One of the things that first drew me towards librarianship, and that draws me still, is that it is a profession that encourages a multi-faceted, eclectic range of interests. The more things that fascinate you, the better. This aspect of being a librarian is perfect for me because, honestly, there’s not anything that I’m not interested in. Perfect that I found a job that encourages that. Now if I could just put down my other interests enough to focus on it. On a daily basis, I do my actual job very well. I get things done, I go the extra mile, and I try to anticipate things that need done before they become an issue. That’s not a problem, and I enjoy it. The aspect of my job that I wish I could focus more on is this, this blog, these thoughts about librarianship (or even future librarianship, in my case), technology, information, and the internet. I’m focused in spurts, perhaps, but obviously I’d like to take this blog to hand and create a consistent, interesting webspace that people will seek out and enjoy. Consistent is the key word, there.

Wednesday I was lucky enough to go to a pre-conference for the Washington Library Association (WLA) up in Tacoma. The workshop I attended was called “Rev Up Your Online Services: Blogs, RSS, Wikis and Other Dynamic and Low-Cost Technologies”. Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens, of The Shifted Librarian and Tame The Web respectively, presented it, and they did a phenomenal job. I’ll post a full write-up soon. The reason I mention it here is that it really gave me a burst of inspiration to get back to this blog and write, and even moreso to participate in an online community of libraries and librarians that is growing and thriving, and even further to do my best to participate as a librarian with the non-library community and spread the library word. It inspired me to do all that and also, evidently, to write really long sentences.

It’s been a busy week, and not long since Wednesday, but one thing I’ve been working on is to keep up better with what other librarians out there are writing. I’ve got some catching up to do, so I’m taking things one step at a time. Since I attended their conference and found it inspiring and insightful, I figured it only right that I keep up with Jenny and Michael, at the least.

So, to prove that I’m paying attention, and because it is absolutely post-worthy in its own right, I join both of them in welcoming Mary Ghikas to the world of blogging (I’m on the fence about the word: biblioblogosphere). Mary is the Senior Associate Executive Director (or SAss E Director - a much better title) of the American Library Association. I agree with Jenny that the new generation of librarians don’t feel very connected with the ALA, and I think that including the sort of personal transparency that is a blog could do a lot to help with that. The blog is called The Green Kangaroo, which is a great name with an even better explanation, and I’m looking forward to (hopefully) keeping up with it.

It appears as though this may be part of a larger campaign to launch multiple ALA blogs (you’ll notice that The Green Kangaroo is, supposedly, blog #10). However, of the others listed, the YALSA Blog is the only one that seems to have been active (since Jan. 2006), but they do have some content worth checking out. I’ve just recently heard of the Alliance Library System and the Second Life Library project, and of course I find it totally fascinating. Between these two blogs, I think the ALA is off to a good start in becoming an association to which the next-gen librarian will be able to relate.

During a recent interview, director Werner Herzog was shot in the leg. He continued the interview, quietly bleeding, and said:

“It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”

I don’t think you can get more fucking badass than that. I hope I can be that tough when I’m 63.

(yahoo news uk)

Saw this at kottke.org, and wanted to do it.  The list is of the 50 best book to film adaptions. [B] means you’ve read the book and [M] means you’ve seen the movie.

That was fun.  I feel like I need to read more books now, though.

On a daily basis I question the wisdom of having so many sites to update / projects to work on that I end up neither updating nor working. I’ve been fairly consistent with one, the webcomic. It’s not up today on time because Theo got a ‘Disk Boot Failure’ error that prevented drawing last night and somehow fixed itself by this morning. It’s an unintentional cliffhanger, and not a spot I would choose to keep our audience hanging on purpose.

Other than La Casa, I’ve been glorious at not updating exlibrius, the livejournal, or starting any of the new projects I want to work on. What the heck? Well, I’ll work on it. But enough of that.

I got to attend a conference in Tacoma on Wednesday about using online services to promote libraries. Services like blogs, wikis, IMs, and even Flickr. It was really, really cool, and really inspiring. When I got back, my boss asked me to take one of the things they talked about that would have a practical implementation in our school and get it going before I leave. Starting a blog for the library, and getting people to post to it, would be fun, but perhaps not entirely practical. Right now, I’m leaning towards syndicating an RSS feed of our new materials, by subject, to the department websites. The only issue with that being that I really don’t think anyone ever goes to look at the department websites, so it might not actually be the most practical project. Making an internal reference wiki would be fun, or a schoolwide policy/documentation wiki, and both could be very practical. I have to do a write-up of the conference yet, and hopefully when I’m done I’ll have some more solid ideas to work with.

On the dance front, I’ve been taking some classes in Tacoma on Wednesdays that have been kicking my ass (in a good way). Last month was mostly moves, and it was fun and I learned things, but it didn’t kick my ass. This month is called “The Art of Lindy”, and it focuses on musicality and fundamentals (advanced fundamentals - is that oxymoronic?). I spent twenty minutes learning how to shift my weight from one side to the other, and even after practicing for a couple weeks I’m still only starting to get it right. That sounds weird, and I feel like it should be easy, but somehow it’s not.

One of the coolest parts about taking these classes the last couple months is how much it has helped my teaching. I’m thinking about Lindy a lot more technically than I used to, and I’m beginning to understand a lot more of the physical dynamic involved, which has been really interesting. Some people become total lindy-heads, which I can understand, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. One girl I was talking to this last week says that she makes a direct corrolation between good dancing and good sex. I blushed. It makes sense, in a way, but for me dancing isn’t inherently a sexual experience. It certainly CAN be, but that needn’t mean that it always is.

Blog catch-up may be lame, but it’s better than no new content at all. I’ll make an effort to keep this, and all my other projects, updated more often. Ciao for now.