Allons Danser

Moving day.

I won't be renewing by account with typepad.  This blog will be moving to wwww.allonsdanser.com a URL that I've owned for years but never committed to.  In the future my artblog will be hosted there.  I'm getting my Ph.D. in Instructional Design Technology and don't have quite as much time for bookmaking and art, but I intend to continue doing some art because it saves me from myself.  When I have bookmaking sessions and journaling fits I will post them here at allonsdanser.  Otherwise you can catch up with me on www.mymindgap.com which is my website for reflection on my library and Ph.D. studies.   Here we go.....! 

photo by Jonnyfez on Flickr

50! Now. 50!

Well, it's amazing to me to turn 50. 17 August!  My mother in law called me for my birthday and if I"m not mistaken I think she was trying to console me!  Ha!  The last thing I needed was consolation.  I love my age now.  Kids are grown, a job I love, time alone with my husband (after 24 years of raising kids) (are we done yet?), a house I love in a place I love.  Fabulous work mates and friends.  Nope. No consolation required.  Celebration called for, which we did at McSharry's Irish Bar.  Cool.

Below: Me at ten years old. That's my old boyfriend, Bobby Sherman, on the wall. Naw!  I'll take 50. 

Wednesday catch-up post.

 

Here I am standing (my avatar) in Texas State University's San Marcos library.  I really dig their electronic bulletin board and have wanted one for a long time for our campus.  Also love the "books" on the library table to the left of these bulletin boards (you can't see it in the snapshot).

• We've been figuring out 2nd Life around here and that means some pretty good laughs.  A few days I went home with my stomach hurting from laughing at avatars falling down, putting their hair on their butts, and just generally being goofy.  But we're figuring out how to use it for our own purposes.  More to come on that.
• I uploaded the newly created waiting list form to www.usabaldwincounty.org and now the waiting list for our conference is growing.  I'm telling you, if you are a branch campus and you need to get some attention, present a free conference on web 2.0/social networking, invite your librarian co-workers to come a make presentations and viola!  instant attention on the campus.! 
• Southern Light now has their contract signed, sealed and delivered (faxed) and we get to keep our T-1 line for video conferencing.  Alas, we just discovered that the business school didn't receive their polycom camera/smart board setup and so we won't be video conferencing that class.  it will apparently be done LIVE, here on our campus we hope.
• Wednesday I deleted old MSQL databases and created fresh and clean new ones then uploaded the new Joomla install for www.mymindgap.com  Giving birth to this web site/blog has been tremendous.  At night while sitting around at home I created the headers and uploaded them, then realized I hadn't put a text heading in, so I redid all the headers.  learn from my mistakes!
• Uhoh!  Here comes the director (again) to ask about how we can get our network infrastructure proposal funded with Broadband Opportunities money.  That thing is becoming a beast.  Please just give us some $$$ and we'll go away.  We don't even want a lot of money, but we'd like to get rid of our home-style DSL "network".
• Ok. Time to go home and play!

   

Another Day in the Life of a Librarian

OK, so I didn't get to do a day 2 or a day 3 or 4 post and here it is Friday.  First let me say "yay! it's Friday!"  I love my job, but by the time the weekend gets here I'm ready for a break.  We go at it pretty intensely all week and the weekends are great down time.

Well, Mike my PC Applications assistant is back and that solved the problem of me troubleshooting buggy PCs.  He's on the job!

Tuesday afternoon I got an email from my friend at velvetillusion telling me that mymindgap links CSS style sheets was quirking.  Bummer!  But this happens with Joomla installs sometimes (especially when I try to do it from my wireless laptop at home. hmm.)  So I tried a mini-reinstall and that didn't work.  Big bummer, I knew I would have to do a complete overhaul.  Saved that task for Wednesday.

ATT and I are still dancing around the billing issues and main campus is in the loop, as they need to be.

We are experimenting with 2nd Life as a new venue once we get through our Joint Social Networking Conference.  We need land!

Created a wait list form for the Social Networking Conference we are presenting.  It's full!  270 people have signed up!  Wow!  We are still in shock over this.  Apparently our community needs this kind of information badly.  I'm happy to say that we are the ones providing it!

Uploaded the form.  It works.  I must must must find the email with the license number in it so I can register our RSSforms product.  Dang! 
7PM at home:  began creating headers for www.mymindgap.com.  I love using all the digital pics I've taken.  The template I'm using needs 5 different headers for the flash viewer it uses.  I bet I could put in even more.  Right now I"m ftping the header jpgs because I can't figure out how to use the module (if there is one) to load the header files.  I'll figure that our next week.

Well, more later, hopefully.  The director is on vacation today so I can concentrate on the projects I have going;

* finish writing proposal for the Off Campus Library Association meeting.

*tweak proposal for sending to LITA.

* draw up plans for the next Joint Social Networking Conference which will focus on social networking for educators.

I'm taking three days off next week to chill and do some artwork which I will post here.  Also I'll work on www.mymindgap.com to get some library content put up there.

I hope you have a wonderful information filled day!

Day in the Life of a Librarian

For the rest of the week I will be posting on my life as a librarian.  This week is day in the life of a librarian week.

Sorry this is kinda cut and dry.  I don't think I'm the only librarian who hasn't had time to "write pretty" this week.  Here goes:

A Day in the Life of a Librarian

I’m participating in the 2^nd Annual Day in the Life of a Librarian, well, because I’m a librarian!  When I decided to participate I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a web venue for my professional posts!  I maintain several web presences for work and volunteer services and I have this typepad account for my artwork.  I am in the process of building a professional librarian webpage and have purchased the DNS for www.mymindgap.com and plan to start posting librarian stuff there.  For this week, I’ll use allonsdanser.typepad.com for librarian purposes.  So, art friends, please be patient. 

Catch-up posts:

Note:  My title is Head of Information Services and I work for the University of S. AL, Baldwin County branch campus.  The saying around here is, if it’s got an electrical plug, it’s Angela’s responsibility.  I have some wiggle room in that and LOTS of help, and we get ‘er done!  We are on a BIG social marketing campaign and our PR person is on maternity leave right now!

Day 1, Monday July 27

·         Clean virus off of the campus director’s PC.  Normally this would be handled by my assistant, but he’s at comic-con in San Diego, lucky guy!

·         Chatted with Kathy, our receptionist, about the upcoming YouTube video contest for our students that we will launch when classes begin for the fall term.  Kathy has some great PR ideas and she’s ready, willing and able to absorb and launch the ideas I come up with for our student recruit/retain project.

·         What can I say, I mentioned going on 2^nd Life and playing around and its marketing and pedagogical possibilities and 1^st Life hasn’t been quite the same since!  So far in 2^nd Life around here, the assistant director nearly drowned (she says she drowned), the office manager has changed clothes 62 times and is the only one with bling, the security officer started a brawl at the fun fair, and the academic counselor keeps bumping into walls and scaring people with her zaniness.  I think we are all getting pretty familiar with 2^nd Life and we are looking for land!

·         Launched the paperwork for renewing our T-1 contract so we can continue to offer classes via Video conferencing  on our Polycom system.

·         Sorted out a billing problem for the telephones at the college of nursing.  ATT and I are on first name basis.

·         While involved in cleaning viruses, forgot to attend a meeting for the Literacy Council of which I am a board member.  Sorry!  I hate missing these meetings and I love the group of people working on literacy in our area.  I’m writing the web page for the group at www.ESLiteracy.org

·         Purchased DNS for www.mymindgap.com after throwing around some names with my buddy at www.velvetillusion.com who hosts my web sites and is my go to person for help in web programming, ftping and general content management hosting problems.  Rauf is super at talking me through sticky installs and confusing layers of networking.  Once I decided on the DNS name (I wanted mindthegap, but it was taken) I loaded a Joomla install in my directory and forwarded my DNS to the correct place.  Phew! 

·         Checked my grades (I’m in the PhD program for Instructional Systems Design) and found I got two As!  Yay!  Summer term is tough!

OK. I’m behind the timeline, so I’ll post this now, post day 2 later.

A new passion!

I"m loving fabric patchwork collage right now! 

 

This one is not yet sewn.  I cut out a few of these tea cozies but haven't sewn all of them yet.

 

 

Also some potholders were made.  Influence:

Find your passion!

My subconscious at work here:  I hung a Teesha Moore journal print right over the top of my Library Science diploma.  Appropriately, the print says "Find your passion" and I certainly have!

Around home

Highland Hotel and art with D.J. Pettitt

We had a great time in Birmingham learning new painting techniques from D.J. Pettitt and Deryn Mentock.  This chair was in the Highland Hotel lobby.

 

Box journaling

So I went into my studio/office to clean up a little and pack for the upcoming D.J. Pettitt class in Birmingham AL. and here's what happened.

 

and here are some close ups. 

 

 

So no packing was done and the studio is still a mess.  I approached this box (that I was about to throw out) as a journal page and just worked it from there.  I had made the doll a few weeks ago and she needed a home. Now she has one. Still a bit of work to do on it.  I"m going to put some words on the "page" and I know what I"m going to put but I have run out of time for this kind of work today.  I think I'm going to like box journaling. :)