Where I am now

Well, obviously, it's not posting to this blog on a regular basis.

It's not that I don't think about posting, or that I don't have (what I think) are interesting posts, it's just that I haven't been motivated.

Let's face it, it was a rough winter. It was cold. There were lots of days when things were canceled due to snow. And did I mention it was cold? I wasn't motivated to do much of anything. Everything was an effort. And then I came down with a cold that lasted for nearly 3 weeks.

Fortunately, I have a somewhat regular schedule (when it's not disrupted by a snow cancelation) and even with my cold I worked on cleaning up the MassCat database, taught LIS415, and lead the senior exercise class. I also managed to do the laundry, cook dinner and vacuum the house, though not as often or as thoroughly as I would like.

There was also a mini-vacation in mid-January to New York City. We saw L'Elisir d'Amore at the Met Opera and took in a show at a fairly new supper club called 54 Below. Both were great fun.

I enjoy listening to the opera on Saturday afternoons, but during the academic year I am otherwise occupied (see LIS415 above). So for Christmas 2012, my thoughtful husband gave me a gift card to the Met Opera. Since the opera season is pretty much the same as the academic year, there's only a brief window of time to take advantage of a gift card and that happened in January 2014 just before the semester started.

Now it's April, the weather has warmed up, the days are getting longer and the semester is drawing to a close. I have great plans for the summer. Let's hope I can stay motivated.

An Unexpected Consequence

A couple of weeks ago, I gave my LIS415 students a homework assignment that involved searching the Library of Congress catalog. The completed assignment was due the following week. A couple of days later, I began receiving frantic emails from students that they could not get into the catalog. The government had shut down and so had the Library of Congress!

I gave the students an alternate site to search. I wanted them to look at MARC bibliographic records and they could do that at almost any library's catalog, but I also want them to use as many different catalogs as possible to see the differences among them.

Then I began to worry about an upcoming workshop that I'll be giving for the Massachusetts Library System on free sites for Technical Services Librarians. Of course, many of the sites I want to talk about involve the Library of Congress as there is a wealth of information for catalogers there. I began to wonder how much would be available and whether or not it was worth even giving this workshop.

Lo and Behold! Today, as I began reviewing my material for the workshop, I discovered that LC's catalog is up and running! And so is their Authority File site. That won't mean much, if anything, to a non-cataloger, but let me tell you it is a site I use ALL THE TIME when I'm working.

Is the government no longer shut down? I know there have been negotiations going on, but I haven't listened to the news today.

Whatever happened, I'm glad I can get to the sites I need. I just hope it's not some sort of mistake. I hope the sites stay up. Next Saturday I'll be covering authorized forms of names with the students in LIS415 and I'll need LC's Authority File.

The new school year

I have a great class this semester. It is the largest one I've ever had, but that's not what's great about it.

The students are bright, vocal, observant, and ask thoughtful questions. I would call them "engaged" except that is becoming an overused and trite word and I try to avoid such words.

Another factor making this a great semester is that I'm feeling much more confident and comfortable with the material. Even though I've used the information I'm teaching for many years, I just went about my work; I didn't think about it in this way until I began teaching LIS415.

Now as I listen to the radio, read a book, and - yes - even catalog, I'm constantly encountering different examples that are "just perfect" to include in an upcoming class.

Teaching a graduate level course was a whole new experience for me. The road was occasionally bumpy, but it's smooth for now and (to use another trite phrase) I'm enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Last Day of Class

Today is the last day of class for LIS415. It's been a great semester. The students were both interested and interesting. There were lots of questions and lots of discussion. Part of the requirement for the course is to post to a discussion board on various topics that we covered during the semester. There were some very thoughtful and insightful posts. They were a pleasure to read.

Even though the semester is ending, my schedule is getting more hectic as workshop season is in full swing. The hot topic? RDA. I've developed an introduction to the new cataloging code which I've presented twice and have 2 more presentations scheduled and also a session on the Dewey Decimal System.

I'm seeing more and more bibliographic records created using RDA and I know that I cannot put off using it much longer. One of my summer projects will be to go through all of the training materials for RDA on the Library of Congress web site to that I can tackle the new code in style.

Something else I'm hoping to tackle during the summer are all of those dust bunnies that have been lounging in the corners of every room in my house. They've been getting bolder an moving into places I can easily see. I've been too busy working to worry about them, but my priorities will be changing soon and those bunnies are about to face their demise.

What's in a Name?

This week in LIS415 we're tackling Authority Control - specifically Name Authority Control.

The topic is rather auspicious since the Pope stepped down on Thursday and there has been a flurry of email messages on the AUTOCAT discussion list about what's going to happen to the Pope's authority record at the Library of Congress.

Overall the class is going very well. This is the most vocal group of students I have had to date. They ask lots of thoughtful questions and have lots of thoughtful comments.

When I teach this section on Authority Control, I often think about names in general and how they ebb and flow. I sometimes compare the names of the people in the senior exercise class in Hatfield where everyone is older than 55 (and most are older than 65) with the names of the people in LIS415 where most are under 35. In the former, there are two Carols and two Virginias along with a Helen, an Edith, a Frances, an Irene, a Sandy and a Bernice. There are no Susans or Lindas although they were very popular names for the time period.

In the latter there's a Jenn, a Jackie, a Beth and a Leah. This semester there are no Saras or Sarahs, but there often are. Interestingly there's an Amanda in both Senior Exercise and LIS415. Also in LIS415 is an Emma which is another old-fashioned name making a comeback.

So now it's time for me to get ready to travel to So. Hadley and demonstrate LC's Name Authority File to my eager students. I'll leave the final disposition of Benedict XVI's authority record to LC.

Winter Wonderland

This morning I woke up to about 2 inches of light fluffy snow on the ground, trees, everything. It looks lovely. I will not have a problem driving in it because there's just not that much and I have an all-wheel-drive vehicle.

Last Saturday, I awoke to about 2 feet of snow. Luckily, I had given my Library Science students an online tutorial to complete along with some readings and gave them the take-home assignment that was scheduled for that day according to the syllabus. I couldn't see making them (most of whom travel from Connecticut) drive to So. Hadley just to hear me talk about MARC.

But today is different. There's just not that much snow (even though I'm sure some people will have problems driving) and I'm not going to do the electronic thing two weeks in a row.

I have a appointment to get my hair cut this morning. My day begins.

An Itinerant Cataloger

I've just finished the first week of my new schedule as an itinerant cataloger, although the schedule will fluctuate a little from week to week. There are two holidays in November to work around, too. The week was somewhat more chaotic than usual since I had to cope with 34 hours of no electricity due to Hurricane Sandy.

Here's what it looked like:

Monday: I arrived at Springfield City Library at 9:00 a.m. The first thing I needed to do was learn the cataloging function of Evergreen and SCL's local practices. The library closed at noon because of the storm. I went home and graded papers and began prep for Thursday's class. The lights went out at 2:30, but I worked until it got too dark to do that. I lit candles, listened to the battery powered radio and watched the wind blow the trees around.

Tuesday: Still no lights. I went to SCL and worked on music CDs (mostly copy cataloging), got more comfortable with Evergreen and SCLs music classification system.

Wednesday: The lights came on about 12:30 a.m. It was good to wash in warm water and make coffee that morning. I went to Town Hall to teach the senior exercise class at the Council on Aging office, then off to MassCat to work on their database. I'm more aware of the differences between Evergreen and Koha, the two most common Open Source systems available to libraries.

Thursday was owner/member appreciation day at the local food co-op. I had been planning for a couple of weeks to go shopping there and take advantage of the 10% discount. First, I had to finish prepping for LIS415, which I did. I had a lot of photocopying to do for class, so I left a little early. It was a good class, perhaps the best of the semester. This has been a quiet group of students, not much discussion/questions during class but that night was different. They had a group assignment to work on and really got into it.

Friday: back to Town Hall, but first a stop by the library to sign the bi-weekly warrants (I'm trustee chair). The other exercise instructor usually takes responsibility for most of Friday's class. I lead the part where the exercises aggravate her bad back. I found out that the Town Hall will be closed the day after Thanksgiving and there will be no exercise class. That's good because it makes my schedule easier. The MassCat office will also be closed that day and if there's no exercise class, I can work at SCL from 9-5.

So now it's Saturday and I don't feel like doing anything at all. I've done some odds and ends around the house and there are plenty of things I could do, but they can wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll have more time. It's the first day of Standard Time (fall back) and will be a whole hour longer.

First Day of School

It doesn't matter if it's second grade, high school, or college; if you're a student or the teacher, the First Day of School still feels like the First Day of School.

Tonight, I teach the first class of the fall semester of Information Organization. There are 13 students enrolled - a nice size. It's large enough for variety and discussion, but small enough that I should be able to learn everyone's name in a couple of weeks and not be overwhelmed when I grade papers.

This will be my 4th time teaching the course. I had really become comfortable using eLearning (aka Blackboard) and recently figured out a bunch of neat features when Simmons decided to switch to Moodle. I spent a few weeks last month copying and pasting materials from one to the other. Moodle isn't as pretty as eLearning, but maybe I just haven't found how to add interesting colors and designs.

This morning I finished revising the slides and lecture notes for tonight's class and just uploaded the slides to Moodle under Unit 1. I have the hard copies I need, several files on a flash drive to print at the GSLIS-west office before class, the props I'll be using for an organization exercise, my water bottle and a snack. I'm ready to go!

MY Classes

This is my third semester teaching LIS415 - Information Organization. I've started making serious changes to the notes and slides I was given and I'm really feeling as if this course is MINE. The class last Saturday went really well; I had a good time and the students responded.

In a few minutes I'll be leaving to teach my senior exercise class. This is also beginning to feel like MY class. I have a structure to follow (like LIS415), but I can make adaptations and I'm getting to know the students and we're all having fun.

On another note, I've nearly finished Julia Child's My Life in France. What a wonderful book! It's been on my virtual "To Read" list since I saw the movie Julie & Julia. Now I understand why Julie was so adamant about trying all of Julia's recipes. With all of the cooking I do, I've never actually used the cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I want to read it. Being a semi-vegetarian and traveling the low-fat route, I'm not sure how many of her recipes I'll actually use, but the cookbook sounds fascinating. The kind of work Julia put into it (10 years!) is incredible. Now that's passion.

Julia Child had such a wonderful spirit and love of life. The book, as its title explains, focuses on the years she lived in France and continues a little beyond with the publishing of the cookbook and the production of her television show on WGBH (neither of which would have happened if she had not lived in France). While she comments occasionally on her somewhat stormy relationship with her father (they had very different political views and he felt betrayed by her because her opinions were different from his), there is a lot of personal information left out. Julia was 6' 2" - that's very tall for a man and even fewer women reach that height. What was it like for her growing up? Was she teased by her schoolmates? What other challenges faced her especially in an era that had never heard of Universal Design? She must have spent a lot of time bending over kitchen counters built for people of "average" height. Because of her travels, she flew a lot; how did she deal with lack of legroom? That sort of situation is never mentioned in her book. I'm so curious about the other aspects of her life.

I strongly recommend My Life in France. I'll be sad when I've finished it. I wish someone would write Julia Child's biography - but it would have to embody her style. Is that possible?

A Flurry of Activity

I spent 4 days of the last couple of weeks working on catalog maintenance and also some cataloging. I was in two places that were in many ways the same: both were large spaces with plenty of room to work and with pleasant and helpful colleagues. However, they were different in one big way: one had windows and the other did not. The one without windows actually had windows (I could see them from the outside of the building) but they were solidly covered over, I guess because the room was "computer central" for a network of libraries. Once I get involved in a project, I don't really notice the lack of windows as long as the room is well-lit and ventilated.

It was good to get out into the working world, even for a few days. I got to wear clothes that spend more time hanging in my closet than on me. Since I completed those short projects, today I am home in my playclothes although I'll be putting on something a little more presentable to go out later today to run errands.

Tomorrow will be my first time teaching low-impact aerobics to a group of seniors. The exercises are designed to prevent (or slow down) osteoporosis. I had 4 hours of training a week ago Saturday and I've been practicing with the DVD that is given to participants. They each receive a booklet and DVD so they can practice at home. There is lots of material to read on exercise and nutrition as they relate to bone health. One of the best things about being a cataloger (or probably a librarian in general) is that just about everything in the world is useful to my job in some way. Now if I need to catalog any books (or DVDs) on osteoporosis, I'll have a lot of working knowledge.

Only 4 days till classes start at Simmons GSLIS west. I'm thinking of ways to incorporate more in-class projects and discussion and lessen my lecture time in LIS415. That's what was suggested in many of the evaluations I received from the last class - and the class before that. Now that I'm much more comfortable with the syllabus and the material, I can begin to deviate from them a little and include more of my own material.

Last night I finished Fire Sale, a V.I. Warshawsky detective novel. Today I will return it to the library and add 4 dots (1 for each hundred pages) to the 100,000 pages chart. The Hatfield Public Library has issued a town-wide reading challenge and I'm going to do my best to make it happen.

Obsession - or is it Compulsion?

I've already begun waking up in the middle of the night thinking about how I'm going to make changes to LIS415 next semester. I understand that catalogers don't have OCD. They have CDO - that's OCD but in alphabetical order. :-)

The other news I have is that I am probably going to be the new fitness instructor at the Hatfield Senior Center. This is one of the volunteer jobs I called about yesterday. I was a volunteer fitness instructor at the Greenfield YMCA for 8 years and really loved it. I was even certified by ACE (American Council on Exercise) and the YMCA.

Being the instructor is the perfect way to insure you work out. Even if you pay for aerobics classes, it's still easy enough to skip a class. But when you're teaching the class, there's no way you can skip.

For a while I considered a career change. However, it's hard to be a full-time fitness instructor. Even energetic 20-year-olds can't teach enough classes to pay the rent without causing serious bodily injury. Fitness instructors are often also Personal Trainers to give their muscles a rest and I wasn't sure I wanted to go the Personal Trainer route. I'm not certain why, though I know it involves a lot more training than I had at the time. Somehow being a Personal Trainer seemed to mean I would have a lot more responsibility and I didn't feel confident enough then.

Anyway, after some training (after all, it's been about 12 years since I've taught fitness classes) you'll be able to find me on Wednesday mornings boogeying at the Hatfield Senior Center.

Conflicts

I've been re-hired to teach LIS415 in the fall. I just signed the contract and it will be in tomorrow's mail. I'm psyched. I'm looking forward to implementing revisions and trying some new things (nothing too radical).

However, I also realize I've just committed every Saturday afternoon from September 10 through December 10 to Simmons College and Organization of Information and there are other things I also would like to do but teaching takes priority right now.

I read recently about a Leadership Institute offered by the Women's Fund of Western Mass. I went to the website and was just about ready to apply for 2011-2012 when I saw that the group meets Saturdays from 9:30 to 4:30. Too bad. It looks like a great opportunity and I'm at a point in my life where I think I could really benefit from participating in an institute like this.

Toward the end of September, Provincetown, Mass. hosts the annual Tennessee Williams Festival. I stumbled upon it a few years ago and loved the variety of plays, movies, and other events all focusing on Tennessee Williams. My partner and I returned two years ago and were treated once again to many creative events held throughout the town. I received an email not long ago encouraging me to buy tickets. The dates: September 22-25. We could attend the first 2 days, but I'd need to be back in western Mass. on the 24th.

And then there're the Friends of UMass/Amherst Library and I'm the President. The board only meets twice a year: a Saturday in the spring and a Sunday in the fall. I regretfully missed the spring meeting because I didn't want to skip teaching a class during my first semester. I was looking forward to the Sunday meeting in the fall - only to find out it's been switched to a Saturday to take advantage of some other campus events happening on Saturday. I haven't yet decided what to do. I could find a substitute instructor or I could record my lecture via Camtasia or similar software or I could miss the Friends board meeting once again.

What I really need is a TiVo for my life.

Evaluations

Recently, I received copies of the students' evaluations for LIS 415. Overall, they were pretty good and I'm glad. There were several good suggestions from students and I agree with them.

I'll probably be teaching the course in the fall and I plan to incorporate more in-class projects, to divide up the at-home assignments (make them shorter but more frequent), and spend more class time going over the assignments. Shorter lectures and more in-class discussion is also on the agenda.

Another goal is to spend more time in the first few classes explaining what is expected, when and why. Students want to know how to plan their time during the semester; that's a totally reasonable request.

A disappointment is that one person was not satisfied with the class. Obviously, I was not able to communicate as well as I would have liked with everyone. I wish he/she had let me know earlier in the semester and perhaps we could have resolved the issue(s). I know that when I was a student, every once in a while I would have a teacher with whom I had absolutely no rapport. I don't want that to happen with my students.

I hope that with less lecturing on my part and more in-class work and discussion, I can keep all channels of communication open and ensure a postitive learning experience for all students and a positive teaching experience for me.

Angst, Exhillaration, Relief

The semester has ended. Saturday was the last class for LIS415. I spent several hours on Sunday and most of Monday grading papers and calculating final grades. Those grades are now in the hands (or email boxes) of Simmons officials.

I remember back to January and how I felt just before the first class. I was terrified.

During the semester I had periodic attacks of panic interspersed with excitement and delight when something went well. I am so impressed with the students in my class. They are all so bright and know more than I do in some areas. Classes included a lot of exchange of information when one or more of them could fill in a gap based on their experiences. Half the class was in the Archives program - an area I know about only from a distance. Many of them had coding experience - mine is minimal. But I know cataloging rules, MARC format, name authority files, subject headings, how to deal with foreign languages and non-book material and what it was like in the card catalog days. And I had a lot of support from faculty on the GSLIS Boston campus and the administration on the GSLIS Mt. Holyoke campus. Thanks, everyone for helping me through my first semester.

I'm already thinking of things I want to include in the fall. I expect I'll be teaching again although that's not yet official.

Today I'm off to work at DGI gathering more anecdotes to relate to future classes.

A Day Off!

Actually, for the last few weeks, I've been able to plan my week so that I get one weekday off - usually a Friday so that I can prep for LIS415. This morning, I graded papers from 6-9 a.m. Then I reviewed the PowerPoint presentation that I'll be using, made some adjustments, and uploaded it to the eLearning site that the students use.

I'm now taking a break from reviewing the last assignment that they'll be given and will have to turn back to me in two weeks.

So just as I'm adapting to this schedule, it's about to change. The project I've been working on at Springfield City Library is just about complete. I'll be going back maybe one or two more times, but not for a few weeks. We all thought it would take me a lot longer. Guess I should have charged them more money. And the last day of LIS415 is May 7.

What will happen next? Will there be more projects? Will I be able to re-open my Unemployment claim and continue collecting?

Stay tuned.

Three More Weeks - But Who's Counting?

It's been a wonderful experience teaching LIS415, and I sincerely hope I do it again in the fall. But right now I'm looking forward to getting my life back, to having my weekends free, and to listening to the opera on Saturday afternoons. There are so many things I plan to do with all the extra time I'll have, I'm tired just thinking about them!

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.