Too Much Money

I don't have too much money and probably never will, but last week I earned too much money to file an unemployment claim. I guess that's good, although it wasn't quite as much as I would have earned in a week at CMRLS. However, it's nice to know that my services are in such demand and this situation will likely continue through June 30 which is when the money runs out for my 2 latest projects.

In the meantime, I'm actually struggling to keep up with the work. I have some Continuing Education workshops to teach in March in addition to all of the other stuff. Also during March, I'll be filling in for the cataloger at Springfield City Library who will be taking some vacation time. Fortunately, spring break is in March so I'll have a little breather from teaching (and the most time consuming activity, preparing to teach) LIS415 at Simmons-west.

The victim of all this activity is my once-clean house which is showing signs of neglect. Dust anyone? I'm able to squeeze in the most essential tasks, the most visible ones, the ones that drive me so nuts I can't concentrate on anything else until I take care of them.

Overall, I'm very happy. I love the activity, going to different places every day, having to adapt to a different working environment and different colleagues every day, stimulating my brain and learning so much more about what I've been doing for years. It's vital that I stay organized, keep my appointment book up-to-date, and refer to it (and the weeks ahead) regularly.

It's even more important that I take a little time every day (generally first thing in the morning) to do some Yoga or other exercise. I noticed this morning that my mind was especially active and kept thinking about all of the things I needed to attend to today and tomorrow. I find posting to this blog helps some of that frantic energy dissipate and I'm better able to concentrate on what I'm doing and think less about all of the other things that need to be done, too.

When I began this blog back in July 2010, I seriously thought I might be headed for a career change. If that happens, it won't be anytime soon. My cataloging skills are needed and for right now, that's fine with me.

A New Project

Actually, there are two new projects both starting this week.

Yesterday, I began cataloging the collection for the Early Childhood Resource Center at Springfield City Library. It's mostly games, puzzles, toys and puppets and a surprizing (at least to me) number of them have bibliographic records in the OCLC database. In many other cases, I found similar records so that I could create what I needed fairly easily. Once these records are loaded into Springfield's catalog (an overnight process), I'll need to add holdings information and link the bib. record to a digital image of the item.

I agreed to working on this ECRC project every Monday, except for state holidays. I think that schedule will keep me from becoming overbooked. Once the semester ends at Simmons-west (early May), I can put more time into cataloging games, puzzles, toys and puppets. Funds have to be expended by June 30 (the end of the fiscal year).

The other project begins tomorrow at Donohue Group, Inc. Several of us will be working on retrospective conversion of Boston Public Library's older materials. We'll be working from catalog cards that have been shipped to the DGI office in Windsor CT. I agreed to 2 days a week back before I learned about the ECRC project.

I've been going to bed pretty early every evening and getting lots of bedtime reading done. I may be staying up later at night reading about Organization of Information and grading papers. I'm already looking forward to spring break! I won't be going to Ft. Lauderdale or anything like that. I'll just be enjoying a short respite, probably my last till early May.

Consumed

LIS415 is consuming every waking minute. All I do is think about Organization of Information. I read the textbook, read the handouts for the students, read additional articles, read the students' essays on the discussion board, read the information graciously given to me by a seasoned teacher of the course and keep remembering that it will all be easier next time.

Sometimes I feel so frantic I don't want to take time to practice Yoga. But I also know that's when I need Yoga the most to help me center myself and realize all I'm capable of.

I'm learning so much. As a practitioner, I've always tried to keep up with the issues, but didn't really have to think much about the "big picture." I've always admired the visionary thinkers and wondered how they imagined the new and innovative uses of library metadata, etc. Right now I'm too overwhelmed keeping up with course work to think up anything new and innovative, but I can see how the research environment is conducive to ideas far beyond what I'm used to.

It almost seems like a vacation when I get to spend some time on cataloging projects - which I'm also doing a day or so every week. I also have some CE workshops coming up. What a joy: to present material I know so well and not to have to worry about the session next week because Continuing Education is only one-session and there are no assignments to grade.

My initial unemployment claim should be coming to an end soon. Since I've been working so much, I generally don't withdraw the full weekly amount. That makes it last longer. I believe I'm eligible for an extension. We'll see.

Otherwise, I'm really looking forward to the end of the semester and taking lots of nice long breaths.

Getting Beyond Hurdles

I've been very anxious for the last month.

We bought a new computer and, by default, I'm the tech person in my household. I put off setting it up as long as I could because I just couldn't face something going wrong. It's finally set up along with the new printer and most everything is working okay. The computer came with Windows 7 so we're learning the ins and outs of a new operating system.

And there was the LIS415 Organization of Information, the course I agreed to teach at Simmons-West. As I've stated in earlier posts, this is a new level of teaching for me: Graduate students, an entire semester, having to give tests and grading them. It is all very different from a single 3-hour Continuing Education program. I actually began to visualize having a complete meltdown in the class. Fortunately, I was able to banish the ANTs, and remind myself that I'm an experienced teacher, that I have many years as a cataloger, and that I'm an accomplished professional. While this class is new and different, it's definitely within my range of competencies. My first class was last Saturday, January 29 and it went well. The students are intelligent, curious, and totally open to participating in and out of class. I also have a lot of support from other faculty and tech staff.

Part of what was worrying me about LIS415 was learning how to use Simmons eLearning product. All course information is available to the students via eLearning and there's a lot to it including my learning how to add items, edit items, monitor discussion lists, send emails to my entire group of students. Now that my anxiety level has lessened, I've been able to explore eLearning more calmly and I've done several things with it, including sending an email to the whole class.

I still have the rest of the semester ahead of me, but the hurdles look much lower from here. I'm look forward to fewer sleepless nights.