So it’s obvious from my blog title that I’ve been up to a million things this past summer. First among them is starting my new position as the Head of Technical Services at the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College. I started at the beginning of CUNY’s Fall semester, and it’s been non-stop since. Having come from Columbia University’s Libraries, the differences are both unsurprising and abundant. Unlike Columbia, Leonard Lief’s library is at the same time small and big; small because it’s one library to serve the entire college and big because it’s part of the larger university wide collective – the CUNY Libraries. When I was at Columbia, I was working only in Butler, the main undergraduate library. Outside of Butler library there existed the art library, music library, social work library, etc. (all entities functioning as part of the Columbia University Libraries). While my work at Columbia will always hold a special place for me, I just don’t think I had the right opportunities for growth in the Acquisitions unit there. That’s simply and partly due to the size of such a university. And well…that’s all I have to say about that.
My new role as Head of Tech Services at Lehman is both a wonderful and challenging position. The first two full weeks consisted of my shadowing technical service staff to get an overview of current procedures and practice and then attending meetings with the CUNY collective groups in Cataloging and Electronic Resources. The CUNY committees have been an indispensable think tank of librarians, helping me to learn and adjust to how library technical services has worked in the past.
To add, learning all about CUNYFirst and Lehman Finance operations has been interesting. Lehman functions in duality; first as it’s own college entity and at the same time as part of the CUNY branch libraries. So one can imagine there being a lot to learn with regard to shared resources, acquisitions of said resources, and the ways in which each college’s tech services functions, both locally and centrally. Plenty to learn, but challenging aspects that I’m taking in stride.
Reporting to my chief librarian has also been bright and optimistic. His support of both my position trajectory and personal scholarly interests (Metal Music Studies) has made for an accommodating transition. It also doesn’t hurt to work with library faculty and staff who are both informative and kind. The overall vibe here is that everyone wants to see the library evolve and succeed.
And the most attractive aspect of my new position – seeing a faculty and student body that is full of diversity. With my work, research on gender studies and social justice issues, it comes with an edifying feeling to finally be part of an institution that understands the importance of diversity and inclusivity.
All the new learning aside, I’ve had the serendipitous luck to be starting at a time where we also have a new college president-President Jose Luis Cruz, whose convocation speech already addresses goals to work towards for the 2016-2017 school year. With this optimistic zeal and outlook, it seems that new and exciting opportunities abound in my academic path and I’m looking eagerly towards its development.
On top of all this new change for me, our daughter started pre-k the week after I started the new job. Here she is on her first day, sans socks or shoes! Talk about a week of new beginnings.
It was a week of many firsts. I took the first day of pre-k off just so that I could make sure I was available and be by my cell phone the entire day in case of some crazy emergency.
In reflection, my husband and I both laughed when we realized how we were acting like such “newbie” parents and the obvious nervousness we exuded at drop-off. All the seasoned parents with more than one kid simply said hi to the new pre-k teacher and basically gave their kid a kiss/hug and were like, “peace out.”
Not us…we had to linger, a good 15-20 minutes at that.
We finally left when Ella ignored us in favor of her new classroom toys. Such is pre-k life.
ontheshelves 