2019 was a year of major changes for me! I left my position at UCLA in late June, after seven years of (award-winning) work with the Moving Image Archive Studies MA program and the Department of Information Studies. The good news is, I won’t miss out on teaching–which was one of my favorite parts of my old job. I’m still actively involved with the AMIA Continuing Education Task Force, which is developing a new slate of webinars for the coming year that we think will be valuable to our professional community, whether you’re new to the field or a mid-career or senior professional looking to build skills. I will also be teaching a course on Preservation & Digitization of Audiovisual Materials for Louisiana State University’s iSchool, which is so exciting–an opportunity to work with a whole new community of students and present course material in a new format via their distance-learning platform!

I’m also very busy these days with a range of project-based and freelance work. In late 2019, I joined the founding team of Myriad Consulting. We’ve been stunned at the response so far, to be honest–requests for proposals keep coming in, and they’re all from unique and wonderful places! We’re gratified to have this confirmation that there’s space in the marketplace for a small, nimble, and multi-disciplinary team to assist in meaningful ways with the needs of public, corporate, and private collections. Most of all, I love the variety; I’m getting to use skills and knowledge from every phase of my career to date, and I’m learning a lot as a go, too! It also feels meaningful to me to be helping people with their most pressing needs. It’s a hustle, for sure–a lot of plates to keep spinning–but I’ve always said that LIS professionals can and should be entrepreneurial with their skill set, and now I’m putting my words into action.

I’m also excited to be working on the AMIA Diversity and Inclusion Fellowship Pilot project, and helping AMIA move forward with a proposal for additional funding to expand their work on recruiting and supporting new professionals who are more representative of the communities we serve and the collections we provide access to.

It’s a lot! But it’s never so much that I don’t have time for you if you’re someone who’s in search of advice, information, or assistance as you consider your options for work or study in the LIS field. My old UCLA email address is no longer working, but you’re welcome to reach out via Twitter (my DMs are open), LinkedIn (I’ll happily add you to my network if we’ve worked together on a job site, project, or committee), or regular ol’ email or phone (contact info right here on this site!). When I was just starting out in this field, so many people welcomed me and were generous with their time and expertise–I always appreciate the chance to pay it forward.