In a team meeting today, we realized we need to start talking summer projects. I am so not ready for that. It seems like just yesterday we had our Christmas tree up... but no, it's nearly May. 

Work

• Just one more session in our Faculty Webinar Series. I sent the first reminder for said session this morning.
• A colleague and I are doing a syllabus review project. We want to compare course syllabi to our collections. We also want to determine where the library can support assignments and teaching. We just spent some time downloading about 600 syllabi from our Community College courses. Today, I drafted a document listing some questions to consider and what we should track. Now I think we move on to the next step - data entry. This is going to take awhile.
• I drafted a final report for our intern's work this week. I just need to add in his final hours and then it can go off to his practicum supervisor.
• Our website revamp forges ahead. We finalized our proposed site map and I drafted a basic wireframe graphic of the homepage. Now we discuss next steps and probably create an unpublished version to play around with.
• LOEX is in mid-May. Two colleagues and I are in the midst of drafting our presentation, slides, and conference proceedings.

PERSONAL

• I am making slow but steady progress in linking the titles in my Reading List page. I had hoped to finish it by the end of this month, but I doubt I'll make it. I still have 10 years of books to cover.
• This week, I broke out the step ladder to dust our ceiling fans and hanging light fixtures. I try to do this twice a year. Somehow, only one of the fans was really dusty. The others were oddly fine.
• I spent one evening this week doing my monthly "photo management." I download pictures of my phone and our kiddo's daycare app. Then I make sure they get renamed, filed, and backed up. I also share select images to the grandparents album. 

It's hard to focus on projects when we have the first set of fully vaccinated grandparents in bound. My in laws show up tomorrow and I simply cannot wait to see how our kiddo reacts to them being here in person and not on a computer screen. I fully expect to cry tears of joy.

Here are all the things I'm trying to focus on at the moment. 

WORK

• We just submitted our narrative for why we want to hire who we want to hire. This was a tough decision that required a lot of discussion and meetings. It was great that we had multiple candidates to choose from, but it was basically impossible to come to a consensus because each candidate had different strengths and experiences. Here's hoping I don't have to do this again for a long time. 
• I spent far longer than I probably should have developing my content outline and wire frame for my draft version of how I want our website to look. Categorizing and naming information is hard. 
• We held the penultimate session in our Faculty Webinar Series this week. Just one more to go! This was a new initiative for us and I am pleased with how it turned out. We are going to assess the feedback this summer to inform how we move forward.
• I submitted a proposal to speak at the Internet Librarian Conference in October. If it's selected, I get to visit southern California in October.
• While I was able to attend the Computers in Libraries Conference "in person" there were many sessions I did not get to attend live. I am viewing the recordings of the interesting sessions I missed.
• In May, two of my colleagues and I are presenting on our work regarding the ACRL Framework at LOEX. We're developing our presentation and proceedings material.

PERSONAL

• Still adding links to my reading list. It's hilarious seeing the covers of all the old romance novels I read a decade ago. 
• I'm making final edits on the April newsletter for my condo's Green Committee.
• I've hit week 3 of my 5K training program. So far so good. The lungs are hanging in there just fine but, occasionally, my legs feel tired at the end. I do need to buy new sneakers. My current ones definitely have too many miles on them.
• Filed my taxes!

Today is my first day back at work this week (use your vacation time!) which is why this post is late and the intro is short.

Priorities!
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Here is where my attention is going at the moment.

WORK

• We wrapped up the interviews for the librarian position last week. Now we get the difficult decision of selecting our preferred and back up candidates. This is going to be hard. All the candidates could work, but they could all work in VERY different ways. 
• Since I took two days off, my inbox overfloweth with email. I spent much of today doing triage with a lot of follow-up to go. 
• I got wrapped up in redesigning a flyer for our University's upcoming Research Week. It's one of those projects I really enjoy so I just get sucked into it. I was nearly late leaving to pick up our daughter from daycare on afternoon because I was lost in getting some of the finer details looking just right.
• It's National Library Week and I had a lot of fun taking pictures for our social media. This year's theme is "Welcome to the Library." Since we're not really open, I took that theme a different route and made it more "welcome the library wherever you are." I got shots of the logo in various, non-library places to show that your library goes with you.

PERSONAL

• I spent Monday super cleaning our entire home. I'm talking the nooks and crannies kind of scrubbing. Our place now shines but man are my hands dried out. I should just leave them in a bucket of moisturizer.
• As much as I love spring, the change in weather does mean a change in nature. We've had a small incursion of tiny black ants in to our kitchen. We think they're climbing up the brick wall and coming in through a minute crack between the floor and moulding. Our building's exterminator is dropping by later this week to deal with this, but I have been killing lots of ants and washing our floors and counters more often.
• During the ant killing, I discovered a few mouse droppings under the stove. Our building was built in the early 1900s so this is to be expected. We moved the stove to see how bad it was. The problem was worse than we wanted, but not like an infestation - particularly considering that this is the only place we've seen droppings. BUT I discovered that when they patched the hole behind our oven some time ago (because of a gas inspection thing - that's its own story) they left a nice gap where said mice are clearly coming in. On a lunch break, I ran to the hardware store for steel wool and filled the heck outta that gap. I also, scrubbed the floor under the stove because ew. 
• In very happy news, I did some vaccine hunting and was able to schedule my arm jabs. First shot is on Friday!
• In spring, I rejoice at the blooming flowers. Flowers are one of my favorite small joys. Every time I go outside right now, I am on the hunt for beautiful blooms to share on my Instagram.

As I type this, the heavens have opened up outside. The rain is pouring down in sheets turning the alley behind our building into a rather fast moving stream. I did not know it was supposed to rain today. Glad I got my lunch walk in before this happened. 
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Aside from being distracted by the rain, here's where my attention is going at the moment.

WORK

• This week, we're conducting interviews for an open position at our library. It's a lot of Zoom. A lot. This is my second round of doing interviews remotely and, I gotta say, I don't like it. It's just weird trying to hire a colleague when we're not in the same space. The candidates are doing great, but I wish we got to see each other in person.
• I attended and presented at the Computers in Libraries conference last week. Since all the session were recorded I am slowly making my way through the archives to check out the ones I could not attend live.
• We held another session in our Faculty Webinar Series this week. Just two more to go! I'm already making plans with my colleagues to bring back this series in the fall. We're going to spend time this summer assessing this semester's events and thinking up what we want the next events to look like.
• One of our interns is working on LibGuides for our community college programs. I've been handling my end of the review and edits. This week, I was able to hit publish on three more guides.
• The monthly staff newsletter I write goes out tomorrow. I spent today drafting up content and tracking down appropriate GIFs.
• Last week, I cohosted a webinar with DCPL introducing our students to what the public library offers them. We recorded it so I'm using that in our post-event marketing.

PERSONAL

• My newsletter launched this past weekend. I am doing some marketing and sharing of the first issue to grow my audience a little bit. I don't expect this to be one of those viral newsletters, but I am proud of it and want to share it widely. 
• April kicks off tomorrow. (How?!?) I'm drawing up the new slate of monthly pages in my bullet journal. I will also spend time reviewing how I think March went.
• I'm in week 2 of my 5K training program. Still don't like running but there is one upside - I run back from daycare drop-off which means I get home earlier than I used to. Not much earlier but still earlier. I'm hoping I can get most of the training program done before the DC summer kicks into gear. Also, I think I need new shoes. Mine are over a year old and not as cushy as they once were.

One weird thing about working from home is that you can see what the others in your life get up to while they are also home. This week, my husband took two days off. (Use those vacation days everyone!) As I worked, I noticed him tackle a rather long list of those annoying "life maintenance" things we all have in our heads. I'm fairly certain he walked 10,000 steps just doing things around the house. 

Here's where my attention is going at the moment.

WORK

• I'm "attending" the virtual Computers and Libraries Connect Conference this week. It's a lot of Zoom. A lot. But it's good Zoom.
• I am also presenting at the above conference tomorrow. Earlier this week, I finalized my slides and posted them to the conference platform. I'm still deciding if my use of hot pink was "fun and attention grabbing" or "annoying and unprofessional." We shall... but I like it. Also, my session is after lunch on the last day. We might all need some visual caffeine.
• On top of the conference, I'm still running our Faculty Webinar Series. This week, I ran a session on Social Explorer. It's a pretty spectacular resource and had a bunch of faculty in attendance.

PERSONAL

• One thing I am not focusing on is my March Madness bracket. That thing went bust on day one. 
• I decided to turn my Sunday blog post series into a newsletter. Cause, why not? The first post goes out this week. (Sign up here.) I spent a lot of time this week working on settings, format, graphics, and generally organizing content and ideas for the future. I don't see this thing taking off like a lot of other newsletters, but I want to be proud of what I send out. (Also, it's a lot of fun seeing people sign up.)
• This week, I started following a training app to run a 5K. I hate running. Hate it. But, I also hate sitting around. So, my one fitness goal for the year is to run a 5K distance without stopping. So far the workouts are manageable. We'll see how I feel in a few weeks.

It may be spring break at our University, but I'm still working. This is a nice interlude of time to focus on things unrelated to library instruction and public outreach. Also, the library never closes. We know that some faculty and students continue to work when there are no classes. We are here to support them however we can.

Here are the major projects currently holding my attention. (Trying a touch of a new format this week.)

WORK

• It's tenure portfolio time. While our deadline did get pushed back a week, I am working as if it did not. Putting the portfolio together isn't that hard, it's just time consuming.  According to my time tracking (shout out to Toggl), I am approaching six hours on this. That might not sound like much, but I would rather be working on other things. I need to write a narrative of everything I completed during the review period and format it according to my job description and faculty requirements. I then have to pull attachments that prove I did what I said. Then everything gets uploaded to a digital portfolio program. Again, not hard - just tedious.
• I'm still running our faculty webinar series. The initial rush is over and now I'm just in the groove of sending emails, running the session, and doing the follow-up logistics. I'm pretty darn pleased with how this has turned out so far. If you're interested in seeing the sessions, recordings are on our YouTube.
• We are hiring a new librarian. That has meant reviewing a bunch of applications and deciding on who we wanted to interview for that pool. Up next, interviews!

PERSONAL

• I finally finished typing up all the titles for the Reading List for this site. Next up, linking everything. That is going to take awhile.
  
• I'm putting together the March issue of our condo's Green Committee newsletter. This time, I am focusing on laundry.
• It was a one day project, my our kid's wardrobe has been upgraded to the next size. I timed this project with the monthly donation pick up our building offers. It's a nice way to keep all the "things" under control.

Finally, does avoiding doing my taxes count as a project? It should. Those are taking up a lot of mental real estate in my head. I should just do them and get it over with.

Spring Break may be next week. I wish I could say that means I'm getting an easier week, but I'll be focusing on all the projects I want to wrap up this month.

• We're nearing the halfway mark on our Faculty Webinar Series. It's going quite well! You can watch the recordings from the finished sessions here. I've had several faculty follow-up with me after each session to either ask more about the resource or just about library/research-related things in general.
• I've started to dive into all the research I gathered for the customer service initiative. I definitely found more articles than I will use, but I think I will need to find a few more pieces to fill-in some gaps. The difference between my work now and my previous research is that the reading is happening entirely on a screen. Normally, I print out articles and physically highlight them. But, since I'm working from home, I really don't want to do that - so, I am using the highlighting function built in to my Adobe reader. It's taking some getting used to, but it's working.
• I'm working on a few conference proposals. One is for our consortium event and the other is for a webinar. 
• We have an intern working with us (remotely) this semester. He's developing LibGuides for our community college programs. I'm giving his guides edits and final review before publishing them. This is going to be so much help for out students in those programs.
• I am still working on the Reading List page for this blog. I hope to have everything typed up and a good chunk of the linking done this month.

I am utter disbelief that Spring Break is just around the corner. How did that happen? At least I can spend that week working on my tenure portfolio for this year.

• We have now held three sessions in our Faculty Webinar Series and things are going really well. (You can watch the previous sessions here.) There are nine more sessions left in the series. I will continue to promote these sessions while also dealing with the logistics of confirming vendors, handling and sharing records, and sending out Certificates of Attendance.
• I'm still doing research on customer service as it relates to higher ed. Not gonna lie, I am trudging through this one. I would much rather be writing, but I know I need to include this material in a literature review section of the proposal.
• I've made a decent amount of progress putting together the reading list for this blog. I'm almost done with the list itself... then the time consuming part comes - adding links to everything.
• As a personal project, I am working on some journaling related to intuitive eating. I pulled the prompts from Pandora Paloma's book Intuitive Living. Doing this has been eye-opening and a little unsettling. 
• I am on the hunt for a new sofa console table. I want wood (preferably walnut toned) with two drawers and at least one shelf. Ideally, I want this beauty but at a much more affordable price. Sadly, everything I find that looks like this table is too short for what I need. 
• Fun side project - I am catching as many Pokémon as I can for PokémonGo Tour Kanto event. A few Pokémon I need are eluding me. Where are you Venonat?

Spring semester is lighter on the library instruction sessions. That gives me more time to work on other projects. Here are the things I am focusing on right now.

• We held the first session in our Faculty Webinar Series last week and it went great! (Interested? Watch the recording here.) Session two is tomorrow. After this week, the sessions will be vendor led. I am hopeful that the rest of this series goes well and we can start offering more webinars more regularly. This is one upside of all the work from home.
• My major project for the semester is writing up a University customer service initiative. This is a self-imposed project with a self-imposed deadline, but I think it is necessary and useful for our institution. Right now, I am in the reading, listening, and outlining stage. I hope to have the research for the literature review done in the next few weeks. I am the type to spend the bulk of my time on research, reading, and outlining thereby making the actual writing a breeze. If you've got any insights into customer service in higher education, I would be happy to hear from you.
• I'll be speaking at Computers in Libraries in March. I'm starting to outline and develop content for my presentation on productivity and remote leadership.
• I am a member of our condo's Green Committee. This week, I drafted our first newsletter to share with all residents and owners. It focuses on ways to save water while washing dishes. Pro Tip: Be lazy. Use the dishwasher. Dishwashers use FAR less water than hand washing.
• One part of my old blog that I miss is the loooooong reading list of every book I've read. I am in the process of recreating that list for my website. Eventually, I will have a page listing every book I read and each title will link out to Bookshop.org (or the publisher) in case you are interested in the title yourself.