It is that time of the year in which “we Americans” take a moment to be thankful. As much as it might not seem it from much of my posting lately, I have much to be thankful for. And it would’ve been on my mind Thanksgiving or no. The timing is just perfect for the posting of explicit public acknowledgments.
First and foremost, I have many people to thank for making me feel cared for. I was hoping to return from ASIS&T energized and ready to tackle the rest of the semester, and the future. Instead, I returned and lost about a week of school and lots of money, and a few more visits to dental types thanks to an infected dead nerve. Hopes of some sort of (educational) recovery were shattered.
Maybe it has all been for the best. I needed some focus and while this was far from efficient, it may have worked, or at the least sent me lurching forward for the moment. Only time will tell. Back to the thanking….
Many friends have made contact with me in various ways—empathizing, sympathizing, offering unsolicited (but always) welcome advice, saying “Hi,” asking me how I am, and generally just letting me know that they care about me. The message has been coming through in person, by IM, email and blog comments; at home and away.
People that I have the utmost respect and care for deeply have said the most amazingly kind things to me. People who I only know from the bibliobs (heehee, sorry, just realized that we could shorten “biblioblogosphere” to “bibliobs.” Has a nice ring to it, although some might find it “objectionable” or “offensive.” I guess it isn’t exactly positive in its connotations, but it’s almost as good as having a BS in Philosophy. Or the BS part of the LC schedule ….) Anyway, even friends I know only from the interweb or have just met have checked in with me. I love and thank you all.
I am extremely grateful to Associate Dean Linda Smith for making my trip to ASIS&T affordable. I look forward to being engaged with this organization. I met quite a few new friends, a couple of whom I am sure will be lifelong friends. I got to tag Michael Buckland. How many LIS students (or anyone else) can say they tagged Michael Buckland with an “antelope” tag? Linda Smith is an incredible person; I sincerely hope that she can feel much of the love and respect the students (and others) have for her.
So many others in the whole GSLIS team have earned my utmost appreciation and love—Boyd Rayward, Pauline Atherton Cochrane, Carole Palmer, Kathryn LaBarre, Allen Renear, Dave Dubin, Linda Smith, much of the staff, too many others too numerous to mention. These folks have spent many hours nurturing me in numerous ways.
My new ASIS&T friends: Nicole, Edward, Athena, Unmil, Heather, Clay, Emma, others. It is such a pleasure to get to know and be involved with such a brilliant, engaged group of librarians. washtub and jennimi. What can I say?
Jeremy and Sara: my children are continual inspirations for which I am so grateful. They have taught me so many lessons in life, and still do.
Iris Jastram - Pegasus Librarian : Iris and I have recently become friends via the web. As an added bonus to having her care about how I’m doing, I have become (lovingly) envious of her writing on her blog. I was recently clearing out some “kept alive” posts in Bloglines (putting some in del.icio.us, which is just moving the larger problem) and I was going through a bunch of Iris’ posts. Re-reading many of her posts in succession I quickly came to explicitly realize that she writes well, passionately and balanced about topics I care about. She writes things I wish I was writing. Must be why I’ve been reading her since I first stumbled over her blog. I want to write like that (again)(more). I am thankful for Iris as a friend and writer.
I must be forgetting some important people—those who helped me move and allowed me to help them move earlier in the year, the LEEP program and all my LEEP pals. I may make a sorry LEEP student myself, but I love working with them. My friends at Milner Library. So many others.
Em.
As one of my favorites muses says:
and i owe my life
to the people that i love.
Ani DiFranco. in or out. imperfectly.
6 responses so far ↓
1 jenny // Nov 24, 2006 at 10:11 am
thanks back at ya, mark.
also, in the unsolicited advice category re: blog saving, might i suggest furl instead? that way if the blog gets restructured or taken down you still have a copy of a post?
2 Mark // Nov 24, 2006 at 10:47 am
good point. haven’t yet played with furl. i have a hard time using these various tools until i discern a personal “need,” as you well know, so i often don’t well know the differences between tools that do the “same thing.”
i did install Zotero on the PowerBook when FF 2.0 went live. i don’t use it much yet. what i *really, really* want is some way to get basic metadata (as much as possible, but prefer: authors, title, journal, vol., issue, dates, …) out of all the pdfs on my drive and into Zotero.
i imagine some of the pdfs may actually be able to give up some of that info, but many are so crude as to give little or nothing. i also have often put some info in the Spotlight comments field: url, date saved or printed, for some class. if that could be pulled out as notes, too.
i’d become an evangelist for Zotero if someone could help me do this, and have it turn out well–much accurate and relevant metadata captured. i’d also like to know how to get good mappings of my Endnote and RefWorks files into Zotero. and what about if i install it on my PC? can they be synchronized?
I can’t remember if you are a Safari girl, or maybe Camino, or if you’re running Firefox 2. Have you tried Zotero yet?
i need a personal tech tutor. i have no doubt that i could be using some of my tools better, or using a better tool. i suspect many of us are like this (on occasion or with some topics).
3 jenny // Nov 24, 2006 at 3:06 pm
yeah i feel the same way, and maybe that is why i am so anti-del.icio.us–i used furl first! but i also find the utility of having a saved copy on someone else’s server that isn’t pdf useful.
4 Iris // Dec 2, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Aw shucks, what a wonderful thing to say, Mark. You can’t see it, but I’m blushing now.
And I’m so grateful to have you as an efriend. It’s funny how comforting it is to see your “online” status blink on in my IM list, right next to two or three of my other librarian efriends. Suddenly it seems like I have friendly next-door neighbors, even when I’m several states away.
And you have NOTHING to be ashamed of in the writing department. Why do you think I’ve been reading you for so many months? You write honestly, passionately, and well.
5 Mark // Dec 2, 2006 at 11:37 pm
Sorry, Iris, didn’t mean to make you blush.
But deservedly so.
And thank you for the kind words. I do ok sometimes; just like many of us. I do think/believe all of the things I wrote, but my point was more that I wish I was writing that way about those sorts of things.
I have a few hardcore friends who hang around no matter what I babble about–but once upon a time I wrote a lot more serious stuff AND a lot more library-related stuff. I’d *really* like to get back to something resembling that.
I’m reading some really interesting stuff, but I don’t have the time to analyze and write about it. Oh well.
There is something odd about that whole presence thing. I’ve noticed that I’m starting to get a fair few people in my IM buddies, but few are ever online at the same time.
We got pirates and frogs where I’ve worked for the last couple years–and it doesn’t get much cooler than pirates and frogs (LEEP)–and we’ve got lots of amazing people, but we’ve got absolutely no superheros!
6 Em // Dec 7, 2006 at 12:31 pm
Hi, Mark,
I’m slow to catch up with everyone, but I miss you and think of you often! And appreciate your including me in your thanks, as you’re in mine, just not publicly!
always, Em