Lesley, Eric, Jenny, Beth, Nancy, and Tamara

Several of us gathered Nancy’s home last Saturday night to celebrate the graduation of a number of our classmates from library school at North Carolina Central University.  We sat around the table and ate, talked, and laughed, but much like most of our study group sessions! It was a fun time!

By the way, L (in the picture) is for Libraries and Librarians!

When am I graduating? Good question! I’m halfway through, and if I stay on track, I’ll graduate in two more years. Right now, that feels like forever. I bet it’ll go by quickly, though. I paid for summer school just this morning, and am looking forward to taking “Health Sciences Resources and Services.” I’m signed up to take “Introduction to Digital Libraries” in the fall.

George, Lesley, Beth, Nancy, Rebecca, and Tiffanie at Satisfaction

group who met at Satisfaction in Brightleaf Square in Durham. It was a fun mix, from a first semester student to a graduating student, and everything in between! Satisfaction’s known for its pizza, burgers, and beer selection, but I had a good salad there last night.

It looks like that’ll be my last night out until a paper for school and evaluations for work are done. Wish me luck!

Nour, Beth, Lesley, and Jenny at UnHushed Conference 2

A couple of weeks ago, three library school classmates and I attended the UnHushed Conference 2 at UNCG in Greensboro, North Carolina. It’s just an hour away, so we drove over together on the morning of April 6 to attend this conference, organized by a group of students at UNCG’s Department of Library and Information Studies.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, who was fascinating! (I ran into her a few days later in one of the libraries at Duke University, where I work, and had a nice conversation with her!) After that, I had a hard time choosing which sessions to attend, but ended up with three great choices, “The Human Library,” “The YouTube Librarian,” and “Feng Shui: The Art of Balancing a Library.” They were all so interesting, it’s impossible to pick a favorite. I took away great ideas from each one. I also met some really nice people, from UNCG library students to librarians from area libraries. The conversation on our ride home to the Triangle was a lively one, because we enjoyed sharing information and impressions from our different sessions.

My iPhone photos from the conference are here.

Dinner at Village Draft House

I helped organize another ALA Student Chapter Dinner for March, and we met at Village Draft House this past Saturday night. It was a smaller group than last month, but a fun mix of on-campus and online students, as well as an NCCU SLIS alum who works for a local library. There was chatter and laughter up and down the table all evening! We’ll have one more ALA Student Chapter Dinner next month, and that will be it for this academic year. I hope this new tradition continues next year!

Why do I make reading for fun a priority? One of the main reasons is that reading helps me relax. I often have several books in progress, so I can decide at any given time what will interest and relax me the most at that time. (Now, some people prefer to read one book at a time, while others, like me, often juggle several books at once. It’s all good.)

I also enjoy being able to discuss books I’m reading at any time. Although I’m not part of a book club right now, keeping a book at the ready means I can always be ready to answer the question, “What are you reading right now?” I love the conversations that this question encourages!

In addition to enjoying book-related conversations in person, I also belong to several social networking websites for tracking books I’ve read. My favorite is Goodreads.com. While there are several book tracking + social networking sites out there, Goodreads seems to be the only one that has an iPhone app as well. The app is especially handy when looking for books to read at the library or bookstore. I also have an account on Shelfari, which is powered by Amazon. The interesting thing about Shelfari is that the data entered by users into fields like characters, setting, and description, help populate the extras for titles viewed and read on the Kindle and via Kindle apps. LibraryThing, another reading + social networking site I’m on, has even more opportunities for data entry about the books you read and own. I find it to be pretty crowded, though, and perhaps too much like my work. I really enjoy my day job, but am looking for something simpler, with more interaction with others, for my pleasure reading. Another thing I like about Goodreads is being a Goodreads Librarian. In this role, I can make edits to book information as I see errors, but it doesn’t happen often enough to feel laborious and time-consuming.

I have more friends (real and virtual) on Goodreads than any of the others, and that’s part of the attraction for me, too. Plus, since I’ve been using Goodreads the longest, I have the most data (books and reviews) on there. I’ve tried catching up and keeping up on Shelfari and LibraryThing as well, but I often find it too much to juggle on a regular basis, at least while I’m working and going to library school. I’d rather spend that time reading!

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

Lesley (me) and George

This past Saturday evening, our ALA Student Chapter organized a dinner at the Mellow Mushroom in Durham. We had a great group, about 18 people, on a chilly, rainy evening! If you’ve never heard of the Mellow Mushroom, it’s a fun pizza place, a chain, with yummy food. Since I’m on a “better-eating-journey” (not using the d-word on purpose!), I ordered a salad, and I actually got to choose the ingredients. It was huge, and actually very good!

Our friend, Nancy, was sitting across the table from us, and took this picture of George and me at the restaurant. (Thanks, Nancy!) Can you tell we were having a fun time?!

Here are some of the photos George and I took throughout the evening.

Meanwhile, life is busy with school and work. I had a presentation last night in class. I think it went okay. I continue to enjoy this “Intro to Academic Libraries” class a lot!

Meanwhile, our ALA Student Chapter is busy! I’m vice president this year, so I’ve been helping to organize activities. Last night, our faculty advisor, Dr. Abdullahi, did a program on giving better presentations, and we had food and drink beforehand. This Saturday, we’re having library school dinner at Mellow Mushroom, and about 20 people have RSVPed “yes” so far! We’ve got two more dinners planned this semester, and we’re also in the beginning phase of planning an unconference in April.

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com

Howell Library

On Saturday, I drove to Wake Tech Community College’s main location to visit Howell Library for an upcoming paper, which I plan to do on the academic library as place, or something like that. I really enjoyed exploring, and was surprised by how quiet it was! On my way out, I had a really nice chat with the reference librarian on duty, who told me that it’s typically quiet there on Saturdays, but that it’s a happening place during the week!

I think I enjoyed visiting this library, in part because it’s pretty different from the library where I work, yet there are some similarities too, just on a different scale. I look forward to fleshing out this paper!

One of our assignments is to lead an hour-long class discussion. In an effort to get things over with, I signed up to lead the first one, this coming Wednesday! Yikes!

Bass Harbor Memorial Library

Meanwhile, thoughts are with my Aunt Tina Baker‘s family, as she passed away on Friday in Bar Harbor, Maine. The funeral’s tomorrow, and I want so much to be there. One of her daughters is director of the Bass Harbor Memorial Library, and so a memorial fund is being set up there in Aunt Tina’s name. Since she was an English professor, it’s so fitting! RIP, Aunt Tina.

Photo from https://sites.google.com/a/bassharborlibrary.com/bhml/