Yep. I’m not ashamed or afraid to admit I’m a failure. Some of it is my fault and some of it is my employer. And yes, I realize I could be committing professional suicide by being this honest. But, I’m an honest person.

I’ve learned a great deal in the process of failing. The biggest thing is that introverts aren’t natural leaders. We can be great managers, but leadership involves being able to build relationships with people and that’s an area where I, due to be an introvert, am admittedly bad at this.

Oh, I have good, strong relationships with people. Don’t misunderstand that me and think that I’m saying it’s not a possibility. But the people I allow to be close to me are well-trusted friends or family members who I share common interests or long-standing relationships. I also don’t feel the need to have a huge group of friends. That’s just how I am. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about people or that I hate people. I don’t. I just don’t need people in quite the same way an extrovert does. I like being alone. I have no problem living inside my head.

Yet, I’ve made my employees feel like I don’t value them or appreciate them. Farthest thing from the truth. I do have great employees. I’m just not effusive about expressing that to them. I’m also learning that saying “I appreciate you” doesn’t make people feel appreciated. Talking to people about themselves, their lives, their interests. That’s what makes people feel like they have value. Got it? Good. I’m getting it too. See, I don’t care if people at work are generally interested in my personal life. Unfortunately, I kind of had to go through hell to get to a place where I found someone who got me and could explain this to me in a way that made sense.

So, I’m changing. One of the things that I’m not good at is chit-chat. When I get to work, I generally grab my morning coffee, sit down at my desk, take a few minutes to go over my schedule and plan my day, and then I get to work. However, if I want to build trust and convince people that I do care about them (which I do), I need to remember that I’m working in a world mostly filled of extroverts who like to talk and share and aren’t nearly as discriminating as I tend to be. Not that I’m saying they’re blabbermouths. Because I don’t think that. They are just more comfortable sharing stuff.

Okay. I’ve got this. I can do this. It may take some time and some effort and some energy. It can be done. I may not be a natural leader. However, I can grow into a leader with some work and awareness.

In the end, I love the work I do on a daily basis. I work with some knowledgeable and creative people. I have hope that I’ll be here in a year from now.

It’s rather disconcerting when I used to be a planner. I like to know what I’m doing, where I’m going, and what’s coming after that.

Why I married a man in the Army is one of life’s greater mysteries. I fell in love with him, sure. That would be the main reason. And he’s my best friend and all that happy stuff. But I’ve never figured out why the universe thought this was a good idea. Except that I have figured out the universe has a twisted sense of humor. Which I can relate to, even if I don’t always appreciate it.

The past 12 years of my life have involved moving, redefining myself in new environments, figuring out what I’m doing, where I’m going, and never knowing what is coming next. Yeah.

At least I took solace in the certainty that there was going to be a ton of uncertainty. See. I found a way to roll with it. I stopped making long-term plans. I chuckled a bit when people asked that silly interview questions “where do you see yourself in 5 years, 10 years, 100 years.” Heh. Seriously?

Last month, the uncertainty of military life ended. My husband is almost retired and the nomadic life can be over. Is probably over since we now have a mortgage with a large fenced yard.

You think life would be calmer, but I like to keep things complicated. Now that we’re not moving all over the country, it’s time to figure out where my career is going, including educational goals. My intent was to start a second masters degree once we had a permanent address again.

I can’t decide what I want to do! I think I’ve forgotten how to plan ahead. ACK!

Right now, I’m barely middle management and trying to decide if this is the right place for me. Do I want to spend the rest of my career dealing with all the headaches that come from managing people? I’m lucky in my current position because I also get to do some creative things and I still have time to be in the classroom and the library. If I continue on this path, I’ll lose those opportunities. And I don’t even know if I’m good at this management thing. There are so many days when I feel so unsure about how I’m doing. Yep. More uncertainty. There is an Educational Leadership degree that I could try for. If I want to stay on this path.

At one time, I wanted to pursue a degree in Instructional Design Technology. But I don’t know if I’m smart enough or techie enough to succeed. And I’m getting to that age-range where time is starting to be more valuable. Is this something I can do? Is this still something I’m interested in? What in the world would I do with it in my current job?

Right now, I lack clarity and direction. I’m 39 years old and I still don’t know who I am, where I’m going, and what I want to do. Except be a librarian. I want to be a librarian.

There’s a big back story that I’m not going to get into because…well, I don’t feel like it.

Sounds great, right? So, what is the awful part? The extreme exhaustion I had from working so hard to get things to be great. To create a positive work environment (which I feel is part of my role as the director) means stepping up more. Being more “out there.” I was once called reticent, and while it bugged me at the time, I have to admit that my work persona does tend to be more reserved. Now I’m learning to be more of a cheerleader and working on communicating openly…when I should be.

These are changes that I feel are important. But they require more energy since I’m by nature an introvert. Last week, I forgot to nurture my introverted side and paid for it hard on the weekend. When I say exhausted, I mean the type of tiredness that turned what was supposed to be a few brief minutes of rest before a dinner out into a very long nap. Followed by more naps throughout the weekend.

All that led to thoughts about work/life balance. Being the librarian that I am, I decided to do some digging into current views on this. Not much has changed since I first started thinking about this issue 5-6 years ago. It’s still an issue and people are still struggling.

And then I found a bit of wisdom hidden on WORKLIFEBALANCE.COM. Admittedly, a lot of advice about how to achieve that elusive balance can be touchy feely stuff. But the ideas of achievement and enjoyment makes sense, simplistic as it sounds.

Essentially, you should try to achieve and enjoy something in four life areas: work, family, friends, and self. Doesn’t sound quite as simple now. There are days when it would be hard to find something that I enjoyed about work because like so many people, I tend to focus on the things that went wrong. Unfortunately, I’ve also let work take over so much of my life that I’ve not made a great deal of time for friends. How can I manage to do all this?! TOO MUCH PRESSURE!!!!!!!

Deep breath. Let’s break this down by each area. I can do this. I probably have already made a good start.

Work – I still keep a paper day planner. There is something about writing things down that helps cement things in my mind. In my planner, I also keep to-do lists. There is a great sense of achievement in crossing things off that list. But, what about the enjoyment? I get my greatest joy at work from working with the students directly. Yet, because of my position, I often spend my entire day sitting in my office with my face and computer screened locked together with a tractor beam. I’m going to change that. The great thing about being the boss and deciding how to structure my day is I can schedule myself for an hour of desk time where I can greet students, answer questions, check out books, and spend time doing what drew me to the the field in the first place.

Family – My husband is finally back home with me…for good. One of the most enjoyable things that we do most days is sharing dinner together. We sit down at the kitchen table and eat. The tv is usually off and amazingly, the phone doesn’t generally ring during mealtimes. In this area, achievement is a bit more difficult to figure out. Probably because I tend to overthink things. Cooking a meal, doing some laundry, or making the house more pleasant for us are all ways to achieve something for my little family.

Friends – This is an area I need to nurture more than I do. When I get completely wrapped up in my work life, I tend to ignore my friendships. Bad idea! I’ve got some great friends who have stuck with me through rough times, as well as the happy times. Achievement and enjoyment mesh well in this area. Because just sending a short email or a FB message means that I’ve let them know I’m thinking of them and given me the joy of knowing I’m friends with some kick-a** people. But, I do intend to grab more in-person time as I can and continue to find ways to make new friends.

Self – I’m not a self-less person. Not to say that I’m a particularly selfish person either. But as I get older, I’m having an easier time saying “no” to things that don’t work for me. Despite that, I still need to make the time I spend on myself meaningful. Sitting on the couch, starting at the tv, is not something that leaves me feeling fulfilled at the end of the day. Stick some knitting in my hands and chances are, I go to bed feeling like I accomplished something while I enjoyed myself. This fall, I joined a symphony orchestra that rehearses Monday evenings. Yes, Monday. That hated day of the week. The day when I usually want to go home after work, sit on the couch, and stare at the tv. Instead, I go home, grab my violin and music, and drive an hour to rehearsal. I spend two hours challenging myself and having a great time being part of something bigger than myself. When I had to sit out the last series of rehearsals and the concert because of pain, I was reminded how much playing music nurtures my soul. (Should have warned you about touchy feely there.)

The point of this long post is to say that work/life balance doesn’t mean dividing your days into hours spent at this and hours spent at that. It’s more about finding achievement and enjoyment in the things that you do. When I look at it from that perspective, it doesn’t seem like an impossible thing.

*One other thing that I do – my Blackberry is set to turn off at certain times. On the weekends, it goes off at 11 pm Friday night and turns on again 7 am on Monday morning. Since my library isn’t open on weekends and my staff have my land-line number as well, I give myself a break from feeling constantly connected. I am also planning to start a technology time-out day for one weekend day. During the time-out, I will stay away from the computers and the television, except for movie watching with my husband.

Resources:
Leadership Through Work-Life Balance
A Work-Life Balance is up to you, not your employer
The Work-Life Crunch: who has time for fun?

As I transition from conference mode, I’m taking away some ideas about tackling a couple of projects already in the initial planning phase and a few new ideas about things that may work for my library. It’s exciting to ponder the possibilities and plan for the future. Some ideas were on a march larger scale and I’m interested to see how I can adjust them to fit my smaller library. Some ideas need adjusting to fit the kind of students who are enrolling in larger numbers at community colleges. My readers will be hearing more as I get further along in the planning process.

After spending a few days with enthusiastic, passionate, and knowledgeable librarians, I feel rejuvenated. The naysayers who claim we are in a dying profession couldn’t be more wrong. This is a thriving, changing, and vital profession. I’m proud to call myself a librarian.

After talking with the instructor I worked with today, I decided to insert some pop culture into the sessions. Recently, I’d read something about a librarian using Jersey Shore in her instruction. But I’m not familiar with the show and it didn’t quite seem to go with the direction of the sessions I was conducting. Since the students are working on persuasive papers and I found a good pro/con scenario relating to privacy in social networking, I decided to use a preview from The Social Network.

My intent was to generate some discussion about this topic. First, I wanted students to think of keywords they might use when searching for articles and books. Hopefully, once that discussion was started, we would talk about using different search terms and how results could change as the words changed.

The first problem I encountered was having students in the classes who didn’t have Facebook accounts. Which blew up some assumptions about millenials. I probed a bit further and it appears that these students don’t use social networking at all. Hm. Okay.

The second problem was getting students to talk. That’s a common problem. But my hope was that using a reference that they might relate to would help start some discussion and interest. Yeah. So much for that.

Now what?

The sessions weren’t complete failures. I could tell that most students were paying attention and actually did walk away with some resources that they will use on their papers. (When I can, I try to allow time for students to do work on their topics because I am there to help with questions.) That counts as a success.

I will try again. I’ve got at least one more session left this semester and some time to plan and change things. One thing I have noticed I’ve changed is how I use powerpoint. These days, powerpoint slides are more illustrations or reminders of what I’m having the students do during the sessions. I have them take notes. I keep things simple.

Like the students, I’m still learning.

Resources:
Jersey Shore Library Themed Instruction
Teaching with the Situation: Jersey Shore as a popular culture example in information literacy classes, by Amy Springer and Kathryn Yelinek
It came from Hollywood: Using popular media to enhance information literacy instruction, by Nedra Peterson

I think you have to differentiate between librarians and libraries in this discussion. While most librarians may profess that an interest in working with information or helping access information ins the reason they got into the profession, the spaces where we work are varied. Should we as librarians be aware of and advocate for all types of libraries? Absolutely! Do we always speak the same library language? Absolutely not.

It is as important to acknowledge the differences as it is to recognize the commonalities. I spent some time over the weekend thinking about what similarities libraries share. It’s a short list, but it covers the basics.

1. People. You may call them patrons, customers, clients, students, faculty, or users. It doesn’t matter. All librarians deal with epople. Even the back room librarians have interactions with people on some level.

2. Information. This is our stock, the reason we exist. We help provide access to information. It can be readers advisory in public libraries, research consultations in academic libraries, or company profiles in special libraries. We help the people we serve the information they need.

3. Space. No library exists without taking up some space, physcial or virtual. How we can best utilize our spaces seems to be a constant discussion. The internet has been a wonderful thing, allowing libraries to expand beyond physical walls.

Personally, I learn from public, school, and special librarians. Sometimes I get ideas that I can adapt to the academic library I work in. Other times, it seems we are speaking different languages. But that doesn’t mean we can’t collaborate and share with each other. We should!

Maybe if we think of Big Tent Librarianship more like a circus big top, we got closer to the reality. Under this big top, there are different rings showcasing different acts. Every library use who enters the big top is sure to find the type of experience he or she is looking for. Each librarian adds to the richness and diversity of the show. That’s not really all that different from the initial concept; just filled out a bit more.

References:
Big Tent Library School

Public Library Privilege, Library Journal, March 16, 2011

We Need Big Tent Librarianship, Library Journal, Dec. 15, 2010

The main purpose I initially thought of was a way to push information. I like the idea of sharing things like book reviews, upcoming events, this month in history, or anything else that might be valuable/useful to the students, faculty, and staff at the college.

But I thought that a secondary use could be for library tours. I often refer to catalog searches when I’m conducting tours, but I don’t have a good way to show students what I’m talking about when I refer to call numbers and locations. I’d also like to be able to briefly talk about the library website, particularly since we are getting a brand new shiny college website.

One of the problems that I’m facing is the location doesn’t allow for a computer to be permanently connected to the monitor/screen. I’ve decided that I’ll be purchasing one with a built-in DVD player to solve that problem. Although I will need to make up a monthly video, I believe I can keep work-flow simple by using a basic template that I can update.

We continue to march forward with new technologies.

The Happy Reader Equation: A Librarian on HarperCollins’s E-Book Pricing Model

Ebooks: durability is a feature, not a bug

A Message from Overdrive on HarperCollins’ new eBook Licensing Terms

Open Letter to HarperCollins

The eBook Users’ Bill of Rights

Scorned librarians and the eBook piracy underground

Make sure to watch this video, if you haven’t already.

To celebrate Pi Day, I baked an apple and peach pie to share at work. People seem to like pie and coffee around here. Is there a cake day?

According to the Washington Post:

The law extends two areas of the 2001 act. One provision allows law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communication devices. The other allows them to ask a special court for access to business and library records that could be relevant to a terrorist threat.

I tried to read the Patriot Act. Mind-numbing is the description that comes to mind. The one thing that stood out is that most of the Patriot Act provisions were supposed to expire in 2005, six years ago.

ALA Council adopted a resolution in response to the Patriot Act in 2003. If libraries have done the following, is there any reason for extensions?

RESOLVED, That the American Library Association urges all libraries to adopt and implement patron privacy and record retention policies that affirm that “the collection of personally identifiable information should only be a matter of routine or policy when necessary for the fulfillment of the mission of the library”

Surprisingly, there hasn’t been more of an outcry in the library community. Do we want to go through a period again where computer sign in sheets are seized and our users internet habits scrutinized? Do we wish to see library patrons afraid of checking out certain materials for fear of a knock on the door from law enforcement? This editorial sums up my feelings quite well:

Remarkably, one of the spy powers the Obama administration is asking to retain is its ability for the FBI to snoop through library records and reading habits. The very notion of permitting the government to set criteria of worrisome book, Internet or topic searches is repugnant. One only has to recall the insanity of the McCarthy hearings to see how easy it would be for the U.S. government to terrorize its own citizens with such a policy. The Fourth Amendment stands firm in its need and power to ensure that we not become like the terrorists in our zeal to protect ourselves against them.