The Year Past and the Year to Come

This is always a reflective time for me. Perhaps because I am the only person at the library this week, perhaps because I slow down enough to pause and think. But I've been thinking about 2008 and feeling very fortunate to have had such a tremendous year, both professionally and personally. A few things are particularly noteworthy:

1. Andy Burkhardt. Andy joined the Champlain College Library staff in July and all I can say is AMEN! He is tremendous. I love working with him. I love sharing ideas with him. I love what he has brought to the library and what he brings out in me. It is pretty special to find a colleague that you respect, learn from, and enjoy. Good good stuff.
2. Immersion: after a semester of implementation, I am amazed at how much I gained from Immersion and what a difference it has made in my approach to teaching, program design, collaboration, and thinking about information literacy. I will be joining a panel of Immersion alums to talk more about it at ALA Annual this summer. But in my planning and design time over the break, I find myself constantly referring back to notes, blog posts, thoughts, and questions I developed at Immersion.
3. Google Reader: How did I do it before RSS? My reader is not only incredibly useful to me professionally, especially as I read posts from other librarians, but also personally. I keep up with interests (the environment, gardening, books, friends in the world) and share an awful lot of material with friends and family. It has changed my way of managing information and while it can sometime overwhelm me, I love it.
4. TED: I never knew about Ted Talks until this year but I sure know about them now. I have had so many aha moments watching TED videos and I realize how much I have to learn, not just about things but about THINKING about things. The way in which many of the TED speakers think is inspirational and new to me.
5. Friends and colleagues: So many of you have helped me in the past year in more ways than could ever be noted here. Some of you have done it in your blog posts or your comments, some of you do it in emails, some of you do it by the work you are doing in your own libraries or classrooms, some of you I get to share in it face to face. Thank you.

And in the year to come....what will 2009 bring?
For me, an awful lot of travel. I have a lot of gigs coming up, which is pretty exciting. ACRL in Seattle on the power of gaming to teach information literacy, LILAC in Wales about the importance of the inquiry method in information literacy instruction, ALA in July for thoughts and growth from Immersion, and IFLA in Bologna about the power of 2.0 to bring together multigenerational workforces. I get jittery just thinking about it. If you will be attending any of these conferences, let me know. I'd love to catch up.

But for the time I am here, I hope the coming year brings as many interesting ideas and questions to the forefront as 2008 did. I hope that I continue to have productive and fun relationships with my colleagues at Champlain and our students. I hope that I make time to be away from my computer and enjoy the things that make me happy like my garden, running at the Homestead, yoga, writing letters (yes, by hand, on stationary, for the post), and spending time with Rigi, Jon, and my friends and family.

I hope the same for all of you. Happy New Year.