Reading Time: 7 minutes
The last eight months or so has seen a lot of upheaval for me. It came at a time when a big project came to an end, which was fortunate. But I moved states and moved my lodging twice. I started to live with my wife again after a few years…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
The grades for this semester are in. I am not a fan of grading although I was glad of the opportunity of potentially having an impact on students. I though the final exams were better than the early work they were doing, for the most part. I feel confident of their…

Reading Time: 7 minutes
The semester has come to an end. I’d picked up a course to teach at the last minute and so that is also now complete. The pacing in an academic law library is quite different from what I’ve experienced in other organizations. Far more ups and downs but also coupled with…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
One recurring thought relating to artificial intelligence is its impact on new staff. The promise of AI is that it will routinize the lower value work, the repetitive tasks, and allow knowledge workers to focus on higher value projects and outputs. This is great, but it begs the question of how…

Reading Time: 7 minutes
I’m still in my first year at my new role and it’s budget season. This is one of those perennial experiences that you would think would become routine. If you move libraries, though, you find that each organization does it differently, even if they use the same words. At the same…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
One of the things I’ve learned both from self-hosting a server inside my home and from using commercial hosting is that I want bad actors as far from my server as possible. When I migrated my hosting company recently, it was primarily for cost reasons. I was delighted, though, to find…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
Librarians are knowledge workers. We work on things that require attention to detail and investigation, whether we’re cataloging books or answering obscure reference questions. I am always interested in new research on interruptions and thinking around how to improve the work environment so that librarians can be as effective as possible.…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
My recent travel to Canada couldn’t have been more normal. I drove up to the Ambassador Bridge border control with very few other cars from Canada. The person in front of me was in hijab and showed an ID as they entered the gate. They were waved through quickly and I…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
My website has been on a North American host for the past half dozen years. It has been fine but the cost has been inching up and I’ve had some support issues. I have a budget in mind for this blog and it was starting to exceed the costs I…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
A colleague was in town and attending ABA Techshow so I swung by McCormick Place to see them. It’s been awhile and the Expo pass is free (something I will keep in mind next year). I walked over to the Metra and hopped on the train to the conference site. As…

Reading Time: 5 minutes
I crossed the border into the U.S. from Canada with my American wife in mid March. It seemed pretty normal, even given the extra paperwork we were doing: car import, dog import. I’m a green card holder and have gotten comfortable with the ease with which I’ve been able to cross…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
I’ve signed a contract to write a book. I’m excited but also a bit daunted. It will be my third book and it is one I have wanted to write for most of my career. As I wrote recently, I started working in law firms when I was 15 and was…

Reading Time: 6 minutes
About 6 years ago, I interviewed for a job in the U.S. I had come to the conclusion that, as our kids were aging out of the house, it was time for us to start planning our return to the States ourselves. The interview went okay—I was a finalist but not…