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[mcleemlis]

Stickers Found #3

I'm always wondering which ones are new and which ones are just new to me.

[mcleemlis]

Stickers Found #2

I've been keeping my eyes peeled for stickers when I'm out and about. I keep forgetting to keep my own stickers on me, so there aren't any of mine included in this bunch. I blame the lack of pockets on women's clothing (mostly)!

[mcleemlis]

Better late than never!

After over a year of having the first volume of my first mini zine done, I have finally made a scan and copies that I actually like! It doesn't help that this is a project I've picked up and put down several times since completing the first volume. But I'm excited that I've finally reached this point! The next step in this process is to send a couple copies to the zine library at my Alma mater, Barnard College. I promised their zine librarian that I would send them a couple copies a year ago, so I need to actually make that happen. For now, enjoy a couple of photos from this most recent part of my zine making process. Message me if you're interested in a physical or digital copy. Maybe they'll be for sale in the future.

[mcleemlis]

Stickers Found

These are some of the sticker slaps I've seen around on my excursions. Many of these were found around KSU's Kennesaw campus, but not all of them. I love seeing stickers around and used to be an avid sticker tagger myself (I'm trying to get back into the habit of it). I plan on doing more posts like this as I photograph more stickers I see around, and hopefully some of the future photos will include my own stickers too!

[mcleemlis]

My First Zine Fest

Last weekend I went to my first zine fest! I've been trying to go to a zine fest for a year or two now, and finally made my way to a small zine fest last weekend. It was held at a comic book shop in Marietta, Georgia for Kennesaw State University art students who made zines for an assignment, and as an opportunity for them to display and sell some of their art.

It was a cool experience and I hope to get to go to another zine fest soon so I can continue building my zine collection and experiencing these events. I was surprised by the small number of artists participating in the zine fest, but the quality of their work was phenomenal! I took some photos of the zines (and a couple of stickers) I bought to share here. I haven't read all of the zines yet, but I will!

Something that did surprise me about my experience was how anxious I was. New experiences generally make me anxious, as well as experiences that involve money. But I also might have been anxious about the comic book shop in general, since it had rather mixed reviews online. I had to quickly overcome my anxiety if I wanted to check out the zine fest though. That day I was giving a couple of friends rides since their cars had broke down, and I had a little less than an hour to check out the zine fest between these prior commitments, so time was of the essence. I'm glad I worked through my anxiety to check out the zine fest! Hopefully I won't be so anxious next time around. I'd love to be in a mindset to ask some of the artists and authors questions about their process and their work.

[mcleemlis]

creativity & organization

I'm finally getting around to giving myself space to write an update. I completed the 90 day probation period in my new job last week (so woohoo to it being more difficult to fire me, not that it was likely to happen anyways, lol)! I have been pretty overwhelmed these last couple of months. Between starting this new job (that has so much more work than my old job did, which is a mixed blessing), moving across town, partaking in a dear friends' wedding (it was the first wedding I ever went to and I was a bridesmaid :D ), and assisting my roommates with their recent transportation issues, I've been SO DAMN TIRED. The surprising thing is that I didn't realize how stressed I was until a couple weeks ago when I had a mini breakdown at work and pretty much realized the sheer amount of things on my plate. Since then I've had some conversations with my team lead and unit director about work stuff, and some of my personal responsibilities have wrapped up or my stress has been mentioned to contributing parties and is beginning to be addressed.

Something that has been a real challenge for me during the past few months, but is really helpful once I get a system set up, is organization. With the new move and the new job, I have been experiencing a lot of disorganization as I adjust to my new spaces, responsibilities, and roles. In the move, we ended up downsizing in a couple of ways. We lost a roommate who recently moved in with her new husband. In losing that roommate I also lost what felt like one of my main support pillars in the house. Lets just say she and I made up the responsible half of the household, so I've lost some of that... guaranteed/instinctual support (maybe that's the way to say it, basically I didn't have to tell her to clean, or do things around the house, or check that she paid bills, etc.). We also went from renting a 4 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment. I personally went from having a bedroom (that I share with my bf) and an office/studio, to just having the shared bedroom and trying to fit my office and art supplies in the living room.

With work, you might say I've upsized. I went from being in a position that was poorly defined and where I had so little to do and so few expectations that I was consistently looking for work to do and things to improve the sad state of the library. Now I work in a position that already had a clearly defined role with a variety of tasks and responsibilities assigned to it, as well as projects in development and underway. So now I have a pretty full plate at work that I'm still analyzing and understanding as I try to figure out what my regular work flow might look like and how I should be prioritizing various responsibilities. I've been juggling more tasks and responsibilities lately, and organization has been key in knowing what all I need to work on. I'd been wanting to have a bullet journal for a while and even bought notebooks and outlined what all I thought I wanted to record in it and looked at different spreads and layouts, but it pretty much stopped there. Between my indecisiveness on layouts and fear of messing up, my physical bullet journal went nowhere. But the idea of a digital bullet journal had sprouted from all of my layout design searches.

So after looking at some templates others had made, I went to Canva and made one of my own. You can check it out at the link at the bottom of this post. I made it over the course of maybe 6 hours over 3 days? It was something I was able to put little bits of time into here and there as I kept it open in one of my browser tabs. The ability to make major and minor adjustments was key to my being able to "complete" the template in that amount of time. I say "complete" because I developed this template as a draft, knowing I would make new templates and adjustments as I figured out what I wanted, what works best for me, and what theme I wanted to go with. So the template I made is only setup for about 3 and half months (from late February to the end of June) and has a fairly basic layout. There are daily and weekly spreads, with monthly calendars and pages for monthly goals, a couple pages for notes, and that's pretty much it. I wanted to make something pretty basic and flexible on the daily pages, to see what I ended up using it for or not using it for, so I could consider adjustments going forward. The short time commitment for this template has also allowed me to learn more about how to use my template in OneNote and ways I might make my next template different to take into account some of OneNote's quirks and features.

All in all, the planner has been helpful in organizing tasks I want to accomplish at work and outside of work, as well as providing reminders and space for some of my hobbies. Now I'm trying to work towards finding better balance between work, supporting others, and doing things for myself. Case in point: my zines. I (laughably) thought I would be done with my manifesto zine awhile ago, but I haven't devoted as much time to it as I thought I would be able to, nor did I accurately predict how long it would take me to do some of the research and to mess with the layout of the zine itself. At this moment I still have 1-2 pages to research and fit into the layout, plus the bibliography. I also have the problem(?) of thinking up lots of ideas for zines but not having (or making??) the time to work on these ideas, despite very much wanting to. Hopefully over the coming months I'll be able to find some balance. With Fall semester being a busy season for my unit, I think I'll be keeping my expectations low for my hobbies then, but I'm hoping this summer I'll be able to indulge in them more!

You can check out my planner here: My first planner

[mcleemlis]

Blog redesign and new zine idea

The blog redesign is underway! New theme, new background , new font, and more! I'm pretty excited about the new design and focus for the blog. I've been feeling more creative lately which is pleasant and helpful in working on the redesign. Hopefully this feeling will continue and help me exploring my creativity and posting content.

I have been thinking about different zine ideas (I have a long list of zine ideas but have only started on a few of them) and finally decided which one to focus on for now. I've been hearing the word "manifesto" a lot lately, usually in association with a mass shooting sadly. My knowledge of manifestos was pretty much limited to the Communist Manifesto, which I read in school, and manifestos written by notorious murderers and criminals. I wanted to see if there was more to learn about manifestos and decided to compile what I learn into a zine. I'm still gathering information and developing the zine and I'm hoping to have it completed within the next week or so.

[mcleemlis]

"Where is this going?"

I've been asking myself this question a lot lately, in a few different spheres of my life, but in particular with this blog/website/virtual space of mine. I started it as a space to explore topics related to the library and information science (LIS) field in a way that I might not get to in my previous positions. Then in my last job I started warping this blog into a space to release some pent up annoyance, anger, and displeasure with my previous work environment. After awhile it was too much work to sustain myself in that work environment and also sustain this blog, so I chose myself until I felt I could return to this space and give it the attention it needs.

Now I'm in a new job position (for almost 2 weeks now) and I'm loving it! Life is by no means perfect now that I have a new job, but it's a lot better and I feel like I have more mental capacity to devote to hobbies and creative activities. On top of that, one of my goals for this year is to put more time into my hobbies and creative endeavors (like this blog, my art, and zines). I'm still waiting for some things to settle down in my life (like figuring out where I'm going to be moving to at the end of this month) but I'm looking forward to the future and what's on the horizon and feeling more positive about things than I have in some months.

That being said, I want to get back into this blog/website/virtual space, but I also realize that how I was using this space before isn't necessarily how I want to use it now. When I originally created this space, it was to focus on my work in libraries. While I still want to include some of that, I also realize that I already spend a significant amount of my waking hours working on work-related things. I don't want to focus too much on librarianship in this space because of that, but also because I think that has led to some burnout and disinterest in posting during the past several months. So for this new phase of this blog/website/virtual space, I want to make it more personal and less professional. This could mean posting more of my art here, or some of my poetry. I definitely plan on posting about any zines I make or work on. I'll definitely be reducing the number of posts I do for LIS conferences (those got exhausting pretty quick) and reconsidering how this website does and doesn't connect back to my professional career. I'll also be looking at new templates and layouts for the website to find something a little less "professional" and something more fun. I'm not sure what kind of timeline I'm looking at for the design changes, so if you're interested keep an eye out.

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

Signs that I'm doing a good job, even if the culture I work in kinda (really) sucks: A student brought me a king size Reese's just to show how much she appreciates me! ☺️☺️☺️ From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

Outreach tabling today @claytonstatelib: We're making bookmarks! https://t.co/dFr6ShX1ip From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

My First Zine!

This past weekend I made my first zine! It was a zine that I'd thought up months, maybe even years, ago when I started looking into new ways to share my art. I've been aware of zines for almost a decade now, thanks to having a wonderful zine library and zine librarian at my undergrad institution, Barnard College. But it was only within the last few years that I started exploring making my own zines.

The idea of making zines has interested me since I first became aware of them years back, but there always seems to be something that keeps me from following through with actually making zines. Sometimes I was just too busy to devote the time, especially when I was working and a student. Other times I didn't know what I wanted to make a zine about. Sometimes I thought too much about what kind of zines people would want to read as I felt like I needed to create something that appealed to others. Often times, I was limited by my own perfectionism. If I didn't love a design or concept, it would just roll around in my mind or the pages of my sketchbook until I eventually forgot about it.

The zine I made this past weekend was one design I'd spent months thinking about, designing, and contemplating, but what I made was only vaguely similar to these designs and thoughts I'd had. I tried to let the designing of it happen kind of organically, rather than being planned out in detail like so many other aspects of my life. The design wasn't detailed or fancy, just something that worked for the material I was presenting in the zine (stickers I've designed and had printed over the last 6 or so years) while providing myself some space to doodle and enjoy making something new from stuff that was not so new.

The process of making my first zine was fun and I was already thinking about the next zine I would make before I was even done with this one. Hopefully I'll continue to make zines and explore the creative space they provide to me and others. And hopefully this will help me get back into my art more, as this hobby has sadly fallen to the wayside as I've spent so much time focusing on other things in my life, namely my career. Here's hoping my future includes more zines, both making them and acquiring them for my own collection, and maybe even sharing them with students!

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

Made my first zine last night! I've been "planning" this zine for months, but really my perfectionism has had me delaying making it, so I finally sat my butt down last night and made it happen! 😁 #zine https://t.co/75KhAYPuru From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

I have read 20 of 20 books for the 2022 Reading Challenge! What should I read next? https://t.co/9Z0bh0yFD6 From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

Once again I'm thankful for the people I have in my life. A friend of mine knows I've been having a tough time in my new job, so when she went to ALA she got some freebies for me and made me a goodie bag. ☺️🥰😁 From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

GLITR Conference Presentation: Looking at Low Morale in Academic Libraries

The recording for my conference presentation "Looking at Low Morale in Academic Libraries" is available on YouTube for viewing. If you have the time, please check it out. If you have any comments or questions, please share those as I look forward to expanding my knowledge on this topic even more.

[mcleemlis]

McleeMLIS

Need zine inspiration? Here's over 100 ideas!: https://t.co/7PsWYXNJ3O From Twitter: http://twitter.com/McleeMLIS via IFTTT

[mcleemlis]

Building my community

Sadly I didn't get the job I mentioned in my last post. 47 people applied, 6 people got phone interviews, and only 2 people were invited for on campus interviews. It's nice to know I made it so far in the process, but sad to know that I didn't get such an awesome position and will be staying in my current position for at least a little while longer.

Still it's not all bad news. Despite not getting the job, it has led to moments of gratitude. Specifically, gratitude for the community I have built and am continuing to build in this field. As a librarian of color and member of the LGBTQIA+ community, I often feel marginalized and question how I "have to" operate within library spaces. Spaces that I should feel welcome in, especially since I have the master's degree. But in a field that has been and continues to be overwhelmingly white, it can be difficult to feel welcome and included in such spaces.

Thankfully I have been lucky enough to encounter several amazing librarians that are POC and/or members of the LGBTQIA+ community over the last few years that have been supportive and helpful in building a community and space where I feel seen, heard, respected, and cared for. Their voices not only tell me to keep my head up and keep working hard, but they also let me know that what I am or have experienced is not so different from their own experiences in this field. While it can be disheartening to hear that others are experiencing some of the same difficulties I am, it's also helpful to have others to share my experiences with and work towards common goals and changes in libraries. Something I'm currently working on with some of my friends and peers is a mentorship program for librarians in our state's library association. After researching and partaking in peer mentorship opportunities before, I know the benefits such a program can provide for librarians in marginalized groups or librarians just starting out, so I hope this program can be successfully established and flourish so that librarians in the state of Georgia have opportunities to grow and flourish, no matter their background. So even though I didn't get a job I really wanted, I'm hopeful that I can continue to make positive change in this field for the betterment of others, as well as myself.