I’ve not been around this blog too much for the past many months. It has something to do with this amazing little guy:
Even with this entirely new sphere of things in my personal life, I’ve still been actively doing my job, presenting, and writing, and I think contributing to some cool things along the way! Because I use this space as a personal log of sorts, here are a few of the things I’ve been up to:
Librarians as Experts
One fun thing that went from idea to completion in a short period of time was an article with my colleague Kevin Gilbertson, Web Services Librarian extraordinaire. We’ve been batting around many ideas related to websites for the past however-many-years-since-he-came-to-Wake. Many of our conversations are about what a website is and what its purpose is and could be. We’ve talked about how librarians really are information experts in an information age and how the interdisciplinary nature of our work allows us to be a crossroads of discussion. All of that, coupled with the WFU transition of librarians to faculty status, has led us to think about how we can represent librarians and the work of the library on the library website. We’ve thrown out a lot of hypotheticals, trialed a few things, and felt it was time to share that conversation with the larger field. So it was great when Computers in Libraries agreed to publish our article on the topic: Librarians as Experts: Using the Web to Assert Our Value.
Cora Bomar Lecture
I was also particularly honored to be invited to give the Cora Bomar Lecture for the UNC-G Alumni Luncheon. It’s one of those events I’ve been to multiple times, but hadn’t actually thought I’d be invited to give the talk. It was fun to do, and nice to share with the faculty that we haven’t forgotten the lessons they taught us. It was also particularly fun that my boss, Susan Sharpless Smith, was recognized with the 2011 Kovacs Award for Outstanding Alumni Achievement. If you’re interested in the talk, it’s a modification of a theme I’ve done a lot of lately, and it’s here:
(You might enjoy knowing that Leif makes the same face that I make in a few of these slides. 
)
Open Access eTextbook Grant
I’m working on a WFU Summer Technology Grant with a great team of folks from my library. We’re working on putting together an open access electronic information literacy textbook. It’s interesting enough (I think!) to merit an entire post, so look for that in the near future. For now, here’s our call for chapters page. Right now it’s open for WFU folks specifically, but we might open it up wider in the near future.
Digital Humanities Initiatives
WFU has a new Humanities Institute, and as part of that one of my colleagues is spending a sabbatical laying the groundwork for a digital humanities initiative. I’m involved in a few of his projects and am doing whatever I can from my specific position to encourage thinking about digital humanities and new types of knowledge products.
So those are some of the highlights. In addition, it’s just lovely in Winston-Salem right now. Just today I’ve spent a few hours on the library porch catching up on email, organizing my Evernote, and getting prepped for ALA.