Halo: 0, Clam Chowder: 1

I had a rough night and day. The dogs were awesome little companions, spending most of the day in bed with me and very politely walking on leash when during backyard "bathroom" breaks. My dogs are pretty high-energy and need lots of outside time, so I thought missing their daily visit to the dog park was going to leave me with wild beasts. Instead, they picked up on my mood and cuddled up so nicely.

So, work at the community colleges is going well. I'm splitting my time between two campuses in the same system and I like experiencing differences between them. One library is quite a bit busier than the other, but I'm getting enough small projects to keep me busy when the desk is slow. In fact, I might have too many things on my plate. Turns out I get to teach another class on Thursday, which is cool.

I don't normally go all linky, but spending the day in bed with the laptop meant I read even more news than usual. Some assorted library-related thoughts:

First, the bad news. The Tacoma Public Library, which is undergoing a badly needed $1.5 million renovation, is also reorganizing staff and taking reference librarians out of most branches. They plan to offer more phone, IM, and video conferencing reference, but I wonder how that will go over with the public. I wonder if this is a local trend. King County Library System is already "clustering" their library staff.

I'm happy to read that UNO has been open for a week now, as planned. I don't think I'm headed to ALA National in New Orleans this year, but if I do I will definitely look up the UNO librarians who I met during my interview.

I read about this a week or so ago, but Seattle Public Library is planning to offer free WiFi. KCLS has had it for a while, and I've used it many times.

In other local library news, the Lynnwood and Mukilteo branches of the Sno-Isle Libraries have implemented "roving reference." This is one of my favorite low-tech reference strategies and I try to do it when I can, especially when all the computers are in use but nobody's asking for help.

Lastly, did any of you see the news that a teen was banned from a library in Columbus, OH so he apparently intentionally ran a car into the building and injured a librarian. Yikes.