Extended Absence Greeting Friday

Next week I'll be on vacation, so consider this post my extended absence greeting.

Unlike previous years where I took all of my vacation time at once, I tried doing something a little different this summer, taking a week in June, a week in July, and a week in August. Although I do appreciate the frequency of breaks, each time I feel that I'm only just starting to relax when it's time to return to work again. Oh, well. Perhaps I should just be thankful that higher ed gives out enough vacation time for me to take so much time off in the first place!

So this week we'll be visiting in the in-laws in fabulous Poughkeepsie, New York, but I'll be making a detour to Albany in order to attend the 2011 IDS Project Conference, where I'll be giving a presentation on International Interlibrary Loan, reprising my talk at the 2010 conference in Oswego. Not only am I excited about the return gig, as I will be sharing some fresh new content representing some innovations we've made over the past year in handling international requests, but my new Big Boss will be there as well to deliver the keynote address. I'm also looking forward to seeing my resource sharing colleagues from New York and elsewhere and catching up with old friends.

I'm happy that I took the time to participate in this round of Library Day in the Life, and glad that it coincided with a renewed burst of energy on my part in contributing to this blog. I love that librarians are such prolific bloggers, and I hope to sustain my enthusiasm for writing about librarianship now that I've (re)discovered my professional voice. Many thanks to Bobbi Newman for keeping the torch burning! If you haven't taken the opportunity to explore other librarians' dispatches over the past week, I heartily encourage you to do so on the Library Day in the Life Round 7 Wiki.

As this week winds to a close, my final thoughts are about Random House's #ThankYouLibrarian campaign that's unfolding on Twitter this afternoon, where people are using the hashtag to thank a librarian who made a difference at some point in their lives. I posted my own thanks to the librarians who recognized in me a member of their own tribe a heck of a long time before I myself did, and mentored and nurtured me along the path to librarianship until I was ready to leave the nest. I'll always be grateful for their wisdom and advice, and I only hope that I will be able to do the same for the next generation of librarians.