Joyce Valenza's Libguides

[Note: You can Poster Yourself at the ALA Website (something I discovered by looking at Joyce's Libguides). ] I have to admit that there are some people in the world who make me tired and a little depressed. Joyce Valenza is the main one.

She is pretty amazing, just scroll down her library's website and you can see all of her awards. Her website is chock full of interesting things, and it seems like every new Web 2.0 tool that comes along is just another old notch on her gun belt.

How does she do it? I don't think she sleeps. At all! Ever.

It's the only explanation. Of course, she could have a towering intellect and an amazingly organized mind. I did hear her speak at an Association of Indepedent School Librarians conference several years ago, and she is pretty brainy and organized as well as super nice. It was overwhelming, the sheer number of things she does and knows about. Dutifully, we all took copious notes. Then as we all were leaving her very energetic and amazing talk (it truly was spectacular, don't get me wrong! Funny, insightful and informative.), it hit us. We aren't Joyce Valenza. It's as if we all became a pack of Eeyores. Our heads dropped, our voices became whispers and our pace slowed to a crawl. One of looked at the others and said in a moan, "We can't do a quarter of what she does!" The rest of us just patted her on the back and moved along in silence.

So I was actually feeling a little good about myself when I started playing around with Libguides. Springfield didn't have any libguides. She hadn't found that playground. But it was only a matter of time. She's like Mad Eye Moody. She sees everything! You can't keep any neat technological advance from her.

This morning, one of our IT coordinators stopped in to tell me all about Joyce Valenza's AMAZING LIBGUIDES on WEB 2.0 TOOLS.

Thanks. I think I will kill myself now. But I went and I looked at them, because she is the guru of all things and I do respect her. I, even in my most small and humble way, try to replicate a teen-nitzy portion of the things she does.

Imagine my surprize when I saw two other names on the libguide! Two other people created the libguide! Two other people! Not Joyce!

You know what this means? It means that she might sleep after all!

It means that there might be hope for all of us!

Librarian Moment

I had a warm the heart librarian moment on Friday. It was our school pep rally and the day was quite filled with activity. Among the many things I had to do was meet with a donor for lunch so she could meet Bingo. I also had a Model United Nations club meeting that I had to attend midway through lunch, which made lunch a little rushed and harried.

I was very excited about MUN because I was going to unveil my Libguides for MUN, which I had spent a couple of weeks over the summer putting together for the kids. Libguides was created by Springshare and is a web 2.0 way for librarians to help students organize their research online.

MUN can be very difficult and scary for the first-timer. There are all sorts of rules to follow, dress codes, procedures. It is also a ton of fun with a very low work threshold. If you can get kids interested, they can really do well and it isn't a burden on their academic course load.

When I presented the Libguide for MUN, one of the head delegates turned to me and said, "This is amazing! You've put together what I would have spent 10 hours trying to find." My other teacher sponsor was delighted with it as well. It warmed the cockles of my librarian heart.

Ah, libguides, you are wonderful.