I went to Midwinter

So, it's been almost a month since I came back from Midwinter. I never got around to blogging about it, but I did summarize my experience for the next issue of NMRT Footnotes.

But, something I've noticed: I had so many exciting conversations and ideas come up at Midwinter, and met with great people, and made plans... and nothing has happened.

Maybe I'm still recovering. The trip wore me out (I'm pregnant and I was sick during part of it). But I have yet to act on any of the great ideas I had. I'm finding myself bringing them up and then talking myself out of them. "That would never fly here." or "They wouldn't go for that." or "That's too much work."

Do you ever experience something like that after a conference? How do you keep the excitement going when you get home?

The Weeding Has Begun

Today I actually started to touch books during my music weeding project. I'm entering each item into an Excel Spreadsheet, in which I'm recording the following information:

- Call Number
- Barcode
- Title
- Copy Number
- Condition (I have a guideline for this, see below)
- Any notes

So far, it's a bit tedious, but I'm kind of enjoying it. I realize that's a little strange.

My guidelines for condition are the following:

1= Excellent. Almost like new. Pretty
2= Good. (Most books are falling into this category)
3= Needs small repair (some staples fell out, for example
4= Needs substantial repair (falling apart)
5= Too damaged to be used- withdraw

So, I started with the Ms and it's a slow process. But, I am looking forward to seeing how much I can accomplish during the next week or so, when things are slow due to the holiday break.

And that's the update for today :-)

Why Weed?

As I dig into my music weeding project, I'm going to devote an entire post to me thinking out loud about WHY I'm weeding. I mean, as a librarian, and before that, a book lover and a musician, the thought of throwing ANYTHING away is a little horrifying.

I used to save EVERYTHING at home. The birthday card my grandma gave me when I was 5. Triplicates of every picture I found in my mom's stuff. Then I had kids and it got a little crazy: The daily report sheets (what they ate, how long their nap was); every single drawing they ever did.

And you know what I ended up with? A BUNCH OF CLUTTER!

There is an episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants that I absolutely love called "Sentimental Sponge." In this episode, Sponge Bob begins some spring cleaning, but then realizes he's attached to certain items. It gets so out of hand that his house is taken over with garbage and condemned. It's quite disgusting.

Get More: SpongeBob SquarePants Episodes,SpongeBob SquarePants,SpongeBob SquarePants Games

But there is a very important point:

There is a fine line between saving things and HOARDING.

Now, to apply this to weeding: In general (as in "not applying to music"), we weed to keep the collection current. To keep the collection useful. If there are too many less useful items cluttering up the collection, people have more trouble getting to the useful things. However, in music, things are a little different.

In a general collection, you might find it strange to have 10 copies of "The Great Gatsby". I would too. But, in music, you might find 10 copies of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, or 4 of Mozarts Complete Piano Sonatas. Why is this? Because they are different editions. Subtle differences, depending on the editor's choices, make each edition valuable. Now, 10 copies might be a little much, but I have often found myself in front of 3 different editions of a piece studying the choices and making my own choices as a performer.

So when weeding a music collection, I need to keep these things in mind.

Other issues that I need to consider in my situation:
- How many total volumes are there in the MLs? MTs? Ms? How many do we comfortably have room for? How many do we plan to add this year?
- What is the physical condition of the work? If it is not useable, can it be scanned? Does it need to be replaced (or can it be replaced? The edition may even be out of print.)

These are mostly just me working out my own thoughts so I'm prepared as I physically go through the collection (which I'll be starting next week). I'm actually really looking forward to handling books :-)

Music Weeding: The Fun Begins

I'm starting a new- possibly humongous- project at work: Weeding the music collection.

I have never weeded a music collection. I did some individual weeding of items at my previous position, but I've never done a systematic weeding of the entire collection. This is new. So, I've been researching and developing a plan, and I thought it would be a good idea to document it here, as I go along.

There isn't a whole lot of research about music specific weeding, but I did find one really good article:

Shelley L. Smith (2012): "Weeding Considerations for an Academic Music Collection." Music Reference Services Quarterly, 15:1, 22-33.

I've been doing some preliminary research as I prepare to actually discard items (I'm a long way from that), and I'm focusing on the following questions:

1. What is the purpose of weeding? Why should we do it? What do we hope to accomplish?
2. What will the criteria be for discarding or keeping an item?
3. What is the time frame?
4. What percentage of the entire collection should we aim to discard?

Of course, I am not 100% sure about the answers to any of these, but I'm working on formulating at least an idea of them before I move on to the physical discarding process.

I do plan to divide the music items into 3 categories: Ms, MLs, and MTs. I'll do each category completely before moving on.

I know I don't have a TON of readers, but if there's anyone out there who has experience with a weeding project, I would love to hear your thoughts!

My new job

Well, here I am in Texas at my new job. I've been here a little over a week. So far, I absolutely love it. That is not to say I don't experience any stress, but I'm finding so much about this position that challenges me (in a good way) and I can't wait to see how much I can accomplish.

In my old position, I was a Music Librarian. I did *everything* for the Music Library. Here, I am a Reference/Information Literacy Librarian (but I still get to act as the Music Liaison, so that's good). I keep having this feeling that I'm forgetting to do something, then realizing it's not my job anymore.

For example:
- I don't have to catalog ANYTHING. Goodbye, cataloging backlog!
- I don't have to set any policies.
- I don't have to buy anything. I don't have a P-card. I don't have to deal with that hassle.
- People don't come get me to ask if an item is circulating correctly


But, what I do get to do is...
- Instruction
- Reference
- Work on LibGuides
- Create tutorials

All of the things I love about being a librarian.

So, it may be a small challenge to get used to *not* doing all those other things... but I'm loving what I *am* doing. And, I'm looking forward to possibly developing more information literacy specific research ideas that come from my experience here.

To sum it up: New job=Awesome.

I have a new job!

This is very exciting. For almost 4 years I have been in a position as a Music Librarian. It has been a slightly frustrating situation, in that I work for the School of Music, and NOT the Library. One of the biggest issues I've had is that the other librarians on campus are tenure track faculty, but I am not. There was really nowhere for me to go career wise.

I'm now headed into a new job as an Information Literacy/Instruction librarian. This is exciting to me for many reasons:
1. I get to focus on my favorite part of being a librarian: Information Literacy. I'm hoping that the experiences I have and the challenges I encounter will provide me with lots of inspiration for my blog, and then that will develop into research.
2. I'll be part of a promotion and tenure process. Now there's a reason for me to do stuff.
3. I'll have an office with a door (this is a big one).

I'm thrilled with my new position and very very excited to get started. However, between now and then, I have to finish things up here and move a family of four and a cat over 1000 miles. But first, we need to figure out where we're going to live.

So, sometime around September, watch for more posts that are both topical and insightful...

How "Mad Men" is helping me write...

I'm writing an article. It's not a fancy article. I didn't have to do a lot of research, or collect data. I didn't have to do a formal literature review. I just have to write something about as formal as a blog post, based on my own experience.

But, for some reason, it's freaking me out.

I keep re-writing things. I keep starting over. I keep changing it.

Recently, my husband and I have started watching Mad Men. Obviously, I like to do things five years later than everyone else. Anyway, there was a moment that struck me. There was no inappropriate office behavior, smoking or drinking going on at the moment. It was just Don and Peggy talking. She was working on a new campaign, and he was giving her advice.

(I won't be able to do it word for word, but I'm just going to say what I remember.)

"Peggy, think about it. Hard. Then forget about it. The answer will come to you."

Now, I know Don Draper is hardly a Dalai Lama type figure of wisdom, but when he said that, it was like a lightbulb EXPLODED in my head.

In the past, some of my best writing has happened after a I took a break.

I imagine holding on to something with a death grip, my hands cramping, and still not getting any closer to it... but then I let go, and it suddenly comes back.

Anyway, that may not make any sense, but I'm going to let go of my death grip. I'm going to step away for a couple of days. Hopefully, the idea will hit me while I'm focused on something else. I'm going to be ready.