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Work

Busy!

Jan 30th, 2012
by pollyalida.
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Like Spinning Plates by Jameson42, on Flickr
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License  by  Jameson42 

At this time last year, I had lots of training travel plans for the winter months, all of which came to an abrupt halt when I broke my knee in February. Even with that in the back of my head, I didn’t really plan to stay put this winter.  But it turns out I am and that’s a good thing, because I have a ton of projects on the go.

Here’s what I’m working on and what I’ll probably be writing about during this week of Library Day in the Life.

  • WordPress eCourse for ALA TechSource – Amanda Goodman and I put together a 6 week class that filled up quickly. This class is now in week 3 and has over 100 students. We’re hoping to schedule a repeat later in the year for people on the waiting list.
  • Cool Tools for Schools – This is a “23 Things/Learning 2.0” course running over about 8 months. (more…)

Library Day in the Life Project

Jul 27th, 2010
by pollyalida.
1 comment

This week is Round 5 of Bobbi Newman’s great project “Library Day in the Life” week. Or day. Whichever! Are you participating? As of today 140 library folks around the world are sharing what their library work days are like. What a great way to find out about other parts of our profession.

A Day in the Life of a Library… Whether you are a librarian or library worker of any kind, help us share and learn about the joys and challenges of working in a library. Join us by sharing details of your day for a week on your blog..Not only is this a great way for us to see what our colleagues are doing and how they spend their days but it’s a great way for students who are interested in the library profession to see what we really do.

As an independent consultant who works from home, my days are probably a bit different than most library staff. Or maybe they aren’t? You decide.

Since I know I’m not likely to blog about my days, I’m using a nifty tool called QuoteURL to capture my tweets about #libday5 and display them here.


  1. polly
    pollyalida RT @sphericalfruit: Non-librarian followers: what’s #libday5? It’s a web-wide initiative for librarians to report their work. Ever wonde … 26 Jul 2010 from web
  2. polly
    pollyalida Today’s the first day of Library Day in the Life / Round 5, July 26th, 2010 http://ow.ly/2gR5X R U participating? #libday5 26 Jul 2010 from HootSuite
  3. polly
    pollyalida http://yfrog.com/17hvgwj 1 goal 4 this week- clean up my office! Been a very busy few months & it’s out of control. #libday5 26 Jul 2010 from Seesmic for Android
  4. polly
    pollyalida Spent much of the afternoon looking for YA book trailers 4 summer reading site: http://ow.ly/2gRDm #libday5 26 Jul 2010 from HootSuite
  5. polly
    pollyalida Caught up on some reading of articles tweeted by colleagues. #libday5 26 Jul 2010 from web

— this quote was brought to you by quoteurl

Got a terrific school library web site?

Dec 3rd, 2009
by pollyalida.
1 comment

Got a terrific school library web site? Does your site need a pick me up? Or a complete make-over? Get some inspiration from your colleagues web sites and share your own great examples on the new SchoolLibraryWebSites wiki spearheaded by Joyce Valenza (Pointing to effective practice, join the wiki!)

The wiki has examples of:

  • Elementary, Middle School & High School web sites
  • Pathfinders
  • Book & Reading Promotion Ideas
  • … and so much more!

Also a handy-dandy list of school library bloggers and tweeters! So if you’re looking for a few new blogs to follow or want a ready made group of school library colleagues to connect with on twitter, you’re in business!

Live session: RSS widgets and Personalised Home Pages – Sept 16, 2009

Sep 15th, 2009
by pollyalida.
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Classroom 2.0 Live has been sponsoring a great series of free on-line technology sessions for educators with Sue Waters. Called the Beginner Series, there’s lots of information for you even if you aren’t a beginner. I hope to have time to tune in on Wednesday night. Hope you do too!

Wed September 16, 2009 8pm–9pm (Eastern)
Where: Elluminate link- http://tinyurl.com/cr20live
What:  RSS widgets and Personalised Home Pages
In this third session on RSS we continue the discussion by looking at all the different ways you can use RSS widgets on websites and check out Personalised Homepages like NetVibes, PageFlakes and iGoogle for managing class information.

And make sure you check out all the other great programming, conversations and training on the Classroom 2.0 calendar – truly a terrific resource!

Library Day in the Life

Aug 5th, 2009
by pollyalida.
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The Library Day in the Life week happened while I was out of town, so I caught up and wrote some quick notes as I went through my day today. I’m not going to do a whole week of notes since my work days are pretty similar unless I’m teaching or running around to meetings. I’ll try to do another day of notes for a teaching day.

  • As an independent consultant working from home, I usually avoid my office until the coffee is made and I’ve had time to read the paper… yes, the newspaper printed on environmentally unfriendly paper. Didn’t get to the paper today since I’d been out of town for a week and lots to catch up on.
  • Caught up on email after a week away, during which I only answered the most urgent emails. A downside of being an independent consultant, you really can’t ignore email,  phone calls and such for more than a day or so – even if you are on vacation. Longest  I’ve gone is 3 days and all my clients knew I’d be out of touch.
  • Searched flickr for library summer reading photos and sent invitations to add them to the 2009 summer reading photo group on flickr.
  • Did some joomla troubleshooting for a client. Used Screentoaster to create a couple of short screencasts to guide them through some tricky editing – far easier than emailing step by step directions. (more…)