“The right to disconnect isn’t necessarily an obligation … but it’s an opportunity — to claim a little breathing room; to realize that the world won’t stop turning, or even producing words or widgets, without one person’s constant vigilance.”
Source: The French Counterstrike Against Work E-mail – The New Yorker
Over the past couple months, I’ve tried to limit the amount of work I bring home. I’ve stopped staying up late every evening after the kids go to bed. I’ve stopped getting up insanely early to get a head start on email. Amazingly, I am still managing to get stuff done.
Like the author of a recent New York Times opinion piece, I could also be accused of lying to myself about how busy I am. I tend to only remember the busiest parts of the academic year–mid-semester and Finals–and forget about all the slow moments in between. I remember the days when I left the office with 20 unopened emails but forget the ones when I remained at inbox zero all afternoon.
A year ago, I would have answered “yes” to everyone of the questions in this Dear Kerry Ann article. The number of affirmative responses is down to four now.
I am growing.
I’ve started writing for the ALA’s Programming Librarian website. My first two posts are up.
Collaborating with Galleries: A Blessed Match
“One of my first planning meetings as the new outreach and communications librarian for the William H. Hannon Library was with the director and curator of the Laband Art Gallery, an on-campus exhibition space in the College of Fine Arts at Loyola Marymount University. Over the past few years, the Hannon Library and the Laband Gallery have developed a synergistic relationship built on shared vision and trust, a relationship that has increased the impact we could achieve as single institutions.” Read more.
When Library Student Workers Take Over Instagram
“Since I began managing Instagram accounts for academic libraries three years ago, I’ve discovered there are two types of posts that attract the most engagement from students: idyllic photos of the library and pictures of other students. We are privileged in that our building’s unique architecture and proximity to a near-ocean bluff provides endless opportunities for the former. So, to leverage the successful nature of the latter, this year the William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University invited our student employees to “take over” the library’s Instagram account for a day and use the platform to tell our followers about their work and what they find useful about the library.” Read more.
