Klingons do not procrastinate. It is a tactical delay.
--Lt Commander Worf

It's January 31st. A full month into the year. A bit late, in other words, to be posting about New Year's resolutions, or plans, or whatever you prefer to call them. Yet there is a benefit to the delay in that I can report on progress so far.

What I did post to Twitter and FB on January 1 was this: #in2010 I will run a half-marathon, read 40 bks, & stick to a budget. Also: knit a lot, librate a lot, entertain cats a lot, etc.

The second half was a silly statement of the obvious. As for the first three:

I will run a half-marathon...
Running is the area in which I have been slacking the most, given my motivation to run in the dark is almost zero and my usual path spends most of the winter unevenly snowed over. However, I have joined a gym and engaged in a few sessions of that strange activity known as cross-training. Once it gets lighter out, I'll get back into the swing of things. Last year I ran my first 10k in October after beginning running seriously for the first time (successfully) in August. (I have a long pent up future post about how much I used to hate running and how shocking it is that I've come to love it.)

Given how unlikely I once thought it even this time last year that I would ever run more than about 3 miles at a time, I'm confident that I'll meet this goal. The real challenge may be selecting the course. I have been thinking about the Valley of Fire half, since I enjoyed visiting that state park last year, but I am beginning to come to my senses about the hilliness of the course and will probably choose one flatter and closer to home.

Read 40 books...
I may need to increase this one, as I finished my eighth book of the year today (with only one of these having been started in 2009). Granted, two of them were short (Michael Pollan's Food Rules is more a pamphlet in book form), but it's great to have some momentum going. Part of it stems from digging right into the pile of free and nearly free books I picked up at ALA Midwinter. Quite a lot of the books over the next couple months will be for the history of Boston course I'm taking, but I'm hoping to slip in some purely fun reads as well.

Stick to a budget...

This is another one where I have fallen off the wagon, and need to get back on. The only major debt is my library school loan, puny by some standards, but I'd like to start saving more than I am. The only way I've ever been successful at that is keeping track of spending, so I'm planning to spend some time researching budget software for Macs.

As for knitting, entertaining the cats, and generally being a librarian stereotype...
..those are all falling into place with no trouble. Imagine that.

Three years ago this month, I went to my first day of work as a law librarian, then headed the next day to my first AALL.

I've always appreciated that my anniversary in the profession coincides with the annual meeting; it's a nice chance to reflect on my career so far. Not going to navel gaze here, but suffice to say I am satisfied, and looking forward to many more years of gentle law librating.

There are a few things, however, that stand out.

Before I became a librarian, I had an absolute dread of networking. The thought of it made my skin crawl. So I was surprised to find that it wasn't actually so bad when law librarians were involved. In fact, I didn't really mind it at all, and it's only gotten better from there. I think it helped a lot that the CONELL committee does such a great job of helping newbies get started.

The other thing that helped early on was walking into my first (the first, in fact) meeting of the Gen X / Gen Y Caucus. It feels incredibly corny to say, but it was a thrill to walk into a room with about a hundred people my age who were just as excited to be law librarians as I was. (I suspect part of the excitement was that I didn't really know anyone in library school let alone anyone younger who was also interested in law librarianship.) The first thing we did was re-arrange all the chairs in the room into an enormous circle. It was great. That was a highlight, but my whole first annual meeting made me feel like I'd found my people.

Fast forward three years to my fourth annual meeting. I got to work the CS-SIS booth at CONELL's exhibit hall this time. It was worth getting up for the early flight. I met a lot of the cool new people and began to feel more like an old conference pro. Someone handed me a slip with the URL to sign up for the mentoring program, and I think suggested I do so as a mentor. I guess I'm really not a newbie anymore.

Meanwhile, I've been on the Gen X / Gen Y social planning committee for three years, and this year's event was mind-blowing. We made a reservation for 20; I counted at least 53 people at one point. Yeah. It's just one indication of the group's success. We're taking all necessary steps toward becoming an SIS. Our members represent on SIS and chapter boards, and on national committees; and present multiple times at conferences. They're also behind creative new things like the first annual Lawberry Camp. (Got ideas for next year? Help with the proposal.) I have a lot of loyalties within the association, but ask me which group I'm most proud of, and it's the Caucus.

In addition all that, I've made some really amazing friends in the profession, especially over the past year or so. People I like to think I'd be friends with if we met outside of the law library sphere. I've found not only my people, but my pack.

Two other mentionable-but-not-really-related highlights:

• This year's opening even in the halls of the Library of Congress was phenomenal. The mild thunder and lightning storm added a little locked-in-the-library magic to the evening. As I commented elsewhere, it's a shame the place isn't more portable, because it sure beats convention halls and hotel ballrooms.
• CS-SIS karaoke outing. Last year when I went for the first time, there were fewer than a dozen people and it was fun, but low key. This year? I'm not sure what happened (nor which year was more unusual), but there were over 70 people. And since Connie Crosby has video anyway, I'm just going to say it: looking out into a room full of law librarians and realizing that everyone else was also belting "Don't Stop Believin'" is something I'll never forget. Though perhaps I should. :)

And with this post, I hope to get blogging here a little more often. I've been waiting till I get around to switching to WordPress, then Tom Boone and Jason Eiseman convinced me at CALIcon that I too can handle Drupal--but I'm unlikely to make any kind of platform switch until I get a new computer this fall.

Is this thing on?

So, by a few days, I lost the chance to have a great April Fool's day joke at the expense of common perceptions of my new employer. Instead of admitting that I had simply been uninspired/lazy about blogging or consumed by Twitter, one of my new associate directors suggested a few months ago that I could claim Harvard made me shut down my blogging. Heh. But not too likely, really.

I should have just joined my friend Skullsnbats in declaring that I'm officially blogging without obligation.

That said, the blog has not been completely abandoned. I'm hoping to get my notes from two recent conferences up tonight, and from there, we'll see.

So, hello again!

Ihasahotdog, the canine companion of icanhascheezburger, says it helps them notice submissions "wen u put em on ur blog." So without further ado, here is a portrait of Buster, my parents' dog, from last Independence Day:


A few things I have recently been up to (since that picture was actually captioned last year!):

1. Doing pretty well (though not quite winning) at quiz night at my favorite pub. My shame is the Back to the Future musical question. I won't say what I mistook it for.
   
2. Rescuing and knitting for a sweet local stray cat
3. Enjoying my Wii and its ability to download games from a number of Nintendo's prior consoles back to NES. It rocks. And some of the newer games are fun too, like the knit cows racing game that's part of the otherwise meh Wii Play. Who thought of that one?
   
4. Blogging at Novalawcity. And needing to blog more at Out of the Jungle.
5. Twittering
   
6. Preparing for AALL. I'll be speaking at sessions G-2, I-2, and K-4, mostly about various aspects of Second Life and some about newsletters and blogs. I'm STILL not sure how my schedule got so crazy.
   
7. Starting tonight I'll be speed knitting a few items for the AALL Stitchers' group. Once again, we'll be holding a silent auction, this year to benefit the Friends of the Portland Public Library. Last year we raised almost $1000 for the Friends of the New Orleans Public Library.
8. Idly pondering the future of this blog, since it appears to be turning into a periodic kind of thing.
   

Wired magazine, in an unreadable, messy yarn pile of a chart, posits that 1993--year of the first World Trade Center attack, the Apple Newton's launch, the debut of Star Trek:Deep Space 9, the famous "on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog" cartoon, and establishment of HDTV standards, among other events, including my high school graduation--is the year that "invented the future" and responsible for current things like Battlestar Galactica, current U.S. foreign policy, and iPhone lust.

Though there some undeniable connections in some of those items (Newton > iPhone, Ron Moore), I am more amused than convinced.

Part of the reason this blog has been neglected for the last couple weeks is that last weekend I was off in Nevada helping my sister and brother-in-law get hitched. I knew it would go by fast, but I underestimated the power of the wedding timewarp to make a day pass in five minutes.


Here are just a few of my favorite moments from their weekend:

• Finally meeting my adorable, almost-4 step-niece, whose demand of "read to me, Meg!" within an hour of our meeting totally cemented her place in my affections. Later in the weekend, she was showing off a picture of herself going to the library, and I asked her if she knew I worked in a library. "Yep!" was her reply. I don't think she really did--"yep!" and "sure!" were frequent answers from her--but it cracked me up.
• Nothing to do with the wedding, but getting another chance on Guitar Hero was fun. Suffice to say, it went much better this time. I got to rock out with "Anarchy in the UK" before I left, and I'm just starting to get out of withdrawal.
  
• After the rehearsal dinner, we took Beth for a nightcap/her last single drinks out at The Artisan, a neat off-the-strip, non-casino hotel, which was decorated with bookshelves, candles, and fine art reproductions scattered across walls and ceiling. Really great atmosphere.
• The ceremony went by in a beautiful blur. My only regret is that I didn't have more time to just sit and enjoy the Baroque music ensemble as they played before the ceremony.
  
• Beth and Dad's "surprise" father-daughter dance. Somewhat inspired by this one, but Beth couldn't get Bryan to participate in such an exhibition. Instead, she and Dad started off slow dancing to "It's a Wonderful World" then segued into "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" from the Blues Brothers soundtrack--complete with sunglasses and lipsyncing the announcement. They rocked. As it started, Bryan was pre-occupied with trying to find something. I grabbed his arm and told him to pay attention a bunch of times. He must have thought I was crazy, but his expression when the surprise happened was fun to witness.
• Being able to officially call Bryan bro, which I've been doing unofficially for the last few months. Having a brother is still a novelty, since it was just Beth and me growing up. I'm looking forward to many occasions of ganging up on Beth to tease her about whatever. :)
  
• FINALLY turning over to them their wedding afghan, a project that took me about ten months to complete. It will be a long time before I knit anyone else an afghan, but it's awfully satisfying to have done it.

Happy one-week anniversary, Beth and Bryan! I am so proud of you both, and I know it will be the first of many, many observances.

The Social Networking Titans: Facebook and MySpace, the second installment of the column about social networking sites that I co-author with Debbie Ginsberg, has been published at LLRX:

With this article, librarians Deborah Ginsberg and Meg Kribble raise awareness about the different features provided by these services, and their respective impact on students, lawyers, public users, fellow professionals, and other patrons.

In addition, I was surprised to find our law library’s Facebook page featured on the cover and in the feature article of this month’s AALL Spectrum. The article by Jennifer Behrens is a great overview of the Pages feature on Facebook.

Now that I'm back from Austin, done with arranging and hosting the amazing Sabrina Pacifici's visit to SFALL, and done with the joint faculty-library presentation panel that I wasn't sure I'd be able to prep for with the other two things going on, I can catch up. Or at least that's my ambition.

Over the long weekend, I'm planning to post my raw notes from the SXSWi panels I attended--if I can read the chicken scratch my writing turned into on the small notepad. Yes, my notes, save for the one panel by which I'd lost my writing utensils, are analog. I confess though I popped it open from time to time, I found using the laptop too distracting. No laptop in the classroom for me, though I found that knitting through most sessions--the most extensively I have done this--definitely kept the fidgety portion of my brain occupied and helped focus my attention.

Last week I was welcomed as a contributor to Out of the Jungle, a blog that I respect and admire, and am excited and honored to join. I will likely post more coherent and discussion-inducing (I hope) thoughts from some of the panels there. My ulterior motive, of course, is to lure more law librarians to attend next year's SXSW.

Before I get into SXSW, which I do intend to record some notes about, here's a quick update on some of what I've been up to professionally and personally:

• Last week I spoke as part of a panel about Second Life experiences at SLA SARC IV in St Petersburg. Due to technical difficulties, I didn't have immediate access to the screencaps I'd brought along, and ended up speaking extemporaneously about Second Life for about 20 minutes. And I discovered I loved doing it that way, and feel like I did a much better job than I would have with the visual aids and/or a rigid outline. I've moved a little closer to the kill PowerPoint camp, though with a topic like SL, visuals are essential, and luckily I had a few minutes with them later, and the audience got to see a brief demo before my section.

• At SARC I finally got to hear Stephen Abram speak, and got inspired by him and a number of other presentations. As I told someone there, I love the law library bubble and we have a great time there, but it's nice to peek out into SLA world from time to time. SARC is a great conference--just the right size and duration not to be exhausting, and a variety of good presentations.

• And one more item from SARC: do not underestimate the power of knitting as a networking tool.
  

• Writing about social networking with Debbie Ginsberg for LLRX.com.
  

• Sabrina Pacifici will be visiting the South Florida Association of Law Libraries on March 17, and I'm excited about meeting her and seeing her present.

• My sister's wedding is coming up in a little over a month, and I'm getting excited about that. I'm even having dreams about the day going horribly wrong, though none of them have yet involved her new obsession with Guitar Hero.
  

• The wedding present is to be an afghan made from our grandmother's pattern--essentially 8 scarves sewn together. I am now halfway done with #8. This means I can start knitting other things again. First up: a pair of socks, of course.

• Did I mention I'm at SXSW? :)
  

Well, not exactly me, but one year ago today, an avatar named Anne Idler was first rezzed into Second Life, bewildered, aimless and not quite sure what she was getting into.

It's been an interesting year of experimenting, learning, building, networking, rebuilding, teaching, and more. One thing that has evolved along with my virtual skills (and avatar, see left!) is my attitude and confidence about being "that librarian who knows about Second Life," as Kathryn Greenhill put it several months ago over at Librarians Matter. Kathryn was wondering if that was how she wanted to be known in the community, and at the time (back in May), I was wondering the same thing. Alongside the worry about having too much fun, spending time away from "serious" endeavors, and how those factors could impact my professional reputation was the knowledge that this was my first year in the profession, and I was building that reputation from scratch. What if Second Life turned out to be some crazy, flash in the pan folly? What if most of the law library community thought it was silly, frivolous, and irrelevant? Would I would be forever known as "that (silly/frivolous/irrelevant/etc.) Second Life librarian"?

I needn't have worried. About six weeks after I mentioned Kathryn's post and my plans to comment further about it (only now fulfilled), I went to my second AALL annual meeting. To my surprise, I discovered that "that Second Life law librarian" had generalized into "that librarian who's great with technology." Everyone I talked with about Second Life, acquaintances both new and from the previous year, thought it was an interesting and exciting thing to be exploring. I'm sure there are some law librarians who think it is silly, frivolous, and irrelevant all at once--and many more who haven't heard about it--but there were more than enough in the former category that I'm not worried about it anymore.

While it was a reassuring conference on a personal level, it was also eye-opening at the professional level. In the law librarianship course I took in library school, I was made aware that law librarians are often slower to change and try new things than the profession at large. Subsequently having been so encouraged to explore new things in my job, I thought perhaps that was outdated or incorrect information. However, many of my peers in age and/or experience in addition to thinking Second Life was cool, expressed their envy at my getting to explore ANY new things at all, technology-related or otherwise. There may have been some away from home/conference venting going on, but I heard such thoughts from enough people that it made an impression.

Networking with Second Life librarians from all types of libraries has helped to clarify my thoughts on why it is important to play with this new technology, much as it was to tinker with HTML and websites was in the mid-90s. I'm almost done putting together built 2.0 of the NSU Law Library in Second Life, and I'm planning to show it to some of our faculty once it's ready. I'm excited about that, because I think Second Life ultimately has more interesting potential for subject-area learning--role-playing, cultural studies, integration with learning management systems for distance learning, and especially the legal issues relating to virtual worlds, among other reasons--than librarianship. But I also have a new legal research exhibit idea based on some of the ideas I've had and borrowed from others during my first two years of visiting Legal Skills and Values classes to teach online research concepts to our first-year students.

Now if only I had a Second 24 Hours each day...