Works Well With Others

Today we have a message from Susan Gilmont. It sounds like a great opportunity!

I don’t know how you folks are evaluated these days, but here’s a criterion that goes into my annual evaluation:

“Cooperative effort to achieve common goals; ability to work well with others”

Here’s a suggestion for a way to meet this goal:  join the SSD Continuing Education Committee.

If you’d like to meet and work with top-tier library employees from all over the state, this is the place.  If you’re looking for a growth experience, or to enhance your resume by showing how you can “work well with others,” then this is a good opportunity.  If you have a boss who is pushing you to expand your horizons, this could be the answer.  If you are just looking for a place to make a contribution, boy do we have a spot for you.

The Continuing Education Committee finds presenters for OLA and sponsors sessions there.  There are two flurries of activity around this – one in September, when we propose sessions, and one just before OLA.  Most meeting and planning is done by e-mail, calls or Skyping.  Easier than ever.

What it does for you:  I’ve been on this committee for a lot of years. It’s very energizing.  You find yourself looking at educational offerings in a whole new light:  would this speaker be good for OLA?  What sessions have I always wanted to see?  What do we all think about but nobody talks about (like money)? It turns you outward, makes you look around in a new way.  Very good for a person.  You have a reason to go to that workshop that made you curious.  It’s also justification for you to attend OLA, if you need something like OLA involvement to back up your attendance.

So, please consider joining us.  We’ll have a good time, and we’ll make a contribution.  If you are interested, please contact me at:  susan.gilmont@oregonstate.edu  .

Library news and ergonomics and slides

This article about crowdfunding is a pretty good answer to the question in one of our previous posts about funding libraries. There are a few other options besides kickstarter.com and it's interesting to see what results people got or didn't get.

Here's a great online course from the University System of Georgia all about library ergonomics that gives more information about what happens when you use your body incorrectly, and makes you pay attention with sporadic quizzes throughout.

You've all seen the library slide by now, right?

Associates latest issue and a question

The new "Associates" is out for the first part of 2013.  There are articles about the Library Journal Paraprofessional of the Year Laura Poe, certification in Massachusetts, volunteers in the library, spotlights on a couple paraprofessionals and more. Associates is a worldwide journal for library support staff. Check it out!

 There's a kickstarter project to create libraries in Africa. What do you think of this creative way to finance a library? Do you see this kind of technology/social media changing the way your library is funded in the future?

Balancing life, work, and school. What works for you?

Sylvia Bowers answers another question for us about her experience with LSSC - Library Support Staff Certification.

What techniques have you learned in order to balance your work/school/home life?

I try to schedule no more than 2-hours per day during the week to do general classwork; this usually falls between 8pm to 10pm after my household has quieted down and I can focus. I block larger sections of time on the weekends to work on bigger class projects. If I’m feeling pressured to get my assignments done in too little time, I will schedule a couple vacation hours to accommodate the extra time needed to do a good job. I have only had to do this two to three times. Also, a couple of the instructors have stated up front in their syllabus the amount of time they expect to be spent on classwork and assignments. The class I am taking right now, Adult Readers’ Advisory, specified that students should be able to complete classwork and assignments in 7 to 10 hours per week. I try to use this as a guideline, so I’m not spending more time than is expected. If an instructor has not stated their time expectations then I will simply ask and this then gives a good baseline from which to plan.

The absolutely most useful thing I did when I first started taking classes was to connect to the internet at home so I could do my classwork from home. I found, though, that I was still spending too much time isolated from my family, so I got a laptop. With a laptop I can sit in the living room with my family while they’re reading or visiting and I can do my classwork. It usually takes longer to do my work because there are interruptions, but that’s okay, because this setup meets my emotional need to spend time with my family in the evening.

Thanks, Sylvia. Do you have any questions or comments for Sylvia? Just click on the link below!

"What a Good Idea!"

Here at Eugene Public Library we have a fun, helpful practice of morning and evening P.A. announcements. Remember from your school days those reminders that let students know about upcoming events? Well, here staff receives a musical reminder that the library is opening in 5 minutes (action stations!), including "Here comes the sun" and currently "Morning has Broken". And about 10 minutes before closing the public is alerted with a song to start packing up and checking out materials . Staff can make suggestions about songs to use and periodically the songs are changed. We've had Sound of Music's "So long, farewell" for example and right now it's "Happy Trails" which sets some people laughing and sends public and staff off lighthearted.

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!