Tech Challenge Update

Today I am taking a class with Jessica Adler at the CJRLC lab. Soon I will be an expert on RSS and I can check it off of my Challenge list. Thanks, Roz, for setting up all the classes for people like me who intend to learn this stuff on my own, and somehow never get around to it!

NJLA Elections and Getting Involved

As NJLA Nominations chair, I just finished calling or emailing all the people who agreed to run for NJLA office for next year. As a result, I have been reflecting on the whys and wherefors of involvement in the professional associations or in the Regions.

As a social being, I have always taken for granted that I would be involved in whatever way I could be. As a school librarian I was active in EMAnj and served on the advisory board for the Area Reference Center. I was involved in curriculum work for my district. Then I served on the CJRLC Executive Board, and here I am today. It's always been obvious to me that the way to learn and grow and contribute was through outside involvement.

Just as it is obvious to some librarians that they best serve their customers (students, the public, etc.) by always being on the job, ready to do what needs doing for their customers. What this brings to mind is the question of whether each of us (types, that is) is really doing what is easy and comfortable for ourselves and justifying it as philosophy after the fact. How do you see it?

Where does the time go?

Really, I thought my last post was 3-4 days ago, not 12. I want to share with you my new favorite book series, the Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik. If I tell you that they are set during the Napoleonic Wars and that a dragon is one of the main characters, many of you will say "Oh, so she's one of those...."

It should be enough to say that Novik's favorite authors are Jane Austen and Patrick O'Brian. it was enough for me, anyway, when Media Specialist Mary Lewis told me to read them. I love them! Three books so far. His Majesty's Dragon is the first one. I have them loaded on my Palm Treo. So comforting while waiting in line...

I was tagged...

Norma Blake is her blog at www.njstatelib.org/blakesblog tagged me to request that I play the game. That requires me to list three things about myself that most people don't know. OK,
I'll play.
1. I call Freedom, MO, population 22, my home town.
2. My newest grandchild, Zachary Guenther, arrived from Guatamala on January 27 (see his picture on our webpage.) He was born in April.
3. I completed all the course work and passed the quals for a PhD from SCILS, but never did the dissertation. Loved the program and met two life long friends as a result of it.
Now I am supposed to tag three other bloggers, so that would be
Peter Bromberg, Janie Herman, and Robert Lackie, all on Library Garden spot... Is that cheating?
Connie

So, I will take the Tech Challenge

After all, I already have a blog and that's Step One, isn't it? And this could be Step Two:

From Peggy Cadigan (who is suggesting we subscribe to Norma Blake's blog...)
Would you like to subscribe to a blog? In order to do so, you need an aggregator. One such aggregator is Bloglines. From their website: Bloglines is a free service that makes it easy to keep up with your favorite blogs and news feeds. With Bloglines, you can subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs, and Bloglines will monitor updates to those sites. You can read the latest entries easily within Bloglines.

Now I've done that--subscribed to an RSS feed.

Step Three might be the work I've been doing on the Emerging Leaders wiki that Jenny Levine set up for us. Does editing count? You can see the wiki at http://wikis.ala.org/emergingleaders

Not bad so far...

Why come to the fall membership meeting?

Yes, this time of year is busy (some other time isn't?) Come anyway! Come for the fellowship and networking, for the state and region updates (what is going on out there?), and come to hear Patrick Jones talk about serving YAs and teens. He's never boring and always thought provoking. Call Carol at 732-409-6484 and say you are coming. Or just come to the Toms River Branch of OCL next Monday, December 4. Tours 2:30; refreshments 3:30; meeting 3:45; Patrick 4:30...

A book for women my age

Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood by Suzanne Braun Levine was written for women of a certain age who are contemplating the rest of our lives. What is it we still want to accomplish? What do we need to do to get that done? "We are not who we were only older" is one of her themes. In this second adulthood, we have a chance to be someone else if we choose (or recognize that we already are.) Might work for men, too, I don't know. It works for me.