Hello again!

(Full disclosure, the cool cover art for this blog post is by the neat folks at Wix, who run the site editor from which this blog is made. I will use my own images most of the time, but liked this one too much not to use it).

Greetings and Salutations, fellow citizens of the internet!

I've returned to my beloved little blog to begin some new adventures in the life of a grad student. For those who read faithfully over the summer while I was in Texas for my graduate internship, thanks very much. For everyone reading this now, hold on to your hats! This is going to be an amazing semester.

We're already off to a whizbang start, and it's only the first few days of September. I've already started back into my two jobs (one at a local research library, the other working with a prof at my school). I resumed my work as an officer in one student organization and actually started up another one as President, this one focused not only on libraries but also archives and museums (I know y'all are surprised that I'm venturing so far out of my usual interests, ha ha ha). And oh yeah, classes have been back in full swing for a couple or three weeks now. I'm taking some really neat "normal" classes (one online and one not), as well as the partial reason for my return to this site: an independent study, which my awesome supervisory faculty member has allowed me to document via blog instead of big heavy papers.

The topic of my independent study is contemporary perspectives of and in cultural heritage institutions. Essentially it's my golden ticket to reading as much as I can get my hands on the subject, as well as getting to roll up my sleeves and talk about all of it here and launching my very own oral history project interviewing professionals in the field. Consider yourself warned, there are high levels of geekiness up ahead and you're in the informational splash zone. I have a big stack of books and a flash drive practically overflowing with articles (mostly peer-reviewed but a few are not-as-scholarly) and I'm not afraid to use either.

I'm about to curl up with what I'm hoping is a good book, "The Museum Effect: How Museums, Libraries, and Cultural Institutions Educate and Civilize Society" by Jeffrey K. Smith. I don't particularly like the usage of the word "civilize," although I understand what the author was trying to communicate with that word. Next time I write (soon and very soon), I will be happy to give you my review of the contents and what I have learned from it.