The nature of us

When I introduce myself as a library media specialist or school librarian to someone new, I inevitably get the 'how lucky you are to have the summer off' line.  Those of us who choose to work in education are tired of it I know.  It makes us appear not to work as hard as those who have standard 3 - 5 weeks (or less) of vacation time.  Lately though, I have been wondering, if am I really  ever "off?"  True, I am not physically in the same spot that I am from September to June.  I am not with students and I am not with my physical library collection.  I am, however, still in the work/service mode.

I have had meetings, formal and informal, with my colleagues. I have attending workshops and webinars. I have sent links to colleagues that I thought might be useful for their curriculum planning and I have answered student inquiries on my summer reading blog
I cannot stop from looking for materials on line and in print that will help my colleagues, intrigue my students or add value to my collection and my position as a resource provider.  Last night as I watched Tom Brokow sum up in one hour Great Britain's war with Hitler before the US entered WWII I quickly made a mental note to look for the clip on line and add it to my WWII resources.  It is the nature of the profession or the nature of the professional?

All Things New and Wonderful

 Although I love to learn about anything that will make my life easier, I sometimes wonder if the 'learning' is worth the time.  This week was a case in point.  I recently installed a QR reader on my phone.  If you do not know what a QR reader is, here is a big hint: QR stands for quick reader.  Got it?  No?  This phone app allows your very smart phone to be transformed into a scanner that can read and translate those funny little boxy bar codes that are appearing everywhere from your local newspaper to giant billboards.  I, of course, want to know what everyone else knows so I wanted a QR scanner.  Also, as the title of my blog indicates I am a librarian.  One of those women who love to scan.  I scan barcodes and ISBN codes.  I scan at the supermarket. I would scan people if I could.  Hmmm...that would certainly help me remember names wouldn't it?  I am a quick but not so accurate typist so scanning does greatly improve my ability to get where I really want to be.
Back to the point.  I installed a QR Reader on my phone and happily began scanning other librarians' QR codes.  The only problem was that the reader I installed came with ad pop-ups (and some not so child friendly.)  Thus began my quest to find out who else I knew was using a QR reader and if anyone else had the same experience. 
So in order to 'quickly read' these codes, I embarked on a three day and counting email and in person quest to determine who uses what and with what result.  It has taken up a lot of my time......