I’m finally returning to blogging after a bit of an absence, but this time I return from a new location with new credentials. This summer was unbelievably hectic - full of anxiety, excitement, and more coffee than any person should ever consume. Through May and early June, my plans for the Fall remained up in the air as I searched for employment and funding for further education. Things finally came through for me in mid-June (more on that in a minute), and I was able to fully focus on my MA thesis again. My defense came soon after – I successfully defended my thesis just in time for DH 2013, which was conveniently located six blocks down the street from my apartment. I was able to enjoy the conference and meet some amazing scholars despite my need to continually shuffle away and anxiously finish my edits and fix some pesky javascript errors. Once the conference ended, I was still reeling from the shock of being done and not having writing guilt hanging over my head. I had three and a half weeks to sit back and relax for the first time in years. Oh, and reorganize myself, pack up everything, and move to a new city and program. In mid-June I was offered a pre-professional graduate assistantship with Grainger Engineering Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to gain experience in academic libraries while attending the top-ranked Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Illinois. I’m currently leaning towards a Data Curation specialization with a focus on Digital Humanities. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be able to continue my DH work on Emblematica Online! I’m now finishing up my third week in Champaign, and I couldn’t imagine a better group of people to work with. I’m hoping to post here more regularly than in the past, but it has taken me three weeks to put together this blog post, so I suppose I should temper my expectations. In the meantime, here is some valuable information I’ve recently learned:

vintage library ad http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/11/vintage-ads-for-libraries-and-reading/ Photo from brainpickings.org