Cam23: the final post but not the final thing...

More than a month after the final party, here I am to explain why I dropped Cam23 and decided I wouldn’t complete it. The programme was great and I was really looking forward to take part; I started with enthusiasm but after 11 things I stopped and never picked it up again. What happened?

How to keep sane in Michaelmas Term

Maria Giovanna In Other Words seemed to have lost words for a long time. Apologies to all my faithful readers: it's been an interesting and challenging Summer, which can be summarised in the famous expression: "life is what happens when you are making other plans". More explanations on this will follow in a post where I explain why I dropped both Cam23 and cpd23; for the time being, I just wanted to break my psychological blogging block and write a little post dedicated to all my colleagues in academic libraries, and especially in Cambridge, where our busiest term (the dreaded "Michaelmas") is just beginning.

I didn't feel like going to work today: Michaelmas is always a terrible time and we all end up in December being awfully stressed out. While sadly chewing my biscuits this morning, I thought about past Michaelmases and came up with a list of what to do to keep sane at this time of the year, or at least try. So here it is, for your pleasure:

CPD23 Thing 10: Why, how, and what next (my life in libraries)

Why

I can’t say, like many others, that I just fell into it. If I look back, it was quite meant to be, and there have been a couple of milestones (i.e. decisions from my part) who have put me where I am now.

Risking to sound like a freak, I will confess that when I was a child, to the – slightly worried – astonishment of my parents, I used to browse the phone book  to see how many people with a certain surname were living in my town; I loved to look at maps; I used to make lists of everything in my possession (books, stamps, coins from foreign Countries, Barbie doll clothes); I loved to investigate the history behind objects – who owned that book, who wrote that postcard, where that piece of furniture came from – not to mention old photographs; restoring my Mum’s dolls; collecting old stuff, keeping it in order, and making it usable again. These are all activities that should have shouted “libraries and information” to any good observer (I definitely wasn’t one).