It's official

I am a bad blogger.  I do not keep up with this often enough.  And I'm ok with that.

I just have a couple things to share this time around.  First is a design project I did for the library here at GVSU.  I created buttons for Open Access Week.  They were a big hit!  Here they are!

They make me smile.  I have a whole set that i pinned to a string on the shelf right above my desk.

I've also been working on some tutorials.  They are on my SlideShare account.  Here's a teaser.

You'll have to go on SlideShare to see the rest!

Hope you all are enjoying what is possible our first snowy day of the year - I've heard reports of snow, but haven't seen any myself.

Time flies

Was it really August when I last posted?  I really need to get better at this!

I'm going to try and post weekly, and I'm going to read Chris Brogan's article about how to write good blog posts to make my posts more interesting.

So, September was busy with lots of instruction sessions and the like - I only have two more this semester.  Crazy, huh?

Next week is MHSLA - Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association.  I'm excited to have a few social days.  My cube can sometimes feel like a cave - especially now that I don't have overhead lights.

Why no overhead lights, you say? Well, I was getting dizzy and getting migraines from the fluorescent lights.  I also get migraines from riding the bus.  Who knew motion sickness caused migraines?  I also have to get up before 8:30 everyday to avoid migraines.  Bye bye sleeping in. (not that 8:30 isn't sleeping in, but there will no longer be those 9:30 or 10:00 days).

My last effort to completely rid myself of chronic headaches is an eye doctor appointment next week.  I cannot wait.  While I wish I could get new frames, it'd be a waste of money, so I'm going to try to get lenses in a pair of my old frames.

Lately, I've really been missing being a musician.  I've sent e-mails to several ensembles in GR and am hoping to be able to audition for at least one in the near future.  That means I've started practicing again and so the cats look at me funny during warm-ups.  I'm hoping to regain my range fairly quickly as I'll be going to Hope College's homecoming in a couple of weeks to sing with the Chapel Choir.  I could not be happier about it!!

I've also been feeling as if maybe I missed my calling a bit.  I am not a huge fan of sitting in an office for most, if not all, of the day.  I think the only way I could do it is if I were a graphic designer.  Luckily I'm working on some awesome presentations to put on my libguide to help people be better searchers without me having to explain it every time.  Don't get me wrong - I love teaching.  It's the best part of my job.  But it'd be nice to be able to point students to an online resource for them to use when I'm asleep and they are not because they are crazy college kids.

I've also been thinking about going back to school.  Not now - I like my job fine and we are settled and I'm more than willing to stay here for a few years while we pay off loans and get some money saved up and such.  Maybe I'll start taking some classes.  I get to do that for free.  But if I do go back, I'm still thinking about historical musicology - perhaps focusing on the political nature of music.  Ties in with my paper about the sociopolitical implications of Paul Simon's album Graceland.

But I don't know.  Like I already said - I love graphic design.  Do they even let you go back for a bachelor's when you have a master's?  A B.F.A. in graphic design would be cool.  Maybe I could just be a full-time student for the rest of my life.  Although I'd get burnt out.  That last semester of grad school was a little bit torturous.

In other news, we've had some interesting family occurrences lately.  I'm not going to go into detail, but, man, am I so stinkin' blessed!  My family is AWESOME.  I have great brothers and sisters and my brother by blood continues to surprise me.  I think being a father has really changed his perspective in life a bit.  He's become quite compassionate.  And my new family as of just over a year ago is spectacular.  I love Sami - she's adorable.  And she's begun to really open up to me.  She gives the best hugs, seriously.  Dorian is cute as always and Elliott is still his cute baby self but is getting more and more personality everyday.  Parents are extremely supportive and it's great to have them around, even though having them so close was a concern when we were deciding whether or not to come to GR.

And now, I will wrap up by saying that I absolutely love Grand River Church.

Oh, and if you need a photographer, you need to check out Wellington Photography! (shameless plug)

A day in the life...

So I've officially made it through my first week of working at Grand Valley.  I thought it'd be fun if I did kind of a "day in the life" photo post.

My 10 minute walk to work through Heritage Hill.

This is where I work. My library and office are on the second floor with another section of library and the librarian for the rest of the health professions on the fourth floor.

The Frey Foundation Learning Center (a.k.a. my library)

My name is on the door!

and on my cube/divider wall that leads to my office! 

Here's my office.  Some of the shelving will get changed around soon, I hope.  I can't move it by myself - facilities has to do it.  And put my diplomas on the wall.

We have compact shelving for our print monographs.  Not as compact ast the ASRS that's in the other downtown library, but much prettier. (We only keep the most recent 10 years of print materials on site.  The rest are in the ASRS or in storage). Journals and A/V materials are on the fourth floor in standard shelving.

This is the fourth floor.  There are giant pills coming out of the wall.  Judy (the other librarian in the building) and I tried to identify them.

A view of my library from the third floor.

I really like my job, so far!  Should be great once school starts and there are more students around.

In case you haven't heard...

... I got the job at Grand Valley!  I will be the Liaison Librarian for Nursing.  Steve and I will be living and working downtown Grand Rapids.  I'm so excited!  We're moving in just under two weeks.

I've had some time to do some fun stuff, so I've got some things to show!  First off, is Steve's website.  It was a challenge to build a site for someone on the pickier side, but it was good to stretch myself and learn new things.  Check it out at wellington-photography.com.  And if you're in Michigan (especially West Michigan) and need some pictures, let us know!  We've been having a blast doing photography together.

I've also been doing some fun design work.  I wanted to get a calendar for my office, but everything 2010 is gone or is ridiculous (think puppies hiding in flower baskets).  So I designed some calendar pages for the rest of the year myself!  They've got kind of a retro feel to them - I like it!

In other news... I've been knitting a lot, too!  Tons of craftiness at the Bedford household!

The interview rush begins

So I'm waiting to hear back about my interview last week.  I have another one next Friday and then yet another the Tuesday after that.  Not that I'm complaining, but putting together presentations for these last two is getting to be difficult.  The topics are so broad that I'm struggling to decide what to discuss.  When you only have 15-20 minutes, you really have to pick and choose.

In more exciting news, my diploma got mailed today.  I got to preview it online and it is super cool looking.  See for yourself!

So now I truly am a MASTER!  Haha!

The Social Media for Public Health site is almost done and I've also been working on some bibliometric comparison between Web of Science and Scopus.  We threw in Google Scholar, too, but we're really interested in WoS and Scopus.  More work on that next week...

The fish game is turning out super cute.  I can't wait to finish it and play, although I'm not sure it'll be done by the time I leave Taubman.  While I'm really excited to start a new chapter in life, I am going to be sad to leave everyone at Taubman.  They've been fantastic.

I should stop procrastinating and get to my presentations.  Keynote, here I come!

I thought life would slow down...

... once school was over.

I was very wrong.

Steve and I have been extremely busy with work and weddings and moving.  We moved to a sublet for a few months, still in Ann Arbor.  It's not the most glamorous place, but it'll do.

Work has been fun, lately.  A lot of projects have involved graphic design, which makes for a more interesting day.  I helped create posters for the national Medical Library Association conference that was in DC this past weekend.  I also have been working on a game for a kids' fair for Kate.  I'm designing fish, which is so fun.  I started out with sketches and then moved to Illustrator.  It's incredible how much easier it is to create something in Illustrator once I've drawn it on paper!

The game is super cute.  No pictures yet (I'll have to get some from Kate) but there are a few fish I've posted on Flickr.

I've also been prepping for several on-site interviews.  I'm excited and a bit anxious about it all.  I'm not going to say too much until there's an official job offer on the table.

Steve and I also had a great time this past weekend at Ben & Jeannette's wedding.  We are so happy for them and could see the joy on their faces.  They even had contra dancing, which was an absolute blast!  My feet were a little bit sore after, but it was definitely worth it.

I'm almost done with my sweater I've been knitting for my mom and I've also been reading a lot of books.  I think I've finished four books in the last month.  I keep reading and reading and reading!  A lot of it has been YA lit, I admit, but very refreshing after two years of grad school!

That's about it for now... time to hang out with the hubby!

I'm a real librarian!

Well, it's been a while, again.  I needed to take all the time I could to finish up coursework, fill out job applications, and spend time with friends before they left town.  Now I'm still in A2, still working at Taubman Health Sciences Library, but now, I'm a real librarian!

That's right, folks, I graduated.  I now have my MSI (Master of Science in Information) with a specialization in Library and Information Services.  I got to wear a super cool hood for graduation.  Also, President Obama came and spoke at the giant commencement in the Big House.  Pretty darn cool!!  The best part of the day, however, was this:

A friend of Steve's was clever and dubbed this picture "Chewbama."  What randomness to spot Chewbacca on the street on our way home from the stadium!

Job applications are going well.  I really feel that my time at Taubman really prepared me to work in most any academic library.  I think that I have been truly blessed here.  Most students don't get the kind of opportunities we get here at Taubman.   A few of us former/current students are even working on writing a journal article.  Cool, huh?

Well, I should get to work!  Hope all of you are staying warm and dry in this cold and rainy May!

Busy Bee!

Ok, so I'm still crazy busy.  Working on my grant proposal, management case studies, and evaluation for the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum has kept me on my toes.  On top of that, we're starting our pilot of Social Media for Public Health in a couple of weeks (and I have a lot of work to do!).

So, this all seems like it should be manageable, but there have been some special circumstances the last few weeks.  First off, I've been applying for jobs.  I really wish that you didn't have to type in all of the information from your resume into the applications.  It makes a single application take so much time.  Second, I've been taking more hours on the desk at Taubman, mostly subbing for people who have been sick or on vacation.  I've also been working on a project identifying top players in the schools the Health Sciences Libraries serves.  That's been an interesting but tedious project.  Third, I've been doing a lot of outreach with Kate.  Last week Friday I went to the Great Lakes Chapter of the Society of Public Health Education in East Lansing.  I manned the table and also helped Kate and Gillian teach public health professionals how to use Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter.  It was nice to see how the project I'm working on involving social media will fulfill a need within the public health community.  I'm also going to be at the Partners in Research event at Ann Arbor District Library this week.  It's about the diagnosis and treatment of OCD, so it should be quite interesting and very related to the work I did at the FRIENDS Depression Education Resource Center (FDERC) this past summer.  While I really like academic libraries, I do think I could be ok in patient education.

I've also been trying to keep up with the news and current library information.  It doesn't hurt that I'm constantly checking my Google Reader account for new job postings.  It really gets me there reading the blogs and news that will help keep me up to date.  I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed by it all, though.  Sometimes I come back to my computer and have almost 200 unread items!  Some items, though, are not so good.  I'm still trying to figure out what blogs I like.  Librarians out there (and non-librarians, alike!), what are some good blogs that you follow?

And finally, I have succumbed full-force to the addiction of knitting.  I keep finding such cool patterns on Ravelry and I want to try them all!  My most recent creations have included the Grrrrr! washcloth from Knitty and the Springtime Bandit shawl/kerchief from Kelbourne Woolens (where I got the pattern for my Give a Hoot mittens).  Pictures soon (as soon as I block the shawl and put the face on the washcloth).

Alas, it is almost time for my second class of the day.  As I always say, I really am going to try to be better about posting!

My confession.

I am decidedly bad at blogging.  I try to frequently update, but I forget.  Maybe I'm just decidedly absent-minded...

So, Hollander's class number three, Advanced Book Repair, was fun.  We did a lot of spine repairs and I got to practice some of the repairs I learned in the Basic Book Repair class.  I actually feel like I made one of the books I worked on look almost as good as new!  I'll try to post pictures soon.  I really should have taken before and after pictures.  Oh well.

School has picked up and I'm knee deep in homework.  Luckily I only have one paper to work on next week while I'm in sunny California!  I have a few meetings with libraries out there, so here's to hoping I'll at least have the hopes of a job when we move.

On a more fun note, I've been knitting a lot more lately.  It all started when I was trying to think of ideas for my grant proposal and was searching for pictures of owls.  That landed me on the Kelbourne Woolens site and a pattern for these super cute owl mittens.

While at the store, I found some other patterns that I wanted to work on, and then I got on Ravelry, and now I have 45 projects in my queue.  There goes my free time!  I'll be either bookbinding, boxmaking, or knitting/crocheting!

I've written about half of my grant proposal for my grantwriting class.  I completely made up the program and it's something that might actually get off the ground somewhere in the future if I decide it's something I want to do.  It's for an after-school arts program and coffee shop that would function as a gallery and a continual funding source for the program.

I've also been trying to get into the professional literature more, but it's so hard with the amount of work I have to do for classes.  I have a few feeds on my Google Reader, but they don't necessarily always capture my interest.  Any suggestions out there for good blogs/feeds to read?

the Twitter version of books

As if we weren't already attention span deprived enough, FT Press is coming out with butchered versions of already published books, what the New York Times is calling "snack size," for e-readers.  My husband, Steve, calls them the Twitter version.

Can we really truly experience books in one to two thousand words?  I think not.  What we get is a sorry excuse for literature, be it fiction or non-fiction.  While the titles I've seen so far are on the business/self-help side (and goodness knows those tend to be verbose, anyway), if the current titles succeed, I can't imagine what will come next.  They might as well attempt to take over Cliffs Notes.

Read the whole article at the NYT.

As for myself, I'm very tempted to curl up with a novel and some hot cocoa on this cold, snowy day.  Maybe after a bit of homework...

Books and Boxes

So here they are!  I know you've all been waiting to see my handiwork.

Coptic binding

 

Secret Belgian Binding

 

Buttonhole Binding

Box with flanged lid

Box with hinged lid

Clamshell box with Flat Back book

Tear repair with Japanese Paper

Tear repair with only rice paste

Corner repair with Japanese Paper

Box Making, New Glasses, and Work, Work, Work!

The class last weekend at Hollander's was fantastic.  I made three boxes: clamshell, hinged, and flanged.  I'm hoping to take pictures today and post them.  I also got the instructions of how to make a flat-backed bound book to put in the clamshell box that I've been working on the past few weeks.  It's not perfect, but I'd say it's a pretty good attempt for a first try!  Next weekend I'll be at an advanced book repair class and then nothing again until February.  I would take more classes, but they are a bit pricey.  I'll just have to make a bunch of books and boxes in the mean time!


I also got new glasses.  They aren't that different in either look or prescription, but they're different enough for it to be fun!  No one noticed they were new, though, so that was a bit sad.


Other than that, nothing's really new.  I've been working, working, working.  Between classes and my two jobs, I'm fairly busy!  I got to help out with an outreach event regarding stroke in women at the Ann Arbor District Library this past week.  It was fun to do that kind of library work - I rarely get to interact with patrons anymore.  As a bonus, I picked up two books to read.  I'm usually rather picky about the books I choose, but this time I kind of randomly grabbed a couple off of the new book shelf:  Broken: A Novel by Daniel Clay and La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith.

On the class side of things, my team met with our contact at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum this past week, which was great.  If you've never been to the museum, you should go.  It's too much fun.  They have this set of stairs that plays a major scale as you walk up and down.  Like I said, too fun!

I've been working on a case study for my management class involving strategic and operational planning and I've kept chugging along on my grant.  Oh, the life of a student!

If you're not busy on Feb. 19th, you should come to East Hall Auditorium at 7pm for the SI Revue!  I'm singing, accompanied by the wonderful Richard Newman, a friend of mine from Hope College, and I'm accompanying Colleen Theisen and Elizabeth Everson.  Dr. Chuck is going to be the emcee.  Should be a fantastic night!

So busy!

Oh wow... it's been a couple weeks!  Definitely time for an update!

I've been very busy with school and work.  I'm really enjoying my jobs this semester.  I'm continuing on at the Health Sciences Libraries as a reference librarian, assistant instructor, and random project doer.  It's much nicer this semester because we're back at Taubman Medical Library with the rest of the HSL staff.

I'm also working with one of the librarians at HSL on a subcontract from the National Library of Medicine Greater Midwest Region.  It's a social network/instructional website focusing on teaching public health professionals how to use social media within the context of public health.  I'm the graphic designer, web designer (we'll be using Ning to create the network).  I'm also working on a lot of the content for the learning modules.  I'm very excited about it!  We've settled on a logo (although Ning just redesigned theirs and it's similar... sad day when I saw that...) and a color scheme already, which is great!!

As far as classes go, they're busy, too.  Today starts the fourth week of classes, but only the second time I've been to my Monday classes, so everything in those classes is starting off with a bang.  I'm working with the Ann Arbor Hands on Museum with a group evaluating their Action For Earth program.  The people that are our contacts are both SI grads, so we're a pretty lucky team -- they know what we need to get our project done.

I'm also going to be writing a grant this semester.  I decided to get out of library land and write a grant for an extracurricular arts education program.  Back to my music ed roots!  I'm just starting out on my research, but it's coming along!

Also, I got a small job from a friend here at SI doing web design.  It was just a basic e-portfolio site, but it was a snap to put together.   I was really impressed with how well I was able to fit the site to the needs and desires of the "client" and how quickly I was able to complete it.

I also took a book repair class this weekend at Hollander's.  I cannot tell you how much fun it was!  I repaired some broken hinges on bindings, broken or chewed corners of cloth-covered books, and various kinds of page tears -- even a missing corner of a page!  This coming weekend will be a second class at Hollander's - box making.  It'll be great for things that you don't want to repair, but want to store securely in an acid-free environment.

That's it for now... I'll try to update after the class this weekend!

A New Semester!

I was absent from blog world over break, enjoying my vacation and seeing family.  I also learned a lot and read a few books.  All in all, a good break, but, as always, too short.

Books I read:
I'm kind of on a Madeline L'Engle kick.  Reread all of the Wrinkle in Time series last semester with the exception of An Acceptable Time, which I reread over break.  I also read L'Engle's first novel, The Small Rain.  This was the first time I had read anything other than the Chronos/Kairos/Austen series and it was quite enjoyable.  A bit slow-moving, but You really get involved in the main character's life.  Evidently A Live Coal in the Sea features the same character, but much older.  It's definitely on my list.

I also read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.  A very good read, if you ask me.  Inspiring.  I need to read it again, but slower this time (it only took me three sittings, most of which were only an hour or two long).

Things I learned:
I had great ambitions of learning php over break, but that didn't happen.  It's still on the list, but I got a stomach bug while with family, so I spent most of my time just laying down and watching tv/movies or sleeping.

Instead, I learned how to make books!  Wendy of Windy Weather Bindery in Grand Rapids came and taught a class at my mom's condo for my mother and I and a few other ladies my mom knows.  We did the coptic binding.  I enjoyed it so much that I've been a bookmaking fiend since returning to Ann Arbor.  I went to Hollander's to pick up binder's board, PVA, methyl cellulose, beeswax... I already had some supplies from the class.  Since then, I've attempted two other bindings -- the "secret" belgian binding and the buttonhole binding (completely glueless!!).  I'm also signed up to take a few bookbinding and book repair classes at Hollander's.  I'm hoping to take photos of all of my books soon.

Speaking of photos, I got a flash for my camera!  A Nikon Speedlight sb-900 to be exact.  I'm still learning how to use it and how to bounce flash properly.  Hopefully my husband, Steve, will have some time to show me how to use it properly sometime -- he's a fantastic photographer (check out his Flickr!).

And of course, I'll be learning lots this semester in my classes.  I'm taking a grantwriting and fundraising class through the School of Social Work here at UM, management, and a research course entitled "Outcome-based Evaluation of Programs and Services."  And then it's graduation!

Should be a good semester!  I'll try to keep updates going!