Well, THAT Was a Fun Hiatus!

WOW, it's been a while since I've thought about this. 

So much has changed since I began this blog in an attempt to try on this identity as a newly-minted librarian: husband and I found a place of our own, have since moved from that place into a new place, husband has gone through a few career changes while I'm still at Lily Dale (moved up to full-time, though, and now I'm officially the Library Director, whee!), my digitization chapter has been published (and cited by multiple people, apparently, which is weird!), podcast is on (mostly) permanent hiatus, my wonderful kitty Ebi is no longer with us, health issues have come and gone, and vacations have been taken, new cities explored, new beers/foods/experiences experienced. 

Damn.  I really thought I'd have been better at keeping track of my efforts in a digital space (I did, however, keep a pretty fun technical journal of my day-to-day activities for the sake of a weird and wacky timeline), but then again, I was never a LiveJournal kinda gal.

However, in the last four years, I have become way more comfortable with the idea of my own voice, and have expanded my views on what "expressing myself" means in terms of professionalism, personal aesthetic, and ethical duty.  I give lectures every Tuesday at the library during the summer, using unique items from the collections (which I've created over the past four years(!)) that focus on lesser-known topics and people in Spiritualism and the Occult.  I've been the topic of a few interviews, including a really nifty write-up in American Libraries magazine, and this has recently expanded into the world of video.  So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've finally gotten used to the idea that others are curious about what goes on in my little weirdo mind, so fine, let's get back on the dusty old blog horse again.  I suppose the practice with writing could be fun and might make the idea of a "publish or perish" aspect of my career path less nerve-wracking.  So, let's give this a crack.  I'm not sure what I'll write about at this point -- stuff that happens in the tumultuous course of solo librarianship?  The Indiana Jones-like rush that comes with being a librarian of the Occult?  Transcripts of my weekly lectures?  Who knows.  Only time (and whether or not I can keep up with this idea) will tell.

This week feels especially appropriate to begin this little experiment, too, as my husband is gone this entire week for training, and the house is lonely.  No loud husband, no loud cat, new house that still doesn't quite feel like home yet.  Just me and my own voice, and figuring out what the hell I do with it.  Perhaps I'll come out better from this, as an exercise of processing my professional happenings?  Perhaps I'll get better at expressing myself in more settings?  Maybe all of these things, and maybe none of them.  Will anybody even see it?  Does it even matter?

Existentialism aside, I think this could be the beginning of something interesting.  As in all good experiments, we shall give it time and see what happens.

Check it out, it's my shiny new life!

Ok, ok, ok, I know, it's been more than a month since my last post.  Now that I am finally caught up on work projects, personal projects, podcast segments, RuPaul's Drag Race, Salem, laundry, FaceOff, Devious Maids, Cosmos, Dexter (OMG that ending! AUGH! I'm so upset!), and garden planning, I suppose I'm prepared to sit down and finally write this damn blog entry.  I am prepared to regale whomever may be reading with my laundry list of explanations as to what the hell happened to me and where in the hell I have been, exactly.  So, without further adieu, here is the whirlwind tour of my last month's existence:

Professional Update

For the last month, I have been steadily working away on writing a chapter entitled "Digitizing the Humanities: A Future for Libraries" for an upcoming digital humanities textbook for librarians and library science students.  It has been an exciting process, and it has taught me many things (above all, the importance of having an intact comma key on your keyboard while writing in APA style) about writing and the educational process.  I have never considered myself a writer, nor have I ever desired such a title as a career option.  It has, however, been something that I have enjoyed immensely, in that grown up homework kind of way.  It's also weirdly empowering and self-assuring that someone else is interested in what I'm doing outside of the institutions that I do it for.  I feel like a valid, real-life librarian, doing real people things that will eventually educate others, and that gives me a real purpose for the first time that I can ever really recall.

Speaking of people being interested in me and my professional offerings, I have also been offered a new job!  The Marion Skidmore Library of the Lily Dale Assembly has offered me a position as a Librarian, which I have graciously accepted.  I'm pretty excited, they have a very wonderful special collections facility there, and lots of cataloging to do and possibilities for digital projects.  Best of all, they have an interested committee of awesome people and a desire to partake in the wonderful world of 2.0 technologies!  Expect weekly updates on my life as a paranormal librarian, I'm very excited to document the whole process and put myself and my ideas out there.

Personal Things

The podcast that I have been co-hosting, The Thirteenth Four, recently posted our Star Wars Day Episode (which can be found here), in celebration of May the Fourth.  We've had some formatting changes in terms of how we record the episode itself  (taking a break in the middle to get up and stretch and get new drinks instead of sitting and talking for three hours straight until we're so tired and out of focus) as well as how we present it to the listener (adding music between segments, taking a break in the middle for plugging other podcasts and services), and I'm pretty pleased with how these changes have gone.  I feel that we've put together an increasingly professional podcast, and thanks to Pat we'll be getting new microphones soon to further improve our sound quality.  Now if we can just get Chris to speak at a reasonable volume, we'll be golden.

Next week is our musical episode featuring our first guests, Mark and Pat S., and I believe that this summer we will be starting a more grassroots and broader advertising campaign.  Let's see how far we can get with this, everyone!  How much do YOU like learning things about things, and making others learn things about things?  Support us, and help educate society about the stranger things in life.

Life Stuff!

Thank you, springtime, for making my allergies worse this year than ever before.  Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of going to the hospital for a combination of reasons, primarily because my sinuses decided to drain out of my eyes.  It was horrifying, and I looked like a total monster for a few days, and needless to say, it put me way behind my usual productive schedule of things.  This is primarily what the hell happened to my blogging, the delightful duo of overworking and being really damn sick.  Happily, I think that the worst is behind me, and I should be on task for the remainder of the year.

Next on my agenda is traveling to South Bend, Indiana this weekend for a Shepp family wedding and get-together, something that I'm looking forward to.  I don't get to see this side of my new family much, and I think some time to get to know them is definitely in order.  Also some road trips, those are absolutely in order.  I haven't had nearly enough time to check out all of these awesome new travel apps on my phone, and I really wanna see what they have to offer.  So, look for that post after this weekend,  I plan on trying out a few and reviewing them and all that good stuff.  Maybe that will be a regular part of upcoming blog entries, I'm supposed to be some sort of tech-savvy person who does this kind of thing for a living, and I do have a personal attachment to the concept of technology enriching my life.  So yeah, there's that.

The rest of this week is going to be busy and somewhat helter skelter, but eh, I can roll with it.  Gotta spruce up my face, dye my hairs, and paint my nails before making an impression on my husband's family in a more casual setting than my own wedding reception (having a large family is new to me and weird, but it's definitely growing on me)!  Pictures and travelogues (new direction of travel, Chris and I were getting so bored with the drive down to Richmond/Maryland, so this will be new and interesting and really fun) will be posted, so expect some fun and shenanigans to come up soon.

For now, off to finish catching up on Bates Motel and create a giant to-do list!  Huzzah for grown up stuff!

The Wonderful World of Webinars

Never let it be said that I am afraid of trying new things.

Earlier this week, I was given the opportunity to teach a webinar (hosted by Connecting to Collections museum community), the audio and materials for which can be found here.  It was really an enjoyable experience, and was very interesting.  I was shocked to notice that I had 138 people listening to my presentation, and amazed that people are finding what I do interesting.  Growing up is weird, something that I feel is particularly symptomatic in my generation.  Regardless, I was impressed that so many people are interested in digitizing their collections, and really hope that many of them make some interesting things and put them out there for nerds like me to view and drool over.

With The Skeptiseum being complete, I have begun the arduous project of tidying up the artifacts in archival storage and making finding aids for all cabinet displays and storage areas.  This is going to be fun.  Thankfully, I have the load lightened due to my wonderful volunteer and friend, Kat.  She has been awesome, and I'm really glad that I have a like-minded partner with which to undertake this task.  More updates on this business as it comes.  Be sure to follow @TheSkeptiseum and @CFILibraries on Twitter to see more of what I do, and for fun bits of history, skeptical quotes, and treasures in our collections.

On a lighter note, my segment for the podcast is all ready to be recorded this weekend!  Hooray!  The theme this episode is the 1980's, and I'm rather excited for it.  Also in podcast-related news, The Thirteenth Four is up on iTunes!!!  So follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and now SUBSCRIBE TO US ON ITUNES!!!  Do it!  We are working on getting some analytic feedback on our website and RSS feed so that we can keep closer track of our audience, it's something that interests us, and makes us feel like we're doing good things.  If you subscribe, be sure to leave a review to let us (and Apple) know what you like about us and what other things YOU would like to see.  We're always open to topic suggestions, and soon we will be featuring guests on our episodes!

Now that all that is out of the way, I'm off to edit some documents, schedule some Tweets, and figure out what the hell I'm going to write about in this textbook chapter.  In my spare time, I'm going to relentlessly search Amazon to find more pages for my wedding album, and hopefully I will succeed.  Otherwise, I may have to think my (still incomplete) wedding album (sorry, Husband).  Really looking forward to tomorrow - wandering around the Roycroft campus with my husband and having dinner, then recording.  Woo!

Being a grownup is hard.  Sometimes I wish we still lived in a culture that had adolescence rituals or ceremonies, so responsibilities and adulthood had some sort of concreteness, and less of a mysterious shift in states that randomly materializes.  Some certainty would be nice.

Digital Collections Presentation

OK, so apparently I'm dumb, or just not seeing the easiest way to link a page on my blog to the blog's home page itself, but I created a page on here of my presentation that was given at the Small Museum Association annual conference back in February.  This presentation can be viewed here and any and all comments and feedback would be greatly appreciated.  I hope you enjoy it!

Nope, haven't forgotten about blogging!

Where have I been, you may ask?  Aside from working on a bajillion various projects, I have been utterly consumed by a trivia game phone app, QuizUp (Plain Vanilla).  It's totally awesome, and I absolutely recommend it.  So many topics and categories, and I like being urged to learn new things and challenge myself in topics that I hadn't really thought of myself as familiar with (I am really really surprised by how much ass I'm kicking in Sports trivia).  So yeah, check that out.

Aside from being in a trivia cave, I have finished and recorded two podcast segments, the topics of which are Space and Ireland.  They can be found at the podcast's website (the first three episodes are posted, we're just currently having some issues with the RSS feed, so it's going to be a day or two before they're available on iTunes and Stitcher and Soundcloud and all those other lovely services).  If you like the podcast that myself, my husband, and our two friends are putting together, you should follow us on Twitter (@thirteenthfour) and like us on Facebook.  We record biweekly, and will be posting episodes regularly.  We're also feeling out what should be on the site, whether blogs and things like that will be relevant and fun (and if we have the time for them at this juncture -- I have another major project coming up that's due by the end of April, so I'm going to be pretty jammed until the summer), and the possibility of Twitter contests and pub events.  I hope you like what we're doing, and that you tell your friends to listen to us if you do!

Additionally, I have finished my tremendous, looming, digitization project of converting The Skeptiseum to a flashy, user-friendly Omeka-based platform!  Woo hoo!  It's really lovely, and you should check it out as soon as it's posted.  For a sneak peek, you can check out dev.skeptiseum.org and see what it looks like, but it will be a few days before the URLs are officially switched over.  It's come a long way, and I'm really proud of it!  To see what the old website is like and compare the change, you can still find it here and see the difference.  Now we just need a logo!  

As a reward for all my hard work as of late, I've decided to do more work (!!!) and catch up on some small projects and try some new recipes.  Stay tuned for further information and possibly recipes and photographs of things that I am proud to say I made.  Failures will report to the rubbish bin, as well as the area of my memory allocated for lessons learned the hard way.  Today will be reserved for finally putting together a wedding album and framing some honeymoon pictures.  Shameful, I know.  Better late than never, right?  RIGHT?  Speaking of which, sometime later today I will be posting the version of my Small Museum Association conference presentation with an audio accompaniment (so you can have a mild idea of what the hell is going on in my Prezi) - and I will attempt to re-post it to my LinkedIn.  

There we have it, your answer to where the hell I've been for the last few weeks!  I swear that I will be better about this, because there's actually a lot of fun goings-on in my life as of late (like our awesome new volunteer at the CFI Libraries/Skeptiseum), and I would like to relay relevant events and happenings in the near-present tense for once... 

Lost on the Information (and Physical) Highway

Holy crap, SO much has happened since my last post! (which is partially why it's taken me so damn long to post!)  Work, catching up on "Downton Abbey" and "Doctor Who," conference work, new projects upcoming, creating and managing social media accounts for the museum, basement flooding, my mom's birthday (and the wonderful dinner that I made for her and my grandparents!), 4 out of 8 seasons of "Dexter" and plenty of interesting and awesome documentaries...

So, I suppose I can break this down... somehow...


Part A - Podcast Update!

Chris, myself, and our other two wonderful co-hosts have finished recording the second episode of "The Thirteenth Four" podcast, this episode having the wide topic theme of "Space."  Everyone drew the punishment suit (clubs) aside from me, so that made things interesting; segments ranged from bad space music and books to the mental health of astronauts and the complete dismantling of sci-fi fight scenes.  It was a pretty good time.  The site and feeds and everything is nearing its completion, so prepare yourselves for much promotion and plentiful plugs when it's ready, because really, you should check it out.  We're pretty damn funny, and rather informational.

The third episode is currently being worked on, we're hoping to release it around St. Patrick's Day so it can have an accompanying "Irish" theme.  Stay tuned, readers and listeners!


Part B - Professional Update!

When I last updated, I was frantically scrambling to give my first conference presentation, and was abjectly horrified that I would somehow flop the whole thing.  However, since that has all happened, I have found that the SMA Conference has given me the small boost of confidence that I needed.  I feel considerably better about my job situation, and much more hopeful about finding something that better suits me.  This week is going to be hellish and crazy, because I am *finally* going to finish updating the exhibits and collections in the museum, but I'm relieved that it will all be over soon, and I can throw myself into more cover letters and applications (armed with neat new credentials, like Conference Speaker and Not A Failure) and hopefully something awesome will come of it.  I mean, I'm willing to move ANYWHERE (even Micronesia... and I'm still sad that I never even got a confirmation of application from there), so someone...somewhere... has to see that I'm worth their time.  Contract jobs are fun and all, but damn... those benefits... they're so appetizing!

Back to Conference stuff... I met some unexpected fans, and a really awesome new friend, whom I hope I can collaborate with in the future.  She has some really excellent material that are prime fodder for digitization, and I really would like to see that pan out for her and her institution.  It would be pretty useful for a whole bunch of people if it all went through, and would be a fantastic and highly educational collection.  For anyone that's interested in my presentation, a copy of the slides is up on both Prezi.com and the Small Museum Association website (or possibly their conference website... but you can find both at http://www.smallmuseum.org).  Chris has been diligently working on a version that is true to the original presentation format (Prezi's rule!) with synchronized audio from my actual presentation, so that it's a little more easily digestible for everyone (Currently, there's a LOT of information that was given verbally, as opposed to cramming ten thousand notes and lines of information in limited slide space, making for a really visually affronting and, frankly, ugly presenation; it makes for informative slides that definitely require some outside context framing, so the audio dub should help considerably).  Updates coming soon as to when and where it's uploaded, so hopefully interested parties can glean more information more successfully.  Also, I was asked to teach a webinar version of my presentation, which I'm really excited (and kinda flattered) about and cannot wait to do!

On a new and somewhat exciting (for me, at least) note... this afternoon I submitted my first-ever chapter proposal for an upcoming book (edited by SUNY Fredonia librarians -- one of my alumni schools!) on digital collections and digital humanities efforts.  I'm really hoping that it goes well.  More information when I have it.  Currently perusing a bazillion case studies and methodological reports on digitization projects for source/lit review material.

Also of potential interest - The Skeptiseum is finally a thing on Twitter and Facebook!  You should really follow them, like them, and check them out.  Updates on transformation will be posted, as well as information about the official launch date for the new museum display format.  I've also worked out a rough schedule for types/themes of Tweets for my own admin purposes, but they should keep things less...monotonous... than they were on the CFI Libraries Twitter account, and hopefully both accounts will now be considerably more useful and interesting.  Feedback on these (and any other) changes that I make is always and forever much appreciated; if you have something to say about my efforts, and think that there's something missing or perhaps something that I could improve upon, please speak up and contact me.  After all, the end user opinion is one of my main concerns, and I do tend to get a little tunnel-visioned by professional needs/wants/gadgets and may not see their potential outside of what I need them for.

Oh, and I've *FINALLY* gotten my LinkedIn profile all caught up and current and professional and connected with everything else that I'm doing.  Hooray.


Part C - Personal Hubbub!

• The Stabilitrak TPS/PPS sensor on my car has malfunctioned, yet again.  No news here until tomorrow; hopefully it doesn't result in me pushing my car into Lake Erie in a fit of rage.
• I have a pretty decent idea of what my next podcast segment is going to be about.
• My cat's 14th birthday is coming up soon!  YAY!
• Cool things I have recently viddied that are noteworthy:
• Movie 43
• Six Degrees of Helter Skelter
• Secret Disco Revolution (trust me, it's more fascinating than it sounds)
• The Mind of a Chef (the whole series... it's really really really good!)
• Nightmare Factory
• The Other F Word
• Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters
• Beauty is Embarrassing
• Marlene (she's super humble and modest and awesome)
• Last week, I learned the true value of a Keurig: instant tea on demand with very little fuss.  It's been life-changing, honestly.  All the fluid intake are belong to me!
• I think I've finally learned to relax.  Who knew I had it in me?
• Developing an appreciation for fiction - I'm doing it!  Audio books are helping considerably.
• Side note: For those who are also prone to non-fiction - I recently began Gilbert Gottfried's (self-narrated) audio book, "Rubber Balls and Liquor."  It's really awesome, and it's not as grating to listen to as you'd think.  I'm all caught up with my fiction books that aren't 54 hours of Thomas Pynchon (Against the Day, not Gravity's Rainbow or anything less arduous...), and I think on my next road trip I'm gonna try my hardest to rip through a bunch of the unabridged LOTR trilogy (Because I've never read or experienced it in any way!  Not even the movies!), because having my very very very patient husband sit down and explain "The Hobbit" to me while we were watching it (which means that it took 6.5-7 hours to watch a 3 hour film... I REALLY don't relate to fiction!!!).

Well, I believe I'm about out of steam and information.  Must crunch more data for next week's blog, which I promise will be much more punctual in its arrival.  Tomorrow will be full of spreadsheets, exhibit creating, mechanic's appointments, toenail polish touch-ups, and if everything goes right, some decent news.
 

I haven't abandoned this yet!! Hooray?

Hello out there (I refuse to address this to "followers", because to my knowledge as of yet, I have zero of them, and I'm fine with that.  This blog is for me, not really for anything or anyone else.  Which makes me struggle with the difference between what makes this anything more than an amped-up teenage years diary-type blog, but apparently, no, this is much much different (and for some reason, professionally mandatory)... I have yet to grasp this concept, clearly...)!

Thanks to Derek, I have stopped my workflow for today and threw my efforts into making some MAJOR changes to this thing.  Thanks for pointing out the badness, buddy!  However, I feel that this is a little more genuinely reflective of what it's supposed to be, and hopefully it can grow from there.  Still not really sure what to do with this thing, but I know that I need one, and honestly, it kind of helps to get my thoughts out there (although it still feels like some sort of personal page that I've made on GeoCities in middle school).  So, on with the thoughts!

Editing has finished on the first episode of "The Thirteenth Four" podcast, a project that's currently being undertaken by my husband and myself along with another married couple, and I'm pretty pleased with the end results.  As soon as the website is in shape, and we've figured out what the hell we're doing with intro and outro, I'll be sure to post more details about where any interested parties can find it.  Hopefully more people than us like it, because it's kind of fun to be a part of something like that.

Speaking of presentations on topics, I'm pleased to say that my Prezi is 90% finished for the Small Museums Association conference in Ocean City next week (can you tell that I was one of those people during school that became crazy with pressure and deadlines and spent many a finals week in an espresso-induced, zombie-like state until my last exam was turned in and I could finally succumb to the siren song of slumber?!)!  Tonight will be spent finishing up this presentation and its accompanying notecards, and creating the metadata (and items in Omeka, after a long session of glaring at a CSV upload screen) for the second-largest Hall in The Skeptiseum, the Hall of Religious Beliefs (which, upon doodling around further in Exhibit Builder, I have realised is going to become two Exhibits - "World Religions and Mythologies" and "Miracles and Relics.").  Husband needs to seriously stop eating my working hours.  I don't like working second shift, damn it.

After much frantic tasking, I have decided I need to create and implement a schedule, one of various dimensions and levels.  This is going to be an undertaking.  Possibly Chris's.

Anyway, time for more coffee, and then back to work.  Whoosh!


This blog post was brought to you by my fan-freaking-tastic breakfast, Cantaloupe with Prosciutto and Pink Peppercorn-Vanilla Bean Syrup, the base recipe for which can be found here, accompanied by Cayenne Espresso.