When I grow up, I want to be...

Ok, so, blogging is for sharing your deepest, darkest secrets, because you feel so anonymous writing on your computer, right?

Well, I think I might want to be an Internet Librarian. Ok, it's not such a deep, dark secret, but it's hard for me to say. I've rarely, if ever, specifically named a direction that I was headed with my career or education.

I tried "coming out" to my husband today about the Internet Librarian thing, and he sort of laughed. He thought I was making the title up. Yet, I know, thanks to Meredith Farkas, Jenny Levine, and others, that there is a whole conference devoted to the profession, called...wait for it...yes! The Internet Librarian Conference!

I would have absolutely loved to have gone to this conference. Thanks to the whole Library 2.0 thing, though, at least I can read the notes from people who did attend the workshops. Plus, not to sound like a kiss up here, but I feel really fortunate to have had this class this semester. Reading the IL conference notes on "Information Wants to Be Free" is like reading a list of the material that we have discussed on Desire 2 Learn.

Helene Blowers, who created the 23 Things presented with Michael Stephens, who writes the blog Tame the Web and contributes to the ALA TechSource blog. A workshop called "Innovative Uses of Web 2.0 Technologies" included information on the user as contributor, social tagging, folksonomies, and rich user experiences. More information on the conference can be seen at the links above.

For some reason, as I was working on my wiki project this week, I started thinking about all of this. I've had an interest in technology for a long time, though not much experience with it. I certainly knew that I wanted to "do something" with technology long before I ever thought I'd enroll in library school. I had no idea when I entered grad school that the two things would come together.

The exciting, but scary, thing about technology is that it is a moving target. There is so much I don't know, so much more being developed every day, it's just really easy to feel in over my head. Contemplating these matters, I started drafting a "Professional Development Plan." Well, anyway, I now have a blank page with those words typed at the top...it's a start. Of course, I was thinking "Jeez, how will I ever have time for all of this? I can't keep up with the pile of mail on my desk now as it is! How can I defend reading web sites every day?

With this in mind, I came across David Lee King's "Making Time for Web 2.0", tagged by one of my classmates in Connotea. (I've since gone back to D2L and realized that this was tagged not for the class, but for the tagger. I'm still using it.) I was drawn to this post because I'm trying to figure out how to keep abreast of new trends once this class is over. David Lee King offers tips for front line staff and for library administrators. I also found the comments on this entry very interesting.

And, now, because I think it could be vitally important to my future career, I'm going to go try to figure out how to make that tiny icon (a favicon?) show up next to my www.ambientlibrarian.org URL whenever someone book marks the link of visits the page. Very important stuff. :}