the strange librarian

my best friend would chase me down the street if she read that headline, yelling at me for becoming a “girl” but there you have it folks.

<girl>

The summer of 2006, my friend and I went to Tennessee to visit another friend who was going to school out there. While there, I fell in love with a pair of shoes. Not just any shoes, but cowboy boots. Not just cowboy boots, but the “Cadillac of cowboy boots.” (I knew i was in trouble when J.C. (the sales guy) called them that.)

As soon as I put them on, i was in heaven. They looked cool and felt awesome. “They’re conform to your foot,” J.C. said. “These will be the only pair of boots you’ll ever need.” At $300+, i sure hoped so.

Despite the financial angel on my shoulder yelling at me, i bought them. I had a slight twinge of buyers remorse (similar to how i felt after buying the Italian leather jacket while visiting Florence, which i’m finally about to get rid of after 8 years and a dozen or so wears) but mostly i was very happy i was the new proud owner of an A W E S O M E pair of boots.

That night, I walked them around the carpeted hotel room and wore them sitting on the bed talking to my friends. Had I been more sure about my purchase, i probably would have worn them around that day. But, while gitty over them I was still trying to come to terms with the amount spent.

Sometime during the night I decided to help my broke self not be more so and decided to return the boots the next evening. My traveling companions had to practically drag me out of the car when reached the store. I almost tried to talk the guy down in price when i got to the register, hoping they’d take pity on a city girl and her first pair of cowboy boots but no such luck.

I didn’t think about them too much for the rest of the trip, but my friends might have a different version of that story to tell.

Later that year, i found them on Zappos. I could get them next day! But they weren’t any cheaper. C’est la vie.

I continued to drool over them, never purchasing them, for another year. When I ‘refound’ them on Zappos, i bookmarked them on del.icio.us.

I don’t think about them everyday, that would be *slightly* nutso. But they do come up from time to time. Like today when i was asked to go see a Southern Culture on the Skids show. I never bought the boots, because, besides the cost, i assumed i’d never have a place to wear them being a FlipFlop-wearin’ City Girl. a SCOTS show would be a good place to wear them. But alas.

It’s been over 2 years since i first laid eyes on those boots and I’m still fantasizing about them. If i think about it too long, i realize it’s bordering on the sick. “Either buy them and wear them or don’t buy them and get over it,” i hear the voices say. If they were a Silly Vacation Purchase (there’s always one, and unfortunately for me it’s never cheap), i’d have forgotten about them by now. If i bought them, i’d make the occasion to wear them. Like with pink ball gowns with lots of taffeta. Or, more boringly, with my normal uniform of jeans and a t-shirt.

For now though, I’ll continue to drool over them while trying to rationalize that a $300 pair of boots is worth every penny.

::grabs empty applesauce jar and puts her loose change in it::
it’ll be a long time, but one day, perhaps, i may once again be the proud owner of the “Cadillac of cowboy boots.”

</girl>

All joking aside, the “week in the life” came from Librarian By Day via Lauren’s Library Blog. A bunch of us had decided this (past week) would be the week- for conformity and whatnot- that we’d blog about our library lives. Like Lauren, i know a lot of folks virtually, but probably have no idea what it is you all do in your awesomeness. :-)

Even though i suggested the week of the 15th for us all to do this, I dropped the ball majorly and am just getting to it today. I will, however, finish 5 business days. I’m just not sure i can guarantee them to be consecutive days. I’d say “i’ll try” but i’m told, there is no try.

Ready? Go!

—-
Unless you’re doing quality control for a widget factory, I’d imagine your days/weeks, like mine, are never the same. But this will give a taste as to what i do and what it’s like to be at the helm of a cooperative virtual reference service.

The title: Operations Supervisor (soon to be Project Coordinator)
The organization: Maryland AskUsNow!, Maryland’s statewide virtual reference service

Today I:

• checked email #1 for any customer emails that need to be put into QuestionPoint or redirected
• checked email #2 and (oddly) only found 2 new ones. The fact that it was only 8:15am probably helped.
• checked personal email, which pointed me to facebook
• facebooked for a bit, checking out new activity to the AskUsNow! facebook page, then moving my 4 cars to new spots in the Parking Wars (i was already there, right?)
• emailed my mini-VR group back and forth on what swag to bring to a tv spot
• figured out how many bags of AskUsNow! highlighters go to each partner library using a percentage based on previous shipments of swag
• 10am-12pm conference call with fellow panel presenters to suss out our presentation at the Reference Renaissance conference in Denver next week (oh crap, it’s next week)
• listened to a vm that’s come in, quickly microwave my sandwich (30secs, i can’t stand cold sandwich bread)
• called someone who emailed me during my conference call about troubleshooting questionpoint
• email mini-vr group about what to do when a partner library doesn’t show up in the “refer to” list in QuestionPoint
• returned a phone call and suss out details of our new ruler order
• played phone tag with promotions company folks to figure out how quickly we can get rulers and the size and format information for the imprint they need. schedule brief meeting for 1pm to finalize order (i prefer phone, but they insist the order will go thru faster if i meet with the guy… it’s a homegrown company)
• got a missed shift covered and email the coop scheduler know about the make up time. am reminded of trapeze school and i email the bf about it. he emails back saying, “so let me get this straight…you’re not willing to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, but you are willing to jump off of a perfectly good 23 ft platform?.” uh, yeah!
• sent an email to the AskUsNow! liaison listserv about upcoming trainings
• looked into archiving our list with google groups
• troubleshot a log in problem. caller mentioned someone else having trouble so i called them. was turned on to mp3 tasers… leopard print even! Oh, and happy sysadmin day!
• 1pm-3pm(ish) find boxes, unpack highlighters, box and reship highlighters to partner libraries. got all but 4 libraries all done before i ran out of tape *and* boxes.
• break for water refill and mini milkyway midnight.
• get another mini milkyway midnight (who are they kidding being so small, anyway)
• check personal email, get pointed to FriendFeed- which still confuses me. too much overload.
• remember the day in the life thing and log into my blog…

fascinating, i know. :-) You should look forward to monday! :-)

Throughout my schooling i always used 3-ring binders. I loved being able to keep things in chronological order, and liked my handouts and papers and notes to be all in one place. I wasn’t a notebook and folder kind of gal, i was the 3-ring and hole punch kind.

I used binders for classes, scripts, projects, activities- everything. That is, for everything *until* i moved into industry. It seems the second i got a “real job” i forgot about the usefulness of 3ring binders. That, and since more and more things were born-digital, i had a hard time justifying all that printing and physical copies. [insert snarky comment from the archivist bf about when “my world” (the digital one) crumbles]

In the last few months I’ve started rekindling my love for binders in an attempts to get a handle on all the different projects i have to keep track of but still find myself unable to marry well enough, or at least to my preference, the accessible anywhere, eco friendly born-digital material and the ever-so-handy, visual nature of the binder organization.

I’m a very visual person and I like having everything in one place. It’s hard to have emails, files, notes, etc in a folder on your computer- it doesn’t mesh with how i think and isn’t very handy for quickly putting your hands on something when all you remember is “blue pen, bottom right side of left hand page, note about something important.”

I’ve decided what i need is a virtual binder. NOT a folder full of files on a desktop or local intranet, but an actual binder that i can flip through the pages of, reorder as i want, and zoom in to see more clearly what it is i’m looking at. Sort of like The British Library’s Turning the Pages goes project management.

So- does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem?

I have a dilemma. I have 26+ years of VHS tapes sitting in my apartment that are starting to show their age. Technically, VHS/magnetic tape only has a life expectancy of 10-20 years (12, if you ask my bf) and I’m waaaay overdue. Luckily, for most of those years, those tapes were kept next to my tv, which, growing up, was in a consistently 60 degree, humidity free basement in my parents house.

However, unlike my parents thermostat, mine is usually set much higher and my analog media is starting to deteriorate, if not completely die.

A few Christmases ago, I got a VHS to DVD converter and had started to convert some of the home videos (the more precious stuff that can’t be replaced) that were originally recorded onto VHS-C.

However, as I think about my space issues, my desire to have as little amount of “stuff” as possible, and my general desire to be techie and forward thinking, I start thinking that VHS to DVD conversions might not be the best route.

I imagine an external hard drive attached to or somehow hardwired to my television that can hold, play back, and perhaps even record all my digitized media. From there, I imagine empty shelves which can now be used in other ways (or gotten rid of completely). The trouble is, I don’t know how to make this work- or if it’s even possible for someone who’s not a professional and *not* willing to spend an arm and a leg.

Converting my audio cassette tapes and vinyl is a no brainer for me since (besides mostly buying digital-born music) Ii store most of my music on my HD anyway, burning things to cd as needed, or dumping into my ipod. Plus, the cassette player and record player i have both plug directly into my computer for easy conversion of “old media.”

This harddrive to tv thing also goes for, assuming i ever have expendable income again, those movies or tv shows i can buy digital-born- where am i going to keep them? I want to have set up where i can watch them on my real tv, instead of sitting in front of my computer- or hooking my comp to my tv each time i want to watch something.

I’m thinking easy (after set up, but if set up was easy too, rock on), streamlined, and protected. Yes, i have to worry about digital format lifespan too, but at least this will take up less room.

Anyone have any ideas?