The One Week Milestone!

Well, I survived the first week, and I think in that time I've spent more hours at Higher Grounds than people who work there. Today was pretty busy. I had 5 meetings, all with people who work in areas I'm interested in, so it was hard to keep it to one hour.

First was Christy Crowly, she works with DSPACE and is on the EResources team. I'm not very interested in DSPACE, but it was interesting to talk with Christy about the movement toward digital information and the difficulties with copyright and getting faculty to post their writings in the repository.

Next, I met with Paulita Aguilar. She is the curator for INLP and was one of the first residents. The INLP program sounds like a very special and unique program, and it is obvious that Paulita is very passionate about the work that she does. I asked if there might be a project I could work help with when I get to the project part of the residency, and she said that there was a possiblity for some web based work and maybe some other projects.

Third was the meeting with Fran, who has tons of information to share about working as a library administrator. She mentioned that it might be possible for Sarah and I to join her and Martha on their trip to the capital to talk with the legislators in January. I think that would be a very useful experience. I didn't know that deans did that type of thing, but it makes sense since it is a public institution and that's where the money comes from.

Fourth was the meeting with Patricia Bkrich in development. This is another area that I didn't really know existed in library land. Its amazing how much goes into getting people to give money and the types of factors the fundraisers look at to decide who the best candidates are to target for certain types of projects. Patricia also mentioned that it might be possible for me to work with her on a development project. I think it would be really interesting to see the process from start to finish.

Finally I met with Mark Emmons from instruction. Since instruction is an area I'm interested in as well, I had 90 million questions for Mark and I kept him well past his allotted hour. Luckily, he's pretty nice and didn't seem to mind too much. He told me about instruction both on the overall professional level as well as on the UNM library level. Mark also mentioned the LOEX conference that will be held in Albuquerque in 2009 and said it might be possible for me to help with the planning committeee, which would be awesome!