Authorship/publishing

New Years Resolutions continued

Mar 29th

Posted by Hana in Authorship/publishing

3 comments

Recently alerted to a query on linkedin by Sally Pewhairangi to name your top 3 priorities for the next 12 months, I decided it was time to update any interested followers on how my New Years Resolutions were going.

My top three priorities for the next 12 months are:

1. Write.
2. Present that writing in a professional environment e.g. at a conference.
3. Read more offline for pleasure.

I included numbers 1 and 3 in my “New Years Resolutions” post back on January the 4th.  Not that it’s a priority, but I wanted to include #2 in between them as I would really like to write something that is worthy of presenting at a conference. That’s just a personal goal I have.
Another priority is to rein in my writing and focus on making it more professional and authorative.  This will be something to work towards for a while.  Advice on how I might do this will be greatly appreciated!
Other than time and experience, perhaps #3 and study too, I’m not sure how I can “get more professional” in my writing.
Ideas?

New Years Resolutions

Jan 4th

Posted by Hana in Authorship/publishing

1 comment

  1. write
  2. read more offline for pleasure

Pretty simple really.

#1 on the list, will help me to do the following:

  • attend NLS5 and ALIAlibtec11 in Perth in September this year as a speaker and delegate
  • improve my vocabulary
  • complete some papers with my chosen institution of learning (an actual institution – OPNZ)
  • improve and grow as editor of LIANZA’s fortnightly publication, Library Life.

#1 on the list will also help me to believe my intuition and what other’s have told me, that I have something to offer in writing for and speaking to others travelling along a similar path in the library and information field.

#2 on the list will help me remain sane.  Other than writing for myself (and by default, the profession), this is definitely what I need to be doing more of, to keep things in perspective.

Will keep you posted on these new years resolutions.

Writing for the profession (and by default, me)

Nov 23rd

Posted by Hana in Authorship/publishing

3 comments

I shouldn’t even be writing this. I said I needed to go to bed earlier because I’ve been a bit tired lately, but it’s 10.11pm and I’m just beginning a post on working through the following question:

What topic should I write about with a colleague for ALIAlibtec11 in Perth next year?

Deadline is in 7 days. Eeep!

So. To recap, it is 7 days ’til an abstract is due for a conference that I wish to present at, to my friends and colleagues in my sister city, Perth Western Australia.  I have never written with this colleague before, and this colleague has actually been my lecturer for a number of papers (= Units in Aussie terminology, what is it for everyone else??) at my chosen institution of higher learning.

The conference is this one, ALIA National Library & Information Technicians Conference and you will find the call for abstracts here.

The theme streams are:

  • Professional Development (the individual)
  • Professional Development (the profession)
  • Client Services (the client)

I’m gonna go for option number one.  Mainly because I want to dissect the term “professional”.  I think.

Will update you on this later.

Again, abstract due in 7 days.  Then again my maths isn’t so good, it could be sooner.  How far away is the 1st of December?

Turning a new page

Oct 21st

Posted by Hana in Authorship/publishing

4 comments

So I’ve just been selected as the new editor of e-Library Life, a fortnightly newsletter to LIANZA members, starting with my first issue due on Monday the 15th of November (was 1st, but I have two assignments due quite soon!!). Let me tell you now, I’m quite stoked :)

Who says you can’t do anything without a degree?!?!?

I’m so stoked, and huge props and thanks must go to Mike and Alli and the LIANZA council for selecting me.  For all I know, my application was the only one, but still, I’m stoked :-)   Stoked that I stay true to myself and keep putting my hand up, and this time it feels like I’ve been professionally accepted :-) YAY

Ok enough with the dang smiley faces man!

I’d just like to let you know that life (to use a nerdy book analogy) is all about reading, and page turning, and book switching.  There’s a good quote somewhere that,

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

- St. Augustine

I like that.  I feel like I’m starting a new book right now, or just browsing at the title page, still really looking at that and the tp. verso heh and looking at all the publication data.  ahhh I’m such a geek.

Anyhooo, I’m going to be calling on all my networks in my role as editor of a fortnightly e-mail/e-newsletter.  I’m excited, and I hope you are too.

Expect to hear from me soooooon!  Yes, I’m totally going to be sniffing you out, like an alpacca…

Alpaca face

More issues than I know what to do with

May 25th

Posted by Hana in Authorship/publishing

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The library and information profession isn’t facing just those issues I listed a couple of posts back.  There’s more than that.  I have, just this morning, started another assignment topic for my assignment that is due tonight by midnight.  That brings the total to four.  Four running assignments, that I have going for the purposes of this assignment?!

What is it that I want to convey?  There is simply a lot to write about, a lot of issues, not just contemporary ones, or labelled as such, that are facing the profession in the “information age”.  And what is the information age anyway?  Define that please.

My assignment topics so far are as follows:

  • “Feeling Overloaded? Experiencing #Filterfail?  It could be time to change your settings.”
    I shouldn’t really have to explain it, but I have to, so I’ve already failed in one aspect of this assignment, – supply a title that accurately reflects the content of your paper.  I like to see html markup out of context, it’s interesting to me. 
  • “Education in Information Literacy, the answer to our digital divide”
  • “Information Overload and the Information Professional’s role: how Librarian’s can help”and my latest one…
  • “User pays, the digital divide and freedom of access to information : economics and the public library”
See, the thing is, I’m quite happy writing up to 500 or so words on a topic and having a mini rant, because that’s what I’m capable of spurting out.  But anything noteworthy and academic, I don’t see myself as capable of.  I would love love love to write professionally, and produce something worth publishing in an academic journal, open access or not.  I would love that.  But with my current attention span, I’m not sure if I can.

I’m just going to flesh out my ideas here.  See, I am taking this paper because I want to get further, academically and professionally and .. publishy.. than where I am currently.  I want to get to that goal, of writing, for aliving?? Do I?  aaarrggh sidetracked!  I want to write about Information overload because it is something I experience most days.  Information overload is a challenge I face that not necessarily the rest of the information management profession is facing.  I want to write about it, and it’s facets including anxiety, but I don’t know if I alone, can provide any solutions.  I don’t know if there are any perfect solutions to it.  Is that what this assignment asked of us?  To provide a solution to the challenge?  If I personally, was attending a conference titled, “Issues in the Information Age: the challenge for the information management profession”, I would be going for sessions that actually had a little bit of fun in them, that weren’t all dry.  I do not want to be that person who write dry papers!

Recently I attended a workshop on  Career Management and I can’t say I got much out of it, other than meeting some interesting people.  Some there were interesting, some were depressive.  I was drawn to the interesting people because that’s what lifts me up.  I don’t want to write a paper on a depressing subject.

Alright, so… lively Hana will present a paper on Information Overload.  How to counteract it?  Ok cool.  That sounds manageable.  But there’s another issue that we need to cover in our assignment.  Yes, another!  How can I include another when the other is on Information Overload?  I already feel overloaded!
Guh….!
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