Librarian by Day by Bobbi Newman

This Midwinter was different for me. It is the first one I have attended since returning to school full-time. It means I paid my own way, every penny of it, and I was on my own time. It also means I chose to have my badge just say my name and city and state. This is not my first conference since returning to school, I was at Internet Librarian in October, but MidWinter was markedly different. The first question you are often asked when you meet new people is where you work or what type of library you work in. My response was usually that I wasn’t currently working full-time in a library, that I do consulting work with libraries and I am working full-time on my masters in public policy. If people wanted to know more about my masters and how it relates to libraries I happily told them, if not they had enough information and we could move on and I’d talk about Council or OITP or my other ALA involvement.

Once or twice this introduction led to the very direct question – Why are you here? Despite getting this question multiple times I don’t think I ever really answer it well so it has been running around in my head while I traveled home. Honestly I’m not sure it’s a fair question, aren’t we all there because we love libraries and love what we do? But I thought I would attempt to break it down. I was there because I serve on Council as a councilor-at-large, which means I represent all ALA members. I take that seriously. (more on this later) I serve on the OITP Advisory Committee. That is ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy. I serve as the LITA (Library and Information Technology Association) representative to the Digital Literacy Task Force. I chair an Interest Group on transliteracy. I’m there because I am honoring the commitments that I made. I didn’t make these commitments because of the library I was working in or the position I held at the time, I made them because I believe in libraries and the issues that I’m passionate about, I made them because I believe in getting involved, making a difference and giving back. Those are the same reasons I also went back to school to get my degree. But honestly I don’t think the person shaking my hand and asking me the question wanted to hear that type of answer, I don’t think they would believe it, but there it is.

So how did I spend my time at conference? (Please note I am happy to answer any questions about any of the things I mention, but knowing this is going to be a rather longer & dryer post that normal I’m attempting to keep things brief).

OITP: I spent the first two days at the OITP retreat. We heard from Program on America’s Libraries in the 21st Century,  Copyright Education Subcommittee, Digital Literacy Task Force (pdf), E-Rate Task Force and Telecom Subcommittee.  ALA President Molly Rapheal spoke to us and answered questions about the Digital Content and Libraries Working Group (DCWG). You can read up on their first meeting here. Like most all of us I think ALA is behind the curve on e-content but I was heartened to hear that Raphael and other ALA leaders will be meeting with Macmillan, Simon & Schuster (S&S), and Penguin soon and what they hope to accomplish with such a meeting. Robert Horton from IMLS spoke to us about the strategic plan and vision of IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services). There are some great things coming from IMLS if you are not already aware of and watching their work I encourage you to do so.

We were heard an update on the great work the Copyright Advisory Network is doing, seriously if you’re not familiar check it out. After that was a brief on some of the current copyright lawsuits (one of my favorite parts). Unfortunately there wasn’t a handout and I was too busy listening to take adequate notes.

There was much brainstorming on the future of libraries and ways to demonstrate our value.  If you have suggestions I’d love to hear them!

Digital Literacy Task Force: The Digital Literacy Task Force meet in person, we have been meeting virtually for months. Our task force will disband after Annual, so we came to a consensus (I think) on what we want to accomplish before our time is up. I have to say I am proud of what we’ve accomplished so look for some great things. Renee Hobbs, an expert on digital and media literacy, has been named as an OITP fellow and we are all looking forward to working with her in the next six months.

Presidential Candidates: I watched the candidates for ALA president speak in person, you can watch the video here. If you’re a voting member I strong encourage you to do so.

Council: This was my first conference serving officially as a Councilor-at-large. Unfortunately I had to miss the last session when they finally discussed the econtent resolution and I deeply regret that. I don’t tweet much from council floor but I have created a Twitter list of tweeting councilors so it is easy to follow along from a distance. As a councilor-at-large I represent all ALA members, not a particular interest or type of library or work. I spent a lot of time talking to all types of people in all types of libraries about what issues they were facing and what they thing the solutions are. I’m equally happy to answer emails.

Executive Board: I also ran for ALA Executive Board. Candidates for Executive Board are nominated by the Committee on Committees (and can be nominated from the floor during Council I), candidates accept or decline the nomination. During Council II at Midwinter they are each given 5 minutes to speak, then if there is time there are questions from the floor. Only councilors may vote for the Executive Board. It was a fascinating experience to go through and I am truly honored to have received a nomination.  The whole process brought home to me home to me how important it is that we know who represents us and how they get in that position. Most people I talked didn’t know or understand how the Exec Board process works and granted only standing councilors may vote, but in effect Council represents ALA and Exec Board represents council, so as members we should be paying attention to this process. So pay your dues (yes I know they aren’t cheap) and vote. It is ridiculous how many people don’t vote in the ALA elections.

To find out more about what happend at MidWinter check out the American Libraries and Library Journal coverage.

I can’t believe it but it’s almost time for Round 8 of Library Day in the Life Project! It will run January 30th through February 5th.

What is the Library Day in the Life Project?

It’s a chance to share your day, or week, with other librarians and hopefully the public at large. It started when I come discovered someone had searched “What’s a librarian’s day like” to find my blog so I wrote a blog post suggesting that other librarians and library workers blog what we do all day at work.  Then we (and maybe patrons) could see what we do all day. A second objective is to escape the library echo chamber where we’re talking to each other and reach others outside of libraries.

People participate by sharing a day or week by writing blog posts, tweeting, creating videos and taking pictures. Last round there were just under 250 people signed up on the wiki. There were over 800 people participating via Twitter.  It has grown to be an international project with participants from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and Singapore. Participants are from academic, public, college, special, school libraries, professional organizations and library vendors.

How do you participate?

• Chose your medium – blog posts, tweets, pictures, videos, interpretive dance, whatever.
• Go to the wiki
• Create an account (it’s free), carefully read the instructions for adding your content.
• On the 30th start recording your day or week.
• Bloggers, Flickr & YouTube users tag your posts with librarydayinthelife and #libday8. Twitters use the #libday8
• Bloggers be sure to include an introductory paragraph explaining the project and information about your position for readers.
• Add your Flickr photos or videos to the Group on Flickr and/or join the Facebook Page

You don’t have to write a blog post or tweet, you can document your day with words or photos or video or a handwritten love note or a cartoon.

Why should you participate? Meredith Farkas offers an excellent explanation of why she did. The Project has turned into a great resource for students, instructors, staff and patrons.

Need some inspiration?

Check out entries from previous years.

Check out this amazing video Ned Potter created for Round 6

Browse the photos on the Flickr pool.

Last month I (finally) had the opportunity to speak to Steve Thomas of Circulating Ideas. We had been trying to get together since April when I first met him at a meeting of the North Georgia Library Association. I’ve been a big supporter of Steve and Circulating Ideas since it was a twinkle in his eye so of course I was thrilled to finally be on the show.  Visit the site to listen to the Podcast or subscribe via iTunes.

I have been looking for the perfect pdf reader for a long time. You may remember that earlier this year I returned the Kindle DX after it failed to live up to my qualifications. Here is what I was looking for:

• ability to highlight
• ability to make notes
• ability to export those notes & highlights (I like to put them in a Google docs folder so I can search them easily at any time).
• small & portable, easy to read on a plane or carry around with me.
• preferably e-ink, but if you can recommend a super awesome program that will work on the PC I’d consider it.

If you read the comments on the Kindle DX post you’ll see that many people recommended the iPad to me. I was hesitant to buy an iPad because no one could suggest an app that would do all the things I wanted/needed and while my technolust said that of course I needed an iPad I couldn’t really justify it given all the other devices I owned (Laptop, netbook, Kindle 3). Now remember the reason I wanted a “perfect pdf reader” was for all the reports and articles I was reading, some of which were image pdfs, I could read them on a Kindle but awkwardly and many of the pdfs that I could send to the Kindle got weirdly formatted. Fast forward a few months. I was back in school for my first semester and reading hundreds of pages of pdfs a week, many as images. Spending hours a day at the computer was killing my back, I needed a system and some tools quick! I did some reasearch and thought I’d share what I’ve found works best for me.

Over all this system was time intensive to set up, I had to learn the ins and outs of each new program and figure out how to make it do what I needed bow to my will. But in the end it was totally worth it. Here are my favorite tools and the why and how of use.

PDF-XChange-Viewer

I did some research and came across PDF-XChange-Viewer for the computer. I started using the free version and loved it! With it you can:

• add notes or comments to any pdf file
• highlight or underline
• export your highlights (non image pdfs) and notes – to turn on this option go to Edit -> Preferences -> Commenting and check the box next to “copy selected text to Highlight, Cross-Out….”
• using the pencil tool you can highlight image pdfs unfortunately you can’t email or export those highlights but you can add a note retyping the text if you really want to export it later.
• search the content of all pdfs in a folder or sub-folder.  I know Mendeley will let you search your pdfs but I use Mendeley strictly for cataloging my readings but not all my school related pdfs. For example if professors post lectures I download them as save them as pdfs for easy viewing on the iPad later.

Their website has some good screenshots and videos, so I didn’t make any. It’s very robust for a free program and I’ve been very pleased with it.

Mendeley

Let me state for the record that I know I’m not using Mendeley to its full extent. I know it does much more I just haven’t had the time or need to figure it out. I’m using it to:

• organize
• catalog
• generate citations

My massive pdf collection caused me to spend much of my holiday break renaming the files using a consistent naming system (author last name then title). I then re-imported everything into to Mendeley and re-cataloged them. Yes I had to re-catalog many of them but it was important for the naming system. I can tag and assign keywords, track URLs and easily generate citations.

Dropbox

All of my pdfs are stored in a Dropbox folder.  This way I can access them from any of my computers and the iPad (I’ll get to it in a minute). Seriously if you are not already using Dropbox stop reading right now and go sign up, it will change your life. Dropbox allows you to save a file in a folder on your computer then access them anywhere with an internet connection including other devices. This video is a great introduction to Dropbox.

The iPad and iAnnotate

I did break down and buy an iPad mostly in an effort to alleviate my back pain from sitting at a computer reading for so long. I fretted long and hard about spending so much money for a pdf reader then paying for iAnnotate on top of it, but let me tell you once I got iAnnotate set up with Dropbox it worked so easily and beautifully that I wanted to cry (and kick my own butt for not getting it sooner!) Why I love it:

• import and export files using Dropbox! Warns you if there is a conflict with the file in Dropbox
• highlight, underline, etc.
• export just your notes!
• can “highlight” image pdfs too!
• add text to all pdfs

I’ve been thinking about this post for over a month. The one I wrote last year was so well received, and important to me in many ways. This type of post is so much more personal than the content I normally share on this blog, but I think that’s a good thing. I almost didn’t write this post this year. Many of my lessons learned in 2011 where of the harsh and often brutal kind that aren’t really fit for public publication on a professional blog. At the same time I think there is some benefit to taking the rough and ragged things and polishing them up, for both you and me. Things are so hectic, I haven’t blogged for over a month, I’ve been flirting with the idea of letting the blog just fade away.  There are so many others writing great things, I’m not sure I’m adding to the mix any more and my time and attention are wrapped up in reading and writing about public policy for my degree and my involvement in ALA and OITP and other projects. But enough on the fate of the blog, for now let’s look back at 2011.

1. Don’t settle.

Don’t settle. Just don’t. Not for the status quo because everyone tells you that’s just the way it is. Not for that mediocre (or horrible) job you were mislead into taking. Not for the wrong guy. Not for a good apartment in the wrong town, or the wrong apartment in a good town. Not for the you that isn’t the you that you want to be. Not for less than the perfect pair of shoes. Whatever your dream is, don’t settle. Sure you need a job to pay the bills, a place to live and a car to drive but that doesn’t mean you should ever stop working towards what you really want. Get a plan, a real plan, not 1. collect underpants 2. ? 3. Profit. Work towards it. Yes you will have to work and probably make some sacrifices, but in the end it will be worth it.

2. Kindness is underrated. 

Seriously. It doesn’t go on your resume or on LinkedIn. We don’t look for it in our leaders or our presidents, but we do, at least we should look for it, in our friends. This year was hard, really hard, there is a lot I don’t remember, some I’d like to forget, but what I remember with certainty is who was kind to me. Honesty, sometimes I was surprised and occasionally shocked, at the kindness from family, friends, associates, distant associates and sometimes strangers. Even when you have nothing else to give you have kindness, sometimes that’s worth more than anything else.

3. All you need is love. 

Yep, it’s cheesy, but it’s true. This year was a hard one for me and my family, but we were there for each other. I know many of my friends (too many) had a rough year too, but we were there for each other. At least I know they were there for me in super, awesome, amazing ways and I hope I was there for them too. Seriously, I have the best friends and colleagues and supporters ever, big love to all of you.

4. Be generous. 

Actually this isn’t a new lesson but an old one. It’s my personal motto to live by through the years. But I relearned it on several levels this year. Be generous with others, but also yourself. Be generous with your time, your forgiveness, your understanding, your support, your praise, your patience, your caring, your kindness and your love.

5. Know when to quit. 

Whether it’s a bad job, self loathing, trying to lose that last 5 pounds, or a bad relationship of any kind. In the words of The Gambler

You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, Know when to walk away, know when to run.

Some times that thing you are beating yourself up about, killing yourself for or just letting ruin you isn’t worth it. It’s ok to cut and run. About a year and a half ago I started working on being more positive. Not that I was super negative before, but I was in a bad situation, a couple of them actually, and at least one was of the sort that doesn’t have an immediate exit. Instead of dwelling on the bad I decided to try to dwell on the good. I’ve always been fascinated by the human brain and how the mind works so I started reading*.  This led to the elimination of some bad habits, bad relationships and bad people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a work in progress but there’s value in assessing the things in your life and figuring out if they are contributing to the life you want (remember lesson 1).

*You may have seen me post these on FB or Twitter or the blog over the last year but here a few of the books, blogs & Facebook pages :

Books:

• The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want  This looks at how you can make yourself happiness from a scientific approach.  Well written and factual but not too dry for the average reader, I recommend it.
•  The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun The author talks about the year she spent working towards being happier, she focused on a different aspect of her life each month.
• The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World  A fun look at the happiest and least happiest areas of the world
• Stumbling on Happiness funny thing about human beings, what we *think* will make us happy very often doesn’t.

Blogs/Facebook pages

• The Positivity Blog | Increase Your Happiness and Awesomeness
• The Positivity Blog on FB
• Gretchen Rubin on FB author of the The Happiness Project
• The Happiness Project Blog
  

Recommended Reading:

• 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
• 10 Ways to Complain Less and Be Happier
• Hello, I Find You Perfectly Toxic