Tag: reflection

MozFest 2013 Reflection: Making & Teaching

After almost 2 weeks, I almost feel like the Mozilla Festival was a dream, but an awesome one, one where people were very productive, one where people were inspired and inspiring. I once again thought I’d have a very tiny role simply as a participant this year, but just like last year, I was proved wrong. Warning, this is no way told in a chronological order. Continue reading “MozFest 2013 Reflection: Making & Teaching”

We Can Shape “The Great Age of Librarians”

Thanks to @fsayre, I was recently reading Breaking the barriers of time and space: the dawning of the great age of librarians by T. Scott Plutchak. It’s an interesting look back on the past, how the printed book changed libraries, and how we can be entering “the great age of librarians” with the shift to digital. I thought I would reflect on this a little more. I’m not sure I will come to any better conclusion, but perhaps how this might apply to myself and others. It’s a smattering of thoughts, so I may have to rewrite this later, but I hope this will get some people thinking and discussing. Continue reading “We Can Shape “The Great Age of Librarians””

Thank You: On Awards and Being Recognized in Library Land

Just yesterday, Valerie (@vforrestal) posted an article on the culture in library land of achievements and recognition. To summarize, my takeaway from it is that our focus as librarians should not be winning awards and getting into the “in” crowd, but to do our work well and that we should strive for recognition from colleagues recognizing our everyday contributions as our achievements. Being a fairly new librarian, reading the article was a great reminder that getting awards and proposals accepted is not as important as we might make it out to be. Continue reading “Thank You: On Awards and Being Recognized in Library Land”

Looking Beyond the Library

Stuck in a Bubble?

So often working in a library, I feel like we’re stuck in the bubble that is the “library world”. While there are many aspects that are “special” to libraries or information/collection based organizations, so many aspects of librarianship are not: customer service, teaching, marketing/communications, space usage/design, web and IT services, etc. Yet for whatever reason, I find so many that are reluctant or never think to look outside the little bubble that we live in. Working in academic libraries, at least many people will think to expand into the higher ed world sometimes, but then stop there. Continue reading “Looking Beyond the Library”