(tangential) thoughts from TLA (part 1):

This years TLA Conference really set my mind a whirl in the best possible way.  I went to a wide variety of panels and round table sessions, and there was something in each that got me thinking about my research or my projects or my job search.  I could write several entries on it all, with a single entry devoted to the bizarre bazaar of vendors and tchotchkes-pushers catering to the thousands of librarians wandering the ballrooms. But here are some highlights that offered me insight into this project, albeit tangentially:


The Opening General Session:
TLA opened with a bang. While waiting for the President's address, a group of librarians broke out into a flash mob and started dancing a choreographed number to the Black Eyed Peas. Seriously, this video is adorable:

I loved this for a couple of reasons. First, it was pretty rad. Librarians get a bum wrap for being as uptight as the stereotypical spinster hair-bun, and that is most certainly not the case. It was also pretty great to see a certain iSchool faculty member letting loose and dancing her heart out. But what I loved the most was the fact that you could see just how much these people love their jobs. I have never met a group of people more passionate about their profession.
The keynote speaker was the lovely Jamie Lee Curtis, as charming and approachable as you would expect her to be after seeing all those yogurt commercials.  Ms. Curtis is an accomplished children's book writer, as well as being an actress, spokesperson, etc.  She's also very passionate about the immense value of libraries and librarians to children, and spoke of that enthusiastically, sincerely and with great humor.

By the time I left the opening session I was psyched.  Grad school, while challenging and stimulating, can make you lose perspective on just why you were excited about going into librarianship. But being around all these wonderful, bright and excited librarians definitely put the spark back in my romance with libraries.

surrounded by librarians and loving it:

I'm blogging from the Annual Conference for the Texas Library Association.

I've spent the week at the Austin Convention Center, surrounded by librarians and information professionals.  And I have to admit, I've absolutely loved it! In any profession, there are opportunities for continuing professional development and conferences may be the most obvious opportunity. But they're the most obvious for a reason - conferences can be absolutely amazing and completely inspiring! It's exciting to hear about updates and developments in your field, to see what new ideas colleagues are working on, to meet people who are passionate about the same idiosyncratic subjects as you. I'll be writing about the panels and round table discussions I've found the most interesting and helpful in the next entry, but for now I have another session to run off to before I'm late! If I'm lucky, I'll have time to grab a coffee.

important tools:

As I'm working on grouping together terms into taxonomies - like materials, locations, saints, and so on and so forth - I've found that my passion for office supplies has new focus. I've always enjoyed colored pens, little pads of paper, color-coded tabs, if only for their ability to make organization more aesthetically pleasing. But I've definitely discovered that without these visible markers, it would be extremely difficult for me to create my initial organizational systems. Without the following, I would be completely lost:

HIGHLIGHTERS!

STICKY TABS!

STICKY NOTES!

If you'd like to donate any of the above or any other organizational office supplies to your local librarian, I'm sure they would be eternally grateful.