The Maryland Interview

Overall, wonderful experience. I flew out Monday afternoon into Philadelphia. I was super nervous all morning, but got lots of encouraging text messages. Thanks everybody! Mmm, yummy Philly pretzels.

I flew into Salisbury on a very scary little plane. I didn't know they still made planes with propellers! Gah! I set next to an army person on an 18 day leave who was from the area. I apparently just missed the "pony swim" they do every year with the wild horses in southern Maryland.

The Dean of the library was there to collect me from the airport. She took me on a tour of Salisbury (corn fields, small town, city zoo and park, duck statue museum, etc). She was a riot, and I had a great time chatting with her. She and another lady who had been on maternity leave but would be my direct supervisor if I'm offered the position took me out to dinner at a riverside Market Deli. They spent a lot of time catching up about work things, but I tried to interject myself into the conversation as much as possible. And coincidentally, she knew my current boss Diana from when she had lived in the Tampa area. Very small world! These are photos of the little creek beside my hotel.

The next day was a whirlwind of interviews and meetings. First I met with the Associate Director of the library who will be retiring at the end of July. Her job duties which would be falling under the Web person position include maintaining the computer hardware for the library, and general maintenance that doesn't need to go directly to the IT dept for the university. She seemed a very no nonsense kind of person but very friendly. I then met with the four person search committee of library personnel. This was the main "interview" portion of the day. The questions weren't difficult, and I felt really comfortable. I did however get asked a lot of questions about my Access/MySQL experience which is limited. I see lots of reading up on this in my future.

Then I met with the two main groups of librarian staff. First the circulation desk staff who were all super friendly and had been at the library on average 30 years each. Then I met with the reference staff, a younger group, with whom I would be working as this position does man the desk on occassion. They were all super friendly and a close knit bunch. They were excited that I was happy about working with them and doing reference. Then I met with the University Webmaster. This was more of a quiz than an interview. He walked me through every website/web app I've built and asked me how I made it. They use different coding language than what I know, but I'm sure I could pick it up. I knew we would get along great when he saw I had used his favorite template building site for the West Central Cluster's website, and he started showing me some of his freelance work. Also I told him about how I have a guy in Tampa who helps me with the more complicated PHP coding, and he said "I'd be that guy for you here." So that was cool.

Then we had lunch. It had been very hot all day, and now we were treated to a freak thunderstorm. I brought Florida weather with me! On our way out, I waited for my guide to bring the car around but knew I was still going to get drenched. A custodial staff person saw me waiting, and offered to fetch me his raincoat to keep me dry on my way to the car. Normally I wouldn't have accepted but today I did not want to get soaked and agreed. Maryland people are SO nice!

I then met with the small special collections archivists who work on a different part of campus. All-in-all, the whole campus would fit on the North Campus block of UGA, and there's a tunnel going under the street to connect the two sections. The special collections people are working on a digitization project they'd like my help with (also using Access and PHP). Then I got to tour one of the many new buildings on campus (though they all look like old, beautiful buildings), and meet the IT support staff for the faculty and continuing education dept. I learned some more interesting information about some of the other candidates who had been interviewed before me. My enthusiasm and techie leanings set me apart apparently. yay!

My last two meetings of the day included the two people who would be my bosses. One however was the Head of Public Services from the dinner the night before, so the Info Literacy Librarian filled in for her. He's their current Librarian Webmaster, and lots of advice and information to give me about the website. He also really looked like Kevin Spacey.

My final interview was back with the Dean of the library. I can't go on enough about how cool she was. She was funny and straight forward, candid with me. She told me they had extended their search for this position when I applied (a good sign!). The start date could be negotiable. She said she should be able to let me know something by this Friday (super fast!), and if it's positive, I could have a week to think it over. That's good because I will have had my DC interview by then at least. I wouldn't feel comfortable accepting it without having something to compare it to. I know that's not everyone's situation to be so lucky when job hunting, but it's what I was hoping for. Salisbury is a beautiful, rural, small town super close to the water on 3 sides, and only a 2 hr drive to Baltimore, DC, Annapolis, Philly, and more. There's lots of apartments available in the area as it's a university town. There's culture (a symphony, theatre, chorale group, history center and art gallery all on campus) and sports (soccer, lacrosse, and minor league baseball), and lots of small town festivals throughout the area year round (some called an apple scrapple which I will NOT describe to you).

The plane ride home from Maryland was a little more death defying than I would liked. My super small plane landed, and had to have their radar system changed out because it had broken. Lovely. We arrive late into Charlotte, and I RUN to the other end of the airport to catch my plane to Tampa. My feet are officially ruined, and I will be wearing flip flops for at least a week. Then my plane to Tampa decides to take off in the middle of a lightening storm. I wish I had never seen this movie. Stupid lightening-attracting gremlins on planes! Bah!

But I made it into Tampa safe and sound. As I'm waiting for the bus to take me back to economy parking, Woody Allen in a straw hat and his slew of Asian familial members show up to wait with me. Not really, but it SO could have been. There's like 20 of us waiting for this little bus when it finally arrives. Everyone pushes forward, but this Italian man jumps to the front of the line, points at me, and says "She was here first!" I'm like wow! So I get on, and then so does the Italian man. Hmm, I think he had secret motives, but oh well. I'm on my way home! So all-in-all awesome trip, and I'm really hoping to hear back good news on Friday!