Hi everyone,
I live in the Finger Lakes region of New York where we are in the midst of the arctic blast of winter. My first degree and profession are as a Speech/Language Pathologist but since 2013 I have also been the director of a very rural and very small library which shares a building with the Post Office.
Libraries Rock!
I began with my love of libraries very young in life, with my first “job” in a library when I was in 4th and 5th grade as a “Library Helper” and then as a paid Page in High School. At the time it didn’t seem to be my calling in life but when we moved into this community I became involved in the library as a volunteer, then a board member, and when our director of 30 years retired I applied for the position. I find it unbelievable that the director of a small library does not need to have any specific education to perform in the role of basically running a business!
After a couple of years I began to consider pursuing my library degree. There were many details I related to the library world that I wished I was more knowledgeable about so that I could make sure I was doing things “right”. A colleague of mine was attending SJSU and the idea of an online degree seemed perfect, however the digital divide is real and we did not get broadband internet service at my home until September 2016. I applied to SJSU the day after it was installed and was accepted on my birthday in October 2016. Later that month at the Finger Lakes Library System Annual Meeting, the guest speaker was none other than……Michael Stephens! And the topic of his talk? The Hyperlinked Library! I have been hoping to take this course ever since that time, and I hadn’t even begun the program yet. Unfortunately, he had to leave prior to the end of the meeting and I didn’t get a chance to meet him.
I continue to also work as an SLP so I am only able to handle one class at a time. This class will put me at the half-way point in my journey to my MLIS. I have subtitled this blog “my #hyperlib Adventure” because I find each new class to be the beginning of another adventure. What am I going to learn this time? How am I going to be able to put that information/skill to use? It has been very exciting!
I am looking forward to getting to know all of you through your blogs and to get some extra practice in using Word Press. While I do maintain our website Hazard Library Association and our Facebook Page, I admit I am not always very creative and would love some insight and pointers.
Lisa's Library World 
Hi Lisa,
I have actually driven through the Finger Lakes area. My husband and I spent part of our honeymoon in Manhattan before driving up to Rochester and Buffalo. We stopped for lunch at the Finger Lakes and then kept on trucking until we made it to our destination. We were there in early August of 2016 so I thought the weather was lovely. Hopefully you get warmer weather soon!
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It really is a beautiful area and summer weather is pretty decent unless we get a rainy period. It’s just too short. I am not holding out for much warmer weather any time soon though. We are supposed to have highs in the single digits for the next few days with negative temps with the wind chill. We have had school closings almost every week since the new year. Hibernation would be lovely. We can get snow here at some point anytime from Oct to April so it can get tedious. I’m glad you got to see the area in the summer. I used to live in Rochester. Did you get to Niagara Falls when you were in the Buffalo area?
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We went to Rochester after stopping in Seneca Falls. I studied women’s history as an undergrad and just had to visit some of the historical sites. We stayed in Rochester to visit Susan B. Anthony’s home and then went to Niagra Falls. That was an amazing site to take in!
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Yes, this area is rich in history. Auburn (about 20 min east of Seneca Falls) calls itself “History’s Home Town”. William Seward (Lincoln’s Secretary of State and purchaser of Alaska) is from there and his home is an historic site and Harriet Tubman lived there at the end of her life and is buried in a local cemetery. I used to live in Rochester. I love that city!
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How fun that Professor Stephens spoke at a meeting you attended! Very cool, I’m happy for you that your journey led to to get your MLIS, we started around the same time. It’s been a great program so far!
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I have really enjoyed the program and all my classes. I took a WISE class last spring and even though I loved the topic (Information Ethics) I found that SJSU has a much better interface and the professors are so much more responsive and involved. I am really glad I chose this program.
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Hi @lisasemenza How cool you were at my talk in Ithaca! I have actually spoken there three times over the years and really enjoyed that part of New York State. And… Moosewood! That last trip I had dinner and lunch the next day at Moosewood. 🙂
Welcome to #hyperlib.
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Ithaca is a great place with great places to eat! Glad you were able to enjoy Moosewood. I don’t know if you stayed at that 2016 meeting long enough to see the awards. I won the Youth Services award along with another library director. We are both in the same school district and we won for our collaborative efforts with each other, the school district, and the food pantry. We just submitted a grant yesterday to get funding for another year of efforts.
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PS: It’s very cool you are working on your library’s online presence. Nicely done!
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Thanks!
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Hi Lisa,
Happy to have survived INFO 285 with you and I really loved all your insight into childhood language acquisition – thanks for so generously sharing! Also, thanks for sharing your journey into librarianship on this post! As I am learning more, I see that librarianship, and especially, leadership in the field, really thrive from a diversity of skills and background experience so it is very cool you were open and adaptive – probably why you have succeeded! As the parent of a voracious reader who just turned 2, I LOVED seeing all the promotion of content for preschool age children and the 1000 books before kindergarten is such a cool idea! I have done some website/graphic design, so will look over the website in the next few weeks and let you know if I have any ideas:)
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Thanks for your offer to give some insight into the website. I inherited it from the original designer and then learned how to do updates to it so I took over posting new content and made sure all the info on the inside pages are current. I have visions of doing something “new” but it gets lost in the shuffle. I have tried to change the theme but nothing seems to work well with what is currently in there. With my speech background, the preschoolers and early literacy are a passion of mine. Story Hour is one of the easiest things for me to do since it’s often just an extension of what I would do in therapy.
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