informationatrix

In my library school Capstone (final) class, we talked a lot about recruiting the next generation of librarians…specifically how it was partially up to us as professionals to drum up the next generation.

I can’t think of a better way to start planting this seed early than with Sarah Utter’s “Future Librarian” onesie, not to mention her “Future Librarian” kids’ and adults’ tees, and her whole line of “Reading is Sexy” shirts (each picture is an active link to the item on buyolympia.com, the very cool site where you can buy all these goodies):

This is just a taste of her work; these shirts are offered in other colors (pink!) and sleeve lengths, the designs are on buttons, bumper stickers, and messenger bags…and she is by no means a one-note gal. Her “Knitting is Knotty” shirts are adorable and hilarious as well.

As if you actually needed one more reason to love this woman and her work, check out the nod to the changing nature of our profession that she gives in one of her t-shirt descriptions:

Although librarians have been traditionally associated with a collections of books, as seen by the etymology of the word “librarian,” modern librarians deal with information in many formats, including books, magazines, newspapers and audio recordings in various formats.

Love it! Buy early, buy often.

Tomorrow (May 24th) I will be attending the “Archival Access Issues Symposium,” which is being co-sponsored by the organization of which I am Education Co-Chair, Kansas City Area Archivists, and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, which is also hosting the symposium.

 Never can get too much professional development! See, even…oh, a week and a half after the official end of my library school education, I’m already beginning my lifelong learning!

 Never too late? How about never too early?

The symposium pamphlet can be downloaded here, if anyone is curious.

Several of my friends are serious zombie movie fans, so, when I saw that John Blyberg had posted this hilarious send-up by the good people at the Allen County Public Library on his blog…well, I just had to post it too.

Enjoy!

Happy Graduation!, originally uploaded by librarykatja.

The ceremony was two hours long and it was near 90 degrees…which, given our long, black acetate robes, was not very pleasant.

However, this picture stands as evidence that even baking like a little librarian potato could not diminsh my spirits.

I’m done! Woohoo!

Sky and Trees, originally uploaded by librarykatja.

The photo overload was inevitable, as I just received my very first ever digital camera in the mail today! It is just a little Canon PowerShot Digital Elph, but it will get the job done until my boyfriend can finally afford that Digital SLR he’s been drooling over for years.

And, I’m a broken record, but I’ll say it again…

Kansas is beautiful.

View from the back porch, originally uploaded by librarykatja.

This picture was taken a little over a year ago, but it’s basically a mirror image of what I see today when I look out from the back porch.

Anyone who says Kansas is boring and flat…well, if this picture doesn’t put the lie to that statement, I don’t know what does.

I’m sure everyone has seen those “You Know You’re from _______ When…” lists. Of course, there are several for Kansas, most of them including unfortunate truisms like:

• You’ve had classes canceled for heat and snow in the same month
• You have seen people wear bib overalls to funerals and weddings

Well, this April we had both upper 80 degree temperatures, and then…snow for two days. Also, last weekend I went to a co-worker’s wedding where 14 out of the 100 guests were wearing jeans, and I had a great-uncle who wore bib overalls to every event, wedding, funeral, and in-between, so I can state with certainty that those two are not too far off.

Anyway, when I was making my way to the church (through the gravel parking lot) at my co-worker’s wedding, I thought of one that was equally appropriate:

• If you’re female, you’ve mastered the art of walking on gravel in heels.

Yup, I’m definitely from Kansas.

No, everything isn’t miscellaneous metacrap.

My title is a mash-up (look at me, using trendy tech terms!) of works by Cory Doctorow (author of “Metacrap“) and David Weinberger, (author of “Everything is Miscellaneous“) respectively. 

I mashed them up because Weinberger is doing a series of interviews, co-sponsored by Wired News and the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society (of which Weinberger is a Research Fellow), and the first interview (which is also available as a podcast), features Doctorow and is pretty thought-provoking.

I confess, I haven’t read “Everything is Miscellaneous” yet, but, as soon as I get done with “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web,” I am on it.

 I confess, I’m still having some difficulty with Doctorow’s uses of the phrases “explicit metadata” and “implicit metadata.” Additionally, I’ve noticed, after seeing it brought up in “Information Architecture” that proponents of folksonomies as the new classification panacea tend to utilize the same two examples (Flickr and del.icio.us) over and over, and this article is no exception.

 However, there is one example that I can think of off the top of my head that marries folksonomies to the structured taxonomies prevalent in the library world: PennTags. Turns out, Weinberger has blogged about this too, and I share his view that:

Integrating tagging with the book catalogue (and therefore with the book taxonomy) instantaneously provides the best of both worlds: Structured browsing leads you to nodes with jumping off points into the connections made by others who are putting those nodes into various contexts, and tags lead you back into the structured world organized by experts in structure.

Is this a case of being able to have our librarian-cake (bibliographic control) and eating it too (letting the users tag at will)?

Something else to ponder. Great, like I needed one more thing.