Well.

This is from a week or so ago. Nice view on my walk to work.

So it’s been a while. Almost – but not quite! – a year. It’s been a year of both personal and professional busyness, including the birth of my first child (mid-2014) and the promotion of my dept head to Interim Directorship following the death of the library director who had been out on medical leave (late 2013). It has, to some extent, been a year of figuring out my place both in my library and in the larger world around me. Now I am a mom and also, as the only specifically Reference and Research Services librarian (though I am ably assisted in instruction by the Web Services librarian, and in reference by all librarians), the de facto head of this department. Makes for some crazy days. Spring semesters are emerging as those in which to get projects accomplished, because Falls are just too busy. However, I won’t be out on maternity leave next summer and so can probably get some stuff done then too.

Things that have happened:

• Presented at VALE, January 2014, on Flipped Classrooms with colleagues
• Taught a bunch of classes and workshops, to varying degrees of success
• Had a paper published in Library Review (In transition: academic e-book reading in an institution without e-books
  Irene Lopatovska, Aimee Slater, Caitlin Bronner, Houda El Mimouni, Leanora Lange, and Victoria Ludas Orlofsky

  Library Review 2014 63:4/5, 261-275)

Today I worked with a writing/comp class for first-years, part of a series of sections of this class with which we regularly teach library sessions, and did some brainstorming at the end (not typical; usually it’s the first thing we talk about). The groups were all at the very beginning of their research process, and the members of one group were interested in “technology and science,” “the legalization of marijuana,” “world hunger,” and the fourth was undecided. I suggested GMOs, as that addressed technology in the development of food, world hunger, and could be compared to marijuana, as one is technically legal and the other is not, and whether GMOs could be seen as an example of the legalization process or would marijuana be better for the country if legal than GMOs are, that sort of thing. They dug it! A nice little moment.

Yeah I did!

This week, I started my new position at Stevens Institute of Technology in SC Williams Library as the Instruction and Scholarly Communication Librarian. The short holiday week has been a great time to start settling in. I’m getting used to the new commute, new building, and new resources, and look forward to the exciting school year to come!

Happy Independence Day to us all!