Coming out as nonbinary at work

This week, after 10 years of working at VCU Libraries, I have been letting my colleagues know that I’m nonbinary. Response from my boss, my team, and my colleagues has been so positive, and has made this process so incredibly easy. I didn’t really have a template for a coming-out message, so ended up writing […]

What it means to stay

Seven years ago last month I interviewed for my job at VCU. I started work a few months later, assuming I’d stick around for a couple of years then move on to my Next Academic Library Job. Instead I found myself signing closing papers on a house on my sixth work anniversary, having decided to […]

Back-to-school mobile snapshot

This week I took a look at mobile phone usage on the VCU Libraries website for the first couple weeks of class and compared that to similar time periods from the past couple years. 2015 Here’s some data from the first week of class through today. Note that mobile is 9.2% of web traffic. To round […]

Recruiting web workers for your library

In the past few years I’ve created a couple of part-time, then full-time, staff positions on the web team at VCU Libraries. We now have a web designer and a web developer who’ve both been with us for a while, but for a few years it was a revolving door of hires. So let’s just say I’ve hired lots […]

Easier access for databases and research guides at VCU Libraries

Today VCU Libraries launched a couple of new web tools that should make it easier for people to find or discover our library’s databases and research guides. This project’s goal was to help connect “hunters” to known databases and help “gatherers” explore new topic areas in databases and research guides1. Our web redesign task force […]

Why this librarian supports the Ada Initiative

This week the Ada Initiative is announcing a fundraising drive just for the library community. I’m pitching in, and I hope you will, too. The Ada Initiative’s mission is to increase the status and participation of women in open technology and culture. The organization holds AdaCamps, ally workshops for men, and impostor syndrome trainings; and […]

A new look for search at VCU Libraries

This week we launched a new design for VCU Libraries Search (our instance of Ex Libris’ Primo discovery system). The guiding design principles behind this project: Mental models: Bring elements of the search interface in line with other modern, non-library search systems that our users are used to. In our case, we looked to e-commerce websites […]

Library lessons from the New York Times digital strategy report

Cross-posted from VCU Libraries’ intranet with minor edits. Last week a New York Times employee leaked an internal digital strategy report that’s a stark case for change in the organization. Here are some of the things that resonated with me about how this report dovetails with our digital strategies at VCU Libraries and in libraryland. Takeaways Automate → Innovate → Transform […]

Takeaways from Code4Lib 2014

I enjoyed the hell out of Code4Lib 2014 in Raleigh, NC back in March. Code4Lib is a group of library/ish web/software developers/aficionados. We are loosely organized around a listserv, an annual conference and regional sub-conferences, and an open-access journal. This year I took pretty-okay notes for most of the sessions, but I wanted to loop back a few weeks after the fact […]

Thirteen small ideas from Code4Lib 2013

If you made it through the tome that was the four big ideas, you’ll enjoy this list of smaller ideas from the Code4Lib conference. EasyArticle at Brown U – Among other things, this app allows people to request items through ILL/document delivery with the click of a button. Users never see the ILLiad form. Article problem reporting […]