Door Decorating 2009

We've done it again. USF is decorating our doors for the holiday season and the Archives is no exception. You may remember my Narnia door from last year. This year the offices in the Library got together to have a theme through-out the building. We all decorated our doors with a different Christmas movie, and then did a display on the first floor for a "Library Movie Theatre".
My movie is A Christmas Story, and in true Linnea fashion, I went way overboard. Here are some pictures: (For those of you who haven't been to my office, it's a door set in a wall of windows).
And this is the display by the front door that I did for the "Library Movie Theatre":
My job rocks.

Boastin' and Braggin'

What I Did on My Summer Vacation...

I had a crazy and full summer in the Archives. I had two big projects that needed to be finished at the start of the school year, and I definitely felt the burn more than once. But with plenty of Mt. Dew and a few refreshing, long lunches I'm done with both projects. I will now take this time to brag.

Project 1: Sharing Our Past Online Collection - Last year I won a grant for the Archives to digitize 5,000 images and then create an online collection. It was finished in August and I'm now working on the marketing campaign. Please take a look here and let me know what you think. It's basically a visual history of USF, and it's like my baby so be kind with your criticism.

Project 2: Founder's Day Displays - Last year I volunteer (or was volunteered, my memory is a bit fuzzy on that) to do a display with materials from the Archives for Founder's Day. It was pretty successful so this year I was asked to do 3 displays. Wow, that was a lot of work, but it's done. You can check out the Archives' blog for pictures and more info.

So there's my Egypt.

Newsflash - they're now asking me to help with a fourth display - and by the end of the day today. eek.

ALA Exhibits

On Monday I went with my fellow USF Librarians to the Exhibit Hall at the American Library Association Annual Conference. What fun! It was amazing the amount of people and vendors that were there. Over 1,500 booths. It was great to talk with other librarians/archivists and other vendors to see what's new, what projects people are doing, what information is coming soon.

I took a few pictures while I was there of the "decorations":A knight at one of the booths. I don't remember where, but he was pretty impressive.

At one point I turned to the side and almost ran into this dinosaur guy. Needless to say I was startled and then I kept seeing him prowling around the exhibits. It's hard to be creeped out by a dino in a orange shirt and blue hat, but he was a little weird.

My favorite. I have a soft spot for The Cat since I have been him for Halloween quite a few times. This guy was very popular, but he stopped to pose for me.

Ashamed of My State

I'm very disheartened by a news release that came my way through the library world. The State of MI, the state the I love and have hopes of someday returning to, has passed an executive order to terminate the History, Arts and Libraries Department and close the Library of Michigan.

How do you close the State Library? And how do you think you are saving the state money by taking away their access to free resources?

Highlights of Executive Order No. 2009-36:
* They will stop checking out books. whaaat?!
* Eliminate nine staff positions, including the State Librarian.
* Start charging an admission fee to the once free State Museum.
* They are going to "shop around" things like the Federal Documents Depository, non-Michigan genealogy, Michigan History Magazine, and the museum store and if they can't find people to take them over they're going to eliminate them.
* They won't be administering the MELCat program anymore, which is a huge blow to libraries in the state. MELCat is the inter-library loan program that allows Michigan residents to borrow books from outside their library system, from anywhere in the state. No more MELCat means no more ILL for lots of libraries.
* Many things will be transferred to the Department of Natural Resources including museum facilities, archives, historical records and related functions, and the Mackinaw Island State Park Commission. Exactly how does the DNR qualify as administrators of the state's history?
* They are "creating a nine person "Center for Innovation and Reinvention Board" that has until June 1, 2010 to come up with a way to "preserve and maximize the benefits to the public of existing state library and historical resources" using "creative and innovative ideas," but doesn't get more specific than that."

It just seems so backwards to me. I can see backing off on services or collection development or other things for a few years, but to eliminate or reassign everything is going to be such a mistake in the long run. I worry that when (or if) Michigan ever gets back on its feet they're going to look around and say "What happened to our State? And who are all these uneducated people milling around causing trouble? Don't we have somewhere they could go to learn outside of school?
Whoops."