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I missed a call last night – common enough for me, since I turn my phone to vibrate during the day and usually forget to change the ringer when I set it down at home. The call I missed was from my dad… he was letting me know that he’ll be going to Baghdad, Iraq in two weeks. My dad is in the Air Force Reserves, doing a project on archives. He’s fifty-something. Why the !@#? is he going to Iraq?
I tried calling back when I got the message but it was already really late in their time zone, so I didn’t have any luck. I have no idea how early they leave in the mornings, so I’m just waiting till tonight to get the full story. I’m having a roller coaster of emotions about this news. On the one hand, I know plenty of people go to Iraq regularly without getting hurt. I’ve heard about the soldiers coming back and saying it’s not as bad there as the media says. On the other hand, the sheer senselessness of this government of ours having a stupid war and then sending a fifty-something archivist to the heart of it makes me so mad, I want to petition for the abolishment of the whole Republican party. But, of course, that would leave my father without a political party.
As the title says, this was news I never expected. The best way for me to describe my feelings/reaction is this: I see the war in Iraq as a lethal virus and I’ve just found out that the government has given my dad the virus.
Word of the Day for this past Monday:
abecedarian \ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:
1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.
adjective:
1. Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
2. Arranged alphabetically.
3. Rudimentary; elementary.
So, I’m looking ahead to June and the ALA Annual conference in D.C. I’ve heard all sorts of opinions on Annual from “don’t bother, it’s too big/expensive/not worth it” to “freebies! networking! parties!” I haven’t done much yet in the way of conferences, certainly nothing with, oh, 30 thousand Nancy Pearls running around (bless her heart … even if she did leave out Connie Willis).
Naturally I started asking around to figure out what this whole Annual thing was all about. Here are some things I’ve learned this week (please feel free to correct, counter and add in the comments):
- ALA is all about committees; you go to Annual to see your tribe, I mean, committee
- not all the events happen in the convention center; a lot of committees hold their stuff in the hotels
- call or email people you know and plan on coffee/lunches beforehand; super important for 1st timers
- if you’re not on a committee, you’re not really in ALA yet
- ALA brings a mobile post office along so you can send yourself all those freebies you pick up
- don’t register at the convention center, register at one of the satellite places, usually a hotel
- did I mention committees?
I think you see the trend I’ve been picking up on. And I’m happy to be active, but how do I choose a committee? There are all those great bloggers in RUSA MARS, and then there’s the great connection between the IRRT and my new job, oh but I should probably hook up with NMRT, too. Doh! Pretty soon I end up with a schedule like this (fast forward to June) in which I’m listening to Meredith Farkas in one room, the European Library Education panel in another, and a librarian from Chile in a third. All at the same time.
About a week ago, Jennifer and I posted about the need for a library student community and Karin took us up on the idea. Lo and behold we now have LIS Students at Ning, which is a simple little community-making website. Our little ning corner already has some great discussions going, such as:
- Does your school have a thesis or practicum?
- Figuring out this year’s ALA Annual in D.C.
- Doing the library science degree at a distance
But wait! I can sense what you’re thinking … you don’t want yet another place to go check for updates and such. No problem – you can tap into the site on the RSS feeds in the comfort of your own cozy reader:
- Read all the forums in one feed (RSS)
- Read posts to the Ning site (RSS)
- or, Read the aggregate of all members’ personal blogs, if they’ve shared the link (RSS)
For the good of us all, visit the Ning site at least once – lisstudents.ning.com – to sign up. It’s simple and painless. Use the “Sign Up” link in the black bar at the top and you won’t even have to deal with another window or the back button or anything. Takes you less than a minute.
News and thoughts I just wanted to share:
- First, the really big news … nah, I’ll save it for the end.
- First, let me put down on record (for the sake of the future me who might grumble about living in the Midwest) that I really like the Spring we’re having even with the crazy weather snaps that go from 80 degrees one week to 30 degrees the next. The loud apocalyptic thunderstorms are the best part.
- Secondly, I stumbled on a new comic and wanted to share this one with you.
- Thirdly, I think I found the above comic on an old blog string over at Librarian Avengers about library schools, namely, the almighty question “which library school should I choose” … I wish I had seen such a post on the schools I was considering back when I was waffling. We need a wiki by, about, and for library school students (hey, Librarienne clone! get on that, would ya?) in which we give each other a heads up about schools, classes, starting new jobs and so forth. UIUC’s GSLIS has a great set of online bulletin boards for everyone to post questions and answers about job stuff, but there’s no way we would start comparing notes on classes because we know the faculty read those boards as much as – if not more than – the students. And those boards can only be accessed by folks with a GSLIS login. Seems like a similar resource for the larger library student community would be a simple thing to set up, and having a larger base of participants might make it easier for students to give honest anonymous feedback about their programs. As far as populating it with info, this is where having so few schools to choose from will be to our benefit. I remember reading the “getting into grad school” guides, which advised prospective students to apply to at least 5 programs. “Ha!” I thought. “I can only think of 3 places I’d even want to go!” And as we see in the Librarian Avenger post, that student was only considering 2 schools. Some people, due to location or resources, only have 1 choice. The implications of this could be explored in many different ways, of course. Some day when I’m not a grad student myself, I’ll look into it.
- Last but not least … I got my dream job!!! Well, it’s a student job here on campus, but it’s at *the* place that made me decide to even apply here. I’ll be practicing all the things I love: technology, languages, international relations, trainings and tours. Yippee! Yippee! I’ll start later this summer right before the fall semester and I. Can’t. Wait.
