23 Questions with Lauren Pressley

Hi everyone! I’m very excited to be joining the ALA Learning team, and am glad to get to introduce myself in such a fun way. It’s hard to follow so many creative answers, but I liked the format, so here we go…

1. Your One Sentence Bio

• I’m just another geeky librarian.

2. Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?

• I do! I blog over at Lauren’s Library Blog. I know; it’s not really a descriptive name, is it? I started it during library school, when I wasn’t really sure what I was going to end up doing. The vague name allowed me to talk about whatever classes I was taking at the time. A year or so ago I thought about moving to something more descriptive, but apparently I’m not too creative, and just stuck with the same old name.

3. What is your professional background?

• I blogged about this just the other day! I’ve been hanging out and working in libraries for most of my life, since elementary school as a volunteer. All of my full-time work has been at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. First as a microtext specialist, and now as an instructional design librarian.

4. What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?

• I’ll teach pretty much anything. I teach credit-based courses for undergraduates, one-shot classes for students, workshops and classes for library staff, and even classes for teaching assistants and faculty. Of course, I tend to teach different things to these different audiences; topics range from basic information literacy skills for first year students to information issues for those about to graduate to pedagogy or syllabus design for faculty.

5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?

• All training is important. Over and over I hear from people about how hard it is to keep up with things. Trainers that keep up can help other staff members by synthesizing current trends and information and providing the most relevant information in easy to digest sessions.

6. Where do you get your training?

• Three years ago I would have said, “from blogs.” Now I’d say it’s a combination of things: blogs still provide a lot of good content, Twitter points to new information fast, the library literature is full of in-depth information. I listen to a lot of technology related podcasts. I read a lot and spend a lot of time having conversations with people about trends and what they think is important. I also get a lot out of going to conferences and attending sessions. But pretty much, I take it anywhere I can get it, so I’m sure I’m leaving things out.

7. How do you keep up?

• See answer six.

8. What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing right now?

• Time–at least in the libraries that I regularly talk with. It seems that everyone is trying to do more with the same, or less, staff as before. So it’s not very meta, or very big picture (which is very unusual for me), but it is very practical. Finding time to do everything that needs to be doing seems to be a challenge for a lot of us.

9. What are biggest challenges for trainers?

• Well, to piggy-back on question eight, for me it’s planning training sessions that people can actually find time to attend! And it’s hard to know what’s going to resonate with a group. Just last semester I offered a class that several people requested, and no one signed up. I offered another on a whim and at a busier time of year, and it was the best attended workshop I’ve ever led. Figuring out what topics people will be interested in, as well as the timing that will get the most attendees, can be a bigger challenge than it seems.

10. What exciting things are you doing training wise?

• I just wrapped up a program called “teaching teaching” that I worked on with another colleague. For one semester we offered a weekly hour long “class” on basic teaching principles for teaching library staff across campus. There was still demand the next semester, so I  facilitated weekly hour long discussions on topics of interest to teaching library staff. We had really good turnout throughout the entire program, but all agreed that now that everyone has a baseline of understanding of teaching topics, we could offer it every few semesters. Now I’m pulling together an online resource for this same group on teaching technologies.

11. What do you wish were you doing?

• I feel very lucky. I love what I’m doing and am quite happy with it!

12. What would you do with a badger?

• Take photos of it and post them to Flickr.

13. What’s your favorite food?

• I like most any food, as long as it’s Vegan.

14. Post it notes or the back of your hand?

• My phone, or maybe Evernote. I’m not a big fan of scraps of paper around my workspace, and I don’t like writing on myself all that much. I keep a notebook for longer notes, and use my phone for short reminders.

15. Windows or Mac?

• Fluent in both, but I’m also using Ubuntu. The three computers I run each have their own OS. My favorite of the three is my Mac.

16. What’s your take on handshakes?

• I’m a fan. Handshakes should be firm.

17. How did you get into this line of work?

• Incredible luck, supportive supervisors and administrators, and with intense enthusiasm.

18. Why is the best part of your job?

• I get to do so many interesting things! No, wait… it’s that I get to think about big picture issues and do something with it! I mean… it’s that I work with really awesome people! Oh, shoot. I’ll never be able to pick the best part.

19. Why should someone else follow in your shoes?

• Ummm, I picked “my shoes” out because they were a good fit for where I wanted to go. I’m guessing people with other destinations or interests might choose different ones. Others will have to judge which shoes will take them where they want to go.

20. Sushi or hamburger?

• Some sort of vegetable sushi.

21. LSW or ALA?

• I adore both. In very different ways.

22. What one person in the world do you want to have lunch with and why?

• I’d time travel to the future (that’s not off limits, is it?) to meet baby boy Borwick. It’d be fun to get to know a little bit about who this little mystery person will be.

23. What cell phone do you have and why?

• I was one of those people standing in line for an iPhone the day they came out. I have been immensely happy with it, though I’ve had to work hard to keep the technology as a tool to make my life easier, rather than a technology that drives my life (for example, by making it too easy to check email all the time). It’s a great little device, and I love how it lets me do things that a bag of gadgets used to let me do.

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