I’m officially into my fourth year of tenure clock. It seems slightly unreal both in the “didn’t I just get started” way as well as the “haven’t I been in 4Y for 6 months already” as my brain flipped over to thinking about 4Y once I turned in my third year review papers last January.

For those just joining, or playing the home game:

My Open Access Plan

Description of the requirements I’m facing.

My 3Y paperwork

I’m still working on my three areas: Research, Librarianship, Service, though it’s kind of an off year for me. A heads down and work year rather than the frantic reviewing of last year, next year, or the year after that. So…where am I now?

Research. I’ve had a paper accepted! Huzzah! More details on that when it comes out in print, which won’t be for a few more months. With that, I now have a peer reviewed paper, a couple of book chapters, and a smattering of other stuff. Currently there are a lot of projects in my head but not as many in the writing phase as I’d like. One short piece I’d written now needs a huge rewrite or addition due to changes in the software I was using/describing. Another piece totally fell through at manuscript stage and I’ve not sorted if it’s salvageable in white paper format yet. Rewrites of that old pulled book chapter still aren’t done. Plus new stuff. My current interim boss and my new research mentor have both been leaning on me to block substantive portions of time at work so I can make some progress. If only everyday emergencies didn’t appear…

Librarianship. It’s fall and therefore I’m teaching my Dentistry students. I’m trying new classroom things this year, as with every year it’s a slow process of trying to repeat things that worked well, figure out why something failed and try to correct it. I’m on committees about Data and Digital Content–we’re hoping to get some workshops finally launched this fall to the west side of campus on data management/data 101 stuff. I’m serving on another tenure-track faculty member’s 3Y review. And I’m still supervising student employees, though how that will look is changing with a gut remodel of the first floor of my building.  On the professional development front is more continuing education on data, Python, R, and the French Revolution.*

Service. I’m Madame Chair for LITA Education, which has taken up a lot of brain space in the past couple of months. And it needs more. I’m seriously reliant on Andromeda Yelton, my most excellent Board Liaison, and Mike Kastellec, my super solid Vice Chair, for a lot of advice and help. And my committee has begun to find their feet and step up.  As expected, they need some help and direction to get rolling, but the enthusiasm is there. Beyond that, I’ve got Collaborative Librarianship–I’m currently the sole Reviews Editor; MLA Midwest Chapter; RDAP (might be helping to plan that conference); ….and I think that’s it?

I call it a “down” year but mostly that means head down and trying to write and work as fast as possible. I’m newly moved to a new office — that 1st floor gut remodel meant my coworkers and I headed down to the lower level and we’re all currently unpacking, sorting, and trying to rearrange our lives. We’ve taken over study rooms until they build us new offices on the 2nd floor, but that won’t be until after the 1st floor remodel is done so we’re settling in and trying to make things comfortable. I’m headed to IKEA this weekend for decorative touches.

*Guess which one of those is easiest to listen to lectures for?