Elsewhere in a social media stream I saw a celebration today for “National Library Day” at an elementary school in Portland, Oregon… on looking it up, I found mostly listings on sites that just list national ________ days. But I will rely on this worthy of being celebrated. And the people inside the libraries.
I would like to recognize Shuana Niessen from the University of Regina’s Open Publishing Program, who is still new in her position, but creating great synergies and awesome PD sessions. This program has resulted in many strong OER offerings.
There are too many library colleagues to list here that I appreciate, so I’ll stick to the ones that got me through a particularly tough time as a solo online/OER librarian and became the small, supportive community I needed.
I recently got to visit (well take a photo outside) my elementary school in Baltimore, and while I cannot remember the librarian names I totally remember how inviting the library was and how much time I spent there just pulling books from the shelves.
We only drove by the branch of the Baltimore County public library in the Liberty Court shopping center, but it looked the same as it did on the Saturdays I spent there a gazillion years ago, asking questions about my homework projects.
I will name a friend and colleague, Alice Campbell, a librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has been my go to expert for weird and odd research requests. She really reinforced that passion librarians have for digging into a puzzle, memorable for later when I advised a few grad students at another university who did not even make use of their reference librarians (“answering questions is what they live for!”).
Via email from someone here in OEG Connect mentioned this beautiful line “Appreciation promotes open education” – when this person sharing this post internally to their college, they got a response from a colleague who responded:
I didn’t know this was in existence. Just a note of appreciation for all and what you do to promote open education.
Never too late to thank a librarian, and I have so many names in mind!
Let me start with @Mira Marta Bustillo, Tetiana Kolesnykova, Sylvia Moes, Peter Vedal Utnes, Kris Meen, Monique Schoutsen, and continue with Claudia Hackl, Kathryn Briggs, Nataša Dakić, Nick Sheppard, Evi Tramantza, Zuzana Stozicka, Kamila Kokot-Kanikuła, @Lambo… the list can go on and on.
Some of them work more behind the curtains, some others can be seen sometimes, somewhere.
All of them teach me daily new things I can make mine to be a better practitioner.
THANK YOU!!!
but I need 20 characters, wahtever!