Tweet

In today's USA Today I read an article about Twitter that made me finally decide I had to create an account. Apparently millions of people are twittering, and when that many people are on board with something technological librarians should not be the last folks on the bandwagon.

Before creating my account I had two worries:
1. All of my friends would be twittering and I would feel left out that this world had been going on without me.
2. None of my friends would be twittering and I would feel socially inept
The reality was somewhere in between. The most tech-savvy folks I knew (including a librarian or two) were there. I felt quite honored to be included among them. I did however feel a little sad as no one is following me, yet!

There is also a whole new category of language to learn. The article mentions 60% of people who sign up are "Twitter Quitters" (who quit using the service after less than a month). A helpful resource to consult for information is a wiki called twictionary at http://twictionary.pbworks.com/. Here you will learn that "twam" is spam to the Twitter account and a "tweego" is something you get when the number of Twitter followers you receive causes you go get an ego trip.

I'll keep you posted on Twitter for further updates. You can find me as khmoore81.

One Year Later

It has been a year since I graduated with my MLIS and I think it deserves a moment of reflection. Is it everything I thought it would be? I have gotten to teach classes, interact with faculty, develop our collection, and pursue new ideas and plans. What I did not expect was that the economy would take a nose dive and that libraries would suffer budget cuts and staff furloughs while helping more patrons than ever.

All of that aside, I do feel very lucky to have gotten a job in an academic library before hiring freezes were affecting libraries across the state. Good friends of mine are still searching or accepting positions that do not require an MLIS in order to be able to eat. While my position is part-time I still get a great deal of satisfaction by knowing my foot is in the door, and am able to use the extra time on my hands to get more experience teaching, researching, and planning other projects.