You know what is kind of lonely? The reference desk on a stormy Saturday in May. I’ve had 7 questions since noon.

I’m feeling better about work these days – there are still definitely moments when I feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and totally unqualified, but there have been many others where I feel like I can contribute to the conversation in a significant way. We continue to hire bright, sharp, forward-thinking individuals, and that gives me hope for substantive changes in the near future. Three individuals with whom I work closely are leaving in the near future or have left already, and that makes things hard – but I’m hopeful that we’ll hire fantastic people to replace them, and that the new folks will bring interesting perspectives and good ideas to add to the fray.

Right now we’re hard at work wrapping up our Facebook study, which was accepted for the RUSA Reference Renaissance conference in August. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to build on this study in interesting ways, although we’re already moving on to the next project, with a third in the wings for fall. I’m taking advantage of my six hours on the desk to wrap up this lit review, and get started on the next one. Hooray for self-directed research that directly informs practice.