Hey all,
First i want to apologize for the blog being pretty much dead since IL2006. Obviously upon getting back to work I had to focus on getting caught up there, and also on various other personal projects that had fallen by the wayside (most notably my responsibilities as Secretary of the Board of Directors for a startup nonprofit I've become involved with). And just as I was getting caught up and ready to share the gazillion nifty posts I had tagged in my bloglines...my father-in-law's health (not good for some time) took a turn for the worst and I spent a week in OKC with my Husband effectively offline while we stayed at the hospital and then helped his mom make the arrangements. (no, we did not take my laptop because the thing is huge, and something felt really weird about trying to stay logged in from the ICU waiting room, wifi or no). This week is actually the first one I've actually worked 40 full hours since before Internet Librarian, and my next action list shows it. Basically I've been in triage mode all week, and like it or not, my blog has been near the bottom of the priority list.
In a odd way, this has been a good experience (the being behind part, not the death in the family part), because I have a tendency to overcommit myself and work myself to exhaustion in my sundry work, personal, and other commitments. I'm driven enough that I CAN pick pretty much any project that tickles my fancy and push it through to success, even if it means being stretched. But being forcibly removed from my shiny monitors and to-do lists helped me come back with a better understanding of what is truly a priority at work and personally, and I find myself re-evaluating many of my projects now that I'm back. Do I have to be a top Liblogger(whatever that means)? Do I really NEED over 150 feeds in my bloglines? Can't I train one of our sharp student workers to handle some more of my repetitive tasks, even though they might not do it "my way"? And, just because i have enough slack in my schedule that I could take on another project...should I?
Well, that's stuff to ponder, and I will talk more about the approaches I've used to dig out of the pile and figure out my important projects going further. And tomorrow if I have time, I'll discuss an interesting article about the online information literacy skills of college students--let's just say we all may be assuming a bit more savvy than they really have.
