Puzzles, or how I like a good challenge

I love most puzzles. Fifty pieces to 1000 pieces, give me a puzzle, some space, and I will happily pore over it. I have been known to puzzle in groups, speed puzzle, or puzzle solo. What I like about puzzles is that there is a solution, and when you are finished, you feel like something has been accomplished. "Ta-da! An ocean-side landscape!" "Ta-da! A montage of chocolate!"

Actual photo my friends and I group puzzling, circa 2013.

I do not like puzzles that are all one color or an "impossible" repeated pattern with tiny pieces. You have no strategy other than the shapes of the pieces. I find that frustrating, because I am left to study puzzle shapes and try one piece after another until it fits. Sometimes, to finish a night sky, or a particular same-colored chunk of puzzle, I'll have to use that strategy; I'll put each type of shape in a pile and work my way to completion. It's necessary for the good of the whole. But it's not the whole thing.

I recently accepted a promotion to puzzle over our information literacy program at my university. I need to look at the whole picture, and also all the smaller pieces and find out how they go together. I also need to assess everything to make sure I didn't just shove some misfit pieces together. What I like about this position, and why I'm excited, is that I get to promote information literacy around campus, and I get to develop that big picture. But I'm new to assessment, and while I've been teaching information literacy concepts for six years, I haven't completely immersed myself in the information literacy world. I've spent a lot of time thinking about outreach, library marketing, and social media, but I'm hoping those skills are transferable to creating and selling information literacy on campus. I created this blog to help me sift through information I'm collecting, ideas I'm formulating, and to make space for some reflection.

Having this blog will also be better than having my office turn into one of those obsessed walls covered in string that conspiracy theorists use. I've already tacked too many sheets of goals and outcomes in different colors to my office wall. I'm basically one ball of string away, and I'm no closer to figuring out how it should fit together.

Molly from Fargo (TV Series) and her conspiracy board. Excellent show and actress, btw.

So, you're welcome to watch me from the sidelines, group puzzle with me, or share some pieces, because I feel like I'm missing some.