I’m settling nicely into Atlanta, and enjoying all the exciting work in my new job as the Web Services Librarian at GSU.  We’re hard at work on a new website, so keep your eyes open for the groovy new features we’ll be rolling out in the next few weeks.

In the mean time, here are some speaking gigs I’ve got lined up for this month:

• Wednesday Webinars – The Social Library (Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 10:00am).  This is a free webinar series offered by the Georgia Public Library Service, so feel free to sign up.  I’ll be talking about some of the latest trends in social computing and how you can leverage those trends in libraries.
• Atlanta Emerging Librarians – Say What You Mean: Professional Communication Skills for Librarians (Saturday, July 24th, 2010, 3:00-5:00pm, Dunwoody Library, Dunwoody, GA). I’ll be doing an overview of interpersonal communication skills as they apply to librarians, including: basic communication skills, direct vs. indirect communication, conflict management, and professional relationship maintenance.

I’m really looking forward to doing both presentations, and to taking part in the post-talk dialogue with librarians (always my favorite part!).  So sign up, show up, and let’s have a conversation!

I’ll still be sad to leave Valdosta, though, since this is my home town & Odum Library is where I “grew up” as a librarian (if I can even call myself a grownup!).

The future looks both adventurous and challenging for libraries, and I’m eagerly anticipating the next chapter in our story together! Wish me luck!!!

The life-changing experience.

I gave a bunch of money to Haiti back in January, and I’ve been sort of quiet since then.  If I could have raised money and awareness for Partners in Health while staying out of the spotlight, I would have, but hey–folks like a “personal interest” story, and I figured any discomfort I felt in front of cameras was nothing compared to what the earthquake victims were suffering.  I may be good at giving a presentation in front of a crowd, but being blind-sided by “thank you”s in restrooms and restaurants makes me feel weird.  But I overcame the squidgy feelings to encourage folks to keep spreading the word about PIH and the people of Haiti, no matter where I was.  Because that’s what you do when the message is important.

As soon as I announced the fundraiser, the immediate reaction from friends and family, beside disbelief, was worry.  “Wait, wait, wait.  That wasn’t *all* your savings, was it?” Or even worse (but adorable), when the earthquake happened in Chile, my niece Tori expressed her worry to her mom, afraid that I’d give away *all* of my money and have nothing left.  After my sister reassured her that other nice people would help take care of the folks in Chile, Tori felt better.  But sure enough, right after singing me her adorable rendition of Happy Birthday over the phone, she quickly asked, “DO YOU HAVE ANY MONEY LEFT, UNCLE CLIFF?”

Yes, sweetheart, I still have money.  I also now have hope, faith, and joy at the generosity of my fellow human beings.

The nagging question…

After it was all over, and things quieted back down for me (if not for the people in Haiti), I thought about the experience I had.  I figured out why people were so concerned when I told them my plan.  I realized that the money I donated represented something to people.  For those that worried for me, my money represented Security.  What happened to my Security?  Years of toil and hard work, gone to someone else.  That’s money that I can’t use to buy a car, a house, or a TV.  It’s money that I can’t spend on emergency medical bills, funeral expenses, or bail.  If things get bad, I don’t have that money to fall back on.

I have plenty of security.  People are my security.  My body and brain won’t last forever, but the love of my friends and family will.  So if I get in an accident, get sick, or any number of other things, I know that I’ll be well taken care of, no matter what happens.  Can I say that same thing for the people of Haiti?  No.  They have nothing.  And when I mean they have nothing, I’m not saying “they don’t have TV and drive-through burgers,” I mean, they have nothing.  I’ve seen pictures of children with nothing but the clothes on their backs.  Parents gone.  Family sick or dead.  In desperate need of food, shelter, and medicine.  That, my friends, is a lack of Security.

So yeah, I don’t regret my donation one bit.  Since I live rather cheaply and save most of my paycheck, I should be able to put all $10,000 back in the bank in a little over two years.  Two years for me, but a lifetime to families who would have died otherwise.

The take-home message:

We should all think about our security in the larger picture.

In the news and in friends’ lives, I’ve seen bank after bank, company after company fail due to corruption.  I’ve seen folks’ money–built up over years of hard labor–evaporate overnight.  I may have all the savings and retirement plans and tax-sheltered this-and-thats that I can get, but I still don’t put my trust in them, or in the system.  I put my trust and energy into loving and serving the people around me.  I know that they would sooner die than forsake my trust; I can’t say that about my bank.

We looked back on 2009, looked forward to 2010, and looked *way* forward to the future of technology and how it’s going to impact libraries.  There was, of course, lots of talk about training, instruction, classes, and the perils of the audience’s eye-roll.

Having never listened to audio interviews of myself before, I discovered that I apparently really enjoy the word “really”.  I hope you enjoy the podcast.  Really.

But what do I do now, as an adult?  I read books.  I subscribe to blogs.  I watch vidcasts.  I immerse myself in a world of information that’s waiting at my fingertips, all about drawing.  You know what I’m doing when I’m absorbing (or ignoring) all that information?  I’m not drawing.  Merlin Mann has had a few choice words about the perils of drowning yourself in information, and I’ve fallen prey to all of them.

The one that has plagued me the most of late is this fear that I’m just not an artist.  Period.  But I have to turn right around and tell that fear to shove it, because I am an artist…

You are an artist

I create.  You create.  We all do.  What makes us uniquely human is our ability to create.

But there are lots of people out there who are more than happy to tell me that I’m not an artist.  That what I do isn’t art; that what I produce isn’t good enough to be considered art; that even if it is art and is good, that it isn’t the kind of art that I should be doing.  And at the very top of that list of critics is me.

Every artist is plagued by “not”.  Not good enough, not the right kind, not enough of it.

But I know that I’m an organizer.  That’s one of my skills, and for me, it’s an art.  Granted, I can become a bit obsessive about it on occasion, but for the most part organizing things makes me feel relaxed and happy.  And at the end of an organizational project, I can look at all the neat lines, clearly labeled boxes, and wide empty space free of clutter and pat myself on the back at a job well done.  It makes me feel good.

Where’s my Olympic medal?  Where’s my gold star?  My Pulitzer?  My Nobel?

They’re not there, and that’s just fine.  I’m not doing it for awards, I’m doing it because I love my craft.  I can spend a few hours on Wikipedia tagging articles with the appropriate metadata, resting assured that in my tiny little way, I’ve helped increase the level of organization in the world.  I can also lend my skill to others, and watch as a folks adopt my organizational methods for themselves because they see how easy it can be.

Whatever it may be, your art is worth celebrating

So I’m an artist.  And so are you.  And together we can tell Fear exactly where he can shove it, because we rock at our art.  It may be research, or cataloging, or project management, or reshelving books, or being a mom, or listening, or telling jokes, or bookbinding, or laughing, or standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves.  There are trillions of arts out there, and I want you to celebrate yours.  And keep on creating your art.

• GIL-Find — An installation of the VuFind social catalog interface.  It’s currently being tested at several institutions across the state, and ours is one of them!  The students love it, and it’s way more functional than our Voyager catalog (relevance ranking and persistent links!  w00t!).
• Vtext — A DSpace digital repository for VSU.  It’s stable and running, now the fun part:  marketing to faculty!
• I built Odum Library Search applications for Facebook and MySpace as part of a forthcoming writing project.  I’ll talk more about it when it comes out.
• Pagan Archives Network — I’m working with several Pagan Studies scholars to develop a web-based finding aid for primary and secondary resources.  It’s still in development, but a few Pagan librarians have already started to volunteer their time to develop taxonomies and work on finding/inputting collections!
• SaveTheMantas.org — Volunteering as a researcher, pulling together research and photos for their site.  Give them a tax-deductible donation!
• And last, but not least, I just did a re-design of clifflandis.net using the Go Green template.  I hope you enjoy!

Thanks to Jer for taking some of those photos!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Nobody likes feeling like a noob, especially when you’re getting constant pressure on all sides to never stick out in an unflattering way. And, in this godforsaken just-add-Wikipedia era of make-believe insight and instant expertise, it’s natural to start believing you must never suck at anything or admit to knowing less than everything — even when you’re just starting out. Clarinets should never squawk, sketch lines should never be visible, and dictionaries are just big, dumb books of words for cheaters and fancy people. Right?

I think finding your own comfort with the process (whatever that process ends up being) might just be the whole game here — being willing to put in your time, learn the craft, and never lose the courageousness to be caught in the middle of making something you care about, even when it might be shit and you might look like an idiot fumbling to make it. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

When I speak, I try to emphasize the joy of failure.  The recognition that when you’re learning something new, that you’re not going to do it perfectly the first time. When I’m learning a new skill, craft, or language, I have to be patient with myself, and constantly reassure that part of myself that (to this day!) tells me that “I’m doing it wrong and I should just quit.”  I have to be patient with myself.

As librarians, we’re always changing and trying new things to adapt to our world and our users (and if you’re not, you should probably change careers).  So we can’t expect to be perfect the first time.  So as you create your library’s new Alternate Reality Game, write that article on SMS in libraries, or figure out a way to de-suck your library’s catalog, remember that you won’t get it right the first time.  But that’s no reason to quit trying.  The only way to rock is to pratice.

We get angry when we see someone violating values that we hold dear.

I value things like hard work, consideration, kindness, a clean and simple space, honesty, responsibility, and self-discipline.  When I see people violating these values, I get angry.  It took examining my anger over a long period of time to come to this realization.

In fact, I have used my anger as a trigger point to help me be aware of what I truly value in life.  When I see someone being inconsiderate of a friend’s feelings, I get angry at them.  When I see myself slipping on my responsiblities, I get angry with myself.  When I see libraries offer bad service to users because we’re lazy, it makes me furious.  But that’s because consideration, responsiblity and hard work are my values.

Sometimes it is inappropriate for me to force my values on someone else (I won’t tell someone else to clean their house before I visit, for example).  Sometimes values conflict with each other and must be carefully balanced (sometimes you can’t deliver both fast and in-depth service to a Reference Services user!).  Sometimes you have to discuss your values with friends/family/coworkers to iron out anger and conflict.  Sometimes you have to recognize that your values are yours, and then you can let small, trivial anger go.

Look at what makes you angry.  What are your values?  What are your institution’s values?  How can you use your anger as a driving force for growth?