Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.

Original image here.

This is an image I used in a guest lecture at an LIS class last Fall. The point? Challenge the status quo; switch up your focus and make sure you look at things from a different angle. If you ever find yourself saying the words, “we’ve always done it this way”, that’s your queue to step back, take a deep breath, and change your focus. It’s something I try to impart to my LIS students, but when I was prepping for that guest lecture (which was for Reference class) last Fall, I realized that it’s an approach that really can be applied to any situation — whether it’s an interaction at a reference desk, a website redesign project, an LIS course, whatever.

Thanks for the tag, Michael! And while I’m not much of a meme-tagger myself, this time I’d love to hear from Jason Griffey, Jenica Rogers-Urbanek, Ryan Deschamps, Chad Boeninger, and Michael Porter. And anyone else who’d like to play, too!

January: Back, way back, in November, I put up a little survey asking about the use of 2.0 tools in special libraries and 68 of you kindly responded.

February: Thank you to OHLA for inviting me to present on health library 2.0 at the OLA Super Conference!

March: Any library types going to the IA Summit in Vegas next week?

April: No, seriously. [post title: What is there to say about Five Weeks that hasn't already been said?)

May: I’m teaching my LIS course (”Social Software and Libraries”) again this summer and the term starts on Monday.

June: Random things, that is. [post title: 8 more]

July: Our Learning 2.0 programme wrapped up ages ago and I’ve finally gotten around to compiling a list of “lessons learned”.

October: Remember me? I used to blog here.

November: The conference is over and this is my first (and most likely my second-to-last) post about it. [post title: IL2007]

December: Got back yesterday from the 2nd Annual E-Info Global Symposium at the University of Alabama Huntsville, which focused on technology, innovation and change in academic libraries.

1. I lived in the Middle East for the first 18 years of my life. It was different.
2. I’m a big fan of horror/slasher films (especially of the DTM variety) but I almost always have nightmares after I watch one. Price I’m willing to pay.
3. Fact: I’m really good at wrapping gifts, regardless of shape or size. If this whole librarianship thing doesn’t work out, I totally have a job waiting for me at a department store. This helps me sleep better.
4. My sister is having a baby! That might not be about me but it is sort of random. And I’m excited!
5. Water is my favourite drink, I probably drink more than 4 litres a day. I have no idea if this is excessive.
6. My Myers’ Briggs Personality Type is ENTP. On any given day, I could probably swap out the “E” for an “I”, but the NTP bit is pretty much dead-on.
7. Event planning makes me irritable and snappy. The biggest event I’ve ever planned was my wedding (68 people) and I’m working on never having to do that again.
8. My idea of brilliant theatre is 20th Century drama — Beckett, Pinter, Brecht, Ibsen (but not Shaw). On the other hand, I’d rather have my eyes and ears gouged out with a spoon than watch a musical.

As usual, I’m going tag-free on this one. Not that it hasn’t already been done by, you know, everyone.

• My M.A. thesis topic was female spirituality and devotional literature in late Medieval England. I still find hagiography utterly fascinating.
• I used to be terrified of public speaking. Then I started teaching info lit classes and presenting at conferences and I found out that I was actually pretty good at teaching/speaking about things I believe in and that I’m passionate about. Nowadays, you give me a podium and I won’t shut up.
• I’ve only ever broken one bone in my body: the fourth metacarpal in my right hand.
• The first job I ever had was working in a lottery booth in a mall. I hated everything about it.
• I spent a fair bit of time in Italy as a kid. My parents both worked for Italian companies and traveled to Milan every summer for a number of years, and my sister and I got to tag along. We did a whole lot of traveling when I was growing up and I feel extremely fortunate for having had that opportunity.

That was fun, thanks Stephen! Want to play along? Consider yourself tagged!

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season. I have grand plans to start posting regularly, so stay tuned!