What I've Been Up To

So, what HAVE I been up to since April? Darned if I know. I know I've been working with students, teaching (talked to a graduate International Marketing class this week), preparing for our poster session next week at the Association of Christian Librarians conference (more on our high school research, and the poster is VERY well done, thanks to Donna!) Transitioning our subject guides to LibGuides. Keeping up with our databases, and reviewing "mine" as they come up for renewal. Had a retreat/strategic planning meeting for our latest reorganization, which is partially triggered by the several early retirements we'll have at the end of the fiscal year. Using up vacation time before the end of June.

I really, REALLY like LibGuides. I treat myself to working in it, when I'm caught up on my other projects. Our goal is to migrate our guides for fall. The business librarians will be meeting in a few weeks to review our business guides, decide who will handle what, and decide which guides can be combined or go away. I've already been looking at the usage and working on some of my guides. I haven't figured out yet how I'll migrate the international business guides: we have eight, which could be trimmed down - but how? Do we need separate international marketing, company, and industry guides? What about country information (used by other disciplines than business)? And the regional guides, which overlap a lot? I'm still pondering this.

In a week, I'm off to the Special Library Association (SLA) conference in New Orleans. I've never been to the city, so I'm looking forward to that, mixed in with my recent dislike of travel and utter confusion about how this conference is organized. Although I've been to SLA more than once, their conference and their online site for it bewilder me. But, onward I go!

Library 2.0 seeds take root

We're seeing a few 2.0 changes around my library these days, which is exciting (when I have time to think about it.) Here are some things that are happening, or going to happen soon:

• We've added a Discover Layer to our public catalog. While it's sometimes confusing to me as a power user, I think it's appealing to the novice. (It's funny that the html title for the initial page is 'Encore,' while the "classic catalog" has the regular catalog's name.)
• We're moving along in implementing Sharepoint as our new intranet/wiki/online bulletin board. We've roughed out a structure, and we're opening it up to staff to use. Our first 'killer app' is a new statistics application, which all staff will use to track patron questions. (It's great to have a web developer on staff!)
• We're looking at sprucing up our subject/resource guides. We've come up with a few short-term facelifts for fall; long-term, we're looking at products like LibGuides and Library a la Carte.

It's been interesting being involved in these developments. Sometimes I have the reaction, "Well, it's about time. I thought we should do something like this years ago!" Sometimes it's gratifying when staff are getting it. Sometimes I have to stop and take a breath, and get used to change. But I guess it keeps me on my toes.