ALISE side effects

I returned home last night and arrived at work this morning in time to attend the beginning of semester faculty meeting (which librarians are 'strongly encouraged' to attend, even though we are not technically faculty) and an interesting thing happened: I felt like one of them! I always have to some extent (although there are always going to be some snobs) but this I really have to credit to spending four days at the ALISE conference visiting and getting to know library school faculty and other doctoral students. I was made to feel (at ALISE) very welcome and was treated like a peer (which I had hoped for based on my other small conference experiences but didn't quite dare expect based on some of my experiences with faculty at TAMUCC). I think that institutional and intradiscipline culture sometimes creates local norms for faculty - doctoral student interactions AND faculty - librarian interactions. There's something interesting to study!