Hi, all. Yes, once again we turn to talking about conferences and productivity. Why? Mainly because I am super-excited about Internet Librarian at the end of October, but also because work never stops–even when you are at a conference. So any help to make conferences productive, and keep us from wanting to gouge out our eyes from trying to keep up with what is happening back at the library, is probably a very good thing. Shall we dive into some conference goodies? Allons-y!
First, unless a conference happens to be in your backyard, or within reasonable driving distance, you probably are going to have to fly. And if you are going to fly, you better show up at the airport with a goodly amount of time to spare. So check out Lifehacker’s guide on how to always get to the airport on time. Lots of common sense tips, but it is always good to have a reminder. Also, you may be interested in when you can get the best price on airfare. Turns out that the cheapest time to book a flight is about eight weeks before your travel date. That’s definitely handy to know. (Also good information to share with your library patrons who may be traveling soon.)
Once you’re at the conference, you’ll want to implement some of the tips from WebWorkerDaily on how to stay productive at conferences. Lots of good tips and I really like the emphasis on not trying to do everything so you can actually enjoy and learn at the conference. I’ll try to take that advice to heart while at Internet Librarian.
Also, if you are ever like me and come home from conferences with a mess of notes that made sense of the time but now look like just scribbles, check out How to take effective conference notes. Then be nice and share your experience and tips on your blog. I really find it helpful to read about other people’s conference experiences, especially from conferences that I haven’t been able to attend.
And since you know you’ll be working on your laptop, computer, other digital device while you are away from the office at a conference, check out turning your flash drive into a portable privacy toolkit. Really, is there anything a flash drive can’t be reconfigured to do?
Do you have any conference productivity tips? If so, please share them in the comments. I’d love to hear about them and the Waki Librarian will be back on Friday with more library fun.
Happy Friday! Isn’t it just lovely that it is Friday and the start of a three day weekend? I am ready for a break. Today’s post is a bit of a hodge-podge of stuff; in a way, it’s kind of how my brain has been feeling this week–lots of disparate pieces of information swirling around that I’m trying to make sense of and put in some kind of logical matrix. But never fear, The Waki Librarian will make as much sense as possible in this Friday’s post. Allons-y!
Since we are getting close to the start of fall quarter at my institution, I have been thinking a lot about apathy. I worry about apathetic students and how to combat apathy when I’m teaching. While not specifically on teaching, Seth Godin’s post, Better than nothing (is harder than you think), still rang true for me in regards to teaching which may sound weird at first because Godin was writing about sales, but bear with me. If I’m competing against my students’ apathy or even worse, actual disdain, towards the course I teach, then I have be such a great teacher and guide that I can pull them out of their apathetic stupor and into the realm of learning. And this is a serious and quite a large task, but it’s also the fun bit of teaching. (It’s also nice when I get students that are genuinely excited about learning and are curious people, but the real challenge is the apathetic ones.)
While you are talking with someone (face to face, naturally) you can ask them if they know about having free access to SAGE journals through October 15th? This is definitely information to share with your library patrons.
And while you’re out there meeting new people, please, please, please read and take to heart this article on how to remember people’s names. It really is true that having someone remember your name is fantastic and having someone screw up your name is like listening to nails on a chalkboard (or that horrible dying noise your computer makes right before it gives you the blue screen of death). It is especially annoying when, as Philip Guo wrote, people spell your name incorrectly in an email after they have to type your name in your email address. (I speak from experience. And no, telling me that Diane is close to Diana and I shouldn’t get upset is not helping your case. Also, trust the advice on avoiding nicknames.)
I really appreciated the tips in the article because I’m not naturally good at remembering names, but when you teach you have to remember a lot of names quickly so I’ve gotten much better. Plus, remembering my students’ names is just one more way to demonstrate that I’m not apathetic about teaching. And, if nothing else, it is common courtesy to remember and to get a person’s name correct in conversation and in writing. So take a couple extra seconds and cement the name in your memory the next time you meet someone new.
Speaking of teaching, have you seen Sweet Search: A Search Engine for Students? My question is: is this really helpful for our students? Or is this just a stop-gap measure and a substitute for teaching students to develop critical evaluation skills? Life doesn’t come at a person pre-screened and evaluated. Part of the learning process is figuring out who’s a charlatan and a quack and who is actually sharing factual, helpful information–be it online or in person. It reminds me of the quote from Don Marquis that says, “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you. But if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.” So are we getting our students to think they’re thinking by using a “better,” vetted search engine and therefore they will throw evaluation out the window? Are we playing into apathy about learning the hard and sometimes time-consuming ability to discern valuable information out of the “surplus of digital data” that Godin writes about? Or, is Sweet Search actually a better way to have students interact with the web? I’m not sure about the answer and would like to hear your thoughts on it.
Just a quick post about privacy as I’ve been meaning to share these links for a while but just haven’t gotten around to it. Privacy seems to be a buzzword lately with all the talk of loss of privacy due to social media, GPS, etc. So if you have library users who are curious about how they can better protect their privacy, you can send them the sources noted below. They are also helpful if you have questions about maintaining some semblance of privacy in your life.
Lifehacker, of course, often has great posts on privacy and technology. For example, do you use the incognito browsing in Google Chrome? If so, Lifehacker warns you to not trust private browsing modes for true privacy. Luckily Lifehacker also provides some alternatives to help you browse in secret. (A good thing too with the holidays coming up so your family and friends can’t tell what you’ve gotten them!)
Oh, and don’t forget to protect your passwords too so you don’t end up in this situation, as Leonard did in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. (Sorry, the embedding feature was disabled for this video, so you’ll actually have to go to YouTube, but it’s worth it.)
Enjoy! And The Waki Librarian will be back soon with more fun stuff.
Happy Friday! I’m so glad it is almost the weekend, mainly because I’ve gone through the last couple of days thinking it was Friday only to be rudely shocked by the fact that it wasn’t yet Friday. But that is neither here nor there, so let’s get into the fun technology stuff for today. Today’s technology links are a bit of this and a bit of that, some just for fun, some that you can use, and others that would be good to pass on to your library users.
First up, because I linked to Lifehacker’s guide to the best iPhone apps a few weeks ago, I thought I should link to the Lifehacker pack for Android for all those readers with Android phones. It really is a fantastic list of apps; I found a couple new ones to add to my phone that are very helpful (and I should probably add a couple more, but I need to do something other than play with the phone).
Speaking of technology and libraries, if you somehow forgot about it, registration is open for Internet Librarian 2010 being held October 25-27 in Monterey, California. If you work in the library field and love technology (I mean, really love to experiment with all the latest technology and are completely fine with being geeky), this is the library conference on the West Coast for you.
For a super helpful search tool, check out CloudMagic, a Gmail browser extension that improves searching for contacts and emails in Gmail. This is a definite must for those who have massive amounts of saved email or really anyone who wants to save time when they search.
For those who are fans of the show Bones (thanks Anna, for the reminder that this is totally something Angela would have in the lab!) or James Bond-like gadgets, check out this video on the Virtual Autopsy Table video. How amazing is that technology? The image quality and ability to work through different layers is great. I wonder if medical schools in the United States will adopt this technology.
Now step back from the computer and smell the delicious scent of fresh brewed tea after you read an article that says you should home brew your tea to reap the most polyphenols. Just another great reason to break out the kettle and brew a lovely pot of tea. Oh, and if you are ever in the Boston/Cambridge area, you must check out my favorite tea shop, Tealuxe in Harvard Square (the Newbury Street Location unfortunately is closed). Check out the creme de la Earl Grey–fantastic!
Now that you have your cup of tea (not too close to the computer of course, don’t want to spill it on the keyboard!), relax and take a peak at this example of using QR codes for marketing. (I thought I’d re-share this video because it explained to me how to use QR Codes and The Litbrarian’s post about QR Codes reminded me I need to use this video when I teach information literacy classes in the fall). Enjoy.
QR Codes in a Living Book
Have a fantastic weekend full of relaxation, soaking up the last bits of summer, and reading great books (but if you finish Mockingjay please don’t spoiler it for me!).
P.S. Anyone in Cambridge area see the Doctor around MIT?
I wasn’t going to write this post. I had talked myself out of writing this post after venting to a friend about the annoyance of librarians who disregard the work of archivists as others disregard the work of librarians. Plus, I try to keep a positive outlook on life and not get thrown out of whack by uninformed comments. And then I saw this, Post-SAA Howl (and the associated comments), which is making its way around the various archives blogs and listservs. So today, I’m going to write a post so those who haven’t studied or trained as archivists will be able to understand (at a very basic level) what archivists do and why archives are important. [Hint: if librarians don’t just put books on shelves, it would be safe to assume that archivists don’t just put things in boxes.] Then I promise to wrap up with some useful technology tools and tips to help you and your patrons.
Portelli wrote, “You teach nothing unless you are also learning, and you learn nothing if you don’t listen,” (p. 52 of The Battle of Valle Giulia). I’ve been listening to my fellow librarians for a while and learning from them and I think though, it is my turn to teach just a bit (I promise I won’t get too preachy on my soapbox). So first, some background: I, like a lot of archivists, was trained as both a librarian and an archivist (and, in my case, a historian as well). Lots of archives studies/archives science programs are part of library and information science programs, therefore a lot of archivists have MLS/MLIS/MSLS, etc. Archivists know what librarians do because we had to take all the required classes for library science too. We get it that librarians don’t just put books on shelves and a lot of us love working in libraries and archives. In addition to the library science classes we had to take archives classes too. A lot of us have also done internships or practicums in archives to get experience. So trust me, your local archivist can understand where you are coming from and can intelligently speak with you about library matters. (Just don’t ask us to catalog anything.)
Where the difference comes in is that librarians aren’t often required to take archives classes and therefore don’t know what archivists really do. And this is a problem because then archivists have to deal with stereotypes in the eyes’ of their fellow information professionals in addition to the rest of the world. So before you go telling your archivist that all s/he does is put stuff in boxes and that anyone could do it and that it doesn’t take someone with training and education in archival principles and theories, please read the rest of this post so you know what archivists do in the basement archives all day.
Archivists have been popularized as “keepers of memory” which is, like most popularizations, a huge simplification but we’ll start there because at least it isn’t a negative stereotype. There are professional debates about the role of the archivist and archives (which we’re not going into here), but here is the basics: archivists collect, appraise, preserve, arrange, describe, and make accessible records (these could be textual documents, photographic materials, ephemera, or objects) with lasting (legal, historical, social) value. Archivists don’t arrange archival collections by subject as is done in a library. Archivists maintain provenance (the Golden Rule in archives) which mean that records from a single creator stay together and aren’t mixed with other collections. There is also the principle of Original Order which says that archivists should keep materials in the order in which they arrived at the archives; archivists may or may not preserve Original Order depending on their training and philosophy.
Description means the writing of finding aids which I liken to MARC records on steroids. In finding aids, archivists can contextual the collection by providing biographical or historical information about the creator or organization responsible for the collection. Finding aids also can contain index terms that can be used in MARC records to facilitate access to the finding aids and therefore collections. Box lists are often created so researchers can get an overview of what is in the collection and which parts of the collection they will need to consult for their research. Because archives contain unique materials, collections are not described at item-level meaning it is up to the archivist to provide good enough access points so that the researchers can tell what is in the collection.
Which brings us to another important point, the archivist(s) at an institution are the only ones (usually) who actually know what is all in the archives because of the impossibility of item-level cataloging. This means the archivist is very important if you are doing research and a store of institutional memory in his/her own right. (It also means that you should really be nice to the archivist as a researcher because they can seriously help or hinder your research. For examples, check out Archives Stories ed. Burton.) The archivist, to be good at his/her job, also needs to have working knowledge of institutional and local history, at the very least, to help researchers and contextualize the collections. Because archives are often one-person shops, or very under-staffed, the archivist is probably also the grant writer, outreach coordinator, records manager, and exhibit coordinator for the archives.
Archives, in my opinion, shouldn’t be considered a luxury, but a necessity for every organization. Not only are they repositories for institutional memory (and great sources of material for publicity and exhibits when institutional anniversaries come around), but also important for retaining legally important documents for their organization/institution. Archives can also help build community identity and memory. They can be important historical resources for civil rights movements, for social justice. (See any of the work by Verne Harris or Randall C. Jimerson for examples.) Archives are not just something you throw in the corner in a dusty and rusting filing cabinet, they are centers of historical documents, places of power (see work of Michel Foucault, Terry Cook or Joan Schwartz), and a resource that keeps us from forgetting and holds people and institutions accountable for past actions. If more people understood the importance of archives, perhaps there would be more jobs for archivists and more funding for archives. (Wishful thinking, probably, based on the problems libraries are currently facing. But without understanding, I don’t think archivists have a fighting chance in these lean budget years.)
So all I’m really saying is don’t disregard the work of the archivist in the same way as many stereotypically disregard the work of the librarian. I know a lot of librarians that are appreciative and understanding of archivists and vice versa, but I also get far too many comments about how work in the archives shouldn’t be a priority and that professionally trained and educated archivists aren’t needed that I felt I needed to set the record straight. As always, I’m happy to provide heaps more information about archivists’ work and debates in the field if anyone wants it.
So go forth now armed with more knowledge and give the archivists a break. We’re working just as hard as the librarians and are professionals too. Saying hi, bringing cookies (as long as they stay outside of the archives), and hugs are almost always welcome too.
Now on to the technology good stuff:
You know how popular “working on the cloud” is now, right? Well, did you ever think to ask How Secure is Your Cloud Data? Check out the post and get informed, then share the information with your friends and library users.
For something fun and helpful, check out the Idiom Dictionary. This would be great to share with people learning English because some English idioms are just kind of crazy.
Oh, and not because it is in any way archival, but because it looks cool, check out turning paperbacks into hardbacks. If you want to make the project more archival, check out the comments–they are fantastic!
And, because it is Friday, have fun watching Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory explain how to play Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock:
Have a wonderful Friday and a lovely weekend full of relaxation, reading, and fun.
Happy Friday! So this will be short because I’m brain dead from this week, but wanted to share some interesting links about the Library of Congress and other digital stuff that’s been floating around online. So let’s get to the fun stuff and then we can get on to the weekend.
Check out the cool news about Library of Congress’ National Digital Stewardship Alliance. Yay, for more digital preservation standards and educational efforts.
Oh, and if you have an iPhone, check out Library of Congress’ iPhone app for a virtual tour of the library. Let me know if you like it. If you find one for Android, let me know too.
And, if you want to jailbreak your iPhone, check out the Jailbreak Matrix. Now that Library of Congress’ Copyright Office has deemed it legal to jailbreak your phone, you might want to know the best way. Oh, and if you have an Android phone and want to get more out of it (and use Twitter), check out completeandroid for lots of cool tips. (Thanks to litbrarian for pointing this out to me)
For something different and fun, check out How to Pick the Perfect Typeface. It is both a funny and useful flowchart. Even if you don’t do graphic design, check out the flowchart since it is fun, kind of like xkcd’s Tech Support Cheat Sheet.
Finally, check out xkcd’s “Still No Sleep” comic and then get some sleep this weekend (have fun and read too):
Happy Friday! Isn’t it just so lovely that it is almost the weekend? I think it is and so I have the usual random assortment of articles and thinking points. Today’s topics are digital archives (because, really, who doesn’t like talking about archives?), productivity (because I can’t seem to get away from the topic), and having a good day (because it is better than having a bad day). This will be a short post, perfect for a quick break from working on your important Friday work. So let’s talk archives!
I have admitted it before and I’ll admit it again, I love research and I love researching in archives. I really think you do get “archives fever” when researching in an archives, or maybe that’s just because the last archives I was at didn’t have air conditioning and I was there in the middle of a heat wave. Either way, you don’t have to worry about that if you follow the Library of Congress’ Guide to Finding and Using Online Primary Sources from the Manuscript Division. Online archives: they are wonderful and should be shared. Even if you disliked your history classes when you were in grade school, high school, or even college, trust me, looking through primary source documents will make you enjoy learning. (You may never want to become a historian, but you’ll probably find something that strikes your fancy in LoC’s vast online collections. If not, head over to NARA–they have an amazing photography collection online too.)
Oh, and check out Library of Congress’ Podcast: Conversations about Digital Preservation. A podcast series on digital preservation–really could life get any better for the library and archives geeks among us?
Why, yes, yes it can. NARA recently debuted its first wiki which will hopefully continue to be populated with wonderful archival information and discussions. Granted it isn’t the prettiest site on the web, but hopefully it will become one of the most useful and get more people interested in archives and archival research.
This article from WebWorkerDaily is fantastic: Passion as “the Ultimate Productivity Tool”. (Reminds me a lot of the advice that Seth Godin writes in his books and blog about work, productivity and shipping.) Read the article and be inspired to do great work–work you love–because then work isn’t something you have to slog through, it’s something you (usually) enjoy. And, unless you have a TARDIS, you’ll never get this day back so why not be passionately productive?
Finally, I want you to have a good day–a great day even. But if you are feeling the makings of a bad day, take a break (grab a cup of tea) and read through Lifehacker’s The Science Behind Having a Bad Day and How to Solve It. I hope it helps.
Of course, I can’t leave you without something fun on a Friday. So go over and check out ThinkGeek. If you’ve never checked out their site before, you are in for a treat. If you already have, you know why it is awesome, geeky shopping fun. Did I mention they have the Friendship Algorithm on a t-shirt?
Have a great Friday, a fantastic weekend, read a lot, and The Waki Librarian will be back next week with more library and technology fun.
Happy Friday! I hope where you are living is having lovely weather and you will be able to enjoy it this weekend. The Bay Area is having fantastic weather and I am completely looking forward to the weekend. But first, we must get through Friday. I was walking into a store the other day and there were already back-to-school supplies out! It’s worse than having Christmas music being piped into the mall during October! (At least in my opinion, because I still feel my blood pressure rise every time I see stacks of back-to-school supplies, even though I’m on the other side of the student/faculty equation now.) Anyway, the blogs seem to be getting into the whole back-to-school thing too so I figured I’d post about some of the best tips. (And if you’re a student, feel free to ignore this post until it gets a little closer to the time you actually have to return to school.)
Some people worry about roommates, classes, and moving away from home when they go to college. Personally, I worried about technology. So for those of you who know someone going off to college, send them a link to Lifehacker’s Preparing for College: Tech Essentials for Your First Year. They’ll thank you for it. And if roommates will be involved, send them a guide on how to Hide Your Entire Operating System from Prying Eyes. Again, they’ll thank you.
Coffee and college students seem to be so enmeshed that you can’t walk through a campus without seeing at least 3 coffee carts and smelling coffee from one side of the campus to another. I mean, even libraries have gotten into the act and now have coffee shops. So why do you drink coffee? Do you even know what caffeine does to your brain/body? If you are a little fuzzy on the biochemistry of it all, check out: What Caffeine Actually Does to Your Brain. A nice, easy-to-understand overview.
Because everyone needs a break from studying once in a while, college students (and really anyone who uses Hulu) should appreciate: Top 10 Hulu Hacks and Power User Tips. Oh, Lifehacker, you make life so much easier.
Speaking of cool technology stuff, did you hear about Google App Inventor? It allows you to create Android apps without coding! This is just amazing–I love how one of the examples given is having students create quizzes to test their knowledge of course content. How geeky cool is that? Plus, with so many libraries without dedicated tech staff, this offers libraries a way to still get on the Android bandwagon and mobilize at least some part of the library’s services.
Finally, it is Friday, so we must end on something fun and slightly silly. Today’s video, which is now making its way through the bibliosphere, was brought to my attention by Megan, one of our former interns at the library. Thanks, Megan! So enjoy: “Study Like a Scholar, Scholar.”
If you aren’t smiling by now, go back and watch it again or take a nice, long vacation because you probably need and deserve it. So read a lot, enjoy your weekend, and the Waki Librarian will be back shortly with more technology and library fun.
Hi all. Happy Friday! Aren’t you just so excited for the weekend? I know I am because it means I can get out of Los Angeles and head back to my beloved Bay Area. I’m in LA for a research trip (which is going quite well, thanks for asking), but it happens to have landed me smack in the middle of a heatwave, again–so if parts of this don’t make sense, it is because the heat has addled my brain. So when I’m not buried deeply in a Hollinger box, I’ve been thinking about the mobile web and dreaming about wifi (as the archives I’m doing research at doesn’t have wifi). The mobile web is a hot topic, kind of like Web 2.0 (or I suppose Web 3.0), as can be seen from looking at the programming at this year’s Internet Librarian Conference. So this Friday, is mainly about mobiles and libraries.
EDUCAUSE recently released a couple of very interesting articles. The first of which is Universities and Libraries Move to the Mobile Web. A quick look at the mobile web and how universities/libraries are (and are not) making use of the mobile web. Does your library have a mobile optimized website? I’m hoping my library will have one soon (thus one of the reasons that I’m so looking forward to the talks at Internet Librarian). The second, kind of related article by EDUCAUSE is fantastically titled, If You Twitter, Will They Come?. Great look at using Twitter in educational settings. I personally love Twitter and I’ve found that it really works well in certain teaching situations. For example, for getting notices to Frosh who refuse to check their school email but don’t mind having another text message (using Twitter’s fabulous Tweet to Text option) sent to their phone. Plus, it saves me typing out long emails–140 character tweets are definitely your friend once the craziness of the term sets in. But I can’t say I’m surprised that students don’t want faculty in their social networks–I don’t want students to be in my personal social networks, not because I don’t care about my students’ learning, but because I like to keep some boundaries between my work and personal life too. (And let’s be honest, with how easy it is to set up accounts, it really isn’t difficult to keep one for work/teaching and another for friends/family.) I think the way to go is by using these easy tools in ways that work for students (this means we should actually talk to the students). That way we can create or adapt the technology so that the university or library isn’t “invading” a social network so much as working with it.
Oh, and don’t miss out on the Pew Internet Report on Mobile Access 2010. Good read with interesting data–more support for creating applications that will reach mobile users (although, again, talking with users/customers first would probably be a good idea to see what they want).
I seem to be on the road a lot this summer and therefore I’m thinking about traveling a lot, specifically things that make traveling easier. One of the things that makes my life easier is using Lifehacker’s Top 10 thumb drive tricks. The humble thumb drive–so small and yet so mighty.
Another great post from Lifehacker, Jumping ship from iPhone to Android: A switcher’s guide. It is a good comparison of the two and perhaps useful for anyone who is trying to decide whether to stay/get an iPhone versus an Android phone.
And for fun on Friday, check on this comic from the wonderful xkcd.
'Analogies\
Have a wonderful weekend filled with reading and fun! The Waki Librarian will be back next week with more good library and technology stuff.
Happy Friday! I know, finally a post that is actually posted on Friday. I thought it would be a good idea to get back on schedule. So here is a Friday’s worth of random academic, library, and technology fun facts and tips. From textbook news to characters falling back into their books, it’s all here so let’s get going.
As an academic librarian (and a student myself), I’m super-excited about the news that universities receiving federal financial assistance must “provide students with accurate textbook information including retail price at the time a student registers for the course.” Read the full article on Campus Chatter. This should really help the students looking for textbook information and the librarians–maybe once students find out about this new requirement, there will be fewer panicking students at the reference desk during the first days of classes. (A librarian can always hope!)
If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you know how much I like productivity tips and articles about self-improvement. So obviously, I really like this article: Saying ‘I will do it in the future’ is an Excuse for Failure from the simple dollar. Great advice, and a kick in the pants, that should have you evaluating your to-do list and actually getting things done. (It also reminds me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon talks about his future self creating a time machine and giving it to him in the past so that it takes the pressure off working on the machine in the present. But really, I like the article because at it’s heart, it is simply and powerfully a call to just get started and then inertia will take over.)
My sister and I were discussing data plans for smartphones over dinner last night (yes, we are both geeks…moving on…) and it reminded me that I hadn’t shared this great Lifehacker article: how to keep track of your cellphone data usage. Check this out for simple ways to track your data usage so your carrier won’t have an excuse to slap you with data overage charges.
Also, speaking of Lifehacker and technology, check out this slightly older post on the top 10 privacy tweaks you should know about. You probably already know about some of these, but even so, the list is a great review and helpful for making sure you don’t overshare without knowing it and tips for keeping what you want to keep private. Very good information in this age of perpetual connection online.
If you haven’t seen this Flickr set by Lissy Elle yet, you really need to go see it now. Get Back in Your Book is a fantastic series of “a collection of characters who strive to stay in the real world,” but are falling back into their books. Really, the photographs are amazing so take a little break and thank me later.
Finally, let’s end with a fun Vlogbrothers video, Book Nerd PARADISE, from John’s time at ALA:
Have a lovely weekend full of reading and fun. The Waki Librarian will be back next week with more library and technology news.
P.S. I’ll be working on changing up the theme/layout of the blog over the weekend, so don’t get concerned if it looks a little bit strange for a bit. It will just be me and it will all be sorted out, promise.
