The Liminal Librarian

I’ve been meaning to post for a while, but life, as they say, gets in the way. (As Meredith says: “Book trumps blogging” — so do preschoolers on break from preschool… and anniversaries… and things breaking, and Comcast outages, and… well, you get the idea.

So, here are a few random notes while I get it together enough to post more later:

* Steven Cohen at Library Stuff gets the idea for a “Hundred Dollar Folder” from Pegasus Librarian. “…it’s a folder where you put all the notes you get that are compliments, all the descriptions of times when you helped someone out and they were happy with the help, and notes with quotes of when people have complimented you… it’s an absolute MUST and great for reading through on the days when you don’t feel like you’ve made a difference.” What a great idea, and a nice counterbalance to those negative stories we tell about ourselves.

* Next, and you’ve probably seen this on ten mailing lists already, ALA has contracted to provide wi-fi throughout the convention center at ALA Annual in New Orleans this year. (See also the wi-fi list at the ALA 2006 Wiki.) This is cool, and almost enough to make me wish I were going this year. (See you all in Chicago again in 4 years!) It seems like it’s an issue of easier availability this time, but I’m hoping that having wi-fi available just once will provide an impetus to push for it at future events.

* Michael Stephens just e-mailed me that our latest “Tech Tips for Every Librarian” department for CIL Magazine is freely available online this month. It’s usually not, so, yay! Michael and I started this monthly department in January to help provide information for smaller and less-well-funded libraries on ways to implement low-cost, easy technology solutions. Since I’ve always worked in smaller and less-well-funded libraries, this is an issue near and dear to my heart, and I’m excited about newer technologies and solutions that are lowering barriers for these types of institutions.

And now, life trumps again — more later!