Everyone always wonders how I juggle everything - a full-time job, full-time masters program, part-time blogging, and the occasional article and presentation. Well - I think it has finally happened! I think I’m burned out. At least I think that’s what I’m feeling.

I still have the drive to do everything and there are a ton of things I want to do and read on my 2 week break between terms - but for some reason nothing is staying in my brain!! I read and then I think - “I should share that on my blog” - and then it goes away - I can’t remember it anymore. I read a chapter and then an hour later I can’t remember what I read. Is this what it feels like to be burned out? Is my brain just refusing to hold any more information?

I have seen a lot of great blog posts and articles that I keep bookmarking to read at a later date - but by then you will all have read about them in other places. I’ll give it another go later today - although tonight I have to scrub my house top to bottom because the realtor is coming to do a final walk through before listing!! Yep, that’s right - add buying and selling a house and moving to the list of things I’ve got to keep up with!

I have submitted all of my finals! That means I have time to read and time to write again Keep and eye out as I catch up on everything I’ve missed.

I have to be honest - I didn’t want to be tagged in this one I don’t know if I can come up with 8 things - anyway Rachel tagged me.

1. I was in the color guard in high school
2. I moved every 3 years as a kid cause my dad got bored - now, after I’ve lived somewhere 3 years I start to get the itch!
3. My favorite comfort food is grilled cheese and tomato soup
4. My most favorite place in the world is Venice, Italy
5. I have twin sisters
6. In college I used to play 3D pinball all the time - I had the highest score in our dorm!! (I think I still have the screenshot somewhere on a backup disk)
7. My husband is throwing a temper tantrum cause he didn’t get 300,000 points in his peggle level
8. It has taken me 20 minutes to come up with 8 things!!

8 Random People I’m Tagging

Chris Schwartz, RayAna Park, Brian Engard, Jennifer Lang, Darlene Fichter, David Lee King, Michael Sauers, Cliff Landis

This is my 1000th post!!! And what a crazy ride it’s been getting here.

It started with me trying to find my place among a group of bloggers I respected and had learned so much from. In November 2005, I wrote 65 posts (a number I only topped 6 times in the last year and a half). That month I was learning all about blogs, RSS, wikis - yes, it has only been a year and a half that I’ve been paying attention to these technologies!

So - while trying to find a place in the biblioblogsphere I:

• Pissed off my peers (and apologized)
• Designed (well - wrote the code for - RayAna was the designer) a kick-ass intranet that everyone wants
• Pissed of a vendor (and refused to apologize)
• Got accepted into library school
• Got members of 5 libraries to attend a session on Koha (and got at least 3 of those libraries excited about the possibility of a great change)
• Got a new job
• And most importantly - Learned enough to write 1000 posts about!!!

Other blog stats (before hitting publish): “There are currently 999 posts and 845 comments, contained within 60 categories.”

Also, on a related note - I am going to catalog my blog tomorrow (or soon) in OCLC (with the help of Chris Schwartz - who got sidetracked with me today on looking at cataloging entries for popular blogs). This is very exciting for me - and will be a great way to learn about cataloging internet resources.

I wanted this post to be about something big & huge (like the number 1000) but I thought it’d be more fun to reminisce - so there you go - some links to my favorite posts and bits of info. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading - and here’s to 1000 more posts!

I know that my first week isn’t over yet - but I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far.

First, the people and the library are awesome! As you all know (if you’re in the working world) that is the most important thing to look for in a job!

Second, metadata is cool! I can’t wait to actually get my hands dirty (which I’ll get to do this afternoon).

Third, EverNote is essential! I learned about this program from Iris at CIL. It was very handy in keeping my conference notes organized. I never could find a use for it after that - but here it is. If you’re starting a new job and want to keep track of all of those training notes and to do lists - this is the tool to use.

Well, it’s back to some training for me - this morning we’re going to do some copy cataloging.

This was my last day at Jenkins Law Library. I got lots of well wishes and some great handmade gifts!

I also heard some great things today like:

• “You made my job so much easier!”
• “I learned a lot from you”
• and “This is the worst day ever”

It’s hard to believe that it has been six years! When I took the job in 2001 I thought I’d be there for three years max - boy would that have been a mistake! I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for my job at Jenkins and I’m grateful for that … but it’s time to move on!

On Monday I start all over, only this time I know where I want to go in life - that makes it just a little bit less scary than the last time.

PEW has a quick quiz to help you figure out where you fit in with other Internet users. Thanks Steve for pointing it out for me.

My results are not surprising. I’m an Omnivore!

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

What are you?

It’s finally here! My official letter. I can now share my good news with you all (I gave you a teaser earlier). I have accepted the position of Cataloging & Metadata Librarian at Princeton Theological Seminary.

I will be working in the Special Collections department on digitization projects. The library is awesome and they have so many unique collections to digitize!

My last day at Jenkins is May 8th and the new job starts on Monday the 14th. I might be a little quiet as I get adjusted to my new surroundings - but have no fear, I will return!

[update] I was sent the wrong job description - my real title is Metadata Librarian - like I first thought Just thought I’d update this post. [/update]

Okay, here’s a little bit about me that you probably didn’t know. I am not a big gamer - I never was. In fact, until college my favorite games were Sim City (the original) and Oregon Trail (also the original). In college I met my husband and, gamer that he is, he introduced me to StarCraft - my all time favorite game!

Now, he has just informed me that after 9 years of waiting, StarCraft 2 is finally in development and it won’t be an MMOG (which I was worried about)!

I’m almost as excited about this as I am about the new Harry Potter

Just wanted to share with you all (in case you didn’t already know):

How cool is this? Derik Badman is sketching the CIL conference and he did one of me!!

Nicole Engard before her presentation
Originally uploaded by madinkbeard.

Technorati Tags: cil2007, cil07

You may be wondering why I’ve written about change so much lately - well that’s because I have a big one on the horizon for me. I’ve been holding in this secret for too long now!

After 6 years at Jenkins Law Library, I will be leaving on May 8th and moving on to a new position. I cannot share more details yet (papers to sign), but my notice has been given at work and the house hunt has begun.

The change will be hard for me - Jenkins was my first job right out of college and I’ve learned so much and had so many opportunities while there - but at the same time it’s going to be a very exciting time for me.

Keep an eye out for more information later this month!!

We all talk about change, but what encourages you to push through the pain and fear associated with change? I have a song by the Indigo Girls that got me through a lot of tough times when I was younger and has stuck with me through the years. The song is The Wood Song. I want to share it with you.

the thin horizon of a plan is almost clear my friends and I have had a hard time bruising our brains hard up against change all the old dogs and the magician now I see we’re in the boat in two by twos only the heart that we have for a tool we could use and the very close quarters are hard to get used to love weighs the hull down with its weight but the wood is tired and the wood is old and we’ll make it fine if the weather holds but if the weather holds then we’ll have missed the point that’s were i need to go no way construction of this tricky plan was built by other than a greater hand with a love that passes all our understanding watching closely over the journey yeah but what it takes to cross the great divide seems more than all the courage i can muster up inside but we get to have some answers when we reach the other side the prize is always worth the rocky ride but the wood is tired and the wood is old and we’ll make it fine if the weather holds but if the weather holds then we’ll have missed the point that’s where i need to go sometimes i ask to sneak a closer look skip to the final chapter of the book and maybe steer us clear from some of the pain that it took to get us where we are this far but the question drowns in its futility and even i have got to laugh at me cause no one gets to miss the storm of what will be just holding on for the ride the wood is tired the wood is old and we’ll make it fine if the weather holds but if the weather holds then we’ll have missed the point that’s where i need to go

Lyrics found here.

When I was in high school a friend of mine and I sat down and deconstructed the song - we didn’t understand the lyrics, years later it seems so simple. Change is hard, but it’s going to happen whether we want it to or not - “but if the weather holds then we’ll have missed the point” - I love that line.

So, if you have a friend with the CD, give it a listen or pay the $.99 to your favorite MP3 store and listen to it over and over as I have through the years - if you don’t have a mantra, it’s a pretty good one.

“…but what it takes to cross the great divide seems more than all the courage i can muster up inside but we get to have some answers when we reach the other side the prize is always worth the rocky ride ” — How can that not encourage you??

Feel free to share something that helps you push through change - maybe it will help others around you (maybe you know some old dogs or magicians).

Technorati Tags: indigo girls, change, the wood song

I just finished reading a New York Times article about the book “CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap” by Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist.

According to Dr. Hallowell, there are many (26 in his book) overlapping reasons we all fall into the trap of being overly busy. A few are:

• It is so easy with cellphones and BlackBerrys a touch away.
• It is a kind of high.
• It is a status symbol.
• We’re afraid we'll be left out if we slow down.
• We avoid dealing with life's really big issues "” death, global warming, AIDS, terrorism "” by running from task to task.
• We do not know how not to be busy.

Paradoxically, Dr. Hallowell writes in “CrazyBusy,” it is in part the desire for control that has led people to lose it.

“You can feel like a tin can surrounded by a circle of a hundred powerful magnets”" he writes. “Many people are excessively busy because they allow themselves to respond to every magnet: tracking too much data, processing too much information, answering to too many people, taking on too many tasks "” all in the sense that this is the way they must live in order to keep up and stay in control. But it's the magnets that have the control.”

The bolding above was added by me - to show which items are on my lists of reasons when I explain away my busyness.

This article hit a bit close to home for me, since I am so busy - all of the time. But it’s no one’s fault, but my own. The other day I was on the phone with my mother and she was expressing her concern about my busyness. She said to me “You don’t know how not to be stressed.” And she was right. I’ve been stressed all of my life. In fact, when I was very young I would get dizzy spells and the doctor told my mother it was due to stress. I have never been any good at relaxing, I’m always thinking of things I could be doing instead. People always ask me how I juggle it all - and I don’t know how - I just don’t feel content unless I’m busy. One day it will catch up with me - but for now - well - I guess I’ll just stay on track.

So, spring term starts on Monday! It’s my 3rd of 4 terms and then I’ll have my MLIS!

This term I’m taking:

• Managing Information Orgs (Info 640)
• Legal Bibliography (Info 681)
• Cataloging & Classification I (Info 660)

It’s going to be a pretty heavy workload - but I’m looking forward to it - specifically the management class. Stay tuned for for updates throughout the term.

I just realized that my pictures has been turned into a book mosaic by Dave Pattern! Somehow I missed this. Check it out - and see the rest of the set on Flickr.

nic2_1024
Originally uploaded by Dave & Bry.

I was tagged by Darlene in a meme started by The Liminal Librarian.

Here are five non-library blogs that I read:

• The Daily Puppy
  Not much reading here - just a lot of oooing and ahhhing. Now go ahead over and oo & ahhh at my baby.
• Lifehacker
  Tons of great tips for using technology.
• Kimbooktu
  Gadgets for book lovers.
• Gamecrafters’ Guild
  All kinds of game related stuff (disclaimer: this is my husband’s blog)
• The Stingy Scholar
  Tips on where to find free and cheap learning tools.

I tag Cliff Landis, Joshua Neff, Michael Stephens, Tom Ipri and anyone else who wants to contribute. Remember to tag your post fiveblogs.

Technorati Tags: fiveblogs, memes

I just finished hunting for the best price options for my textbooks for next term and I still spent way too much money! Books for education should be cheaper - it just doesn’t seem fair that they make the poor students pay the most for books.

Anyway, I’m all set for next term which starts on April 2nd - so I have a bit of free time now to read a book I’m reviewing for The Journal of Web Librarianship and maybe re-read some Harry Potter in anticipation for July

Let’s just say that yesterday was not the best day. It’s a stressful day at work and it was sleeting all day - making it very hard to walk to happy hour and back to the El without falling. Then when we were on the El I realized it was the weekend and right now SEPTA has shuttle buses replacing the El starting on Friday nights due to construction! So we shuffled off of the El and walked through more falling ice trying not to fall to the bus. Then we got to the station right as our 9:07pm bus was pulling out - leaving us standing there waiting for an entire hour for the next bus! Then we got home to find 2 cars stuck in the ice at the top of our street, so we (well - not me - my husband and friends) had to help dig and push until the cars were freed. Lastly, we had to help our friends dig their car out so they too could get home.

All that and I wake up this morning to an email from Facebook saying that Darlene Fichter has written on my wall - congratulating me on Moving & Shaking in 2007!! So I promptly went to LJ Online to find the article. For those who don’t know - to be a Mover & Shaker you have to be nominated by your peers. And I have to send out a great big thank you to Jenny Hohenstein who wrote “We needed to communicate efficiently, and email and voicemail just weren’t good enough, Nicole turned the intranet into the tool we knew we needed but hadn’t been able to imagine."

If you want to read the entire article & all of the other great articles you can on the Library Journal site.

Congrats to all! And thanks so much to those who wrote to LJ with nice things to say about me!! It was a great way to wipe away yesterday and start fresh today.

Now I’m off to go house shopping - we have 5 appointments - all in the ice & snow!

I opened my mailbox today to find my copy of American Libraries! Somehow I missed the part about my survey responses being published! Anyway, I was one of 10 librarian bloggers to answer a quick email survey about blogging. Like Rochelle already mentioned, they didn’t include the URLs to our blogs (which seems weird) so here they are (in alpha order):

• Blake Carver, LISNews
• Nicole Engard, What I Learned Today
• Rochelle Hartman, Tinfoil+Raccoon
• Sarah Houghton-Jan, Librarian in Black
• Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian
• Kathleen de la Pena McCook, Librarian at the Kitchen Table
• Mary Minow, Library Law
• Joshua Neff, Goblin in the Library
• Jack Stephens, Conservator
• Jessamyn West, Librarian.net

Since it looks like our answers were edited, here’s my complete survey - unedited (in fact I haven’t even read it in months - hope it’s okay).

What does it take for a blog to have an impact on the biblioblogosphere?

One post - that’s all it takes. One post where you voice your opinion in an honest, well thought-out way. After that, people will come to your blog to hear what you have to say on the newest hot topic.

What do the readers of your blog value about your posts (i.e., “voice” as an online columnist, value-added news coverage)?

Honesty is key. Your readers will know if you’re not being honest. A blog allows you to add your voice to the many others out there - if you’re not honest, people will stop reading. The other aspect my readers value are the tools I point them to. I am always getting thank-you notes for pointing out some new tool that people weren’t aware of.

How do you decide when to post””inspiration, obligation to keep the blog fresh and readers engaged, or what?

Inspiration - I never post out of obligation, if I did then people would become bored. I post when I find something that makes me say “Oh Wow!” or when I read something that makes me start talking to myself - that’s when it’s time to share my opinions in a blog post.

How do you determine what the right length is for a given post?

I write until my point has been made. I’ve had 2 word posts and 2000 word posts; it depends on how much I have to say on a given topic. Blogging isn’t something you set rules to - “Post X number of times a day”, “Never post more than X words”, these aren’t things I’ve ever thought and they’re another thing that will probably lose you readers.

What has surprised you most about the process of blogging?

How easy it was. When I first set up my blog, I thought it was going to be so hard to find my voice among the many others that were already out there, but it wasn’t. Once you let your guard down, you’ll find that you had more to say that you realized.

What lessons can libraries learn from your experiences as an individual blogger?

People are reading! By putting your voice out there you’re putting your name out there - your library’s name - and it makes more of a difference than you’d ever imagine. Don’t assume that no one wants to hear what you have to say - there’s always someone!

What’s missing from the LIS blogosphere that you’d like to see someone take on?

I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been covered (Edit: which by the way - I was wrong about)

How will the blogs of today be regarded a decade from now? Should digital libraries collect them?

I don’t think you can lump all blogs together to answer that question. Like much of the web, there is a lot of garbage out there. I do think that the blogs with valuable information (politics, opinions, news, technology, world-views, library related) will be regarded highly and should be saved in some sort of archive for future generations to see. What will they think when they see all of our debates about Library 2.0? What other way will they be able to see what the people thought during the elections in 2008? So, yes, I do think some blogs should be saved in digital libraries and I do think they will provide a valuable resource for future generations studying culture and history. If nothing else it will give them a giggle.