My name is Amy C. Nickless. I’m new to the world of writing blogs, but I have read a few for several years. I always considered writing my own, even had ideas on what to write about, but college and graduate school never really left any time for non-academic writing. And writing was a hobby of mine throughout my K-12 education! Well, I graduated in May. Now that I have the time, I will write.
Well, you might be asking, why wait from May until August to begin this venture? Here’s why. After graduation, several things happened in quick succession. First, my lease was up and I had to move. Then, over the course of summer, I’ve helped to take care of two ill relatives and a sick dog, had a couple interviews, babysat my youngest cousin, reorganized the house, and took the opportunity to take some continuing education webinars and a two-week class. Now things have finally slowed down.
What are my intentions with this blog? I hope to write about ideas, thoughts, and ideas surrounding libraries, archives, and history. Some posts will feature just one of those topics. Others might blend them. Still others overlap, such as genealogy. I’ll also share tidbits I’ve picked up over the years to help people understand these fields and ways some skills I’ve learned can be translated to the home (for example, preserving family heirlooms and scrapbooks for the non-archivist/curator). I’ll also examine some of the modern library and archive ideas, such as information literacy, modern reference, disaster planning, etc. This blog may be on professional topics (this will not be a blog about my personal life!), but I intend for the audience to be all who are interested. Thus, it will not be overly formal (like a research paper).
So what are my qualifications to be writing on these topics? In 2010, I graduated with a B.A. in History and a minor in political science from Southeast Missouri State University. This year, I graduated with my M.A. in Library Science for the University of Missouri. My main graduate school areas of study were academic libraries and archives. I also served for two years as a graduate reference assistant at a University of Missouri’s’ Ellis Library and as a manuscript collections volunteer and intern at The State Historical Society of Missouri.
So, now it’s up to you. Do you want to follow along and learn?
Amy's Scrap Bag: A Blog About Libraries, Archives, and History 
Nice inaugural post , Amy! I look forward to seeing what else comes out of your “scrapbag!”
Thanks Cindy! I hope you do enjoy what is forthcoming! I also hope you’re still doing well!
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Hey Amy, I saw your response on another blog I read, so I followed it to check your blog. I went ahead and subscribed to your RSS feed so I could read your posts easily, but I was disappointed to find that you only offer truncated posts through your RSS feed. I’d really, really appreciate it if you changed that. I read my RSS feed on my iPhone quite often, and if I have to go to the website to finish reading the post, I can almost guarantee you I won’t do it. I just don’t have the time.
Other than that small suggestion, I think your blog is going great! Keep up the good work. 🙂
Thanks for checking my blog out!
You mentioned the RSS is truncated. That seems to be WordPress.com’s only option. I don’t know what I can do about changing it. When I searched for a solution, they all seem to be made for WordPress.org. If you have an idea on how to untruncate the posts, let me know.
Log into your dashboard. You’ll see a list of options along the left-hand side. Click on Settings. You’ll then see another sub-list of options – click on “Reading.” In roughly the middle of the page, you’ll see, “For each article in a feed, show:” and it gives two options. Choose “Full text” then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and choose to Save Changes.
HTH!
Thanks WorkingLibrarian! I must have overlooked that. I’m still new to blog settings on WordPress; I had only done a website using it before this blog.