ACURIL is amazing! To join, fill out the form at the bottom of this page: https://acuril.org/membership/ Then, the Treasurer will be in contact for the membership fee, which is only $25/year for personal members. By joining, you’ll receive emails on the annual conference, webinars, and other events. You’ll be better connected with the truly awe-inspiring community of Caribbean librarianship. I identify professionally as a librarian because of ACURIL. This is a generous, kind, joyous community. The conferences are educational and fun. I especially encourage ACURIL for folks passionate about DEI, justice, and solidarity,.Read More →

I learned about explaining commitments in terms of glass and rubber balls from the amazing Chelsea Johston. I had not heard this analogy prior. In googling it, it looks like this comes to us from (at least one source, not sure if first, and good ideas normally have multiple firsts) Nora Roberts, who explained commitments as either glass or plastic/rubber balls. It’s fine to drop the ones that bounce, or at least that won’t break. But, the glass ones have to be handled. Since the pandemic and in our current age of late capitalism, a lot of us have more glass balls than ever before,Read More →

The wonderful Digital Development Team within the Library Technology Services Department has released another major update to the digital collections systems, which power the UF Digital Collections (UFDC), Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), and Florida Digital Newspaper Library. I see this time of year as a time for giving thanks and gifts, and this is definitely a gift to us all! Huge thanks to the team! The full list is below. I want to pull out just a couple of things: Serial navigation view for items that are within a serial title This has been wanted for years! While within a single issue ofRead More →

University Press of Florida at UF is seeking interns for the Spring 2023 semester in acquisitions and marketing. The internship program offers students of all majors the opportunity to gain employment experience in the business of book publishing. The Acquisitions Intern assists the Acquisitions department and works on book projects at all stages of the acquisitions process, and performs other clerical duties as assigned. Excellent written communication skills and organizational abilities are essential. This position is ideal for students who enjoy reading and discussing books and scholarship, who want to gain experience in the publishing business, and who are interested in exploring book publishing asRead More →

I’m working on an article for SOURCE Magazine at UF, on the history of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) from UF’s perspective, in terms of UF’s long history of Caribbean collection building. This is super fun, and super long! The Libraries at UF have always identified as Caribbean libraries, so there’s a wealth of information on collaboration dating back to the 1920s. I’m excited to write this story, as I know it, and to hopefully hear from folks who can expand my understanding of UF’s and dLOC’s full histories. I’m posting right now because I don’t think I speak nearly enough about aRead More →

Soon, many folks will be sending professional holiday cards from departments or institutions to others. My all time favorite of these is the one from the LibraryPress@UF and Digital Partnerships & Strategies, from 2020. The card wonderfully captures our response to 2020 and our work for finding joy, as told through a wonderfully wild card! Huge thanks to Tracy MacKay-Ratliff for making this! And, please watch with the audio, which just makes it better!Read More →

In the long ago past, I would have shared pictures on my website, and then that moved to Facebook, next to Twitter, and now we’re back again. Earlier this year, Pete and I adopted a second rescue dog, Olivia (champagne color) who joins the house with Gertie (Foxhound mix) and the cats (Wobblie and Mystery Cat). Sharing photos of them is happy, so sharing here and hoping anyone seeing them gains a bit of joy!Read More →

I am super thankful to see the posting “Why I Hate Anonymous Feedback: 5 Issues with Soliciting Feedback” from brilliant DeEtta Jones! In the posting, she writes about issues with the ways organizations solicit feedback, and shares a link to this site for pros/cons of anonymous feedback (which recommends a balance of both attributed and not attributed). For listing the 5 issues, the one on anonymous is: 4. Anonymous Anonymous feedback involves creating systems for asking people to share feedback without identifying themselves. Often people advocate for anonymous feedback because of fear of retribution for sharing information that’s critical or negative. So while I get andRead More →