Card-Carrying Member (as soon as it comes in the mail)

I'm now an official member of ALA, LITA, and GODORT--all for the this-time-only reasonable price of $135 (don't you hate to call anything over a hundred bucks "reasonable?"). Next year on this date, my checkbook will weep, I'm sure.

Last year, there was a lot of frustrated talk among NextGens about ALA, some of which has now quieted. But it seems a little hard to be active in the library community without the membership--first of all, I wanted to be in LITA and GODORT, and second, if I'm going to attend a few ALA conferences a year anyway, then I might as well get a slight discount.

Speaking of professional activity...

• Whew! I just submitted a presentation proposal--my second in two weeks. The first one was a lot easier than this one, on which I procrastinated until the deadline loomed, and then just forced myself to write it and send it in. Sometimes I can spend a week crafting and perfecting a proposal, and sometimes I just blurt it all out in desperation. My philosophy is, at the very least if I just finish it and send it in, I've got a chance.
• It's only a week and a half until DLC--I've got to start planning what to pack! (I'm finding it's hard to pack light when you need a laptop, hairdryer, and iron just for starters...)
• I'm pondering harnessing the power of RSS for the CRS archive and the CyberCemetery. The problem, as a colleague quickly pointed out, is that the batch-uploads to CRS (often 100+ at a time) make for a messy feed. So we're thinking about creating a feed for each of the browse terms (which are actually LIV top terms). I think this would be a great way not only to help researchers, but to market our department's digital collections. I'd love to have links to the feeds on the GovDocs homepage... guess I'll add that to my project wishlist.

And now, for something completely different (but, um, still library-related):

• "Show Your Librarian Some Love" -- great article from the Chronicle of Higher Education about teaching faculty and academic librarians.
• Google's buying YouTube! It's the millennial version of AOL/Time-Warner.
• Back to Sophie Brookover's "Priorities and Professionalism" article about finding that balance of career vs. family, I thought I'd link to LIScareer.com's articles on the topic; in particular, I liked this quote from Susanne Markgren's "Librarianship and Parenthood: Confessions of a New Mother:" "...I feel that working and being able to step outside of the mommy role helps me to be a happier and therefore better mother."
• Just to prove that I'm still in tune with my MA, here's a story on Greece still wanting those Elgin marbles from the British Museum. I remember writing a paper on this topic for my MA... seven years ago, and they still haven't given up. Wow, this is what I call hopeful thinking: "Greece hopes the landmark structure, purpose-built to showcase finds from the ancient Acropolis, will eventually host the collection -- even as a permanent loan -- despite repeated refusals from the British government and British Museum officials."
• In more Art History news, the Vatican opened a Roman necropolis.
• The ultimate nerd-job: Blogger for NPR!
• Did you know that ALA is older than the IRS?
• On making up words (a librarian's prerogative, apparently).
• Teaching in Second Life... at Harvard, no less!
• And while we're on the topic, why not attend one of these Grand Opening events at SL's Info Island?
  
• Here are some resources for ePortfolios.
• Google blog search!
• The nitty-gritty of web typography (aka, Something Else to Waste Time Obsessing Over).