Welcome to Limen: Thoughts from a Threshold.
I use this blog for public discussion of all sorts of Pagan related topics (in a very broad sense) from books to research methods, extended metaphors to ritual theory, interacting with seekers to pedagogical techniques.
More about me:
The basics: Female, 32, live with my cat in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (I’m a transplant: I grew up in the Boston area.) I’m a generalist: I like many different things.
Religious life:
I’m a priestess, a witch, active in my local Pagan community and in several online ones. I just received my 3rd degree in a religious witchcraft tradition based in the Twin Cities, and in the process of forming a small coven. (The beyond one: groups in practice and my path: coven categories have more info.)
I’m particularly interested in the use of music in magical and ritual work, group dynamics and other ‘healthy community’ issues, and how to spend more time doing the things I like and less time on the things I’m not so crazy about. I’ve also focused on how to improve research and critical reading/thinking skills in the Pagan community. My personal ritual work tends toward the meditative and introspective side, with a dash of magical work for specific reasons.
Interests:
I read anything that sits still long enough. On the fiction side, there’s an emphasis on thought-provoking urban fantasy, dystopia novels, and character-driven speculative fiction. On the non-fiction side, I’m fond of narrative non-fiction and microhistories. I’m on the computer a lot, and read a lot there.
Computer interests include LiveJournal (I was a volunteer for the Abuse Team for 18 months), online gaming (I’ve played World of Warcraft since it came out, though I’m very much a casual player), and a number of online discussion forums. Non-computer hobbies include drop spinning (a recent passion), a 29 string folk harp, and making bread.
Day job:
I finished my Master’s in Library and Information Science degree in the summer of 2007, and I’m currently hunting for a professional library position to go with it. My professional interests include:
- Just plain helping people find information (and other resources) that matter to them.
- Online safety and literacy issues (from a non-alarmist point of view)
- How libraries can better serve ‘invisible’ populations (with a particular interest in minority religious groups, especially Pagans)
- Reader’s advisory (the library jargon term for “What do I read next?”)
- Policy development and practical adaptation.
Got questions?
Feel free to send me an email or leave me a comment. Unless I’m amazingly busy or offline, I usually answer email within a day or two. If you don’t hear from me after 3-5 days, please feel free to email me and try again (or leave a comment on an appropriate entry: I can see the email address you provide there.)
My email is jenett (one n, two ts) at this domain (gleewood.org), in an attempt to defeat spamming.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Hey, don´t we by the chance know each other from Ecauldron? I used to correspond with a Wiccan priestess named Jennet and she was about to receive some degree…
May 20th, 2008 at 7:33 am
We do! I’m still at the same email address, if you want to pick up that conversation.
May 20th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Great! I just finished an article you might be interested in, about Paganism in my country: http://arbor-nocturnus.wz.cz/inter/eng/paganism-czech-republic.php
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 am
Hi, Jenett,
I’d like to send you an email, but I can’t find the contact link (it is perfectly possible I am experiencing selective blindness). Help?
Thanks!
June 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Greetings,
I am hoping to begin a degree in Library Science in the fall, the fates and my pocketbook willing
At 50, it’s exciting to take another left turn.
Any suggestions for those of us about to dive in?
Sia
June 4th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Oh, yes, definitely.
First, the library job market is *very* tight right now: I finished my degree in August 07, and am still looking for a professional library job - this is totally in line with many other people I’ve seen (everyone says expect the search to take 12-18 months right now) My older sister is a professor of library science in a different metro area, and she’s seeing the same thing.
Things that help:
- Get library experience early and often, especially in the type of library you would eventually like to work in. Volunteer, intern, get a part-time job, whatever it takes: the experience is often a deciding factor between applicants to jobs right now (plus, not everyone turns out to like library work, and finding that out before you get a job doing it is good.)
- Get and constantly update your technical skills. There’s a lot of emphasis on ability to adapt to new technology and how it can be used in the library. A number of state library associations are running training (the Minnesota 23 Things on a Stick training was free to all librarians in the state: you can work through the lessons/activities yourself at http://23thingsonastick.blogspot.com for an idea of how libraries use different tools - you just can’t register or get prizes if you’re not in the state.)
- Having run a blog is fantastic, but one of the problems I’ve hit is that I can’t share some of my online skills easily without also revealing information about my religious beliefs, etc. because that’s part of the blog. I’ve taken steps to establish an under-my-legal-name professional blog and website, that includes information on presentations I’ve done professionally, resources, etc. I probably should have done it earlier in the process. Establishing a name/presence on various library lists in a positive way is also worth doing. (I’m a periodic poster on the New-Lib list, for new librarians and students, for example.)
- There’s lots of things you can do with a library degree: if you’re interested in jobs outside of traditional library jobs, there’s a lot more hireability/job prospects than working in a public/school/academic library. (For me, I love reference work, and other specific things in libraries, which is making it hard.)
- I’m always glad to chat in email about different topics. Feel free to ask stuff as it comes up.