1. confessions
  2. A new chapter

A new chapter

By jdupuis on May 18, 2009.

Here I am on ScienceBlogs, moved from the comfortable confines of my old blog, where I've been active since October 2002.

The opportunity to come here was never anything I really expected or pursued, but now that I'm here I'm really excited to start this new chapter in my blogging existence.

How did it happen, you ask? Well, it all started last week with a post I did about the "Are You a Librarian" survey that Seed was running on the site at the time. Basically, the survey was a marketing tool trying to encourage librarians to subscribe to Seed Magazine for their institutions. I was totally ok with that (we subscribe to Seed at MPOW), but at the same time I'd been kind of hoping for a deeper engagement with the library community on Seed's part.

Well, I guess I got my wish. Sarah Glasser from Seed contacted me a few days later, asking about what I'd been hoping for, and, oh, by the way, how about being part of engaging the librarian community on a deeper level. The next thing you know, I'm in touch with Erin Johnson and the next thing you know after that, here I am typing into the rather unfamiliar (for me) Movable Type interface.

So, who exactly am I anyways? Well, I have a B.Comp.Sci. (1986) from Concordia University in Montreal. After that, I worked as a software developer for a big insurance broker for twelve years, mostly working in dBase, FoxPro, Wang Pace, Cobol and at the end, PowerBuilder. Tiring of the life of the developer, I changed careers and went back to school to become a librarian, taking the Masters of Library and Information Studies program at McGill University. That brings us to 2000, when I graduated and, along with my family, moved to Toronto to take a science librarian job at York University. (More history here and here.)

Now, I'm about a year and half into a five year term as head of the Steacie Science & Engineering Library.

What do I blog about? Mostly about what it's like to be a science librarian at the beginning of the 21st century: science, computer science, online community building, blogging, open access, open science, science 2.0, collections, databases, ebooks, science books. The whole shooting match. Let's just say, I was at SciBarCamp last weekend and everyone I talked to basically wanted to know where libraries are going these days and how we'll stay relevant to the born digital generation. So, yes, I'm obsessed with that stuff too.

What do I bring to the ScienceBlogs table? I hope a greater appreciation amongst scientists what their local science librarians have to offer, both in terms of their teaching and research. I also hope to be able to bring to the librarians that visit me here a greater appreciation of what it's like to be a scientist in the 21st century, too.

So, to all of you encountering my blog here for the first time, welcome! My best known posts so far have been the My Job in 10 Years series, some book reviews as well as my series of interviews with people in the scitech world.

Enjoy! I hope that will be enough to get to know me a little bit. I'll be back with a bunch of new posts this week and beyond, including another announcement.

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Welcome to Scienceblogs. Good luck!

I'm a science student who works as a part time librarian, so it will be really interesting reading your blog. :D

Welcome to the SciBlog team!

Welcome! It's good to have you here. As a retired medical librarian/information systems designer and long time reader of ScienceBlogs, I'll be anxious to read what you have to say on many of those topics.

It's good to know you have us, er, covered...! Welcome to Sci Blogs!

Welcome to Scienceblogs! I look forward to your posts.

By AgnosticNews (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

Welcome aboard, Librarian John! Looking forward to your stuff.

By DrugMonkey (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

Welcome to ScienceBlogs, John Dupuis.

I'm an undergrad at York University, but I spend most of my time at Scott Library for studying. ;)

I hope to learn some interesting things from your blog.

Hiya.
Yay! A librarian on Scieceblogs! As a Librarian and someone who loves science, I will be looking forward to reading this blog. (I mean, wow, a blog with issues that I can relate to! Oh sure reading about dark energy, viruses, evolution, and creationism is all fine and good, but collection development? Yeah bring it on!)

By LibraryGuy (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

Welcome! I'm excited to have a librarian posting here. (Don't get me wrong. I love the scientists too. But I have something of an interest in library/information science, and I'll be really interested to read about your perspectives.)

I'm so glad to see a science librarian getting some play! I'm a librarian at a liberal arts college with a background in biology (particularly cell biology and a smattering of paleo) and no one knows what to do with me. The humanities folks are flummoxed by someone being into science and the science folks are too used to other librarians not knowing anything about their fields.

I'm super excited to hear more from you!

Nice to meet you John. And welcome to the ScienceBlogsosphere.

I've long appreciated the range and depth of skills that are necessary to be a proper librarian.

I'll be stopping by, count on it.

By Crudely Wrott (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

Welcome to ScienceBlogs, John!

Great addition to SciBlogs! As a science bookshop owner I suspect there'll be a lot I can learn from you. I guess the big question is does the bio of Darwin go in History of Science, Evolution or Biographies? I wish there was a way I could metatag my shelves. Anyway I'm particularly looking forward to your book reviews. There aren't enough places around that review good science books.

Also I enjoyed this article
http://jdupuis.blogspot.com/2009/04/bookstore-of-future.html
I think one of the most intrinsically interesting things about visiting a bookshop or library in finding the unexpected. This can lead to interesting cross pollination of ideas that possibly doesn't happen when you are able to find exactly what you're looking for each time.

Welcome! Looking forward to your words of wisdom.

By Katkinkate (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

Welcome, from a corporate librarian who frequents ScienceBlogs.

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I'm really happy to be here! (And sorry for having comment moderation on when I didn't mean to!)

Science + Librarian = Awesome!

I'll be checking out your bog int the future, for sure.

Cheers!

Congratulations John, my FeedDemon is now pointing towards your new home.

By Darren Jones (not verified) on 18 May 2009 #permalink

I'm halfway through my MLIS at Kent State University, and it's great to see a librarian on ScienceBlogs. I'm waiting for the inevitable "WE BETTER POST QUIETLY TEE HEE" comments...

Hey John - congratulations on your new home. I can't imagine anyone better to spread librarian's views on STM to a wider audience. Good luck! Chris

Oh, wow, that's unexpected. Not that you don't deserve it! It's just that usually people's moves to the borg are prefaced with a period of mysterious rumblings about new homes and changes.

Also, [insert obligatory comment about how Nature Network is way more awesome, of course]. So there!

Once again, thanks everyone for all the kind wishes. I hope I can live up to all the "show-em what librarians are made of" hype ;-)

Eva, it actually happened really quickly, almost too quickly to rumble given my general posting frequency. But I did put out a couple of foreshadowing tweets on "disturbances in the Force" but I think those were just way too subtle.

Congrats on the move to ScienceBlogs! As a longtime ScienceBlogs reader, a reader of your blog, AND a science librarian (among other things; it's a small library and we all wear many hats), I'm triply glad to see you here!