The other guy is not a student, and uses the library every day on a 1-hour guest account, which doesn’t come with free printing privileges (community patrons can purchase their own print credits with a debit card, I believe).

The question is, is it my job to get involved? On the one hand I sort of resent the part where the student attempted to swoop in and save him because the mean librarian wouldn’t print 100 pages for him (hey I’m human, whatevs). I feel like they are her printing credits to do with as she sees fit. I also wonder, is it a breach of dude’s privacy to tell this woman “that’s nice of you honey, but he does this to a new person every day and you’re perpetuating his belief in the success of this method”?

Ultimately, I have bigger fish to fry, but it’s something I was wondering about…then a nosy student came along and literally started reading this blog post over my shoulder. Don’t blog at the refdesk, there’s a lesson learned. (:

This year I’m not going to tell you about the fancypants programs I attended and the fabulously organized content I sucked up. Why? Because I didn’t and there wasn’t. [a quick shout out to the Set Sail for Fail folks from NJ for throwing down an unsession during Midwinter, that part was fabulous]

My big realization about ALA this year was that I’ve graduated. I was a fledgling ALA member and I did fabulous things like Student to Staff, during which I interned for RUSA; I was an Emerging Leader and worked on a project for ACRL; I showed up to a lot of discussion groups and asked a lot of vague and half-assed questions.

I became more established while serving as an ACRL MAC committee member; I started speaking for ACRL at events like ACRL 101 and took over as convener of the ACRL New Members Discussion Group, where we have launched a new discussion group presentation style (No-Tech Talks, CV opportunities for all).

After these experiences I’ve become a semi-veteran ALA member and conference attendee and spent much time wreaking general havoc and running amok, amongst many other activities. This is where I’m at now and I realize I have two primary options.

1. Shrug. I got what I was gonna get, time to stop paying in to the machine. I mean, the machine has run out of things to give me, right? I’ve been semi-elevated, some folks took note, I got a tenure-track job. Woot. I even gave a little back, so I won’t feel too guilty. End transmission…
2. Contribute more. Bring my own content and share it, formally and informally. Continue to work on making ACRL relevant and useful for members. Help ACRL board to no longer need a bellybutton window. Start showing up at Council. Make more noise.

Although it really, oh man I mean really pains me to do it, I’m going to strive for option 2. I’ve joined the task force of many names (young turks, young librarians, young professionals…yadda yadda) and am going to try to help ALA figure out what the eff we want from them. If I just bail out now, I’m only doing what countless librarians and ALA members before me have done (and I don’t blame them at all) — ”…drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?” Yes, I know that’s about poison and death. Right now, if I am honest, that’s what being an ALA member feels like… like these a-holes who came before could have at least left me a memo telling me to find my own damn poison.

So although I probably sound a little bitter, and am in fact a little bitter about all the money I have to come up with to help ALA not brontosaurus their way through the future, I’m a little posicore as well.

p.s. I like this tweet:
@pbromberg @kimll #youngturks think beyond What Can ALA Do For YOUYOUYOU. I just gave $ 2 RedCross. What do they do 4 MEMEME? Yet I support them.

The ACRL New Members Discussion Group invites the submission of proposals for presentation at its meeting at the 2010 ALA Midwinter Conference in Boston, MA on Saturday, January 16, 2010.

Proposals are due by Monday 12/28/2009.

The ACRL New Members Discussion Group is for new (and aspiring) academic librarians. We meet twice a year–at both ALA conferences–to chat about whatever is on our minds. It’s an opportunity for networking and a friendly place to ask any questions you have about succeeding in ACRL. Presenters at this meeting have the opportunity to contribute to the professional development of other academic librarians, gain conference presentation experience, and build their CV. Students are welcome to submit proposals.

This Midwinter conference we want to hear from you on themes relating to Incorporating Technology Tools in Library Instruction. How do you perceive the role of technology in library instruction and how do you handle teaching about technology? We are interested in presentations that share personal experiences with incorporating technology tools, such as customized browser toolbars, screencasting, citation management software, and podcasting into library instruction. The goal of these presentations is to familiarize new and aspiring academic librarians with effective uses of these tools and effective methods of teaching about technology topics. We seek proposals for presentations that address this topic from a variety of angles, including (but not limited to):

• Examples of effective uses of technology tools in library instruction, either as a means for delivering instruction (for example, creating screencasts about citation management software), or as the topic of instruction (for example, delivering library instruction sessions that teach students how to use tools such as podcasting or citation management software)
• How to use technology tools to meet specific learning outcomes
• Successful strategies for promoting library instruction sessions that focus on technology

The ACRL New Members Discussion Group meeting will take place on Saturday January 16, 2010, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Westin Copley Place Essex Center.  Presenters should plan to speak for 10 minutes and allow 5 minutes for questions/discussion. There will be three presentations. Following the presentations, we will open the floor for discussion on the topic, or we can answer your questions about getting involved in national activities and/or academic librarianship in general.

Proposals are due by Monday 12/28/2009. Notification of acceptance will be made by Tuesday 01/05/2010. Please include the following information in your proposal:

1. A cover sheet with your name, title, institutional affiliation (or LIS program), mailing address, phone number, and email address.
2. A second sheet that contains no identifying information and includes the title and a 200-300 word description of your presentation. The description should clearly identify the topic of your presentation, your personal experience with this topic, and how your presentation will contribute to new and aspiring librarians’ understanding of how to incorporate technology tools in library instruction.
3. Keep in mind that there will be no use of technology for these presentations. If your proposal is accepted, you should plan to provide handouts that contain tips, further reading, etc.

Please submit proposal by email to Allie Flanary (ACRL NMDG convener) at aflanary@gmail.com.

In the interim, most of my yapping and thinking is taking place on Twitter, where I’m still shinylib.

In an attempt to decrease the number of scheduled classes to which not a soul shows up, the Nursing faculty coordinator contacted me and requested a 6-hour-long drop-in session. I think she figured I could just hang out in my office and get work done until students came. I understand and appreciate her thinking, but few librarians get to spend much time in their offices, really.

So, we are no longer teaching a half day of 2nd year Nursing classes (to which no one shows up). I have yet to hear a confirmation from the NUR coordinator yet, but I think she’ll agree. I have proposed 2 x90min drop-in sessions. They will be on a Friday, which I think is a day that Nursing students don’t have class (that’s a pos and a neg, seriously).

The sessions will be open (no lesson plans) so students should come with questions. At minimum I’ll be prepped to do APA 6, WorldCat Local, and CINAHL updates. I have also invited 1st year Nursing students with the caveat that if we fill-up, computer preference goes to NUR 2 students. We’re totally not going to fill-up but it seems wise to have a plan, just in case.

We are still teaching 1st year Nursing students in September (3x 50min basic overview). That’s a model I think doesn’t work at all. Sure I get that the students need to just know where we are and that we’re around to help, but I have talked to them and they tell me that first day is such a blur for them that it doesn’t really stick. It is literally the first day of the term. They haven’t met their teachers, gotten their assignments, or even focused on the syllabus yet. Understandably, a lot of them don’t think about us again until it’s way too late. I’m  hoping for success with the drop-in model. If successful I will push for only offering combined drop-in sessions in the future. COME IF YOU WANT TO LEARN STUFF. Okay, maybe a bit more focusy than that.

Basically I’m trying to bring down the number of manhours expended on booking NUR classes to which few students show up and those who do retain little. Last year was the student-organized experiment (I think it worked well, I will continue it this year). This year I am replacing the 2nd year student mandatory sessions with drop-ins. In reality, this year I will be offering the same number of hours in the classroom for NUR 2 students, I’m just hoping that the format will actually get more of them in the door. Rather than saying “show up for all 50 of these minutes and learn what some other person thinks you need to know” I’m saying, “show up for some of these 90 minutes and ask me about what you need to know”.

In reality, the timing is still not ideal (late October, NUR 2 assignments are mostly due in the spring). I’m hoping that the open session (lesson planless) will allow students to just come and explore some things that are puzzling them.

Hopefully the 2nd year students were here last year and caught some of the buzz I finally got started amongst last year’s graduating class and are now feeling like they are in a position to take advantage of my services. I don’t know, we’ll find out.

I think there’s still a lot of room for improvement in how I deliver IL instruction to nursing students. I just keep working to understand what the year feels like to them (rather than to their instructors) and how they feel the pacing should go. So far I’m pretty sure that Nursing students would benefit most from seeing me twice a year, but I haven’t quite figured out how to make that work. I do find the whole process of recreating the NUR IL instruction program interesting and I’m hoping that after several years of shifts and changes we’ll eventually get there. This one is definitely a marathon (maybe a triathalon even) and nothing remotely like a sprint. Not that I would know…I won’t even run for the bus.

This conference was epic for me on a lot of levels. I was directly involved in two programs: ACRL 101 (my first speaking gig at ALA Annual) and ACRL New Members Discussion Group (of which I am now the convener). 101 was awesome and I had a lot of fun, more fun than I expected to. Preparing my remarks on how to get the most out of conference really caused me to do some reflecting about my first Annual (2007) and what that experience was like for me.

My first Annual was different because I was a student-to-staff participant, interning to RUSA. So when I got really overwhelmed (frequently) I had someplace to go—the staff office. Anyway, thinking about that had an impact on my conference this year, I think. I always feel hyper aware of the social dynamics of conference, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how those cool kids came to be those cool kids (not a specific set of people, I think your cool kids may be different than mine, but whoever they are, you know them when you see them). How did they break in to their clique? How did the clique become a clique? Do those people even know that we see them that way?

So it’s interesting that as I was cruising through Chicago thinking these things I happened upon a conversation with someone who is probably in a lot of people’s cool kids clique, Michael Porter (libraryman, @libraryman). This was at the OCLC blogger’s salon, where I saw some really awesome people (and some really drunk people. Open bar, what what?). I’d never met the illustrious Porter before, but he seemed a nice enough guy who was willing to riff on these topics with me and some other folks.

He was talking about his awareness that people might perceive certain “long-time” library bloggers as belonging to some elitist club, but that he didn’t want it to be that way. Michael told me that he doesn’t want to be in a clique, they didn’t set out to be a clique and they aren’t really sure how to convey that to other people. He even talked about how he has intentionally backed off of posting the big fun issues on his blog so that newbie bloggers can get their recognition for posting on big fun issues. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t note that his chest puffs out just the slightest bit when he talks about taking this intentional blogging backseat and then lowers his voice to tell us that he’s been at this for 6 years and it’s only natural that he’s got an established foothold in this community. He’s totally right too, puffing and all. (I mean no offense, it was kinda endearing, really).

Ultimately, he said exactly what I’m saying, the only way to meet those people is to go somewhere they are and talk to them. They might have rad friends to introduce you to. So on and so forth. This was also timely, since this year is the first year I really pushed myself to go where the interesting folks are and strike up random conversations (like that radtacular conversation with Walt about all things Buffy).

I spent all day Friday at the Unconference (you can catch the tweets there also) and shared time with people I might have been in awe of in the past. I sat at a discussion table with Meredith Farkas and talked innovation, without a single fangirl moment. When I was reflecting on this later I realized that I’m not a fangirl anymore. In library school I may have been because I wasn’t a practitioner, really. Everything I read seemed so fancy and alluring. Everything someone did felt unattainable and slightly sparkly.

Now these are just people to me. People who, during their work day, do more or less what I do during my work day. Sometimes we innovate in different ways, but really, it’s mostly the same. What makes made us different is all in the attitude. It’s nice to spend time with these folks at conference because they have the confidence to put their ideas out there and they’re willing to share. There’s relatively little proprietary mojo attached to the ideas they generate.

But you can generate ideas, too. You have a voice, use it. Make friends, share ideas. It’s like the poster says, you learned it all in kindergarten (sorry LIS programs, no poster for you)—you just need to put it into practice.

I swear I learned more at conference than how to socialize with innovators, but it really didn’t make an interesting blog post.

Our topic is “The Publication Process—Getting Published in LIS Journals.” We will hear the following presentations:

Writing to Write: Kickstarting the Publication Process
Emily Drabinski, Electronic Resources and Instruction Librarian, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus

Best Practices for Beginners: Getting Published – From Inspiration to Publication
Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Digital Collections Librarian, Yale University
Karen Sobel, Reference & Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado, Denver

Targeting Teaching Faculty for Collaborative Publications
Linda Hofschire, Research Consultant, University of Colorado, Boulder

We will also have time to share experiences and lessons learned, and to discuss your questions about publishing. The ACRL New Member Discussion group is for new (and aspiring) academic librarians. We
meet twice a year–at both ALA conferences–to chat about whatever is on our minds. It’s an opportunity for networking and a friendly place to ask any questions you have about succeeding in academic libraries.

Questions? Interested in getting involved? Contact Merinda Hensley, Convener, ACRL New Member Discussion Group, mhensle1@uiuc.edu (or you can contact me, as the incoming convener).

We had 5 interactions, of which 3 were actual attempts to chat with us. One was someone testing and the last was a porn spam. Given that it’s the first day of summer term I am actually surprised there were 3 actual attempts to chat with us. We weren’t able to connect with everyone and that’s fine—sometimes yer gonna miss us. I’m just so excited that we’re actually doing this, pushing forward.

I am sorry for one of my librarians, who reported following the link and inadvertently viewing a few pics. I guess we’ll have to do some work on suggested practices with regard to receiving links via chat. I was highly amused at her response to the offending robot: “That’s not an appropriate question for our chat service.” She is made of win, that one!

It’s a pretty awesome feeling to log in to admin and see records that aren’t just you chatting with yourself in 3 different browsers.

I’m seeing them more frequently these days. They’re in the library just like everyone else, looking for books to flesh out a Works Cited, hoping I can connect them to a movie that will do what the assigned reading did, trying to find a topic for a Writing 121 assignment. I’m talking about potheads, stoners, whatever you want to call them.

Does that mean there’s a connection between marijuana and literacy, marijuana and community colleges, or none of the above? Hm.) I have no personal or professional judgments on those students, but negotiating a reference interview with someone who is actively craving Cheetos and a Slurpee is difficult.

I think I was planning to go somewhere funny with those thoughts, but they are just so true. This year has totally been the year of the stoner in the library. I actually don’t have a problem with that, I just get frustrated with any student who shows up unprepared and expects me to magic them through an assignment.

Let’s not be too hasty to judge, though. One of my favorite outspoken pro-weed students was apparently recently accepted to an ivy league college. Go dude, go!

The key to compromise turned out to be the phone. I just got to a point where I couldn’t understand the intention behind all of the email I was receiving—so I just started calling folks and hashing things out.

I don’t think things will be perfect, they never are, but at least we can start making forward-going movements again.