USF SLIS: East Coast Connection

There are many frustrating things about being an idealistic person working in a library. Libraries have the potential to represent everything that is good about human nature, but oftentimes we are put face to face with human ugliness. The amount of hostility in libraries is troubling. I see it on all levels; patron to staff, staff to supervisors, librarians to administrators, staff to patrons, supervisors to staff... I would like to write an upbeat message about how we can use this ugliness to become stronger, or if we hold our heads high, and act honerably the ugliness will not affect us, but I won't, because I don't believe it. When confronted with this ugliness, I feel appropriately depressed, and it affects my ability to do my job. This ugliness is here to stay. I would cite examples, but what's the point? You already know them.

Actually, I can't help myself. I am baffled that in the same day I can get one patron telling me that she comes to this library, because she knows I will help her better than the librarians at any other library, and later that same day have a patron walk off in disgust, and tell my supervisor that I obviously don't like my job, and I should be fired. I can't fix this ugliness, and I refuse to allow myself to callous over, so I can't feel the hurt that comes along with being accosted verbally. 

I really enjoy helping people and seeing them smile. I really dislike being insulted. Both things are going to continue to happen. What's the lesson?

I understand the importance of regular weeding, and collection analysis, but I'm irritated by the flippancy that often accompanies it. I don't know if we can learn anything in school that is going to make us experts at collection maintenance, but I'm looking forward to finding out when I take Collection Development for my last core course. There are just so many different things to consider, and potential philosophies have. Weeding forces us (or it damn well better) to consider some of the deepest, most important questions involved in librarianship; What makes a good collection? What are the goals of my collection? Is popularity more important than substance? Who gets to judge what is substantial. Because these questions are so challenging, and potentially unanswerable it is easy to resort to circulation reports as the sole means of evaluating a collection. But circulation reports only tell a story, not the whole story. I don't have the answers, but I know that if you don't feel appropriately guilty when you throw works by Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Hemingway, Tolkien, etc, etc. in the garbage than you need to change your career.

All around us we here talk about libraries repackaging themselves for the 21st century, and redifining the role of libraries in community life. If that's the case than I think we need to get serious about the skills we need to develop to best serve our patrons.

Every library I've been to since I was 13 has MS Office on it's public computers. While most of us know more or less how to use it, it's getting more and more complicated. Sometimes it's so complicated that the easiest tasks are the hardest, becasue of auto formatting. All kids coming into the library need to use it, and many adults come in to use it for various reasons, including resumes.

Why haven't we made it a top priority that all library students, and library staff members are experts in the MS Office Suite? It would make such a good impression on people who need help using it. If we want to stay relevant we need to develop our skills where they are needed. I guess I am learning a lot in school, but oftentimes it's not that directly related to the day to day tasks I do on the job, and the workplace isn't much better for training. Maybe both assume that everyone should already be experts in Word and other Office programs, but I know I'm not, and I'm no techno-phobe late comer.

I'm taking a different tone here than I usually take. I usually say that we can't count on school and work to develop the skills we need. We need to have a keen eye, and develop them on our own. Honestly, that's still the case. I need to make more of an effort to become an expert in commonly used software aps, but it sure would be nice if those who were making the rules recognized what the patrons need, and how the staff can be best trained to fulfill those needs.

After a nice lazy labor day weekend classes are about to get rolling full swing. It's about to be my second year in the program, and there is a lot I would like to learn this year. Last year I felt like I learned so much, but at the same time, I didn't learn enough. I really want to become an expert at my profession, but I'm not sure my classes are going to teach me what I want to know. 

 How to best communicate with tech services Like most librarians, what goes on in the "computer room" is a total mystery to me. I would love a class that allows me to see inside their world, so I know how to speak their language, so I know what I should ask them to do, and what I can do myself. 

 How to best find information on the internet In many ways the internet has become the great equalizer, but as the internet grows, finding information can become more complicated. If there is something on the internet to be found, I want to be able to find it. I think this is a great way for librarians to remain relevant despite having the internet as a great equalizer. We need to have the skills to masterfully navigate that landscape.

 To become a wizard at finding information within the library The internet certainly isn't the only place that has information. Oftentimes the best information is hidden away in the stacks, but sometimes it can be hard to retrieved, because unlike the internet the full-text of items in the stacks have not been indexed, so we have to rely on short summaries (if we're lucky), and LCSH. I want to develop skills that will never allow useful information to go unused.

 To learn how to best create change from inside the library I want to know how I can work the library bureaucracy to implement to programs and policies. Where's the best place to start? What can be done? What can't? For example, the MDPLS is terrible about recycling. If I want to start a recycling program, what is the best way to go about doing it?

Learn how to best deal with software and web app questions Many librarians are noticing questions that deal with how to operate software, or how to use web based applications. In many ways I welcome these questions, because I am a new generation of librarian, and I am comfortable doing it, but at the same time it can be hard to try to teach someone how to do something you don't necessarily know how to do yourself. Even MS Word questions. I've been using MS Word for over ten years now, but it seems like it gets more complicated every year. How can I become a master of every application our patrons want to use, but don't know how? 

Develop some interior design and floor plan skills I think libraries are in a desperate need to adapt their internal spaces to the changing information environment. We need to recognize the multi-use nature of the libraries, and organize them in a way that allows people to use the library to best suit their needs without encroaching upon the needs of others. 

To develop a keen eye for future library trends I think it's important to know which direction the library is heading, so I can constantly develop skills that will be needed down the road. More important than knowing future trends, I want to know how I can affect future trends. 

I may or may not learn these things, but I will continue to play the card I was dealt; continue to learn both in the classroom and on the job.  

About a month ago I was eagerly anticipating the six weeks I would have off for summer vacation. After three semesters of school, all the while working full-time; I was ready for a break. My goal was to make up for lost time reading. It is alarming to me how many in the profession don't seem to read, or take any interest in cultural happenings. It seems like there are two types of librarians; Those that have a genuine interest in the media their profession deals with, and those who became librarians, because they didn't have anything else to do. Sometimes I feel as if the latter outnumber the former, or maybe the former become the latter. Regardless, I plan to remain entrenched in the camp of the former. I became a librarian because I love literature, film, music, high culture, low culture, and pop culture. Oh yea, and because I didn't have anything better to do. 

I consider myself a pop culture librarian. I enjoy being able to talk to patrons and co-workers about books, music, and movies, from the past and present. I am always trying to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Before my summer vacation the most glaring gap was my complete ignorance of graphic novels. My mission was to read as many of the classic graphic novels that I could. Because of my limited time frame, I focused on the most well known; Ghost World, Black Hole, From Hell, The Dark Knight Returns, Blankets, 100 Bullets, Fell, and probably a couple more.  Of course I liked some quite a bit, and others not so much, but more than anything I just enjoyed immersing myself in the stories, and pondering what they say about life, current society, and myself.

We are certainly past the point of debate in which we argue whether or not graphic novels belong in the library. That battle has been won, but one battle continues. Each of us have a responsibility to sample the fruits that we are offering the public. We will never read all the books or watch all the movies, but if you are not at all interested in exploring the library's holdings please find another job before it is too late.

Basic Information Sources/Services (6603) is a core class. It's a pre-requisite for many, so it should be one of the first classes taken. Brenenson is actually an FIU librarian, rather than full-time USF faculty, so the classes took place at the Green Library on FIU's campus. This is one of those unfortunate classes that must be taken at least partially in person, because there is no online fully online alternative. I have to admit to being disappointed upon completing this class. I was hoping that it would be an important step on my way to becoming an information wizard, but I don't necessarily feel any more adapt at finding information. I felt that we spent a lot of time focusing on information finding techniques that any undergraduate should know like Boolean logic, and not enough time figuring out how to handle certain types of questions. For example, every week we had an assignment, and the basic premise of the assignment was good. She would give us some sample questions, and we had to look them up, and explain the process. The problem was that I would spend about 30 minutes finding the information, developing the skills I need to become a librarian, and about 6 hours trying to figure out how to explain how I found the information in a way that she would find acceptable, as well as trying to figure out what source she was using to criticize my APA format which was never good enough despite the fact that I was using the APA guide. I recognize the importance of citing my sources, but I think in terms of skills that librarians need, finding information outranks knowing all of the ins and outs of formatting styles. How much energy should I spend trying to figure out if the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedia or a multi-volume reference work, which are of course cited differently. I think the class is off balance, because it places importance on the wrong skills.

Not that any of this matters. In this program we pretty much need to take the classes when we can get them, and I wouldn't recommend avoiding this class anyway, because I don't know if there is a better alternative. It's just that I really want to learn to become an expert at finding information, and I feel as if this class only mildly improved my information finding skills.

School serves many purposes. Arguably the most important of which is to develop the skills needed to be able to perform well on the job, but i think school has a more subtle, and possibly equally important role to play. School is an opportunity for us to develop our ideals and ideas. It forces us into a mindset where we must think about the meaning of our profession, and our potential role in it. For better or worse, I spend a lot of time daydreaming about the library I would like to work in. I like to think about how it would look, how it would function, and what role it would play in the community. The problem is that the library I see didn't exist in the past, doesn't exist now, and won't exist in the future. Sure, aspects of my fantasy library have, do, and will exist, but my utopic vision will never come to fruition. Furthermore, I don't have any desire to fight to make it happen, because it can't. I could use all my intelligence, and all my effort, and the end product will never look like the library that lives in my head. I am both saddened and liberated by this line of thinking. Like the way I feel after reading Kafka or Dostoyevsky. I know this to be true, but the dream refuses to die. Whether I want to or not, every day that perfect library is going to formulate in my head, and every day, I will be jarred back into reality by the screaming ringtone of a cell phone; Left to fantasize about the library that could be.

I have to admit to being what the annoyed librarian pejoratively calls a twopointopian. I believe that the library is in the midst of an exciting, transitional period. In large part due to new technologies, the library is being redefined as a space, and as a concept. I love this environment of change and experimentation, and I think it is healthy and necessary, but I think it is important incorporate some of the older library traditions into this new library world.

I led my first book discussion the other day. We read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. We had a group of about a dozen people, about half of which read the book all the way through, and the rest read enough of it to know what we were talking about. Now, it might have something to do with the controversial nature of the book, but we had a lively discussion about the book, current events, the election, environmentalism, and much more. The book discussion has been a staple of libraries for some time now, and for good reason. I think it is a perfect example of how in many ways the library of the 21st C. won't be that different from the library of the 20th. It is still a place where people come to feed off the ideas of others, digest them, incorporate them into their own, and discuss the changes in their mindset that occurred from this process. I'll just be sure to record the next one, so I can upload it onto youtube.

Flock is a web browser that takes all (almost) of your 2.0 sites, and integrates them into your browser. I am just starting to play with it a little bit. I just thinking about how important something like this is. If you are anything like me, you have about 20 different 2.0 sites that you visit, and the list continues to grow. Flock helps you keep track of them, and allows you to share content within and between your 2.0 sites. It has most of the big ones, but it is missing myspace, which hurts, because I don't have a Facebook account. I expect to see it some time in the future. Another good feature is its integration with gmail, to allow you to easily send emails to people on your contact list as soon as you see something interesting without even leaving the page. What I am doing right now is posting to my blog without actually going there. I'm not sure why that is a valuable tool (or if it is), but a lot of people seem to like it, so I'm going to explore it a bit. It also allows me to easily post any of my flickr.com pictures directly to my blog (flickr actually already does this, and a bit better, I think). Now, if only I could get administer privileges on the staff computers at work...

Tags: web2.0

World Made by Hand
James Howard Kunstler

 Kunstler is the author of many books, fiction and non. He is well known for being an urban design critic, and he writes a blog entitled clusterfucknation. I'll be the first to admit that World Made by Hand is not great literature. Besides the main character, many others are not incredibly well developed, especially the women. Also, it is not exactly subtle. It comes right out and says what he wants to say. I would compare to Ishmael by Daniel Quinn; A thought provoking book about the world we live in, how we relate to it, and ideas of what may come to pass.

Despite it's literary shortcomings, I found it to be an engaging page turner. I had to read it all in one day, because everytime I tried to do something else, I couldn't get the book out of my mind. I had to see how Kunstler's vision of post oil America would unfold, but I'm getting ahead of myself. World made by hand takes place sometime in the future, maybe thirty years. There have been terrorist attacks in LA and DC, and the fallout eventually lead to an isolated America, who crippled itself through sanctions and restrictions, and has now more or less been without power for about 20 years. The land has gone back to nature, and the people of the country are forced to adjust to this new anti-futuristic future. Unlike other post-apocalyptic novels, Kuntsler's America is more like the Shire, than anything Phillip K. Dick ever thought up. Being forced to localize has created a healthier, freer society. The anarchial envirnment does cause some problems, and the townspeople miss law and order so much, that they are forced to start from scratch, and enforce some, but most people who read it, will find Kunstler's future to be an enjoyable place.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have no idea what the future will look like; Jetsons, Flintstones, in between? I enjoyed reading this, because it helped me make sense of the world I live in today. It gave me a sense of perspective, and hope for the future. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys dreaming about alternative futures, or is fascinated by the thought of modern human beings living in a world without lights