Student Spotlight

I was chosen to be one of the students featured in the student spotlight for the NEMO library program. Here's what I said:

What is your education/library/professional background?
I am a graduate of Midland Lutheran college in Fremont, NE with a bachelors in English. I currently work part time at Midland Lutheran college's Luther library as a rereference librarian, part time at Keene Memorial Library in Fremont, NE as a children's librarian and grant coordinator, part time as a preschool aide for Trinity Early Childcare Center in Fremont, and as a movie clerk for Family Video.

What is on your reading list? What are your favorites/your recommended/your want to read lists?
Right now I'm getting ready to read Born Digital: The First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. It's a study into the generation of students who were brought up with technology wired into the everyday life. I'm also reading Blackest Night comic book run from DC and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 from Dark Horse.These are the first two series of comic book that have gotten me to buy the new issue every month. I recommend them both.

What professional journal or article have you read and would recommend? Why?
I have been reading School Library Journal an awful lot lately, especially their article "When Harry [Potter] Met Bella [Swan]," talking about the legality of fanfiction and if it is plagiarism or not. Another article that I've read recently deals with self censorship in the library. It was a fascinating look at how librarians will censor their own collection because they do not want to invest the time into fighting a challenge later. I like them because both articles tackle issues that librarians are dealing with all the time. How does a librarian support his student patrons who want to become writers without breaking copyright? Stuff like that would never cross my mind until after the movie studio and J.K. Rowling's lawyers and Stephanie Meyer's lawyers all rolled into the library to put me through the ringer.

What do you do in your “down time”? Your hobbies/recreation, how do you relax?
I'm what I like to call a rainy day knitter. I have a hat and a scarf started on needles at my house, but I only do about twenty minutes of work on it at a time. My hobby coming up in January will be the final season of LOST. You cannot even fathom how excited I am for that to come out. I'm also a fan of well written TV shows, cooking with cheap ingredients, and not cleaing my dishes.

What deep dark secret would you like to share?
I'm a librarian who blogs. I'm blogging about my library school experience. And another blog is about my day to day life stuff. and another blog with a friend of mine about our Midwestern perspectives on pop culture. I'm also terribly addicted to Entertainment Weekly. They are so smart. They are the reason I want a Masters in Popular Culture once I'm done with my MLS.

Name one of your personal or professional qualities that make you, or will make you, a leader in 21st century library and information centers.

Personal Quality: I'm super cheerful most of the time. If you saw me at NLA, you'd know me as the guy playing the "try and greet everyone" game. Howdy was my greeting of choice. And I can organize a fantastic potluck party when needed
Professional Quality: I have a passion for collection development. I came from a library that was diligent about having materials for everyone and ensuring that the newest, best materials were available to patrons. I make it my goal to whip collections into shape whenever I can.

What advice do you have for current Graduate Students?

When you're sitting in class, it's easy to just focus in on what you're learning and then go home. Don't do that. Stay after class. Talk to your professors. Talk to the students sitting next to you. Make a study group or a book club or a "hey you've got homework due Friday" buddy. Librarians in the 21st century need to make more connections, not less. Start now, when you're all still learning the ins and outs of the profession. Friendships in Library school can make lasting partnerships in the real world that can benefit you as a professional and your community of patrons.

What do you see as key future trends and challenges in LIS?

I think the challenge right now for the field is coming up with ways of providing the same service as usual while administrations, city budgets and state funding are pulling your funding first and fastest in order to balance a budget. Libraries are trending toward a more open access approach to information as a means to curb this decline in funds. More libraries have a Facebook or Twitter presence and some libraries are leading the charge for digitization. It's a pretty great time to be in the library field. We're the ones playing with new technology and making it work for our profession. You kinda can't wait to see what someones going to come up with next.

What do you think will be your legacy in this profession?

I really want to be the librarian that people remember as being helpful and informed. I would love to say I plan to be the head librarian at some land grant institution or a City Library director with 15 branches serving a million people, but I'm content for now to be the guy that can find you the book or the article you're looking for and do it with a smile and a whistle in my step.

Any Last Words?
Get a Google account. Seriously. You'll need it more times than you think during the program. and it's awesome to have otherwise. Google Reader for RSSing all the library blogs. It's pretty much the coolest thing they do.

Blogging for class - a review -

For reference class, we have been using Blogger to facilitate a conversation about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class ordering systems. What we come to realize as we finish the required reading that goes along with this assignment, is that everything can really go everywhere when looking through the lens of a digitized ordering system. Unlike 1st class ordering systems, digital information can be organized however you want.

But that's beside the point. What we're doing for class is discussing all of this on a blog. In the past, I have not been too keen on blogging for real life because the only other time I blog is when I bitch about people and life. However, this blogging has been real eye opening. What I think I like most about it is the blog is that it's quite like the message board through blackboard, but with the added benefit of adding flair and pizazz to your thoughts. If I find a photo that best represents my idea, I can post that. You can add off topic threads and not feel guilty. You can link to your own blog just by posting a response. Really great things. The best part is that Blogger allows you to invite real live people who might not have blackboard credentials to join your conversation. If you're blogging about YA fiction, perhaps you'll invite some best selling authors to comment if they see something interesting. they might not post a word, but the fact that it can be opened to anyone is a great way to lead discussion and focus into real world applications.

So I say HUZZAH! to you BLOGGER!

NLA/NEMA conference revisited

After an exhausting two days at the NLA/NEMA conference, I can truthfully say that there are many many many more librarians than I ever thought. And that I want all the technology that the SMART board people brought with them. Here are the highlights of my first conference experience.

1. Early breakfast with MU proffessors started at 7:30 AM! I didn't make it there until 8 because of an accident on Dodge, but it was nice to eat those delicious cinnamon rolls, meet with Dr. Budd and Dr. Adkins, and see Micki and Dr. Pasco so very early in the morning.

2. Micki's Murder Van: There's a funny story about that van, I just can't find it anywhere. Dangerous piece of vehicle that thing is.

3. Ben Hotness...I mean, Ben Softness: Google search man and genius taught some great lessons about searching google. Best tip of the day would have to be the "control" + "tab" to cycle through open tabs on Firefox or Safari or IE.

4. YART roundtable: A small but mighty group of us came together to talk shop and get ready for our spring meeting in Blair. Information to come for those interested. Also check out the YART blog @ nlayart.blogspot.com

5. Gaming with Librarians: Apples to apples with children's librarians is dangerously funny. Watching adults play guitar hero was amusing too. No comment on DDR though. ugh!

6. Gaming presentation: Let me just summarize the entire thing with Gordon's awesome quote. "Contrary to popular belief, gaming does not make you a douche."

7. Embassy Suite's Coffee bar: Fucking amazing. I can't even begin to describe it.

8. Final sessions: I went to a speaker who talked about the suppression of student voices, one about screen capture videos, and the keynote speaker giving an hour long book talk about his dad's awesome life.

9. Tweeting @ NLA: I always thought that Twitter was much too much of an overshare, but I discovered the usability of this technology at NLA. It's helpful to see what other's thought of a session you might be in or something important you missed that you should check out later.

Over all, it was a great experience, and I met a whole bunch of librarians that I will now need to contact so that I begin schmoozing them for jobs or scholarships or recommendations.