Valley Librarian

Cooking Frenzy

When Cara broke her leg a few years ago, we scrambled around to figure out how to manage getting dinner on the table.  Right after she broke it, several friends were generous enough to make dinner for us.  I knew it would be a hassle to have all the responsibility on me for dinner & dishes (we still have no automated dishwasher).  So we came up with a fun idea to plan several weeks of dinner.  We each selected 10 soups to make so we could have enough for more than one dinner.  This plan worked pretty well during what was otherwise a difficult time.

In the spirit of that endeavor, we decided to try something similar this winter.  We were inspired by watching Julie & Julia, a wonderful film especially for cooking buffs like us.  Plus I had read Child's memoir My Life in France while Cara had read the book that Julie Powell wrote with the same name as the movie: Julie and Julia.  Of course as Cara said, there was no way we were going to commit to cooking our way through an entire cookbook.  So we focused on Cara's large cookbook collection (an obsession I feed at her birthday and Christmas).  We each chose 3 recipes to cook from 3 different cookbooks and then we each selected 2 cookbooks in order to challenge the other to prepare something we hadn't prepared before.  Our intention was to make an entire dinner with main entrees and sides rather than just soups.  However we once again chose soups so on the week when I make my entree, Cara is supposed to make a soup and vice versa.

Thus far we have managed 2 entrees and one soups.  I went first and made Chicken Paprika with Letcho Sauce. The recipe came from the cookbook Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka.  Kafka focuses on vegetables in this cookbook but there are some recipes that include meat.  It is organized by regions of the world (New World, Asia,) and then by vegetable.  I made polenta and sauteed mixed greens with raisins, one of my favorites.

Letcho Sauce is a Hungarian sauce that features red bell peppers and tomatoes, and, of course, paprika.  I think the Chicken Paprika recipe called for cooking the chicken too long so it was a bit tougher than I typically like.  The chicken is cooked on top of the stove and sort of poached. The Letcho Sauce was good and not spicy though I did use Hungarian paprika.  It might be good to ensure you use a spicy rather than a sweet paprika if you wanted it spicier.  For me, I'd add a bit more cayenne next time to compensate and feed my desire for a hotter flavor.  If you don't eat meat, this Letcho Sauce is an excellent accompaniment just for polenta.

For her first dish, Cara made seafood tagliatelle with green mango salad.  This recipe was in Terrific Pacific Cookbook by Anya Bremzen and John Welchman.  This pasta dish was excellent.  The seafood topping or sauce was like a curry.  It had scallops which haven't been my favorite but it was so good that I will be asking her to make it again.   We both were less impressed with the green mango salad though it is supposed to be a common dish in Thailand.  It was really more of a relish than a salad.

Cara made the first soup using a recipe from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors.  The recipe was Corn and Chanterelle Chowder.  Since Madison's point is for cooks to use locally grown vegetables when they are in season we were pleased to make use of some beautiful golden chanterelles we found at Eugene's Saturday Market.  Cara questioned how often (not to mention where in the United States) corn and chanterelles are in season at the same time.   We were lucky I guess and since Cara is a wonderful cook, the chowder was yummy. 

OSU University Day 2009 : Symposium with Shaun Harper

Shaun Harper began the symposium by asking the crowd to ask a question about race that they have always wanted to ask but were afraid to ask out of fear of being labeled racist. So audience members wrote their questions on a notecard. Harper then shuffled the cards & gave some back out to the crowd to read aloud.

(ASIDE:  I emailed Karyle, OSU's university librarian, to tell her I was attending and relayed my disappointment that a) there weren't more participants and b) as far as I could tell, the only administrators in the room were Rich Holdren, Susie Brubaker-Cole, the new dean of Student Life, Mamta Accapadi, and me.)

The first question asked was: What is best way to discuss racial issues in class without making people of color not feel like on spot to speak for entire race? Harper was there to guide the process but he encouraged the audience to provide answers.  Among the responses:  Don't focus on just one group; name that concern and yet allow the person of color to just tell her/his story; if you as an instructor have a relationship with a certain student, you could call on that student; one professor said she uses her own experience being Jewish to model behavior, etc.

If race is socially constructed how do folks come to claim that identity?  How can we help students make sense of their identity? Answers:  Encourage study abroad; remember that it has a historical & economic meaning; help explore various dimensions of students' identities.  If race is imagined then racism & ramifications are imagined.

When we have interracial dialogue why can't we or how can we ever get past talking to bringing about change? Answers:  Call people on their stuff.  Emphasize accountability.  Pursue constructive critical dialogue.  Call people out when their behavior is at odds with OSU values. Someone commented that calling someone into account at some institutional levels is difficult.  You need to determine Where in the OSU hierarchy you have power or authority to speak out. 

Harper talked about the University's EEO statement on our stationary and how we needed to make some more personal comments or taglines to guide search committees.  Another symposium participant talked about a personal development plan.  If we switched our inclination to say I feel guilty with the statement I am responsible it helps avoid the guilt trap. Harper asked about how faculty & staff of color get put on every committee.  He said we meed to be deliberate about bringing more diversity into OSU.

How can OSU get the black community to work more with the GLBT community so students don't feel have to decide one or other? Larry Roper could have responded to this question but he wasn't present. Someone said you could have students work on multicultural groups.

Another question:  If OSU has a racist reputation, how do we change?  Someone said we need to work with students here and then the word of mouth will help with students not here.  Harper told a story about how he was asked by a school to help increase black male enrollment (his current research interest) & his response to them was: Work on students you already have.  Someone said that their unit had paid students to design universities that would make them feel right.  (ASIDE:  This was an interesting comment and got me to thinking about how a library might address some of the issues of climate or themes that Harper mentioned in his keynote.

Harper wrapped up the symposium with some observations.  He said we were a nice group but asked if we regularly engaged these questions.  The answer from someone--The choir is here!   Harper commented that it was a big choir.  He was surprised that we weren't more infectious.

Someone talked about how laid back the west was and Harper said we needed to be uncomfortable.  Another person said he tells students to not to hang out with nice students. Instead they shoudl hang out with those who are edgy and make us uncomfortable.  Harper mentioned the need to use folks in our own community.

He also discussed the core curriculum and how it does or doesn't prepare students to think about diversity. Harper said this revelation should trouble us enough to do something.  We need to do some assessment to get data that would help us find out how to improve outcomes. He mentioned a climate assessment as well as an outcome assessment.  Brubaker-Cole said she wanted to encourage folks to continue conversations about the BACC Core in this academic year.  Someone commented that tenured faculty should teach because untenured worry about evaluations.

There was a question about how we aren't ready but students are. Harper said we need to convince tenured folks that they need remediation. Harper said a both/and approach is good.  We could also couple tenured folks with non-tenured.

Someone said that it was more than enough to put on the back of BACC Core.  One response to this comment talked about one diversity course not being enough.  How, for example, does an african dance class offer info on how to engage with Africans

Someone talked about OSU using a shared book experience or shared courses--smaller set across several disciplines.  We want students to leave here saying they were challenged.

Harper ended up saying he just doesn't get it. What is so difficult about the process?  We had questions.  We had answers. 

Rich Holdren said talking is good but when it leads to diversity action, that is hard.  There is little to no progress.  Terryl Ross said people of color don't come to events like the symposium because they are tired of no action.  Someone else also discussed not talking about multiculturalism so much but needing to address antiracism.  Harper said we should work on ourselves & what we have is a predominantly white culture. Mamta said we can work on how our whiteness & privilege affects the environment.

Harper talked about how @his father's church. Once a year the choir brought a friend or family member to church.  He encouraged us to do this.

Folks talked more about what has worked at other places. Harper said we have a large choir so there is potential to be excellent in this area.  We need to seek ways to expend institutional efforts to help students live in a participatory democracy of diversity.

So I thought this was an inspiring symposium and wondered how to translate this to the Library.  I know that one thing I can do is to event someone along the next time I go to a diversity-related event. I also wondered if it would be possible to apply the question and answer activity to a group like our administrative team.  It sounds scary especially since there would be no Shaun Harper in the room.  But why not?  Do we need a person of color to be present or can't we talk about diversity issues and "our stuff" without having a person of color present.

I found it hard to think of a question so that made me ponder what I was scared of.  The answers: being seen as stupid, being perceived as racist.  What did I finally write down? My question had to do with what is commonly referred to as the "race card." Wikipedia has a decent explanation of race card if you don't know what I am referring to.  Anyway, my inarticulate attempt was something to the effect:  "Can someone actually play the race card? if so, how do we get past the effect of someone playing the race card?'

I would love to hear what others think.  Meanwhile, what is your question? 

OSU University Day 2009 Keynote

The keynote speaker for OSU's University Day, September 24, 2009, was Shaun Harper, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

The title of Shaun Harper's talk was "The Consequences of Remaining Silent at OSU." He began by talking about racial reality--the norms, trends, etc., attributable to race or racism.  He also said racial reality has to do with the experience of people of color.  He mentioned the work Colormute: Race Talk Dilemmas in an American School by Mica Pollock. He said it explains why we (white people really) avoid issues of race or talking about race--our fear of being stereotyped as white racists.  He also spoke of racial fatigue--being tired of talking about race issues.  Yet don't talk about it.

Harper asked: If race is not an issue then why are students differentially connected to outcomes by race? His co-authored book Student Engagement in Higher Education with Stephen John Quaye provides some strategies to move away from buzzwords. Harper said that 40 years of research show that the more students are engaged the more benefits there are to them & to universities. The students have greater self-confidence, set higher goals for post-baccalaureate degrees, and give back more to campus. 

Harper believes we need to shift the focus to educators to become more intentional in our work for diversity and focus on outcomes rather than leaving the work up to students.

His work with Sylvia Hurtado shows 9 themes in campus racial climates

1) Institutional negligence

2) Race as 4 letter word so avoid topic

3) Student self reports of segregation

4) Gaps in social satisfaction-white kids liked a campus but not the students of color

5) Reputation for racism has impact on future student experience

6) White students overestimate minority student satisfaction

7) Pervasiveness of whiteness in space, activities, curricula

8) Consciousness/powerlessness paradox among minority staff--when they studied 5 campuses mostly minority staff showed up.  They expressed some of same concerns as students about having to carry the burden of change.

9) Unexplored qualitative realities of race in institutional assessment

These nine themes got me to thinking about what role a university library plays in maintaining the status quo of any of these themes. I was especially drawn to the 7th theme as I contemplated the services we provide as instructors, the regular use of our space and facilities. How do collections fit into this picture?

Harper went on to used OSU's new "Powered By Orange" statement to show how we can improve OSU's climate.  He mentioned last week's Newsweek cover--Is Your Baby Racist? 

He said our students (again mostly white students) come to us with prior conditioning and often leave with that conditioning unchanged or unchallenged.  If that is the reality,then we have failed in our mission & goal of student success.

According to the "Powered by Orange" message, OSU doesn't want to be perceived as manufacturers of people or graduates who are racially oblivious. He pointed out that 4 of Oregon's 6 congressional representatives are OSU grads--they make laws and policies with direct impact on racial issues. If they screw up it will partially be our fault.

Harper mentioned that he was the only person of color at the University Awards Dinner.  He asked if anyone had noticed & will it be talked about today & in the future. Will it be different next year?  (ASIDE: I did notice him, but I would tweak his observation to say he was the only black man present and no, I didn't talk about it until now!) 

Harper said his next research interest is to move higher education beyond the taboo of race and to make talking about race easier. In his interactions with attendees at his sessions, he gives attendees an index card & asks them to write one burning question they always had about race but were afraid to ask.

One other comment:  I thought it was interesting that after Harper concluded and President Ray came back on stage, he did not remind University Day attendees that Harper was giving a workshop later in the day, a workshop I attended.

Johanna Sherrer Lecture 2009

2009 Johannah Sherrer Lecture by Betsy Wilson, University Librarian, University of Washington, Lewis and Clark College, Friday, September 25, 2009, 3 PM 

Alison Bobal, an OSU colleague,  & I attended the 2009 Johannah Sherrer Memorial Lecture at Lewis & Clark College.  UW's university librarian,Betsy Wilson, gave a talk entitled "Straws in the Wind: Emerging Models of Library Service."  Overall, I didn’t think I learned a lot that was new or that we hadn’t already begun to discuss at OSU, but that in and of itself is validating.  Also, I have known Betsy for a long time so it was good to see her and also to be a part of the library community that gathered to hear her talk.  I also remember Johannah Sherrer and this lecture series is a great tribute to her.   

Betsy Wilson (BW)introduced the straws in the wind concept saying it was based on a comment made by John  Selden in his work Table Talk. Selden was a British law scholar who was a contemporary of John Milton (mid 1600s). 

Wilson talked about UW’s Suzzallo Library's beginning as a "cathedral of books" for a "university of a thousand years."  Suzzallo, the first UW president, called the Library "the soul of the university." The Washington governor actually or supposedly fired Suzzallo for building the library since he believed it was not worth the effort.   Wilson expounded on how the 20th century library is based on physicality and how this has changed what with the introduction of automated or online catalogs in the late '70s. Wilson says that all the change since then has resulted in more collaboration & challenges to energize us.   She referenced James Duderstadt when she said, "The future of the university may predict library future & vice versa."   She commented on how libraries' efforts to redefine space may lead the way of change on our campuses.  

She said as a UL she grapples with the future of libraries everyday.  Will we collect blogs, wikis?  How will we handle the data deluge? Our money is dwindling and priorities competing.  She speculates about the future even if, as she speculated, crystal ball gazing means eating glass sometimes.   Her preferred future for libraries involves users getting info where it is wanted & needed.  We must make it accessible & affordable via a global service model.

How do we get to this future?

First, we must invest in collaboration--which she defined as a true melding without arificial boundaries.  With our history of sharing via ILL, etc. we're prepared, but must move to the network level as Lorcan Dempsey describes it.  If we focus on where we can cooperate we have time to pay attention to local &/or unique needs,collections, and so on.  Wilson stressed that we won't thrive if we don't work together.   Wilson also discussed the idea of massively decentralized collaboration--a bunch of heads is better than one.  We can and should collaborate with users.  She mentioned Dale Doughtery of Make Magazine who describes communities of passion.  Why not get users to help with metadata to describe images?  She believes we'll be measured on how well we distribute info.  She described our various roles in libraries.  Near & dear to her (and if you know Betsy or know of her, this is no surprise) is the educational role, including  how we have pushed on info literacy. 

UW Libraries have begun working with bioscience researchers. Libraries are ejournal providers but this could be a dangerous position as open access takes its toll (no pun intended).  We won’t be using as much physical space.  Our researchers work globally and across multi campuses but we don't license that way.  We organize by institutions but global research and problems are organized that way.   A researcher in the NW sees stuff that a colleague in China can't see.  This global focus is driving OA.  Collaboration is hard; it's a choice, but it’s a rewarding choice.  

A 2nd area to invest in is assessment.   We as libraries have talked about our culture of the book, of equal access, and of control but also there is the assessment culture.  BW defines this as decisions based on fact, research, analysis.  She also said there needs to be methodological diversity to obtaining assessment data—usability, focus groups, etc.  UW Libraries has learned that users, especially faculty prefer remote access.  Users want unmediated or  self-service. Online productivity and desktop delivery are top priorities.  Assessment is ultimately local and she can use the data as a dean talking to other deans and to donors to tell the Libraries' story. 

BW said that personnel is the 3rd area of investment.  They are trying to create a workplace of choice at UW with better compensation.  We need more diversity.  We should aspire to develop the whole organization.  

BW also talked about the outcomes of university librarians taking risks such as more  library consolidations or closing branch libraries,especially in the sciences.  What are we going to do with our space?  The learning commons model is now 10 years old with a focus on technological assistance.  She mentioned that at UW they are starting to hear from graduate students & faculty about help on publishing. She speculated that a research commons will emerge.

BW mentioned the various library initiatives about going mobile--library services for cell phones.  She said some places are experimenting with how they can text message users.  She also discussed putting digital collections in places like Wikipedia because then we see that usage of digital collections skyrockets. 

She spent some time talking about Ethicshare at UMinnesota and the efforts to bring together different streams of research across various disciplines. Our advantage in libraries is knowing what's going on in lots of discipline.  She mentioned VIVO at Cornell as a place to gather info on life sciences research.   BW said we need to go webscale with our operations to add value.  She said we were already there with distributed cataloging and should push for more in other areas. 

BW summed up her talk by telling two stories.  She told a story about a blind student at UW who was working to identify resources on a Peruvian language only used by a small percentage of the population.  He was helped by a librarian at UW to learn more about this Native South American language, Quechua. Quechua
was studied most by the linguist Alfredo Augusto Torero Fernandez de Cordova. Anyway, this student may have been the first American to read the language and he went on to create a Braille system for Quechuans. 

Her more interesting story was about a dinner she had with a group of “Reedies,” including her niece (I think) who had recently graduated from Reed College and the Reedies’ parents.  She said that every time she tried ask the students questions, the parents would take over and dominate the conversation.  The students withdraw so BW thought to ask something that the parents would not know about.  So she asked them if they knew about Summit, the consortial catalog for the Orbis-Cascade Alliance.  She was surprised,and pleasantly so, to learn that the Reedies regularly put messages in books at Reed’s library.  Then they text-messaged their friends at Lewis and Clark,etc. to tell them what book had the message.  Their friends would then check the book out through Summit.  Pretty cool and funny.   

The Start of a New Year

My promise to myself was that I would make more of a concerted effort to blog in 2009.  If I can’t maintain regular contributions to the Valley Librarian than I will let this account go.  Reading some draft of personal compositions I penned several years ago was inspiring but it remains to be seen if I can keep a steady pace up.  I know that any practice I engage in will be helpful in my professional writing.  I just need to find and make time.

Cara, Bo, and I spent a portion of the day after new year walking along the westernmost portion of the Amazon Creek Bikepath near the Greenhill Animal Shelter. I think this section is referred to as the Fern Ridge Bikepath since the idea is to connect the downtown area to the reservoir.  If there is anything that the City of Eugene has done right, it has been the construction and maintenance of these paths along the Willamette and the Amazon Creek.   At this site off Greenhill Road, the path meanders along open wetlands.  During the winter, it can be pretty dismal. I always like it out here away from town. It helps to give me some idea of what Eugene might have looked like before the Walmarts and Targets and auto parts stores took over in west Eugene.   I don't have any pictures to share myself so mentioning this place will be an incentive to take some the next time we visit.

Our walk began during a partly cloudy break and the wind was not too strong but it was brisk.  Even during the winter months there is a lot of bird activity out there.  I confessed to Cara as if it were some surprise to her that secretly I am a birdwatcher.  We saw about a half dozen great blue herons or maybe three because that kept changing locations?    The city has put up some poles in the fields where osprey might be encouraged to establish nests.  We didn’t see an osprey but there was a bird with some sort of crescent sitting atop an osprey nest.  It was some sort of waterfowl possibly a cormorant, I thought.  There were a lot of Canada geese as always along with mallards.  Bo likes the walk for the smells and the taste of goose poo which can be in abundance out here.  (Remember:  your dog is a scavenger!) 

Too bad we had forgotten to bring our binoculars and the bird book.  Next time.  The path winds along past some houses that aren’t necessarily well-maintained.  This one residence is home to a flock of pigeons who take off from the roof and fly in a group as if they were a ballet troupe angling together this way and then winging back to show off their white undersides.  We walked for about a half hour.  On the way back we could see the rain coming in.  We weren’t able to make it back to the Honda before it reached us.  Fortunately we had worn our trusty Columbia jackets—staples of Northwesterners.  Even so, the rain pelted our uncovered faces stinging like little pinpricks. 

The experience reminded me of a horrible long run I undertook the Sunday before Christmas.  I stupidly waited all day to put in my five-miler.  Then once out on the road, I knew it was going to rain within 10 minutes.  My intention had been to run my five miles out toward the Target store in west Eugene.  Cara and I planned to meet there and she would bring me dry pants and a shirt since I get a chill so easily after running.  It rained all right.  The temperature dropped pretty quickly and I even felt sleet for about 5 minutes as I headed west on the bikepath.  Then a fairly heavy rain started and I found myself running against a strong headwind—stronger than I usually experience running toward west Eugene.  By the time I got to Target, I was soaked all the way through, including my new pair of running shoes.  Cara showed up finally after and I had run around the parking lot to stay warm.  I went to the bathroom to change and found that the front of my thighs and my abdomen were red from the cold.  I was pretty miserable but Cara wisely went and bought me a towel to dry off.  Plus we purchased some silly cheap Christmas booties so I didn’t have to walk around in wet socks and shoes.  I am sure I looked like a homeless person.  Because my ambition is to run the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon with my brother Larry and sister Barb, I am trying to be good about maintaining my training.  This kind of experience doesn’t make it easy though I feel like I am more of a wimp about running in the weather than I ever was before.

We watched Traitor with  Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce last night.  It was pretty good though maybe a little formulaic.  Traitor did make a statement about how Islam is used against the very believers it ought to benefit.  It’s weird because I also happen to be reading The Mists of Avalon right now and there is a similar theme in this novel.  I have liked most of Cheadle’s movies and would have liked to see him get more recognition for Hotel Rwanda.  I had wanted to see a movie in the theater during this long weekend but that is not going to happen.  We went to the Bijou to try and see Slumdog Millionaire but the line was too long, it was cold outside, and Cara already felt kind of crappy.  Maybe next weekend.  We are going to catch the Cuban art exhibit in the UO’s Schnitzer Art Museum.  Then I am back to work on my editorial duties for Collection Management. I am trying to put an issue to bed and need to finish my column or feature, “What’s Next for Collection Managers and Collection Management?”  MY focus is on user-driven services in collections with discussion on purchase on demand via interlibrary and patron-driven acquisitions.

 

Christmas 2008 in Portland

Insane as it sounds Cara and I chose to drive to Portland the day before Christmas Eve.  The typical two-hour drive took us 6 and half hours.  Our Honda CRV fared very well and we drove it almost all the way to her parents' house up off Council Crest Drive in the hills above OHSU.  Our drive up just past Salem was simple.  The driving became more complicated just past Keizer.  I think we spent about an hour around the Brooks exit just creeping along.  It seems that everyone was stopping at the Woodburn exit to chain up including 18-wheelers stopping in the left lane.  I am not sure it was that bad for the most part or maybe it was because the Honda did so well.  The city was pretty shut down but started to pick back up on Christmas Eve afternoon.  Cara's sister Andrea and I saw kids snowboarding down a hill in the downtown area.  Too bad I forgot my snowshoes.  They would have made it easier trekking back and forth to the car the night we arrived.  I like snow, but after being in that much for several days, I was glad to get back to some familiar rain in Eugene. 

Spring in the Valley

I was going to write about how spring has come to the Willamette Valley.  Daffodils line driveways.  You can even stop on Peoria Road and buy freshly picked ones at serve yourself stands.  There are trees blooming everywhere.  I especially love the tulip magnolias and stellata magnolia  or star magnolias.  The buds are pretty large so you get a pretty good glimpse of the emerging blossoms which are also fairly large.  I will post some spring pictures soon.  Now that I have relocated my digital camera I don't have to relay on taking pictures with my Blackberry which isn't so reliable though handy.
Anyway, the forecast is for snow at least down to 1000 feet in the foothills. We have had frost several times in the morning this week.   This seems kind of unusual but then spring weather is usually fraught with weird precipitation here.  Last Thursday while driving home, the wind picked up and the rain was mixed with hail.  Thank god the hail wasn't too intense.  It can make driving difficult. 
Clouds were lying low over the Coastal Range and there were very dark ones hovering over the fields I was driving past.  I called home to tell Cara (I will explain this odd name thing later) to say, "I swear I feel like Dorothy Gale, fully expecting a funnel cloud to come tearing across the field at anytime."   I stopped over for a break in Harrisburg to get a soda at my favorite market.  When I phoned home again, Cara told me the weather had turned worse in Eugene.  By the time I drove through Junction City, I swear it had begun to snow.  There is a particular way snow looks in headlights and streetlights swirling through the air, plus the lumps on my windshield didn't look like rain.  Cara told me at home that it couldn't be snowing, but we ended up getting a white topping in the Cascade foothills.
I am hoping that it doesn't snow any more than it did last week.  For now, I need to stop writing and get to work.  Bo, my 70-lb yellow lab, was making it hard anyway.  She wasn't getting enough attention so she was leaning pretty hard on me with all of her heft.

Becoming an AUL

We have our first of three AUL candidates interviewing today.  While listening to the first candidate do a presentation today, I reflected on my own journey moving up the career ladder.  It was about a year ago exactly that I found myself in the same position as today's candidate interviewing for an Associate University Librarian position a Oregon State University. 

Having already been in the state for a dozen years, I knew many OSU librarians already, including the library director.  I had worked with many on cooperative collection development projects and through the Oregon Library Association. Still, I wanted to step back from that familiarity and communicate a level of serious commitment to moving from the UO.  Or more to the point to moving to OSU because I wanted OSU folks to know I was a player. 

I feel proud of the work I did to prepare for the interview. Because of the topic chosen, I had to do some work on both OSU and on land grant institutions. I expect future colleagues to demonstrate that level of preparation.  I suppose this next couple of weeks will give me the opportunity to see who best meets that expectation.

My interview at OSU went well. Once I got an offer, it felt so damn good to be wanted. To be asked to be a leader in an innovative library like OSU.  Making the career change meant examining a strong loyalty to the UO and my colleagues there.  It meant making a conscious decision to focus my energy and time on a job beyond the typical 9-5 routine.

 It wasn't long after I started working here, that I knew implicitly that I had made the right choice. I feel so at home here at OSU. I enjoy the administrative group, made up of the department heads, the AULs, and the ULs. The librarians are engaged in serious research and aren’t afraid of taking risks. Don't get me wrong;  I didn't leave the UO with bad feelings or lots of anger and resentment.  That was home to me also and I still feel comfortable engaging with my former colleagues. But to make the move I took my partner's advice and went toward something (OSU) rather than away from something. 

I left the University of Oregon with good feelings and some degree of sadness what with the loss of some strong personal connections. However, when you have worked in libraries for as long as I have you ought to know that sure you can move to another position. You may leave challenges and issues behind that are tiresome, even horrific. But new ones will eventually replace them.

My OSU interview wasn't my first attempt to move beyond my department head position at the UO.  I had interviewed in the first rounds at North Carolina State and at UC Berkeley, though I never got beyond that first step.  I also applied at a couple of more places, always on one coast or the other.  Living in the middle of the country doesn't appeal to me though I might be able to do the Southwest with the right job.  San Jose State University invited me to interview onsite.  They have an interesting combination of an academic and a public library but personal and economic reasons made me decide to continue looking rather than commit the time and energy it takes to interview in person.   It was fair, in my mind, to SJSU and to me to stop the process when I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to commit.

The UO did discuss with me what they might offer me to remain there. They weren't quite able to offer me enough incentive to stay--especially the excitement of taking a larger role in managing a library.  Getting tenure as part of the hire also helped to seal the deal with OSU.  Once I had announced my decision to leave the UO, a colleague took me aside, confiding to me that she was going put herself on the job market as a way of getting the Administration to offer her some better position.  I know I frowned at her before telling her, "That's not why I interviewed at OSU.  In fact, in order to interview well, I think you have to take the leap.  Actually see yourself leaving your current position and taking on the new role.  To do otherwise is to be unfair to the place where you are interviewing."   In reflection, it is also unfair to yourself though I suppose folks have a lot of other reasons for interviewing for jobs they know they won't be taking:   see new places, meet new people, etc.

People ask me regularly about how the new job is going. Really well, I say. I still love it. Maybe I haven’t had a strong test yet, but I think the shine is going to be pretty durable and may even come back after repeated washings.

Welcome

This is my third blog, a mix of the personal and professional thoughts of a Valley Librarian.  Why call my blog Valley Librarian? 

Because I work in the Valley Library at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. 

Because daily I drive through the Willamette Valley along the Willamette River, enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of farmland on my way to work.  To the east are the volcanic Cascades; to the west lies the Coast Range.  In between are some of the greenest fields imaginable growing grass seed and feeding sheep, cattle and goats. 

Because I live in Eugene, the second largest city in the Willamette Valley, and worked for a dozen years at another important Willamette Valley library, the University of Oregon Libraries.