Sarah Houghton-Jan has a new URL and an all new look. Go over to her inaugural post and say hello. Don’t forget to update your feeds!
the beginning of school
I’m adding another microjob to all the microjobs I have. Starting next week I will be the super-part-time IT lady at the vocational high school that I work at. This means that I’ll be the triage lady between the IT troubles at the school and the expensive tech consultants that do the networking and account management and mail server for the school. This is good news for me. I’ll even, sort of, have a classroom because there’s an empty one. I’m going to dial back my adult ed teaching in the evenings for a semester so that I can be around at night. So, for anyone curious or keeping track at home, here is my “what I do for work” list at the moment.
- I run MetaFilter – I am one of two full-time moderators. In addition to the guy who owns the site and the coder who builts a lot of it, we’re it. Running Ask MetaFilter has taught me a lot about how people look for information and how they do or do not find it.
- I give talks – as other people have observed, public speaking opportunities seem to be dropping off somewhat. I was turning down offers last year because I was overbooked, now I’m doing maybe one a month? Works out well for me, but it’s hardly a reliable income stream.
- I am still automating the Tunbridge Library using Koha. It’s slow going. Some of that slowness is me, some is not. I work a few hours a week on it. We’re at the point where everything’s got a sticker and now we’re linking records to items. Exciting.
- I’m writing a book for Libraries Unlimited about teaching people to use computers over on this side of the digital divide. Due in March and I’m doing my own index. Wish me luck!
- I’m still doing drop-in time at the local vocational high school which is a different job from the IT job though also just a few hours a week.
- I got a royalties check from Mcfarland for about $20 so I guess that’s sort of like a job.
I’m sure there are other things I’m forgetting. As usual, librarian.net is just a hobby blog and not something that brings in any money which is AOK by me. This is post #3001 after 10+ years of doing this.
librarians and roller derby
I went to a roller derby match this weekend, my first, and this morning this article crosses my desk. Coincidence? I think not.
By day, she’s Beth Hollis, a 53-year-old reference librarian in Akron, Ohio. By night, she’s MegaBeth, an ageless dynamo on the roller derby rink. “All my life, when I tell people I’m a librarian, they say, ‘You don’t look like a librarian,’ ” Hollis said. “And now that I’m a roller derby girl, they say, ‘You don’t look like a roller derby girl, either.’ So I don’t know where I fit in.”
update: please head on over to FM Daisy’s blog to see more Derbrarians.
a few late summer links
I’ve been scooting around a little bit lately and here are some things that have been crossing my virtual desk. I’ve also dealt with two wordpress issues [a hack! and an outdated sidebar navigation element] and I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. If you’re on a Summer schedule, I’d suggest upgrading before things get hectic.
- A small and to the point help save our library blog from the William Leonard Public Library in Robbins Illinois. More about their library’s financial crisis.
- Ralph has some space for a new library at the Canadian Aerospace Warfare Center and no idea how to do it. He’s built a little wiki. maybe people have advice?
- Bernie Margolis, now the State Librarian of NY after leading Boston Public Library for a long time, is quoted in a library Journal article saying that ALA and its allies should be stepping up to demand more library access for the scanned books that will be made available via the Google Books Settlement, if and when that happens.
- LSW fundraiser for the LFPL, one week left. Don’t know what those acronyms are? Click the link!
sony reader works with ebooks and libraries, sort of
The new Sony Reader, the biggest competition to the Kindle, is supposedly going to be able to check out digital books from libraries that use the Overdrive service. I guess this begs the obvious question: why go to the library for this service at all? I guess that Overdrive just bulk offers the checkoutability service to libraries (hello restrictive DRM!) which is something but man I just wish their service were better and easier to use.