Returning to the Blog

This is my first shift at the Homer Babbidge Library since finals week.  I am working at the iDesk, not the express desk.  The responsibilities are largely the same: patron assistance, item circulation.  This morning I drove to work from Greenwich, Connecticut where I was visiting loved ones.  The drive to campus took approximately 1 hour 45 minutes.  Route 15 was lovely and I found myself wishing I spent more time with paper maps of my home state, Connecticut.

The library is quiet.  I am thinking about the value of this blog to the reading public.  There really isn't much value, I estimate.  The text reads like a personal journal, with the redundant theme of being composed in a library.

Perhaps I am too critical; but a blog is a public, published space.  Published work should have some value to readers.

When my boyfriend announced that he had found the blog and read it, I realized the potential power of this blog to connect me to my community, to demonstrate my personal and professional enthusiasm for libraries - and perhaps one day develop it into a more exciting web space.

By the time of my university graduation, I hope to have some published library research to share in this space.

The university library continues to be quiet.  One or two face-to-face patron interactions, one phone call regarding the open status of the 24-hour study room.

Since I wrote last, I attended the ACRL conference, took my finals and completed my first spring semester at the University of Connecticut.  Today marks the completion of my first full week as a summer student worker at the UConn Adventure Center, with weekend shifts at the library.  My library boss, who is a great guy, has justified concerns that I will exceed my 40 hour student work cap.

This time next month, I will be on the west coast - in California and Seattle.  It is a trip that I do not feel prepared for... what libraries will I visit?  What will my travel arrangements be?  How much will I spend?  Will I attend the ALA annual conference?  Or will I spend the week in the Sierras with my family?  Then, at the end of June, I am bound for Spain.  I feel that so many variables currently stand between myself and that Europe-bound plane flight.  I need to do preparatory management of my finances and personal life.

My grandparents are visiting from North Carolina and have been in New England since Wednesday.  They depart this upcoming Wednesday.  That thought begins my to-do list, which will end this blog-post.

- Finish this shift at the library (ends 5pm)
- Buy birthday/graduation present for Corri, birthday gift for Mitch, drive to Windham
- Sunday night rest, Madmen, & letter writing (bonus: finances, scholarship, fitness, travel planning, pleasure reading, practice spanish, library MOOC)

- Monday morning: pre-work workouts, finances (check-in w/ financial aid)
- Work 12pm-8pm, then drive to Zack

- Tuesday: Rowing, grandparents, home, then work
- 12pm-8pm, then home

- Wednesday: workout, mail letters, then work
- Visit with Grandparents, McKelvey (Wednesday evening) then Zack's

- Thursday: Rowing, then home then work

- Friday: morning workout, then work, then weekend


I promise not to return to this blog until I've curated some real content.