There's nothing quite like sitting on an airplane, looking out the window as it flies through an extended region of clouds. You can't see anything. Can't predict anything. Unlike darkness with stars, or an ocean with waves, there's nothing to give it definition. You have to take it on faith that you're still heading in the right direction, and that the pilot knows enough to get you back to the ground safely.

Sometimes I'm not sure where my life is heading. I've set the course, and I'm walking ...
Continue reading ...

How many times this week has the important taken a back seat to the urgent? In my life, the answer is "far too many times."

When someone asks us how we've been doing, the standard reply is, "I've been SO busy!" Those four little words magnify our importance to the world: everyone needs me, and I must run like crazy to keep up with all the requests. It's as if Busy-ness is a virtue. In reality, I believe being busy is often the exact opposite of a virtue. It's our way of keeping at bay all the ...
Continue reading ...

Perspective is a precious commodity. When it's lost, everything collapses into itself. Things with little importance seem unmanageably huge, and the truly important is often overlooked.

I will be on an airplane headed for Billings, Montana next week. I'll fly in for a four-day meeting with my grad school cohort; we'll learn and socialize and get to know each other better. Airplanes allow me a particular type of perspective. I can look out the window, down through the clouds to the mountains be...
Continue reading ...

As I near the end of my MLS training, I begin to see the threads of learning make patterns as they are woven into a coherent whole. Stories. Collection Development. Reference. Information literacy. Cataloging. Management. Each makes a unique contribution to what will eventually be a colorful tapestry of skills and interests.

While a personal website may not add much to that tapestry, I offer it as a window into who I am and what I propose to work on. As C.S. Lewis said in The Last Battle, "Fur...
Continue reading ...