Free Range Librarian

[update: in a comment, cj, below, provides a link to the original survey instrument which also provides answers to some of my questions.]
Pew just issued a report, Information Searches That Solve Problems,” that even on its debut over a holiday weekend has already been quoted left and right as proof that the Internet is [...]

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So we had a deliriously wonderful week in Manhattan, staying at our friends’ elegant Chelsea condo (which we had all to ourselves for all but one day), and when I got home I saw an Amazon box with my name on it.
By this time I had forgotten about SantaThing – the LibraryThing “Secret Santa” [...]

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Free Range Librarian is celebrating the season with a few days off the blogging grid to take a deep breath and bid a proper adieu to 2007.
When I return, it will be in just enough time to ask for ideas about trends, in preparation for my stint on the Top Technology Trends panel at ALA. [...]

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I realize that in writing about RDA and cataloging on Christmas Eve I’m tagging myself as someone who clearly needs an intervention (if I can use the word “tagging” without making Michael Gorman screw through the ceiling). So let me quibble by saying that I’m really just updating my earlier post by including several links [...]

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I don’t get Christmas letters any more, and that’s a good thing. How I loathed them. “We had an amazing year! Look how well we did! Life is great!” I was able to stumble through the year, for better or worse, until my life was held up against someone’s improbable standard.
This won’t be that kind [...]

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Writing away
Originally uploaded by freerangelibrarian
This workshop — my first-ever writing class — was blissfully successful for all concerned. The post-class evaluations were the best I’ve ever had in fifteen years of training and teaching. Teaching a writing class has been a goal of mine for a couple of years, and it was [...]

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Trying to buy a gift for a writer?
First, I just heard from W, a delightful friend from a Former Place Of Work Minus Two, and I am reminded of her wise counsel, whenever the subject of gifts arises: large, sparkling gems are always appropriate. Imagine the special writer in your life, hunched over a [...]

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“Books won’t help you.”
I had been stammering through a discussion with a contractor about redoing our master bathroom.
My brain started stumbling at the first notes of disapproval in his voice. I could hear him take a breath before he spoke. “How am I supposed to git you a quote  when you don’t even know what [...]

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A marvelous meme to wrap up the year: list the first sentence of the first post for each month. I include each post’s title because I try to write titles that do a lot of work and often function as the “first sentences” of each post.
If you’d like to play, consider yourself tagged. (Reading, writing, [...]

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I am enormously flattered to have my thoughts on the state of the essay featured as a blog post in an interesting ongoing discussion on Brevity’s blog. These thoughts started as a comment on an earlier post in an eminently readable thread.
Perhaps my words showed me in good form because I’ve been thinking about [...]

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