary research center with faculty and students from multiple departments and colleges – and I work for the research center, rather than the library system.

An article on embedded librarians from Inside Higher Ed examines the Welch Medical Library at Johns Hopkins University, which is well ahead of most libraries in embedding its librarians. Some of the commenters note that losing the library as place means losing access to space for patrons who do not have their own offices, losing access to resources not available online, and losing access to collaborative space.

Having an embedded library – a thing that used to be common in NICHD-funded population research centers, but that is no longer being encouraged in new centers – provides immense benefits that, unfortunately, cannot be measured in research funding.

Because my office is in the research center, I know about new projects as working groups are formed or proposals drafted, and can provide assistance. Faculty and students see me in the elevator and ask questions. I overhear conversations that lead me to develop new workshops.

Because the library is also in the research center, graduate students have a place for informal meetings. While they are in the library, they have a chance to browse new books and journals. This is especially important in an interdisciplinary field, because resources related to population are not gathered in one place in the main university library.

As one commenter noted, the one thing I am missing is a connection to my librarian colleagues. In fact, since I work for the research center, I don’t have any formal connection to them. So, instead of having to work hard to connect with my patrons, I’ve had to work hard to connect with other librarians. Overall, though, I think this model has worked.

photo by Belkus

Iggy Pop is known for a lot of things, including wearing leather pants with no shirt and being pelted with bottles on stage. He’s not generally known for his thoughts on copyright and fair use.

In a piece for Interview, though, he discusses copyright, fair use, and art with Shepard Fairey, the artist who made the iconic Obama HOPE portrait. (The AP is suing Fairey, claiming he violated copyright by using an AP photo as reference.)

2010 CVIM Marathoners for Medicine team with homorary coaches Joe and Sue Paterno and Greg Fredericks

Please indulge me in a rare post that has nothing to do with libraries, but everything to do with communities.

On April 19th, I will join a group of local runners in running the Boston Marathon to raise money for Centre Volunteers in Medicine, Centre County’s free medical and dental clinic. This is the fourth year I am doing this, and it is by far the hardest year.

I got lost on a snowshoeing trip at the beginning of February and ended up with 6 frostbitten toes. I am very fortunate that frostbite was the worst of it, and that I was able to keep all of my toes. I am unbelievably fortunate that I am able to run 26.2 miles so soon after this injury. (At least, I think I can…)

I couldn’t run for a month, but I am back out there and will be at the start line in Hopkinton on April 19. I was able to recover so well because I wasn’t worried about going to the doctor — I had good health insurance. I went first to my family doctor, then to the emergency room, and then to a wound care specialist. (Apparently frostbite is not that common, even here in central Pennsylvania!) This experience made me think about the kinds of choices people make when they don’t have insurance. What if I had to choose between treating my toes and paying the heating bill?

Thanks to Centre Volunteers in Medicine, people in Centre County do not have to make that choice. Please consider supporting CVIM with a donation – any amount helps and every cent goes to CVIM.

You can donate online through CVIM’s website.

On race day, track my progress on the Boston Marathon website and send kind thoughts to my toes! I’ll be wearing bib # 15042.

Oh, and this is a little bit library-related: the Boston Marathon finishes in front of the Boston Public Library. The marathon I ran to qualify for Boston, the Richmond Marathon, starts in front of the Virginia Commonwealth Library.

As a librarian with a pit bull, I can’t resist sharing this. Grant is a library dog who is trained to help kids gain confidence reading out loud. Back in February, he made the evening news.  You can follow his adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Grant is also an American Staffordshire Terrier (AKC)/American Pit Bull Terrier (UKC). Nice to see him working so hard to promote literacy and dispel myths about pit bulls at the same time. (Though I think his job looks pretty cushy!)

My pit bull likes books, too, but mostly she eats them. I don’t think she’s cut out for a library career.