It's Academic

Back in March, I shared some tips about coping with crisis. 

I’ll be honest, when I sat down and wrote that post, I never imagined that in July, I would still be working from home.  At Penn State, we are in the midst of preparing return to work plans, and we hope to be back in the library soon to start preparing for the fall semester, and whatever it may bring.   

Over the last few months, like so many, I’ve struggled to find my footing in the work from home environment.  Though I’ve created a comfortable home office, I miss my dual screens and my ergonomic office chair.  I’ve also experienced Zoom fatigue after days filled with (what felt like) a million virtual meetings. 

Through it all, I think the thing that I’ve struggled with the most is a general feeling of isolation.  It’s not surprising that I feel this way – I’ve talked to a lot of people that have experienced this same emotion during this work from home period.  I find myself missing those every day conversations with my team; the ability to check in, talk through processes, and share some laughs.  While it’s been vital to making work from home truly successful, virtual conversations just aren’t the same.  

One way that I’ve been battling feelings of isolation is to surround myself with sound whenever possible.  I wanted to share a few of the resources I’ve found that have really helped me cope with the sense of isolation I’ve felt during this crisis: 

Ted Talk Playlist: A love letter to libraries

Ted Talk Playlist: How to get into a work from home mindset 

Ted Talk Playlist: Talks to help you get through the work week 

Ted Talk Playlist: How to protect your passions from burnout 

WorkLife Podcast 

Life Kit Podcast 

And as a bonus, I’ve also escaped my home office walls by engaging with some virtual tours of libraries, museums and botanical gardens:

Virtually visit 8 libraries from around the world 

Library of Congress tours 

12 Virtual Museum tours 

8 botanical garden virtual tours 

I hope that you enjoy some of these links as much as I have. I hope that it helps you to cope with your continued work from home, or as you transition back to work on site at your library. 

The CRD seeks applicants for the position of Connect & Communicate Series Planning Team Chair to begin immediately. The successful applicant will serve through December 2021, with continuous reappointment at the discretion of the CRD Chair.

The goal of the C&CS Planning Team Chair is to lead a team in fostering a sense of community among PA academic librarians through webinars, discussion groups, and online tutorials. The Team Chair, with the assistance of the team and with the support of the CRD Board, explores, recommends, and coordinates opportunities for virtual professional development and networking for academic librarians in Pennsylvania. The Team Chair is a member of the CRD Board.

For more information about the position, see the CRD Board Position Descriptions document at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wEtmiDgzrb-o8etFzoaAivtyNeyQMuEpvgCqran2rCg/edit?usp=sharing

To apply for this position, please submit your letter of interest and CV to Jill Hallam-Miller at jbhm001@bucknell.edu.

Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice (PaLRaP.org) is accepting submissions for research, practice, feature, and commentary articles as well as news items for the Fall 2020 issue (vol. 8, no. 2).

Research, practice, feature, and commentary manuscripts are welcomed at any time; however, for full consideration for the fall issue, please submit your manuscripts by August 15, 2020.

News item submissions (staff changes, awards/recognitions, events, initiatives, etc. happening in PA libraries that may be of interest to other libraries) are also welcome at any time. However, for full consideration for the fall issue, please submit your news items here by October 1, 2020.

See the submission guidelines and section policies at palrap.org for more information.

For more information about PaLRaP, visit http://www.palrap.org.

PaLRaP is a peer-reviewed, online, open access publication of the Pennsylvania Library Association’s College & Research Division. This journal provides an opportunity for librarians in Pennsylvania to share their knowledge and experience with practicing librarians across the Commonwealth and beyond. It includes articles from all areas of librarianship, with a special focus on activities at or of interest to Pennsylvania’s academic libraries.

Published biannually: May and November

Co-Editors: Bryan McGeary & Danielle Skaggs

Peer reviewers: Members of the Pennsylvania library community

#palrap

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Villanova University has been functioning virtually during the COVID crisis, but this week started offering contactless curbside pick-up and fair use scanning services. Efforts like this and more are being made by academic and public libraries across the commonwealth, “Checking in, not out: How libraries are moving from closed toward reopening.”

The Little Free Libraries (littlefeelibrary.org) however have also played a role during the pandemic as a limited temporary surrogate.

• “With Washington libraries closed due to coronavirus, Little Free Libraries in Seattle have gained new life”
• “Little Free Libraries filling the gap for readers”

The organization even has a webpage for stewards on “Best Practices at Little Free Libraries During the Coronavirus Outbreak.”

The Little Free Library.org® movement, however, has not been without its controversies and critics. In 2017 a Bloomberg News feature entitled, Against Little Free Libraries: Does that birdhouse filled with paperbacks on your block represent an adorable neighborhood amenity or the “corporatization of literary philanthropy”? referenced an article by librarians who took issue with them, and backed up their critique with data. See, Schmidt, Jane, and Jordan Hale. “Little Free Libraries®.” Journal of Radical Librarianship, vol. 3, Apr. 2017, pp. 14–41.

So why are they being promoted by other nonprofits, such as the United Way in Erie County. Because the Little Free Libraries have shown that they can be a vehicle for more than ‘corporatized literary philanthropy,’ including by PBS Newshour’s “Little libraries become food pantries during COVID-19.”

And other news outlets across the country:

• Little free libraries help feed hungry during coronavirus crisis
• From novels to noodles: Little Free Libraries becoming pantries during COVID-19 crisis
• Little Free Libraries are helping Tucson neighbors during the coronavirus crisis

The cloud based website creation software WordPress is highly popular across the web and with libraries as well.  My Library, Pennsylvania Highlands Community College Mangarella Library, has recently begun the process of moving our website from our college’s portal system and into a WordPress site of our own design.  Our hope is that by designing the website ourselves we can create something specifically for students doing research.

WordPress is approachable for most tech savvy librarians.  It requires little to no coding ability to make a site.  The process starts with the selection of a theme, or template, for how you want your site to look and function.  Some themes are free but the more flexible options have affordable costs.  After selecting the theme you can begin the process of customizing the website to your own needs.  This is where you can really begin to implement a design that caters to your users.  What terms will you use that people will immediately recognize?  Can you organize content so that students can get to it with a minimum amount of clicks?  What content will you offer and what will be removed to streamline the site?  How can you make your site easily navigable?  How can you create a site that is useful for teaching during information literacy instruction?   If you maintain your own website, perhaps not an option for every library, you can update it regularly to meet new needs and opportunities.

With so much activity occurring online right now any library would be wise to look at their website.  Are you happy with your website, both for users and for yourself to administer?  Tools like WordPress and similar services can give you more flexibility and control over how you present your library online.

If anyone has any questions about creating a WordPress website for their library please contact me.