Category Archives: #el12ala

2012 is over, time for 2013!

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 1, 2013 - 9:30 pm | , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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2012 was an incredibly hectic year. I have been especially tired, this winter, even beyond the normal sleepiness that comes from short days—enough so that I took the three workdays between Christmas and New Years off, which I never do. (It’s so quiet! You can get so much work done!) I tried really hard not to think about work, or much of anything else, during the time off, with moderate success. As a result, I feel almost (but not quite) ready to go back to work, now. But you know what? Looking back, I kind of feel justified in my … Continue reading →

Librarians Build Communities talk at PNLA

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | August 4, 2012 - 12:42 pm | , , ,
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I talked (for what seems like the millionth time, though it’s not) about Librarians Build Communities at the Pacific Northwest Library Association conference, yesterday. This is what I gave as the description of the talk: Librarians have a set of very useful skills, which could benefit our local communities enormously. Librarians Build Communities is a program designed to match librarian volunteers with organizations in their communities, both to build partnerships between libraries and other organizations and to advocate on behalf of libraries and librarianship, by showcasing librarians’ skill sets. It is still in its early stages, with pilot projects in … Continue reading →

Comparing and Contrasting Leadership Programs

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | July 20, 2012 - 10:52 am | , , , , , , ,
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I’ve been very fortunate, in my nearly three years as a librarian, to have had the opportunity to participate in two library leadership programs: PNLA Leads and ALA Emerging Leaders. The programs have different methodologies and different goals, so, unsurprisingly, my experiences and takeaways were very different. I should acknowledge, it’s possible that trying to write up a comparison, when I am only a month “emerged” from ALA’s leadership program, but almost two years after PNLA’s, isn’t entirely fair. I’m giving it a shot, though, because Alaska is talking about whether or not to participate in ALA Emerging Leaders (via … Continue reading →

ALA Day 1

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | June 22, 2012 - 5:09 pm | , , , , ,
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(Numbering the day is no promise to write one of these every evening.) I’m on an iPad, so this will run brief (and choppy) for a post in a CoralBlog. It isn’t so bad to type on, but it’s slow. This was the first day of my first conference in a repeat location. (I attended Anaheim 2008, as an enrolled-but-not-yet-matriculated library student.) I am staying at the EL house, which is a bit of a walk, so I actually passed the hotel I stayed in the last time, which was cool. And then the giant tree I remember admiring, in … Continue reading →

See you in Anaheim?

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | May 31, 2012 - 6:50 pm | , , , ,
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Things have been hectic, since Midwinter. Work’s been busy (because when isn’t it?), some things in the Alaska Library Association have moved forward (which is fantastic, but potentially time-consuming), various life stuff (including more of Dale’s and my first year as homeowners) has continued to happen, and Group G’s Emerging Leaders project has taken up way more of my time and energy than I should admit to, given the other things I’m supposed to be getting done. But that last one, at least, will be over soon. We’re pulling together our report and our presentation(s), and it’s really nice to … Continue reading →

Do you volunteer?

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | April 30, 2012 - 1:52 pm | , , , ,
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Folks, I’m going to ask you to do a thing you might not get to do very often: write about how great you are. Or, if you prefer, how great an experience you have had, specifically while volunteering. I know, anecdotally, that librarians and library workers volunteer a lot of our time. (I’m not talking about working late at our own libraries, though that’s a thing we do; nor am I talking about what we do as part of professional organizations. I really mean volunteering, out in our communities.) I used to do stage managing (aka “planning, organizing, and herding … Continue reading →

SMART Goals and Alaskan Librarians Build Communities

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | March 8, 2012 - 4:24 pm | , , , , ,
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You’ve heard that goals need to be “SMART,” right? It’s a fairly common model for making goals, you know, not pointless. And I have, over the past few years, improved at making goals “Specific,” “Measurable,” “Relevant,” and “Time-bound.” The first two, especially, I do well—I think it’s the engineering training that makes those so easy. But, every once in a while, I realize that I have totally skipped the “A,” which stands for “Achievable.” One of my major weaknesses is perfectionism (and it is a weakness, more often than it’s a strength, especially within the intersection of libraries and web … Continue reading →

Bits and pieces

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | February 20, 2012 - 4:34 pm | , , , , , , , , ,
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Google Plus OK, I don’t know how long this will be available (and I don’t know a better way to capture it forever than to play-and-grab with screen capture—any Elluminate Live wizards out there with a better plan?), but my Google Plus talk is available here. You’ll need to fill in the email address and name boxes, for some reason I don’t understand, but nothing will happen because of it—you can put in gibberish with an @ sign, and it won’t know. :) It isn’t the world’s best Elive session, but neither is it the worst. I wish I’d said … Continue reading →

My Flight to Midwinter

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 28, 2012 - 1:05 pm | , , ,
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So I was that person whose luggage went missing, before conference. Awful timing, too: they took a bunch of pictures at the Emerging Leaders meeting, where I was wearing a t-shirt (only mostly covered by a cardigan) and dirty jeans. I even made it on Librarian Wardrobe, I think as a cautionary tale. ;) But let’s go back a bit. (And if you don’t want to read about airlines and how they’re frustrating, it’s probably fine to skip this whole post. There are no nuggets of wisdom, besides perhaps “Always bring a change of clothes in carry-on.”) I left Anchorage … Continue reading →

ALA Midwinter 2012 – Lessons

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 24, 2012 - 2:53 pm | , , , , , , ,
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I had a really excellent conference! I got to meet several of my library superheroes, plus quite a few people I have no doubt will become my library superheroes as time goes on. I participated in the first session of this year’s Emerging Leaders program (which was excellent! Group G totally rocks!), planned an unofficial (not in the Scheduler) event (which I couldn’t attend—more on that in my next post), helped moderate an official (in the Scheduler) event, went to several “un” events, participated in meetings, went to sessions, skipped sessions for lovely meals with delightful people, partied with the … Continue reading →