Been Busy, But Back to Blogging!

It has greatly pained me to be away from you, my dear blog readers! Since Saturday I was at the CALL conference in Ottawa, connecting with lots of people. Unfortunately I didn't have very good web access. My macbook wouldn't connect to the ethernet connection in my room, and I was loathe to spend an hour on the phone with the hotel's tech support trying to get it to work. Most of the conference session rooms I was in did not have wireless (one room I was in had it intermittently).

I did, however, manage to connect with lots of readers. I am delighted so many of you introduced yourselves to me! That was as much of a thrill for me as it was for you since rarely do I find out who is reading these little ambling thoughts that I post. It is very rewarding to know that you are reading along and enjoy what I have to say. Thanks so much for all of your kind words!

Before CALL 2007 I was running around trying to get work under control, still catching up from Computers in Libraries conference, and I also attended one or two neat social events in the city and met lots of people there, too.

Tomorrow I am heading to the OALT/ABO conference. I am giving an introduction on knowledge management called "Bringing Sexy Back: how knowledge management makes work sexier". I hope it will be a light but meaningful look at KM and our role, as library staff, in KM. If you will be there, please do say hello! I would love to meet you and hear about your projects.

I hope to have a little down time soon to post on all of this. I did find it frustrating to not be able to post here during CALL since it is always more efficient just to post "live" while I am at a talk.

While I was away, the National, the magazine of the Canadian Bar Association, published my little article on legal research (on page 9). Thanks to the editors for inviting my contribution! My colleagues at Slaw also gave a write-up which was a nice ego boost when I saw it after a long day of travel.

Cheers,
Connie

Can You See the Wind Rushing Through My Hair?

In my usual style, I am over-committed and should be committed! Too many things on the go, doing my best to do them all somewhat brilliantly.

I just finished penning an article on trends in legal research training for the National, the Canadian Bar Association magazine. Whew! It is overdue and they have been very very patient with me, so it is good to have that finished.

We have also been working on NE2007, the planning of which has been heating up to a frantic pace. I had been anticipating it being this busy in June/July, not already in February/March. Meetings and email messages galore, and a growing concern that we are not getting enough information out to people in a timely fashion. That is being addressed this week. We are going to put out some "hard" details for people by next week and I have started up a blog for us so we can start talking about what it really is we have been doing. Have a sneak preview at http://librarieswithoutborders.wordpress.com.

Work has been a flurry of large projects including research outside the office, and the redrafting of our business continuance plan for the whole office. This time we are taking into account a pandemic scenario since that was not on the radar back in--what?--1999 when we last put some elbow grease into this thing.

In my spare time I have been thinking about and talking about podcasting and video podcasting, figuring out what I want to do. I definitely want to do something.

Oh yeah, and I have been taking a fabulous survey course through the PLC on Web Site Management and Implementation. My group project is to create a website for a real legal aid clinic. I have enjoyed being the liaison between the clinic and the rest of the team. I have also been working on the project report we have to submit, giving the team feedback on the site we have been creating, and being all-round cheerleader. Heh.

And I still have to create a personal site for myself in the next week. We have been creating one as we have gone along in class, but mine managed to somehow go awry and I have to start over. I am envisioning something that will incorporate my blog, a CV which I can update as I complete my growing list of professional activities, and a schedule so people can see what I am doing next. It would also be nice to have a place to post documents, such as presentations I have given, and maybe links to my various web presences. Tall order, but would be very useful!

Oh, yeah, and my next LLRX.com column has to be on the radar too. The plan is to write it on networking. Not the computer kind, but the people kind. It is something I am always coming back to somehow in the column, but haven't addressed it specifically as a topic. I met a bunch of super-networkers at Podcamp and learned a thing or two about networking, so am itching to share it.

So, enough about me. What have YOU been up to?