The Past Few Weeks

I make no secret of my loathing for summer classes. It isn't the standard "I'd rather have a break," though I suppose that factors in. Rather, it's the inherent lack of balance. The summer semester at Pitt is 3-4 weeks (depending how you count) shorter than the other two, and like everywhere, the professors who are stuck teaching summer classes have to decide whether to try to fit an entire semester's worth of material in--or short-change students who are paying as much for these classes as they would for classes in real semesters.

This summer's professors seem to be trying to find a balance--definitely, they are packing in more than fits in 12 weeks, but I don't think it's quite as much as they'd hit in 15. That's probably the fairest approach, in this situation.

I really believe Pitt's LIS program would be better if they would not run by the rest of the school's semester system during the year--they already run more people through summer classes than the university is designed to handle, which implies, to me, that they are not unduly concerned with "how the rest of Pitt does it." Instead, they should cut a week out of fall and a week out of spring, in order to make summer two weeks longer (since most things are pretty much closed in the summer, students are used to not having the services they need). It would not remove the imbalance entirely, but it would be a good step toward eliminating it.

Other than summer classes--and at some point I'll talk about what I'm taking and what I think of it--I have been busy with conferences and interviews--not that many of the latter, but enough to be noticeable in the scheme of my semester, certainly. (I could write up SLA, but the time has passed. I will try to blog about ALA, though.) I'm composing a series of posts about interviews--dos and don'ts, mostly--but I think I'm going to wait until I have a job to really discuss any of it in depth. My desire to help others who are about to be--or who are currently--in my shoes wars, somewhat, with my desire not to damage my own prospects. I was a little surprised--and pleased, with a tiny bit of heartburn, wondering "what else did I say?"--when a recent interviewer mentioned something I'd said months ago in my blog. (Mostly, I was pleased. Sometimes I wonder whether what I say is even a little bit interesting.) So, that's one bit of advice: people do read what you put out there. I still have few enough followers that maybe Google Analytics will show spikes when search committees decide I'm worth looking into. :)

On the being-busy-and-conference-preparation front, please do come see the Book Cart Drill Team's Pittsburgh Performance, this Thursday, 4pm, Posvar Hall. We'll still be selling raffle tickets, and the final drawing will take place after the performance!



Other posts in the hopper: comparison/contrast of the MLIS program with engineering graduate school (a coworker asked for that, verbally, and it got me thinking); some thoughts on library school in general and Pitt specifically; hopefully an announcement of a Book Cart Drill Team win at ALA :); other ALA posts, including possibly some discussion of the MLIS program accreditation discussions going on there; hopefully an announcement that I got a job, followed by discussion of the moving process; and maybe some musings on the transition from engineering to library work--I should see if I can get a guest blogger in for that one, since he's gone a different path than I plan to. :) After that, here's hoping I'm changing the focus of the blog, somewhat, from library school to librarianship!

On balancing social networking tools and family

This isn't as library-related or engineering-related as I try to be, but it does address what I imagine is a fairly common problem. I'm curious about your thoughts.

I've been using social networking tools--and, here, I'm going to address mostly Facebook and Twitter--as catch-alls, adding friends, colleagues, and, increasingly, family, willy-nilly. I have a couple of privacy settings on my Facebook, keeping a few people from seeing my updates, though if they navigate to my page, they can still see it. (I'm fascinated that I could lock even my profile page away from the eyes of people I've friended. I find that really interesting.) I think I may have "all pictures of me" locked down, as well, though I always waffle on that one--the only embarrassment I expect ever to get, on that count, is that I'm wildly unphotogenic at times. I'm hardly a wild partier.

But my point is, up until now, it's worked. I have, at times, wished I had a locked-down Twitter account, where I could say some of the things I really don't want the whole world to see me say, to a select group of friends. But I don't, because, for the most part, I'm inclined to treat social network sites as inherently unstable and very hackable--if it goes up there, one way or the other, it'll be public, anyway. (E-mail and IM should also be treated that way--for reasons inherent to the technology--and to an extent, I kind of do.)

But I'm finding that social networking with my family isn't really working out the way I'd expected/hoped. I already self-censored, a little bit, because there are some professional colleagues I really respect on any given social networking site, and I don't want to offend or to seem "too weird," whatever that is. (Sometimes I still forget that it isn't just me and my college buddies, because I am not perfect, but I generally do an OK job of this, I think.)

However, I'm finding myself self-censoring--and, to my horror, censoring others by deleting their comments on my posts--more often, now that family members are there. Do I mind my high school-age cousin or Dale's college-age brother knowing I'm human and goofy? No, not really; I want them to know me well enough to trust me, to come to me with questions if they need to. But I'm finding I'm not really comfortable with the level of openness Facebook is forcing between, for instance, my mother and me. I've grown comfortable--as I think most of us do--with some distance, some lack of knowledge, about what is going on in our lives and our minds. Facebook wants to bridge that gap, but for a multitude of reasons, I'm just not sure that's a gap that should be bridged, in our or most other parent-child situations.

Also, I notice that some family members use these tools very differently than I do. They don't follow the same conventions. They don't even have the same definition of what constitutes "social networking." It could be a fascinating learning opportunity for me, if I could find the balance, and the distance, necessary to really observe them.

I guess when it was just two groups--friends and colleagues--I could balance the stack of dishes, or house of cards, or whatever metaphor best fits. But it seems to be crumbling, now that a third group has really come into the picture. I'm not sure whether the problem is "too many groups" or "one group is family," but I have definitely become aware that I've lost the balance I had maintained for so long.

Has anyone else had this experience? What did you do? I hate to scale back my involvement in these tools, or to lock out family (where I even can). But maybe therein lies the only answer--what do you think?

More CSS troubles

It's just come to my attention--by my happening to look at it after posting to the CIT Library Blog--that my blog looks bad in IE. One problem with developing on a Mac is I can test with Firefox and, when I think about it, Safari, but IE is a whole other ball of wax. And given how well MS Office for Mac works, I'm not inclined to risk installing IE:Mac.

It's interesting that it would mess up like that, since I really just took one of Blogger's templates and modified it to my uses. I feel like, since the core of it is theirs, it should have stood up better against browser changes.

It kind of makes me want to rebuild my site in--and therefore export my blog to--Wordpress. There's some good information out there about Wordpress-as-CMS, and I'd kind of like to give it a try. Then again, my current page [with the exception of this blasted blog] does a good job of showcasing my XHTML/CSS development abilities. ... I'll have to think on this.

I'll fiddle with it this weekend, or as soon thereafter as I get a chance. In the meantime, my apologies if you're an IE user. (By the way, it's OK to contact me with stuff like that--even in the comments of unrelated blog posts. Feedback is always useful, even if it's "negative," or the way I see it, constructive.)

Twitter Howto

Last week SLA's Pittsburgh chapter had a "Reverse Mentoring" meeting, where library students showed professional librarians the Web 2.0 ropes, as it were. I was the designated Twitter person. We also had someone to cover blogging/RSS - Blogger and Google Reader, social networking sites - Facebook and LinkedIN, social tagging - del.icio.us and LibraryThing, collaborative workspaces - Google Docs and wikis, and a Kindle (not that that's very "Web 2.0," per se, but people were still really interested, and I feel like librarians should all get our hands on ebook readers if at all possible). It was very well-received, and I think everyone--including the presenters--learned a lot.

I thought I'd share my handout with you, in case you were curious about basic Twitterisms (e.g. retweeting, replying vs. direct messaging, hashtags) and applications (e.g. TweetDeck, TwitterGadget for Gmail, Digsby, and a couple you may not have heard of). There are a couple of links on there, to more information, as well.

I didn't talk as much about Twitter for job searching as I meant to, but overall, I think it went well.

Please, Take a Moment to Write an E-mail

(I drafted an email for you, available here. Add or remove content as you see fit. Send it to Rep. Dwight Evans, devans@hacd.net, Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations by May 26, 2009.)

The House Committee on Appropriations is currently holding public hearings in Harrisburg, and they want written testimony from taxpayers. In addition to writing to Rep. Evans, please contact your other state representatives. If you don't know who else to contact, look here for that information, and if you feel there's more you should say, visit CLP's advocacy page for information and talking points.

Libraries have never been busier. During this recession demand for library services across the Commonwealth are continually rising as more people search for jobs, families tighten their budgets, and retirees grapple with shrinking savings. We need libraries, and in this particular instance, libraries need us.

Send an e-mail, please. Right now. I did.

Thank you!

(Much of this text was adapted from CLP's "First Floor - New and Featured." Copy at will, both this post and my previous post. I don't mind, and I'm sure CLP doesn't mind.)