So you might have heard, the ten campuses of the University of California are going to be furloughed. Great time to move here, huh? There are still a lot of details to be worked out but the bottom-line comes down to around 16-18 unpaid days off. We've known this might be coming for several weeks now. At first I thought I'd use this time to tour around California; I really want to visit San Francisco. Then I thought maybe I'll use the time for various writing projects. However a new plan has emerged.
While I was at ALA last week I met with Leonard Kniffel, Editor of American Libraries. In passing he mentioned that during his furlough week he taught at UW-Madison. I really liked this idea. It is a great way to turn a negative situation into a positive and productive encounter. I plan to adopt a similar approach. Any library school that is interested-- I'll happily donate some of my furlough time to talking with your students. This will be online, maybe through Skype or Wimba or any other system your school has access to. Maybe these sessions will fit into a particular class, or maybe it's just something we open to anyone who is interested. I can cover a wide range of topics.
On a similar theme. Something I wanted to do at Georgia Tech but it just never worked out. I'm going to donate half of my speaker and author honorariums (excluding ALA Editions) to the UCSB Library collections budget. It's not much really, just a few hundred a year, but this will give me the chance to select some much needed titles and contribute a bit of my personality to the collection. Let's hope that generosity is contagious!
If you're interested in doing some virtual teaching, contact the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information Sciences. I'm a current student (for another two weeks) and they are always interested in bringing in online lectures and different speakers. I know classes are changing a lot now, so I'm not sure what they're offering, but I'm sure they would be happy to have you.
Posted by: Elizabeth | July 16, 2009 at 08:46 PM
Brian, I think that these are really kind, as well as generous, things to do. Very inspiring. Wishing you well.
Posted by: Leslie Madden | July 17, 2009 at 07:10 AM
As a follow-up to Elizabeth, I'd be happy to help you set something up at Pitt...even though I'll probably be gone by the time it would happen. But I can get you in touch with the right people to make it go!
Posted by: anita | July 17, 2009 at 02:33 PM
Brian,
It's not too late to work something out with the honoraria for Georgia Tech. We're willing to take collections contributions retroactively!
Posted by: Bob Fox | July 29, 2009 at 06:15 AM