Alchemical Thoughts

I have been trying to create relevant posts on timely topics for the library's blog. It was something that the boss liked when I made one a while back on Judge Sotomayor. The idea behind stuff like this is to keep your eyes open, and then put together a small and quick list of links of information so patrons can find some good information. It sounds easy enough, but sometimes it can get a little complicated. Health care reform is back in the news, and it is certainly a very timely topic. I have been saving some clippings in preparation for a post at the library's blog, but some are a bit substantial. They are substantial in the sense that I have to go through them and evaluate them. Given a lot of other stuff I have to do at the moment, I am going to throw them here, so I can come back and get them once I review them. If anyone finds the links useful, feel free to use.

• From the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, an investigative staff report on "Underpayments to Consumers by the Health Insurance Industry" (link to the press release here. You can get the report and additional materials on that link). I think it is important for people to be aware when resources like these are released and available. They are a way to keep tabs on the government, not to mention that very often government reports like this are an excellent research tool for students and interested public. The catch is that you do have to take the time to look through the materia. Found via Docuticker. 
• Link to a nonprofit organization, Patient Privacy Rights, that claims to be "dedicated to ensuring Americans control all access to their health records." It was highlighted in the LII Newsletter recently, which is why it caught my eye. Privacy is an important concern when it comes to patients and their health records.
  
• From AARP's Policy and Research, "State Health Care Briefs for 2009." From the description, "this set of State Health Care Briefs provides a one-page overview of facts on health care data for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Information is provided about each state’s older population, the uninsured, Medicare beneficiaries including those who fall into the “doughnut hole,” hospital re-admissions among Medicare beneficiaries, the distribution of Medicaid long-term care funds, and prescription drug spending." Documents are provided in PDF format. Found via Docuticker. 
• From Pew Internet, "The Social Life of Health Information" (link to overview. You can get the summary and full report from that link). This deals with how people go online to look for health information, and how they then talk to someone about it offline.  Found via Resource Shelf.
  
• From the American Journal of Medicine, an article on "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study." Last I looked, you could get the PDF to read the article there. This is a very important topic given that most bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical catastrophe. If that is not a reason to get universal health care and reform the system, I am not sure what is. Found via Docuticker. 
• From the Congressional Research Service (via OpenCRS), a report on "Health Care Reform: An Introduction." CRS is such a great resource, but given it's lack of transparency,  you have to know how to find them with tools like OpenCRS. One of these days I would also like to write a small post for the library blog on finding CRS items. Found via Docuticker.
  
• Though this one does have citations for the facts it presents, I was not sure if I could post these "20 Disturbing Facts About U.S. Health Care that Everyone Should Know." It could work to get some discussion rolling. 
• The PCLS Senior Services Blog has a post on "Online Health and Wellness Information." It is highlighting the website Healthfinder.gov. I have actually used the Health Finder site in demos to parents of students. They have a very good Spanish component, which I found useful for my audience at the time.
  

I may add to this list, but this is clearly plenty at the moment. The bankruptcy one is something I have been wanting to write about in my own blog for a while.

The title may be a bit misleading; we may need to think about this a bit more often. But I find myself noticing these stories now because Pride Month is celebrated in June. Some of these links are things I would not mind adding to posts at the library's blog, but we do need to maintain a certain decorum over there. And since I don't quite have enough for a well-thought out piece on my main blogs, I am posting the links over here. So this is kind of like additional notes to go with some of the work I have done already on the topic.

• First, I found this essay about being gay in academia. This is definitely a must read. If you are gay and going into an academic career (read becoming a professor), there are some good points to consider. This may also be something that administrators need to read as well. Found via Inside Higher Ed. Also via Inside Higher Ed, a note on a recent study about sexual orientation and the college experience. The article is by Christopher Carpenter, and it is published in the journal Economics of Education Review (2009). Title: "Sexual Orientation and Outcomes in College." I am not linking since it is an Elsevier journal, but I am sure you can get it via your library.
  
• Pharyngula, one of my favorite irreverent blogs, has a couple of things. One, he makes a brief response to clerics who think there is such a thing as Moral DNA. He also points to the recent ridiculous advertisements against same-sex marriage by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). He has the clip over here. Why the hell some people feel a need to use religion to justify their bigotry and ignorance is beyond me. It's an issue of basic civil and human rights.
  
• And John Aravosis at AmericaBlog points to his friend David Lee ". . .On the need to stand up to religious bigots." I think this is certainly well written, and it is something I agree with. It is time we stop giving religion a free pass when it comes to bigoted and ignorant behavior. And we certainly need to stop giving a free pass to so-called "moderates" who defend their bigoted brethren, or worse, stay silent thus giving the bigots tacit approval. 
• And on the military front, it seems conservatives may be shifting to favor openly gay service members, according to Gallup. This would be in the U.S. Other nations in the world have no problem with the idea. 

This is not the first time I have made light of campuses and their donors, and some of the choices donors make when it comes to feeding their vanity. Let's be honest and call a spade a spade. Most wealthy donors are not doing it for the common good, but as a tax write-off. So, going in with our eyes open, should we be surprised when we see certain stories out there? From donors forking out bucks to name bathrooms to corporate branding on campus, getting people to be somewhat generous with educational institutions is an art and a pain. To some, it can be a necessary evil. Anyhow, the latest fuss about getting donors to name courses in order to save the classes made me wonder. Sounds like the type of thing to write an extended post, but I am lacking the time. So for now, I am just tossing some items here so I can ponder for later. But at the end of the day, let's be honest again. Is it really that far fetched to have donors name a class after them? I can see the possibilities already.

• From The New York Times, "Colleges Ask Donors to Help Meet Demand for Aid." It does not seem unreasonable to me, but giving some money so some kids can graduate is just not as glamorous as naming the new sciences building or putting in a few million bucks for some phallic bell tower or very elegant garden. You can't put a plaque on a student. Now, a tattoo, that may be an idea.
  
• And from The Wall Street Journal, it seems that there is "New Unrest on Campus as Donors Rebel." Because often charity comes with strings attached, or in cases like this, very strong chains and contracts. And donors tend to get pissy if you sell off that fancy art collection they gave four generations ago because you need to keep the electricity on. 
• And more recently, the City College of San Francisco was floating the idea of naming courses for donors in order to save those courses from extinction. Here and here are some accounts on the matter. Is it really that much a stretch to name a course or two after some donor? Jack Welsh is putting his name to an MBA program. If it works for him, why not for other classes? Maybe we need to come up with a list of candidates then hit them up for some money.
  

Just a thought or two.

Lately, I have seen a few pieces dealing with job hunting for academics. Also, I am making these notes because I have been involved in some phone interviews, this time as an interviewer, and I have seen the effects up close of not being well prepared. Those effects are not pretty. So in the interest of sharing for anyone who may find them useful, I am collecting some good links I have looked over.

• From Inside Higher Ed, Christine Kelly has two pieces. First, she writes about "Preparing for the Non-Academic Interview." This is important in this economy where you have to go where the jobs go. A doctorate gives you a lot of skills you can bring to a workplace, but you have to sell yourself. Kelly gives you some advice on how to handle some common questions you may be asked such as why you are applying for a job outside of academia. These are questions to think about ahead of time before you go to the interview. Second, looks further at "Non-Academic Interviews" telling you how to prepare for the interview once you have one. Kelly points out how the interview is a lot like acting. It is a performance. The common theme? As G.I. Joe would say, ". . .and knowledge is half the battle." Do note that some of this can apply to librarians seeking work as well if they choose to seek work outside of librarianship.
  
• You may find yourself using social networking sites to help you network. I find Facebook has been pretty good in terms of gradually building a professional network. I have tried Linked In, but I have not used it as much. I may need to review it. Just in case, here is a small article about "LinkedIn Profiles: Avoid the Six Most Common Mistakes." This is in addition to the usual advice about using privacy settings effectively and avoiding content postings that could be embarassing to you somehow. By the way, the title on that says "six," but there are only five items. Maybe the sixth mistake is make sure you know how to count. The advice is still good enough to have a look. 
• Now many doctoral graduates may end up working in a community college. Actually, that may be a good thing given that in this economy, community colleges are the fastest growing institutions of higher education due to their affordability for one. But those graduates need to keep in mind that the mission of a CC is different than the average four year school, and it is definitely worlds away from a big research university. These are teaching institutions. David Lydic, at Inside Higher Ed,  has some advice for those choosing this route. First, he tells us how about "Interviews at Community Colleges" and gives advice on how to prepare for the interview. Second, he gets down to more specifics when he tells us exactly "What You'll Be Asked." This article has very good sample questions from various CC's to candidates for jobs. If you are considering a job teaching at a CC, this is a must read. Personally, I would be willing to teach at a CC, or at least work at one of their libraries, precisely because of the teaching mission and student diversity.
  
• Carole Martin, at CEO Consultant, writes out "10 Killer Job Interview Questions and Answers." This is a more general list, but it tells you how to answer them, with even small comments about what an employer may be concerned about when asking the questions. I think this is important, being able to see things from the employer's view in terms of why they may be asking a particular question. Some of these questions are applicable to librarians seeking jobs. If the link is problematic, this site also picks up the article.
  

Update Note (6/22/09): Here are two  items on interview questions that I would add to this list. They specially tell you what to say as well as what not to say when answering interview questions. These two lists are great tools to help anyone prepare for a job interview.

• From the blog Dumb Little Man, here are "10 Answers You Should Know Before Your Job Interview."  
• And from Bhuvana Sundaramoorthy, here are "50 Common Interview Questions." 

I did this once before, and it seems to be a good way to keep track of books I may want to read as well as some of the places that have discussed those books. I am a reader who likes keeping lists of items to read, so here we go then.

• Here is a "Batman Variety Pack" from the folks at Guys Lit Wire. From their lists, I already read Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, which I liked. That book is listed on my GoodReads list. Look under the tag for graphic novels and comics once you get there. Also from the same folks, a post about the Best American Comics series. I have seen the titles, but I never gave them much thought; after all, I already read an annual series for science fiction, and I read comics as I get to them. I may go take a second look now; it could be a good way to get a sampling of what is out there in American comics.
  
• From the Literary Saloon, an announcement that El pais de la canela won the Premio Internacional Romulo Gallegos. This is a reminder for me to keep up with my Latin American reading. The blog notes that the novel is not available in English yet, but for me, that is not a problem. Spanish is just fine.
  
• From LISNews, a couple of links about Street Lit. This is not a genre that is in much demand here, but I may need to take a look at one item at least sometime to keep my "RA cred," so to speak.
  
• From Likely Stories, a post about "Webcomics and the art of avoiding work," which looks at some of the nominees for the Eisner Award in 2009.
  
• From Blogging for a Good Book, there is a suggestion to read Touch Me, I'm Sick: The 52 Creepiest Love Songs You've Ever Heard. Just for the title alone I knew I had to add it to my reading list.
  
• Seattle Dan, doing a guest posting at Jesus' General, has some current affairs suggestions under that blog's Department of Book Reports. And here is Seattle Dan's book report on Gods, Gachupines, and Gringos.
  
• And here are the Dirty Librarian's book reads for April 2009. I always like to see what this blogger has read in terms of graphic novels and manga. Here are her March 09 readings.
  
• Not books, but this is still stuff I want to get around to reading. The Eclectic Librarian offers a list of "Webcomics I think you should be reading." From the list, I already read Questionable Content, Unshelved, and Shelf Check.
  
• From Feminist SF--The Blog, some notes on items out of Fantasy Magazine, including some Latin American
  
• speculative fiction.
  

I keep clipping items about blogging and writing in my feed reader. Some of them are things I want to read later, and others are things I might want to try out. As often happens, life has a way of trumping blogging as the old saying goes. So for now, as I have done before (like here and here) I am gathering together some posts on blogging and writing that I think are must reads and not to be missed. For me, kind of like making notes in a commonplace book. Actually, when I think about it, this blog serves as sort of a commonplace book for me. Anyhow, here are the links with some notes:

• Some items from Problogger:
  
• "5 Ways to 'Systemize' Your Blogging," a guest post by Nick Thacker. Thacker mentions keeping a schedule, which is something I have found myself struggling with as of late. Not because I lack things to post about. What I find difficult is hunkering down to put the posts together, or at the least, make a schedule of ideas, then hunkering down to put them together. 
• I liked this post because once in a while we do find ourselves without Internet access. Mr. Rowse in his blog suggests then "How to Improve Your Blog When You Have No Internet Access." This happens to everyone at one point or another, so these are ideas on making the most of the time when you can't get online. 
• Rowse warns us of 21 Mistakes Bloggers Commonly Make. Right away I know I am guilty of number five: irregular posting, at least for my main blogs (it is not an issue here). Part of it goes back to my struggle with finding the time and probably need to focus more too. 
• And readers come and go. I never worried too much about how many readers my blog has. But it is reassuring to know that readers come and go, so don't be depressed about it. Learn here then "How to Lose Readers [And Not Get Depressed]"
• More on consistency and keeping a schedule: "Be Consistent and Useful: Thoughts on How Often to Publish on Your Blog."  
• This I definitely need to read and heed closely: "Develop a Plan to Boost Your Blog's Profile and Readership Online." Not so much because I want to suddenly get famous, but because there is some good advice here on planning for blogging long term as well as some very good reflective questions I would like to write out when I get the chance. 
• An assignment: "Write a 'Review' Post." You would think that as a writer and librarian I would be able to write some pretty decent book review posts. I read a lot. But taking the time to write something substantial, something you could call a review, is not something that come easily for me. Maybe this is something I can work on. I certainly review articles from the library science literature, but I would like even for those to improve on the style a bit. To supplement this, I would also read "What is the purpose of a book review? And are book reviewers writing anything useful?" by Michelle Kerns over at examiner.com.And since we are on a roll about reviews, I may as well toss this on as another bonus or supplement: CW at Ruminations reviews the book Half of a Yellow Sun. What I found useful in this post was the simple review format CW uses.
  

• From Write to Done:
  
• "The Cycle of Creativity and How to Ride It." I need to look at this one more closely.
  
• This one looks very reflective: "Are You a Spiritual Pioneer?" 
• I need to work on improving the "about" page I have now on my main blogs. Maybe this advice will help. Here are "Five Tips (and a bonus) on How to Write a Fantastic About Page." After all, the "about" page is one of the first impressions a reader gets about your blog and you. For me, since I use The Gypsy Librarian as a professional tool, I would like to improve that.
  
• A guest post by Jonathan Mead on "How to Create a Highly Viral Blog." No, I have no aspirations of infecting anyone. Having said that, there are some basics here for writers that are very good.
  
• From Anecdote:
  
• A white paper on "How to be memorable and inspire action at work by telling stories." This is for more than just blogging and writing, but since I often use my blogging as a way to tell stories, I think it belongs on this list. And at times, my blogging does lead to action at work or just professionally. 
• From Copyblogger:
  
• "Your Blog vs. The World: 7 Steps for Winning the War for Attention." The advice on knowing your audience is good advice for any writer. 
• And sooner or later someone might say something you may or not agree with. Someone might leave a comment in your blog about something you wrote. I am also thinking of a recent comment I got that I did not get back to. So, you should know "How to Handle Criticism." From the list, I liked the last one: let it go. I think that is why I did not go back to that one comment. Sometimes it is better to just let it go.
  

After the whirlwind month of April, May was a bit slow given that the spring semester came to an end. During May, we had a short week of interim before the long summer session and then Summer 1 started. However, I was still busy because, as the old saying goes, there is no rest for the wicked. This small list are some things I wanted to get done in May that I was not quite able to complete.

• A carryover from April was the LG slide regarding the No Food policy in the library. How the heck I managed to miss that I am not sure. But I hope I should be able to get it done this month. Also in the carryover from April, the signage for the reference area.
  
• I missed making blog posts over at The Patriot Spot with reference book of the week items related to Asian/Pacific Heritage Month and Older American Month. In this case, I did not forget, and I did not miss this intentionally. The reality was a lot more frustrating. We did not have a single item in our reference holdings related to either topic, not even in a vaguely tangential way. If I have any money left over from the very small allowance I was given for collection development, I may have to see about ordering something related to these areas. I have to admit it felt embarrassing for me, and yet, give our very out of date collection, I am not surprised. And no, by now I make no bones about it, and I don't think my boss would dare to disagree. We have some issues when it comes to our book collection being out of date in various areas. Anyhow, hopefully by next May, I will have some materials. 

On a positive, I did get a good number of things done in the month of May, including the weeding of the print reference collection. That topic by itself is worthy of a blog post at some point, since I did learn a thing or two while doing it. But that is another story.

The whole fiasco with Elsevier and their fake journals (and unlike the more polite people, I have no problem calling a spade a spade, and these were basically fake journals sponsored by a big pharmaceutical passing themselves off as serious journals) has been discussed in various librarian blogs. This is why I am just scraping some of my thoughts here and leaving it out of the main blog.

Here are some links for those who may be interested:

• Barbara Fister, writing for ACRLog, on "This Journal Brought to You By. . ." 
• Jessamyn West notes "in case you needed another reason to raise an eyebrow at Elsevier" at librarian.net. 
• And by the way, the Annoyed Librarian had a very nice reply to this whole mess as well. You do have to grant some of AL's points: in this case, Elsevier basically pulled a fast one.
  

The one thing I thought about when I read about the issue is that this just makes our work teaching information literacy that much more harder. As information literacy or instruction librarians, we spent a lot of time teaching our students how to evaluate resources. We spend even more time telling them to rely on "peer reviewed" publications. And now we get that we can't even trust the "peer reviewing" since it is not so much scholars doing it as some big pharma corporation. Let's consider the ethics of the matter, which is about the only thing we can really consider. I mean, we can be angry at Elsevier, but in the end, Elsevier is like any other big corporation, and they did the move that would make them money, ethics be damned. But the larger problem does go back to corporations like Elsevier who take research (often done with federal money, i.e. paid by your taxes) and repackages it and sells it to the libraries. Until those doing the research actually take some control and come up with some better ways to disseminate their information in an ethical way, the corporations will keep doing this, and we as librarians will just have to be that much more wary of information sources. And to be honest, why the heck the federal government (in the U.S. at least) not make it a requirement to make any federally funded research be published for free (put it in PubMed or something like that), since we paid the tab, is simply beyond me.It can be done; there is just a serious lack of spine to do it, but then again, that is politics for you. And let's not even start on why the U.S. government often outsources their information to vendors (can you say Lexis, for example?).

But it is also going to take the scholars to finally get a clue as well. Until academia decides to have the intestinal fortitude to come up with other ways to evaluate for tenure besides how many articles you get in an Elsevier journal (or other big corporate-owned journal), and until scholars basically stop serving on those editorial boards, and instead help create better models of distribution where the information is not held by some conglomerate more interested in the bottom line than some ethics, things will not change. Now, I am not an expert by any stretch; others from advocates for open access to repository librarians to those librarian bloggers with bigger reputations have been saying it. I am just a librarian with a thought or two and a dislike for the way things are currently done. And at the end of the day, I am the librarian in the front lines who has to teach the students how to evaluate sources, and now I have to start making another distinction: that is a real scholarly journal, and that other one is paid for by Merck (or insert your big pharma company here). This publisher seems to have some integrity, and this other one is pretty much open to the highest bidder. Because we often make a big fuss when a student plagiarizes or tries to pass other's work as their own. But when a company like Elsevier basically commits an act of academic dishonesty (or just plain dishonesty), they don't exactly get raked over the coals as they deserve. Then again, we should know better as information professionals to question the sources of information. And we should be noting and be aware that a lot of that information we depend on in academia is coming from a corporate source, the type of source not necessarily interested in things like ethics or integrity. We have to remember that their interest is the bottom line and the investors. If it so happens they provide information products academia can use so much the better. But make no mistake, they are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. This means we should be on our guard and constantly asking questions and demanding accountability. 

And those are my two cents, for what they may be worth.
  

These are some links I am finding related to Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month. Some I will use for display materials, and others I will highlight in a blog post for the library. This here is just a holding space for all the items, i.e. for reference purposes. However, if anyone finds them useful, take a look as well.

• From EDSITEment, feature on Asian-Pacific Heritage Month. This has some lesson plans for teachers and links. 
• From California State University-Sacramento Library, the Japanese American Archival Collection. I still need to look over this, but it looks like a valuable resource.
  
• Banana: A Chinese America Experience, an online exhibit. From the about page: "Together, these works examine the influences which shape the lives of Chinese American youths in the U.S. The web site and the exhibition reconstruct the apartment of the fictional Lee family, second-generation Chinese Americans presently living in New York City. The Mother came from Hong Kong to the States in the 60s as a student to escape the rigid and competitive educational system there. Living with relatives, she was cut off from her parents and culture. As a Parachute kid who (metaphorically) landed in America, her experiences differed from her son¹s, who was born in New York, an Americanized Banana--yellow on the outside and white on the inside." This exhibit is from the Tenement Museum. 
• Site of the town of Locke, California, that, according to the LII, "Website for this California delta town founded in 1915, which is "the only town in the United States built exclusively by the Chinese for the Chinese." Features brief history and photos of points of interest such as the boarding house, Chinese School, and Dai Loy Museum (a former gambling house that was closed by state authorities in the 1950s."
  
• From the UC Irvine Libraries, SEAADoc: Documenting the Southeast Asian American Experience. From the website, "is an educational resource of the Southeast Asian Archive at the UC Irvine Libraries focusing on post-1975 refugees and immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam and the communities they have developed in the United States. It contains 1,500 visual images and 4,000 pages of searchable text selected from the Archive to represent a cross section of our holdings."
  
• Site of the project Children of the Atomic Bomb, "is a research website project developed by Dr. James N. Yamazaki, UCLA professor emeritus of pediatrics, together with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center" (from the website). I have to admit that this looks very interesting, but a part of me does worry that at least one person in my community may get a little sensitive (I do live in East Texas). I may put the link with a comment in the blog post anyways.
  
• From Library and Archives Canada, an online exhibit on "The Early Chinese Canadians: 1858-1947." I have to admit that I find interesting how the Canadians, their government especially, have managed to put out some neat things for this theme. American governmental agencies mostly have the usual proclamations and basic promotional stuff, but something like this is rare. 
• This I really need to look over. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) recently released the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2008. From the looks of it, you can download the whole thing as a PDF, or you can read the tables as EXCEL files. I think there is a lot of potential for some of these UN publications in terms of reference work. Something to look into, but this I can add to my blog post/guide on Asian Pacific American resources.
  
• A small article from Reuters on "Chinese Writers Fail to Find Global Voice." These writers face censorship at home and ignorance about China abroad.
  
• Set of links from the InfoPlease website. 
• The Library of Congress's page on Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. 
• The Smithsonian's Education unit also has one. 
• Scholastic has a little something on Asian Pacific Heritage. 
• The Air Force has a set of posters. I did print out a couple for use on a display.
  
• U.S. Census Facts for Features for the month. '
• The White House Proclamation for Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, 2009. This was not as easy to find. For all the positive raves Obama's Administration gets about being online, transparent, and all 2.0, finding things like this on his White House site is not easy, and there is no "printer friendly" option to print out the document. 
• Read Write Think has some things for teachers. 
• Peace Corps had a press release for the occassion. I thought it was kind of cool, as they recognize some of their volunteers.
  
• The American Consulate in China has some links, mostly to things like LOC. It is interesting to see what they choose to highlight for people overseas to see. 
• From a health point of view, MedlinePlus has a lot of stuff on Asian American health. I think I can use a few of these for display. 
• From the CDC Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, more information on Asian American health. 
• The National Park Service does have some good information on Asian American topics in National Parks for travel, sites, so on. 
• Information on Asian American Heritage from IMDiversity. This I have to look at a bit more closely.
  
• The Official Declaration of Asian Heritage Month in Canada. A nice image, but no way to get the image in better quality (they do offer the text). 
  
• Resource: The Center for Asian American Media.
  

Update note (5/11/09): Some additional links:

• The Asian American Studies Center at UCLA.
• "Asian American Literature: A Selective Bibliography" out of CSU Stanislaus. 
• "Asian American Literature: Resources for research." Has links to publishers, page done by Dr. Noelle Brada-Williams.
  

This list is going to be part of a larger post I am planning to help me reflect on the whirlwind of activity that was April 2009 for me. I am making the list here, then will link to it from my main blog to keep things short over there. For context, I am putting in a photo of my "tactical board" (or, as others may call it, the "honey do" list) for April 2009, as it looked at the end of the month. I have to say that I got the vast majority of what I listed done (and that includes stuff not on the board that the powers that be requested as well in addition):

AprilTacticalBoard