A confession: when I first got my job as Educational Technology Librarian, I had a list of projects I wanted to do, but there was a part of me that worried that eventually I would run out ideas and have nothing to contribute. Ha! If anything, my original list remains unfinished, and continues to grow at a remarkable rate!
Don’t get me wrong – I’m thrilled (and relieved)! But staying this busy has made me into a pretty terrible blogger; it’s been months since I last posted! So let’s catch up:
I have successfully completed my first academic year in the working world. Spring semester flew by. In March my article on social media use in law libraries came out in AALL Spectrum. With April came the end of the semester, a time during which our library offers its “Jumpstart” program, where law students can sign up for small group sessions to review legal research methods and tips to prepare for their summer jobs. This is one of my favorite services our library offers, and it was really well-attended this year, with some of us offering extra sessions as demand required. Naively, I thought things would “slow down” once students left for the summer in early May, but so far this has not been the case!
Which brings me to a lesson learned: professional self-restraint! While it is important to be involved in the profession and seize opportunities to write and present at conferences, be careful what you wish for! I became something of a volunteer-junkie this Spring, grasping at nearly every opportunity to submit proposals for conference presentations and to write book reviews or articles for publications. This led me to writing two different book reviews this Spring, as well as editing my article that came out in March; two solo presentations for different librarian organizations; three co-presentations this Spring and Summer for different librarian organizations; and two posters for conferences! I didn’t intend to be quite this busy; I just wanted to be involved, so I submitted several conference session and poster proposals for conferences across the state, hoping I’d get one of them and was shocked when each was accepted! Again, I am not complaining – I was honored to have my proposals accepted, and to share my experiences with several different audiences. However, many of these conferences were within a few weeks of each other, so May has thus far been a very stressful month! And the race continues, with a couple of co-presentations coming up in June and July! The saddest part is that, despite the stress the first half of the month brought, it still takes all my energy to refrain from submitting even more poster and session proposals for the summer! So far, self-restraint is working, as I remind myself that these opportunities will arise again next summer, when I will have a whole new batch of potential topics to propose!
Even with the self-restraint, this summer will by no means be lite! In addition to the June and July presentations, I hope to play catch up on the ever-growing to-do list, especially with research projects I’ve been dying to jump into. My version of vacation will also come up in June and July in the form of conferences: in June, I am thrilled to attend my second CALI Conference for Law School Computing, held this year in Chicago; and in July I am equally thrilled to attend (and co-present at) the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries, held this year in Seattle! (There will be a little personal vacation time as well, but the big hits of the summer will be these two conferences for sure!
With my self-restraint in check, I will try to be better about blogging more regularly, and you can definitely expect posts about these two conferences during the summer.
lawbrarianship 