Tag Archives: professor

Some NASIG conference impressions

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It’s no secret that NASIG is my favorite professional organization and that I enjoy NASIG conferences more than any other. Why? One reason is that there is nowhere I feel more at home than at NASIG. People are friendly, warm, supportive, thought-provoking, and do very interesting things both in their personal lives and professionally. The NASIG organization is all about relationships. Funny, that is exactly what serials are like, too. I remember my former professor and mentor, Kathryn Luther Henderson, writing about serials in a Serials Librarian article a long time ago and comparing serials to families.1

Aside from the many warm hugs I received from longstanding friends, here is a smattering of what I remember most about this year’s conference, in no particular order of importance:

  • My friend and fellow “way past it” NASIG president, Susan Davis, jokingly remarking that I had peaked early (referring to when I was NASIG president eight years ago) and it was all downhill from there.
  • My friend and another “way past it” NASIG president, Anne McKee, mistakenly using the word obituary when referring to me in her introduction of a session I took part in.
  • Listening in amusement (and sometimes, amazement) at the open mic session Saturday night as various attendees stood up in front of a supportive audience to tell funny stories, read poetry, or sing acapella. I laughed ’til I cried at the story told by friend Gail Patrick of Depauw University that involved a motorcycle trip, snakes, and a visit to a place known as “The Garden of Eden.” Then there was a hilarious story from one woman that involved her mother’s false teeth. One first-time attendee worked up the courage to sing a solo. The whole event was great!
  • Wonderful food and great conversations at the dine-arounds Friday and Saturday evenings. Saturday night especially featured fantastic food at a restaurant in downtown Louisville named Saffron that featured simple yet elegant Persian-inspired food. I had an incredible rack of lamb on a bed of basmati rice, accompanied by a wonderful old vine Zinfandel whose name I can’t recall. I also remember one morning when we sat down with someone I had known for many years who is a cataloger at a state institution in the Washington, D.C. area. She was there with her husband and in the course of conversing with them I was floored to learn that they are avid thoroughbred horse-racing buffs and that they own several racehorses! Even more amazing was the fact that her husband knew of someone with whom I grew up in east central Illinois who is now a highly successful trainer based at Arlington Racetrack. His comment about my classmate, whose name is Chris Block, was simply “Money in the bank; money in the bank.” I told them how much I was fascinated with thoroughbred horse-racing when I was growing up and how Chris planned to grow up to be a trainer and I was going to be his jockey. He has reached his dream but somehow I grew out of any jockey aspirations :-) They even invited me to go with them to one of the nearby stables where they were going to check on the status of one of the brood mares they own. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that because I needed to leave for home immediately after the conference.
  • Many stimulating conversations on personal and professional topics with Mark Lindner, who shared the car trip and conference hotel room with me. I really enjoyed getting to know him and was glad to spend time with him. One of his many strengths is that he is unabashedly open and frank about what he thinks and about his life.
  • Talking with Sanjeet-Singh Mann, a student grant award winner from UCLA’s Department of Information Studies, about the importance of values and ethics in librarianship, among other things.
  • Meeting and talking with Steve Black from the College of St. Rose about the serials course he teaches at SUNY Albany, and also learning about a podcast program he founded for his institution called Periodical Radio, which focuses on interviewing editors and publishers of magazines and periodicals. Steve is also the author of a recently published book on serials management from Libraries Unlimited entitled Serials in Libraries: Issues and Practices.

There was of course much more to the three days. I haven’t even mentioned anything about the sessions I attended. I’ll try to mention some things about that in a different post.

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    1Henderson, Kathryn Luther. “Personalities of Their Own: Some Informal Thoughts on Serials and Teaching About How to Catalog Them.” Serials Librarian 22, no. 1/2 (1992): 3-16.

To squee or not to squee

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To squee or not to squee?! That is the question. I’ve been getting some criticism over the past few weeks about my stated dislike of gushing praise for librarian luminaries such as Lorcan Dempsey. This was in reaction to some reports by conference goers at the recent Computers in Libraries conference, made in a previous post entitled “Thoughts on reports from conferences.” Dorothea Salo of Caveat Lector started it all by using two words in one of her posts on the conference that I had never heard before: ‘fangirl’ and ‘squee.’ I recently looked up the definition of ‘squee’ (the meaning of ‘fangirl’ is pretty clear) and here what I found via Answers.com (which in turn derives this from Wikipedia):

Squee can be an exclamation, or interjection, of excited happiness or surprise, especially when referring to fangirls, or be a squeal of glee over something incredibly cute.

In a series of comments made in response to that previous post, I made the point that after reviewing my criticism the day after, I concluded that I had been too harsh. However I stuck to my dislike both of the term and the implied adoration of well known librarians, and made it clear that this was just my opinion. Fortunately Dorothea took no offense, for which I am thankful, although she later wrote in her blog that we in librarianship need to be unafraid of expressing admiration and/or delight over meeting up with other librarians whom we’ve admired from afar.

A few others have picked up on this thread (e.g. see a post at Random Access Mazar and one at Solvitur ambulando). There is a sense in which my initial criticism has been taken as a “hit” against showing general enthusiasm for the profession. My interpretation of what I’ve read from others on this issue is that we should not shy away from celebrating and showing excitement over meeting and interacting with highly respected colleagues. In fact, it is felt that we should be doing more of this, especially to generate excitement for and interest in the profession among those who are in library school and/or newly begun in their librarian careers.

I’ve thought about this issue a lot during the past few weeks. It has been nearly fifteen years since I graduated from library school. I am already so out of touch? So jaded and cynical? I well recall the first professional conference I ever attended. It was in June of 1991 at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, and I was attending the 6th annual NASIG conference as one of that year’s fortunate NASIG Student Grant winners. One of the highlights of the conference, for me, was the relevant conference program that included speakers whom I had read about such as Charles W. Bailey, Jr. at the University of Houston, a professor at SLAIS at the University of British Columbia whose name escapes me and who is now retired, etc. I thought it was cool to see such people “in the flesh.”

But did I ‘squee’ over them? The answer is a definite NO. And I still don’t ‘squee’ over highly respected colleagues whom I may see here or there at a conference. Why? More importantly, what do I have against others ‘squeeing’ over famous colleagues? By being critical of this issue, am I against showing enthusiasm for librarianship? Absolutely not. Simply put, I am VERY enthusiastic about being a librarian and about the profession as a whole. I think enthusiasm and excitement are great, and I like being around people who get enthusiastic and excited about librarianship. My problem with ‘squee’ is that it may focus too much on a person or persons instead of on ideas, on proposals, on concepts and dreams about librarianship. Let’s get excited and show it, but let it be over issues, not persons. The cult of person that has grown increasingly strong in this day and age is one for which I have an abhorrence because I think it is misleading and could even be dangerous. We can be so taken up by a famous colleague’s person that we are blind to her or his faults, missteps, and deviations. We can be (and often are) led astray by charisma and personality.

It may be thought that I am digging a little too deep, truly exaggerating, except that there is a prime example of this very thing in our profession today. I will not name names or even hints but the situation exists (thankfully for not much longer). This person has legions of fans and adoration has been lavished upon this individual. For what? Largely because of charisma and because of a past track record of having done or participated in something famous.

So to get back to the question posed at the outset: To squee or not to squee? For me the answer will remain a resounding NO.

Teenagers and weblogs

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My mother told me about this article on BBC News about teenagers and weblogs. It discusses research about teenage bloggers. For example, in terms of a gender breakdown, research shows that the split is about 50/50. It also discusses why blogs are wildly popular among teens and the ways in which they are being used, e.g. as a form of self-therapy. One interesting quote, from a professor at Georgetown University: “The average blog post is about 2,000 words, which is really interesting when you are trying to get kids to write essays.” In other words, blogs are demonstrating that teens are willing to write, and that they are willing to write much more than expected. A few other interesting study results: 67% tend to use the comments feature; teens tend to be perhaps a bit too revealing about personal details in blogs, more so than in chat rooms; and male bloggers have more of a tendency to reveal details about their location, whereas female bloggers tend to link to their personal webpages.

What are implications for libraries of teenagers’ interest in blogging? I think there are several. One obvious one is that we must be aware of this socio-cultural phenomenon. Incoming students at the university level likely are familiar and comfortable with blogs already. We can appeal to them by using this medium of expression in ways that will be attractive and familiar to them. The article mentioned above makes reference to some teachers using blogs to foster peer-review among students, which to me, fits like a glove with the increasing emphasis at my university and others, on group study and collaborative work. We need to think of ways in which to use blogs to foster this kind of connectivity with the library, not just as an information delivery tool, but as a tool for collaboration with students. Incoming students using the library may expect the ability to have more input and participation in services and programs of the library, and we need to allow them — perhaps via blogs and/or other means — the means to do that. Otherwise, they may be turned off or more easily dissatisfied with their interactions with the library. I think it also goes without saying that libraries, mine included, exist largely in a virtual environment. Many of our students are using library resources without ever (or seldom) visiting the physical library. I struggle with this all the time because I think it’s very important that the online library presence or environment be as easy and inviting to use as possible. Blogs may be one of the more important tools for achieving that goal.

Sometimes I feel a bit ahead of the curve on this one (importance of and excitement with blogging) in terms of my local environment. Then I read an article like this and it serves to confirm what I’ve been thinking. Thanks, Mother, for pointing this article out to me!

Time off

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After another lengthy hiatus, I’m back to recording some daily thoughts…Now that summertime is really here and I have the luxury of no work for the next few months, I’m starting to relax and enjoy this time of year. One of the perks of being a professor is having a 10-month appointment! While the pay isn’t great, the time off is really worth it. I am hoping to get more done in the yard, especially with planting and maintaining the gardens we’ve made. Since we’ve been gone for most of the past few weeks, there is lots to do in terms of weeding! Maybe we’ll even get some more unpacking and decorating done in the house. I was reading in Psalm 78 just now, verses 13-16: “He divided the sea and led them through; he made the water stand firm like a wall. He guided them with the cloud by day and with light from the fire all night. He split the rocks in the desert and gave them water as abundant as the seas; he brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers.” This is of course reference to the children of Israel in the wilderness, but it makes me think about times in the past that God has brought me through. There are many examples where I didn’t think I could possibly get throught yet He provided what was needed. Praise be to Him! I think each of us needs to remember the signposts of God’s provision in our lives, especially when we face ongoing hurdles or struggles at the present time. Recall what He has done in the past and be strengthened by that recollection.