mislibrarian

Me again :)

2009-11-15T12:14:00.002-05:00

Hello there! It has been too long yet again since my last post. Not even sure where to begin so I will be general and brief. If you have an specific questions you can comment here, e-mail me or find me on Facebook.

My niece is now 6 months old and BEAUTIFUL! I am looking forward to seeing her in Boston for Thanksgiving. It has been almost 2 months since I have seen her and she is growing like a weed. She has grown 8" in 6 months!! Guess she is going to be tall like her mom and auntie :)

If any of you know of any jobs in the Boston metro area please let me know. As I like my job here is Baltimore and the friends I have made I am not thrilled with Baltimore and have decided that I do not want to be a long distance aunt so I plan to move to Boston. When you ask? Well that all depends on how quick I can find a job. If I could afford to move now and look for a job when I get there I would have already moved but I do not have that kind of money hanging around. I am not solely looking for library jobs in Boston. I am willing to try something new but have not drilled it down to what type of specific positions to look for.

OK, I said I would be brief. Hope you are all doing well. Talk at ya again soon!

I am an AUNT!!!

2009-05-14T16:23:00.003-04:00

Here is a link to pictures of my nieces first days. they were taken on my sister Stacey's iPhone. I will be heading to Boston from May 27- June 1 where I will be taking many more pictures that I will link to from here.

Her name is Samara Nyima Solomon-Sanneh. Born May 7, 2009 (Happy One Week Birthday Samara!!). She weighed 6lbs and was 18.5 inches long.

Ocean City, MD

2009-05-14T16:12:00.003-04:00

Hello to those of you who still read this :)

I am in Ocean City, MD for the Maryland Library Association conference. I drove in with my colleague Terri and her husband. We got in around 3pm on Wednesday May 13th.

We checked-in, got settled int he hotel, then we took a drive to the boardwalk and took a walk while eating thrasher french fries and people watching. The official season here in Ocean City has not begun so the boeardwal is quite desolate but there were enough pepople around to sit for a bit and people watch.

Since it was Terri and Mike's first time in Ocean City, I took them to Fager's Island for dinner. It is a casual place to have dinner but it is on the bay and at sundown they lay Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture perfectly timed with the sunset. It is quite entertaining and both Terri and Mike enjoyed it.

We then went back to the hotel to relax, we were all popped from the 3 hour drive, the 1 hour walk on the boardwalk and dinner.

Today was the first official day of the conference since yesterday were pre-conference classes. Went to a first timers session; sort of a waste of time for me since I have been to many other conferences but this was my fit time at this MLA conference. The past session I went to today was done by 3 Emerging Technology Librarians about Blogging Like You Mean it!

I learned so many new tricks about blogging and getting the word out about the blog and how to market it to increase usage and views. So, i hope to try these new tricks out for this blog as well as the work blog that I am a part of.

Enough from me for now but hope to update you on my adventures soon. TTYL

No Hawaii for me :(

2009-05-06T15:08:00.004-04:00

So in one week many of my friends and colleagues will be headed to Hawaii for the annual Medical Library association Meeting. I will not be one of them (but I am not bitter). I am sad I will miss it but am looking forward to next year's meeting being in DC and being a part of its planning (hint, hint, Janice Kelly).

While they are jetting off to sunny HI a co-worker and I will be heading to Ocean City, MD for 2 days to attend and participate in the Maryland Library Association. This will be my first time attending this meeting since I moved to Maryland in August 2006. I will actually be an attendee rather than an exhibitor. I am hoping this will give me a better chance to mingle with the librarians and create new relationships that will foster new collaborative efforts professionally.

With all this happening I and my family are on baby watch. My sisters due date is not officially until May 30th but it seems her BP is on the rise so we are waiting until Thursday afternoon to see what the Dr.'s say. They may tell her to stop working early but to just go home and relax, they may tell her to go about what she has been doing the last couple of weeks (since her BP starting rising), OR they may admit her to the hospital and decide they want to induce labor so there is no more stress on Stacey or the baby. So, for all I know, all of my plans may be foiled. We shall see.

Work is going well. April was a very busy month for me. 5 outreach events in 5 weeks!!!! It doesn't sound like much but I was pooped!!! After it was over I headed to Boston for 4 days to visit my sister and have her baby shower. There was no rest for the wary ;) May is a much slower month with two events both this week and then the conference the week after.

Thanks for reading and I will post more again soon. XOXOXO

February 2009

2009-02-23T14:41:00.002-05:00

So it has been about a month since I have posted. What has been happening in that month you ask?

Work:
Work has been good. It is only as busy as I make it and I seem to be making it quite busy but not to the point that I am crazy. I have been and will be exhibiting quite a bit at some health fairs over the next few months. I am trying to collaborate with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, State of Maryland on a grant projects, hoping to apply for some exhibit award money to buy a new display for us since our reminds me of a science fair display :)

Due to a major budget crisis for the State of Maryland, state employees (myself included) had to take some furlough days. I have to take a total of 16 hours in a 5 month month period, 4 hours at a time. SHEESH, can they make it more complicating?! This will allow we to spend longer periods of time in FL and in MA for baby showers and baby births.

PERSONAL:
I have joined a Women's group here in Baltimore and have met some great women and have been doing some nice community work with them. So, we shall see how that goes. This Thursday (@/26/09) I will be having minor surgery on my left ring finger. I seem to have a glomus tumor in my nail bed. I have had it for years...it looks like blood vessels under my nail after you smash your finger in a door, but it isn't. Well, this tumor has cause some discomfort over the past 5 years or so but lately it has been really bad so I went to a hand specialist. Decision: remove the tumor, get rid of the pain. My mom is flying up for the surgery so I will have some company post surgery. Nothing to worry about but not sure how much I will be able to type immediately after surgery :P

So, that is it in a nutshell. I am sure I am missing something or you want to know something I did not post here. If so, call or e-mail me. Hope you are well!

~Mer

Sick Day

2009-01-28T11:25:00.003-05:00

Toady I stayed home from work. Woke up yesterday morning with sinus congestion and a sore throat. Made it through the work day on Tuesday, looked at my calendar and decided I was taking Wednesday off to try and recuperate.

Just ahead cold but what a pain in the but!!!

Since I am home I plan to finish my laundry and actually put it away, finish watching the second season of Dexter via my Netflix account and trying to continue to organize my music on iTunes. The iTunes task will NOT get finished today since I have over 20GB of music. Seems I have quite a bit of music with unknown information attached to it so i hope to find more info about it so I can get it properly organize.

We had snow most of the day yesterday here on Baltimore and freezing rain overnight that seems to have shut schools today or they had a 2 hour delay. Guess I had good timing with my sick day :)

It has been a cold winter here in Baltimore but this is the first major snowfall we have gotten. We shall see what Mother Nature has in store or us over the next two months before Spring peeks its head out.

I will be hading to FL in about 3 weeks for the first of two baby showers for my sister. My mothers best friend is throwing Stacey a shower in FL and then my sister best friend, my mom and I will throw a shower for Stacey in Boston. I am so excited to finally be an Auntie!!!!

OK, well better get moving on those chores I mentioned earlier. Talk again soon. Be well!

~M

Two months later...

2009-01-03T15:07:00.002-05:00

So it has been two months since my last post. Sorry, I really do not have an excuse.

The past two months have been filled with holidays and notice of a new addition to our family. Yes, my sister is pregnant but we also found out that my cousin is going to have a baby about 5 weeks after my sister. I am going to be an AUNTIE!!! The tentative date in May 30th. I cannot tell you how excited I am. We have been waiting for this for years!

I spent Thanksgiving here in Baltimore with friends and spent the December holiday in FL with my family. 10 days in Fl was nice and I was glad to be out of the cold.

Work is the same. I hope that the next few months are busy but that will partially have to do with me. Got to get crackin' on contacting folks about doing trainings and demonstrations.

I have one more day of my December vacation before I go back to work and part of me wishes I could retire today!! Maybe I need to invest more $ for the long term and hope for the best.

OK, that is all for now. i really do not have anything to say but maybe in the near future something meaningful will be written on this blog. Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday ad Happy New Year!!

Busy, Busy

2008-10-08T08:10:00.002-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been busy but not in the conventional way. Meaning, I have not been exhibiting like a mad woman which is usually the reason I am busy. This time, it is typical work.

For example, I had to write to small articles for out newsletter. One about funding opportunities and the other about the HIV/AIDS Health Information Outreach award I recently received. Yes, I (the library)was just awarded at $9913.00 award to partner with an adolescent HIV/AIDS Education & Prevention Program. WE are both very excited to get started.

I have been preparing necessary items and to do lists for the annual Mid-Atlantic Chapter of MLA conference in Morgantown, WV from October 20-22. I will be driving with a co-worker on the 19th since I am on several committees and have quite a bit of work to do before during and after conference. I am even moderating (sort of) a Speed Mentoring program. Yes, do heard right, Speed Mentoring. Just like speed dating but using your resume and career questions to talk with supervisory Health Science Librarians. I am excited to say we have 6 mentor/mentee pairs this year. Thanks to everyone who supported it from the beginning and those who are participating.

What else.....OH! My friend/colleague Gail land I submitted a poster proposal for the MLA (Medical Library Association) conference in Hawaii in May 2009. Now we wait.

I was also asked to write an article for the Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet. Still not sure what I am going write about but I have two ideas. I need to run them by the Associate Editor who contacted me and see what she has to say. So, Kay if for some reason you are reading this, expect to hear from me soon.

What else....well, there are other small projects at work I am working on but nothing at this time worth discussing. Now, I wait patiently until I get to meet up with my best friend. We are meeting in FL for her 40th birthday and spending time at my parents' new lake house and with the rest of my family too. I am so excited. I have not seen her in a year and a half.

That is all for now.
TTYL
~Mer

Yes, it is really me!

2008-09-30T15:42:00.002-04:00

Hey there! I know it has been weeks (ok, more like months) since I have posted so I thought I would give posting (on a more regular basis a try).

So, what have I been up to these past months?

In May I headed to Chicago fro the annual MLA (Medical Library Association) conference. Had a great time, learned some new librarian things, caught up with some old friends, met some new ones...

June was a relatively slow month. I did some exhibiting as part of my job, has some friends from DC come up for Pride weekend, pulled my back out...of course at the most in opportune time since I was in the middle of writing a $10,000 award proposal for NLM (National Library of Medicine). Which by the way, I just received notice we have been awarded. YEAH!!!! Was supposed to go to Key West but that darn back and the award proposal held me back.

July...well since my parents bought a second home in Sebring, FL (central FL, about 2 hours from Coral Springs house), I went to see the house and spend July 4th with my parents and grandmother. It was a great weekend, relaxing by the lake doing NOTHING! Then I had quite a few exhibits to attend to but as usual I thrive on them and really enjoy it. Guess that is why I took this job huh? Artscpae was in Baltimore this month too but the weather was so incredibly HOT that I did not spend much time outside checking out the available art. This month we also had quite a few interviews at work for two open liaison positions in our department. I am glad to say we have hired for both positions. One has already arrived and doing well. The other applicant will be here soon.

August I took some extra vacation time to spend some time in MA and ME with my sister. I also attended my sister's best friend's wedding. It was beautiful! Congrats Letiana and John!

Cannot believe that September is at a close! This month begins the start of school and many conferences before the holidays begin. So, I have already been to Ocean City, Linthicum, Mini-Med School, Reservoir Hill and others. Needless to say October will be a bit busier and I am taking 1.5 weeks of at the end of October to head to FL with Sheria for her 40th birthday.

Whew! That is a quick re-cap of what I have been up to. If I can manage it I will try to post at least once a week with what I have been doing professionally and personally. Glad to say I have a 4 day week this week!!

TTYL!

Week 8 exercise 2

2008-05-14T10:38:00.002-04:00

Rollyo?!

Not sure I get it or maybe I was just having some difficulty with the instructions (which is of course, very possible) but I was not able to find the search roll to look into what these blogs were saying about privacy.

I think I need to spend quite a bit more time on Rollyo finding out exactly what it is and how it can/cannot help me in my daily life professionally or personally.

Thanks for introducing me to these new tools. Look forward to talking about them @ MLA in Chicago!

The course is now complete!!

WHEW!

Week 8 (very late) - API's & Mash-ups

2008-05-14T10:25:00.002-04:00

SO, I took a look at the mashup award link and decided to look at taggylicio.us

The web address is similar to deli.icio.us but the blurb about taggy being the largest tag cloud piqued my interest.

So, I took a look at the tag cloud and what would happen when I clicked on a tag. King of cool. It brings up a page with itmes from Digg, Youtube, Flickr, photostream anf others.

I did not see many tags that were library related. Curious since there are quite a few librarians out there using del.icio.us but I guess they are unaware of taggylicio.us

I may have to add some more tags to my Flickr and del.icio.us account in hopes they will appear in Taggys tag cloud.

Well not I off to do the second exercise. I will wither amend this post or write a separate on. Have fun and try out some of the links mentioned in this blog if you have never used them before.

More later,
Meredith

Week 6 - Online Photo Sharing

2008-05-05T09:48:00.003-04:00

Here are the steps I am to follow for week 6:

Discovery Exercises:

Step 1: Set up an online photosharing account. We suggest using flickr, but there are several others listed in the Wikipedia reading from which you may choose.

Step 2: Upload one or more digital photos using flickr or any other image sharing service.

Step 3: Post the photo(s) on to your Facebook site and your blog. You can add these photos to your Facebook page through the photos section or through adding one of the many flickr applications.

Step 4: Blog about the process on your personal blog for this course and share how this concept might be used in your library.

So, I already had a Flickr account but I decided to spend the $25.00/year for a Flickr pro account. This give me more space to upload photos and adds some extra features (I have not thoroughly looked into yet).

Uploading to Flickr was a little time consuming for me in the past because I thought I had to do it one picture at a time. I then found the Flickr uploader tool. What a great tool. It allows me to upload numerous pictures at one time from wherever I have them saved on my computer when they were uploaded there.

I do wish there was way to upload pictures directly to Flickr without having to first upload them to my computer then to Flickr where I then delete them for space reasons. UGH! If anyone has a smoother solution to this please let me know.

Since I already had the Flickr account I had already uploaded a photo to my FB account and added the Flickr application to my FB profile. I like the FB application but it seems like a lot of duplication to have the Flickr tool in FB and the Flickr account itself but this does allow you to share your photos with more/different people.

Well, that is it for now. Later I will briefly discuss how using Flickr can work or not work for libraries.

~M

Week 7 assignment: Podcasts, Online hosted videos

2008-04-24T16:30:00.004-04:00

I think I am a week behind but part of my assignment this week was to explore podcasting and YouTube.

Since I have done both of these in the past I do not have too much to say but...

You tube needs a better search feature. Trying to find something relevant can be like finding a needle in a haystack. There are great videos on you tube but finding them can be a challenge.

The fact that MIT records their classes for everyone to watch is impressive. I know MIT is not the only one. SO, if you ever wanted to take a class at MIT, you can now and for free you just won't get any credit for it.

The advanced part of my assignment was to embed a video I found on you tube to share. Well, I loved Bart's puppet shoe with his Star Wars Pez dispensers that I chose his video to embed so here it is. Thanks for the laughs Bart and see you in Chicago.

For you Hospital Librarians

2008-04-17T16:47:00.003-04:00

Recently read this blog post from the MidContinental Region of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine's blog.

Librarians as musicians

2008-04-17T16:03:00.002-04:00

In case you wanted to know, there is a group of Medical Librarians who have formed a band called The Bearded Pigs.

They play each year at our annual Medical Library Association Conference. The money we, their fans pay to become a member of their Thicket Society goes to buying each of us a t-shirt, pins they sell at meetings and the rest is donating to the MLA Scholarship Fund.

Just thought you might want to see that librarians do know how to have fun.

~M

Library as place

2008-04-17T15:57:00.003-04:00

I just read an interesting blog post from User Education Resources for Librarians about the new Ohio State University Library.

It sounds like, when finished, it will be an amazing building. In todays world, many libraries when posed with a renovation or new building construction are perplexed with how to build to ensure their patrons will use it. There is the saying 'if you build it they will come" but in today;s information age, our users are using our resources from far remote places.

That is all, hope you enjoy the article.

I am going to try and post more about what I read from my reader on my blog in order to pass on the great information I read about. We shall see how long this lasts :)

MLA looking for official bloggers!

2008-04-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

Become an ‘Official MLA Conference Blogger’ and MLA will provide you with wireless Internet access for the duration of the Annual Conference!

This year, MLA will sponsor 15 ‘Official MLA Conference Bloggers.’ Bloggers will chronicle across the Conference experience: the speakers, sessions, committees, social networking events, etc. This is your opportunity to share, officially, with the MLA community your insights and experiences. If you blog and want the convenience of wireless Internet access throughout the hotel, this is a great opportunity for you. Even if you already have a wireless solution, consider becoming an ‘Official MLA Conference Blogger.’

Since the number of wireless accounts is limited, the process is competitive. The panel of judges will consider the blogger’s experience and blog appearance and functionalities. Your conference interests are especially important as we want to ensure that conference goers can read about all aspects of the conference.

If you are named an ‘Official MLA Conference Blogger’ you will receive wireless Internet access for the duration of the Annual Conference AND MLA will acknowledge your contribution to the membership on the MLA Conference pages. All Official Conference Blogs will be listed on the Blog Roll at the MLA Conference Wiki.

Please complete the online entry form in order to be considered for Official MLA Conference Bloggership! We will display the top finalists in the days leading up to the winner. Stay tuned to see how your community is faring, but remember that all results are UNOFFICIAL until the winners are verified by the panel of judges.

Mid-week 5 post

2008-04-09T10:59:00.001-04:00

I will get to these at a later date but thought I would post them here for your viewing.

* Which Web Office Tool program did you like best and why?
* Do you have any concerns about confidentiality or security?
* Does your working environment block access to Web Office Tools?
* Do you think your institution would adopt these products at the enterprise level?

Week 5 - Web office tools

2008-04-09T10:35:00.003-04:00

In week 5 we are supposed to create/add/edit/share documents within GoogleDocs and then compare it to other similar tools (ie: Zoho). The questions we have been asked to ponder are:

Is this the future of all software products? What do you think?

GoogleDocs is what I am familiar with. I have not had a chance to test other web office tools. I have however uploaded documents and invited some members of a subcommittee I am on to view the documents I have created for us. Since I am in MD, one is in Washington, DC and the other in NC, I thought GoogDocs would be a great way to collaborate.

Neither of my colleagues have used GoggleDocs before so I thought it was worth a try. I will let you know how it works out after our first conference call.

Do you have any suggestions?

Web 2.0 Class week 4 (Social bookmarking)

2008-04-01T16:45:00.003-04:00

Create a blog post about your del.icio.us experience and thoughts about this tool. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?

My answers to follow shortly.

OK, del.icio.us is a interesting tool. I like the idea of having all of my favorite website/wikis in one place so no matter where I am I have them BUT....

Delicious do not allow for good clustering or organizing. You can bundle your favorites but is still hard (for me at least) to find a way to organize them in a way to find them more easily. I have numerous folders of favorites within my web browser that help me define what favorites are where.

I also like the idea of having a network within del.icio.us but you cannot locate friends/colleagues you know like Facebook and other 2.0 sites allow you to do.

Ok, I think that is enough for now. I will be posting about week 5 and a mid week 5 post shortly. I need to catch up on this thing before it gets our of control!

Do you have any thoughts?

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn OH MY!!

2008-03-28T10:51:00.003-04:00

So, this past week those of us taking the MLA Web 2.0 Ce class were asked to create accounts in various web 2.0 technologies and play around with them.

I already had a Facebook, MySPace and LinkedIn acccount but did take more time to explore them. I also created a Twitter account and have been spending more time on that than anything else. I even figured out how I could twitter via Meebo since I use Meebo for instant messaging.

It was so exciting to me I changed my FB status to tell the world and had one of the MLA Task Force members ask me ho to do it. It was a proud moment for me.

Our library has recently created an official FB page as well as a Flickr and YouTube account. All of these web 2.0ish collaborative tools will allow the rest of the world to see what we are doing and how we are trying to weave our way into the world of our users the best way we know how...by going to where they are. They say if you build it they will come...

If you have not tried out Facebook I recommend it over MySpace but that is my humble opinion. Have a gr8 weekend!!

~M

Free online training - Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural Competency, and Limited English Proficiency

2008-03-26T13:47:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Gail Kouame for posting this on the listserv. Thought it may be of interest to some.

~M
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The Human Resources and Services Administration is offering an online
training session that you can take any time, any place for free! You
can take the course at your own pace, but the web site states to expect

it to take about 5 hours total. Interested? Read on:

Unified Health Communication 101: Addressing Health Literacy, Cultural
Competency, and Limited English Proficiency is a free on-line learning

experience that will help you

* improve your patient communication skills

* increase your awareness and knowledge of the three main factors
that affect your communication with patients: health literacy, cultural

competency and low English proficiency

* implement patient-centered communication practices that
demonstrate cultural competency and appropriately address patients with

limited health literacy and low English proficiency

For more information, visit:

http://www.hrsa.gov/healthliteracy/training.htm

Blogs vs Wikis

2008-03-18T11:09:00.003-04:00

OK, my next blog installation is to answer the following questions:

1)What is the difference between a blog and a wiki?
2)What things might be better suited for a blog and better suited for a wiki?

So a blog to me is a place wehre you can voice opinions, keep those who read your blog up to date on what you are doing whether it is p[ersonal or pfrofessional. Libraries use blogs for their news and events, I created my blog when I moved from Oregon to MD so my friends on the west coast could keep up with my goings on here on the east coast. Haven't been that good in keepin it up to date but it is there.

Wikis, are more of a collaborative tool. THe librarians and libraries in Oregon have something called NW Central whichs is a wiki for librarians to post information, class evetns and toher tools for other librarians to use and amend for themselves (http://www.nwcentral.org/)

Wikis can also be used when there are a few authors on apaper, presentation, class, etc. As Michelel mentioned in the introduction, trying to keep track fo the most recent document attachment from your e-mail can be a mess. A wiki allows the document(s) to be in one place and you know you are using the mose recently updated document when you find it. I have used google docs before and have submitted info to the NW Central Wiki but that is aboutit (at least for now it is).

I know that many sections of ALA are creating wikis to foster more collaboration as does MLA. So, off I am to find a wiki for me to submit information to.

~M

RSS Feeds

2008-03-10T13:35:00.003-04:00

I was posed two questions for week one of my CE course. They are:

1) How do you think you could use RSS feeds at your library?
2) How do you think patrons could use RSS feeds?
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The first thing that comes to mind is using RSS feeds to receive content information being published on discipline specific topics. I know that I use RSS feeds to keep me in the know of what other medical librarians or doing, what they are finding and how other libraries are using such feeds.

A second way libraries can use RSS feeds is to inform their patrons of newly acquired items in their collections/catalogs. This way students can keep up to date on the newly published literate be it a book, journal of other type of resource. SO, a med student interested in OB/GYN can set up a RSS feed to inform them of any newly acquired items relating to OB/GYN at their library. This can also fall under the second question of how patrons can use RSS feeds.

Another way is to as mentioned in our exercise, is to use RSS feeds for Table of Content services offered via the publisher. As an outreach librarian there are a few journals being published that relate more heavily on what I do at my institution. SO, for me to make sure I at least see what is being published, I or my institution does not have to subscribe to these journals, if I do not see any articles of interest I can delete the post I received or I can request an ILL for the particular article I am interested in. This too can be a way patrons use RSS feeds.

Enough babbling for now, I may post more later but I think this will qualify as a long enough post for my credit this week.

~Meredith

Web 2.0 101: Introduction to Second Generation Web Tools

2008-03-10T13:32:00.001-04:00

Hello all,

Over the next 8 weeks or so I will be blogging at least once a week to comlete an 8 hour Ce course on Web 2.0.

So, this is just a heads up that some of the information I will be posting here may be irrelevant to you but if you are interested in what I do or what my class is about feel free to read them.

Hope you are all doing well.

~Meredith

Visiting Boston

2008-02-15T09:38:00.002-05:00

So it is Friday and I am sitting at is time in the basement of the school my sister teaches at. It is a Young Acheievers school so there are kids from 1-8th grade. I don't even know what to do with them. Was I ever tht small and full of energy? I am sure I was I just can't remember back that far.

So, I am here untl Tuesday cuz I needed to get out of town for a while and coming to Boston is a relatively cheap trip since I have a place to stay and my sister has a car.

Tonight we are going to one of her former students basketball game. He is now a sophomore in high school and just made varsity team. Should be intersting.

I think we are going to the movies on Saturday. One of the theaters here in Brighton will be playing all of the Oscar nominates shorts in one night (thank you Sheila!). So since I never get to see them befoer the Oscars I thought is would be fun.

Otherwise, Saturday is up in the air as to our plans. Sunday at 1pm we are having brunch with H for her birthday. I have known H for over 10 years and I have not seen her in over a year so it should be nice.

Monday we are either headed out to Worcester, Providence or meetin J and possibly M and her husband for the day.

The wether today is chilly but sunny and it is supposed to get up t the 50's by Monday.

Barack Obama Yes We Can music video

2008-02-04T14:35:00.000-05:00

Received this from a friend and felt I needed to post it. In the words of my friend, just in case any of you are Obama fans, or are on the fence deciding between Clinton and Obama. And if you're not an Obama fan, I apologize, and you can just delete this email OR you can wreak revenge by sending me your own political ads. :-)

What privilege do you have?

2008-01-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

What Privilege Do You Have?

So, I know it has been a loooong time since I have posted here. I am hoping to catch everyone up on what has been happening in Baltimore and at my new job.

As I was catching up on my RSS Feeder I came across a post my a fellow friend, colleague and cohort member Christina that peaked my interest so I thought I would pass it on.

Thanks Christina! Good food for thought.

~Meredith
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From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold the true statements.
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

In the group exercise each person takes a step forward for each true statement -- I would have taken 21 steps. But I also have to look at how many steps Garrett will be able to take, and realize how much privilege we truly have! This exercise was a good reminder for me. For more on this topic see the response from Dr. Will Barratt. There are a great many blog posts on this exercise and many try to explain their answers, so I will tell you that several of the things I was not able to bold were because of my parents beliefs, not a lack of money or opportunity -- they had no interest in cruises, for instance.

Something to think about.

Weekend plans?

2007-09-22T18:37:00.000-04:00

So I hope you are having a more exciting weekend than I am.

Today, I slept in (until 9:30am) then I decided to walk to the grocery store. The store is only a 10 minute walk so the exercise was good for me. After spending too much money and walking back in the heat, I unloaded and decided I should unpack more of boxes.

So, I unpacked about 7 or 8 boxes, took out some old clothes and shoes and rearranged what was left. The back room looks less disorganized and cluttered. Still have my winter clothes and jackets to unpack but I need to buy a clothes rack to hang them on. This apartment does not have as much closet space as I would like.

So tomorrow I think I will take a walk into the inner harbor and walk around downtown. Haven't really done much of that yet and the weather is supposed to get cooler so I need to get my sightseeing in now.

Still waiting to find out whether or not I will be exhibiting in Ocean City or not. REALLY need to find out by the end of the day Monday. Looking forward to it.

Well, enough boring babble from me. May have some interesting things to say tomorrow. Think I may take my camera so I can post some pictures rather than all of this text.

Have a great weekend.

Award denied but not giving up

2007-09-20T08:48:00.000-04:00

My boss and I applied for an Exhibit award through our Regional Medical Library so a co-worker and I could exhibit at the Maryland Academy of Physician Assistants conference next week in Ocean City, MD.

We were denied. Reason being, PA's were not part of their RML's target audience this year. So, now we are trying to look at our budget and see if it is possible to go without the award.

We have not given up, there is another award titled something like Library Improvement Award that I will apply for. With this money which happens to be $5000.00 I can buy the Verizon wireless Internet external card that I need so I can take my work laptop with me to conference rather than checking out one someone else can use. I can also use this money to buy a projector and a portable printer that I can take with me to conference.

I have a pretty positive outlook on us getting this award since my position is brand new to the organization and having this equipment will make my job easier when I am out in 'the field'.

So, think good thoughts and I will keep you in the loop as soon as I know anything.

I decided to write this since I am taking a break from a 22 page article we (our department) have to read for our quarterly Journal Club meeting later t his morning. I think I have only a few pages left but felt I needed to 'take a break before finishing. Proof I am a procrastinator!!

TTYL

Physician Assistants

2007-09-18T16:06:00.000-04:00

So, I am almost positive I will be headed to Ocean CIty, MD next Thursday through Saturday to exhibit at the Maryland Academy of Physician Assistants conference.

Not only am I hoping to go but I am hoping that the exhibit award I am applying for through my regional medical library will happen so I do not have to use money directly from our library's budget. The hotel is not outrageous and the rental car for the weekend is not expensive either. I also was able to get the MAPA CME Coordinator to drop the price for us to exhibit. We are a non-profit you know.

So, if all goes well I will be be amongst about 400 PA's from around the state. I am looking forward to talking with them, finding out their needs and seeing what else we (my library) and do for them.

This trip will also allow me to see parts of Maryland I have not seen yet. I am told Ocean City is very nice. Beach, not the secluded type, but the one with high rises (which will remind me of the beaches in Florida).

Hopefully you will hear more about the conference when I return. Until then, life is moving along, the new job is going well and so far Baltimore is not too bad.

Raven's Country

2007-09-16T18:22:00.001-04:00

Today is the season home opener of the Ravens NFL Team. We are playing the Jets (sorry Jason but I think you are going to lose).

After my shopping excursion in Hunt Valley, I got off the Light Rail by the convention center and was amidst a swarm of purple. Men, women, young and old were ready to pile into M&T Stadium for a 4:15pm game. Score is 17-3 Ravens, 1 minute left in the third @ 6:30pm.

So, I am trying to post more often than I have in the past.

My next post will be more about what my new job entails and what I have been doing during my first 2 weeks.

Have a great work week!

Fall is in the air

2007-09-15T21:36:00.000-04:00

Got back from Cumberland, Maryland on Friday evening. I was at a one day Nursing Excellence Conference in sponsored by the Western Maryland Health Center. Myself and a co-worker were invited to attend as exhibitors.

We arrived Thursday late afternoon and had sometime to relax before our dinner with the organizers and presenters. The dinner was pleasant. Those nurses told some funny and somewhat 'dirty' medical jokes. After dinner my co-worker and I spent time on our laptops and drank a bottle of wine.

Woke up Friday morning, earlier than I wanted and got ready to meet many new people and educate them about Medlineplus and Maryland Health GoLocal.

The conference had about 80 attendees and we had a great day. Our drive home was a bit sketchy for a bit while we drove through a pretty heavy rainstorm. The lower in elevation we got the lighter the rain was. Got home at ab out 6pm and relaxed at home for the rest of the night.

Today I ran some errands with some co-workers and then headed to a neighborhood festival in Hamden. Three stages, much music, closed streets, beer stands, shops, restaurants and plenty of people.

The day was gorgeous. Sun, a little bit of a breeze (cool), good food and plenty of window shopping.

Sunday I may take the Light Rail out to Huntsville, where there is more window shopping for me. This will get me out of the city to see what is going on in the burbs.

Hope you enjoy your weekend!

Traveling Librarian

2007-09-13T22:22:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it, I am writing (actually typing) a blog post. It has been...well I do not know how long it has been since my last post but here is one now.

I am at the Holiday Inn in Cumberland, MD. My first outreach opportunity in my new position.

I have been at my new job since Tuesday September 4th and am really enjoying it. Most of my time is spent meeting the management, their staff and learning about what their departments do.. In the free time I do have I have been looking to see what conferences are coming up and whether or not I can attend as an exhibitor.

I have already managed to spend some of my library's money for the Maryland Nurses Association Conference in Linthicum, MD, October 18 & 19th. Speaking of new cities in Maryland, as I said earlier, I am in Cumberland, MD. My coworker Stefanie and I are here to attend a Nursing Excellence conference in the western part of the state. There are librarian from Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and I am sure others but have not met them yet.

This evening we had dinner with the conference organizers and some of the presenters. What a hoot they were. Stefanie and I went in with low expectations since we do not know the attendees but were pleasantly surprised when they starter cracking great medical jokes that would most likely offend members of the general public.

Tomorrow should be a good day as I am looking forward to doing the part of my job I love best and meeting new colleagues.

I hope to post more often but since my job is still is that state of flux begin so new I am not sure what I will have to say. Yes, believe it or not, I can be at a loss for words.

Until next time...

SLACKER!!!

2007-08-05T20:37:00.000-04:00

There really is no excuse for my lack of posts but I so have some good excuses.

I am moving to Baltimore on August 27th and have been, over the past few weeks, apartment hunting, packing, looking for movers.

The movers have been hied but I am not finished packing even though I have made good progress!

Of course I found an apartment about 6 blocks from the library I will be working in.

Also, work has been hectic. I gave my final presentation a week ago and it went well. I also have to write to relatively long reports on the two Spring projects I have been working on.

I gave my supervisor my rough draft on one project and plan to spend the next few weeks writing the report and finishing the deliverable for my other project.

My last day of the fellowship is August 24th and then I am headed to Baltimore.

I cannot believe it has been a year already! Time has flown by and I am looking forward to starting my new job but a little sad to leave the friends I have made in teh DC area. Good thin Baltimore is only a 45 min. train ride away!

So, that is it for now. Hope you are all well.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

2007-06-08T09:28:00.000-04:00

So, meteorologists have issued a Heat Advisory warning for us in the DC metro area. Temperatures are to reach the mid 90's but with humidity they say it will feel like the triple digits!!

With that said, I am in the air conditioning at work and will head home at the end of the day and enjoy the pool if it is not too crazy up there. If not, I am going to stay home tonight, do laundry and enjoy the air conditioned comfort of my home.

6 more days until I leave for Oregon. Hope to see some of you readers while I am there!!

~Meredith

Enjoyable but Rainy Day

2007-06-03T17:51:00.000-04:00

So, today I had plans for brunch with a few friends. So we met at Paper Moon for a buffet brunch. What a wonderful spread. There was make your own omelette's, eggs, eggs benedict, tortellini, french toast, bacon, sausage, many types of salads, fruit, dessert, and much more!

The four of us had too much too eat but it was great company. We sat and digested, had some more coffee and decided to walk around Goergetown for a bit. Since it was raining we tried to spend as much time inside as we could.

Oguz had to meet a friend for meditation at 5:30 so at about 4:45 we split and went home. Rusen was gracious enough to drive me home rather than taking the bus and having to walk in the rain. The weather has worsened as the day has progressed but this is because of tropical depression Barry heading our way. at least Barry only reached tropical storm forces for a short while and he did not become a hurricane.

So I am home now and not even thinking about dinner. I am hoping my neighbor Gary gets home from Philadelphia safely then we can sit on the benches under cover outside our building, smoke cigarettes and talk about our weekend. I am really going to miss that when I move to Baltimore.

Enough of my blabbering. Hope you had a great weekend.

~M

Swollen Ankles

2007-06-02T16:14:00.000-04:00

So, those of you who need to take water pills, make sure you do. After forgetting to fill my prescription for too long, my ankles, which happen to be quite small in comparison to the rest of me, were the size of my calves. UGH!!!

So, I decided to take it easy for the next day or so. After reading in Medlineplus.gov about Edema, I at least had a better understanding why my ankles where so HUGE!!

Anyway, I did go out for a short while today. I took the bus to Silver Spring and spent too much money. I was trying to save as much as I could for my visit to Oregon. So much for that. I did by a new ceramic flat iron that will work better on my hair, some nail strengthener, and a new pair of Nike flip-flops for only $10.00 regularly $25.00!

Aren't you glad I gave you all those details? I am now home in the air conditioning wishing I was in Boston, with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. He just graduated with his AA degree and the gang was headed to Newport, RI for the day. SIGH

I leave for PDX in a little over a week and I am so excited I could cry!!

So I sit here in my apartment thinking about heading to the roof to get some sun or even take a dip in the pool (God I am going to miss having pools on the roof when I move to Baltimore) but have not decided what I am going to do for the evening.

Hope you have a good weekend. Talk to you soon!

~Mer

90+ degrees!

2007-05-31T13:40:00.000-04:00

Today it is supposed to get into the low 90's! This is when I really start to miss Oregon.

I was going to take another walk after work around the NIH campus (3 miles) but I just might forgo it until tomorrow.

I am looking forward to my visit to Oregon in two weeks. I have a feeling I am not going to want to leave. I hope to see some of you while I am there. If you want to meet up sometime between June 14-23 shoot me an e-mail and we can try and set something up.

I guess I better get back to my NLM projects. 'SIGH'.

~M

NO WATER!

2007-05-30T12:30:00.001-04:00

As of this morning my apartment finally had running water. We lost it on Monday evening around 11pm. UGH!! I could moan about it but would it really be worth it? Not probably not.

Instead, I am going to show you a satellite picture of the apartment building I live in.

TTYL-
Meredith

A note from Pilly

2007-05-20T12:05:00.000-04:00

I have some downtime so I came up to my room and thought I would send you a note on how the conference is so far.

I arrived Thursday afternoon, did some shopping then met some NLM employees for drinks. Later in the evening I met some of my colleagues from the Regional Medical Library at University of Washington, Seattle for dinner and more drinks.

Friday morning I woke up very early to attend the RML Director's Meeting. This meeting was an all day meeting about what the RML's are up to around the nation. We were also given a brief update from Sheldon Kotzin, Associate Director of Library Operations, NLM on what NLM is doing and we also received a brief talk from Dr. Steve Phillips from NLM regarding what NLM is doing with regards to Disaster Preparedness. We then had breakout sessions for about 3 hours.

After the meeting, I met Christina, former classmate of mine, up in our room and we headed our to find a place for dinner. Wile looking fro a place we walked around Philly for awhile and saw the liberty bell, the original building where the Senate met when Philadelphia was our capitol and some other historical buildings.

After walking and not finding a place, we headed back towards the hotel and ended up eating dinner a the Hard Rock Cafe.

This morning I rose at 6am to be at the New Members/First Timers Breakfast at 7am. It was a nice event where I met new people in my filed. We then walked next door to the Presidential Address given my none other than MLA President, Jean Shipman.

After and hour long session with Jean we had a break before the next lecturer on Bioethics was to come on. I decided to skip this lecture, print out materials I needed for a 2pm meeting and enjoy some downtime sine my nights have been long and mornings early.

Today I will be attending the CAPHIS Board meeting, attending some poster session and some program sessions. For the evening, I can either attend the Friends of the NLM dinner or attend the OVID Party. The dinner will be nice and I had to pay for it but did not realize until after I paid for it that the OVID Party was at the same time. Decisions, Decisions. OH! I forgot to mention the NLM Associate Fellowship Reunion that is happening from :30-6:30pm this evening too.

Busy few days and the next 3 days will most likely be just as busy but I am having a good time.

Thanks for reading and I should be back a little later or maybe tomorrow to tell you about the rest of my Sunday.

Bye!

Philly Bound

2007-05-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow morning I am off to Philly.

Not sure how much time I will have to keep you updated but I will do my best. The hotel does not have complimentary wireless so, if I want to use my computer in my room, I will have to pay $10.00 per day. Maybe Christina, my roommate will be willing to split the cost with me. If so, I should have sometime in the evenings to give you a brief daily update.

I will be taking my camera and the cord I will need to upload pictures so if/when I go on a tacky tourist trip I will pass them on.

Hope you are will and looking forward to seeing my colleagues from the Pacific Northwest.

TTYL
Mer

Mother's Day Sunday

2007-05-13T20:39:00.000-04:00

Just a picture of me bundled up one evening.

It is Mother's Day and I made sure to call my family and wish all the women a Happy Mother's Day.

I spent today in my apartment even though it was a gorgeous day! I did laundry, cleaned my room and purged the many piles I had around the apartment.

Since I will be leaving for Philadelphia on Thursday I wanted to make sure I left a clean room so when I returned I was not stressed out.

Two weeks after I return from Philadelphia I will be heading to PORTLAND!!! I am so excited! I will be there for 10 days. I hope I will be able to see everyone I plan on seeing but you know how time flies and you never get to do everything you want to do.

Anyway. I thought I would let you know what I have planned for the next few weeks.

Work is busy and I am trying to get as much done as I can before I leave fro the conference and Portland.

Once I return from Portland I will have to take some weekends and head to Baltimore so I can find a new place to live. I am not looking forward to the whole packing/moving experience but it is exciting at the same time.

That is all for now. Talk at you soon.

Traffic and Airport Woes

2007-04-29T16:55:00.000-04:00

So, my trip was going off without a major hitch until my sister and I left Sufferen, NY to head to JFK airport. Talk about traffic. All was well until we got to the George Washington Bridge. Talk about a Cluster "f--k". I took some pictures nut not too sure if the picture will allow you to see the magnitude of the traffic.

Traffic then seemed to clear out. It was due to a car stalled in the left lane just over the bridge. It was relatively smooth driving until we approached JFK. Again what CF!!! Finally got to the Delta terminal, went to the kiosk to print out my boarding pass and found out my flight which was supposed to take off at 6:10pm was delayed until 8:05pm. CRAP!!! It was 4pm and I had four hours to kill.

So, I am writing this to you from the Delta terminal as I was the few hours until we board. there is no free wireless so I had to pay $9.99 through T-mobile for a day pass of Wi-fi. It is worth it to me since I have hours to pass before I head back to DC.

Now my sister is stuck in traffic on I-95N headed back to Boston due to the Yankee game just letting out. We have decided if I ever head into NY I am taking the train or the bus so we do not have to deal with all of this travel hassle.

Sorry for the bitching but I thought you would get a laugh out of my day since the past week has been relatively smooth going.

Might post a little later but I am signing off at this time.

~Mer

NY Visit

2007-04-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

I am currently in NY but not very close to the city. I am in Rockland county and my friend Loris's boyfriends apartment.

Stacey (my sister) and I drove into NY on Friday evening and stayed in Long Island by the JFK airport for the evening. Stacey had a day long conference in Brooklyn to attend and I hung out with my friend Lori and her friends Nadine and Anthony in Queens for the day.

We did not make it into Manhattan this trip but since I know I am going to be living on the eastern seaboard for the next few year and only a few hours away from Manhattan by car/train, I was not too worried about it. The main reason I came to NY with my sister was to see Lori who I had not seen in 11 years.

So, today we are going to brunch somewhere near where we are and then my sister and I will head to JFK to drop me off to head back to DC.

The week has gone by quite fast but it has been a good week. I will be headed to Allentown, PS this coming weekend for a Powow and then I leave on May 17th for Philadelphia to attend the Medical Library Association Conference for a week.

I will catch you all up on the last day or so of my week long practicum. Hope you are all doing well. TTYL!

~Mer

Backed up

2007-04-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

First, I decided play with the new blogger template and made a few changes but nothing too crazy. What do you think?

I know I was supposed to finish telling you about my week here at UConn but I am getting ready to leave the university and head to the mall. I will then meet my sister at the Airport where I will drop off my rental car and then drive to NY for the weekend.

The last two days here have been similar to the rest of the week. I will fill you in later. If I have Internet access at the hotel this evening I might catch you up then. Otherwise, it will have to wait until I get back to DC.

BTW, I have officially accepted the Outreach Librarian position at University of Maryland Baltimore. I will be receiving a formal letter and deciding on a start date. This date will not be until I finish my fellowship at NLM. I will most likely start at UMB after Labor Day but will need to move a few eeks in advance to get settled and acclimated.

That is all for now. TTYL.
~Mer

UConn - Day 3 - part one

2007-04-26T11:37:00.000-04:00

I know I should have posted this post yesterday but I was too tired to recount my day.

So, I started my day in a bit of traffic while driving to Hartford Hospital. There i initially met with Kelly who has been working at Hartford Hospital fro 27 years. WOW!! The library was a nice size but needs to be updated a bit. It looks little dumpy in the sense of furniture, shelving, etc.

Keely talked to me about the consumer health collection they have in the main library and took me to see the two Cancer resource centers they have on site as well. One is on the cancer inpatient unit. it has a small book collection but is mostly made up of pamphlets fro patients and families to take with them. There is also a computer to access the Internet, communicate with family member and friends from a distance, etc.

The second resource center is one being funded by a three year grant via the American Cancer Society. They have hired a 'patient navigator" not sure why that title but I did not ask. This center provides similar information as the inpatient resource center does but it is staff by the navigator is located in a great place inside the outpatient clinic. Both of these centers are great resources.

After my brief tour I met with Shirley the director of the library. We talked about how the library promotes its services and the trials and tribulations they have defending their budgets when the administration feels "everything can be found on the Internet'. We also discussed briefly the clinical librarianship program Hartford has and that they have 4-5 clinical librarians who are liaisons to specific departments.

I then got a drink at the cafe and was back on the road headed to MidState Medical Center in Meriden, CT. I will write about this visit a little later. I am going to checks some e-mail and look for apartments in the Baltimore area before I head to lunch with one of the reference librarians at UConn.

Until then,
~Mer

UConn - Day 2

2007-04-24T18:47:00.000-04:00

Today I spent the morning at the UConn Health Center. I spoke with Alberta Ritichelle who is the program manager for HealthNet the consumer health outreach program housed at the University of Connecticut.

I them met with the head of Collection Access, Jackie. She is in charge of Interlibrary loan, circulation and collection maintenance. After my meeting with Jackie I met with Sheryl who is head of Network Services.

I then left the Health Center and drove to Middletown, CT. There I first met with Jan who is the librarian at the Cancer Patient Resource Center. It reminded me of the Consumer Health library I worked at in Oregon but it was larger and not so specialized. I then drove a few miles down the road and met with the director of the Middlesex Hospital libraries which includes the Cancer Patient Resource Center I visited earlier. I had great conversations at both libraries and made some great professional contacts. I look forward to seeing them at MLA in Philadelphia, May 18-23.

Tonight I headed home after my site visits, had dinner and am hanging out again in the hotel. I am starting to feel guilty for not going out on some excursions since I have a rental care so, tomorrow I will venture out and do something even if it just dinner is West Hartford.

Tomorrow I head to Hartford Hospital in the am and MidState Hospital in the afternoon.

Until tomorrow
~Mer

UConn - Day 1 cont'd

2007-04-23T19:52:00.000-04:00

So, as I mentioned the copyright workshop was informative but somewhat of a repeat of what I had learned in library school, while working at Tuality and by attending conference presentations.

I spent the last few hours on the reference desk with the Director of the library. I asked her if she usually works the reference desk or if this was a special occasion due to my visit. Apparently she works on the desk a few hours a week to keep up on her skills. This is very interesting because most Academic Library Directors do not to any sort of public service.

We had a few questions at the desk but I spent most of the time taking a look at the databases available to UConn students, staff and faculty as well as Evelyn showing me via her iPAQ what resources they had for handheld devices. Very interesting.

After I was through at UConn, I called the hotel to have the shuttle pick me up. Rough life huh? When I got back it was dinner time. Did I mention that not only do I get free breakfast from 6-9 am but they have free dinner Monday-Thursday from 5-7. Today was Grilled Chicken Cesar wrap, soup, beer, wine, and soda all for free.

I then took the rental car to the local CVS to get some toiletries I had forgotten.

Not very eventful today but I am hoping that tomorrow will be. I am at the University the first half of the day and then off to Middlesex Hospital. Hopefully there will be something to see along the way or at least on my way back.

That is all for now. Talk to you soon!

I have taken some pictures but realized I did not take my camera cord to download pictures so you will have to wait until I get back to Maryland to see the pictures.

~Mer

UConn - Morning of Day 1

2007-04-23T14:26:00.000-04:00

The first half of my morning I spent most of my time with Judith, one of the Healthnet Librarians here at UConn. She gave me a tour of the library, we had a small breafast receptions for me to meet the staff. Judith talked about the HealthNet program here at UConn and then we attended an hour long workshop on copyright given by the librarians here to anyone willing to attend.

I found out I knew more about copyright than I thought.

Well, off to work the reference desk fro two hours. You will hear from me again later this evening with a bit more detail abou tmy day.

~Mer

Farmington, CT - Day 1

2007-04-22T19:47:00.000-04:00

So I am in my hotel. Actually, it is more like a suite. I am staying at the Homewood Suites in Farmington, CT for the next 5 days during my week long practicum at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

I have a nice suite; small kitchenette, living room and bedroom with FREE high speed Internet access. I even have a rental car for the week since I will be visiting a few hospitals in the area to see what they are doing in their libraries.

I am hoping to chronicle each day I am here but as you know, I tend to be a little bit of a slacker when it comes to keeping up with this blog. Since I am not at home with other things to preoccupy me maybe I will be more vigilant about it this week.

My day begin at 9am Monday morning with a Welcome breakfast for me to meet the staff.

For the rest of this evening I am going to go to the pool (indoor YEAH!!), then watch some TV and then head to bed.

Well, enough for now. Hope you all have a good week. TTFN

~Meredith

Apologies

2007-04-18T15:14:00.000-04:00

This is going to be short.

I just want to apologize for being such a slacker with this blog.

There has been a lot happening in my world and I hope to update you all on it over the next few days.

I have been offered a librarian position but we are in negotiations so I have not officially accepted or denied the offer. I leave for Connecticut for a week to work at the University of Connecticut Health Center as part of the NLM Fellowships one-week practicum. I will then spend the weekend in NY with my sister and visit some old friends.

I am currently writing this to you from the Computers in Libraries conference in Washington, DC. Actually, we are in Virginia. I have learned new stuff and found out I know more than I thought I did.

TaTa for now.
I will post much more later.

Meredith

Interview!!

2007-03-13T13:19:00.000-04:00

OK. So I made it through the telephone 'screening' last week (March 6th at 3pm). I felt it went well. I was told I would here from them very soon, which in my book meant the next day but I waited patiently. On Friday March 9, 2007 I received the e-mail.

I was to set up a date to interview with the University of Maryland Baltimore. the interview is from 9-4pm and includes a 15 minute presentation. The presentation topic is chosen by the library people not myself. So, I am trying to prepare but it is hard when you do not know the topic. I have a general idea of what they will ask me to do but we shall see.

So, please think good thoughts and any tips on salary negotiating would be helpful.

I will keep you posted.

Where has the sun gone?

2007-03-07T09:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, I cannot seem to get what is up with the weather here in Washington, DC. This past Saturday we had beautiful 60 degree weather. Sunday it got 15 degrees colder and Mother Nature decided to add some cold wind. Today, it is snowing. We are supposed to get 1-3 inches. I was really hoping to have late arrival at work but that was being too optimistic. So we shall see what Mother Nature decides to do.

I had a telephone 'screening' yesterday for the Outreach Librarian position I applied for. Please continue to think good thoughts.

UConn - this is where I will be the last week of April (23-27). I will be doing my Spring Practicum, which is part of the Associate Fellowship Program. I plan on flying into Boston on Friday the 20th, spend the weekend with my sister, have her drive me to CT on Sunday, spend the week at UConn, then take a bus back to Boston on the 27th to spend that weekend with my sister as well.

It has been quite nice being so much closer to my family. Even though I miss my West Coast families, it has been nice to spend more time with my blood relatives who I was so far removed from (logistically) for 10 years.

13 MORE DAYS until my friend and her mom come to visit. Can you tell I am looking forward to it?

Enough for now. I should really get back to work. Talk to you later.

We have Sun!!

2007-02-28T16:25:00.000-05:00

The sun has been making a presence over the past couple of days. It has been quite nice to get a dose of it after the Snow we had just 4 days ago.

Also, wanted to let you know that I have applied for an Outreach Librarian position at the University of Maryland Baltimore. The application was due Friday February 23rd and I received an e-mail today saying they would like to do a telephone 'screening' next Tuesday.

So, I made the short list for my first professional librarian position. Think good thoughts and I will keep you up to date.

On a social note, My good friend Gail Kouame in Washington has a daughter who play college softball (Fast-pitch). They will be participating in a tournament this weekend at George Washington University. This means, I will be attending 2 softball games on Saturday and Sunday. I am looking forward to it. Fast-pitch always amazes me.

Then, I am off to dinner with some NLM employees on Saturday evening. I actually have a fun-filled weekend.

Enough about me. Hope you are all doing well.

~M

I thought Spring was on its way??

2007-02-25T18:50:00.000-05:00

So, didn't the groundhog say we would not have 6 more weeks of winter? Well, he lied! That is if I understand this groundhog;s Day thing. Woke up this morning and the snow began. It last longer than expected. Forecast said 1-2 inches but changes their tune to 3-6 inches as the day progressed.

The snow did stop before nightfall but not sure what is supposed to happen this evening.

I am attaching some pictures since the snow did look beautiful.

I was hoping to have a day off or work tomorrow (Monday), but is does not look promising.

Otherwise, nothing new here. Looking forward to friends visiting in March and family visiting in April. Also looking forward to seeing some of my PNW Librarians in May in Philadelphia!!

Talk to you again soon.

~Mer

Ice Queen

2007-02-16T15:39:00.000-05:00

The snow and freezing rain/sleet have stopped. Some school are back in session while others have been closed for the past 2 days.

The slush we had, froze overnight earlier this week and caused havoc among commuters and our roadways. It looks very pretty but cars are stuck in their parking spots, neighborhood roads are sheets of ice and the temperature is still below freezing.

So, it looks like we have this ice stuff around for a bit longer until the weather decides to warm up and melt some of it away.

Nothing else to discuss at this time except for the fact that I have a 3 day weekend due to President's Day. I am going to do some library outreach on Saturday, Sunday I might go to the mall for a little shopping and Monday a colleague and I are going to get pedicures!!

Hope you are all doing well. Talk to you again soon.

The 2006-2008 Associate Fellows!

2007-02-14T16:09:00.000-05:00

Snow Day?!

2007-02-14T15:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it really was more like an ice day. We (the federal government) and I am sure other institutions were told we could leave at 2pm yesterday due to the freezing rain accumulating on the roads.

It was nice to get home early and just hang out! I cleaned house for a bit and watched mindless television for a while. I was HOPING we would not have to work today (Wednesday). We did but we were on what the government calls Delayed Arrival/Unscheduled Leave. This mean we can arrive up to two hours late for work without it being an issue or take a personal day that was unscheduled. I chose the delayed arrival. This meant I was able to go back to sleep.

I think sleeping in ruined my day. I am sleepy and I do not feel like working. I have made some progress on one of my projects so I can't say I wasted the entire day. Work is very quiet today so the energy level is low.

Not much else is happening here. We (my roommate and I went and bought her a new bed frame and moved the futon frame she was using into the living room. This mean we will now have another place for people to sit when they visit besides the one small couch we have. We just need to buy a futon mattress ;)

I am looking forward to having visitors in March and April. I will also be very busy with conferences in April (local) and May (Philadelphia) , Spring Practicum somewhere in the US for five days and then a few more days of travel for second year interviews. WHEW!! Looks like I will be living out of a suitcase for a few weeks. No worries, I don't pay for any of the travel so that is a bonus.

I guess I should get back to work. Hope you are all doing well and would love to hear from you!

~M

Search Engine donates $ for searching

2007-02-04T11:59:00.000-05:00

I know this may sound like an advertisement. In a way it is but I feel it is a good one. There is a new search engine powered by Yahoo! called GoodSearch.

Here is their explanations about who they are:

"GoodSearch.com is a new search engine that donates half its revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. You use it just as you would any search engine, and it’s powered by Yahoo!, so you get great results.

Just go to http://www.goodsearch.com/ and be sure to enter (my charity) as the charity you want to support. Just 500 of us searching four times a day will raise about $7300 in a year without anyone spending a dime! And, be sure to spread the word!"

So, please think about using this search engine so $ can be donated to your favorite charity. I will post more later.

Stay warm!

More photos from anti-war march

2007-01-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

Avoided Incarceration ;)

2007-01-27T18:59:00.000-05:00

This post has some photos from the anti-wa march I marched in on January 27, 2006. Hope you enjoy!

Anti-War March

2007-01-27T11:03:00.000-05:00

I am going to be attending an Anti-War march with colleagues of mine this afternoon. Though I am against the war in many ways I think I am going partially because of this and partially to experience such a march on the Natioanl Mall here in DC.

I am planning to take my camera and catch some photos while I am there. If you do not hear from me again in the near future, I might have been arrested ;)

Talk to you again soon!

Curriculum is almost over!

2007-01-22T09:43:00.000-05:00

We have two more units (Policy & Development and Communication & Promotion) as far as I can see on my schedule. This means, we will be reading over the Spring Project Proposals within the next week and decided on which two we would like to accomplish through the rest of our time here.

In the meantime, we will also be reading over second year proposals (for those interested), setting up interviews with our possible second year institutions, attending Computers in Libraries (April 2007), attending MLA 2007 in Chicago (May), attending (not required) ALA 2007 (Washington, DC) , writing our Spring project reports, preparing our presentations for these reports and OH! don't forget the new fellowship applicant interviews in April sometime.

Whew! At least it is not full-time classroom. Not that I have not learned more information that I expected, but it is time for a change of pace. Well, that is it for now but thought you would want to know what is on my horizon for the next few months. Now I need to finish typing up my Curriculum Unit evaluations then I am out of the office early today for an ultrasound.

Hope you have a good week!

Our first snowfall!

2007-01-21T16:50:00.000-05:00

Those of you reading this from Oregon, Colorado, or Texas will not find this very exciting but I thought it was worth posting. The forecast mentioned possible snow this evening into tomorrow but the snoe came a little earlier than expected :)

The snow began at about 1pm this afternoon and is still coming down (5pm). Th flakes are small and the streets are wet but clear. Here are some pictures in case you are curious. I took them from the roof of my building. You can compare them to the photos from the roof I took in September 2006.

I will write more soon, thing are about to get a bit hectic at work so I will have a bit more to say rather than telling you about my curriculum at NLM.

~Meredith

It's only TUESDAY!!

2007-01-09T16:42:00.000-05:00

This week is going to take forever!!! After having 2 weeks off for the holiday I am not very ready to get back to work. At least our curriculum phase will be ending at the end of this month and we can get started on our Spring Projects.

My visit to FL went well though my mom had some back/leg issues. Nothing super serious but it put damper on her mobility for about 4 days. She is doing better, has had an MRI and will be going back to the Rheumatologist to see what her next step in taking care of this is.

I recently found out that a good friend of mine and her mother will be visiting me during my birthday!! They will be her for about 9 days so we should have fun, that is if the weather holds out.

Speaking of weather, this past Saturday, we were in the 70 degree range. Apparently this is very out of the ordinary in DC this time of year even though we have been at least 10-15 degrees above average. This morning it finally feels a bit more like winter even though we still have not reach the "cold" temperatures yet.

Anywho, enough rambling for now, the work day is just about over and I am going to get my haircut ( for the second time in less than a month). This time I am going to a different stylist in hopes she can help me. Talk at you again soon and please post your comments, I love to see that people are really reading my blog besides myself.

~Meredith ;)

Holidays are here!!

2006-12-19T16:42:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to make sure I got at least one more post in before the holidays.

I am leaving on December 21st for Florida to spend almost two weeks with my family in the Ft. Lauderdale area. I know, rough vacation in the sun huh? I will be doing some site visits at two libraries affiliated with Nova Southeastern University, which the fellowship I am in considers to be work. So it won't be all play.

I hope you all have a great holiday and I hope to report on my vacationing while in Florida but you never know;) Maybe I can show my parents what it means blog. I am sure they have yet to check this one out.

Keep in touch and try and stay warm and dry.

~Mer

Cooling off

2006-12-05T11:54:00.000-05:00

The weather here is getting a bit cold! I know that the temperature here at this time is similar to Oregon but with the dryness and the wind it seems colder. I have a new Peacoat and PolarTec gloves to keep me warm. I think I might need to buy a hat to keep me warm too.

No snow yet but we might see some flurries in the next day or so.

Today is a 'free' day at work. This mean we do not have any curriculum scheduled but I have much to do! I need to finish my draft of my Fall Project Report, and catch up on some curriculum evaluations I have been avoiding.

Talk at ya again soon.

Weekend outings

2006-12-04T12:36:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I was somewhat productive and then I had to feed my shopping craving.

My neighbor had to drive me to the post office because I had 3 medium size boxes to mail to Oregon for Christmas. Interesting how some of the items in the boxes came with me in my move to Maryland and are now headed right back to Oregon. At least they will now be put to good use instead of taking up space in my storage unit. The Postal Worker (who shall remain nameless at this time) was so rude that I waited until another clerk was available.

I know the Post Office gets a bit crazy during the holiday season but if you are going to be rude to your customers why would they be nice to you?

Enough of my ranting. After the Post Office we went to a great deli down the road from where I live called Morty's Deli. Great menu (typical Jewish Deli style). I think I will be frequenting this deli more often. After a late lunch I went home and sent the rest of the evening doing laundry and watching X-Men 3.

Sunday, I went shopping with a librarian friend of mine at Tysons Corner in Virginia. What a huge mall. We only got to shop on the second floor. Never got to the first floor. Guess I will have to make another trip. I bought some gloves for me since the temperature has dropped to the 30's with a windchill into the 20's. I got some presents for others and then some frivolous things for me because.

I can't believe the Holidays are right around the corner!! I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season.

WORLD AIDS DAY!!!

2006-11-30T16:52:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder, December 1st is World AIDS Day.

Braving Thanksgiving shopping crowds

2006-11-29T15:41:00.000-05:00

So, for this first time in 10 years I had Thanksgiving with one of my own family members. over the past 10 years my West Coast families have been more than generous but it was nice to visit with my sister.

I arrived on Wednesday evening where we just hung out at her condo. Thursday morning, she my brother-in- law, two of my sisters friends and I headed to Barnstead, NH for Thanksgiving. Barnstead is a very small rural town in the mountain of NH. it sort of reminded me of Oregon. The day was overcast and rainy, but as usual, there was plenty of food. Come to find out, Heather's father, who hosted Thanksgiving, cooked 42lb turkey. yes, you read correctly.

Apparently, Mike received his Thanksgiving turkeys from a neighbor who raises them for this purpose. He usually gives Mike a turkey that his customers do not want. So, of course, who would want at 42lb turkey. Mike got up at 1:30am to put the turkey in the oven ( it actually fit) and headed back to bed.

On Black Friday, instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to shop, my sister and I slept until we felt like getting up then headed to the the Wrentham outlet Mall with a friend. The traffic to get off the highway exit to the outlet mall was worse than the shopping at the outlet mall. After almost 5 hours of shopping, it was time to eat! We survived Black Friday!!

So, I will be headed to Florida to visit the rest of my family over the Christmas break. I will also be working a few days of a Winter Practicum at Nova Southeastern Library as part of the fellowship I am participating in. I looking forward to the new environment and visiting my family.

By the way, for those of you reading this from the Pacific Northwest; it is in the 60's hear in DC while it is snowing by you ;) Hope you are staying warm!

That is all for now.

A quick update

2006-11-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I have posted so I thought I would write a brief catch up for those of you who do read this.

Last week I attended the AMIA 2006 (American Medical Informatics Association) Conference. Large, interesting and some of the sessions were over my head. It was nice to attend a conference that was not completely full of librarians and look to see how we (librarians) can collaborate with the informaticians presenting and conducting RCT's (Randomized Control Trials) on literacy, EHR (Electronic health Records) and other interesting ideas.

This past Saturday I volunteered at a health fair at the Washington Highlands Neighborhood Library in DC. It was a good time. They had medical students from Howard University doing BP and blood sugar screenings. There was a dentistry student offering to take a quick assessment of your teeth, AIDS clinics were there, and others.

So, this week is a short week due to Thanksgiving. I will be flying to Boston to spend the holiday with my sister, brother-in-law and some friends. On Thanksgiving I will be traveling to rural NH for a large Thanksgiving dinner hosted by my sisters friends father and girlfriend. Since I have never been to NH I am looking forward to it. I am also trying to get my sister and some of her friends to go shopping with me the day after Thanksgiving. Not sure where we are with that yet. I plan to take pictures of NH so keep checking back.

Enough blabbering for now. I will write again soon. Have a great Holiday Season. Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah!

What I want to be when I grow up

2006-11-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

The last two weeks at work have been focused on the Outreach Activities NLM does in their community. We (the groups of fellows) visited some AIDS Clinics in the DC area as well as a few Public Libraries that have Health Resource Centers inside them.

The clients at the clinics were so gracious to open up their lives to us. It was great to see them using the computers purchased with NLM money so they can be well informed about their disease and other related issues. There is a librarian form George Washington University who has received the money to make such programs happen.

We also were told about the outreach NLM is doing with Native American tribes. Members of the Senior Staff here at NLM recently went to Alaska to talk to the tribe members themselves to see what it is they want from NLM. NLM, has created some information portals on Arctic Health, American Indian Health and Asian American Health.

The more I think about my what I want to do as a librarian and what I have enjoyed about my job so far seems to encompass what an Outreach Librarian can and does do. So, I hope that for my large Spring project here at NLM, I can incorporate some sort of Outreach aspect to it.

Okay, enough about work at t his time. Just wanted to say that I had a great (but too short) visit with my best friend (Sheria). She arrived on A Wednesday and we had a great time. Did not get to see everything I wanted her to but she says she wanted to save some for the next time she visits. One really cool thing I had not done yet was visit the Luray Caverns. Very cool. Maybe I will try and post some of the pictures Sheria and I took. I did realize that my Kodak Easyshare camera does not do well in dark places. Hint Hint for anyone wanting to buy me a gift ;)

That is it for now. I am sure I can find information to ramble on about but I will stop before I put you to sleep. Please let me know how things are moving along in your neck of the woods and feel free to post comments on my blog.

~Mer

I'm still here

2006-11-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

It has been quite some time since I have posted. Lots to say but I will talk about it all at a later time. Just wanted you to know that I will still alive a kicking.

Long Week

2006-10-22T16:24:00.000-04:00

This week was full of training.

Monday - PubMed
Tuesday - NLM Gateway and Clinical trials.gov
Wednesday - Toxnet

So, If I thought I knew how to find information before, I now know more thatn I ever thought I would. I would have to say the training was not too bad. The funniest event during tis week was when one off the Toxnet instructors showed us a site related to food safety songs. Yes, you read it right, Food Safety Songs. H also had us watch an Alice Cooper video on you tube. Maybe I will incorporate somem musics in to my teaching in the future.

Thrusday and Friday we spent attending a meeting on how NLM approves/denies journals to be indexed in Medline. I will nto give you the details because I do not want to put you to sleep. All I will say is that there were 140 titles this time around. This group of physicians and librarians from aroung the US meet to talk about the good and bad points off the journals and score them on a scale from 0-5. A journal must receive a 3.75 inorder to be indexed in Medline. I did say I was not going to gove you all of the details didn't I??

Well, a new week is approaching and I am quite excited because one of my closest frineds is coming to visit for a week. Not sure what we are going to do since I only have my usual weekend and evenings afetr wok but I am sure we will have a good time. I am excited to see her.

So, that is it for now. I will leave you with a few pictures from the visit I had with my family (including a picture of Mom & Dad). Apparently Blogger does not want to add my images at htis time :( Check back tomorrow.

Tata for now!
~Mer

Volunteering

2006-10-10T09:41:00.000-04:00

I got a hold of the Chesapeake and Potomic Softball league and volunteered at their MAGIC Tournament. In case you did not know, I volunteered and was also a board member of the Rose City Softball Association on Portland, OR.

The tournament was supposed to be all day Saturday and Sunday but we were rained out Saturday. So, instead of playing Red Robin games on Saturday and double elimination games on Sunday, we played one-pitch 30 minute double elimination games all day Sunday. Whew! The players were just happy they got to play ball. The day was long but the weather cleared up for us and we had a great time. The banquet and awards ceremony was at Omega.

Saturday and Monday I spent time with my roommate and my neighbor running some errands and grabbing bites to eat. The rest of this week is going to be spent cleaning house (my family is coming to visit this weekend) and laundry!!!

On a more professional note, we (the Associate Fellows) are headed to Baltimore tomorrow to visit out RML (Regional Medical Library). This means we will learn about the national Network Office here at NLM and how they fit into the bigger picture here at NLM. Last week we learned about Document Delivery (ILL) at NLM. It was informative but not as much new material to me since I have been working directly with the NLM product DOCLINE for the past 8 years.

Enough babbling for now. Just wanted to keep you updated.

~Meredith

Work Related Update

2006-10-04T13:46:00.000-04:00

The past couple of weeks at work have been busy. We recently learned about indexing and cataloging at NLM. We even had some hands-on practicums with members of these departments. KUDOS to the MeSH indexers. Funny to find out that many of them are not librarians. The specific employee I shadowed for a short while was trained as a surgeon. She practiced for 12 years but her hip problem got in the way. She has been indexing for the past 4 years but has only been at NLM for the past 4 months. What a huge task it is to properly index articles with the proper MeSH headings. For those of you who do not know what I am talking about, it is library speak. If you want to know just ask.

The MeSH analyst position is another huge undertaking. These are the individuals who create, change and possible remove current MeSH terms for the next issue or revision of MeSH headings. Apparently, the 2007 MeSH terms are complete and they are now working on terms for the 2008 edition. Again, library speak for those non-librarians.

Today we discussed document delivery or ILL. I learned a few new things about DOCLINE (especially information about there new release coming out next week.)

Okay, enough for now. I just wanted to make sure you were all caught up on what has been happening at my workplace. We will be deciding on Fall Projects within the next week so I might have some info but I am sure I am going to have to keep somewhat of a lid on what I will be doing. I will fill you in on what I can.

; )

Weekend plans

2006-10-01T19:10:00.000-04:00

So, I thought I would post some things about my weekend. It is Sunday evening and I am home watching X-Men 2. I have now realized that I have already seen it. Oh well. I will let it play while I am writing this post and surfing the web.

So, this weekend I attended the National Book Festival and the Crafty Bastards Festival of Arts & Crafts. The book festival was on the national mall. Many tents set up with different genres, book sale tents to purchase books of the authors speaking and signing at the festival. They had authors such a Mo Willems, children's author and illustrator, Michael Connelly, Kathy Reichs, Bob Woodward and many others. We, a fellow coworker, her husband and I heard some authors speak and just walked amongst the crowds people watching and browsing.

Sunday the three of us wne to the crafts fair. All kinds of cool t-shirts, bags, and other funky artsie things to buy. I did buy some things but nothing too exciting.

It has been a long weekend and I need to get ready for another week of work/school. It is not really school but we are sitting in a classroom learning about NLM for a majority of the week. This coming week will be all about Document Delivery. Last week was about indexing, MeSH and cataloging. If you want to know more let me know.

Anywho, hope all is well and here are a few pictures from my weekend.

Sorry about lack of posts

2006-09-26T20:31:00.000-04:00

I know it has been sometime since I have posted. Life has been quite busy and my brain has been quite tired.

Thee past week or so at work has been hectic. We have been busy with curriculum (which I will not bore you with) and meetings (welcome to bureaucracy).

This past weekend I went to a street festival with a fellow associate and later in the day we met up with another associate and her husband for lunch in the Eastern Market section of the district. After some downtime we reassembled and met for drinks. They have these great 'swirlie' frozen margaritas (lime and strawberry) YUMMY!!!

Sunday I spent the day in the apartment doing laundry and cleaning house. I still have some boxes to go through and have yet to obtain a desk/table of sorts to set up my printer. I know I will get there soon.

Life is busy these days but I am enjoying it. I continue to learn more and more each day. I only hope after all of this curriculum, I can use it to my best advantage during my Fall project here at NLM. Do not know exactly what type of projects I will undertake but I think we will be discussing this sometime next week.

Talk at you more later ;)

MBTI Results N Stuff

2006-09-15T18:13:00.000-04:00

Okay, so some of you might be aware of the MBTI Type Indicator test. I took such test when I began graduate school and was typed an ENTJ (at least I think I was, I need to double check). During my associated program we are part of a 4 part communication workshop. At the end of our first session we were asked to take this test to be discussed at our next session.

Well, today was the day I received my type report. I was typed an ESFJ. I am not going to go into detail but as you can see two of the four parts are different after 3 years of graduate school and possibly knowing a bit more where I am headed. If anyone who knows me and would like to give me some insight into my type I would greatly appreciate it. I am aware that this test is not firm and in certain instances I would prefer to one way over another but any insight is great.

On a different note, anyone read the book 'Getting to Yes'? This is a book we have been asked to read for the communication workshop we are taking. It sounds interesting and will most likely post some ideas about it once I begin reading it.

This week was also focused on collection development at NLM. For those who do not know what Collection Development means, in short, it is how a library selects and purchases the books, web resources, and AV materials for the library. I will not go into detail unless asked. What I will say is that for such a large library like NLM is that their criteria/guidelines are very different than academic and/or public libraries.

Plans for the weekend? I was going to go to happy hour with some associates but the plans were changed due to one of them adopting a new kitty for her and her husband. No worries, they are very excited about their new addition and we have a whole year to go to happy hour ;)

I am going to watch the Michigan Notre Dame game with my roommate and one of the other associates since they are both Michigan alumni. Also, Saturday is my neighbors birthday so we might have dinner or a movie if she decides what it is she wants to do for her birthday.

Hope you have a great weekend and I will chat at ya again soon XOXOX

Sitting and Walking

2006-09-11T19:48:00.000-04:00

Today we met with the deputy director and the director of the National Library of Medicine. Each was a separate meeting. Both were very welcoming and excited for the associates to be there. I seem to have been a part of more meetings in the past week than I have in many years. Anyway, so far the program is moving along nicely. We start the 'curriculum stage' of the program on Tuesday.

After a work day of sitting I decided to walk home with another associate who lives near me. The walk is about 3 miles. Today was overcast and in the 60's so it was a nice day to try the walk. I made it unscathed. Found out that my family is coming to visit the second weekend in October. So, I have spent most of the time after work on the phone with my mom and my sister planning out flight and hotel arrangements.

That is it for now. I will fill you in again later.

Apartment Pictures

2006-09-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Here are some pictures of the apartment.

Nice weekend

2006-09-10T20:28:00.000-04:00

This weekend was spent with my new friends Robin (an associate with me) and her husband Colin. Saturday we went to a VERY LARGE mall in Pentagon City. I bought quite a bit of new work clothes then lunch. After shopping we took the metro to a section of DC called the Eastern Market.

Eastern Market was full of produce, local art, and a flea market. We made an attempt to use the restroom at the local public library in the area but it was a bit on the scary side ( at least that is what Robin said).

Next we headed to the Humane Society where Robin and Colin looked at kittens to add to their family. They already have one cat but feel she needs a pal during the day. While there, I played with a small pitbull puppy named Cash who had a cast on his left back leg. Come to find out he broke his leg after a small boy threw him against the wall : (

He is doing well and was very playful and waiting for his new mom to take him home.

Today, Sunday, my roommate made pancakes and eggs for breakfast the we walked to the new supermarket with my little grocery cart, you know the ones the old lady take with them to carry their things?? After our errands, Robin came over and we went for a swim up on the roof. Later in the evening we took a nice walk (about 2 miles) to meet Robin's husband for dinner. My roommate and I then walked home where I made it in time to watch the season premiere of The Simpsons!!!

I know this might be a long and rambling entry but I thought I would add a bit of personal info rather than just work. I plan to add picture of the apartment soon.

Finished First Week!

2006-09-08T21:44:00.000-04:00

So, I have completed my first week at NLM. We have had many meetings and meet and greets. Today, we had a 4 hour communication workshop. It was engaging and I learned some new things but a lot that was spoken I had already heard numerous times.

We are being asked to take the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, otherwise know as the MBTI. It will be interesting to see what the other associates are indicated as since I have an idea in my head but yes, I can and have been known to be wrong ;)

Collection development will be a learning experience since that was one class I did not take in library school. I am familiar with what it is and I know it is important but I am looking forward to learning what NLM's stand is on it and how they select materials.

Anyway, tomorrow me, a fellow associate and her husband are going on an adventure. Not exactly sure where but I am sure you will be reading about it here.

Tata for now. Hopefully I will have some new pictures soon!

First Day @ NLM

2006-09-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

I arrived at NLM at 8:30 am this morning during a heavy rainstorm. Is it good luck that it rain on your first day at a new job like its good luck for it to rain on your wedding??

Anyway, not much to report for today. Just some paperwork (health insurance, direct deposit, other forms.) Since we (each of the fellows) have our own cubicle and computer we spent time logging in, making sure we could get to our e-mail, checking our e-mail, etc.)

We had a small meet and greet with some of the NLM staff. We have a larger meet and greet scheduled for the 18th of this month.

Tomorrow we will learn more about the curriculum that we will be part of over the next few months and we will receive our schedule I hope, for the rest of the month.

I hope to have more to report within a few days.

Hope you are all doing well.

~Mer

Badge received

2006-08-30T17:46:00.000-04:00

I am officially a contractor for the NIH. I met up with another current associate the other day to obtain our NIH badges and parking permits. Since neither of us have a car, no permits but do have an NIH badge until August 2008.

It was quite surreal being on the NIH CAMPUS. I have been working with the products the institutes put out for the past 8 years and never thought I would be walking around the campus, passing the doors of many of these institutes. HOLY COW!

The campus is quite large, as you may have already figured out. I took a ride of the campus shuttle to go from one end to the other. Another interesting experience.

While at NLM, we met with the program assistant and were shown where our own personal cubicles will be for the next year. My own space on the mezzanine of NLM. We got a very brief low-down on what is going to happen on Tuesday September 5th, our first day! Apparently there are many people interested in meeting us. Some of them are even flying in but I do not know from where or who these individuals are. I think we are like royalty for the next 2 years.

Anyway, I will post more after my first day. For now, I say Namaste.

Abe himself!!

2006-08-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

2006-08-27T17:44:00.000-04:00

I am in my new apartment in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

I left Oregon on August 10th and spent a week with my sister in Boston. During that week I did more sleeping than I have done in a long time. I think it had to do with the fact that I did not have a job or any shcoolwork to do. My emotions from leaving a job of 8 years, a home of 10 years, good friends and packing up eveything I owned took a toll on me.

I am now in my apartment with most of the unpacking done. Still about a half dozen boxes to sort through. Maybe I can do some more purging so I can continue to minimize 'my stuff'.

I went into 'the district' as they call it here this week. I will have pictures up soon. I think since I do not have to report to my new job until September 5th, I will go back into the district and see what else it has to offer me. There is a lot to see and do and I have barely broken the ice.

Thats all for now. - M

Time is running out!

2006-08-07T23:29:00.000-04:00

2 more days until the movers get here. Actually, It is Monday evening and the movers will arrive Wednesday morning. Most of my things are packed but of course there is more to do. Can you say, PROCRASTINATION???? I am QUEEN of this!

Interstate moving is highway robbery!! Someone needs to come up with a better plan. At least all I have to do is pack, someone else can do the loading, unloading and driving.

Anywhoo, enough of my bantering. I've got packing to get to.

Next post will be from the east coast.

TaTa for now
Meredith

Not for the weak stomached

2006-07-10T19:16:00.000-04:00

Many people who know they are going to have surgery would like to gather a bit more information about the procedure before it actually happens. For those of you who do not have a weak stomach, MedlinePlus has created a surgery video section on their website with a nice size list of surgeries. They separate them categorically by body system or parts of the body. They are of REAL surgeries with video and audio. The beginning of the video will inform you of what the surgery is, where it is begin done and who the surgeons is.

Moe and more patients are becoming involved in their healthcare decisions. This just another milestone for NLM to keep patients and consumers as health literate as they can. Try to enjoy.

Moving, UGH!!!

2006-07-10T19:10:00.000-04:00

Cross country moving is not a small or easy task. I hope someone can figure out an easier and possibly cheaper way to move from cost-to-coast. I am in the process of getting moving estimates for my move from Oregon to Maryland. Not thrilled with the cost but I am going to have to settle on something. I could pack a U-haul and drive it myself but what a lonely trip for me. Ce la vie!

3 more weeks at Tuality then I have about a week left to finish packing before I head to my new digs. Looking forward to it but I have not felt excited yet. I hope once I am on my way the excitement filters its way through. Lets hope the rain settles and there is no more flooding in Maryland while I am moving in.

More later. BYE!

2006-06-29T16:05:00.000-04:00

Interesting article about RSS feeds and Medical Librarians. RSS Feeds seem to be used in business, law and other specialties these days but is has not moved into the field of medical librarianship yet. The author of this article has some good strategies on how to make the hospital employees, especially administrators and mamsgement aware of the convenience RSS Feeds can have to help keep up with new changes in the field.

Web-based training

2006-06-26T17:20:00.000-04:00

How effective is web-based training. In a large institution where many students use library services remotely, this can be an extremely useful tool. But what about those learners who need more dynamic, hands-on instruction? I had my library purchase Camatasia for us to use. it was not very expansive to have installed on one computer.

I am planning to created some tutorials about using our databases and hope to try them out on some employees to get feedback. I am hoping this is away to bring more users to the library so they can see what the library has to offer them instead of just internet access.

Personal article

2006-06-21T14:00:00.000-04:00

My work has a bi-monthly newsletter published every payday. I was asked to be interviewed about my soon to be new job as an Associate Fellow at NLM. The text is below. It is going to be very strange not going to Tuality everyday in Hillsboro, Oregon. I wonder how long it will take me to acclimate myself to the hustle and bustle of Maryland/DC?

Meredith Solomon Selected for National Fellowship
The past month has been a whirlwind for Meredith Solomon, Library Services. Just as she graduated with her Master of Library Science degree, she learned of her selection to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Associate Fellowship Program in Bethesda, Md.

She is one of just six individuals from the U.S., Canada, and abroad to be chosen for this
one-year postgraduate training fellowship designed to prepare librarians for future leadership
roles in health sciences libraries and in health services research.

Meredith began the extensiveapplication process last November. After making the cut on paper, she traveled to Washington, D.C., for the grueling, daylong interview process. But she handled the five separate interviews in stride. Meredith Solomon Selected for National Fellowship. I wasn't super-nervous, she said. I was very much myself and used a lot of humor I was just Meredith.

She credits her Tuality friends and colleagues for their encouragement and support. James Peck, M.D., provided an astounding recommendation letter that made a significant impression on the fellowship selection committee. Judith Hayes, Library Services, has mentored me for eight years, she said. Meredith praised Judith for continually encouraging her to have a long-term focus when it came to advancing her career.

Overwhelmed, Meredith sighed, as she thought about her success and all of the life changes that go with it. I'm moving across the country, I'm still in school (finishing up one final class), I'm still working, and I have about 10 years of stuff to get rid of or to pack up, she said. But she's happy about getting back to the East Coast and for the first time in years living in the same time zone with most of her family. I actually get to spend Thanksgiving with my real family for a change, she smiled.

Meredith will leave Tuality on Aug. 1 and has some very confl icted emotions about it.
Sometimes I'm in tears, and other times I'm just super-excited. To stay in touch with what's
happening during Meredith's big adventure, be sure to check out her Internet blog at
http://mislibrarian.blogspot.com.

Moving along

2006-06-16T18:18:00.000-04:00

I have been packing, selling and looking for apartments. I think I have found on. Located in Chevy Chase, MD. Yes, Chevy Chase (how cool is that!). You can take a look at the website www.ireneaprtments.com

The rent is a bit more than my roommate and I wanted to spend but the building is secure, has rooftop pools, 24hr fitness center and from desk and is super close to shops and movie theaters. What more could I ask for?!

We just sent out application fees in but have been told that the apartment is off the market as is officially ours. WHEW! Now I have to hold a MAJOR GARAGE SALE and then hire movers because I can move in by August 1st if I wanted.

Okay, back to work. I will have more later. ; ) ~M

2006-05-30T15:46:00.000-04:00

Back from Memorial Day holiday. I actually saw two movies this weekend. It has been a long time since I have been able to spend that much time doing what I want rather than working on school assignments. What to do with all of this time on my hands? Well, I have plenty but took some time to do for me. Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.

2006-05-26T12:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday evening while browsing the National Library of Medicine Website (something I need to really familiarize myself with), I noticed a link to Director's comments. Come to find out, it is going to be a weekly podcast (short) about the new additions to NLM's Medlineplus website. If you go to www.medlineplus.gov in the bottom right-hand corner there should be a link to Director's comments. Check it out. I recently got an I-pod for graduation so this will be a nice addition to the other podcasts I download. Tata for now!

2006-05-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

Graduation was a success. Now I have summer classes to finish, find an apartment in MD from Oregon, hire movers, pack and sell/donate my car.

Sorry for the boring posts but I have so much to do I thought I should at least post something rather than nothing. Have a good Memorial Day weekend. Hope to post something more interesting soon.

2006-05-18T18:43:00.000-04:00

2 days until graduation! Family arrives tomorrow afternoon and I have a full schedule! Dinner at the culinary institute, a visit to see the Spruce Goose in McMinnville, gambling at Spirit Mountain and whatever else we can fit in. Looking forward to seeing my family. This might be the last time they visit Oregon :( More later.

2006-05-15T12:44:00.000-04:00

NLM here I come!

I just found out less than a week ago that I will be an NLM Associate Fellow for the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland for 2006-07. Holy cow!! I am still slightly shocked that it is really going to happen.

Now I need to find a place to live, hire movers, have a garage sale or two, decide what to do with my car amongst a long list of other tasks. Any pointers you might have will be much appreciated.