Our kiddo is back at school today, the weather is warm but beautiful, and it is truly an admin Friday. This is a great way to end the week.

Here's what else made me smile:

• Getting closer to having 700 newsletter subscribers
• Tried a new recipe
• AirPods making online meeting attendance easier
• Set up my new phone
• Attended a great family event at the National Cathedral
• Carousel rides
• Kiddo lost her shoe while walking and said, "Mom, I lost my shoe like Cinderella."
• Salty sweet snack foods
• Reliving happy memories when looking at old pictures

Majesty: American Royals II
Katharine McGee

This is the second book in the American Royals series. The overall premise is - what if George Washington became king instead of president. Now, we’re following his modern day ancestors. It’s a soapy YA delight. Our lead is Queen of America and has to deal with all the usual YA romance tropes. I find it interesting that the author seems to have etch-a-sketched the romance pairings from the first novel. I don't yet know if that is permanent or simply a dramatic choice to get things moving.

I paused my reading of Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds by Greg Milner because I was not in the mood for non-fiction. I have a feeling I will be reading this a chapter at a time between other books.

For work, I wrapped up reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. This should be essential reading for everyone. The mix of history and memoir helps highlight the points Kendi wants to make. 

*Books shared here are affiliate links for Bookshop.org
Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds

I am very late to writing this post today because we were dealing with a sick kiddo. What was an in office day full of meetings quickly became a work from home day. I listened in on as many meetings as I could, but that's difficult when kiddo needs attention. 

When not dealing with a sick kiddo, this is what I've been working on:

1. Faculty Research Assignment Design: WE FINISHED CODING! Before I got the call that kiddo needed to be picked up, my colleagues and I wrapped up the last of our coding. We did our finally passes, reviewed the coded excerpts, and made sure everything we wanted to look at this round was done. Huzzah! We've got two presentations about our work coming up so that's we're focusing on next. Then we start on the analysis. 
2. Summer Prep (kinda): This week is the sweet spot between the fall semester and summer session. It was supposed to be four days where I could do all my prep for summer projects. Unfortunately, our University decided to hold all their presidential candidate interviews this week. So, all my summer prep is being squeezed in-between these WebEx events and, now, my sick kiddo. I'm making some headway but this may bleed into next week. 
3. Platform Reduction: One of my personal projects for this year is reducing the number of online platforms I use for life management. While I can't extricate myself from all of them, I'm finding ways to consolidate. I've decided that I want to use Trello only for my work stuff. Now, I'm migrating all my personal and professional stuff over to Evernote. I'm also going to migrate what I can from Google Drive to Evernote. Basically, I'm trying to make Evernote my homebase with only some items living on other platforms.

When I was reconstituting my blog  after a year of maternity leave, a friend asked me, "Would you keep writing if no one was reading?"
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She is one of my sounding boards and I bounce a lot of ideas off of her. This comment came out of me asking about the focus of my blog. And my answer was an immediate "Yes."

Even if the only people reading were her, my husband, and my mom, I would still feel called to write. 

I read a lot about influencer culture. I find it interesting. I have no desire to be one myself. (The Indicator recently did a whole series on how it's a hard gig.) I have no desire to track followers or engagement rates. I don't want to deal with companies or sponsored deals.

But, I do like sharing.

I love engaging with all the amazing things people create and find. I don't like keeping those interesting things to myself. ​I share because curiosity is a joy.  

Many weeks, I end this intro with a question. More often than not, I don't get a response. That's okay. I keep asking because I want to provide space for sharing what we find interesting.

What do you think is worth sharing?

I'm in the office today covering a colleague's reference desk shift. Fridays are generally quiet. Fridays during finals week... I expect a single printing question. If I get any more interactions than that, I will be surprised. I like quiet desk shifts because it means I can knock out some admin backlog work. My Zotero is a disaster. Maybe I'll make a dent in cleaning it up.

Here's what else was good this week:

• Realizing we watch more foreign films because of our streaming services
• Listening to some great podcasts while doing chores
• Kiddo was very good about whispering and tip-toeing while her dad caught up on some sleep
• Bubble makers
• Quick weeknight dinners
• Skipping daycare pickup to have some alone time
• Cooler than normal weather
• Kiddo let me put her hair into pigtails for picture day
• Having fun with Game of Frogs for work

For every cancelled meeting I had this week, another meeting ran WAY long. It's like fate wanted to ensure that I didn't have any extra time on my hands. On the other hand, it's finals week so the reference desk has been light on questions. I did have to unjam a copier for 20 minutes but, in terms of "thinky" questions, we're pretty much done for the semester.

Here's what I've been working on:

1. Research Assignment Design: We are so close to finishing coding. I mean, maybe two weeks away. I am so ready to be done. My colleague said we've been working on coding for over a year. (I whimpered hearing that.) We've got so many ideas floating around. It's time to see if the analysis bears out our intuited findings.
2. End of Semester/Summer Planning: Still working on this. Later this afternoon, I am going to work on my 2023 summer projects list. I throw one together every year and it really helps me prioritize for those few months when my teaching and reference loads are lighter.
   
3. Website Strategic Planning: I got around to giving this website a strategic review. I wrote down what I liked and didn't like, what I want to change, and ideas for making maintenance a little easier. This is home base and I want it to work better.
   

One of my work projects this week was putting together the logistics for our summer webinars. This is the first summer I've opted to do webinars and I'm oddly excited. Since our on-campus students and faculty numbers are lower, I'm focusing on broader topics to see if I can attract outside interest. 

One of the sessions, personal archiving, grew out of a class workshop I provided at the end of this semester. The professor was teaching a course on global archives and she wanted her students to understand the role of archival work in their personal lives. As a former preservation librarian with inherited knowledge of archival practices (thanks, dad!) who happens to have just worked on her own personal archive, I was eager to provide this session. The class went great and the students asked wonderful questions. I'm going to use that input to improve the presentation. (People need to know about transcribing handwriting!)

I'm thrilled to provide this as a broader webinar because I don't think people consider their photographs, diaries, cookbooks, memorabilia, and online presence as an archive. But it is! We are the archivists of our own personal and family history. Before "stuff" can make it in to an institutional museum or archive, it has to be collected and saved by someone. Even if a person never "makes it big," these personal collections are important.

I'm using this session to share what it means to curate a personal archive. I'm including best practices - physical and digital - as well as ideas of what to save and how to save it. Plus, I'm digging into extra information like what to do with your archive once you have it. To provide an example of what this work looks like, I'm sharing photos and insights from my own personal archival journey.

I have never been so enthusiastic about a webinar before. I think, given our student and community population, I may turn this into a standing thing I offer a few times each year. 

Do you have a personal archive?

It's been raining all day. This weather is one reason why the husband returned home from business trip at 2:30 a.m. instead of midnight via Dulles instead of DCA. As annoying as a delayed return is, I'm just glad he's home. Kiddo has been asking "Where's dad?" all week and is eager to give him a hug.

Here's what made me happy this week:

• Posted our summer webinars 
• Getting to be creative with my content for Finals Week
• Having a Yuengling for the first time in ages
• Kiddo was happy during my week of solo parenting
• Breakfast sausage links
• Got around to a project I've been meaning to do for about a year
• Dust Dragons
• My new fancy facial product
• Learning I was nominated for a faculty award
• Cheesy regency romance movies
• Nabbed a spot in our parking lot
• Kiddo told me to apologize to a door when I accidentally bumped into it

Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds
Greg Milner

I picked this one up because nothing else looked good at home. (I really should make library requests faster.) I'm only a handful of pages in, but the story of GPS is already interesting. I had no idea that it was a completely free, U.S. government-run system. While I'm not really in the mood to read non-fiction right now, this is an okay stop gap until the book I requested from the library comes in.

Earlier this week, I finished reading The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour. It's the most recent graphic novel from the McElroys. As with the others, it was entertaining with great art.

*Items featured here are Bookshop.org affiliate links.

My folder of webinar recordings is out of control. Normally, I try to save them for Friday afternoons but, this week, I've taken to popping them on when I'm working on less "thinky" projects. Gotta make a dent somehow.

Here's what else I'm working on:

1. Research Assignment Design: Still coding and reviewing coded excerpts. Usually, it feels like this stuff is unnecessary extra work... until we find a code we missed or an excerpt that we coded incorrectly. Then it feels like victory.
2. End of Semester/Summer Planning: Finals are next week. In order to catch faculty and students before they leave, I'm doing a blast of "Hey! Before you go!" marketing. To do that successfully, I've also done a bit of summer planning. I wrangled the logistics of our summer webinars (which is a new thing for us) and got those posted. I am VERY excited about the personal archiving one I'm adapting from the workshop I gave last week.
3. Finals Week Social Media: Every finals week, I do a binge of posts that are, essentially, cheerleading and study breaks. I outlined my content and made a list of graphics and photos I need to take. I'll tackle that creative stuff tomorrow. Then it's scheduling and community engagement once everything posts. As a fun thing for reading day on Monday, I'm using a #GameOfFrogs I yoinked and taking it on a trip to the library.