It’s late summer in Mobile and the late afternoon thunder clouds are here like always, percolating with the rains that will keep our grass high and the mosquitos breeding long after the first frost has dusted our neighbors in the north. And on the campus of Spring Hill, if you now the signs, you can see that another kind of storm is on the horizon. The beginning of the 2007/2008 school year.
In this brief bit of calm before the teeming hoards of students and faculty descend upon the library, reference questions in hand, I thought it might be a good idea to get this party started and give a brief introduction to me and my blog.
First off, there’s me. I’m Amanda Collins (SHC 1996). After Spring Hill, where I majored in English, I got my Masters in English (1998) and a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama (2000).
Currently at SHC, I’m wearing many hats. I am an Instructional Librarian (teaching people how to use library resources), a Cataloging Librarian (assigning books and materials numbers so you can find them in the catalog), Emerging Technologies Librarian (testing out all this cool stuff that we use for fun in the real world and applying it to library world) and Liaison Librarian for Comm Arts, Fine Arts, and Nursing (helping my departments place orders, ordering and picking out books in those areas for the library). On any given day I am working in one or more of these capacities.
Since I’m being pulled in so many different directions, I think for the time being, the blog will need to be clearly regimented. So I’ll be blogging on topics as follows:
- Monday: Fabulous and Exciting New Technologies (if there are none, I’ll make some up)
- Tuesday: New Books at Burke (to keep you up to date on incoming titles)
- Wednesday: Better know a Database (”hidden” gems of Burke Library)
- Thursday: Issues in Library Land (censorship, copyright, plagiarism etc.)
- Friday: Fun with Information Technology (it might not be educational, but it sure is fun)
The Weekends (if I blog at all) will be an information free-for-all. Or they might just showcase something light like a movie review or a fun book review. It’s not rocket science, it’s a blog. Hopefully I’ll have something on here periodically that will entertain you, teach you or make you look at something in another light.
So, who’s with me? Let’s stop whispering about the library and start talking about some of this stuff outloud! Questions? Concerns? Need to know what my favorite lip gloss is? Ask away. It’s what blogs are for! Tomorrow I’ll kick things off with a look at a database…until then, please disperse. And don’t forget your umbrella!
"You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places where people sit in silence, and that's been the main reason for our policy of employing wild animals as librarians." --Monty Python's Flying Circus
Okay, not always, but on today’s blog it does. On Fridays I’ll try to spotlight some new and fun online tool. Today it’s the English to Pirate Translator which can be found here:
