What should I do this summer?
Boy, howdy, was May a busy month. A good month, but very, very busy. Let's pause for a moment to take stock:
- Participated in major weeding of the print reference section at my library, the first time this had been done in any kind of comprehensive way in many years.
- Graduated from the College of St. Catherine/Dominican University MLIS program. W00t!
- Presented my Extreme Googling: Tips & Tricks for Expert Searching workshop at a family medicine conference at the medical school and at Enhancing Quality Staff.
- Presented my poster Why Wufoo? Collecting Data About Reference Transactions Using an Online Form Builder at the Medical Library Association (MLA) Annual Meeting.
- Attended the MLA Annual Meeting in Chicago.
- Attended WisCon in Madison, WI for the very first time!
- Also attended the Midwest Library Technology Conference here in St. Paul.
So, for me, May was a very busy and momentous month. Now that I've had 24 hours to catch my breath, however, I already find myself thinking ahead to what I want to accomplish this summer. I fear this will be a very long list, but here's a first draft of my professional goals for the summer and beyond.
Publish
Thus far, I have a database review and an article about the Wufoo poster in the works, so I need to finish these and get them submitted. Both of these opportunities came at me serendipitously and unexpectedly. I would also like to write something about professional networking using online social tools.
Reference competencies
At my library, we will be writing competencies for folks providing reference services. These competencies will be particularly useful as we integrate our reference and circulation desks. I'm quite excited to be part of this team.
Virtual reference services
Specific tasks include implementing a Meebo Me widget on our Web site and creating a custom search bar. I also want to become fully involved with the initiatives of the Libraries' wide Reinventing Reference Collaborative.
Diversity outreach
I am very excited about being on the Diversity Outreach Collaborative at the University Libraries because I believe that making sure that we are reaching and well-serving both our current and potential users is the most important thing libraries can do. If we aren't reaching and serving our people, all we have is a big warehouse of well-organized stuff (including both physical and virtual collections). I've offered to participate in a literature search for this committee, so that will be fun and useful, because I want to learn as much about this area as possible.
Consumer health and community outreach
Working in an academic health sciences libraries, I see oodles of opportunities to serve not only our institutionally affiliated users, but also our community users. I want to explore ways that my library can do more in these areas.
Actively seek a librarian job
This pretty much speaks for itself. I adore my job, but am ready to add the "librarian" title to my business card. I would prefer to stay in the Twin Cities, of course, because it is the Best. Place. Ever., but am open to other options as well.
Figure out what to do about this blog
I started this blog just a little over a year ago to fulfill a class assignment, but now I don't know what to do with it. I know that successful blogs should have a mission/vision/voice/purpose, but I've never taken the time to figure out what these are and thus this blog has often languished. Is it time to let it die? It is certainly time to decide.
Maintain a healthy balance between my personal and professional lives
Libraryland is awesome and grand, but I know I need create more balance and definition between my personal life and my professional life, to avoid going barmy.
Information literacy and teaching
I'm looking forward to opportunities to do teaching beyond one-shot, drop-in library workshops. I know I have lots to learn about teaching. I especially want to get better at incorporating active learning into my teaching. Also, I want to learn much more about information literacy (I would *love* to participate in the info lit immersion program). So, I need to do some serious reading, thinking and planning in this area.
Expand my Extreme Googling workshops
Both of our classes (Tips & Tricks for Expert Searching and Productivity Tools for Your Online Life) have been extremely successful. We of course continue to refine the workshops, but I would like to produce some additional material. I would like to create a Web site where I could post handouts, slides, links and online tutorials to support the workshops. I would also like to create a custom Google class, which would involve mashups, custom search engines and doing stuff with APIs.
Write and present about social networking
Specifically, I would like to explore professional networking via online social networking tools, both within librarianship and other professions. Also, I think social networking tools could be used by public health and community health workers to disseminate information to clients. So, I really need to read up on this and learn a bit about social networking theory. I will also need to familiarize myself with more online social networking tools.
Well, David told me to stop, but I can't! Here's another goal.
Searching
I would like to learn how to do much more sophisticated, high-level searches, at the level necessary for systematic reviews. I love literature searching, but I need much more practice, especially with more complex searches.
