Z666.7.L364 (www.jenniferlang.net)

The email address to send comments, requests, etc., is:

info@planetcataloging.org

{sigh}

Imagine my dismay when I received the following email last Sunday (sent to my Princeton email address):

“The Planet Cataloging email address box is full, so suggestions can’t get through (like mine; see below). Thought the maintainers ought to know in case someone wants to do anything about it.”

Yikes.

For some reason (only known and forgotten by me), I thought I’d set The Planet emails to be forwarded automatically to my personal email address. See what happens when I think?!

Anyway, if you sent suggestions, requests, or comments but haven’t noticed any changes to Planet Cataloging, info@planetcataloging.org is once more a functioning email address, so please re-send your emails; my apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!!!

Jennifer (and Kevin, even though I didn’t tell him about this latest glitch…)

• No Momma’s Boy
  Dominic Carter’s book about his relationship with his mother who was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia.
  (tags: mental_illness schizophrenia)

I’m running for Vice President/President Elect of the New Jersey Library Association. I’m not sure exactly when the ballots will be available, but here’s a little information about me (this is the information I prepared for the ballot):

About Jennifer:

Jennifer Lang is the Electronic Resources Cataloging Coordinator at Princeton University Library, where she has worked since 2004. She earned a bachelor of music degree in cello performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, in 1984. After receiving her degree, Jennifer worked as a professional cellist in Dallas and maintained a small teaching studio. She performed in as principal cellist in several orchestras, including the Mantovani Orchestra, a touring orchestra that made several concert tours to Japan and China, in addition to touring extensively in the United States.

Jennifer moved to Cincinnati in 1993 and, while continuing to work as a freelance cellist, enrolled in the University of Kentucky’s School of Library and Information Science. She began her library career at the University of Cincinnati Libraries in 1997, shortly after receiving a master of science degree in library science from the University of Kentucky. At the University of Cincinnati, Jennifer had the opportunity to wear many hats, including cataloging serials and electronic resources, loading large files of bibliographic records received from vendors, and managing the library’s ongoing quality control program and outsourced authority control work.

In April 2004, Jennifer moved to New Jersey to be the electronic resources cataloger at Princeton University Library. At the beginning of 2008, Jennifer assumed a new role in the library, that of electronic resources cataloging coordinator. In her current position, Jennifer is the cataloging and metadata services department’s primary contact for all issues related to cataloging of electronic resources. She reviews bibliographic records to be bulk loaded for electronic resources packages, manages links for print monographs with electronic versions, and reviews subscriptions to electronic resources to ensure bibliographic access is kept current. In addition, she is chair of the library’s Electronic Resources Cataloging Committee.

Jennifer is a part-time lecturer in the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies at Rutgers University and also the School of Library and Information Studies at San Jose State University. She is also very active professionally. As a Library of Congress “certified” trainer, she presents workshops across the country on cataloging electronic and internet resources, metadata standards and applications, and metadata and digital library development. In August 2007, Jennifer presented a poster session on Web 2.0 technologies and their impact on libraries at the 73rd IFLA conference in Durban, South Africa, in addition to presenting a paper on electronic resources management systems with a colleague.

Jennifer was recently appointed to the editorial board of College & Research Libraries and is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Library Metadata. She is chair-elect of ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) Electronic Resources Interest Group and is finishing a two-year term as secretary of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In addition, Jennifer is preparing to serve the last of a three-year term as a member-at-large of ALA’s Library Research Roundtable.

Locally, Jennifer has been an active member of NJLA since shortly after moving to New Jersey. She is currently president of NJLA’s Technical Services Section (TSS) and has presented several cataloging workshops sponsored by the TSS. Jennifer is also a member of the College and University Section and serves on the Executive Board of NJLA as secretary.

In her spare time, Jennifer continues to perform professionally as a cellist with such notables as Linda Ronstadt, Anne Murray, k.d. lang, Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, and Aretha Franklin, to name a few.

Statement of purpose:

“Since becoming involved in NJLA, I’ve seen how vibrant an organization it is—supporting libraries and librarians from all types of libraries. Indeed, I think the Association’s unrelenting advocacy and its commitment to professional development are evidence of its dedication to the profession. Unfortunately, it is my sense that many academic librarians in the state don’t realize how much NJLA has to offer. I think many academic librarians consider NJLA an organization for public libraries. I know there is much that can be done to attract academic librarians to join NJLA and become as active members as their public library counterparts. To that end, I would like to be Vice President Elect in order to 1) serve by example and 2) to work more closely with the membership committee and other constituents in an effort to increase representation in NJLA from the academic library community.”

Here’s my complete resume.

It was at around this same time of the morning six years ago that I got the call. I don’t remember who called me, but that’s another story. (Whenever I tell my mother I can’t remember a particular person, place or thing, she says it’s because I’m “not trying to remember.” Perhaps…)

Daddy had just died. It wasn’t a shock — he had cancer, and I knew the time was coming. I’d been home to visit him about a month earlier, so I had made amends (or tried — I’m not sure how much he understood, or even if he knew it was I by his bed) and told him that I loved him.

My youngest sister was probably his favorite. She’s the one who looks the most like him and her antics could always make him laugh, except for the time when she was quite little and she danced around the kitchen in her new patent leather shoes while eating the entire top off (bit by bit, piece by piece) of a cake he had just baked.

My father had his flaws, some quite big, but he loved his family. He was never the touchy-feely type, and I can probably count the times he actually said “I love you” to me on one hand. But I know he loved and was proud of all of us.

After he died, my mother and I were going through a metal file box (for letter sized files) in which he kept all of his important papers. That he could keep everything in one file box is another story - he was quite economical when it came to space and clutter and not collecting things. Anyway, in this box was a file folder for each of his daughters. I looked in mine and there were programs from concerts I’d performed in when I was much younger and other assorted memorabilia that he’d saved over the years. I didn’t know he had kept these things.

My favorite memories of my father are:

• his cooking Sunday breakfast (country style) for the family while playing easy-listening music on the radio
• his telling us stories of when he and his brother were little (my father was quite mischievous, apparently)
• his cleaning out my car (I didn’t inherit his neatness) when I’d visit (he’d do it without my knowing it!)

Roy and Mae Washington
Christmas 1993

Roy Lee Washington
June 14, 1928-April 29, 2002

Rest well, Daddy. I love you.