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.
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