I’ve read a couple of interesting posts on the state of the blogosphere:

Blogosphere 2.0

Blogging is Dead (Again)

I’ve posted previously on the state of my own blog. I’ve noticed over the last few months that many of my blogging friends have significantly reduced their posting, so I know I’m not alone. Most are using facebook and twitter for short updates, so I’m still able to follow them, which is wonderful!

Some of the professional blogs (i.e., work-related ones) I follow don’t appear to post quite as frequently. I still find those extremely valuable for keeping me posted on library and information science news and higher education news.

So… things change, eh?

Immortal? Probably not…

I’ve had a little time today to get to some blog reading that has been sitting in my feed reader forever. I stumbled across a recent post on Copyblogger that I’ve been thinking about a while:  It’s Time to Shoot Your Blog.

Okay. I’m not going to kill it, but I do imagine I won’t be posting any more frequently than you’ve seen over the last year. If I travel to exotic(?) places, you may see me attempt to entertain you. I’ll still use the blog for the annual Christmas recitation of ‘look what we’ve been up to’.  As significant life events occur – Jenny graduates from K-State (May 2009); Jeff turns 21 (today!); Joel goes to Africa (in August); Char changes jobs (??); Char goes on sabbatical (Jan-May 2010!); Char’s latest Star Wars story appears on starwars.com – you may see them noted here. Don’t hold your breath.

We’ve been busy. (I know, I know… another excuse for not posting.)

Check out some of the things going on at K-State Libraries. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to fill in some of the blanks soon!

You can follow construction updates on our Twitter feed!

And see some video, too!

The Kept Up Academic Librarian points to an article in Business Week about the new Kindle that Amazon and e-textbook publishers hope will hook students and faculty alike.  As a parent who, in one semester, forked over $745 for textbooks for one student,  e-versions that are cheaper would be quite appealing! But — having to use a proprietary device — having a student carry around another piece of equipment (hmm.. cell phone, laptop & now a Kindle) — is really ridiculous.  E-textbook publishers need to place their materials on the web. I do understand that a purchased, downloaded version from the web might not have features that would be built into the Kindle but surely at the rate technology progresses that would be resolved in a day or two!

For those with subscriptions to the Chronicle of Higher Education, there are a number of articles about the new Kindle.

There’s still time to register for a NASIG preconference!  There has always been one or two that I would love to attend but my board responsibilities have kept me from those sessions. Maybe next year…

This year, we are offering the ever-popular SCCTP Electronic Serials Cataloging workshop, Basics of E-Resource Licensing, and Navigating Your Way through the E-Journals Rapids.  Check them out: http://www.nasig.org/2009_conference_preconferences.cfm and sign up now!!

One of our NASIG colleagues is looking for a partner-in-crime, er, I mean a canoeing partner. She’s suggesting a canoeing trip down the French Broad River the afternoon the conference ends! Doesn’t that sound like fun? NASIG conference attendees – check the annual conference discussion forum on our website!!

Pam writes:

Check this link for details:  http://www.paddlewithus.com/7milerivertrip.html

It’s a 7 mile trip and takes approximately 3 hours. The last trip departs at 2 p.m., and you must arrive 30 min. early. This sounds like just enough time to get over there after the conference wrap-up.

It is incredible to think that NASIG’s annual conference is only about 6 weeks away. We’ll  be in Asheville, North Carolina – a beautiful location for a conference – and our conference venue is right downtown near great restaurants and shopping!  I love that part of the country, and actually grew up about an hour away in South Carolina. We had many family trips up to Asheville and the surrounding mountains when I was a kid. I am looking forward to spending a few days there again.

NASIG is offering some great programming this year as it always does! Serialists and e-resources folks – librarians, publishers, vendors – THIS is the conference you should attend! We’ll have everything from the ‘hands-on’ to the philsophical with sessions covering acquisitions, cataloging, collections, e-resource management, publishing & scholarly communication, and standards. There are networking opportunities galore – both formal and informal – as we gather for meals together as well as for a variety of discussion groups.

Hope to see you there!

“Promotion and tenure reviews are not, as it were, just the compulsory portion of a figure skating competition. They are free style as well. Demonstrating that you have complied with basic expectations in each category will not, in and of itself, impress the judges.  Somewhere in your faculty’s work there must be a few triple axels, a salchow now and then.”

from “Joyful Chairing: Finding Joy in your Faculty” in The Department Chair, v. 19:4 , p.2

Has it really been 2 weeks since I returned from England? Wow… time flies! I’d written some friends earlier this week that I finally felt human about Wednesday this week.  Oh the joys of jetlag!

Work hasn’t been too onerous these last 2 weeks. (I shouldn’t say that, should I? I think my boss reads this blog every now & then. Perhaps she’ll miss this post!)

Our Continuations Analysis Group (CAG) completed the majority of its work. I did miss a couple of those meetings, which finalized reports for our Collections Council (CC). To catch up on those summaries I attended the Council meeting where all the usage data  our CAG compiled was presented and explained. Now the CC gets the hard job of identifying how we’ll make the looming cuts to the FY10 budget. We are still awaiting the final word on the total cuts we’ll need to make. Recent chat indicates that it will be worse than expected but maybe (we hope) not as bad the worst-case scenario we are planning for. Oh the pain…

I’ve only had one license to review but did have a little time to add retrospective data into Verde. Mary’s crew is working diligently to add acquisitions workflows for our databases so we can test renewal alerting. We are anxious to see if it works as expected.

I worked with NASIG’s N&E co-chairs to get the “publicity” set to launch a discussion on the NASIG forums about the elections process. The discussion is off to a rousing start, which includes many of us trying to figure out exactly how the forums work. It’s not the most intuitive system, which doesn’t help a system that is not a “push” technology.  There’s a related thread on the forums about how they might be improved.

The NASIG Regional Unconference planning committee continues to wrap up loose ends from that event. We finally have summaries posted for all but the wrap-up session over on the wiki. I’ve submitted an article for the May issue of the NASIG Newsletter though we are still awaiting results of the evaluations we asked attendees to complete.

Other things I’ve been working on:

• updated the KLA TSRT website
• had lunch with a geography professor who is moving to Nottingham, UK, about my upcoming sabbatical. She had some wonderful advice about doing research in the UK, housing, traveling, etc. As I’ve mentioned before — January can’t come soon enough
• attended the Zimbra update so I understand what is happening to campus email migration activities
• continued reorganization discussions with the Leadership Council
• provided departmental updates (with much input from my dept. managers) to the associate dean for the Strategic Plan
• posted a couple of summaries from UKSG on the conference reports blog – still have several more to write up and I bet my notes will make even less sense now!
• met with my dept. managers about the impact on our workflows with the impending 2nd floor redesign
• met with my mentee
• commiserated with the NASIG registrar about the time she’s had to put in on conference registration
• as always (well, for the next 6 weeks or so) responded to NASIG board emails

So… what are YOU doing?

Congrats to son Jeff and the cheer squad from Trinity Valley Community College who placed 2nd at the NCA Collegiate Cheer competition in Daytona Beach on Friday! Jeff’s big brother Joel managed to drive over from the Orlando area with HD camera in hand and shot the squad’s finals routine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkfkYGPmGA.

You can spot Jeff around the 7 second mark doing a tumbling pass to the left of the “line” from the back to the front of the stage. He also has a very cool pass around the 1:19 mark from lower right to upper left and a synchronized pass  shortly after that. Oh, it’s all cool. Go watch & enjoy!  They did great!