New job

So, I've been at my new job for two weeks now.

It's been a great experience, everything considered. Let me just say that my position--Chief Operating Officer--was sorely needed. I'll be creating lots of processes and procedures over the next several months, and realigning some chain-of-command issues.

I survived my first board meeting with no incident, but it got me thinking about the fact I was witnessing local government in action. Very cool.

I think the biggest challenge I face is balancing all of my new responsibilities. There is so much to do that it's tempting to work all the time by staying late, taking stuff home, and so forth. But, I really want to be intentional about role modeling behavior, so I'm resisting the urge to do that.

I feel like I've done a good job of getting to know my co-workers. I've got planning meetings set up to work on projects and update meetings to keep in touch with supervisors with regards to personnel or procedural issues. I hope these means of communication really add to the substance of what the library is good at doing already.

We'll see what this next week brings.

Canal Daze

Yesterday, John and I went to the canal at White River State Park. We rented bikes and rode past the zoo, across the river, around the canal, then met some friends at Henry's on East. The 500 Festival Parade was just ending, so there were lots of people in the neighborhood. After that, we happened to run into some friends and went to the the Rathskeller Biergarten.

All in all, it was a great day, even if I did get a sunburn :/

In about a week, I start my new job at the Hancock County Public Library. I'm so excited, because I started a wiki to organize my thoughts and shared it with my new boss. She responded to say it's the first time she's ever used a wiki before, but thought it would be a great communication tool. That made my day, and I haven't even officially started work there!

Perhaps once I get settled in, I can talk to the IT Manager to see about setting up an internal wiki.

Anyway, have a great holiday, everyone. Enjoy the race, if that's your thing :)

Accessing....

I've been inspired to start a blog again.

I'm starting a new job on June 2 at the Hancock County Public Library. It's going to come with a lot of challenges, as the position is new to their library system.

A recent inspiration comes from listening to a library talk show delivered via TalkShoe called Uncontrolled Vocabulary. The recent discussion of a post from the ACRLog: Sorry, but you can't have it all got me thinking about the fact that I'm a Gen X'er going into library management, and over my 8 or so years in the profession, I've discovered that work-life balance is extremely important.

Another thing I've found out about myself was illuminated when I learned about the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) concept of allowing employees to work where they're most productive. In my current job at Ball State University Libraries I've found that for a variety of reasons I've resisted my natural tendency to work wherever I wanted to like I did at my last job at IU Bloomington. I'm hoping that the new job will be a bit more flexible.

I feel like my life is at an exciting place. I'm transitioning from academic librarianship to public librarianship, for one. I've recently started taking classes in programming, which I'm enjoying a lot, so that's great, too.

We'll see what happens tomorrow. Until then....