Where to go from here

After taking an excellent cataloging class this spring, I’m uncertain where I’ll want to take my career. I’m wavering between reference (previous favorite) and technical services (new love). I should find an internship for the fall semester soon. This uncertainty is making is doubly hard. The choice shouldn’t really be this difficult; after all, librarianship is one of the professions where it’s extremely easy to switch gears. Maybe I just need to leap and see where I land.

Something I’m not wavering about at all is my belief in proofreading, or in general double-checking your work before submitting it. Every now and then you run into people who don’t seem to appreciate (either consciously or unconsciously) that language has rules that allow us to communicate unambiguously. Those of us with language or information backgrounds know that the difference of one letter can make a huge difference. An illustrative example (Why Spell Check is your Friend) was posted by Libraryninja.

For a while I’ve wanted to attend a library conference. Alas, the timing and location of some very interesting conferences has been discouraging, whereas local conferences don’t match my interests at the moment. A completely different matter is the ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium this July in Chicago. I’d love to hear Martin House present on Gaming for Adults, for example, or H.D. Womack et al. on Gaming in Academic Libraries: The Why and How. However, I don’t think I can justify the expense for a ‘just for fun’ conference at this point in my studies. I need to find my focus first.