Archive for the 'Library stuff' Category

Big, big changes

Published at September 2, 2010 in Library stuff, work work work, New York Fugging City and Life with pets. 8 Comments

I got the job on the West Coast I interviewed for last month.  It’s a nice school, with nice people, a great boss, apparently ZERO tolerance for assholes.  AND it’s a lot cheaper than New York City, with better weather.

So in a little more than three weeks, I’m packing up a U-Haul and driving 3000 miles with Junebug and Zuzu (who will be tranquilized the whole way, at least during driving hours).  And in about eight days, I will be pulling into my new town and setting up house.   And it might actually BE a house — I can get an entire house, with a yard and a gardener, for a few hundred bucks less than I pay for a studio in Brooklyn.  Probably within walking distance of campus, as well.

I’m both excited and anxious.  I’m also sad to leave New York and bracing myself for some severe culture shock.

Too tired to sleep

Published at August 14, 2010 in Library stuff, work work work and Travel. 2 Comments

It’s noon, I just got back from the Left Coast, where I had a job interview at a very nice law school with seductive weather, and even though I’ve been up for 30 hours, I’m not at all sleepy.

Gah.

I’d really love to be able to sleep on planes.  I keep meaning to get a small prescription for Valium or something before I fly, which might help knock me out (or maybe just make me not care that I can’t sleep).   Not a damn wink on the red eye.

This was my first full second-round interview with the Dreaded Presentation.  Which I sort of winged on format, because I haven’t been able to get much of an answer from anyone about what a DP should consist of.  But I was able to fill my time completely, keep the interest of my audience, and answer questions.   I also did well during the panel interview portion, where I was interviewed by separate panels of the librarians and the technical services staff — and I sucked up shamelessly to the latter.  I’ve certainly figured out that it doesn’t help to direct someone to a source if it’s not there because tech services doesn’t have the resources to get it back on the shelf or update it.

It helped, too, that the director of the law library has been pretty open about the fact that he really wants me to succeed.  So I didn’t feel that there was much skepticism to overcome.  I should know soon, but I’m also interviewing with other schools that probably won’t schedule their second-round interviews until early September.

Well, hello there

Published at July 24, 2010 in Iron, Library stuff, Kitties, Health, New York Fugging City, work work work and Vanity. 0 Comments

Been some time since I dropped by this place.  I’m still alive.  I can’t even say I’ve been terribly busy lately, what with having graduated library school and gotten laid off sometime in May.  I *can* say that I’ve been wiped out by the heat and not really all that interested in writing.  I don’t even read many blogs anymore, just a handful, and a lot of them are design blogs.

I’ve spent the summer looking for a permanent library gig, and it’s going well so far.  I had nothing, nothing at all for months, but this month everything’s started happening.  I’ve got some local interviews, and some on the West Coast; any of them would require me to move from my current apartment, if not from New York, so I’ve started packing up. All things being equal, I’d rather not have to change cities and buy a car.  I like my life here.

From what I’ve been hearing from some of my references, the potential employers who’ve been checking up on me don’t seem to really understand what it is I’ve been doing for the past ten years since I jumped off the partnership track — even though I’ve told them in the interview, and on my resume, etc.  It’s like they don’t understand that you can practice law even if you’re not employed by a law firm as a full-time associate on a traditional path.  Well, at least a couple of them have now been educated by my references.  This won’t really be a concern when I go for the next job, because I’ll have a track record as a law librarian, which is something they’ll understand.

Personally?  I’ve been using my time off to focus on fitness.  I looked back over my logbook, which I started in January, and I haven’t really been going to the gym as often as I’d like to think I do.  A lot of that had to do with injury, but a lot of it was just mismanaged time — I’d get a late start to the day, and then didn’t want to start a workout at 8pm when I had to go to work in the morning.  But now I have not a whole lot else to do, since it’s been so hot that a lot of the outdoor stuff I’d like to do seems unappealing.  The gym, however, is air-conditioned (though the weight room’s unit’s been out).  I’ve also just — like, this week — started running again.  It’s going well so far, though I know from experience it’s not until week 5 or so on the Couch to 5K plan that things start really going haywire with my ITB.  My plan is to do each week twice, and hope that’s enough time for my body to adapt, and to foam-roll the living fuck out of my lower body.

Dating’s sort of not been happening.  I’ve gone on a couple, but reluctantly since I don’t know if I’ll be here in a month.  Nothing’s come of them, but they were pleasant enough ways to pass the time.

The pets are both bad and good.  They’re all currently in good health, but Sugarplum had cancer surgery in April and just wasn’t healing, and wasn’t healing, and wasn’t healing.  Every time it looked like her wound was closing, I’d go to check on it and there would be A GIANT HOLE IN MY CAT.  The vet even did a second surgery to clean up the edges, but it still wasn’t healing, and he started taking it personally.  Finally, they decided she has really poor circulation and needed to be treated as if she’s diabetic.  So she spent three weeks at the vet’s office in a sterile cage, getting compresses and wound care and mainlining antibiotics and — strangest of all — snuggling up to the staff.   Amazingly, when I picked her up, the giant hole was down to nothing, and she was indeed all cuddly, for about a week.  Then she became the crankypants I know and love.

Herding cats; or, why Zuzu hates group projects

Published at September 13, 2009 in Library stuff, Edumacation and Dipshittery. 2 Comments

Library school is very big on the presentations and the group projects. I understand why; after all, during an interview for a position as a librarian (especially in the academic context), you will be expected to do a presentation for about an hour (including Q&A) to show that a) you can successfully research something and b) you can convey the results of your research, which is something you’ll be expected to do frequently on the job.

The value of group projects I’m less sure about. Sure, you can show that you work well with others, but I’m going to guess that most of the time, when you have a group project on the job, it will involve someone assigning work to various people, who will then have clear goals.

The group project I’m currently working on isn’t quite like that. We have 10 people — the entire class — working on the same project. We will all get the same grade. We’ve had to decide how to split things up ourselves, and nobody’s in charge (though, thankfully, someone has taken the reins by setting up the wiki and doing the kind of administrative stuff that will shape the project).

These things *can* work, if you have clear areas of responsibility so that one person isn’t stuck doing all the work and everyone else free-rides. Or if you don’t have any problem children who don’t work well with others.

We’ve already had a problem child emerge. Continue reading ‘Herding cats; or, why Zuzu hates group projects’

Busy

Published at July 20, 2009 in Gardening, Library stuff, Kitties, work work work and Life with pets. 9 Comments

Life interrupts.  Pardon the lack of posting, but I’ve been working full-time and taking two compressed summer classes, which is like taking four regular classes.  And I’m taking four in the fall, too, trying to graduate early because who the hell knows if I’ll have a job past August.

The pets are more or less fine, though Sugarplum, on top of everything else she’s had to go through this year, has had a mammary tumor removed.  The edges are clean, but the tumor is highly malignant, which means that if it shows up in her lungs, that’s pretty much all she wrote.

The tomato plants, so promising in early June, have suffered terribly from June’s wet, cold weather.  I don’t think they’re showing signs of blight, but they’re mildewed and the leaves are falling off.  I’ve gotten a few large-cherry-sized tomatoes from them, but nothing to write home about.  It’s going to be a lousy year for tomatoes in the Northeast.

Since I’ve made the decision to graduate in December instead of June of 2010, I’ve begun poking around looking for jobs in law librarianship.  While I can’t really begin looking in earnest until October because I won’t be available until January, the market looks pretty decent in that there are, actually, jobs available if one is willing to relocate.  I’ve also got 11+ years of legal research experience, so I’ll definitely have an advantage over anyone who’s coming right out of law school/library school who doesn’t have that.

Another thing I’m finding out is that either jobs are scarce in New York, or people hang on to their jobs forever so there are never any openings, and if there are any openings, they’re not advertised.  But I’m very willing to relocate, at least within reason (like, I don’t want to get stuck somewhere with miserably hot weather, lots of fundamentalists, and no city life as compensation).  I’ve also been told this is a terrible year to be looking because nobody who was ready to retire can afford to now that their 401(k)s have crashed, so they’re staying put, which means nobody else can move up, which means the entry-level jobs don’t open up.

Hope springs eternal, though, and I’m headed to the AALL annual meeting next weekend in the hopes of at least networking if not actually snagging a few interviews.  Got my suit, got my reasonably-priced hotel not far from the convention site, working on getting business cards, and my shoes are in the mail.

Opportunities

Published at March 31, 2009 in Library stuff and Travel. 0 Comments

This library thing could be very, very interesting.

There was a guest lecturer in my class last night who’s in the publishing industry and who started a library in Tanzania with his wife while they were there with Habitat for Humanity.  They need volunteers who can help with the library stuff, since a) they’re not librarians themselves; and b) Tanzania doesn’t really have a library culture.  In particular, they need someone who can talk to the women of the village about health issues, and maybe collect some women’s health materials in Swahili.

I’m seriously considering going for a week or so when they go in August.  I won’t have classes at that point, and I shouldn’t have a problem getting time off work.  And I can spend a few days in Europe on the way back as well.