There have been a couple of inquiries about where things are, what I’ve heard, etc.

In short, I’ve heard nothing.

It’s one of those things that went so firmly on back burner the second my papers were turned in that getting asked surprised me. After a January spent updating all of my files, February was the month of keeping candidates straight (18 in person interviews, where I spent anywhere between 30-180+ minutes with each candidate), and now suddenly it’s mid-March and the vote is tomorrow. Once the library p&t committee is through the vote, I’m not sure the process, but I’m sure someone will start sending me information shortly thereafter. And, if all goes well, I’ll get to proceed for another 18 months towards the next tenure review.

In the interim, I’ve been dealing with edits of one of my manuscripts and feeling guilty about a manuscript that I haven’t touched in more than six weeks and really guilty about a research partner whose most recent deadlines went whooshing by and I felt helpless to try and even make an effort.

Most of my attention recently has been trying to sort out some things for LITA Education and also dig back out from being out of my office and in front of candidates so much for a month. This week [she said, looking around and preparing to duck] is a lot quieter than most of my weeks have been since the beginning of the year and I actually feel like I’m making a dent in some of the backlog. Let’s not pretend I’m about to be all caught up and bored, but at least the possibility of treading water is coming.

Next week I’m traveling to Research Data Access and Preservation. I recalled that I’d be traveling soon over the weekend and then wondered why I felt so disconnected from the conference. I realized why, eventually–this is the first national library conference I’ve been to in about three years where I wasn’t either giving a presentation, leading a committee, or on the planning committee. The other two exceptions were the Data Literacy conference I attended at Purdue last fall (pulled a planned poster due to co-author leaving my institution) and the Stats conference I listened in on (not a library conference, trust me, though librarians should be there). As with my trip to Woods Hole last May for the Bioinformatics Course, I’m thrilled to be going and just learning and enjoying the presentations and networking with colleagues. It does mean that I haven’t done a whole lot of preparation for the meeting though… Oh well, I’ve got clean clothes and a 3 hour plane ride to sort that out, right?

Then it’s back to the grind here and I must tell you all the details of the upcoming preconference I’m presenting in Vegas…