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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Be a Better You: Advancing Your Career through Certification - session at PLA

Those interested in certification may be interested in this session at the PLA conference in Portland.

Administration/Leadership:

Be a Better You: Advancing Your Career through Certification

Friday, March 26 8:30 - 9:45 A.M.

Room: Oregon Convention Center – E141-144
• Nancy Bolt
Consultant, Nancy Bolt and Associates
• Peg Hooper
Branch Director, Jefferson County Library-Golden Branch
• Bryan Fearn
Reference Librarian, Henderson District Public Libraries
• June Kruer
Branch Manager, Charlestown-Clark County Libraries
• Dorothy Morgan
Business Manager, Liverpool Public Library

Let's take conference learning beyond the closing session! There are hundreds of professional development opportunities for librarians and support staff! During this session we will talk about how to choose programs that are right for you right now and long term. We will also explore national and regional certification programs with your colleagues who are participating and how they relate to state certifications.

Benefits and Learning Objectives
• Participants will be able to link their professional development with their career goals.
• Participants will learn tools for selecting conference, workshop and course participation.
• Participants will understand the ALA/ALA-APA certifications for librarians and support staff.

Long-term followers of the national library support staff scene may recall that among her many awards, Dorothy Morgan is the 1997 winner of COLT’s Outstanding Support Staff of the Year award, 2000/2001 president of ALA’s Library Support Staff Interests Round Table, and 2005 winner of the Dynix ALA-APA Award for Outstanding Promotion of the Salaries and Status of Library Workers. And, of course, Nancy Bolt is one of the program managers for the Library Support Staff Certification program.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Jey's Favorite Reads for Stressful Times

For the past few weeks, everyone I've talked to in the Oregon library world has been feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. I'm not sure what combination of events is causing this (although I'm sure the economy is one of them), but it seems to be hitting all kinds of staff and all kinds of libraries.

We're all familiar with the standard advice for dealing with stressful times, so I won't repeat it here (especially since it usually doesn't include baking & eating chocolate chip cookies). However, one of the things I find useful during tough times is re-reading a favorite book. Or two. Or three. Here are a few of my favorites. Please post your own! We could develop a whole De-Stressing Bibliography!

Any of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers. Extremely well-written and intricately plotted. I always end up wishing Sayers hadn't given up writing mysteries for more scholarly pursuits.

The Moonstone by William Wilkie Collins. One of the very first mystery novels, and a heck of a lot of fun. The plot is complicated, but the narration, from the point of view of a number of different characters, is wonderful, and absolutely hilarious in places. The authors other mysteries ramble on a bit, but I'm always sad to get to the end of this one.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. I'm a big Willis fan, and this is my favorite. It's a hilarious, intricate time travel novel. It's even funnier if you've also read The Doomsday Book, which is an intense page-turner, but with a darker theme.

Ursula LeGuin is also one of my favorite authors. My favorite re-reads are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven. Like most of LeGuin's work, these books explore complex social and philosophical topics in an elegant and compelling way. The Left Hand of Darkness is also good to read during a heat wave, since it's also so cold in the novel.

Here's hoping our stress levels will be going down soon. Bring on the good books and chocolate chip cookies!