Nice vs. Kind

Source

I should probably admit, up front, that my thoughts on this topic are a bit jumbled. Some of it has to do with "nice" being a gender expectation, and then there's the growing students-as-customers mentality. Those two ideas are coming up against the fact that things are starting to ramp up on campus (new students coming this week, returning students this weekend). The end result is that I've been thinking a lot about the difference between "nice" and "kind" lately.

My mental conception of "nice" has always had a slightly negative connotation. That overused cliche about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish? In my mind, "nice" is the person who gives the fish. "Nice" is making it easy for people without thought of what that might cause in the future. It's catering to the whims of our students without regards to long term plans or research in the field. [Side note: no, I'm not complaining about my current employer or any past employer. This is mostly on my mind because I'm taking on a new role at my current institution - teaching a class in the first year program.]

The thing is, I'm not "nice." As a professor, I'm a hard grader. As a librarian, I have no problems calling students on it when they are loud in the library. I've told students, faculty, staff, and even upper administration, "no." I will push back when I disagree. I am, however, kind. I will bend over backwards to help a student learn, to put faculty members in touch with resources they can use, and to make any member of my community more self-sufficient. It may be hard to get an A from me, but it's also hard to get an F.

Back to the fishing analogy, "kind" is teaching the man. Kind is about having patrons come back weeks or months or even years later to thank you. Kindness is why students come back to me and say, "thank you for pushing me when I was a freshmen; it made me a much better student." The difference between "nice" and "kind" is closely related to the differences between some students' expectations and institutional mission.

Further, it's also tied to why I refuse to call members of my community "customers." I've heard endless complaints about how self-entitled students, especially incoming freshmen, can be. I've been known to grumble about this myself. But I think we're feeding into it by thinking about students as customers. College is about learning to do things for yourself, including learning how to learn and learning how to think.

Being "nice" does a disservice to our communities in higher education. When I worked at a tiny two-year institution, I would often say, "the librarians at the school where you transfer might not be as available as we are, so I want to make sure you know how to do this for yourself." As a professor, I talk about how writing and public speaking are life skills my students will need in the job market. As an employer of student workers, I'm mindful of the fact that working for my library is frequently the first job our student employees have ever held and that we are teaching them how to be an employee. Holding students accountable after teaching them these skills will serve them better in the long run.

I know it sounds a bit paternalistic to say I know what students actually need, but with my experience and knowledge of the industry, especially with our accrediting bodies and the US Department of Education placing more and more emphasis on accountability, I do actually know better in some ways. I know we're a service industry and we want to take care of those who come to us, but it's much better if we teach them to care for themselves. Be kind, be friendly, but please... don't be nice.

How about you? What are your thoughts on the topic?

My First Instruction Panic and How It Made Me a Better Teacher, by Derrick Jefferson

Source

My favorite part of my job is getting in front of a class of students who are probably bored and would rather be anywhere else, and somehow drawing them in, getting them awake and interested. This usually happens as soon as I walk into the room, since I don’t look like what most people think of when they think of a librarian. I am a rambling, big, burly African-American guy, covered in tattoos, and I tend to not fit the librarian cliché, though I sometimes do wear my glasses perched on my nose just so. You never know when the librarian stare needs to be implemented.

Even though I get attention with just my physical presence, I don’t stop there. I am very much a people person and like to meet the students in my classes halfway. I work primarily with majors in the School of Communication which includes journalism, film and video, and strategic communication, so the work tends to be topical. Their research usually draws upon current events and pop culture, and ties back to established communication theory and principles. This kind of thing can still be boring in the wrong hands, but I make sure it isn’t. If a student throws out, “I want to do some research on feminism”, and I say, “Let’s look at something like the impact of say…Beyoncé and feminism just as a starting point”, they tend to think that’s cool. Because Beyoncé.

I use this tactic not because I want to be seen at the “cool librarian”, but because it can remove the wall that a lot of students put up. My goal is to be accessible. My agenda is not to just stand up and lecture about library resources for a paper the students will write two months from now. I want to establish a relationship. I want them to know that I am their subject specialist, a person who once upon a time worked as a freelance writer, a filmmaker, producing music videos and commercials, and a person who loved studying classical film theory as well as documentaries. These are things in my toolkit that, as their librarian, I can bring to bear over the course of their time at my school.

Those are my intentions, and things have always gone according to script. Until recently. I had my first real panic late last semester when I was working with a new professor. Not only had I never worked with this individual, but s/he taught an introduction to media 100-level course as well as a 400-level class that deals with specific research in communication marketing. I gave myself plenty of time to learn the database the professor wanted demonstrated since I’m somewhat new myself. I was scheduled to do sessions for both classes on the same day – a day where the professor would not be present and I’d have the students, whom I’ve never met, all to myself. I tend to keep my nervousness at bay, however when I walked into the 100-level course ready to talk basic database searching, and how to find electronic copies of say Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly in our journal finder and found out rather quickly that it was the advanced research class where I would be performing a demonstration of this software I honesty wasn’t very keen on, the students noticed.

I am proud to say that it wasn’t a disaster. I took a couple deep breaths and recovered. I was able to demonstrate how to use the database to pinpoint what sports drink a video game playing male, between the ages of 18-25 who preferred Xbox over Playstation and played between the hours of midnight and 3am and used an Android phone, is most likely to purchase and why. What struck me, however, came next. Two graduating seniors lingered as the rest of their peers headed out the door after the class was over. They made a point of telling me that not only had they enjoyed my presentation and taken copious notes about the database, they also remarked how funny I was. Then they went further and asked to buy me coffee and talk shop about library school and what it was like. The catalyst for that moment was my apparent cat-like reflexes. They had seen me thinking on my feet and readjusting after realizing that I had mixed up my classes. They said that was a skill they see in lots of librarians. They said librarians, more than anything, are prepared and go above and beyond in helping people. For me, removing that wall, helped them see me as someone who isn’t just there to tell them How Things Should Be Done, but also as someone for whom knowledge can move in both directions.

Sometimes we feel the need to be super-prepared and super-professional, but it was that moment of being human and making a mistake that helped me connect with the students. I don’t recommend making mistakes like that if you can help it, but I do recommend being who you are with your patrons.

Derrick Jefferson is the Communications Librarian at American University in Washington, DC.  He received his MLIS in 2012 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA as a Project Recovery scholar based in New Orleans. He tweets about food, vinyl records, and libraries at @geekandahalf.

Me, Too!: On Agendas in Libraries, Especially Mine

If you haven't yet read Chris Bourg's fantastic post, "Agendas: Everyone has one " and Barbara Fister's response, "Admitting Our Agendas," please do. The TL;DR synopsis of both posts is that both of these women are coming clean about having a driving force, an agenda behind their work in libraries. In Chris' case, she claims "a feminist and queer agenda for libraries [that] is a unapologeticly activist agenda, rooted in values of democracy, inclusion, and equality." And Barbara's push is reflected in her statement that, "We shouldn’t help students 'prove' something that is contrary to the evidence. We should help them find information and encourage them to form opinions based on the evidence."

While I am also a feminist who pushes students to deal with all the information they gather, not just the information that supports the opinion they had coming into their research, my own agenda is slightly different. And here's a hint:

Source

It's the reason I teach information literacy skills the way I do and the thing that drives me to make the library as appealing and inviting as I can. I want to get members of my community into my building, literally or figuratively, where I have a better chance of achieving my agenda. Why would this be behind everything I do as a librarian when I work at a college, and why would I admit it? Shouldn't I be focused on purely academic skills? Nope, nuh-uh, and not even, because my agenda is tied to knowing the truth about my students, even when the faculty members don't agree with me (which is thankfully less and less often as time goes by).

What I know is this: even at elite colleges and universities, most students will not go onto be professional academics. The majority of undergraduates are pursuing higher education because of the promise of better jobs. I've said it so many times in work conversations that I've lost track, but I'm putting it here because it is a (slightly pompous but) perfect way to capture my agenda: our education system is churning out a generation of Spartans, but what we need is Athenians. We need people who can think for themselves, not people who march lock step because it's what they were told to do. We need people who actually take the time to learn the stance of someone who's running for political office, not people who support the candidate who seems like s/he would be a good drinking buddy. To put it bluntly, my agenda is that I want to help graduate critical thinkers who are, therefore, well informed voters.

We've all got agendas when we think about it. For some of us, it's something that pushed us to pursue this career field in the first place. I applaud Chris and Barbara for coming clean with theirs, and have added mine to the list.

What's yours?

On Authenticity, by Andrew Colgoni

Here’s the thing: inauthenticity stinks. I mean that quite literally. People can smell it when you act like someone other than yourself (excepting the best sociopaths, of course). There was a reason that your mom always told you to “just be yourself”. It wasn’t because acting is hard, it’s because everybody has a finely tuned radar for fakers (fadar?). In fact, I’ll bet that when you are inauthentic, you can smell it on yourself, too. It’s like that time you stepped in dog poop, and then were sitting at the park bench wondering “what’s that smell?” Happily, you could wipe your shoes furiously on the grass before you had to walk on carpet.

Ok, so why am I spending so much metaphorical language on inauthenticity? I want to relate this to teaching. Some of the finest tuned fadar there is exists in students. Those clever kids just know when you are trying to be hip with the youth. Remember back in the 90’s when everyone tried to blend hip-hop with anything else to give it a veneer of cool, but it just seemed off? That’s how you look when you go up in front of a class and try to be something other than yourself. Now, I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t be a little more enthusiastic than normal, that’s ok. But you shouldn’t be so over-enthusiastic that it makes people question your sanity, especially if you’re normally subdued.

The same goes for using youth ‘props’. We seem to think that we need to connect with the youth by ‘speaking in their language’ (a topic I could rant about at length). So, we think, “Great! I’ll look up what the youth are into, and co-opt that!” We show up to class with a bag of internet memes and rage comics and use that to illustrate our points. But here’s the thing: if you don’t usually make memes, it shows. The students know it, you know it, and everyone’s a little weirded out.

The lesson here isn’t simply don’t use memes, or don’t get rowdy. Rather, if you are actually into memes or are naturally freaky, then go for it**. If you like horrible puns (the man who fell into an upholstery machine is now fully recovered*) roll with that. Big into sci-fi? Then reference that, fellow browncoat. What happens when you do this (what we call “being yourself”) is that your actual excitement and passion will show through, and you will bring your students along with you. And, hey, isn’t bringing students along with you what teaching is all about?

So, before you go into that classroom, wipe your shoes furiously on the grass.

Andrew Colgoni is the Science Fluencies Librarian at Thode Library at McMaster University. He tweets @colgoni.

*Borrowed shamelessly from @omgthatspunny.

**One exception: if you are really into clip art, and I’ve seen lots of librarians that are, don’t go for it. Try a different passion.

Students Are Not You At That Age

"my brains - let me show you them," by Liz Henry

In last week's post, "Ten Things I Didn't Learn in Library School, Academic Edition," the first thing I listed was about how present day undergraduates are not the same as we were. For the most part, it's not a "kids these days don't know nothin'" thing. As I said:

"Think about it this way: if you're an academic librarian (or want to be one) chances are pretty high that you liked college and were a good student, otherwise you wouldn't be thinking about spending your life in academia. Many of the students with whom I talk every day are here either because Mommy &/or Daddy made them, or because it's the next logical step. There will be students who want to be at college, but that's not every student."

After I published the post, I had a few people ask me how I deal with students like this. The truth is that I still struggle with it on a semi-regular basis, although I know that I'm better than I was when I got my first job. I have days, sometimes weeks, when I am instinctually calm and don't have to remind myself of the items I listed below. But I don't get too upset when I do struggle. Practice makes perfect, right?

Anyway, I deal with students by remind myself:

1. In some ways, students ARE you at that age (but you have probably forgotten what it was like because your brain has finished maturing). To put it colloquially, teenage & early/mid twenties brain chemistry/structure is MAD crazy. Not only are their brains constantly growing and changing, they are doing it at an amazing rate. Another side effect of this is that teens & young adults process social input from a much more primitive part of the brain than you do. Brain chemistry and structure changes are why students can be so surly, so I try to be patient.
2. The person in front of me could be a first generation college student. Statistics vary from school to school, obviously, but 40% of my undergraduate population falls in this category. I don't. Not only do I come from a long line of college graduates on both sides, both my maternal and my paternal grandfathers taught at the college level. This means that when I arrived at my undergraduate institution, I knew what was expected (at least to some extent). First gen students don't have that knowledge, so I try to help them fill in the gaps.
3. It's about good customer service skills. Bear with me while I tell you a quick story. I put myself through my first graduate degree by working at a mid-range, fancy-ish restaurant. I had my regulars who always sat in my section. For them, I'd explain the specials and then pretty much get out of their way. I also had plenty of first time customers, even at that fancy pants place. With them, I'd explain every single thing about the restaurant, the menu, the bar, and so on. If I did my job well with a new customer, and the circumstances were right, I'd eventually have a new regular. That's what I want in the library - someone who knows what they are doing and only needs to have occasional pointers - so I put in the time with them when they are freshmen.

Any thoughts? And, for those of you who have a bit of experience, do you have any advice you can add to mine?

Finding Your Voice, by Maureen Barry

Wright State students help prepare Chesterhill Produce Auction for it's opening during their week-long service trip to southeast Ohio last spring break.

When I was on the job market in 2004-2005, as I was finishing my MLS, I applied for both tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions. I preferred non-tenure because, like many new librarians, I hadn’t yet discovered my voice. Why jump into publishing if I didn’t have anything to say yet? This idea came back to me in the response I got to a question I asked during a phone interview, “What are the benefits of the non-tenure position?”  She said, “I like this situation [non-tenure] because I don’t feel pressured to publish, but I am supported if I want to publish.” 

It wasn’t until about five years into my career that I got the urge to start publishing. It happened when one of my friends, Dr. Sarah Twill, a social work faculty member at my current institution, introduced me to service-learning. Service-learning is a teaching and learning pedagogy that closely ties together course content with service to the community to help solve real-world problems. It’s different from volunteerism in that service learning is a delicate balance of curricular materials, service, and reflection.  It’s also different from internship because an internship is usually done after your coursework is complete. (See Andrew Furco’s continuum for further explanation.)

The more I heard Sarah talk about service-learning, the more I was hooked. One day, I thought to myself:  How can I use service-learning in the for-credit information literacy course that I co-teach? Has it been done? My thought was that incorporating service-learning would attach a real-world component to the course making the class a more meaningful experience not only for me, but also for my students and our would-be community partner.

A journey into the literature revealed NO instances of such a course, although there was some discussion about the parallels between information literacy and service-learning (see Riddle, 2003). Hmm. I realized I might be on to something here, even though no one else appeared to have tried it yet. So I went for it. (If you’d like to read more about the course and how it came to be, see my article, “Research for the Greater Good:  Incorporating service-learning in an information literacy course at Wright State University,” in the June 2011 C&RL News.)

Then I had a light bulb moment near the end of my first quarter of teaching the service-learning information literacy course. I was walking across campus with my supervisor when I said, “I may have found my niche with service-learning.”  She responded, “If you want to be known for service-learning, you need to start a blog.”  All I could think was, “Ugh. Really? A blog? Do I really want to write THAT often?  She’s right though – it’s what we librarians do.” And now, looking back on it, I’m really grateful to her for giving me that push.  At the time, I really didn’t want to blog; but when your boss suggests something, it’s hard to say no.  So, here I am, the self-labeled Service Learning Librarian.    

Because of my blog, I was invited to write a two part piece for LOEX Quarterly (Part 1; Part 2). Loanne Snavely, an academic librarian, recognized from my blog that my course engaged students with the library in a unique way, so she contacted me because she was seeking chapters for Student Engagement and the Academic Library. I have also been invited to be a panelist for the Women’s & Gender Studies Section of ALA’s President’s Program at the annual conference in July 2013. And finally, just a few weeks ago, I was contacted to blind review an article about service-learning in library education.  All of these opportunities presented themselves because of my blog.

In addition to my for-credit information literacy course, my success has helped me seek new opportunities to partner with faculty and instructors who incorporate service-learning pedagogy.  Over the past few years, I helped instructors pair information literacy and service-learning in English composition courses. I was the embedded librarian in an honors interdisciplinary service-learning course about sustainability in Appalachia, co-taught by Dr. Sarah Twill and an instructor in Earth & Environmental Sciences.  This course includes a week-long service trip to southeast Ohio.  Yes, in case you were wondering, I went on the trip.  It was without a doubt the most meaningful interaction I’ve had with students at Wright State.  Another benefit is that these experiences have provided new material about which I can write and present.

Service-learning has been a rewarding way to serve both my community and my profession. I’m grateful that I discovered the concept here at Wright State. Or, perhaps it discovered me. Either way, I found my voice, and I continue to develop it through seeking new service-learning experiences at my institution, giving presentations, writing, and also a little reading, of course.

If you haven’t found your voice yet, don’t worry. It will come. It doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t get discouraged. It took me almost 5 years to figure out what I could possibly offer to my field that was new and different.   

Maureen Barry is the First Year Experience Librarian at Wright State University in Dayton, OH. She tweets @SLLibrarian and blogs at Service Learning Librarian.

A Librarian’s Guide to Webcast Wrangling, by Nikki Dettmar

"Cat Sat on Computer" is a Creative Commons licensed, Flickr picture by dougwoods.

You’ve already mastered The Seven Rules Of Avoiding Poutreach covered in John’s excellent guest post?  How about in online outreach and education, such as webcasts, where communication cues from your target audience are hard to come by?

Librarians don’t actually do webcasts as part of their jobs and only attend them for professional development, you say?

I started hosting (leading the technology of) and/or presenting (leading the content delivery of) a regular webcast series within months of starting my first library job in May 2008. To date in 2012 I am still doing webcasts at the same place and they haven’t fired me, so apparently something’s going well with them.

With the increase of both embedded librarianship and online education, especially in academia, chances are good you will be asked about presenting on a webcast at some point in your career. I am intentionally not covering specific webcast technology platforms in this post since they are changing as rapidly as chat reference tools (Meebo widget anyone?).

Here are some tips to help you not just prepare for but enjoy giving a webcast presentation:

Be SUCCES(s)ful – I highly recommend reading Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, where both great marketing ideas and the elements of SUCCES(s) are covered. Briefly, SUCCES(s) for webcasts translates to Simple (focus on a core message), Unexpected (get your audience’s attention and hold it! Example: try colorful Creative Commons licensed images for slides that enhance your ideas instead of 7 rows of bullet points and screenshots), Concrete (one memorable concept/idea per slide), Credible (you know the information resources you’re discussing are awesome – your inherent professionalism through solid content and delivery will convince your audience they are too), Emotional (think of your audience as individuals to connect with instead of a faceless crowd), and Stories (find ways to personalize, people always remember stories better than statistics).

Keys of Content - Write down the main and supporting concepts of what you want to say but not every.single.word. Your audience can hear the difference between reading from a script and presenting information that you are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about. Using acronyms is fine after you first explain what they mean, ideally with both the full meaning & acronym written on your presentation slide, but jargon should be avoided since it tends to confuse rather than help people better understand what you have to say. Practice your presentation a few times but avoid the temptation to be ‘perfect’ – be yourself!  

Elements of Audio – Do you have chorus, drama, speech & debate, Toastmasters, or college DJ experience? The vocal delivery tips you’ve learned there are helpful to keep in mind when speaking in general, but especially on a webcast where the audience is reliant upon your voice for context and meaning. Having a vocal tone somewhere between the expressive emotion of motherese (AWWW! WHO is SUCH a caYUTE LITtle bayBEE?!) and the clarity of a dry staff meeting presentation (During the third quarter our reference questions increased by 15%) is just about right. Do some expert vocal research – “Morning Edition” on National Public Radio is well experienced in clearly delivering memorable news and information to commuters who may not yet be properly caffeinated.

Silence ≠ Disinterest – One of the most common mistakes webcast presenters make is either being nervous about audience silence and commenting about it, or assuming that a lack of verbal comments means the audience isn’t interested. Nothing could be further from the truth – the audience wouldn’t log in if they didn’t want to hear what you had to say, and they may not have a microphone available to use on their headset. Most webcast platforms have personal status icons (like ‘thumbs up’) that can be used in response to a yes/no question and multiple-choice polls. Try a question near the start of your webcast with clear directions on how to use these tools, and provide immediate feedback based on the audience response (i.e. “I see most of us have used PubMed before but there are also quite a few who haven’t. Thank you for participating and I’ll make sure to keep this in mind as I explain how to search”). Towards the end is an ideal time for a poll based on your content, which naturally leads to time for questions & answers as a conclusion.

For other librarians who present webcasts, what tips and strategies have you found helpful while developing or giving them? Please comment below and thanks for sharing!

Nikki Dettmar is the Education and Assessment Coordinator at the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region and @eagledawg on Twitter. When she’s not trying to keep up with her family, she encourages participation in Thursday evening Twitter chats about medical librarian topics (http://medlibschat.blogspot.com) and has a personal blog at http://eagledawg.net.

My Approach to Teaching

Creative Commons Licensed Picture from Todd Petrie

Had an involved conversation with a libr* friend about how I teach and realized I've never discussed my pedagogical philosophy here. Sure, I've discussed how my approach to librarianship is constantly evolving, but this is even more true of my approach to teaching. That recent conversation made me realize I've actually gotten my philosophy of teaching information literacy skills so refined that I can sum it up in five points, so here they are:

1. Be yourself. For me, that mostly means letting my nerd flag fly and using humor in every session. (Here's a joke I've told frequently: How many librarians does it take to change a light bulb? I don't know, but I can help you look it up.) For you, that might mean talking about music or your dog or whatever. If you aren't comfortable with yourself in the classroom, the students won't be comfortable either.
2. I believe in a constructivist theory of knowledge, and my teaching reflects this belief. Ascribing to this approach means I teach in a way that builds on my students' existing knowledge. For instance, when I teach students how to evaluate websites, I skip all the carefully constructed and clever acronyms that my libr* brothers and sisters have devised. Instead, I go with the 5 Ws (who, what, when, where, & why) since 99% of my students already have that mnemonic in their knowledge base.
3. If it's at all possible, I make them use the skills/knowledge right away. Frequently, this can be done during the information literacy session. Here's a recent example: this semester, in our first semester FYE classes, we break the students up into small groups and have each group evaluate a website that comes up in a search for a keyword related to the class materials.
4. Make it as real as possible. I talk about how I used the web to research the car I bought. I come up with papers I would want to write if I were in that class. When I teach web evaluation, I do a live, untested Google search. I do my best to make the context of my teaching reflect what they'll be facing when they use the skills and knowledge I'm presenting.
5. Most importantly, I give them a path back to the new information and skills, since even the best and most attentive students will forget stuff. Although this idea shows itself in a lot of ways, the biggest thing I do to give them that path is to make them memorize my name. It helps them feel comfortable with me. Students can search for my email in a campus directory, stop by my office, or even stop me on campus to ask a question. Presenting myself as the path back has been incredibly successful.

What about you? How do you teach? (And if you work with the public at all, you teach. One on one instruction is even more important at times than classroom instruction.)

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That, Or, How I Picked Sessions at LOEX

I'm still mulling over what I want to write about the presentation I gave at LOEX this year. It went well, for sure. People laughed at my jokes and asked the right kinds of questions when I was done, so I'm counting it as a success. But that's a post that's still percolating. Instead, I'm going to tell you about something else that I did at LOEX.

This may come as a surprise, since most of what I see written about conferences is about networking while there, but I attended some sessions. For me, the whole point of attending conferences is professional development. I know, you're shocked. Bear with me, though. I want to explain how I pick sessions because I was clueless about conferences at the beginning of my career.

At LOEX...

1. I attended some sessions that will benefit current projects. For instance, we're starting up an online presence - blended learning mostly - so at LOEX I went to a couple of sessions about converting and updating online information literacy courses. The biggest thing I learned from these sessions is that I've already done my homework and that I'm ready to do this thing. 
2. I also picked some that could help with future projects. Chris Sweet, of Illinois Wesleyan University, gave an amazing presentation about how he teamed up with a service learning course to integrate information literacy. Sweet's assertion is that service learning and information literacy have the same end goals. This session was one of the best I attended, and his ideas got me so fired up that I made an appointment for next week to talk about Sweet's ideas with our director of service learning.
3. Finally, and this is the thing I always neglected in the past, I went to a couple of things just for the fun of it. I attended a session about graphic novels and I watched the lightning talks (I'm not sure I could give an entire talk in 7 minutes, so I wanted to see others try it). 

Yes, I make sure to go to sessions that help me develop as a professional, but all work and no play make Jessica a dull librarian, so I make sure to have some fun as well.

How about you? How do you pick sessions at conferences? Or, if you've never been to one, what kinds of sessions do you think you'd like to see?