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March 9, 2005
So what *have* I been doing with myself
Entries have been sparse lately, but with good reason. Things have been picking up in my neck of the woods, and it's all very exciting.
I'll start by saying I'm gainfully underemployed, so I'm not really making any money on what I'm doing. But I seem to have veered in the library consultant direction of things. My business card does, after all, state "Librarian-for-hire" as my title.
I'm still volunteering for Somerville Public, which is going quite swimmingly. I'm just finishing up a simple virtual tour of the library, and planning a web site project for them. Just hanging out with the librarians has been interesting, enlightening, educational, and cool, so doing the tech work is really gravy, as well as excellent resume fodder.
Knowledge inForm, a competitive intelligence and market research training and consulting firm formed by a past professor of mine and her colleague, has taken me in as an intern. I'll be helping with developing content and services, as well as researching technology issues and solutions for the company. And, well, any other interesting projects they have lying around for me. They have a wonderful, innovative business concept on their hands, comprised of three tiers: publications, training, and consulting. I'm hoping to contribute to their success.
Today I spent some time tweaking the navigation for the PLA Blog, as well as setting up an email form and an archive of the ALA Midwinter 2005 blog posts. The blog is driven by Blogger, which is a nice, simple software to use, but the flip side is that it's a bit limited in it's archival capacities, so event archives need to be done by hand, and posts can't be automatically queried by author. But hey, the blog is up and running, and it's hopping with activity from the PLA Spring Symposium, so you should definitely check it out. I'm hoping to do more work with the PLA Blog in the near future.
So when I'm not spinning plates on sticks, I'm updating my blog, or hunting for the ever-elusive paid library position. I do have an interview coming up on Friday that I'm very excited about, and one the day after I return from Computers in Libraries, so things may be looking up in that respect. I'm hoping to find a position that will allow me to keep up with my consulting work, but will give me enough hours to help me establish my reference librarian street cred. Overall, though, I think the path that I followed to this point has served me well, however unconventional it may be. I'll definitely be prolific during Computers in Libraries, and as my new work-style smooths out, you'll see a lot more of me here, too.
March 9, 2005 10:51 PM