There’s a meme gaining steam around teh interwebs and since it matches what’s been on my mind, I thought I’d chime in. What exactly does a librarian do in t he summer time? Well, this academic librarian has a few things on her plate!
- Working on focus. I’ve gotten much better at limiting the continuous partial attention, but this summer offers a vast panorama of un-meeting-ed time, and I am developing exercises to force myself to focus for ever longer times without distraction
- Work with my Undergraduate Research Methods Project team to analyze our data and get at least one article written
- Immerse myself in the literature on learning commons, on the impacts of the interactive web on cognition and learning styles, and learning spaces. Overly optimistically, on privacy, ethics & libraries too.
- Frame out an article, maybe even write one
- Pull together a pilot personal librarian program with a couple of stakeholders
- Get to know my new unit head, and start working towards the future
- implementing the processes and technology pieces that will allow us to turn our twitter stream interactive; develop the training for all the parts; train staff and GAs on the new processes
- Figure out how to selectively tweet to our Facebook page. This is much more of a challenge than I ever would have guessed
- Talk to stakeholders and develop three pilot proposals for e-book readers. This will include working out the pros and cons and capabilities of each of the readers. I’m really excited about this one, have a couple of great ideas for the pilots projects
- Read the One Book selection and develop a plan for physical and virtual discussion groups on the book for Fall semester, and on related themes (or books related by themes) for the Spring.
- Reconnect with some of the Learning Commons partners that have fallen off my radar
- Make sure that Learning Commons partnerships are on the minds of the new hires replacing the 2 partners who left to follow their bliss elsewhere.
- Lay the groundwork with a stakeholder for a re-purposing of a particular space in the building
- Now that the IT reorg has started to settle in, start building the relaitonships I need formore effective partnering with campus IT
- Work with EdTech to start to resolve some of the technology training issues that have fallen through the cracks on campus
- Work with stakeholders on integrating (or not) the workshop series I’m launching in the Fall with an existing workshop series aimed at a different audience
- A handful of web page updates and a couple pf entirely new pages, including one that will involve creating a whole new communication process for a bunch of folks across campus
- Do a better job at leading my working group, get the next phase rolling and the lib guide up
- Visit (and photograph) each of the (40some?) libraries on campus to get a sense of the variety of spaces we call “library”
- Make a point of having coffee or lunch with a librarian I would otherwise not interact much with at least every 2 weeks. These conversations are always rewarding and inspiring.
- Deal with the logistics of the party a colleague & I are throwing for my friend and soon-to-be-former unit head to celebrate her election to ACRL vice-president/president elect.
Wow. That’s exhausting. I had actually been feeling like I didn’t have enough going on this summer, but maybe now I’ll be a bit more able to cut myself some slack!
How about you? What’s your summer look like?
June 8, 2009 at 9:30 am
One of the key differences between general academic and academic medical librarians — our summers aren’t much different from the rest of the year. The new residents show up July 1st, our tours & orientations start up at the beginning of August, and most of the schools that we serve have extensive summer programs. And, of course, the clinical activity never slows.
Summers are a little quieter, of course, but we never have the kind of break that we envy in our general academic colleagues.
June 8, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Gracious, did I start a meme? I had no idea!🙂