Hi all!

Things, as I’ve been saying for months and months, have been NUTS!  The Michigan Evergreen Project is in full swing!  Grand Rapids Public Library is going live in TEN DAYS!  Niles District Library, one week later, and Traverse Area District Library, soon after that!

This fall, I’m presenting at MLA and MAME on Evergreen.  I’m also doing a talk for a Wayne State University LIS class.  The MLA thing is cool, it’s a panel combined of MLC and GRPL staff.  Should be fun. 

Pretty soon, we’ll be putting a list together of libraries to go live with Evergreen this Spring, I think.

Needless to say, I am TIRED.

Is there anything else going on?  Ummm… no!

Branch District Library is up and running.  The project has also gotten some cool press!

Open-ILS press release

MLC press release

Librarian.net

MainIT Project

Now, I’m off to spend 5 whole days w/out Evergreen on my mind!  Time for a mini-vacation, even though the farthest I’ll be traveling is to the home improvement store project supplies.

The first library to “go live” on the Michigan Evergreen Project shared catalog will be up and running in under 24 hours! The migration is going wonderfully, with no major hurdles to speak of!

I’m can’t speak for everyone, but on my side, there has only been some moderate stomach and shoulder pain, and a mild feeling of unease associated with general stress, I feel great! LOL.

Here’s a peek at the new BDL Catalog!

I fixed my blog!

So, what’s been going on?  Well, our first pilot library for the Michigan Evergreen Project is going life in TWO WEEKS!! Woo-hoo to Branch District Library for being brave!

My class, Client Based Web Design for Information Professionals is almost done, and OMG THANK…err.. the powers of some sort… FOR THAT!!

I’m working on submitting a new course to WSU for Spring on how libraries can use cool mainstream technologies like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and all that.  Should be fun.

My house was such a disaster, that while I was at ALA, my mother came and cleaned the whole thing from top to bottom, and watched my dogs.  I still can’t find anything.

How do you all feel about Ph.D. programs?

I’m a bad blogger. There. I admit it. When things get crazy, everything else just disappears.

Tomorrow, I’m doing a talk on Second Life for MDMLG. Carol Perryman is helping by doing a tour remotely in-world and using Skype.

Yesterday, my org held a really cool special program yesterday, Teaching Technology in Libraries. Our keynote was Jessamyn West, and she was great, of course, as usual. After the talk, we went out to dinner with Ang, Kevin, Sonya and Jessamyn’s friend, Susan (I hope!) to the Traveler’s Club.

Thursday, I’m heading off to Library Camp, which should be super cool. A lot of fun people are coming. It’s free, it’s fun, and if you’re in town, YOU SHOULD COME!!!
Well, I should get back to writing the talk…I’m such a procrastinator!!!

Ok ok ok…fine…I’ll tell you about this too.

Here I am back from another period of apparent disappearance. As I mentioned (albeit briefly), I presented at Internet librarian 2007 in Monterey California back in late October. My talk, Extending your reach, E-Training for an Entire State!, went rather well. We had about 70 people attend, which is rather small, but those who attended seemed very interested. People asked lots of questions, and even kept Kathy Petlewski, my copresenter, and I after for about 45 minutes. Resources from this talk can be found here.

The following week, I presented at the Michigan Library Association Annual Conference. My talk, Bringing Second Life into your First Life, seemed to go pretty well as well. In contrast to IL, our audience of about 70 people filled the room completely, and was considered quite large. Resources from this talk can be found in the same place.

After those two whirlwind weeks, I found myself back in the office at MLC and was ecstatic to be there! I started working on a little project with Ruth, MLC’s Associate Director, making day trips around the state involving MLC. In case you haven’t heard, MLC is starting a Michigan Evergreen project, Partnering with the Grand Rapids Public Library. It was announced on Thursday, that I am to be the Systems Librarian for the project starting on Monday! Yay!!!

In the midst of my excitement, I got a little cold, missed 2 days of work, and discovered I had pneumonia, blech. I’m feeling much better today, nearly like a human being.

My foster dog, Lester, found a really good home. Harry seems to have a lead at a new home, and yesterday, in the midst of feeling awful, I got a new foster dog, Adam. He’s very sweet, but really confused and scared about how he ended up at my house, poor boy.

I start teaching for Wayne State University in January, the same class at last summer, and am teaching a different class in the fall. Good fun.

Anyway, that’s all for now. If I keep this up, I’ll be back around… tax day or something.

So, I’ve once again been neglecting my little blog…  I know it’s a poor excuse, but I’ve been SO busy lately!  Here’s what’s been going on.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working on the new shopping center in SL that I own along with a colleague in Kansas.

Today I taught an OCLC Local Holdings Maintenance workshop at Wayne State University to some of the staff there.  I wore my new boots, walked all over everywhere, and ended up driving home in my socks, my feet hurt so badly.

I have the worst allergies ever, and want nothing more that to curl up and go to sleep.

Tomorrow, I’m taking the new Linux workshop offered by MLC.. It should be fun!

Then, I have to record an online workshop, in preparation for an eLearning presentation  Kathy Petlelwski and I are doing at Internet Librarian 2007 at the end of October.

I’m doing script revisions for the machinima I’m having made for the IL07 presentation, that will also be shown when I present at MLA on Second Life.
I’m going to OCLC for four days at the end of this month, for our twice yearly services meeting.

Shortly after, on October 3, I’m flying to Japan w/my mother, to visit family for 11 days.

Then, I’ll be home for about… a week and a half, and then I’m going to IL07 in Monterey to present.  After that, there’s the MLA presentation… I really need to start thinking about that.. Also, the MLA leadership academy is meeting for a day before the conference as well.

Wow… I’m tired just thinking about it.

Well, yesterday I attended a full day of gaming sessions, and let me tell you how fun some of them were! Like all conferences, some sessions were amazing, some were really good, and some, as in the words of one conference goer in regards to a program on internet safely for teens, “This session makes me want to go shoot up and then seduce a teenager.”

There are many Second LIfe people here as well. I saw Maxito Ricardo, Lorelei Junot, Puglet Dancer, Bluewings Hayek, Cerulean Vesperia and many more whose names are escaping me.

As mentioned, Eli Neiburger is here as well. He ran the really cool gaming tournament Sunday night, and spoke 2 or 3 times, I believe. He’s here with his wife, who seems really sweet, his incredibly entertaining son, Nemo, and his toddler daughter, Rocket (who was named by Nemo!). You all know that I like kids about as much as I like sand in my shoes, but they were adorable.. really! I’m gong to call Eli next week about the possibility of having a gaming special workshop at MLC. Who knows if it will fly yet, but if it does, I think it would be REALLY cool.

There was a Second Life meet-up last night, but unfortunately, due to an incredibly dense waiter at dinner last night, and an overall confusion on where the reception was to be held, we didn’t make it. I was sad, but instead, I think we all just went back to our rooms and got in SL for real.

Sunday night, I was bad, and played in SL until 4:30 am, which was really 5:30 in MI! I can’t believe I did that. I need to remember that I’m not all that young anymore, and actually need sleep on a somewhat regular basis. Last night, I was slightly better, and only stayed online until like…2:15, I think. However, I had to get up earlier. Yeah, I haven’t been the smartest of people these past few days.

The conferences closes at 1:00 today, at which point we need to snag a cab and jet to the train station to go home. I’m REALLY anxious to get home. I’m not used to traveling this much, and really just want my own bed. I’ve been staying with Angela at the hotel since Sunday night… not sure if I mentioned the psycho kitty that attacked me at Monica’s. lol

http://del.icio.us.informationgoddess29/glls2007  Beth Gallaway’s de.licio.us account, with cool URLs.
Well, anyway, this has been the most fun conference every… I hope I get to come again!

I may have the messiest office in the entire world. I was sitting at my desk at work yesterday, and was just overwhelmed by the plethora of…welll….shit piled upon it.

This was taken about halfway through my office cleaning. More pics are available on my Flickr page.

And yes, I do sit in the dark more often than not.

So, these past few weeks have been crazy.  I think things should slow down just a bit for a while.  Last week, omg, I can’t even remember what went on last week.    Whatever it was, it was busy.  Oh yeah, strategic planning stuff.  I also taught an ILL workshop, and wrote the workshop mostly the day before.

This morning, I gave a little talk on Second Life.  I used our new online workshop software, Centra.  I think it went pretty well, especially since I didn’t finish writing it until 9:45 and I gave the talk at 10:00.  I gave the attendees a little “key”, if you will, to allow them to decipher basic gamer, especially sl speak.

sl = second life

rl = real life

tp = teleport

brb = be right back

afk = away from keyboard

lol = laugh out loud

rotf = rolling on the floor (often followed by “lol”)

lmao = laughing my ass off.  I didn’t say “ass”, that would be naughty.  At least I didn’t do lmfao!!!

What else…well, not library related, but Rory bit Robin, and I didn’t see the bite and it got infected and was abscessed, and I had to take him to the vet, and now she’s walking around with a four inch tube sticking out of either side of his head, and I get the joy of squeezing the puss and fluid out.  Lovely.

I’ve decided to go back to school.  Not for a degree or anything.  I think next term I will take my very first class as a community college…as soon as I prove to them that I already have a Master’s degree, and really shouldn’t have to take a math and reading placement test.   I just want to take a few classes in networking and all that…expand my horizons or something.

I’m super busy right now, which usually makes me seek out more work, who knows why.a  I just bought a 40 gig external hard drive.  I’m going to back-up my desktop,  and then get this, I’m going to clean my drive and install Linux.  Wild, huh?  I want to become way super cool smart and geeky!  Since I’ve decided that I will no longer pursue a social life, I might as well become a geek, right???  LOL

Well, that’s all for now!