spontaneous scholarships for #saa11 registration

I want to draw your attention to the Spontaneous Scholarships to fund registration for the 2011 SAA Annual Meeting, an effort led by Kate Theimer of ArchivesNext.  If you’re interested in receiving a scholarship or donating to the fund, check out the blog for details!  The deadline to request funding is midnight this Friday, July 8.  So far $800 has been raised!

What’s the reasoning behind the Spontaneous Scholarships?  While conferences provide great professional development opportunities, attending conferences is expensive.  The cost of registration, travel, and lodging is prohibitive, especially if you aren’t receiving any outside funding.  This is a great idea, and I hope to see more crowdsourced scholarships in the future!

 

hyping links

Freedom Riders
I love PBS!  You can stream the entire Freedom Riders documentary online.  I haven’t seen it yet, but I plan to this weekend.  The film weaves together archival footage and contemporary interviews with former riders.  If you’re not ready to commit to watching the entire film yet, check out the trailer.

ReadyResources
This blog shares resources on preserving and managing electronic records and is updated quite frequently.

Support Hyatt Workers at SAA2011: An Unofficial Resource
If you’re concerned about the labor disputes occurring at the site of this year’s SAA Annual Meeting, view this website for ways to support Hyatt workers.  Also, please contribute if you have any ideas!

 

ala 2011 annual conference: leaders wanted

CC image courtesy of dolescum on Flickr

Honestly, I didn’t have any high expectations when I left for New Orleans last Friday morning. Now that I’m back in DC, all I’ve been thinking about is the conference and how I left New Orleans inspired to take action in a variety of ways. It was great to finally meet other library students I’ve been in contact with through Twitter, notably writers and readers from the Hack Library School community. I had such a great time with all of you, and I’m proud to call you my friends! The time spent just hanging out with people was definitely the highlight of the conference. I would go back just to hang out again!

As for the conference itself, the session that stuck with me the most was “Leaders Wanted / LIS Doctoral Programs Options Fair: Cultivating Diversity in LIS Education.” I quit my Anthropology Ph.D. program three years ago, and I never considered pursuing a doctorate again until this conference session. I have quite a few issues with academia, but one of the panelists — Camila Alire, 2009-2010 ALA Past President — definitely got me thinking about changing my position on pursuing a Ph.D. She stated that it’s important for librarians/library students of color to get their Ph.D.’s because we need to diversify the profession. Additionally, earning the doctorate makes you a role model — not only for other LIS students of color, but all the patrons of color you’ll interact with. One out of three people in the United States is a person of color, and the library profession should reflect this diversity.

Camila’s comments really resonated with me and got me thinking. I can’t just wait for other people to step up to the plate — or wait for others to provide my perspective in the greater body of LIS knowledge. My goal has always been to perform research on issues important to me, regardless if it related to my job or not. If I’m going to be doing this research anyway, I might as well get that other “union card” at the same time — and the institutional resources and support that come with being in a doctoral program would be immensely helpful. It’s also unfortunate, but a reality, that having a doctorate gives you a certain credibility to some (or many) people. If that credibility would give my research more weight, then I seriously need to consider that. I do not plan on ever becoming a full-time professor — I enjoy working in libraries and archives too much! And if I pursue a PhD, I also don’t intend on becoming a full-time student. I just want to work with people in a library or archive, connecting them with their information needs, and at the same research issues that interest me — is that too much to aim for?

 

#ala11 playlist

Below is my playlist for this weekend’s ALA conference.  I looked for a legal way to share this music but didn’t find anything satisfactory, so the list will just have to do with random YouTube links.  The song order is still being perfected, but here are my picks.  What will you be listening to?

1. TV on the Radio – Wolf Like Me
2. The Dodos – Don’t Try and Hide It
3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
4. Menomena – Wet and Rusting
5. Coconut Records – Back to You
6. Andrew Bird – Heretics
7. Radical Face – Wrapped in Piano Strings
8. Okkervil River – No Key, No Plan
9. The Arcade Fire – Keep the Car Running
10. Band of Horses – The Great Salt Lake
11. Flake – Mieke
12. Blind Pilot – The Story I Heard
13. Magnolia Electric Co. – The Dark Don’t Hide It
14. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes – Janglin
15. St. Vincent – Actor Out of Work
16. The National – Squalor Victoria
17. Loney, Dear – Saturday Waits
18. Man Man – Mister Jung Stuffed
19. The Rosebuds – Leaves Do Fall
20. Wilco – Heavy Metal Drummer

 

thatcamp chnm 2011: project management bootcamp

Here are my notes from Friday’s THATCamp BootCamp session on Project Management with Tom Scheinfeldt, Managing Director of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University.  You can find more detailed notes in this crowdsourced GoogleDoc.

1. Pick Projects

• Is it fundable?
• What adjustments can be made in order for the project to be fundable?
• Do you have the capacity to implement the project?

2. Build Partnerships

• Institutional collaborations are important — collecting organizations have the data you want to use.
• Partnerships build trust among audiences.
• Manage expectations on both sides: who is doing what and how much time can you each spend?

3. Fund Projects

• Read the grant proposal guidelines.
• Follow the guidelines!

4. Set Budgets

• 99% of your budget should be labor.
• Ask for the maximum amount of money.
• What can you promise?  Work backwards from the budget amount.
• Underpromise and overdeliver.

5. Staff Projects

• Assess what skills the people in your organization already have, and find projects that match those skills.
• CHNM looks to hire people with a proven track record in learning things quickly (and are self-taught) and a proven track record in finishing projects.
• Hire based on personality!  Staff must be able to work in a team.
• As a manager, you should protect your staff from the administrative aspects of your job — let your employees do what they do best, and get out of their way!
• Individual meetings are more important than meetings with the entire staff — people are more open in one-on-one meetings.
• In those individual meetings, ask: What are you working on? What do you think you should work on next? Are there any obstacles preventing you from getting things done?
• If you want staff to do things differently, give the feedback in a regularly scheduled meeting — not as a surprise at the end of the day.  Feedback feels constructive only in the right setting.

6. Develop Workplans

• Workplans don’t often survive reality.
• Come up with 3-4 key deliverables for funders, administrators, etc.
• Outline those 4 deliverables and give funders 5 — underpromise and overdeliver!
• Regarding project management software, start “lightweight” (with just GoogleDocs) and progressively get more heavyweight only if necessary.

7. Report to Funders/Administrators

• The reporting schedule is already laid out in the grant guidelines and/or proposal — report on time (and well)!
• Make progress notes along the way of things to report.
• Report in public — blog your project!

8. Publicize Projects

• If you don’t shout, no one’s going to hear you.
• Don’t just publicize at the launch of a project.
• Live blog the project, and give substantive content.
• Engage an audience before the project even exists.
• Speak and present as much as possible.
• Use social media.
• With partnerships, both sides should publicize.
• Create a strong web presence that is well-designed and substantive.
• Give out swag!  Stickers, etc.

9. Sustain Projects

• Building a committed audience/users is the best way to sustain a project.
• Funders are increasingly wanting a sustainability plan.
• Build your project with a move in mind — someone else will probably inherit the project.  Document all your work!
• Think in advance about a second project.  Funders won’t fund the same exact work again — think about how you will move the project in new directions.
• Think about a revenue model in line with your values.

10. Lead

• No one will give you a leadership role — you take it.
• Meet your funders, and establish a working relationship.
• Make sure you are always moving forward — if not, see what’s stopping you.
• People forgive bad decisions, but they don’t forgive indecision.
• Admit your mistakes.
• Leaders are first doers.
• The best collaborations are about shared doing.
• You have to manage, but you should aspire to lead.