ALA New Orleans

Greetings!  If you will be attending ALA 2011 here are some places you might find me. I only guarantee to be there if I’m speaking since plans can easily change on a dime at conference time

Thursday 6/23

7:30-9:30pm Spectrum Professional Options Fair (ACRL RIG Table) 300 Bourbon St, Grand Ballroom

Friday 6/24

9am Breakfast w/Jennifer Waller

8am-12pm ALA Town Hall on Diversity RM 265 Convention Center

4pm – 5pm Sci/Tech Librarians & Friends at PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans, Near Lafayette Square.
~0.5 miles/10 minutes from the convention Center
If you want  to attend let me know, so far it’s a small group 4-5 people, but I want to make sure we don’t outgrow the venue.
PJ’s Coffee, 644 Camp St, New Orleans, LA 70130-3424

5:30pm Exhibits Open

5:30pm – 8:00pm LITA Happy Hour Howlin’ Wolf Den Tbl 1, 907 S. Peters St. (Cash Bar)

6:30pm Dinner W/Jen Lanzing & Friends

7:30pm-8:30pm NMRT Mentoring Social, DOUB Rosedown A

10 pm – Midnight ALA Dance Party, Oz New Orleans, 800 Bourbon St

Saturday 6/25

10:30am – 12pm Sociology Librarians Discussion Group (ACRL ANSS) - Marriot- Mardi Gras f-g, Panelist – Promoting Your Institutional Repository to Faculty

3pm-5pm Diversity and Outreach Fair Room 260-262 Convention Center

5pm-6pm Former Diversity Scholars Meetup

5:30pm-7pm ACRL University Libraries Section Netowking Reception Pirates Alley, 1622 Pirates Alley

7pm-9pm Tweetup Bar Uncommon http://baruncommon.com

7:45pm-10pm JCLC Fundraiser, Hilton Riverside, 2 Poydras, River Room

9pm-2am  Facebook After Hours Social Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop 941 Bourbon St. (This is a great place to meet people, esp around midnight when other things are shutting down, it makes a good last stop before bed.)

Sunday 6/26

7am Breakfast w/Bohyun Kim

8am – 10am ACRL RIG Meeting

8am – 10am LITA Emerging Tech
Lost in Translation: the Emerging Technology Librarian and the New Technology, Convention Center Rm 274
Speakers: Bohyun Kim, Florida International University, Jacquelyn Erdman, U.S. Green Building Council

10:30am-12pm Data Panel Sheraton Borgne Room

(Lunch w/Placement Center)

1:30pm-3pm ALA Placement Center Networking in a Tough Economy:  Using Social Media to Build Your Personal Brand and Improve Your Chances of Getting Hired.  Speaker: Pt 3 Putting it together: being professionally consistent online and in person.

7pm-10pm Creole Queen STS/HSIG Dinner Cruise

Monday 6/27

8am-10am LITA Emerging Technologies Interest Group Convention Center RM 341

Jeff and Kiyomi Deards Relaxing With Family

As far back as I can remember I’ve always managed to take alternate routes in life.  From friendships and education, to career path, I’ve always marched to my own invisible (and possibly neurotic) drummer.  My path to being a #Scimom is typical of my life, but different from most.

Whatever the reason I’ve never felt the urge to procreate. My oldest friend reminded me recently of a conversation we had about 20 years ago when we were about 12 where I expressed my disinterest in being a birth parent but was willing to adopt if needed to ensure my friends and relatives children always had a home.  I have always been passionate about education and mentoring, and had a reputation for “being good with kids”.

In spite of this lifelong lack of desire to procreate I have found myself in the position of being a #Scimom through marriage.  Fortunately, I enjoy a very positive relationship with my step-children.  Perhaps it is because we’re closer in age than is usual, I’m more like the young hip aunt than a step-mom.  Basically I skipped to the fun part, no diapers, no teen age rebellion, I came on the scene just in time for my step-kids to be in or starting college.  Both of them have successfully graduated from college and been on their own for several years.  The biggest challenge for me is to maintain my slightly older and wiser rep with the kids, and not foist my views of what they should do on them.  I think it’s a little easier for me than for their parents, because while I love them dearly I did not spend years protecting them from life, dreaming about what they might do.  What I see is their potential, all the different and varied careers that I imagine them succeeding in using the skills they are passionate about, and I know that even though I can think of several careers that I think both of them could be successful in there are probably a dozen more that I haven’t thought of that they’d probably love even more.

The major family issue we deal with is that I am the faculty member who drags their “trailing spouse” around with them.  The whole family has been very supportive about my career, but I know it’s hard on everyone that we moved from California to Nebraska.  Thankfully the kids have been really supportive of my career change; being a science librarian is very different from being the quality control manager at an environmental testing laboratory!  And even though they’re starting to spread out geographically themselves, I know they miss having us in the same general location as their mom and step-father.  So how do we (my husband and I) try and mitigate our absence?  It’s less than one year since our move and my husband has gone back to visit family twice.  We have also made a deliberate effort to be extra early with birthday and Christmas cheer so that even though we’re only able to call on the phone instead of meeting up for dinner, at least the presents are there early/on time.  Thanks to the internet and smartphones we are able to keep in touch through Facebook, text messages, and the odd phone call, but it’s really not the same as visiting in person.  Hopefully once things settle down we’ll be able to bring them out to see us periodically or set up a more regular visitation schedule.

Am I good #Scimom?  I don’t know. But location aside, I put my family first because they really are the most important thing.

P.S.  I list our names as Jeff and Kiyomi in that order because that way our names are in alphabetical order, can we say compulsive? There’s a reason I was drawn to physical chemistry and cataloging

8:15 AM  Log-on to computer.  Check Twitter feed for any relevant library news or job postings, read those.

8:32 AM  Move on the school E-mail, decide RSS feeds can wait till later.  Most of my e-mail was ACRL: Residency Interest Group related, offered to hook up applicant with current resident to help review their material before submission.

8:48 AM Login to Blackboard and catch up on message board posts for 3 classes and Graduate Student community.  Only light posting, not unexpected for the beginning of the week, decide to see if I can’t finish listening to and reading my Social Science Resources Lecture for the week (Drexel Weeks run Monday – Sunday).

9:15 AM  Not quite done with lecture, but will have to save the rest for later, time to go be a volunteer intern at RSABG.

9:45 AM Arrive at RSABG’s research library.  Sign-in and catch-up, it’s my first day back after a 3 week break due to the start of classes coinciding with ALA MidWinter.  Start researching the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for a possible grant proposal and open access repository models.

10:30 AM  Get handed a Japanese serial publication for original cataloging, plus 3 other Chinese titles.  Look up Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC and start looking up characters by radicals.  Realize how long it’s been since I’ve studied kanji. Eventually get all the publication data in Japanese input correctly in Connexion.

1:30 PM  Take a lunch break.  Finish Social Sciences Resources Readings and posting for the day.

2:30 PM  Back to cataloging the Japanese serial publication.  Now that I have the correct characters it’s time to start putting the information in the correct fields.  As I start inputing the item description I realize that the book contains articles which are given in both Japanese and English,  with some Latin descriptions, look up Latin language code, it’s LAT.  Start checking fields for all necessary foreign language additions, measure size of book.

4:00 PM  Decide to call it a day since it takes a while to work my way through the CONSER website to check my serials cataloging.  Get gas and groceries on the way home.

5:30 PM  Log-on to computer, check school e-mail and discussion boards while eating dinner.

6:05 PM  Decide to start writing my 3-4 page Learning Context Paper for Information Literacy Instruction Class.  It feels overwhelming, but I’ll just start and follow the directions and then it’ll stop being so intimidating.

6:45  PM  Finished a little over a page of my paper.  Must stop for now, time to go be Assistant Director for the play Self Help.

10:52  PM  Back from rehearsal, time to check the Drexel message boards and then work on that paper again.

11:39 PM  A little over 2 pages are written, with a little light editing.  Fading fast, time to call it a day after a quick look at my RSS Feed, mainly library related.

Saturday 10/31

9:00am–10:15am: Laugh It Up! The Funniest Keynote Address Ever! Paula Poundstone, The Intellectual’s Comedian

10:30-11:45: Introducing a New Library Consortium: Open Source — Open Libraries with Lori Ayre

2:15-3:30: Digital Collection Development: Building Collections in Cyberspace Track: Adult/Reference with Christine Moore

3:45-4:30: Gadgets & Guides: Free2 Access a Better Life Track: Community Outreach with Marti Goddard

Sunday 11/1

9:00-9:45: Emerging Search Technologies with Mark Johnson

12:45-1:30: Coulter Lecture By Johanna Drucker Collecting Collections: Turning Overload into Opportunity Track: Community Outreach Johanna Drucker

1:45-3:00: Is it an iPhone or an iLibrary? Reaching Out to Users through Mobile Technology with Susan Kendall

If anyone is attending the session on RDA Monday please think about writing up your thoughts.  I will be unable to attend but will be at OCLC’s RDA webinar Friday Oct 30, 2009.

Complete CLA Schedule (PDF)