Workplace Decisions

I once overheard someone say, “I can’t supervise my friends.” Why not? It sometimes happens — friendships develop at the workplace. They meet for coffee. Go to lunch. Meet for drinks after work, etc. During the course of that friendship there could come a time when one of them could become a supervisor of one [...]

Is it me?

Over the last few years I have attended several professional development workshops. I often leave feeling inspired by the ideas and information shared by both the facilitators and the participants. However, lately I have also noticed something else that has me asking this question: when away from their respective libraries, do the usually customer service-driven [...]

Eye-to-eye

Recent events inspired this consideration: people need connection. Not the kind achieved through electronic connectivity; but face to face — look me in the eye so that I know that you’re listening to me — connection. Mobile technology has become so ubiquitous a tool to current connection preferences; yet still, I see people around me [...]

Professional Development on the horizon

Ugh. Way too much time has passed since my last blog post. Really unconscionable! Much has happened since March, but I will not bore anyone (including myself) with any details. My life in the library has kept me in a steady stream of activity, and that is what is worth discussing here. 
I attended the ACRL [...]

Building bridges to collaboration

I have always believed in the concept that, “two heads are better than one.” This is my mantra as I work towards establishing a stronger relationship with our faculty and conveying the message that one of the keys to our students’ success is by working together to assist them as they travel the road to [...]

How far is too far?

As a Librarian at a small private college who regularly staffs the reference desk, I am always challenged by those questions whose answers require more than a quick check of the online public access catalog or scan of the available online subscription databases. For example, my colleague (who monitors the “Ask a Librarian” email) recently [...]

New year, new post (finally!)

Borrowing from the famous Nike slogan, “Just do it,” here I post again after a too-long hiatus. For weeks now, I have been agonizing over what I should write about next, and what I ended up doing was not writing at all. I thought myself out of writing because I had convinced myself that I [...]

Conference Attendance Benefits

When I think of attending conferences for professional development, I focus on the variety of opportunities that I will encounter: networking with professionals in my field; vendors promoting the latest and greatest of their services and products, and often the most attractive benefit: time away from the work environment. Some may agree or disagree, add [...]

Administrative Lessons Learned

One of my least favorite courses during Library school was Information Organizations and Management — specifically, when it focused on Human Resource Management. For me, I enjoy collaborating with my colleagues — working together to achieve mutual goals and objectives — and infusing part of each day with some humor and quite abit of fun. [...]

Exciting project

Research Strategies
I am currently collaborating with the Dean of Education to develop a “Research Strategies” series geared towards first year students. Using the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) standards and guidelines, my fellow librarians and I are crafting library research vignettes to illustrate a “routine” interaction between Librarian and student. Our hope is [...]