I am soo behind in my Blog!

So it's been awhile, my bad! I haven't had much to talk about. We've been so sporadic in class and my life has officially become consumed by all these other projects going on.

So I decided to have a rant for one of my two blogs necessary for this week (or am I at 3? I have no idea how far behind I am at the moment, I will be catching up, I swear!).

I've been looking around at different magazines because I became intrigued recently. Nothing really in-depth, just, what is there outside of books? So I've decided I have an issue with one part of the magazine industry. PARENTING MAGAZINES!

When I found out I was going to have a baby I was 26 weeks along (pretty damn far along) and I panicked. And what do I do when I panic? I do research! Well my family knows this of me, and they thought they would help me. As presents these kind hearted souls bought me every single (exaggerated) subscription to a parenting magazine that they could find. I've whittled them down to one now, mostly because I don't have time to peruse them all, but also because they make me very angry.

While I was pregnant there was American Pregnancy, American Mom, Parenting For Infants and so much more! After Meg was born (a month early!) There was Preemie Weekly (didn't even have to sign up for that one), American Baby, American Parents, Parenting, American Parenting, and Parents. Parents is my magazine of choice, but even that angers me sometimes. I don't know if they do it intentionally or not, but they do not help a chaotic, scared, anxious new mother! They in fact, insight anxiety, fear, and loathing!

For example, I just received my newest Parents magazine for December. On the cover, adorable little child with an advertisement inside (YOUR Baby could be the Next Baby on the Cover of Parents!). So now adorable little child on cover becomes.....COMPETITION! (I'm exaggerating on that, but I've met a Mother in the hospital (I was there for a week, I met a lot of knew people) who really viewed them as that. New parents are scary.).

So then you have "50 Gifts from $5-$50 (Win 'em pg. 108)." Then, the usual "Boost Your Baby's Brain Power" (let me guess, Black and White pictures and Rorschach tests or whatever the newest thing is). But then, what really gets me. "Teach Kindness: How To Raise A Caring Kid" WHAT! REALLY? So without this article we would be a world of insensitive pricks? If people really can't figure out how to raise a kid who cares, what is this world coming to? (I know, so many answers to that one).

I am not the perfect parent, far from it. Right now, my kid is crying downstairs for me because I'm up here working on homework. She's begun sitting at the bottom of the stairs and crying up for me every time I come up here. She does this for to upwards to 10 minutes. I've had to stop going downstairs pretty much altogether unless I'm going to be down there for awhile to play with her. Does that sound like the perfect parent? Negative.

But really? Is this where the printed world is going? I own this stuff! I'm harping at myself I know! It's just, how stupid do publisher's think we are? I mean, there is some really cool stuff in these magazines. Don't get me wrong, they have awesome craft ideas and everything. But, I hate when (as a consumer) I am treated like an idiot. I would much rather have more articles on fun things to do with my kids or quick meals to make that are healthier than hot dogs and chicken nuggets (cause my kids at that phase and it's killing me! I want her to eat healthy so bad! But she just spits it back out at you!).

So why am I ranting on this? You all are probably so sick of me talking about Meg, (too bad!) and I realize this. So for those of you who hung around, here is actually where I'm going.

We've been talking a lot about the future of the library & our jobs basically. Well if we continue to tell people what they should think and what they should know instead of asking them what they want, I think we are screwed. I don't know for solid concrete fact, but I feel that way.

It's like the Parents magazine, they're so desperate for articles on kids (cause you can only talk about newborn poop in so many different ways) that they are telling us how to teach our kids moral and everyday things. And people lap it up (myself included!) because we think we don't know what we're doing and we're screwed! We need Parents to be our guru! But if they were to instead, ask me or possibly other Parents what they wanted, we would tell them. I don't want to be played like a fool, I know the basics, now give me some really good tips to help me get through a regular day. Like, how to pluck your eyebrows, brush your teeth, and unplug the heat vent cause my kid just stuffed it full of toilet paper all at once! While still getting to work on time!

I don't know if this analogy is working well or not, but what I'm trying to say is: Instead of thinking "Me Future Librarian. Me Know All. You Patron. Listen To Me." We should instead be a lot more flexible than I think we are sometimes. I'm pretty sure I fall into this category too!

I feel we all have this idea of what the library should be and what it should look like. Maybe we should see what the library is like that we start working in, and kind of adapt. I know that's not innovative, and I know Dave wants us to set the world on fire. But, I'm looking at the landscape in general. Someone in 605 (Cliff?) said something along the lines of "it seems people are just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks." He said that and I was like, THANK YOU! That's exactly how I'm feeling.

No one knows where anything is going. But we all think we know where IT SHOULD be going.What's wrong with stepping back from all these changes that have happened recently and kind of watching the landscape for a little while? Seeing where some things are settling and what is still rapidly changing?

I know a lot of our fellow students are all about the technology. Huzzah for you! Me, not so much. The most technological I get is my cell phone. And I just bought that exactly 33 days ago. And I still have no idea what I'm doing with it.

They believe that the technology is our salvation and that books are going to be gone and obsolete. I may be wrong and assuming that this is how they feel, but it's the general idea I've gotten listening to people in class. We need to be innovative! We need to use all this awesome new technology out there! Our patrons are demanding this! We need to change or were going to die out and not have the library anymore and not have jobs! We need to change, yeah, but we also need to make smart decisions and not let the technology rule us. Otherwise, we're really really really going to be screwed. I don't think books have died, I think they are just evening out and something new has come around. People are still publishing books, people still go to Barnes and Nobles and peruse, people still order books online, if this was not true and Kindles were really taking over the earth, then I wouldn't be receiving in the mail "The Foot Book" & "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" in 3 days (according to the email borders.com sent me).

If we really should abandon books and move onto more technologically advanced horizons then how? Seriously, and not sarcastically, really? What's your plan? What's your strategy? You can't just take away the books and have no game plan.

Well eBooks. Well how are you getting those eBooks? Maybe if there was a clear path before me I would understand this better, but right now, I will stick by my books. I don't understand all these new things out there (I don't know about half of them) and until someone can show me exactly how making my library paperless is the right thing to do, I can't really support that. I can support evolving slowly towards that outcome if that is what is needed, but I'm not going to abandon ship because some reports say that print circulation is going to SLOWLY decline. SLOWLY being the keyword. If something is going to SLOWLY decline, it means we have time to figure out our game plan. Personally, that's what I would much rather do right now then to panic! When I panic I do research, right now, researching is telling me to cool my heels and watch for just a little while.

To maybe wrap this up, because I am rambling. I feel there is a chance that we may lose patrons because we are in a techno-centric world up at the iSchool and we are feeling that the tech is all that there is. I'm not saying it's not a cool and awesome techno-centric world that I am proud to be a part of. I'm just saying, we are privileged to have the access and the ability to play with technology that many others do not have. There is nothing wrong with asking those that we are (technically) working for what they want instead of attempting to push what we think is right at them.

It's like the Parents magazine. I will go and I will read that article about Teaching Kindness, and I will go "duh!" or "these people are crazy" and probably not even finish the article and move onto the 4 or 5 mainstay articles that I know about, and that I usually glean good information from. If we try to tell people what they should care about, they're either going to know already and go "duh!" or say "you're crazy, I don't care about that." And then we better have something to offer them. And it may just be books.

This is all my perspective, I'm not trying to say someone is wrong or right. I think we all have our specialties, but we shouldn't discount the specialties of another classmate. If this person strives to work in this type of situation, then we shouldn't shoot them down. Or if this person wants to be a "classic" librarian, we shouldn't shoot them down either. What's cool about this field is that we all fit into it somehow.

Wow, that was a long rant. I probably should have broken that up into like 2 rants and made up for lost time or something :-D.

Sintel Post (See Last Post)

So I was having issues adding commentary with the Sintel link embedded, so I'm posting twice. This is a Creative Commons movie, Sintel. IT'S AWESOME!! Had to share it with everyone!!! It's so cool!

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/24388

Here is the link if you would like to know more about the movie and Creative Commons in general. ENJOY! GO SCALES!

Sintel with subtitles [HD] OFFICIAL | FULL MOVIE (2010) 3D Blender open ...

Daveheart is Back!!

So with all the excitement going on lately I forgot to post a blog last week. So I owe one :-D

Daveheart returned to us! Yay! Even without his rah-rah save the world speech at the end of the evening, it was so nice to have him back. I am so going to miss this class when the semester ends in just a few short weeks. It's so much fun and so exciting to sit in class and listen and to (sometimes) participate. I feel really good about my life choices after Wednesday nights, then Thursdays come and I get all lost again in the mire. Reference is just so confusing to me and I don't feel like I've learned how to be a good reference librarian. There is just so much information, how could you possibly teach it all in one class? I get very frustrated by the end of Thursday nights and then I don't want to do anything for the rest of the weekend lol.

So tonight was filled with some zingers and good one-liners, which made my Twitter account explode.

But, anyways, this post is basically to say, I'M SO GLAD DAVE IS BACK!!

Reader's Advisory

So as I was reading the assignments for this week's 605 class, I realized, I could really really love Reader's Advisory. And I'm really pissed that we have like no classes available on that particular subject at SU. I've got to do more reading on the courses, but as of right now, I can't find anything that's just about Reader's Advisory.

I know it's not like a sound profession to tap into in the library field, but it's one I have a lot of interest in. It has to do with the psychology of the people coming to you and how to tap into what they're thinking about. I would LOVE that! I'm such a book eater that if  I haven't read it, and I hear about it, I go out and buy it the next day and have it finished in two days. I devour books! I LOVE when someone comes to me looking for something and I loan them a book out of my library and they enjoy it so much they go out and buy it for themselves. I just did that to most of my friends and the Sookie Stackhouse series. I was like, if you like True Blood, you have got to try the books. They're amazing! And I loaned out like every book in the series (because I own them all) and now my friends are hooked!

I loved how the chapter talked about finding the mood of the patron, because it's so true! It's why I re-read books or read multiple books at once. Sometimes you're just not in the mood for a book or you thought you were and then you just lose interest in it. A book that you thought was terrible one year, when you go back and look at it again (and maybe things in your own life have changed) it's now your favorite book in the whole world. I love it when that happens. Like the first time I read Wicked, I just couldn't get through it. There were too many familiar and unfamiliar things all wrapped up together and I was struggling in my undergrad and needed something much simpler. I would not have recommended that book in a million years to anyone. I didn't even finish it, it just sat on my shelf. Then, about two years later, I picked it back up, started over, and tried again. And I FLEW through it. I passed it around to all my friends and they're all addicted to Gregory Maguire now, they all borrowed my copies.

Reader's advisory is about mood, it's about knowledge, and it's about not giving up until you have that right book for that certain person. Man, I really wish we had Reader's Advisory classes at SU. That would sooooooo rock!

Squeaks Discovers Type!

I had to share this! Squeaks is the first GPO Comic Book for kids, (An adorable little mouse!). So I had to show everyone this because it's just so cool, and this is going into Meggie's stocking for Christmas!

http://bookstore.gpo.gov/collections/squeaks-discovers-type.jsp

This is going down as one of my favorite comic books ever and I haven't even read it yet!

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Unlucky Arithmetic: Thirteen Ways to Raise a Nonreader

I was looking through our 605 syllabus to see what was coming up and I found this article. As a parent and a person who just LOVES TO READ! this is sooo cool. I had to keep reminding my Mom and others who have read it, this is how to raise a NONREADER!

Unlucky Arithmetic: Thirteen Ways to Raise a Nonreader
By Dean Schneider and Robin Smith

1. Never read where your children can see you.
2. Put a TV or computer in every room. Don't neglect the bedrooms and kitchen.
3. Correct your child every time she mispronounces a word.
4. Schedule activities every day after school so your child will never be bored.
5. Once your child can read independently, throw out the picture books. They're for babies.
6. Don't play board games together. Too dull.
7. Give little rewards for reading. Stickers and plastic toys are nice. Money is even better.
8. Don't expect your children to enjoy reading. Kids' books are for teaching vocabulary, proper study habits, and good morals.
9. Buy only 40-watt bulbs for your lamps.
10. Under no circumstances read your child the same book over and over. She heard it once, she should remember it.
11. Never allow your child to listen to books on tape; that's cheating.
12. Make sure your kids only read books that are "challenging." Easy books are a complete waste of time. That goes double for comic books and Mad magazine.
13. Absolutely, positively no reading in bed.


Had to share this, I think I'm going to put this up on my wall or something. Got to give my mother some major credit right now. No wonder I'm such an avid reader, she never did a single thing on this list. She read in front of me, turned the TV off every night to hang out with me or we would read or my father and I would play a board or card game. My favorite book in the world is Dinotopia, which if anyone knows it, is a really intense picture book. I could go on and on. Thanks Mom for doing me right! Love you!

That's my rambling for tonight :-D

Sleeping In The Library!

So I have been in Bird Library pretty much all day today and I've got a couple observations I have to muse on:

#1) I have counted 15 different people sleeping in the library today. If that is not comfort, I don't know what is! I love that like on every floor I go there is someone catching Zzz's in like two chairs pushed together or bent over a desk and what not. My only question is, who is waking these people up to go get food or to go to class? I think one girl has been here as long as I have and she's just been sleeping. Perhaps she is just a mannequin put there to throw people off??

#2) Bird Library is seriously like the most utilized library I have ever been in. I've been up and down the floors today looking for different books and everywhere I go, I have to search for a stinking table! That was never the case in Cortland, you went above the first floor and it was open to all! It's the coolest thing, but also kind of sucks when you're looking for an outlet and THERE IS NONE TO BE FOUND! So only thing I would like from Bird right now, outlets at every desk. Or like, in the middle of the floor in areas where they have lots of desks, that would be helpful.

#3) Okay, that wasn't the only thing I want from Bird. Wouldn't it be cool, if you could like chain your laptop and backpack and cell phone and what not to the desk. That way you could go and wander the stacks and not have to worry about people taking off with your stuff! I was thinking that as I packed ALL of my stuff up to go up to the fourth floor to grab a book that was put up there especially for that reference collection, but the other books that it's usually housed with is on the second floor and that's also what I needed (hope that sentence makes sense....). I think I packed up and moved my stuff like 7 times today, not a fan!

That's it on my Bird Library ramblings....

Alphabetized Spice Rack? OMG THAT'S ME!

Actually, I have alphabetized books and DVD's, but we won't go there. My mother won't LET ME alphabetized the spice rack.

So, I throughly enjoyed Joe Janes this past week, and it was mostly due to the dynamic between Professor Lankes and him, they were (gasp!) adorable together! It was like, so cool to see two fellow comrades (comrade!) up there enjoying themselves.

But, on to what I really loved about last class. It was when Joe Janes talked about what he told people when they were like, I don't know if I'm an information person. When he talked about being the person who really liked to do the research, but just never started the paper. OMG! ME! Or the person who alphabetized there spice rack! I just started giggling softly.


One of the reason it was really funny to me, is because, at my current job, they refuse to utilize what I'm learning to there own benefit. I have offered to be there little info gatherer for different projects and what not, but nooooo..... So thing just lay around and there are days where I have absolutely nothing to do and could be helping on this project or that project. I mean, half the time, I have no clue what the things are that cross my desk. And I'm ordering or handling or (gulp!) inspecting these things. I mean, I get a sheet of paper that says order 200 PTO2403-12P01's and that's it. So I have to figure out where the drawing is, when's the last time we ordered it, how much did we buy it for, who did we buy it from, how long did it take to get there. I LOVE THAT PART OF MY JOB! I WISH THAT WAS ALL I HAD TO DO! I just find as much information as I can, ask as many people as many question as I can and go from there.

I wish they would let me help out on all the little projects that are scattered across my favorite VP of Manufacturing's desk. He has his fingers in so many different pots I would just love to be like, give me that pile I'll go find everything I can and get back to you on it and then you can make a decision. But no, instead, projects sit forever and then people ask about them and he's like, yeah, I took care of that months ago. No, man, you didn't, cause here it is! And they wonder why nothing gets done on the production floor.....hhhmmmm....


So, back to Joe Janes' awesome talk there, I swear, my work rant is done for today.

I'm sure we've all done this like a thousand times (or maybe just me) but I've been doubting my abilities and my decision to become a librarian in the past oh....week or two. I think it's been mostly the time crunch I've been under more than anything. ANYWAYS! Before I get lost on another tangent. I've been thinking I should've done something with History because I MISS IT HORRIBLY! But as I sat there last week listening to him (Joe Janes) talk, I'm like, "All in all I am an information person."

I miss the information of History, but I can easily start focusing my projects more around History to get my fix. I could research stuff for the rest of my life and be a happy person. I am so the kid who loved to find the information but hated to write the paper. And it wasn't the papers, it was simply the enjoyment of finding new information or discovering something.

I would pull all-nighters in under-grad before a paper was due, and it wasn't because I didn't have proper forethought or hadn't started working on it. The problem was, I had gotten so wrapped up in the discovering of information portion, I had forgotten to actually sit down and examine the information and write the paper.

After Joe Janes talked I felt more relaxed than I had in days (that vanished after being assigned the Rapid Response, but I digress). I have found my niche, now I just need to find that niche in the niche (ha, hope you understood that) that will make me happy. I need to find that place where I can get my fix on information, on history, on kids and helping them learn, on all that stuff. The cool thing about librarians is that we can do that, we can meet all our information needs. We can mix work and pleasure, we can have it all.

To steal one of my favorite lines ever in a movie:

Evelyn: Look, I... I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell, but I am proud of what I am.
Rick: And what is that?
Evelyn: I... am a librarian.

Evie - one of my heroes :-D


(Quote Taken From: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120616/quotes)
(Picture Borrowed From: http://smulibraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/im-celebrity-librarianget-me-out-of.html)

The eBook Blog Entry Trend

So...I was planning on building on my post from last week; but instead I'm going to talk about eBooks like I've read about from a few of my fellow classmates. I don't own an eReader, my boyfriend would like to buy me one for Christmas, but I just don't think I want one.

I love to open a book and to smell the glue and the binding and the paper. I love the feel of the pages. And really old books, if you fan the pages in front of your nose, that smell. It's amazing! (I know, it's mold, but it's good mold because of that smell, ha-ha).

This is from Amazon's web page on the Kindle:

Reading, Revolutionized

Lose Yourself in Your Reading
The most elegant feature of a physical book is that it disappears while you're reading. Immersed in the author's world and ideas, you don't notice a book's glue, the stitching, or ink. Our top design objective is to make Kindle disappear — just like a physical book — so you can get lost in your reading, not the technology.

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wireless-Reader-Wifi-Graphite/dp/B002Y27P3M/ref=amb_link_354011402_3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=0692KW5Z2C3REVG6691Q&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1276003742&pf_rd_i=507846


So, here's my problem with that statement. I do notice a book's glue, stitching and ink. That's what gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. Then I get under a blanket, find a nice hot cup of cocoa, and rest. I love to browse my bookshelves (or my five 18 gallon buckets of books, I have every book I've ever owned since I was born) looking for something that I haven't read in awhile. Running my fingers over there spines, the calligraphy of one title, the colors on this jacket, that's what initially pulls you in. I don't pull out my Kindle, load up my page, and go to it. It just loses that feel, that character. Part of a book is it's feel. Are the pages cheap or are they expensive? If I didn't have to turn a page, I don't know what I would do with myself! Are there pictures? I love a book with the flaws. Like a picture where it didn't print completely and the child's arm in the picture is fainter than the rest. LOVE IT!

The printed word (printed as on paper in ink) was this momentous moment in history, and I'm all for technological advancement, I have hard time adapting to it, but I'm all for it. But, I believe one of the saddest moments for me was when Amazon announced that they had sold more eBooks than "real" books. I was like, awww, really? That's like when the VHS tape went out of style or the cassette tape. I still have all my old VHS tapes and cassette tapes by the way and they all still work! Thank you!

So I guess, maybe I should go buy an eBook (gasp! why is technology so damn expensive is another issue that I have. Working mom and part-time college student, excuse, part-time grad student, not a lot of extra money laying around!). Maybe I shouldn't judge a book by it's cover (pun intended). But, I will always be that person browsing through the real live in your hands books. I don't care how "uncool" it is. Just like my original Nintendo or Atari, I've been playing them for years and then Wii "rediscovers" all the old games. Please, come to my house and I'll kick your butt in Duck Hunt any day.

History has a tendency to repeat itself, so I know books will have there glory again! Maybe in a hybrid fashion. I could deal with a hybrid book/eBook. But I can't deal with the extinction of the written/printed (on paper and with ink) word.

And that is my rambling for this week!

P.S. After I wrote this, I thought of something and wanted to put some screen shots in from one of my favorite TV shows.

Okay, so this is my "fear." If you don't know, this is from Futurama. I believe Season 2....I'd have to go check out my DVD collection though, and I'm feeling lazy right now. It's the episode where Fry enrolls in the University and bunks with the Professor's experiment, Gunther the talking Monkey. Anyway, they are walking on campus and they come to Wong Library (Amy Wong's parent's donated the money for the library). They walk up to this huge, beautiful building (top picture) and inside Fry sees the collection (Bottom picture). It's a hysterical moment, because it's this big huge building, but at the same time we're seeing this reality come about. Except, even this is out dated now. It won't be on CD's or DVD's that the library is housed, but on iPads and Kindles.

So, now, really, that is my rambling for the week.

This Blog Has A Disclaimer!

WARNING! This is complete conjecture and mental musings. I have no fact to back any of this up and it is based on my lone experience and observations. Feel free to argue and prove me wrong. Please don't take this as a generalization of my experience within the classroom or with my classmates. You guys rock my socks!

So as I was reading Thea's blog about coffee houses and Amanda's blog about the rudeness on the boards and I began to think, which is always a bad thing. And I was wondering, are libraries going to end up being our source of human interaction in the technological age?

Now this may be a leap from how I talked about reading the two blogs, but stay with me...

So I have issues with technology, well more like technology has issues with me. I had a very eccentric friend tell me once that I must have some fae blood in me somewhere due to my aversion to technology and the skill at which I can blow up almost any technological device I come into contact with. She said, and I quote "I've read that only the fae can do what I've seen you do to a simple mobile phone." (At the time, I was standing outside and it was raining and the phone literally started to smoke in my hands, don't know why, it just kind of "poofed," I blamed the rain, she blamed magic).

So I've always shied away from technology until recently. And the more I observe and use it the more issues I'm having with it.

One of them is that people are willing to be so much more meaner and critical to a computer screen then they would be to your face. My case in point (and what Amanda's blog got me thinking about) is our random board post that was so (I love Lankes word for it) snarky! I loved that people jumped right on top of that, and I also am glad that Lankes (hopefully) put a stop to it.

Other issues I'm having with technology (and that I have noticed in myself over the past year) is that you lose your social skills.I was a little social butterfly (and this is why I put the disclaimer up, because there are many factors that go into this, I know that, but I definitely feel that technology is one of them) up until a little over a year ago. Shortly after my daughter was born and I began preparing for grad school and what not, my life began to revolve around my computer as my contact to the outside world and all my friends both local and from my undergrad years.

Upon arriving in my first grad school class I realized, I just can't have a conversation anymore with people face to face (again, I know many other factors are involved including the fact that I'm inundated with Blues Clues and Fresh Beat Band every day and not CNN and the local news and don't have much to talk about with people).

But, and this is something that I have noticed in myself and people that I am close to who are very involved in their technological stuff, in the cyber world you can "talk over" people. You can type away and then scroll up and read what they have said, you don't have to be polite and listen, if you "talk over" someone they don't care. They'll just scroll up as well. I have caught myself being just plain rude multiple times in the last couple of weeks and I have had to put forward an effort to control that. Again, not all of it is technology's fault, but I just feel like it's helped me along my path to idleness and social akwardness. I just feel like IMing, and Skype, and Facebook and Twitter have made it easy not to listen. You don't have to listen to people if you don't want to on a computer, you just shut down the screen or click on the "X" button. It's easy to lose your listening skills.

So, I read Thea's blog. And I was like yes! She talks about owning a coffeehouse with her husband and how it will be this place where people come and have intellectual conversation and a sharing of ideas. And I'm like (I will repeat) yes! Because to me, that's what the library is going to be in the future.

As things become more centered around our computer screen or our cell phone or iPad, we need a place where we can go and have a face to face conversation with someone. We are social animals, and most of us crave human interaction. I thought that the computer was my means of a social device. It's so easy and so comfortable to use. But if we lose that face to face interaction I feel that we are losing a flowing of ideas and our ability to actually have a conversation with someone. I believe that we lose our ability to understand those nuances that come with looking someone in the face and talking. And I believe that we become desensitized when we have this impassive screen staring back at us, not telling us that we are stepping over our bounds or are being rude. 

I have more to say on this, and I'm kind of playing with these ideas. Anyone, please tell me I'm completely off the mark and losing my marbles. I'm hoping to post more next week on this,but I believe I have rambled enough. I'm trying to understand the libraries of the future and where my mark may be on those, if I even leave a mark. So excuse my ramblings if you will :-D

I HAD IT! I HAD MY "THIS IS WHAT I'M GOING TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE MOMENT #1!"

So as I've been told by a couple people now, every time we venture out into a different area of librarianship in these introductory classes we are going to want to be that type of librarian. So this past week I went and I interviewed my librarian administrator. I've just moved to the Clay area and so I decided to go to NOPL @ Cicero and meet with Lynne. She was the coolest lady ever. The NOPL was the coolest library ever.

It wasn't even the interview that got me (though that was fascinating) it was when she opted to give me a tour of the library and show me some of the things we had been talking about (making room for computers, the children's area, the new big comfy chairs, you know the usual library decor).

We were talking about the use of the end of stacks for material and suddenly a quote from our textbook popped into my head about marketing space and I just kind of blurted it out. It's literally the first time that I've retained information yet! I know that is probably sad, but it's true. Up until this point I've sat poised at my computer looking up countless words, going over every single piece of reading material we are given attempting to grab a hold of something here that will click. Walking into a library is what did it for me.

When I was there (and after I had that moment) I kind of looked around and went, AH-HA WATSON I'VE GOT IT! I have lived my life either behind a desk or in a book. As a history major at Cortland for my undergrad and then for the past two years working at MFC I've never really been hands on in something I love. Don't get me wrong I worship the ground that history walks on, but I never did anything with it. I didn't intern anywhere, I didn't do anything like that. But being in that library and talking shop (or as much shop as I could talk) with Lynne and then two other librarians she introduced me too (yes! she introduced me to the program librarian and the children librarian, by then I was giddy. I was probably rambling away at these people and they needed to get work done), I was like yes! This is it! I want to stay here! Find me a bunk in the children section! Honey I'm home!

Poor Lynne should never have opened up at that door to me. I'm going to be in that library every free minute (okay, well then I'll never be there) I've got. 

Blogging, Hives, and Access

So my first issue with this week's blog is that I don't think I like blogging. I thought I would, but I get all freaked out and don't know what to say. I'm probably over thinking this totally. I feel as if I'm in an academic setting, so I must write an essay. Since I've never written a blog before that's what I sit down to write. But when I read everyone elses blogs, that is not what they are. They are not essays. Again, totally over thinking. I know.

Secondly, I need to stop reading everyone's blogs because I break out in hives and go into a cold sweat. Everyone sounds so intelligent and well versed in the world of librarianship. I'm thinking "seriously! This is my job competition! I'm screwed!" So overall, well done all! I enjoy reading what everyone writes much more than I do writing it myself.

Finally, the real reason for my blog this week. ACCESS. I know there's been like 10 blogs about it this week, but it's a very intriguing topic. The whole concept of the ethical issues with the legal issues and the binding ALA issues. It's a topic that has dragged me under as well. I look at it from the point of view of my current job (which sucks, just in case anyone is wondering). Not everyone has access to the same documents. We deal with a lot of government jobs, so I can understand those. But for every day information, most of us peons do not have access to simple Gerber files (if you really want to know what that is, I'll explain in person, but trust me, it's not that big of a deal). I mean, I agree that we should not be able to change the original, but giving us access to a "read only" file and allowing us to copy and alter a copy. Really? What does that hurt?

And what does this have to do with libraries? Now I get to it.....
So I think of the conversation with the person asking about information on how to make a bomb. I totally agree that the person has the right to the "read only" files on that information. They have the right to copy (legally) and expand and alter on (again, legally) that "read only" file to their little hearts content. But when a person takes that information and makes the bomb that blows up the subway, then I have problems. If a person came into my library and I gave him "read only" access to files on bomb making and then he killed hundreds of people, I don't think I could handle that. Sooo....do you just deny people the right to information because you as a person couldn't deal with the repercussions? I'm not saying that either.

I believe that we as librarians have the right to know when people who are using "questionable" information are intending to do wrong. Now, I'm not saying that people need to tell us exactly what their intentions are with the information we're giving them (wait for the explanation before you judge please). And I believe that we can get to this information by continuing to help the patron. I mean, if someone is researching bomb's and how to make them, can't I offer them information on how to defuse bombs and maybe pictures on what bombs have actually done to women and children and families? If I really supply them with all the information and open their eyes to what they would be doing to someone and their family, maybe that would stop them from going out and using the "read only" files to horrible ends. I mean, that's the role we play as librarians. Making sure people have the complete picture, the complete story.

We don't have a right to censor what people want. If they want information on how to make a bomb, on suicide, on sex, we don't have a right to tell them "no, I don't think that's appropriate." I do believe that by being a good librarian, however, we can figure out whether or not people mean to do harm with the information we're giving them. And I also believe that if they are going to do harm, we need to step out of our roles as librarians and deal with the human side of the situation. If I believe one hundred percent that a person is going to make a bomb with the information I have given him and try to blow up a school, I will alert at least my manager so they can deal with the situation appropriately. If I didn't at least do that or if I was told that I couldn't at least do that, then I would have some major moral dillemas within the librarian profession.

Book Staxx - Had To Share This One

First Day Of Class....

So, I've never written a blog before, this is a completely new experience for me. I think I had way to much fun setting up my private personal settings, perhaps the point? User Systems and all that jazz at work maybe?

So what did I take away from class today? I was shocked about the Wikipedia fact. In my undergrad at Cortland (in History) I was taught by my professors never to use Wikipedia. It is a "democratic encyclopedia" and they would fail anyone that used it as a citation. So when Prof. Lankes said it was the most used citation source by Librarians I was completely floored, like mouth hanging open and everything. Surprised no one else noticed me. It's been ingrained in me that it's not a reliable source of any sort. Further knowledge that History majors are stuck in the past, ha-ha.

And I'm a hundred percent positive that the above statement is exactly what we were supposed to take out of class today. Wikipedia was the complete point of the lecture. So I will try now to be more relevant to the assignment.

What else.....

So I love the fact that 511 is like a forum class. We come in and we discuss what we want to discuss, in a way. Structured chaos I guess. I wish we could have a course of that sort every semester.If I'm correct in my thinking, one of the points of this course is if I didn't think of a question while in class, which I never do, I could have the option of asking it in a relevant atmosphere.  Which is awesome! And it would be open to discussion to basically the same group of people that would be in the other class with me anyways.

I also enjoyed the fact that we looked at Libraries through the ages today. I know so many people that think that the Librarian profession was created by Benjamin Franklin. DRIVES ME CRAZY! I mean come on! Illuminated texts! Alexandria! "The Book of the Dead!" Again, History major! I can go on for hours.

I do have to say, that up until just a couple weeks ago, I was one of those people who thought books=libraries. But the more reading I've done and the more I've attempted to understand the giant leap I've just taken, I've realized exactly what I have not been getting out of my school libraries, ha-ha. I never realized that librarians were there for that! Help me with my research! I'm sorry, but I've never had a librarian come up and offer to help me with my research, and if they did, I did not realize that's what they were trying to convey to me.

I'm such a book person. I don't have a kindle and I don't know if I want one. I love opening a book, smelling a book, handling books. When I see or get to handle a big old ancient book I get that chill down my back when I think of other people who have touched and used this book as well. I interact with my books in ways that people can't interact with a computer screen. I write in them, highlight them to death, buy a second one so I have a fresh copy sitting around, thumb the pages and smell that sweet booky smell. If the world around me got rid of books entirely I would not be a very happy individual.

Um....I'm not sure what else to write, as soon as I set this in stone I'll think of this brilliant thing to write and I'll just have to comment on my own blog. Hope that this was a "typical" blog and that I'm not missing anything here.