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Time keeps whizzing by...
Hello, Readers! :o)
Well, I’m just about to head to NYC for a long weekend. I’m very excited because it’s going to be my first trip to The Big Apple, despite the fact that I’ve been around the world and back. Better late than never, eh? While I’m there I’ll be visiting with the New York Public Library, particularly the Bronx. I interviewed with them a couple of times at the ALA Midwinter Conference in January so I’m really looking forward to seeing how they work in-person. While I’m there, I will also be meeting with a librarian from Entertainment Weekly which is pretty cool—I got this connection through an alumnus of SI and I’m ever so grateful! Now that I’m getting ready to graduate, myself, I am hoping to pay the favors forward in the future. :o)
Today I spent all morning in Kerrytown (a historic district of Ann Arbor) to interview with a software development firm called Menlo Innovations. They did a very different type of interview experience in that all the possible candidates gathered together for “Extreme Interviewing.” We changed partners multiple times and worked in pairs while Menlo staff observed our work processes. We did things like draw mock-ups and plan the development process of a fictitious software package. It was definitely engaging but exhausting! I’m still a little mixed about my experience—I think the company has a really unique and fascinating business model, which I appreciate. But I’m still not quite sure if I want to go such a straight-up techie route. Not that I would be doing programming, but the work only involves working on technology innovations and I think I might be the kind of person who needs more variety.
I also have been asked to participate in the final panel interview for the LA County Public Libraries which will be next week. The packet of information came on the perfect day a couple of weeks ago when Michigan was in a wintertime deep freeze! The thought of palm trees and a sunny beach nearby was just too much. :o) I’m very excited to interview with them as well, and not just because they are in a place that has fantastic weather!
I’m still waiting to hear on a government/corporate library—I think should know something more in another week or so (the suspense is killing me!). I also put in quite a few job applications last week that sounded really interesting. They were all in the realm of entertainment and media. Some were with big companies like EA Entertainment (video games), LucasFilm, Warner Bros., and even TheKnot.com (a wedding planning site) that is looking for an online community coordinator. How cool is that? :o) I think the variety of jobs available out there and the way skill sets are overlapping is a really interesting phenomenon. But I think it also creates some problems in that most places are still looking for standard fields that they have hired from before like marketing/advertising. Luckily I don’t mind explaining how my skills and abilities can really help an organization. And considering that there are quite a few places interested in me at this point I’m also feeling pretty secure in my job hunt so far.
This semester has been very unusual as far as my classes are concerned. On one hand, things are working like clockwork. For example, my user evaluation group project is coming along really nicely. It is totally addictive in its fascination factor and we are making some great reports and providing good data. This week we are conducting a huge survey and I think our responses might be pushing about 100 at this point which is really cool. Our client, MBooks, even posts our reports as they come in! Talk about publicity… :o) You can see those by looking at this page from the UM Library website: http://www.lib.umich.edu/usability/projects/MBooks.html.
My archives internship hit a snag, though, so I had to change sites to accommodate my needs a bit better. It was a little disruptive but definitely for the best and I’m really excited about working at the Bentley Historical Library on North Campus. I’ll be helping an archivist put together the History of Computing at UM online resources. I’ll be doing things like helping to design and build the website for this collection, conducting a research gap analysis, and maybe even help with things like future PR/marketing materials for a fellowship that starts in the fall. I’ll be starting on this next week when I get back from NYC and will probably work quite a few hours.
My film class (external cognate) is also coming along. I’m coming to terms with the totally different culture of a different department and learning practices. Today I gave an informal presentation on archival and library research that I conducted regarding film censorship in the 1930’s, and especially for the film Baby Face (1933) which starred Barbara Stanwyck. It was very cool and my information searching skills definitely came in handy! I decided that this was not the time to follow the old adage, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” So, in the interests of being able to share information better, I created a Course Tools project site (CTools is an online course and project building service run by UM—it has its quirks but can be very useful). I digitized a lot of information and manipulated very muddy microfiche text in Adobe Illustrator so that everyone could use the information better. It was a big hit and I’m really happy with that. I’m going to try and use my interest in technology to do some comparative historical research on technological innovations in filmmaking for my final project in this course. I figure, if I’m the odd duck that brings in Quicktime video clips, then I might as well use it to my advantage for my final project! :o)
Hmm… let’s see, what else is going on here at SI? Well, there is the Dean search which is pretty interesting. Various candidates have been visiting the school, giving lectures, and meeting with students. I certainly won’t be around to see much of the end of this process, but I think it’s pretty interesting to be here while it’s currently going on.
I also just signed up to exhibit a project for the annual ExpoSItion—an annual event where SI students show off their work to the newly admitted visiting students and potential employers. (http://www.si.umich.edu/stulife/student-projects.htm) I am going to be showing my sample animated graphics catalogue which I made for the library cataloguing course I took last semester. Over spring break (next week), I’ll be starting to layout my poster and will probably use most of the material from my PowerPoint presentation (which totally rocked, if I do say so myself! :o) and then I’ll be using my laptop to show the HTML/CSS site that I coded to show the design example of what a database-backed catalogue might look like.
And yes, next week is “Spring Break” – not much of a ‘spring’ if you ask me… (the wind it howling outside right now), but oh well. :o) The annual Alternative Spring Break folks are getting ready to depart this weekend. They’ll be going to NYC and Washington, DC this year. If you don’t know much about this, you can see the details here: http://www.si.umich.edu/outreach/asb.htm and here: http://www.si.umich.edu/pep/asb/.
Ok, so I’ve given up trying to paste photos from the ALA conference into this blog! I’ll be making a Flickr page when I get back from NYC and I’ll put up my photos from that trip along with the ALA conference for you to see. I’ll keep you posted on the job front and let you know about upcoming events around SI! I think this pretty much wraps up the latest in my crazy busy life. Until next time…
~ maw :o)
Posted by maryaw at February 22, 2007 11:09 PM
