stacey ewing

Wow- what a crazy week! I’m SO excited- on Monday, I was offered the position of Information Commons Librarian in Library West at UF. It is a faculty/tenure-track position in the Humanities & Social Sciences Services Dept. of the library. Library West (dubbed “Club West” by the students ::grin::), has a brand new facility there and lots of work to do. :D I can’t wait to work with all the wonderful folk I met a few weeks ago at the interview. This is such an amazing opportunity for me and I can’t wait to get started on August 20th! Wheeeeeeeeeeee! :D

This was in the VRC mailbox when I got back from vacation on July 2. What a nice letter from Kim, Moira, and Sandra. I love the part where they say “You demonstrated amazing patience and good humor through all the vicissitudes involved in building our conference web site.” “Vicissitudes” – LOVE that word! We never get a chance to use that one enough these days! ;)

Anyway, I had no idea that they would send me such a nice note. It, along with the cool vase from Ann Lindell, totally made it all worth it in the end. I certainly learned alot and am def. ready for the next time, if there is one! :D

Click the image below to see the whole letter…

Wow! This is crazeee…. you’ve GOT to listen to this short report from NPR’s Morning Edition (05/30/2007) by Chana Joffe-Walt:

Firms Hire Consultants to Handle Needy Workers
Companies are hiring consultants to help manage the “over-praised” Me Generation. The result? Kudos for showing up to work on time! Awards for getting a report in! Forget Employee of the Month — how about Employee of the Day! Some managers are resistant, saying the only praise they ever got was a paycheck.

Isn’t this the prettiest little bud vase??! Ann Lindell, the head librarian of the UF Architecture and Fine Arts Library, gave this to me as a ‘thank you’ for the work I did on the ARLIS/NA 2007 Conference Website. Geez, I’d volunteer for WAY more things out there in the world if the prize at the end was something as lovely as this!!! ;) The flowers are from her garden too. What a REALLY nice way to start a Monday! Thanks Ann!! :D

Man- do I love springtime in this town!! Timmeh called around 10:30am and told me he was picking me up for lunch at 11 and taking me to Chipotle! Woohoo! So at about 5 min. ’til, I ran downstairs and stood under a tree by the road. The breeze was blowing, everything around is spring-green- just one of those “lovin’ being alive” moments. Suddenly, this giagantic and gorgeous pileated woodpecker swoops down from above and zings past me- mere inches from my head. I stood there and watched him machine gun holes into the huge oak across the parking lot until Tim arrived. So very cool!

Gmail has been down since 7:30am. I’ve been using it for the last 2.5 years and this is the first time it’s left me in the lurch. It’s still frustrating though- I didn’t realize exactly how much I depended on it until today- all my contacts, calendar, work emails, notes to myself are all trapped in there. Supposedly they’re “on it:”

To clarify, the problem we are referring to in the previous post
concerns a percentage of our users seeing ‘Server Errors’ and ‘Oops’
messages when trying to log in to their Gmail accounts. We realize
that many of you depend on Gmail to communicate and assure you that
all hands are on deck to fix the error. While we do not have an exact
time until resolution to offer, this is currently our top priority and
we’ll continue to post updates as they become available.

I really hope it’s not too much longer!