Gettin' the Word Out

Another plug for the UNT Digital Collections in ALA's e-newsletter, American Libraries Direct: this time, it's the Portal to Texas History! See the yellow-ish column on the right: the Portal is the Digital Library of the Week.



...And now, back to my regularly-scheduled Hectic Week from Hades. The comfort, as always this time of year, is that eventually it will be September, students will be settled in their classes, and my life will be my own again. Ah, the joy of academic libraries and life on the academic calendar. At some point in my life, I may begin to think of years as starting in January instead of late August--but I doubt it.

Playing in the Pro League

This has been a great week for me, professionally. I've been invited to speak on Library 2.0 themes at the San Antonio Public Libraries' staff development day, finished a book review for JWL on an amazing guide to writing web content, and was just informed that my proposal for an educational program at the Fall DLC meeting has been accepted.

Hooray! (Oh wait... does this mean I actually have to write the presentations now?)


Incidentally, if you need a good guide for writing online content, buy Ginny Redish's Letting Go of the Words. In fact, just go out and buy it regardless--even if you think you don't need this book, it's unbelievably useful and so clearly written that it sparkles. I, who groan at the thought of trying to read something on top of my already-hectic schedule, flew through this book and enjoyed every moment. You need this book. Just trust me.

And while you're ordering things, get a subscription to the Journal of Web Librarianship. If you're a librarian who uses the internet, this periodical is relevant, no matter how web-savvy you are (or aren't). And if you're a librarian who doesn't use the internet... maybe you should start reading up on that.

Blog for $

Want to get paid for blogging? Check out these opportunities.

And now I return to my regularly-scheduled hectic day.

Happy St. Lawrence Day!

Today, our Head of Archives hosted a St. Lawrence feast-day BBQ celebration at the library. (St. Lawrence is the patron saint of librarians and archivists.) To celebrate his feast day, we ate grilled meat (well, barbeque works when you're in Texas) in honor of St. Lawrence's martyrdom by being grilled.

When I was still working on my Art History MA, he was one of my favorite saints, primarily because of the great quote attributed to him while he was being grilled, "Turn me over, I'm done on this side." Ah, those crazy, crazy saints. Take a course on hagiography (the study of saints) and suddenly you think jokes about cephalophores are amusing. (Then again, we're talking about historians here... huge, huge nerds to begin with.)

In honor of St. Larry, here are some pertinent links:

• St. Lawrence e-cards
• Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Wikipedia article

Among my other favorite saints:

• St. Anthony of Padua: patron saint of finding lost things (and also finding husbands)
• St. Veronica: owned a miraculous cloth portrait of Christ, so is fittingly the patron saint of photographers, as well as the subject of my MA thesis (vernicle images)

Not a Cheater

Ah, yes, the scorn of many book clubs and bibliophile traditionalists--audiobooks. This article describes the scorn some book club members face when they reveal they've listened, rather than read, the latest selection. I myself feel a tad odd when I list audiobooks on my "recently read" list--but I am firmly in the school that listening to an audiobook is just as much reading as is cracking open the physical volume.

My theory is, people that scorn audiobooks as "not as much work" as reading the book, clearly don't do as much actual work as I do, which is part of what accounts for the very little time I have to read. Then again, most of these people would probably also not classify my comic book habit as "reading." They're right--it takes much more visual effort and brain power to concentrate on a script that is both text and image--which is why when I'm tired, I read books, and only read comics when I have enough energy to concentrate.

I only wish that we had a broader selection of popular titles at UNT. Or else that the McKinney/Denton public libraries were more on my way to work. Or that they had a courier service directly to my office. And also if all my textbooks, and professional books I'd like to read--if they were on audiobook, that would rock.

Yeah, I know I sound like a big whiner. But that's what you get to be when you commute ten hours a week, watching your free time melt away like pecan ice cream.

Mmmmm, ice cream.

Seen Any UFOs Lately?

My new boss just emailed me a link to this story about government documents--this guy has been sending FOIA requests for any documents relating to UFOs since he was 15. They're up at The Black Vault.

...This reminded me of a recent photo posted on BoingBoing.

And yes, I'm still kicking. I'm about 75% done organizing my new office, and my new boss has been here since last Wednesday--I think things will just begin to settle down once school starts, which of course will incite another 2-3 weeks of hectic-ocity.

In the meantime, I'm trying to catch up on emails, conference notes, ALA GODORT web stuff, TLA GODORT web stuff, new content for the CyberCemetery, a new CMS for our internal library newsletter... and too much more to list.