RSS (Posts)
RSS (Comments)
- Derik A Badman
- In the Library with the Lead Pipe
- derikbATmadinkbeardDOTcom
- AIM
- Flickr
- Del.icio.us
Derik A Badman is the Digital Services Librarian at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. His website Madinkbeard is home to his comics criticism, blog, and webcomic (Things Change: The Metamorphoses Comic). Derik was an ALA Emerging Leader for 2008. He has been working in libraries non-stop since he was 16.
Longer, less formal version:
When I was a kid I had a lot of books and whenever I cleaned my room I would take each book off the shelf and dust it individually. That’s either some sign of obsessive-compulsive behavior or a sadly stereotypical indication I would end up in libraries. I got a job at the local public library (Samuel Pierce Library in Bucks County, PA) when I was 16. My brother had worked there, and it seemed like a benign enough way to earn some money, better than retail or food. I shelved books, I shelf read (I still know my Dewey decimal numbers), I stamped due date cards (ugh), and once I was called “Satan man” by a kindly little boy, perhaps due to my colored and spiked punk rock hair.
A few years later, I started at art school (Tyler School of Art, the art school of Temple University where I still work) and needed a work study job. This time the library was a sure bet since I had experience at it. I got to check out books to people now, but I still had to shelve and shelf read (I know the N section of LC very well). I continued working at the library for 4 years. As graduation approached, I had no real prospects (almost no one gets a job in art unless one is a graphic designer). Lucky for me, a so called “paraprofessional” job was opening up at one of the University’s small branch libraries. I ended up spending 5 years at that library, adding supervision, reserves, circulation, and reference to my skill set.
After a couple years, I enrolled in Drexel University’s online library school (err, that is “iSchool”) program. Too much money later, voila!, a librarian. As these things go (for me, at least) a job opened up at a different branch library, and I became an Access Services Librarian, adding collection development and instruction to my repertoire. I was also adding a lot of computer skills to my resume by volunteering as much as possible for all sorts of committees and projects and giving myself various projects like designing our library blog. A year and a half later I switched jobs, becoming the Digital Services Librarian and adding liaison work, too.
That’s where I am now. I do a lot of things at work, which keeps it interesting: reference, collection development, liaising, instruction, website work, committee work, and a bit of programming. I’ve been doing more with the programming lately, learning by doing with a few different projects such as Blackboard/library integration. I’ve also been presenting on topics such as subject guides, Blackboard, journal alerts, and personal information management. I’ve learned that the more I do and the more people I meet, the more opportunities I get, so there’s always something around the corner. This year I’ve even done a bit of writing for publication.
I’ve been blogging since 2004 at Madinkbeard.com, but I’ve never blogged about libraries or librarianship before now (except as a conference blogger for ACRL07). My blog was originally focused on literary constraint but has since changed focus to comics criticism (I still say “comics” not “graphic novels”). I also write a monthly column about comics at ComixTalk. I’ve been drawing comics since I was in high school. I made thirty-some issues of a minicomic called “The Partial Truth” in the mid-late nineties, and in 2005 I started a webcomic called “Maroon” which ran for 52 weekly episodes. My current webcomic is called Things Change: The Metamorphoses Comic and has been running twice weekly since August of 2006. I’ll readily admit that if I could afford it I’d stay home and drawrite every day.
I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania with two cats and my wife, who is also a librarian. We have a lot of books. Some of my reading interests are: postmodern fiction, French fiction, ancient Greek classics, the Spanish Civil War, punk rock, literary criticism, literary constraint, and Surrealism.
I also scan a lot of library journals (through RSS feed table of contents alerts):
- College & Research Libraries
- College & Research Libraries News
- American Libraries
- Computers in Libraries
- Library Technology Reports (from ALA)
- Library Journal
- RUSQ
- Journal of Academic Librarianship
- Library Resources & Technical Services
- Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology
- Library and Information Science Research
- JASIST
- Reference Services Review
- Library Hi-Tech
- Charleston Advisor
- Searcher
- Reference Librarians
- Information Today
- Portal: Libraries and the Academy
- Serials Librarians
- Library Collection Acquisitions & Technical Services
- Information Technology & Libraries
[...] Talks - a collection of amazing and inspiring speakers Many thanks to Derik Badman, Char Booth, and Gretchen Keer for their feedback and [...]