nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

So, in the end, I finished at #10 in the blogging competition. I get $100. Hey, it’s nothing to sneeze at.

I think the best part of this whole thing- ok, two best parts. One was contacting people I had not heard from in a long time and hearing back from them.

The other great thing was having people come up to me at the 2007 Nebraska Library Association conference this last Thursday and Friday and telling me congratulations. It means a lot to me that, not only did people vote for me, but they recognized my name when they saw me and said congrats.

Thanks again for the votes, all.

While I’m on the topic of congrats, I want to send out a big congratulations to Marcia Dority Baker on being chosen a 2007-2008 Emerging Leader by the NLA NMRT. Marcia presented with me at last year’s C&U/TSRT Spring Meeting. She’s is super hard working and already is a great addition to the profession. She really kinda makes the rest of us look bad, but I won’t hold that against her.

karin :: Oct.29.2007 :: Library, School Stuff, Sites and Stories :: 3 Comments »

4 days left in the blogging scholarship competition, and it looks like I don’t have a prayer. It doesn’t really bother me- as they say, it’s an honor just to be chosen, and hey, I’m in the top half. Make that #10- vote if you haven’t ‘cuz I’d like to finish in the top half. Thanks to Jenny at the Shifted Librarian, John at johnmiedema.com (now at slowreading.net), Lynn at Hypothetically Speaking, and Diane at Library Cloud for mentioning me in their blogs. Sorry if I missed anyone!

My subscription rates are up because of this competition (hi new readers! Sorry I’ve been slow lately) and lots of people have emailed to congratulate me, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I’ve been incredibly busy. And it’s not that I’m just busy in one area- that would be OK. No, work, school, and home life have all gotten busy at the same time. At work, I’ve been asked to work on a few new projects- I’ve been helping get the National Digital Newspaper Program started, I’ve been asked to design a couple of sites (which I can’t link to yet), I’ve been helping with some grant stuff, and of course, there’s still the meeting setting and note taking.

I somehow expected that taking three classes would be just as easy as taking two classes. Nope. Three classes is enough to qualify me as a full time grad student (I just wanna get DONE) so I’m busy. Most evenings are spent doing homework or fixing the house or one of my computers.

It seems like every time we fix something in the house something else breaks. I guess that’s the way it is with a 100 year old house. As for the computer, that’s my fault. I just HAD to upgrade to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon the day it came out, and I fell in love with the desktop effects. Then I realized I needed more memory. So I found a great deal, and now have 3 gigs of RAM. Unfortunately, my mysterious black window problem wasn’t caused by a lack of RAM but a lack of video memory- or a faulty nVidia driver, depending on who you ask. I’ll have to make sure I have the latest driver. I can still do lots of pretty video effect, and I’m loving the desktop wall feature. I’ll stop making fun of Vista for all the memory hogging video effects now.

The weather has been beautiful lately. My house, despite the problems, is wonderful. Life is good.

karin :: Oct.24.2007 :: House and Home, Site Updates, Sites and Stories :: 1 Comment »

I read with interest Nicole and Jennifer’s thoughts about library school. I’m a little less than halfway through my program, so I can’t offer the same insights. In general, everyone is in agreement about the convenience of online classes. I couldn’t work full time if I didn’t go to class (mostly) online. And in this job market, one has to have experience- so working would be a must even if I didn’t need the money (but how many people can afford to go to school and not work anyway?)

Why is my experience different?

The uber teacher

My experience has been vastly different from Nicole and Jennifer’s, though. There are many reasons why, although I think the biggest reason is the director of the Omaha program, Becky Pasco. The fact that we can meet with Becky face to face is a bonus, to be sure, but she’d be fantastic even if we never got to meet her. She sends upbeat email to her students, she responds to email quickly, she takes to heart suggestions from her students, she keeps content of courses new and fresh, and she draws other talented teachers to her. Oh, if only every library school could have a Becky Pasco of their very own.

Partial distance

Of course, the fact that I’m not REALLY a distance student has a lot to do with my positive experiences as well. For those that don’t know, the way the program works is, we get our degree from the University of Missouri of Columbia, but many of our classes are held in Omaha, Nebraska once a month. Once a month turns out to be a nice frequency of classes- not so much that it gets in the way with the rest of my life that often, but often enough it keeps me on track and in touch with my peers.

Local support

Because the program is distance but not really, it is strongly supported by the Nebraska library community. I’ve had lots of support from work in going to school- my boss has been willing to modify my schedule so I can get homework done. Coworkers from all parts of the library ask how my classes are going. Just about every class I go to, there are guest speakers from libraries all over Nebraska. One class, special libraries, had us traveling all over to visit different kinds of libraries. It’s really amazing how many people I’ve met- and for someone just starting out, that’s almost as valuable as the education itself.

Good core classes

I’m pretty happy with our required classes. I’m a cusp student- they changed the requirements right as I was joining, so I no longer have to take Research Methods or Cataloging. I’m not sure I agree with this - I took Cataloging anyway, and am glad I did, but am not sure if I’ll find a place for research methods. These are the other core classes I have to take:

• Introduction to Information Technology - I’m in this right now, and I’m learning a lot. It’s sort of a catch all intro to the history of computing, ILS’s, OPACS, HTML (I breezed through that part,) information organization and retrieval, ranking, etc. It is a nice foundation course for all things technical in libraries. It’s made me really want to take a course on ILS’s, which I probably will next semester.
• Organization of Information - I don’t actually have to take this one, since I took cataloging. I’m still not sure on whether I will, there are two other classes I’d like to take as well.
• Foundations of Library and Information Science - A one credit course covering the history of libraries. It was… ok. just ok. I finished it in the car (I printed all the reading and quizzes out) on the way back from a trip.
• Managing Collections & Access - Have not taken yet, I’m looking forward to this one.
• Reference Sources & Services- I’m in this now. I have to say, I’m still confused as to how a reference librarian does what she/he does. I keep expecting some magical bit of information. I think most of that will come from observation. We read the book “Ambient Findability” for class- awesome!
• Management of Information Agencies - This was an awesome course, my first in library school, and taught by Dr. Pasco herself.

We are also required to take a practicum, which I’m happy about.

My inexperience

A big part of the reason I don’t mind library school much is probably the fact that it’s all new to me. I’d like to get the opinion of some library veterans who are in the Omaha/Missouri program and see if it is the same for them. I’ve only been working in a library 3 months longer than I have been in library school.

How to make it better?

The main thing I think is needed for a successful online school experience is teachers that are:

1. Truly devoted to libraries AND library students- not the last generation, but the next generation.
2. Truly devoted to distance education.

A good administration is useful, but a bad administration can be overcome. I think a lot of the time my school really struggles against the distance program. As an example, every time I call for help with a screwup on my bill (happens every semester) I’m told to stop into the office. When I tell them I live in Nebraska, it takes them a minute to recover. A lot of the policies in place are really geared towards on campus students- they haven’t really thought what it means to follow the same policies as a distance student. BUT- I’ve had a lot of great teachers, and a lot of great help. All in all, it’s been a great experience.

Now I’m just hoping I won’t have to eat my words.

karin :: Oct.16.2007 :: Library, School Stuff :: 7 Comments »

I have not dipped below 400 items in Google Reader in weeks. I find this makes me read a little faster, in search of the ever elusive zero (usually, when I reach zero, I finally getting around to un-subscribing to feeds.) One of the things I’ve noticed when scrolling though large amounts of text is -I like subheadings. A lot. They’re useful in print, but in blogs, they’re just gold. Images are also very nice. Basically anything that breaks up the huge mass of undifferentiated text is welcome.

karin :: Oct.16.2007 :: Asides, Sites and Stories :: No Comments »

With the blogging scholarship competition, I have been questioning why I blog (yeah, again.) It’s really sort of an odd activity, especially when you think about it on a huge scale. I was at a talk by Chuck Klosterman once, and he asked how many people in the room blogged. Well over half raised their hands. When everyone’s blogging, how will we find the time to keep up? And why bother writing if there are so many other people doing it- don’t we risk redundancy?

I’ve been reading Ambient Findablity (2005) by Peter Morville for my reference class, and I came across a great quote that at least partially explains why I blog:

“We write, not just to communicate, but to enhance our own personal findability” (p.142).

I write partially for myself, partially for my readers- but I also write for the people who may think something similar in the future, query Google, and come across my page. I write to find like minds- and I find like mind through their writing.

Through writing, by keeping my thoughts online, I open up the possibility to converse not only on what I am thinking right now, but also what I was think of a month or a year ago. Often someone will stumble on an entry from half a year ago, leave an interesting comment, which starts an email conversation. This brings old thoughts to the surface again, and with time, I often reconsider what I’ve written.

There are downsides, to be sure. Often, what I used to think was naive, idealistic, overly cautious, or downright wrong. But by putting it all out there people can follow my thought process, they can see where I have been, what I have already worked through.

Honestly, sometimes that’s a little scary. I’m sure everyone looks at things they’ve written in the past and shuddered a little. “What was I thinking?” or, sometimes, “Why wasn’t I thinking?”

But I keep coming back to this need to communicate. The need to share ideas. You can tell from the blogging scholarship finalists that there are plenty of things to write about. It’s amazing and wonderful to see so many people writing about their passions- and it makes me so thankful to be living now, to be a part of it all.

/gushiness

back to the homework…

karin :: Oct.10.2007 :: Library, School Stuff, Sites and Stories :: 1 Comment »

These last two weeks have been exciting (and hard) for me. At work, the CDRH just finished hosting a TEI workshop given by Syd Bauman and Julia Flanders. After that, we held the 2nd Annual Nebraska Digital Workshop. It was a busy few weeks, planning for food, handouts, events, parties, etc.

On top of that, we have been having server issues at work.

But the big news is, the results from the 2007 Nebraska Library Association election results are in, and I have been elected secretary of the New Member’s Round Table!   The Nebraska Library Association annual conference is at the end of this month, and I’m designing the banner for the NMRT booth (based on Debbie Krahmer’s great web design) and working on the brochures.

I was a little worried for a few days there that I may not be able to do the full time work full time school thing. But I think it will all work out. It wouldn’t be possible without great co-workers, great teachers, great friends and family, and a great husband. Thanks everyone.

karin :: Oct.08.2007 :: Library, School Stuff :: 2 Comments »

I have been chosen as a finalist in CollegeScholarship.org’s blogging scholarship- which means I’m up for a $10,000 scholarship. I’m the only library blogger on the list.

The finalists are listed on this page, and you can vote on this page. I’m Karin Dalziel, in case you forgot. Please spread the word!

I am awed by the quality of the blogs in this list. At the very least, I have a lot more to add to my feed reader now!

karin :: Oct.08.2007 :: Library, School Stuff :: 7 Comments »

I’ve been reading a lot of posts about Zotero lately, most recently this one at ACRLog, which brings up an issue I have not given voice to yet- I don’t talk about Zotero too much at work because we subscribe to, and are busy promoting- RefWorks. I feel sorta like a traitor. But in my own research, Zotero has been an absolute godsend. I truly believe students are better off using Zotero, because they can store, annotate, and, if they install on a portable version of Firefox as I have, take their database anywhere, even places without an internet connection. Not to mention, when they graduate, they can take all their research with them and not have to pay $100 a year.

When I first started at my job, I attended a training session given by a ReWorks representative, and was amazed and excited. It was only a few short months later I discovered Zotero. It’ true that some things - especially resources offered through the university library - are a little harder to get into Zotero, but then, everything outside the library is harder to get into RefWorks.

So that’s where I stand. I still feel like a traitor, and a little sheepish when someone from the library asks me “don’t you use RefWorks?” I meekly tell them I use this really cool free and open source product called Zotero instead.

karin :: Oct.06.2007 :: Library :: 9 Comments »