Thursday, July 30, 2009

No time for update yesterday

Today was a little calmer. I intended to write this morning but was sidetracked by an interesting reference question. Then I went to a meeting for the North Carolina Library Association New Members Round Table. Then, back to work. Caught up on email, looked at my article draft again (can't figure out what else to do with it), and gave tomorrow's presentation the once-over. Now I'm typing this while my sleepy baby whines nearby. Another day in the life of a mom/librarian.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Another busy day!

No time for pithy brilliance today, so I thought I'd try a quick rundown.
8:30-9: Check email, schedule three more classes for fall
9-11: Work on book chapter, open other writing project but not touch it
11-11:30- Scarf down lunch while reading all Freshman Read book (Enrique's Journey, not bad). 75ish pages to go!
11:30-12:30: Meet with co-authors of book chapter
12:30-1: Check voicemail and email.
1-3: Reference desk. Not very busy, so I did some research for the Media Studies class I'm helping a professor with.
3-4: Marketing Committee meeting
4-5: Check email, write this blog post and think about NMRT committee assignment for next year. Plus, maybe just one more page of Enrique's Journey...

Monday, July 27, 2009

A typical day...

As it turns out. All over the place. Here is a brief list of what I accomplished this afternoon:
Wrote more on librarian writing article
Wrote more on book chapter
Answered email reference questions from students
Talked with a faculty member about planning a new section of a course
Scheduled two library instruction sessions for the fall
Outlined a session on Academic Integrity for new PhD students
Finished an article for a student publication
Read the headlines on the Chronicle

Fun with Writing

Summer is a great time to be an academic librarian. Fewer desk hours, few to no classes, and less collection development (especially in this economy). Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we spend the summer sitting around reading. On the contrary, summertime is a great time to write.
Librarians at UNCG are tenure-track, so we need to present and publish. Conference presentations often take place during the academic year, but huge blocks of time for writing are rare, so, for me at least, writing happens in the summer.
This summer, I'm working on two writing projects. I'm cowriting a chapter with two other UNCG reference librarians for a textbook for our speech course. I'm also cowriting an article about writing librarians (don't think about it too much, it'll make your head spin) with a librarian from NC A&T. I'm really glad to be in a profession that values collaboration so much. From a purely practical standpoint, it's best for me to be accountable to other people to maximize productivity.
This was all a really long way of saying that I'm writing this morning, and I'm writing this post as a break in between the two writing projects. Seems ironic.

You know you haven't posted in a while...

When you can't remember the address of your blog. I thought I'd give this Library Day in the Life thing a try because sounded cool, and hey, Lynda's doing it, so it must be! I'll try to keep it interesting, but it is summer in an academic library, so I'm not promising too much. Right now, I am catching up on a few blogs (like Beyond the Job, The Kept-Up Academic Librarian, and of course Unshelved), then on to writing, which I'll write about later.