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My Wild and Crazy Month

This afternoon I drive to Norcross, kicking off over a month of travel here and there (with many mini-trips built in).

10/12 - 10/16: TLH to Norcross. Working on-site at My Place Of Work. Mini-trips include Newton County Library System, Athens Public Library, and COMO. I wanted to touch base with a colleague who said sorry, she’s a bit busy with the 2nd annual Atlanta Queer Literary Festival.

WHAT!! I said. But of course I must put that on my homosexual agenda! So in between doing research for various trips and reading excellent drafts of software documentation by the illustrious Evergreen Docs Crew, I am gulping down Heaven’s Coast in preparation for hearing Mark Doty — and waving at busy Cal Gough from afar! I’m trying to see if I have courage to approach the open mike or will just sit there feeling like a wimp (and no, I’m not the Karen G. hosting that mike!).

10/16-10/17. Return to TLH. I’m largely pre-packed for Cincinnatti (just need to grind fresh Peet’s), which fortuitiously requires a very different set of clothes than what I’m wearing in ATL.

10/17 - 10/19: LITA National Forum. I was really going to learn (I find Forum is a great learning conference) but last week my colleague and fellow UIUC alum Aaron Trehub asked me to emcee a panel on distributed networks for digital preservation. I’m thrilled, because this is a topic that I feel very strongly about but don’t work directly in these days. I hope Tim Spalding’s talk is taped because the way the flights went I am going to walk in halfway through it at best.

10/19 - 10/22. Shelter in place in TLH. Vote on 10/20 (first day of early voting).

10/22 - 10/25. Statewide directors’ meeting in Baton Rouge; talking about open source and what it means to be a community librarian (good for me to have it figured out by then!). I get to Louisiana with enough time to make some liberry visits — I’m flying into NOLA specifically for that reason. I stay over in NOLA Friday night because Sandy has a conference there. Handy! We fly back to TLH together.

10/25 - 10/26. Wash, pay bills, and pack.

10/26 - 10/29. Norcross, with some internal round-trips.

10/29 - 11/1. TLH. Hunker in and work.

11/1 - 11/16. (or 11/15, unclear just yet). VALA/CAVAL 30th anniversary; five speaking stops. My itinerary in Australia takes me around what looks to me like the southern belt of the country. I believe I will actually get to meet Kathryn Greenhill and Fiona Bradley face-to-face! I’ve heard from some other folks I know. My co-presenter and I will be sightseeing a bit together too. I’m reading several fat travel books and a little Bill Bryson — if you have one you think is good to travel with, give a holler soon.

In prep for VALA/CAVAL, I’m also reading a slew of books I haven’t quite figured out how to track. Some are in PINEs, some are in WorldCat, some are local… I may try Zotero. I’d like something that would let me present an annotated bibliography online, in the order I choose.

My keynote at Access 2008 was a kind of early version of that talk, btw, sans the research I hope to bring to this. The working title (also used at Access) is “open++.”

2 Comments

  1. Oooh, Oz! Big fun.

    Tina and I went there in 2001 (AUSWEB 01 junket). Found some nice Tasmanian Pinot. Go for the local food of course, roo is good, as are mudbugs (trilobyte-like crustaceans, lobster-like taste).

    I found some great storytellers there — grab a beer and listen.

    The National Library of Australia has done some nice things with public search, and there is a national metadata standard which is, well, well-intentioned.

    Australia is very serious about distance learning. They have to be. There is no way to get a university close to all the students. Even AUSWEB had a touring company with one-day events around the country.

    The plane flight is brutal. Hydrate, take care of yourself.

    Baton Rouge, now there is some serious food. My home town.

    Friday, October 17, 2008 at 2:33 am | Permalink
  2. Catherine wrote:

    I sent my absentee ballot last week from Brisbane, Australia! Only thing is I don’t get a sticker. Oh well. Saw you’ll be in Australia in a couple of weeks. Brisbane no less. I planned on heading to the Queensland State Library this week, but haven’t made it yet. Anyway, awesome blog, I love libraries (want to be a librarian). Have a good trip down under.

    Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 6:26 am | Permalink

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