6:30-8:00 get myself and kiddo ready, leave for work

8-9:00 is my first email block, I do a poorly managed version of the “inbox zero” and I try to keep two email blocks throughout the day—the first and the last hour. Whenever possible, I try to leave work early enough to get a workout in for the day. I’ve found that it really does make one more productive! However, I don’t have my daughter on Mondays, so I tend to work late those nights. Of course, like most anal er… “driven” librarians, I work a lot from home at night and on the weekends, too.

Checked in on Foursquare

Get to work—open up Outlook on one monitor, Firefox on the other—use App Tabs to keep Gmail, iTweet, FriendFeed, Facebook, Google Reader and Hoot Suite open… but I rarely click over to them (sorry to anyone who tries to ping me during the day).

Plug in my iPhone for music.

Fielded question about constantly replacing headphone on patron internet machines—looking for a source of good, cheap headphones (difficult balance).

Called friend and former colleague, Jack Maness to confirm lunch

Set up Digital Services Team meeting for 9am

Posted picture of my desk on Twitter

9-10:00 met with Digital Services Team. This is my Systems guru, Jon Solomon and my Drupal master, Chris Evjy. We discussed the movement to the newest version of Web Pac Pro, new headers, integrating Library Thing For Libraries. We discussed Summer Reading program, looked at different software products and campaigns, set firm deadlines for the various elements. Discussed Evanced stylesheets and the development of a Feed plugin for Drupal to ease the display of Evanced information. Discussed our developing Intranet – production environment up. Broke down the tasks and discussed who does what and when.

10:00am – Filled out time sheet, generated the report for my staff and turned it in.

Looked into the myriad of suggestions for headphone replacement from Twitter. Many good suggestions – brought these ideas to our Assistant Director and discussed some of the pros and cons of each approach. We decided to take question to the Leadership Team later this week

Checked in with Finance Manager for library on the progress towards a contract with PingV, converting ArtsResource website migration to Drupal. ArtsResource is a web site paid for by the Boulder Arts Commission that we maintain at the library. It provides profiles with samples (audio, video, photographs) of work for local artists as well as art-related events listings. We are working with PingV to convert it over to Drupal from the legacy content management system it’s currently built in.

10:15am Did morning walk-through of the library – I try to do this twice a day so my experience of the library isn’t all just virtual. I stopped in the children’s area and discussed a recent hacking incident that unfortunately resulted in patron shoving our security guard when confronted. Further discussion with children’s staff about other recent security issues and our Leadership Team/Commission’s emphasis as top priority for the coming months.

10:30 – 11:00 Worked on IT governance meeting, implementing a Change Management group as per ITIL principles. I’ve been slowly adopting much of the ITIL stuff in one form or another since I came on board about a year ago.

Then Chris (the web guy) interrupted me and wanted to know where Drupal was installed on the new production server… also needed user permissions fixed. I tweeted about my frustrations with Linux file permissions.

11-11:30am, more follow up on Change Management

11:30 – gave up on Change Management and moving on to making some phone calls… Eric Sissler of the Westminster Public Library, Carson Block of the Poudre River Public Library District, Susan Staples of the High Plains Library District. Working on some Colorado Association of Libraries’ “Network Systems Interest Group” stuff.

Noon-1:30 – I try to make myself have lunch with a friend twice a week because the rest of the time I just eat lunch at my desk while answering email. Twice a week it’s good for me to get away from the screen. Today I had lunch with Jack Maness, Head of the Engineering Library at the University of Colorado up the street. We talked a lot about ALA Emerging Leaders, Technology in Libraries—cool stuff about Data Curation mostly. We talked career development and a *lot* about what we’ve learned and are learning being relatively inexperienced managers. Jack has been a huge influence and inspiration—I can’t say enough good about the guy.

1:30-2:00 check email, Twitter, Facebook … helped out Chris AGAIN with Linux stuffs.

2:00-3:00 It’s all about the performance reviews. I have one for myself due so I needed to prepare materials for my supervisor, and I have a staff member due soon as well. I did a little of both.

3:00-3:30 Got a call back from Eric Sissler and discussed the details of Reading Record, a Free and Open Source (hosted, no less!) summer reading tool that he developed. We’re thinking about participating with the larger Colorado Community in using this software this year. Also, discussion of Rsync and virtualization in libraries and setting up a time for him to come up and see our data center and geek out even more together.

3:30-3:45 Afternoon walk-through – this time of day has a totally different crowd (after school) and I like to check in with Circulation and see how things are going. Have they had a lot of questions or complaints about the system today? I also use the time to do an environment scan in general. What areas of the library are people using? How many laptops? What are they doing? Who looks lost? I try to overhear whatever questions they are asking our desk staff. I always peek in the teen room and see who’s using what in there as well. Then I headed through children’s to see what’s most popular there and observe the age groups.

3:45-4:00pm – Related to children and computing, I came back to check on the progress of getting our new multimedia touch screen computers set up. We’re going to deploy Windows 7 and a whole slew of new software for a wider range of ages. Currently our children’s PCs run Windows 95 and are installed at tables that are only appropriate for 2-5 year olds. The software selection is equally geared for little ones and out of date. Soon these cool HP Touch Smarts will replace them! Really excited about this…

4-5:00 it’s all about inbox zero, baby. Will I make it today?

5:30 – I have *not* reached inbox zero… far from it. I look at the Facebook photos of the After Hours social at ALA Midwinter. Wish I could have been there. Now I want to go home—so back to email! I WILL PREVAIL!

6:00—Inbox Zero achieved. I does a happy dance.

6:00-6:25 – I gather my notes and write up this post. I will then head home but my day isn’t over—we’re doing some system testing later tonight about 9:30pm.

All in all, a pretty typical day except that I normally have a *lot* more meetings.

ADDENDUM: Running the new backup script hung on an SQL table tonight at about 10pm and our server crashed. I emailed back and forth with my Sysadmin for a while before finally deciding I needed to head into the office. He and I were there until about 10 minutes ago– 2:00am. III is still working on the problem as it turned out to be a Millenium issue rather than a Linux issue that he or I could fix. And THAT is a day in the life of this librarian…. luckily late night calls are *very* atypical.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/margolove/1810357551/

It is a very interesting time. As I gear up for another ALA conference, in the very rare spare moments I encounter I’ve been reflecting a bit on my life, my career, and inevitably… this blog.

I’ve seen the signs– blogging is dead. Well, no it’s not. But I’m certainly not the only one I know who’s taken a hiatus. I know the arguments– Friendfeed and/or Twitter have killed blogs. However, in my case that’s really not it. I remain semi-active on Twitter, but I’ve rarely spent any time at all on Friendfeed.

I have a lot going on right now. The transition from Library School student to full-fledged MLS’d librarian happened in mid-April, when I gave my final capstone presentation. I thought, “Ah-ha! Now I will blog again.”

But I did not. I spent evenings with my daughter. We went for bike rides, we read aloud together, we went to the park, and we spent many, many hours on the swing in the front yard.

And I don’t regret a minute of it.

However, by late May I began to feel antsy again and I started putting together presentations, trainings, reading a few blogs here and there, etc. But I just haven’t had the extra time to blog. As you can see from my last “post”, I had intended on live-blogging the Rocky Mountain Innovative Users Group summer workshop—but I ended up needing to come back up to Boulder after our patron network crashed for most of the day.

Which leads me to why I’m really not blogging. It turns out that moving from a position where you have little power (and therefore little responsibility) to one of great responsibility is a huge shift in many different ways.

Before, I could spend the evening on a whim staying up late coding a cool website or mashup just because I thought it would be fun. I could head off to pretty much any meeting, conference, or committee that I could drive to and afford. I could spend my time exploring and playing with ideas and writing rants about what needs to change.

But now I actually have to *do it*.

There’s no one to blame anymore if things don’t turn out well. There’s no “administration” that won’t let me implement something cool for our department. There’s no lack of ability to control the purse-strings or to delegate the tasks. Now I have to figure out how to be the one to get buy-in. I have to figure out how to take ideas from conception to reality not just in my own little office sphere—but across an entire organization.

I have to manage people. Granted—I managed work-study students at the University Libraries, and I managed all kinds of folks in the past in restaurants, sales jobs, etc. But it’s very different managing people who are mostly older than you, who are highly skilled, and who just plain have a whole lot more experience than you. Let me say this—I am ever more grateful *every day* that I had a management class in library school and that the Colorado Association of Libraries Leadership Institute has been so fantastic. It has really taught me a lot and helped me through some pretty intense challenges.

I also have spent a lot of time adjusting to my new role as professional. It’s no longer my job to do all of the nuts and bolts of coding up some new web tool or bringing online a new gadget. That’s something I have to remember. Now it’s time to trust and, when necessary, coach my staff and let them go do it. I need to keep my head in the clouds for strategic visioning and future casting. I need to participate, contribute to, and help shape policy development. I need to empower others.

I have to remind myself of this every once in a while. I almost spent this last weekend at DrupalCamp Colorado because it was “cool”. But I would have come home and played with Drupal all night, and not paid attention to caring for myself, my house, my pets, or getting ready for ALA—not to mention handling my management responsibilities for the week. I had to step back and remember, “things are different now”.

And that’s just fine. It’s tough to be stretched in many directions. However, I prefer to think that’s just a process of expanding myself. Expanding who I am and what I’m capable of. I only hope I remain malleable like silly putty—and don’t crack like old rubber band.

See you in Chicago!

The new director at BPL and I share an ambitious vision of what libraries can and should be and are very excited to begin working together toward those goals. I’ll be working with the local Boulder technology scene to create a learning laboratory supporting the creative expression of the staff and community.

We will also be implementing programs to address the digital divide, which I see as more a compelling problem than ever as our job market is not only tightening, but requiring a greater range of technical skills. There are still so many without easy access to computers or the training needed to use even the most common software packages on the job.

An interesting thing about this opportunity is that it really highlights the leadership-management differences we discussed in the recent CAL Leadership Institute. During the interview I asked for clarification on this point and it was stressed that this was *leadership* position in which they were looking for vision, much more so than a management position in which I was to maintain the status quo. That is the most exciting thing about the job!

Here’s to an exciting new year!  I’ll be writing more about what’s coming later….

Since I am not particularly motivated to participate in the ALA at large—for reasons Emily at “In the Library with the Lead Pipe” laid out much more eloquently than I could—I am very happy to be involved on a local level. I love this state, I am immensely impressed by the personalities and organizations here, and I think there is a lot to get behind.

So, before I write up my thoughts on Internet Librarian, I’d like to take a moment to discuss a few thoughts about leadership in the library world.

Recently, I read a post at “The Medium is a Message” which stated that “Consensus Building Cripples Library Innovation”. As those of you who know me well already know, I come from a background of radical political activism—and this includes methods of non-hierarchical organization and inclusive decision-making such as decision-making by consensus.

However, activists know that decisions by consensus are part of a long tradition stemming from practices of the Quakers and other egalitarian groups, and have worked hard over the years to create ways of making decisions by consensus that don’t stifle every good new idea that comes around. For one thing, because most of these groups explicitly try not to encourage a hierarchy. We don’t allow certain “leaders” to develop such positions of authority that no one wishes to challenge them when they try to suppress new ideas or do little but champion their own.

However, because our library organizations are still largely organized in hierarchical structures and explicitly encourage the development of “experts” through tenure, position, etc. we will continue to have trouble with this problem. What are some possible solutions? Well, perhaps it is time to look more closely at how our libraries are structured. Perhaps we should be looking at more of a network model rather than a tree.

Absent this drastic (although potentially very beneficial) move, we can still do more to allow for this phenomenon to not hinder our organization’s innovation. We can train our people on how to fight. I’ve been listening to “The No Asshole Rule” and it is a great book on management and organizational culture. One of the things he discusses is that great organizations don’t discourage conflict—they encourage it. They just try to make sure that it is done right.

He talks about how at Intel, employees are taught how to argue their ideas and/or criticize them using logic and not allowing it to turn into personal attacks. Further, anyone is allowed to question anyone else in these meetings—without fear of retribution at a later time just because they might have stood up to someone higher up on the org chart. This trust makes for a very engaged and healthy organization. People are happy and feel motivated to contribute. Ask yourself—is this how it feels at your organization?

There are some other things we can learn from the way that horizontalist groups reach consensus. For one thing—not every question has to be an either/or. Perhaps you don’t like an idea. But, in being asked to defend your position, you realize (or it becomes apparent) that the idea itself is not detrimental to the group. When a vote is cast, you may stand aside. You can simply say, “well, I don’t support the idea, but I don’t have any good reason to try and block it”.

However, there’s a big problem out in Library land with this idea. I’m going to go ahead and say it. It’s called EGO.

It’s an ugly thing, people. It’s nasty, and it doesn’t serve libraries or our patrons. This is one of those dirty little secrets about being user-centered that I don’t think many of us want to say.

It is not user-centric to be focused on your own power within the organization. It’s not user-centric to be more concerned with achieving status in the ALA or tenure on your campus than with listening to your users and giving them what they want. It’s time to put our money with our mouth is. We claim to be user-centric, but in reality we often are not. We take in user’s ideas and then we decide for ourselves which of them and how to implement them. And we look down our noses at our users far too often. This is not behavior worthy of status and respect. And this old paradigm has got to die.

Those of you who know me personally know that I advocate learning a lot from the marketing world. And I know that this is hard to swallow for some in libraries. But here is something that marketers can teach us and that they do right. We don’t have to adopt all of the marketing field’s practices—and believe me I would never, never want that. But I’m willing to get out of my own way long enough to be open to what they do right. Good is good no matter where it comes from.

If Google has taught us that making search easy serves our users better, then we can stop being jealous and petty and do the same thing. There’s no reason why we can’t be working hard to make a federated search product and easy to use discovery tool work the way our patrons want it to. It’s the information we want to deliver—not a series of hoops to jump through. If there’s anything we should be observing from the rise of the Internet is that our users will become as savvy as they need to, when they need to. That may or may not happen with our assistance. It should be our job to lead the way in showing what available and being ready assist their journey of self-discovery. If our users are not savvy information consumers—then why are there so many participatory web sites out there that befuddle librarians (“information professionals”)?

We hate to admit that we’re not the only experts in town but it’s time we do so. Set up ways to listen to your users and to listen to people from all over your organization and be proud of the fact you do so. If instead you’re wasting your time on petty process and procedure you’ve lost your way. Spending hours deciding on whether it’s okay to allow your staff to have a few flex hours is beneath a librarian. Don’t be that petty. Don’t tell your users they can’t talk to you because they might ask for things that you don’t want to deliver. Don’t pooh-pooh an idea because it didn’t go through channels. The time for this hierarchical self-importance has passed.

Our users are wonderful, amazing, fantastic, fascinating human beings. As Constructivism shows us, we are all in this together, as learning partners, and we can learn from them while offering our own knowledge and that is what makes us professionals. That is what earns us dignity. That is precisely how we should be earning our status—by how well we listen, how empathetic we are, and how responsive we are to the people who depend upon us for our expertise, whether it be our staff or our users.

It’s a bit sad, because at MPOW, no one is going. Well, not entirely true– but no one beyond a couple of fellow library school students and one employee who is about to start library school in another semester.

So, while many of the “bigwigs” of Colorado are coming to this dynamic event, my colleagues don’t take something seriously that is called an “unconference”.

Most of it is because of the pressures of tenure. Our tenure-seeking young librarians are so tightly wound and under such pressure (we have one of the most difficult tenure systems) that they rarely look beyond anything directly related to the quest for tenure. But also, they are frequently counseled to not even consider anything less than national-level participation. The result is that there is little imagination, little innovation, and little of the enthusiasm I see all over the biblioblogosphere or at conference. These poor folks have the fun sucked right out of them. I’ve talked with many of them– we enjoy a beer now and then, and many of them have great enthusiasm for the profession, but they must keep the blinders on.

I just think there’s got to be a better way. For a long time, I thought tenure was a bad idea for librarians across the board. Now, I’m a bit more open-minded on the subject, but I still think there’s got to be a system of tenure that is tailored to our profession, rather than trying to compete or considering ourselves the same as the other faculty. As Steven Bell has written, they don’t consider librarians their peers– and honestly, I think that’s fair. We don’t have PhDs and much of our research is not particularly original. Why continue a system that pressures librarians away from the passions that make the most of what we are as a profession to compete on a playing field that we will never be equally respected on?

Anyway, just some random thoughts I had….

Today I was made chair of the Communications and Outreach committee. We have some fun stuff in the works– I’d rather wait to share it right now, but for now I’m going to enjoy the company of my peers and philosophize and where libraries can and should go. Hopefully, I bring some of that back for my less fortunate colleagues.

Next weekend I leave for Internet Librarian! WooHoo!

Ah, in all seriousness… I don’t want to waste to much space on the Internets with posts that don’t really contribute much. But there is a lot going on.

I am thoroughly enjoying both my LI863: Project Management course as well as my LI846: Networking for Information Agencies. Project Management is helping already. It is surprising how hostile I am finding my library to Project Management principles. Granted, we certainly are already very much overworked. We define the bottom in terms of staffing levels of ARL libraries.

However, while Project Management presents the appearance of more work up front– the point is to increase the chances of success, and to prevent pitfalls along the way. It is also to increase efficiency. By planning well, we get a chance to properly allocate time, money, talent, and tasks. By keeping track of progress we ensure proper timing, which keeps costs down as well as stress levels. By evaluating the project, we learn from our mistakes as well as successes and gain more confidence and expertise in planning future projects.

So why the resistance?

I got up this morning and did my usual routine: I make a yummy mocha latte and I sit down to survey any email I’ve gotten since the night before to see if anything is urgent. Then I checked FriendFeed and my Google Reader, I have breakfast and help get my daughter ready for her summer camp. Then I either head directly off to work, or sometimes– like this morning, I do some work from home for a while.

This morning I updated the playlist on the fancy new LCD signs that we’ve just gotten at our library, and created a couple of new slides for it. I answered the email in my box, and asked the ARL webmaster to update our Libraries’ link– which was seriously out of date.

Then I headed off to work and did a walkthrough of the renovation progress. I took some notes on what had been done, took a few photos of what was in progress, and then went back to update the LCD signs, our Flickr account, and Twitter.

I got an odd call about a patron looking for one of our art exhibits that didn’t come to pass. Somehow it was still listed in the paper. I went down and showed him the DVD of the art that Community Relations had supplied in lieu of the actual art and called the paper to get the listing updated.

Then I briefly chatted with my supervisor about the new guidelines for posting content to the LCDs, there had been some controversy over the control and content– but it’s been worked out. I have to admit, it’s quite a fun new toy to play with!

I wrote a campus “Buff Bulletin” (an email announcement system on campus) for some of our Trial Databases. I’d just discussed highlighting electronic resources more with our Collection Development librarian and this is one of the strategies I’m taking. Before we used to list ALL “New and Trial” databases, but the word limit left us posting nothing more than a list without descriptions. Now we’re using the campus internal faculty/staff newsletter to highlight one or two new databases with descriptions, and sending Buff Bulletins with one or two trials and some description. Let’s hope it helps!

I continued a project we’d been doing surveying ARL library web sites. We’re considering a redesign. I also followed up on a Student Advisory Committee proposal we’re trying to float as a joint Reference and Outreach project.

Then I did something I rarely do– I took an actual lunch break. Not a working lunch, not a quick lunch at my desk, but I went a walked over to the UMC and had a nice sandwich. I ran into a colleague from our Cataloging department there and we had a good talk. But it wasn’t a working lunch! Really! =)

I headed back to the library and updated the LCDs again (keeping that content fresh!) and headed downstairs to take my weekly shift on the Reference Desk. (I volunteer there for an hour a week to get some experience while working on my MLS).

Then I chatted with a couple of colleagues about creating a YouTube clip for instruction sessions and the internal reactions to the LCDs and the renovation project in general.

I updated our department’s web site and added a new form for requesting LCD content. I updated our Google calendar for exhibits since I noticed that I’d forgotten to update it in far too long!

At this point, my supervisor and I met for an extended debrief on the our Web Advisory Committee’s latest meeting with the university’s Web Communications department. I’m starting to get quite hopeful that a redesign will happen… and will follow best practices. Hooray!

We also sat down and combined a tutorial session on PowerPoint (for her) and a rough draft of brochure for incoming students highlighting the new upcoming Learning Commons and our 5 branch libraries. I showed her how easy it was to do a mock-up in PP, and then familiarized her with our Facebook library page and how I use it promote events and news.

When I got back to my office, I was so inspired by our brief conversation that I went ahead and finished a full draft of the brochure.

Then I finished the day by updating the LCD playlist once more, and created a few slides to be ready for tomorrow morning’s updates.

It was a great bike ride home, I gotta say I’m really lucky to live in such a beautiful place.

Normally, after dinner and some play time with my daughter, I’d be doing homework, but I needed a night off. Instead we went for a walk, took the kids to the park (my twin godchildren are visiting us right now as well) and did a few chores around the house and yard. Tucked my girl into bed with a kiss. All in all, not a bad day!

I wrote this while checking my FriendFeed and watching last night’s Daily Show and Colbert Report. Now it’s time to get some rest, maybe continue that new Verner Vinge novel I just picked up….

Library 2.0 Ripples, originally uploaded by davidking.

I just got turned on to this diagram by David Lee King (I know, see how hopelessly behind the times I am?), and I think it’s an excellent one to ponder.

I work at library where the clash of new blood versus entrenched interests has created no small amount of controversy (unfortunately, sometimes with my involvement) and so this is a topic near and dear to me.

Additionally, we are building a Learning Commons, and as at most institutions, this is also proving to be a catalyst for change.

I woke up this morning to find Meredith’s link on FriendFeed to her presentation for the Southeast Florida Library Information Network conference keynote, “Riding the Shift: Organization 2.0 and the Future of Libraries”.

Again, this really spoke to me personally because of the changes our library is facing.

On one hand, it’s a very exciting time. However, I’ve noticed that tempers are high, nerves are frayed, and there’s a territorial defensiveness that is arising all to frequently throughout the institution.

So, even though I don’t have readers yet– I’m hoping to find some answers. The questions I want to look into and wrestle with are:

1. How have other libraries who have undergone a major shift like a Learning Commons renovation dealt with this change on an organizational culture level? Have there been retreats, staff trainings, discussion forums, “town hall” style meetings, etc.?

2. Beyond a physical change but more generally, what are some of the best practices for helping organizations tackle the shift to opening up their library, allowing for fuzzy lines of job distinction, accepting feedback from all levels, and encouraging innovative thinkers?

I realize that these are not new questions, especially in the blogosphere. However, many libraries and library folks are struggling with these questions still. Hence the popularity of the “BIGWIG” crowd as conference presenters.

So, after a rather discouraging recent situation in my own workplace, I got home last night to read this article by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens in Library Journal, “Check Your Ego At The Door“. I think this article offers a few good places to start.

I especially liked this point: “appreciate those who bring issues and problems to your attention”. Granted there is some self-interest here, because I tend to be one of these people. However, I think it highlights an important shift of thinking that anyone, library or not, can practice to help “ride the shift”.

In my own life, I’ve always had a very optimistic view of problems, I think of them as “challenges” or “opportunities”. Granted, this can sound trite or new-agey, but I really don’t mean it to be. I’ve simply found that when we experience conflict or resistance, rather than looking at it as a purely negative thing–it can be considered a “road sign” telling you that something is about to happen.

Of course, that could be something you don’t want. It could be that you receive a confirmation that the change you’re hoping for is not right for your organization at this time. But that is valuable information, it can tell you what to do next: build a support system, talk about creating cultural change mechanisms, find another job if necessary, etc.

My point is that whether you get what you want or not, it at least helps you deal with ambiguity. You can gain enough information to decide if it’s worth it to stay and keep plugging away, or perhaps there’s another place for you.

Organizationally, this can work very similarly. If you allow some experimentation and it doesn’t work out– there is staff resistance, your community responds negatively, etc. Then at least you know that it’s not right for you at this time. And you can go to work on the next question– why didn’t it work out? It may be that the change just isn’t for you, and if so, that’s fine. It may be that you have some work do among your staff first to explain why such changes are needed or desired (and there you are– another opportunity!).

Being from outside the library field originally, my background includes hacker culture and radical political activism, in addition to years of studying eastern philosophy, it’s very easy for me to handle this. However, I want to find ways to make it easier for library culture to handle this. Change still makes people and organizations nervous, and that’s tough. While some of it can be avoided, it will be easier if there are ways to make it less tough.

So, in addition to looking into the questions above, I guess that’s MY next “opportunity”.

And I need one.

I realized this when I was at the ALA annual conference last week and got to thinking, “where do I collect my thoughts, develop ideas, share observations, reveal my excitement (and occasionally my frustration)?”

The answer, of course, is a blog.

However, I still felt undecided until today when I read Lauren Pressley’s mention of the Librarian by Day request that we write about a typical day as a librarian. Well, I do not yet have an MLS, and my position description does not include the word “librarian” but perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe I can add something to the mix. So I’ve started this blog essentially, to participate in the meme.

My days, like most librarians, are not ever “typical”.

Today, I worked for two hours on planning an instruction session for undergraduates.

I toured the new(ish) Law Library on campus, which is separate from our library systems for ABA accreditation reasons.

I had a working lunch with a colleague, Jack Maness, of the Engineering Library at CU Boulder.

I then worked at finding missing pieces in our Government Documents collection, and identifying duplicates that could be offered up as discards.

I met with my supervisor, Deborah Fink, who has been out of the office for almost 6 weeks (and has just completed her book, congrats!). We discussed our current projects and priorities, student employees, our promotional and exhibit plans for the fall, and what I’d learned at ALA. I showed her FriendFeed and we discussed the future of librarianship and she was excited to see something like the Library Society of the World developing.

Then I worked for a couple of hours on email and content for our new LCD signage.

After this, I intended to leave but I remembered that we want to continue posting day-by-day photos of the renovation process going on in our library, so I went down and took photos of what had been done over the last 24 hours and posted them to Flickr.

Then I worked a little, but mostly procrastinated by reading blog posts and FriendFeed on my Collection Development assignment that is due tomorrow night.

And now I’m doing this. My wife is a little annoyed I haven’t spent much time with her, and I know I’m forgetting several conversations (some, not all, work or school related). But let’s face it– even librarians have gotta sleep sometime.

Right after I check my FriendFeed…. =)