More Progress

Thanks to work by Helen earlier this year the Rainforest section is now done. So that makes three down and eight to go. Only problem is the first three sections averaged under 70 items each and the next eight look like this:
Agroforestry 325
Ecology 355
Ethnobotany 199
Natural Resources Management 154
Soil 302
Sustainable Agriculture 367
Traditional Medicine 160
Water Management 177

Next goal is to finish Agroforestry by the end of January or earlier.

Happy New Year everyone

Progress ?

The last week has been good. Biodiversity has been completed and Aquatic Resources should be finished this afternoon. Went into the office to pick up the Rainforest items so I can work on them next week. To give you an idea of the size of the collection here is a photo of what I have at home:

And here is what I still have to work on:

And please don't ask what I have been doing for the past 3 1/2 months.

Realization

Just so the two of you actually reading this know, I am writing this more for me than you.
Sabbatical is now more than halfway over and I have come to the realization that I am not going to finish this by March. Time to change my goals. The problem is I am a perfectionist and was hoping to have perfect results. That is not going to happen. Each time I work on the bibliography I find more problems so the new goal is to get as much information as possible posted and not worry about little things like consistency in the use of tags and capitalization. Good news is that I have been finding unique items and they are being cataloged and added to the collection. There are also a number of items that are available online. Problems are items are missing and some are not matching up with the original bibliography.

I think this just shows that I will be able to handle retirement when the time comes. I like waking up at 8 and doing house stuff and then working on the project at night. Maybe I am part vampire ...
Word of advice for anyone out there thinking of applying for sabbatical - drop all other committee assignments. Basically this feels like I am working from home instead of my office. Hmm I wonder if I can keep this up once sabbatical is over?

Case in point - I have been working for the past hour on one that looks like report to the Canadian International Agency but could also have morphed into a book chapter. Time to give up and process it as a report and take their word on the author.

Lunch

Being on sabbatical means I can have what ever I want for lunch. So Ellen this one is for you. Leftover soup and baby goldfish crackers.

Progress

Progress has been made this week! I have actually been able to spend time reviewing the Biodiversity section of the collection. There are 63 titles in this section. So far I have seen book chapters, books, conference proceedings, and reports. Most interesting title today was Saga of a Star Fish. I can also see why people find it easier to work with two monitors. I need to have at least 3 programs open and running at the same time and switching from screen to screen is giving me a headache. The good news is so far the majority of the items have been available online or are book chapters from books available in the Life Sciences Library.

At least the home office is a bit larger than my library office, good thing because there are many many more folders to bring home. Yes the bit of red seen behind the chair is Pig's bed. Time to bring in the plants, heard something about possible flurries this evening.

Side bar

Spent part of the afternoon listening to an ARL webcast entitled "New Roles for New Times: Transforming Liaison Roles". I am now going to read the actual report Transforming Liaison Roles in Research Libraries. I am the first to admit I don't like change and if this is the direction we are heading in retirement might be coming sooner rather than later. Or maybe it is not change, it is what we are already doing but just not being recognized for it.

I am now conflicted because Trend 5 in the report is "collaboration is key." while earlier this afternoon I listened to a story on Radio Hour about too much collaboration being a bad thing.
So I suppose like all things - moderation is key. Maybe being on sabbatical is giving me too much time to read and listen to these "new" trends. And by the way if I hear the term ______ Commons one more time I am going to scream.

On a more positive note the last of the materials from the annex found their way over to the Life Sciences Library so now they are all in a space I can get to anytime I want. Just have to figure out what happened to the Zotero button on my computer at home ....

Standard disclaimer applies

one month down

So you all (Ellen) have been wondering how the first month of sabbatical has gone. To tell you the truth it went by in a flash and I am still adjusting to this new schedule. I spent time outside trying to catch up on weeding the garden. Still have half of it to go. And keeping an eye on the pumpkins. Ended up with 9 of them. Had the opportunity to go to NY for the holidays which was nice.

Okay that was the fun part now what did I do that was actually related to sabbatical? Unpacked 25 bins of materials. (See photo in the first post) and still have more to go before the entire collection has been moved to the Life Sciences Library. Made sure my home computer was set up properly so I can get to Zotero (thanks Helen.) Also kept up with 3 ongoing committee commitments. Speaking of which it is time for a conference call.

One week to go

Count down to sabbatical is now under a week. Still waiting for the materials to be transferred from the annex to Life Sciences. Of course just as I think I can start concentrating on the project 3 or 4 other things pop up. So here is the list of things that I will be working on concurrently with the sabbatical project:
Reviewing an article for the Journal of Agriculture and Food Information
Reviewing a report for the Ceres project/ Center for Research Libraries
Updating my dossier
Working on the STS Oberly Award task force report
Completing the mandatory Reporting Child Abuse Training
Updating Collection Development policy statements
USAIN Preservation and Digital Libraries Committee conference presentation
Reviewing AgNIC Governance and By-laws document, Guidelines document, serve on the nominations committee and serve as the convener of the Service awards committee
This should be fun ...

one month to go

It is now August which means I have one month until the sabbatical officially begins. Here is some more background information on the project. The 2000+ items did not come with an inventory but someone (thanks Helen) was able to find the original bibliography. The problem is that it was done with some really old technology which makes it very difficult to use. So I will be spending time recreating the bibliography using Zotero. This way the records can be tagged and links can be added if full text is available.
If you want to see what this looks like so far go to:
http://icik.psu.edu/psul/icik/cikard.html

I realize this blog is visually boring and I will try and add some pictures later on.

CIKARD collection

I have been getting questions, mostly from family, asking what I was doing for my sabbatical. 
The (official) reason for this leave is to enhance access to the Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Rural Development (CIKARD) collection which is comprised of over 2000 reports, thesis, articles, and books pertaining to indigenous knowledge for agricultural and rural development.

This is a photograph of the first time I saw the Iowa State CIKARD collection. It was August 2010 and the location was the Penn State University Library annex. Two pallets of cartons had just been delivered and we were unpacking the materials.

Okay so what exactly is the purpose of a sabbatical. According to Penn State HR17
"To provide a leave of absence with pay for purposes of intensive study or research which has as its outcome increasing the quality of the individual's future contribution to the University. A sabbatical is a privilege which may be granted to an individual who has demonstrated by publication, teaching, exhibition or performance an above average ability in scholarship, research, or other creative accomplishment."

There you have it. Sounds simple enough but that is actually just the tip of the ice berg. I am sure other side projects will show up. Maybe something to do with the new UNESCO chair in Rural Community Leadership, and Youth Development or maybe an internship with the Smithsonian Institute.

Stay tuned