Thanks to everyone who came out for our chat with Rex and Allan today. If you couldn’t make it (or your memory was affected by whatever delicious lunch you were eating – my chocolate cake was distracting me early on) here’s a quick recap.

Discussion ranged over a bunch of topics, most of which were about being a non-traditional librarian. Both Rex and Allan have jobs that aren’t exactly the things that put them in the majority at library conferences, which is something most of our attendees seemed interested in. They talked about funky titles librarians in other academic systems have and how that actually makes a difference in how you’re perceived outside of the library field. Both of them talked about the importance of marketing ourselves as information problem solvers before being librarians. We’re the humanizers of the computer science tools, which is a role that needs filling.

The other thing was how little our schoolwork matters in professional life and how we should be diversifying our experiences to be good infopros, constantly upgrading. This is something I’ve heard from a bunch of visiting professionals in my year here at SLAIS, and is a good reason for coming out to our ASIS&T@UBC events! (I’m sorry for the gratuitous plug, but really, getting involved is a good thing to do.)

That’s the main gist of how the talk went. My (very) rough notes are online if you want to take a look. They’ll be giving a talk on the New Age of Librarianship in April at the BCLA conference in Victoria (their talk is scheduled for Friday morning).

Thanks very much for taking time out of your schedules, it was a well-spent hour.

When: Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Where: IBLC 460
What: ASIS&T@UBC is very happy to announce that information professional Rex Turgano (founder and editor of thegreenpages.ca) and a couple of his info-professional friends will be having an informal, bring your own lunch Q&A session with us.

This’ll be a good chance to talk to someone who uses the IT side of his information training in a number of different ways. If you have questions about how IT is used in an academic environment like UBC, bring ‘em. If you have web startup kinds of questions, bring them. If you have general “what will I do with my career?” angst, heck, bring that too! (Note that this lunch may not be enough to cure your angst in and of itself.) It should be a fun informal kind of chat. There’s no set agenda, just a chance to talk to some techie information professionals like we might be some day.

The event is open to all SLAIS students, but there is limited space available, making it first come first serve. So if you want to attend, just send us an email to let us know to save you a spot. If in the event that all spots are taken, Jessie’ll put your name down on a wait list. If you do sign up but later realize that you can no longer attend the lunch, then please let Jessie know so we can let people on the wait list in.

Bring your questions and lunches February 23!

When: February 2, 2011 12:30-1:30 pm (but probably shorter)
Where: The Trail room
What: This is just a short checking in kind of mini-meeting. We’ll recap Cool Tools Day 3, pass around a signup for Cool Tools 4, discuss some fundraising possibilities, and talk about the Rex Turgano and Friends Variety Hour Lunch we’ve got coming up on February 23rd. Here’s the agenda in PDF form. Hope to see you there!

We had our first ASIS&T@UBC meeting of 2011 on Tuesday and thanks to everyone who came out. The minutes from the meeting have gone up on our Minutes page, so if you missed the meeting (like I did, unfortunately) you can take a look at what the group discussed.

The major points to note were:

1. the fundraising (which is part of our mandate) has been shifted from the TShirt extravaganza to exploring other options (in other words, the excitement wasn’t there but we still need to find a way to pay for our events – suggestions are welcome)
2. Cool Tools day is coming up next week
3. Research Day is also approaching, so get your papers presentable and submit them by January 24th
4. we’re going to be bringing in Rex Turgano, founder of thegreenpages.ca for an informal talk in February (space will be limited; we’ll let you know when it’ll be as soon as it’s all confirmed)

Our next meeting is Tuesday February 2, 2011 12:30-1:30 in the Trail Room, but before that we hope to see you at Cool Tools Day. I suppose it’s possible we’ll see you on the intertubes as well. We’re here a lot.