new adventures

Tomorrow is my last day at mpow. I have mixed feelings about moving on. In the professional environment, I love change. Libraries, as they currently are, need it; librarians, as members of a dynamic profession, should be advocates for it. So the idea of moving on to new challenges, in a new sector of the profession, in a different (but familiar) city, is certainly exciting.

But I’ve had a few amazing years in my current organisation. I’ve had lots of great opportunities for professional development; I’ve worked with engaged, inspired and innovative colleagues who genuinely love the library and want to use their smarts and their passion to build on the great things we already do; I’ve had the chance to play with new and emerging technologies, which has given me a whole different set of professional interests from those I had when I first stepped into this library. This is an organisation that is forward thinking, and I have greatly valued the small role I’ve had to play in the work we do.

So it follows that I’m a little sad to be leaving, despite being very happy to be going where I’m going!

With change in the air, this seems like a good time to climb up on my soap box and start spouting my opinion on all things online librarianship. I’ve been pondering the idea of blogging for a long time. I’m an avid reader of blogs – library technology blogs in particular – which makes the idea of starting my own blog more than a little daunting. There are so many great voices out there in the biblioblogosphere, and in the grand scheme of things, mine is very small…

For the last year or so, I’ve worked in a team where professional banter is the name of the game. I’m hoping that some of these colleagues will come along for the blog ride, and continue the discussions we routinely have via IM or at our staff meetings here in the comments thread. Well, they certainly better! (Fire up Google Reader guys!)

So ski ya Canberra, it was fun (and cold) while it lasted.