I’ll miss interacting with this group of students but at the same time — and I think they would agree — there’s something nice about hitting the home stretch. An awful lot of stuff has been compacted into a very short timeframe (eight weeks) during summer session.

I’m also looking forward to a faculty retreat to be hosted by the school at Allerton Park, a fabulous estate owned by the University of Illinois that is located near Monticello. It’s worth a visit just to see the gardens and the grounds, especially the sculpture scattered throughout. The retreat will be held over the course of two days in August and I have been asked to facilitate one of the sessions, a technology “show and tell.” I’m really looking forward to that.

Surely the next best thing would be to show and discuss this photoset in class or have students look at it on their own.  That would go a long way toward demystifying some of the physical aspects of this area of librarianship.  I’d love to see more such photosets crop up on Flickr or elsewhere.  Folks, let’s shed light on technical services in libraries of all sorts!  Bring “the back room” out into the open!  I think a lot of people, including our library users, would find such exposure fascinating and insightful.