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!

I feel accomplished!

So, I'm really impressed with myself.  If you haven't already checked out my e-portfolio, you should.  I just added a mail form that e-mails me - and I wrote the code for it all by myself!  Hooray for taking learning to the next level.  Always good to push yourself to do something above and beyond the call of duty.  You learn a whole lot more that way!

End of semester

So it's the end of the semester, and I'm actually quite relaxed.  Probably the calmest end of semester I've ever experienced.  I've had a few interesting projects to do, including an identity package for graphic design, finishing my critical bibliography on the 'Enigma' Variaitons for music bibliography and a few interesting coding assignments for my complex websites class.  I also had to do a project analyzing subject access for a particular topic for my cataloging class, which turned out to be kind of interesting.

I was able to synthesize a few projects from my complex websites and graphic design class to create a spiffy new e-portfolio (still in progress, but looks pretty good!).

In other news, I've been looking at Google Wave more and finding that it's useful, but only if you have a huge amount of buy-in.  Not everyone who has an account uses it or knows many people who have it, so it makes it difficult to have a huge amount of uses for it at this point.  My friends and I have been planning an event using Wave and it's going ok, but it is just about the same as using an e-mail thread using reply all.  I guess you can't accidentally reply to only one person using Wave...

And I have 19 invites, so if you want one, let me know!