I didn't do a Thankful Things post for Thanksgiving. Probably because I was too busy being thankful that I could eat turkey, ham, and some tasty piles of vegetables mixed with various sugars and fats. Mmmmmm. Thanks, colon, for keeping it together.
Instead I submit to you this Hurray! list. As in, Hurray! The google search terms "doop lung" direct folks to my blog. Hurray lists can be done anytime and are therefore simultaneously more fun and less effective. But infinitely! More! Exciting!
HURRAY!
-- The honey packets I have been ferrying around in my pocket for weeks -- they did not burst. (Since I am generally unable to open said packets due to either my weak 'n delicate lady fingers or secret malevolence on the part of honey packet manufactures, this really should not be a surprise. But Hurray! anyway.)
-- New Story Board ep!
-- Clio got a Christmas tie and collar!
-- I got a librarian job, it'll start in January of next year. Pending the apocalypse, Hurray!
A great article from Jessamyn West on how to describe the library when writing a news story. Hint: you know how some librarians wear buns? Yeah, so does everyone else. Good start, though.
Tidbit:
2. Quit it with the wardrobe policing.
You try working nights and weekends in a landmark building with a
heating and cooling system that dates back to Carnegie times. Dressing
in wool and layers is practical and smart, as is keeping your hair out
of your face when you might have to crawl under a desk to fuss with a
computer.
I went to ALA Midwinter last weekend and had the misfortune to miss David Lankes' talks in favor of more pertinent job-related discussion groups. Luckily for me, he's all about having a web presence:
If you have time, I urge you to take a bit of it and go watch/listen to Killing Librarianship, a keynote address by David Lankes at the New England Library Association Annual Conference, Burlington, VT earlier this year. He makes a lot of great points, and he's incredibly entertaining.
"When Netflix™ announced they were going to increase their costs I rage deleted my account. Oh how I wish there was a local service like Redbox™ or Blockbuster™ that didn't charge those exorbitant fees! Well, cinephile, you can rent movies for free, and all you need to do is GO THE FUCK TO THE LIBRARY."
Jennifer over at The Stress Relief Handbook has a post up titled Low Stress Jobs: Librarian, which I found via the LISNews site. It's from January 2010, not new as I previously thought, but it's new to me. Everything on the Internet seems to get a second, or third or fourth or endless cycle of life, though, so here's my take.
I find it interesting that she compares librarianship to detection and detective(...ship. Damn). I like that a lot; it reminds me of something one of my former library coworkers used to say when she was waxing poetic about working in Interlibrary Loan. Anyway, I think that it's a good comparison, especially for reference librarians. Even catalogers may like the idea, what with the attention to detail and all, although my job usually makes me feel like a nitpicker rather than Sherlock Holmes. It's all in how you approach it - I'm bringing in my giant pipe tomorrow.
She also mentions hitting up the ALA's site for info. That's a good idea. Obviously I wouldn't stop there, though; I'd seek out library blogs and research the top i-schools' websites, faculty, and program offerings. I'd also (as she mentions) narrow down exactly what type of librarianship I'm interested in, including in which kind of library I'd like to work. Check out financial aid, check out professional development funds, check out any available funding avenue. In my case, I struck gold: I did my MS-LIS part-time while working full-time at the same university, and the employee benefits package (at that time) included 12 free grad credits per year. Break out that Holmes pipe and investigate.
"It is important to note that while working at an academic library is a relatively low stress job, the hours may not be as reasonable as at a regular public library and academic librarians may often have to work late."
Interestingly, during my tenure at academic and public libraries, I found the working-late thing to be true of both, but especially at the public library. At my public library job, the librarians were usually there till closing. And at the law library, public services staff stayed much later than the reference and tech services librarians. So I guess your mileage may vary, especially considering whatever kind of budget cuts your institution or city or county is going through.
"If you’re like me, you have fond memories of trips to the public library as a child, the excitement of discovering new books, picking out old favorites and the anticipation of waiting for that new book you’ve really been looking forward to reading to be returned!"
Yeah, I'm totally with her on that one. However, it was never my intention to become a librarian. I just wanted to read all day. We don't do that, unfortunately. I got my masters because I was working as a library technician and I A) wanted to get paid more, B) not dump all my experience, and C) because my undergrad was in creative writing and, well. That's certainly one way you can read all day. Just don't graduate.
"...and library professionals who work at specialist libraries or academic libraries may also find it advantageous to have a second masters degree in their specialty."
In the current horrendously competitive climate? Judging my own dismal professional job search? I'd definitely emphasize this. In my current area, the professional librarian jobs both at the local academic and public institutions are increasingly few and far between, and competition is unholy. I'm finding that in these tough economic times, a lot of places are unhesitating about putting libraries on the chopping block right alongside other valuable resources and services. This bit from the Prospects section (note: these are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not the author):
"Jobs for librarians outside traditional settings will grow the fastest over the decade. Nontraditional librarian jobs include working as information brokers and working for private corporations, nonprofit organizations, and consulting firms."
sounds about right, which makes me sad. But this cracked me up:
"More than 2 out of 3 librarians are aged 45 or older, which will result in many job openings over the next decade as many librarians retire."
C'mon, Labour Stats Bureau! That was a chestnut when I first started working in libraries back in Ye Olde 2003. We had some lovely ladies and gents who were hanging on damn hard, and I'd assume the economic downturn will only make this more prevalent rather than less.
Ahem. Gee, I probably should address the no-stress idea, which is what I set out to do when I opened up the post form. As I've worked for four different libraries in the last eight years, I've got some strong opinions about that.
1. Libraries are not always unstressful places to work Big surprise, I know. But no job is stress-free, and libraries certainly are no exception. They are unstressful to visit, I'll admit. Like Jennifer, I've loved all my local libraries for their resources and (variable) relaxing atmosphere. But it's relaxing because I don't have to help people with reference or argue about fines or get books out on the shelves on a deadline (via cataloging or shelving, whatever) or perform any service beyond pleasing my own interests.
When I worked as a public services clerk at a small community college library, I was responsible for (surprise) public service, computer help, and some light cataloging and processing. And I wasn't even up to the librarian level of teaching and serious, all-day reference. Not to mention the academic politics; they were particularly nasty at that school, and the unpleasantness filtered into every part of the campus, even the chilled-out library.
Bottom line? Libraries can be less stressful than other jobs, and they're probably a less stressful place to work than say, an emergency room. But I've had stressful days of public service, of tangled reference questions on a deadline, of cataloging or box-packing or supervising errant employees/student workers...I like a beer at the end of the day just as well as anyone else. Oh, and boy howdy, "quiet in the library" is becoming a thing of the past in a lot of places, academic institutions included.
2. Regardless of how awesome your library may be, your coworkers and supervisors matter Here's another old chestnut: you can have the best job in the world, but it'll be the worst if your coworkers and/or bosses suck. I've been lucky to work with a lot of great people; unfortunately I've also had the experience of working with/for some who made me dread going in to the library every day. While lots of cool, unique people are drawn to the library, no career or workplace is free of assholes.
3. Academic librarianship Specifically? I'm thinking tenure requirements. Not all academic librarian jobs are tenure-track ones, so this won't apply to every institution or librarian, but tenure requirements in addition to everyday work can run you ragged and pile on the stress. Something to think about when you're applying for jobs, I suppose. I'm not sure if there's an equatable stressor in the other library subsets. Perhaps promotion?
4. Adapting to change For some people, I think this can be a big thumb-mash on the stress button. But in light of budget and funding slashes, libraries are scrambling to justify themselves, to redefine themselves as more than a communal place for books and research and public computers without losing the draw to people who want a community space, to investigate and try out new trends without razing their budgets...wait, now I'm just devolving into [libraries + change = good]. Bah.
Actually, to me, the above sounds like fun. I guess fun can, on occasion, be stressful.
I don't mean to bash the author of the original post. I do recognize there's a reason I work in a library as opposed to an emergency room or the NYSE trading floor. But I do think that a library can be as stressful as any other workplace, and billing them as the opposite smacks - to me - of the same type of easy stereotype as, yes, you guessed it, the good old standby of the crabby fussy librarian with her bun and her glasses with a chain and her cardigan/sensible shoes/cat sweater.
Okay, maybe it's not that bad. And I totally wore three out of the six above today. Curse you, self-fulfilling stereotype!
Why, why, why does the law of first sale magically not apply to digital/electronic objects? Are the bogus restrictions of access/usage licenses* breaking libraries?
*Maybe that's the incorrect term, but that's what it seems like to me. I don't think publishers to be able to compartamentalize access/usage and purchase. GAH.
(It's a fashion blog, in case you're wondering. But it's a library/old buildings post! I do love old buildings, card catalogs, old books. I should be working in a museum, not a library.)
All right, Jesse! I love this post. I also sat up straighter at this part near the end:
The down side is that some folks think they know something important about me when they see me roll by. The walking aids colored in the outlines of my invisible illness.
I doubt that I'll ever truly experience this (despite my own anxious and sometimes paranoid readings of people around me when I'm feeling sick or attempting to reach a bathroom in time), because it seems that the general trend for UC patients is for internal solutions. Many people still get the colostomy bag, and perhaps that's the more reliable surgical solution; I don't know. But the internal J-pouch was gaining popularity when I last read about it, and with the Mayo doing tons of them, I'm sure we'll hear more good and bad about it in the future.
Anyway - my point is that the way things are going technologically, I probably won't have to deal with multitudes of people daily judging me based on a five-second glancing assessment, you know? I mean, even when my disease is out of iron control I can still hide it pretty well. Once I had a crap-accident while at work. It was a former job, shortly after I was first diagnosed, so my medications were still a bit hit-or-miss when it came to controlling my disease.
Anyway, anyway, I was out in the relatively small stacks shelving some books. I'd been having little crampy
HEY HEY YOU THINK YOU CAN IGNORE US OR SOMETHING
gut rumblings all day (my gut rumblings tend to talk like a typed telegram without the STOPs if you couldn't tell), probably due to meds and diet fluctuations and my attempts to wean myself off coffee, and all of a sudden I could tell, dude, those rumblings weren't messing around anymore. They hurt like hell. They were all
FINE YOU WANT ACTION WE'LL SHOW YOU ACTION HOW'S THIS GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
and then I squatted down to grab my stomach (to, ah, presumably make it stop hurting) and that, apparently, was exactly the WRONG position to assume in such a moment. Yes, indeed. And I'd worn my new gray pants, too.
To get back to the point of airing more of my embarrassing moments*, I was able to set down the books I carried, walk back to the desk and around behind my Internet-surfing coworker, back into the room where we kept our bags (and where I kept my extra pants), and then to the bathroom for an emergency cleanup session.
It's possible we could just chalk this one up to the distractive powers of the Internet, but my coworker did not seem to notice a thing. He/she did not say, "Hey Peppery, what smells like shit?" at any time during the rest of the evening, and did not behave any differently toward me during the rest of my time at that particular job. I had a horrible disease explosion in public, and (perhaps because of the lateness of the hour, the Internet sucking my coworker's desire for conversation, and the desertedness of the bathroom, well) no one was the wiser. Even at my wedding, when I was in and out of the bathroom every five minutes, again: no one noticed. No one's going to make snap judgments about me apart from my hair and clothing and skin color and presumed gender. (Just those tiny things, yep.) I know I write too much about passing for healthy, but. Honestly? What I'm blathering on here about, is that I feel lucky.
I try to keep track of these moments, especially when they concern the UC. They're pretty frequent, when you consider quality and availability of medical care, of drugs (no matter how much I bitch about side effects, etc.), of the people near me who listen. I am lucky.
Could it be I'm starting 2011 on a positive note? Shit. I'll have to do more navel-gazing to remedy that.
A letter to the editor in a small city newspaper (well, a small city sort of near Seattle, so I guess that's a...distinction) makes the Internet explode! This is one of my favorite things, the Internet exploding, and I mean that sincerely, because I love the righteous solidarity that bursts forth with it. Screw you, dude! You're so wrong on almost all counts (most of which are addressed in the comments, read those for a nice fruity palate cleansing) that it's gut-bustable. There's only one I feel really compelled to address due to my current job, and it's this:
You can also read most books online at college and university websites.
Who told you that nonsense? No doubt someone who knows the ins and outs of college ebook availability. It must be someone who helps catalog the college ebooks, someone who makes sure that each ebook record's link to the ebook itself has a proxy prefix, which is something that ensures only college students, staff and faculty may access the ebook (and all others) with their personal login information. Was it that person? Oh. No, wait, that's me, and I don't know you, sir. Thank god.
Pull your head out of your privilege-sparkled fairyland, go to your library, and read a library book. Maybe you could even borrow a DVD - for free! But I shouldn't get your hopes up. The DVD's probably all scratched, and the book probably has offensive words or ideas between the covers. You're better off staying home.
With this type of stuff available, it's irritating that we get in any videos without subtitles or captions. Then again, what would happen to those great $1 DVD spinners at the grocery store? I really shouldn't hold them to the high standards of accessibility; they're such an amazing benefit to cinematic society.
In other (old) news, Siskel...and Ebert...and the Movies...and the Asshole...that's Roger:
*The magazine of the American Library Association, for those of you not in the know! Obviously where you'd expect to find all your t.p. information. (We can find info on anything, okay?)
Still waiting for a suitable librarian job to open up. My criteria for suitability include the following:
1. Nearby location.
For Texas, this means less than one and a half hours away. If we lived in one of the bigger metropoli/ses, this wouldn't be an issue, but since we live close to a lot of middle-of-nowheres, I've seen mostly postings for 1.5+ hours. That's one way. Three hours on the road? I like to drive, yes. In fact, when A. and I first began seeing each other, he lived in a town four hours away. We took turns driving on the weekends, and man, that was hellish. But I think if we hadn't had a long distance relationship, we might not have stayed together. Or maybe we would have. It's hard to tell.* Anyway, it was too much driving. I could probably do it, but the salary would have to be better than what I make now to justify the increased gas costs. Judging from some of the job descriptions I've considered, that might be difficult to do.
2. Job title=librarian
Sound silly? I should probably be more open especially with the shitty economy, but I'm not going to drive three hours a day for a technician job, even if it pays more. If the title's something like "Library Manager(!)" pay and work are comparable to an MLS-required Librarian position, I'll get on that. But I've yet to see that offered in concordance with criterion number 1.
3. There is no number three.
HA. There's a serious dearth of jobs fitting 1 and 2. Everything's just too far away. I should probably just suck it up, buy a Prius and start applying to those out-of-the-way libraries. In the meantime, I spend a lot of time salivating over distant jobs I can't apply for, since A. and I will be remaining in Texas for at least another two, maybe three years. For instance, wouldn't you love to work at BLACKSTOCK COLLEGE?**
Naturally I'm a little biased since it's Minnesota. Maybe I could work up some enthusiasm for a commute.
It's leftover Halloween candy week at work. It's good to keep the benefits in mind.
*I'm curious about this. Is it possible to foist fate on yourself? Did we convince ourselves that our love was a golden destined one protected by Eddie Murphy and we would not be thwarted by distance aka demons/negativity/those darn feuding Montagues and Capulets? Um. I mean, really. I think people in serious relationships overdramatise the miracle of Their Love all the time, and A. and I certainly exchanged many overwrought loving emails and phone calls regarding the unfair nature of our separation. But we're happily married now. So. Either it's all a sham and we don't want to admit it because we like the idea of our awesome love affair too much, or we were really fated to be together. I'm gonna go with the second, because a) I like the idea of our awesome love affair too much, b) he's A.!, and c) in the words of Kyle Reese, there's no fate but what we make. So not only can A. and I claim to be fated lovers, but we can pat ourselves on the back for making it happen. YEAH! (We'll high-five later.)
**Yeah, yeah, it wasn't completely or actually based on Carleton. Classics! English! Shakespeare! Janet! Thomas! Infuriating Nicholas! The Meeb! Agh. Read it if you haven't. Read it a couple times. It gets better with every re-read.
Look at that thing! The plate volumes are held at the NEW Bibliotheca Alexandrina - another thing I didn't know existed. Really, I'm quite an ignorant lady.
I first heard about the SYMIHC podcasts from this handy little list at Yes and Yes, and it was such a nice surprise. Obviously I can also second her recommendations for This American Life and Radiolab (hey, both shows did segments on the hookworms guy, that practically requires me to get out their vote) but I'll also take this opportunity to tout The WRVO Playhouse podcast of old time radio out of Syracuse. That, along with the Old Time Radio shows at the Internet Archive and the current stuff on our local NPR station, really gives me my scratchy airwaves fix.
What are some of your favorite podcasts or radio shows?
SPECIAL CONSIDERATION: The area of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is subject to high concentrations of volcanic fumes, especially sulfur dioxide gasses and particulates. The fumes are known to be hazardous to unborn fetus, and persons with heart and respiratory problems. Long-term effects on normal healthy persons are not known. Woo!
Also, LOST is over so there won't be any annoying fans sneaking around, right? (On the downside, no Daniel Dae Kim. Wah.) Right!
