Reading Time: 7 minutes
The last eight months or so has seen a lot of upheaval for me. It came at a time when a big project came to an end, which was fortunate. But I moved states and moved
Latest from David Whelan - Page 7
Assessing the Possibilities
Reading Time: 6 minutes
The grades for this semester are in. I am not a fan of grading although I was glad of the opportunity of potentially having an impact on students. I thought the final exams were better than
Finding My Pace
Reading Time: 7 minutes
The semester has come to an end. I’d picked up a course to teach at the last minute and so that is also now complete. The pacing in an academic law library is quite different from
The Unlearning Machine
Reading Time: 6 minutes
One recurring thought relating to artificial intelligence is its impact on new staff. The promise of AI is that it will routinize the lower value work, the repetitive tasks, and allow knowledge workers to focus on
Building the Budget
Reading Time: 7 minutes
I’m still in my first year at my new role and it’s budget season. This is one of those perennial experiences that you would think would become routine. If you move libraries, though, you find that
Push Spam Further Away
Reading Time: 5 minutes
One of the things I’ve learned both from self-hosting a server inside my home and from using commercial hosting is that I want bad actors as far from my server as possible. When I migrated my
Stop Bothering Me
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Librarians are knowledge workers. We work on things that require attention to detail and investigation, whether we’re cataloging books or answering obscure reference questions. I am always interested in new research on interruptions and thinking around
Prepare for Uncertainty
Reading Time: 6 minutes
My recent travel to Canada couldn’t have been more normal. I drove up to the Ambassador Bridge border control with very few other cars from Canada. The person in front of me was in hijab and
Spring Migration to New Web Host
Reading Time: 6 minutes
My website has been on a North American host for the past half dozen years. It has been fine but the cost has been inching up and I’ve had some support issues. I have a
A Hole in the Bucket
Reading Time: 5 minutes
A colleague was in town and attending ABA Techshow so I swung by McCormick Place to see them. It’s been awhile and the Expo pass is free (something I will keep in mind next year). I