Category Archives: libraries

A Much Happier Post

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | May 4, 2013 - 10:45 pm | , , , , , , , , , ,
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happysun

My last post was a serious downer, and I apologize for that. I debated skipping the medical stuff, but I really felt like I needed to justify my decision to back out of ALA—if not to everyone else, then at least to myself. (And enough people have asked “What did you do to yourself, Coral?” that it seemed worth getting it all written down somewhere I could share it, anyway.) Deciding not to do ALA was a hard call. People have been super supportive, though! I am really grateful for the amazing folks in the library world, and I’m glad … Continue reading →

Not going to ALA Annual (and bummed about it)

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | May 3, 2013 - 10:36 am | , ,
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It’s funny. Earlier this week I compared conferences to summer camp. You have your conference/camp friends that you only get to see once or twice a year—though today’s world beats the world in which I went to summer camps, where our options for staying in touch were “hand write and mail letters” or “nothing”—and you really look forward to seeing those friends and hearing about what they’ve been up to. I’m going to miss campALA this year, and that makes me really sad. It’s taken me a week to 1) realize, 2) accept, and now 3) act on this reality, … Continue reading →

Best Practices for Blogging

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | April 3, 2013 - 8:29 pm | , , ,
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social-media-tree-small

I agreed to teach a session on “Best Practices for Blogging.” In case others are making these kinds of presentations, or other libraries are just now starting blogs (hey, we have a couple of new blogs, so surely others must, too, right?), I thought I’d share the best practices I’ve pulled together and leave the floor open for others to comment and add theirs. I’m focusing this talk on blogs by library staff, for patrons. But these best practices are also applicable to other kinds of blogs (and, arguably, I should follow more of them, here). Also, I’m really not … Continue reading →

What makes one a librarian?

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | March 13, 2013 - 8:07 am | , , , ,
4 Comments
Who even knows?

While I’m not the first to tackle librarianship and identity, by a [very very] long shot, it’s on my mind right now. Earlier this week I was told to train a new part-time reference librarian (<grumpy>with not a lot of warning</grumpy>). Training someone to do reference in this library is something that I am unequivocally and without a doubt the wrong person to do. My own desk training was kind of lackadaisical, and I am still learning the basics, two years later. (What? We’re supposed to sign the reference emails, even though there’s an auto-sig? Well, huh.) Case in point: … Continue reading →

Approval Voting (a guest post that could help us make some fixes to ALA)

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | March 12, 2013 - 5:23 pm | , ,
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A (sort of weird) example approval voting ballot

There’s been a ton of discussion, all over the place, about ALA Council and ALA voting turnout and the membership feeling invested in their representatives. I’d kind of like to approach this from a different angle, though. Rather than talking about the size of Council, maybe we should talk about how we elect them—and, in turn, everyone else whose job it is to represent us in ALA. It’s possible that, when we cast our votes, we aren’t (collectively) getting what we want. And since I just happen to know (actually, to have married) someone really knowledgeable about voting methods, I … Continue reading →

Career Direction, Women’s Work, and Other Musings

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | March 8, 2013 - 9:29 am | , , , , , , ,
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girls-computer

Anyone I talked to at ALA Midwinter (and probably anyone who reads my social media accounts closely—which I suspect is no one :)) has caught on that I’m thinking about next steps in my career. I’ve passed the magical “three years of experience,” after which many more jobs seem to open up and become possibilities. More importantly, I’ve laid some really good groundwork at my current job, which I can use over the next two years to improve not only my organization’s web presence but how the organization makes decisions about our web presence. That is real, lasting change. Coincidentally, … Continue reading →

Question 2 – #TT4ALACouncil

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | February 20, 2013 - 11:15 am |
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An explanation of what’s up with these questions is available here. Many in the TT4AC caucus referenced young members/new professionals in their platforms. What is one concrete step ALA can take to engage this demographic? And, if elected, how will you ensure Council pursues it? I think the first step is already done: a group of fairly new professionals* is running for ALA’s second-highest decision-making body. (Executive Board is higher.) We’re doing it loudly and publicly, and I hope that at least some of us win, so that another group of new professionals will do the same next year. Getting … Continue reading →

Professional Online Presence

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | February 19, 2013 - 8:46 am | , ,
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Social Media Monster

I’ve wrestled with online communication and professional identity before, both publicly and in private. I’ve tried maintaining separate “professional” and “personal” Twitter streams and even separate Facebook accounts. (And then I realized that the overlap between “friends” and “colleagues” was too much for such an approach to be sustainable.) I’ve made Facebook rules, such as “no friending professional contacts,” and then I’ve broken them, and now I have completely reversed them: I go out of my way to friend professional contacts. So it was with interest that I read Daniel Cornwall‘s and Starr Hoffman‘s posts on “Professional Online Presences.” Daniel … Continue reading →

Product Review: FitBit (but this post is secretly about libraries)

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 18, 2013 - 1:03 pm | , , , , ,
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This isn’t normally a product review blog. Nobody sends me free samples (including FitBit). But I kind of want to write about the FitBit One because it connects to some of my library-related thoughts, recently, and because (spoiler) I really, really like it. And I know it isn’t technically the latest and greatest FitBit has to offer—they have that new wristband, to compete with the Nike Fuel. Or is that not out yet? Anyway, I looked at wristbands and ended up going with the One. It was the right call, for me. First off, before we get into the interface, … Continue reading →

Projects – Learning stuff!

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 7, 2013 - 10:46 pm | , , , , ,
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I just signed up for Tabatha Farney’s and Nina McHale’s day-long Midwinter pre-conference, “Developing a Web Analytics Strategy for Your Library: Using Data to Measure Success.” I’m pretty psyched, since 1) I respect both of the presenters, and 2) my use of Google Analytics thus far has been somewhat lackadaisical. I haven’t taken the time to create an website analytics strategy, beyond “see if a page is ever used before I suggest removing it,” and the Google Analytics book I have lying around just keeps getting more and more out of date, as Google adds and changes features. (I know … Continue reading →