Library
-
Homework
I sent out homework today. I’ve been working on the pre-consultation worksheet that will guide the mandatory consultation I have with all the students in my grant writing course. Last year I was involved in this course, but as a last minute instructor and the dates available had to be worked out on the side, making the session optional. This year, I am a embedded instructor and as such, I am taking full opportunity to act as one. I had my lecture a few weeks ago about different resources, tools, and methods for searching. The students are required to write the specific aims, background, research methodology, and rationale for an…
-
Instruction
Today was the second in a series of instruction sessions for a variety of my students. I received an email from the course coordinator last last week stating that all our planning was going to get changed (read cut). Ultimately, this meant that I would be limited to explaining and introduction to library resources in thirty minutes. It wasn’t as horrible as it could have been. I have taught enough that intro material doesn’t need much preparation. I was also secretly relieved because I really had enough work to do without the original, grand plan. I have more consecutive weeks of work to do, but that’s fine. This class is done…
-
Day in review Jan 19, 2016
I still haven’t gotten used to typing 2016 yet. I’m keep catching myself and having to correct. As predicted, the year started out running. I just had my first instruction session today. This course is part of COM, which has been hard to get traction from. But I was remembered and included this semester. This is a grant writing course that runs grad students through the process of writing for NIH. I am listed as an instructor rather than a guest lecturer, so I took advantage of that by assigning students out of class work. We’ll be having one consultation to make sure they are on track for finding literature.…
-
Prioritization through matrixing
Today went well. I haven’t been good at setting intentions for the day. My activity is still based on what the pressures are right in front of me. But having a task manager has been helpful in keeping all the individual pieces from scattering across email and slips of paper. Asana also has robust features that allow me to search task that have not been assigned yet, and for tasks that have not been assigned to a project. Add to that the ability to search robustly and change views from project to agenda to calendar, and I have a tool that is flexible enough for my daily, idiosyncratic thinking. Having…
-
Christmas Eve Eve Eve
The year is coming to a close. There are two more workdays left, including today. The students are gone for the most part. I know of a few that are trying to get some bulk work done on their research, but other than that, it’s been quiet. A surprising number of us are still in the office. Perhaps because of the mild winter, no one is leaving early to travel. We are all in the office wrapping up the year. Today I have a backlog of stats to get done, a project to install for one of my committees, and the last of the communications for the year. Next year…
-
Personal Organization
What it takes to get my job done is a recurrent theme here. We are ending the semester, which marks my time here at a year and a half. This year has been dramatically different than my first. The first year was a collection of building things: relationships, instruction materials, community. There was no where to go but up and to the right with things to do. This year has been characterized as more. More work, more commitments, more meetings, more opportunities. The volume has been alarming. And I found very quickly that the methods I was using to keep track of my work wasn’t working. I needed to be…
-
ELNs, LIMs, and project management
I finally have to jump into a different part of the data management pool–project management. For the past year I have been intermittently asked about electronic lab notebooks and options for them in basic science research. Over the past month I have had office hours flyers up in my basic science building and it caught the eye of a core resource department. They are a fee for service core that needs some help in project management and called me. My experience with electronic lab notebooks has been minimal. What I have seen so far is that the are too inflexible for practical use, or too expensive for implementation on a…
-
Curriculum goals
Today I was asked to lead on a data management curriculum initiative. This was something that I had intended to do already, but this was also a goal of our data management group. I will be officially in charge of getting it completed. I have a few reservations on creating a curriculum by committee. Mostly it has to do with making the overall product bland. What I am thinking of now, is that it would be a good time to get in touch with a few of my former instructors for some advice and insider tips. I had been meaning to but didn’t know how to approach it. There’s a…
-
Day in Review Tuesday, September 22, 2015
My brain threatens to make this entry a list of all the things to get done. It’s tempting simply because it’s such a habit. I’m on the long train home, I had to take drugs to get through the morning. What happened in between wasn’t as productive as I would like. Freedom can be a dangerous thing. I did get a walk in the late morning though, just from one side to another, but it was enough. For now, I think I will try to get another module of my IRB training done. Past that I will work on ideas for NNWM. My husband would like me to write something…
-
Buckets
It is Friday and the end of the work day. One of the last conversations I had before leaving was a wandering one that was part weekend projections and part weekday recap. One of the statements that came up by my colleague was “I couldn’t tell you what my job is.” She meant how a liaison is specifically defined within an institution that also considers librarians tenure-track faculty based on research. This is a separate consideration than how we spend our time. I was just thinking about this today. I spend my first year tracking how I spent my time. The purpose was to make sure I was using my…