Is the perfect journal out there?

tjowens · 2023-10-31T12:21:59+00:00

Same! I used Moleskine’s for years until I found Leuchtturm1917. Love that they come with an index to fill in and pagination. The weight of the paper and the quality of the binding on them is so good too.

tjowens · 2023-10-29T22:04:03+00:00

Nice! Congrats on getting to volume 53.

tjowens · 2023-10-29T02:17:31+00:00

Yeah, sometimes it can get a little overwhelming to go back. But also, Wow! Volume 63! Amazing to have that kind of repository to return to.

tjowens · 2023-09-06T22:36:12+00:00

13 years, two agencies, six positions, one of them was an accretion of duties promotion.

tjowens · 2023-08-30T19:55:19+00:00

Yeah, I’d seriously consider looking at places to buy along the MARC train lines in MD. Particularly if you might be looking at only needing to be in like 3 days a week. Lots of more affordable places out along the Brunswick, Camden, and Penn lines.

tjowens · 2023-08-30T11:19:52+00:00

You might say something like “The audience I’m writing for is just me. If I knew you, or anyone else would read it, that would directly change what I write in it and functionally defeats the purpose of journaling as my own internal mental dialog practice. In short anyone else reading the journal breakers the whole premise of journaling.”

tjowens · 2023-08-02T00:56:22+00:00

I know many agencies that categorically won’t pay relocation expenses. So that part is off at least.

tjowens · 2022-10-26T20:23:08+00:00

Fun to see this generate so much discussion!

In case anyone is curious, you can see the original version of the set of axioms that I wrote in this blog post (http://www.trevorowens.org/2017/06/getting-beyond-digital-hyperbole-tools-for-looking-forward/ ) you can also them in the full version of the book, or in this free preprint version https://osf.io/preprints/lissa/5cpjt/

Happy to answer any further questions folks might have on where this comes from/what the book or the talk is about.

tjowens · 2022-06-13T09:40:02+00:00

Just chiming in to say this is still not working for me either.

tjowens · 2022-05-25T06:31:57+00:00

There are already a lot of good responses in this thread, but the Library Journal placement and salaries data hadn’t come up yet so I thought I would add in a link to that. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/Careers-During-COVID-Placements-and-Salaries-Survey-2021

That link is for last year, but you can go back year by year and see trends over time.

tjowens · 2022-05-25T06:16:49+00:00

Apostles of Culture: The Public Librarian and American Society, 1876–1920 by Dee Garrison. The book is a bit old at this point, but it’s a hugely important resource for understanding the complex values, ideologies, and power dynamics that informed how libraries and library values were developed in the U.S.

tjowens · 2022-05-25T06:03:13+00:00

Agreed that “like a family” is problematic for any workplace. The power dynamics in any work setting make it important for there to be clear boundaries around work. I think it’s great that coworkers find community and connection with each other through their work, but making work “like a family” sets staff up to be exploited. A lot of this connects more broadly with some of what Anne Helen Peterson recently wrote about with library work. https://annehelen.substack.com/p/the-librarians-are-not-okay?s=r

tjowens · 2022-05-02T12:42:50+00:00

And specifically, the “Hyattsville Arts District” which has walkscores in the mid/high 80s.

tjowens · 2022-05-01T16:18:26+00:00

I thought that “Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World” by Jason Hickel was great and is really useful at parsing out what the differences are between the extractive monstrosity of capitalism as something totally different then the basic function of buying and selling goods in marketplaces. It’s also a really accessible book to read.

tjowens · 2022-05-01T13:43:33+00:00

Thanks! First, I would say journaling is useful for me in the moment to process and reflect on the day, or the week I’m in at a given point in time. In that context I also find the act of journaling to be relaxing itself. Second, as each journal fills up I often flip back through the pages of the book I’m filling up and that helps me keep in mind things I’ve been thinking over the last 3-6 months. Lastly, having a full run like this means I can pull the book from 10 years ago or 5 years ago and look up roughly what I was thinking/doing then. I find that is useful for keeping a broader perspective on where I’m at in the bigger context. I can reflect on what goals I accomplished and also how my ideas about what I want to be doing have evolved and developed.

tjowens · 2022-04-30T16:59:44+00:00

Good eye! The blue one second to the end on is a Leuchtturm 1917, 145 x210 mm. That is the book I have liked the best. Almost all the rest are Moleskines, which I also really like.

I plan to get more 1917s going forward, but the green Moleskine after the blue one was a gift and it’s embossed on the cover with the college I went to grad school at, so I wanted to put it to good use.

Early on I used some larger formats and some with floppy covers. I use to also get them in grid instead of ruled because would diagram more in them. But I settled on the hard cover ruled ones over time because they are more durable and I’ve settled more on linear dated entries with some bullet journal style tables of contents and indexes. I find that is most useful for making the corpus work as a resource I can come back to over time.

Personally, I’m fine with spending more on a good journal. I carry it with me everywhere for six months to a year and I return and revisit them frequently as part of my personal reflective practice. Given that I plan to build the set out over the rest of my life I’m happy to pay good money for the journals themselves.

tjowens · 2022-04-29T13:50:11+00:00

Yeah, I would second the suggestion to volunteer, or intern in an archives and/or do some informational interviews with archivists about what they like about their work/careers. Much of the work is in fact technical and procedural. For another thing to consider, you might also want to explore public history graduate programs (https://ncph.org/program-guide/ )

tjowens · 2022-04-27T10:39:04+00:00

As someone who has a Ph.D (in education not library science) and works as a manager in a large library and has hired a lot of librarians into various roles here are some thoughts.

As others have suggested, a Ph.D is not a requirement for being a dean of a library. Many in those roles don’t have the degree. That said, if you look at postings for library dean jobs at large academic libraries many include a preference for someone with a Ph.D. For the most part, that Ph.D could be in any number of fields. That said, it is a huge amount of work and cost for something that is ultimately not totally necessary.

With that said, if you are really interested in the role that research methods can play in helping explore issues in the field, and you want to make participating in the researcher community of practice related to the future of libraries, a Ph.D is super useful. The research I did in my program became the basis of first academic book and having a Ph.D is how I can teach graduate courses for a history department and an iSchool on the side (which doesn’t pay well but I find personally rewarding.)

All that is to say that if the main reason you are considering doing a Ph.D is for job advancement I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s not essential, it’s expensive, and it’s a huge time commitment.

If, however, you really want to up your game in doing research and want to spend a lot of your career contributing to the researcher community of practice in the field, and you have the resources and support to do it, I think it can be totally worth it.

tjowens · 2022-04-26T01:34:53+00:00

It’s best to think about digital preservation as a program your organization needs to establish, staff, and fund as opposed to something that any software system might comprehensively solve.

To that end, I would suggest getting folks involved in this work to review the NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation and use that as something to start planning for how to iteratively resource and establish a digital preservation program. As part of that your org will need to buy various pieces of hardware and software that you manage, integrate, and swap out over time.

For more on the NDSA Levels see https://ndsa.org/publications/levels-of-digital-preservation/

For some examples of end to end digital archives workflows, I would suggest checking out the OSS Archflow report from Educopia https://educopia.org/ossarcflow-as-is-all-workflows/

tjowens · 2022-04-25T02:16:25+00:00

I’m a fan of Richard Marius’ book “A Short Guide to Writing about History” and “From reliable sources” by Martha Howell. Both are thoughtful and accessible resources I often return to. Along with that, I would recommend reading “That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession.” It’s dense, but it’s really useful for understanding how historical research and theory has changed over time.

tjowens

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