An Introduction

Hi there.

As the distance education representative to UA's American Library Association student chapter, I've been asked to contribute to this blog. A simple enough request, I suppose. The only problem is, I'm what is known as a "digital immigrant" (DI). What is that, you may ask? A digital immigrant is someone who did not spend their formative years surrounded by the technology of today, who did not grow up surfing the World Wide Web. The degree to which one is a digital immigrant correlates pretty well to one's age. For argument's sake, let's put the rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web at 1995. Then, let's say that a distance of one mile equals one year's distance from 1995. So, if you were born anytime after about 1988, you are a digital native. In DI years, I'm about forty.

So, what, you may again be asking yourself, does that have to do with my beginning this blog (ha! I just typed that as "blob"!)? Well, my being a digital immigrant means that this kind of technology doesn't come easily to me. I'm neither very familiar with social networking tools nor do I have the slightest idea what anyone likely to intentionally or serendipitously come across this blog would like to read. But I'll give it the good ole college try (pardon the pun) and you can let me know if I break an unwritten blogging rule or not.

So this is a blog about library school for library school students. It makes the most sense, then, to confine myself to writing about library school from the perspective of a library school student (see how nicely that ties together?). I'm currently in the second semester at UA, where I'm getting my degree online. Before last semester I had never taken an online class. Now here I am getting the entire degree that way. What a wacky, crazy, kind of world it is, huh? And how grateful I am for it.

You see, I work full time. So there is no way I could have taken the time off to attend a two-year program the traditional way. The DE alternative is a God-send. Now I can get the degree (hopefully) while sitting in my jammies in the comfort of my own home and munching on cheesecake. What could be better than that?

It's been an interesting experience, not exactly what I expected. The professors have been very understanding about technological problems, and patient in answering the myriad questions that students like myself have. I'd recommend the program to others. In fact, I have.

Well, I don't want to overwhelm you with my first post. So I think I'll close for now. (Plus, if you're like me, you can't stand reading more than a few paragraphs online anyway.) Keep checking back. I'm sure sooner or later I'll have something interesting to say.