Busy Girl!

What a crazy, crazy, crazy week!  I was back at practicum for one day this week.  I met with my collaborating teacher to plan out our lesson, which is pretty much settled and scheduled.  It's a fairly simple project, but it'll give me some face time with a class.

Thursday was work, and Thursday night I helped Mike prep his kitchen floor for laying linoleum.  Thursday we mainly just pulled up the old tiles and ripped out the moulding.

Friday I actually had a day off, but ended up being super busy.  Since I didn't know when or if I would have another non-holiday weekday off before Christmas, I focused on getting Mike's big present together.  While waiting for confirmation for one step of the process, I did work emails, paid bills and typed texts (in short I archive our important conversations and my phone doesn't export :p  I think it's part of being a librarian; I can't stand to lose those "writings").  I went to a lovely dinner party and saw one of my favorite librarians.

Saturday was the really intense day.  I got out to Auburn around 1 (after coffee with another of my favorite librarians).  We got right down to work on the floor.  We patched the holes in the subfloor, pulled out the washer and dryer (which involved cleaning and removing the tiles that had been underneath them, and moved the fridge and stove.  We went and got food while waiting for the subfloor compound to harden, then came home and sanded.  I swept and swept and swept, then went over the entire floor on my hands and knees feeling for any rough spots or bumps.

The next step was creating a template of the floor.  We cut craft paper and laid it out along the edges of the room.  Good thing, because it turned out that the room was slightly off square - basically parallelogram shaped.  We carted the linoleum into the kitchen, taped down the template at the edge of the roll, and started cutting.  With such a big roll, there was no place that we could lay out the whole thing, so we had to do a little, roll up the end we had just cut, then do some more.

Unrolling the cut linoleum over the entire floor was the most frustrating part of the process, because we had to work it around cabinets, and it did not want to go.  Amazingly though, once it was down, the fit was practically perfect.  We glued one side at a time (that was all Mike, as we only bought one trowel) then used a roller to smooth out air bubbles.

Sounds easy, right?  Did I mention that the whole process took about 14 hours of work time?  19 hours total (excluding time spent running out for food and supplies).  We went to bed at 7am.

On Sunday, we had a family party to go to, but afterward our goal was to put the appliances back in.  Mike has a newer washer that had been in the garage, so we brought that upstairs on a dolly.  Not as easy as it sounds.  We had to disassemble his banister to squeeze it around the top of the stairs.  Then we had to bring the old, heavy, gross one down.  Once that was done, it was homework time for me!

The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge started on Saturday (a holiday-themed fitness competition) and I was unable to do an actual "workout" due to all of this.  But I think I'm justified in my decision to track 4 hours worth of strength training - I spent at least an hour on the stairs supporting a washer over my head, to say nothing of several hours of rolling the floor or lugging the other appliances.

I had hoped to make it to yoga tonight, since I thought it would be nice to stretch out all my aches and pains, but I got home from work and slept for about 4 hours.  I can't complain too much though.  Mike has a pretty new floor, and I have major brownie points and a sparkly new bucket.  It's fun watching the apartment improving all the time, and it's nice to have a part in it.

Today I got to attend my very first conference, the Fall meeting of the OCM BOCES School Library System. It was a really great day, and gave my overall motivation a bit of a boost. It also gave me some perspective on where I stand in my education.

Going into the day, I wished that I had my e-portfolio prepared. If I had it ready, I would have felt more confident about networking. My goal for the day was to talk to librarians and to make contact with an elementary librarian who might take me on as an intern. To that end, I created a few business cards with my basic information, just to give people something to remember me by.

I attended four sessions: Doug Johnson's keynote, a presentation on creating an e-portfolio lead by the Syracuse City School District's Ed Tech team, Anthony Rotolo's social media session, and Project Enable.

I was excited to hear (and meet!) Doug Johnson, as I discovered his writing while doing my first rapid response for 511 last year, and have followed his blog ever since. He had a lot of great points, but here's what I took away:

• The speed of change is our real challenge

• We must distinguish the act of reading from the medium of books

• Technology is moving more and more to a single device that does everything; we have to be concerned about what this means for choice, competition and freedom of information

• Young people trust their peers more than packaged marketing materials; user reviews are a kind of peer review; applies to all sorts of information

• The political leanings of parents might affect how their kids approach information

• "Doomed libraries are all alike; every successful library is successful in its own way."

• Be visible outside of the library

• Advocate for users

• DIVERSIFY; make your physical space compelling enough to draw in users

• No whining!

His speech was Lankes-esque, if more low-key.  It was great to spend some time listening to a guy who clearly understands the challenge and opportunity of this time.  We could lose libraries if we stick to what we have known and refuse to change, but if we're brave and passionate and focus on the right things, we could instead reinvent how kids in schools are educated. 

The session on e-portfolios was not what I expected, but very helpful.  I was thinking it would be more nuts and bolts on how to actually put one together, but what we got was a list of essential components and tools for developing them.  I had vaguely thought that I should have a mission statement in my portfolio, but now I know that I need my professional philosophy in there, with measurable goals, evidence of learning, and reflection. 

This session made me think hard about this blog.  I've long felt that I do want a blog to be a part of my e-portfolio, but would not have given out this one because so many of the entries over the past year have been written to express frustration, disillusionment, and exhaustion.  I have far more success than this blog conveys.  However, having read Alyssa Vincent's honest account of burnout and having felt immensely comforted by it, I think I would like to maintain this blog, weaknesses and all.  I will just strive to make more of an effort to reflect when I'm feeling positive as well. 

I also realized, when we talked about goals, that the reason my personal frustrations have crept into my professional blog is that my personal and professional goals are deeply intertwined.  Being braver, working harder and being better informed all come into play personally and professionally, and all are affected by my overall energy level and attitude.  I think that having measurable professional goals will help me to keep career stresses from feeling like my whole life is struggling.

After this session, we had a break for lunch.  I had asked Blythe Bennett for suggestions of good elementary librarians to approach, and found myself sitting next to one of them.  When we had both finished eating, I steeled myself and struck up a conversation, which ended up lasting about 20 minutes.  She was extremely cool - forward thinking and passionate, and it sounds like she has a great program.  I am hopeful that I will be able to do my second practicum with her.

I don't have a lot to say about Rotolo's session - it was a lot of fun, and gave me some context for the way technology and social media are changing the world and should be changing education.  Project Enable was eye-opening.  The presenters had us work through several simulations to force us to understand what students with disabilities are working with.  It emphasized the need for patience, and especially for librarians to be thoroughly informed about the students they are working with.  It was a valuable session, particularly given that I know very little about students with disabilities and am now much more aware of the areas in which I need to educate myself.

So, time to move forward.  I would like to retool this blog a bit to make it more attractive, and develop my e-portfolio.  I'm also debating whether to separate my personal and professional twitter presence.  Not so much because I say anything inappropriate as because I wouldn't want to follow a colleague who tweeted as much non-library stuff as I do. 

On Balance

I had a really stupid revelation today.

I frequently feel like I've used up my stores of energy, and all I want is permission to just stop, because living the rest of my life just sounds exhausting.

I've lived my life in cycles of intense motivation and total hibernation. I'm happier in the motivated periods, but they only last until I get ill and depressed, and have nothing left in the tank to heal myself.

It finally occurred to me, today, that if I exist in these cycles, it is possible for my health and energy levels to replenish themselves, but that I drive myself so far into the ground that it takes weeks/months to recover.

So...if I just make a point of taking care of myself all along...will I recharge as I go?

This seems like a really obvious, simple concept, but I've always been an all or nothing person. If I'm not working my ass off, I feel like a failure.

I'm trying something new. At this point, I'm so tired and worn down that I'm not even excited about school or my future career anymore. This is not okay. So I have no choice but to change, and I think the answer is to actually prioritize my Self. Instead of sacrificing myself to do everything I think I should, and everything everyone else thinks I should (even though it doesn't feel like enough) I need to make sure I have time for the basics: sleeping, eating real food, switching my brain off for a book or a puzzle occasionally, and exercising. This requires significantly more free time than I've had, but my hope is that once my life is more in balance, the time I do spend working will be more efficient.

I hope that this will not lower my level of achievement. But even if it does, if it allows me to be sustainably happy and to enjoy my life's work (which is the point of putting myself through this in the first place, to have work that I will love) then I will learn to be okay with it.

Doubts 'n stuff

When I arrived at SU I was the most hardcore school librarian type you could find. Even among my school media classmates I was among the most committed to actually working in a school. I wasn't cynical about it, I just wanted to do a good job. I'm well into my fourth semester of grad school and am sort of wondering how I got here.

I still think school libraries are important and may be the only hope there is for modern education, but I'm infuriated at the number of ridiculous requirements intended to boost teacher performance that in reality result in kids getting cheated out of real learning - discovery, critical thought, and freedom to pursue interests.

I also don't think there's enough time or room in the curriculum to let kids struggle. Part of really learning something inside and out is wrestling with it, and that isn't happening any more. Teachers do things for students rather than forcing them to figure it out, because there's just not time. Students ask me for help in the library, for things that they could easily figure out if they actually looked at the shelf or explored a few drop down menus on the computer. That was how I learned best. I had a task to complete, so I figured it out. Even now- I'm writing an HTML website for my practicum...I don't know HTML. I don't know a damn thing. Iwas lucky enough to have a tech savvy friend give me a crash course over about 2 hours, and I've been flying solo. I don't think students now realize that A. The answers are out there if you think about how to look and B. That they are 100% competent to figure things out on their own.

I keep looking at how things are done and imagining a different model for education. It's scary enough that I can imagine why people homeschool, although I don't think that's a great option either. It seems to me that schools are a leftover from a time when work was far more routine and required less creativity. Schools are buildings crammed with kids, staffed with authority figures charged with keeping them disciplined enough that learning is not disrupted. It's not an atmosphere that encouraged individuality, rebellion, learning for its own sake, thinking outside the box etc., yet that's what the "real world" values. Of course that's not universal, but it's becoming more and more true.

I'm sure I'll continue to ruminate on the state and future of education, but in short, I'm trying to understand whether my frustrations are an obstacle or an opportunity. Will I be hopelessly frustrated and unhappy as a school librarian, or will I attack it and bring passion to it? I remind myself that when that time comes, it will have my full attention, not the crazy 5 way split my life has been in for years.

The other wild card is that my public library job has been increasingly complex, interesting and rewarding of late. I guess it's good to know that there is a happy place for me in one or the other of these worlds.

What does technology bring to the table?

One of my pet peeves as a kid was having to do lessons with poorly integrated technology.  It seemed to me to be akin to being forced to use a certain formula to solve a math problem, even when you could get to the answer in other ways.  At the time, I didn't really grasp that gaining technology proficiency was one of the goals - all I saw was technology getting in the way of tasks that I could easily complete on my own.

Technology has come a long way, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a waste of time if used incorrectly.  I now know the value of requiring students to acquire technology skills as a part of their work, but I'm still leery of frustrating them, and of being that librarian that sticks technology into situations where it doesn't quite fit.

I had to really look at what I was doing today.  As one of my major practicum projects, I'm developing a new, self guided library orientation.  The plan was for students to use the library's Ipods to scan QR codes which would launch webpages describing challenges at different stations throughout the library.  At each station, they would either submit an answer through an HTML form, take a photo to prove they completed their task, or scan a QR code that wouldn't be given to them until they finished the challenge.

I spent the first week of my practicum writing the questions, applying standards, and brainstorming how the stations would flow from one to the next.  I wrote to other librarians who've created similar programs, and wrote to a company that licenses an Ipod app for such scavenger hunts (no reply from them, btw).  Meanwhile, my host librarian attempted to track down the Ipods, which as it turned out, very few people were keeping tabs on.

The ipods were finally located.  The wireless router was finally configured.  Today was the day I actually sat down with a device, planning to begin writing HTML and testing pages on it.  Today was the day I learned: these are scaled down educational versions of the Ipod.  That is, where the camera should be, there is a piece of plastic.  No camera.  No QR reader.  Fudge.

Yeah.  Back to the drawing board.  My host librarian suggested (with a bit of well deserved bitterness; she is not happy with the functionality of these devices) that maybe instead of the Ipods, we could use the library's laptops, which do have webcams.  A little searching revealed that although it's a little unusual, some dude had indeed developed a QR reader for laptops.  Awesome.  Let's download it and test it!

Nope.  Turns out you need an administrative login to do that!  I typed up a description of exactly what we need to do, and my host librarian sent it off to the person she says is most likely to help.  So I was left considering what this tour would have to look like in order to work on either device.  On the Ipods, it would have to be entirely link based, with task completion assessed by a multiple choice question or form submission.  On the laptops, we could stick with our original ideas.  However, the excitement of the project dropped a notch as I pictured students lugging laptops around instead of the newer, sexier devices they would prefer to use.

I started wondering: what are we accomplishing that the old paper-based library orientation didn't?  I really had to think about it.  Thankfully, the more I think about it, the more I am realizing the potential benefits of using the laptops.  Instead of text prompts for all the challenges, I can use embedded video.  It will probably be easier to write the HTML or modify a template.  Students can actually complete the challenges that require them to use the OPAC and databases on their own computers.  Okay.  So if I do a good job, the technology is serving a purpose.

I will admit that today was a frustrating day.  The project is basically at a standstill, as anything I do for one device will be a wasted effort if we end up going with the other.  These are the nuances they don't teach you in library school...

What I've learned

It's funny to think about how quickly the past 4 years have gone by.  I've experienced a lot, but it doesn't really feel like it until I hit on something in a class or at work and realize that I understand it because of those experiences.  What brings this to mind is the fact that I'm sitting here reading a powerpoint about controlled vocabularies, and it talks about the fact that although they can be great for more effective and organized searching, they need supervision and can be slow to be updated.  My brain flashed back to my very first internship, where I spent a day with a technical services librarian, who showed me the thousands of printed pages of changes to LoC subject headings that she had to go through and update in the school's local catalog - manually.  Many of them were tweaks to make terms more specific, or more technically correct, and some occurred because terms acquired new social connotations (for example phasing out outdated means of referring to various ethnicities).

Having seen this process in action (albeit very slow action) and having talked about the ways in which Dewey is based around the ideas and values of the time in which it was created, I wonder if Dewey has ever undergone such revision?  Presumably subjects such as computing have been added in, but under what original topic?  I realize I'm mixing apples and oranges a bit, but I'm just realizing that I don't really know the answer, and I'm super curious to know more about how Dewey has evolved.

And isn't it just the way that I'm writing the rare blog post tonight, when I really should be doing my project?

:)

Tomorrow I start my internship at the high school where I graduated. I'm both excited and terrified. The school is only vaguely familiar, as it's been entirely renovated since I went there, and the majority of my teachers retired a year or two after I graduated. But it's still nice to be "keeping it in the family", as it was with my first fieldwork. Much as I hated school as a teen, I do feel an affinity for the district. I'm also excited to still be in the loop with the same group of librarians, because I've been admiring and interacting with their work for almost a year, and also because I think it's going to be valuable to see the library program as a whole across the district's schools.

I will admit to feeling wholly unprepared. I had intended to spend the summer teaching myself HTML, developing lesson plans, and researching the program we'll be using to create a library orientation for the Ipods. Instead I spent it frantically trying to keep up in my Information Policy class. That class really tipped the balance of the summer for me. I truly did accomplish a lot: I survived a July that included the work for the full-summer Information Policy class, an intensive one month youth services class with a one week, full time on campus residency, triathlon training, summer reading madness at work, and studying for a certification test. I came out of it with a 4.0 GPA, my first triathlon medal, and responsibility for several new projects at the library. Truly, I was very successful this summer, but unfortunately the intensity of that Information Policy class made it an absolutely miserable process, and left me exhausted. So regardless of how well my time was spent, I am disappointed in my level of preparedness going into my practicum.

I'm trying to be level-headed about it. I'm not great at knowing when to cut myself some slack. I know people who just secured practicum sites last week, so at least I've had the summer to mull my projects over. I think I'm just sad because I've fallen short of what I had hoped to accomplish, regardless of whether it was ever realistic.

In any case, I'm going in tomorrow with a list of objectives and an understanding of what information I need. I'm going to be cheerful, keep my eyes and ears open, and soak up as much as I can. I'm going to try to be the best I can be in the moment, and not let my feelings of failure hinder that.

Aside from these concerns, I'm happy with my fall semester. I like my Information Resources class a lot so far, and my work schedule has shifted somewhat. I have far fewer hours working on the circulation desk, and I'm making up some of those hours doing special projects, which I'm pretty excited to have been entrusted with. I'm on a project team that is re-designing our library's book sale fundraiser, which is a massive task. We're basically working from the ground up to streamline processing/retrieval, storage, volunteer assistance and sales. We have a beautiful new display that's generating excitement and grabbing patrons' attention. For me, it's a fantastic mix of grunt work (digging through donations and sorting things into different categories), supervisory experience (developing a workflow and delegating to volunteers), marketing, merchandising, and developing a database for tracking inventory. Aside from that, I'm also taking on a collection development project, evaluating my favorite collection - teen fiction.

I also have a vacation coming up. A real, actual, get out of town vacation - a trip to Richmond for a wedding. Given that I had 2 days off between the spring and summer semesters, and essentially 2 work weeks (of which I sort of crashed for 2 days) between the summer and fall semesters, I'm truly excited. I haven't taken a real vacation since Las Vegas, which was in 2009. Right now my brain is in hardcore to-do list efficiency mode, so I'm beyond looking forward to switching off for a week.

I hope everyone is having a good fall so far. I would like to blog more often, particularly throughout my practicum. Reflection is always a revealing process for me, and helps me cement what I've learned. Comments are always welcome!

I updated in June?  Really?  That recently?

Okay, well, then I guess I can feel slightly less guilty about this post.

Mike has recommended that I spend more time in reflection, primarily because my brain is wrapped in layers of "shoulds" and worries and bullshit, and half the time I don't even know my own thoughts.  By the time they become conscious they've already been filtered.  Good in the workplace, not so good in relationships and when talking to myself.

This blog isn't really the place to parse out why I've built up so many walls, but I do think that I need a space to continue thinking about this field outside of the context of classes.  I try to enjoy classes, but I end up resenting classes.  I think honest reflection might be a way to hang on to some of the passion that brought me into this career.

In a week or two.  I finished IST612, and even though it was a really good course, I didn't enjoy it much, which is a shame.  July was a packed, stressful month.  I do feel like I gained some skill in talking about literature and creating programs for a library, but I was just a ball of nerves the entire time.  Again, Mike asks me why, and I don't really know why.  That's just how it is?  He says that's not a good enough answer so...reflection.  Why do I get so attached to my tasks, and why do I feel like I'm going to die until they're finally done?  Why am I always convinced that I'm going to fail, when that has literally not ever happened?

Work is good at least.  I get stressed about that too, because I really do want to do a good job and make my coworkers happy.  Again, I have no realistic sense of whether I'm trying to do far too much or if I'm doing nothing at all.  The booksale is great because it looks pretty and I get a report at the end of every month - easy to assess.  The teen space terrifies me, because I don't feel qualified to be doing the work I'm doing on it.  I got to attend a webinar, which ended up being more useful than I initially thought.  I had to do a writeup of the content of the webinar and boil it down to key points, and although it seems ridiculous to come away from an hour and a half long webinar with 4 action items, they are things that will be useful to us. 

I have my internship lined up for the fall, and again, while I'm excited about it and I feel like it's going to be a fantastic experience, when I think about it I feel like I'm going to die.  I have to learn basic html over the next month, brainstorm lesson plans, and sketch out a library orientation scavenger hunt, among other things.  Again, excited, but terrified.

Anyway, I'm hoping to document my thoughts a little better as I go forward.  It's tough to find time (I'm also training for a triathlon, btw) but I think that in terms of getting organized, focusing my thoughts and getting realistic about how my schoolwork is not going to cause me to spontaneously drop dead, it's worth the time.

The reason I've been away from this blog so long is actually the topic that brings me back to it: burnout.

Burnout is something I've dealt with off and on since high school.  I get charged up and motivated for a goal, take on a lot of projects and responsibilities, and feel great for a while.  But over time I start to lose my joy in it, and I get tired and cynical about it. 

I had hoped that it wouldn't happen this time around, as my life is filled with people and activities that I really love and care about.  What I'm finding though, is that a sense of mission is not an antidote to burnout.  I personally love the idea of being on the go all the time, energized and engaged in as many things as possible, always pushing toward a goal.  I'm still learning how to make that attitude sustainable.

My boss approached me at work today and let me know that I was approved to participate on a committee that I had asked to become involved in.  She was concerned about whether I've taken on too much.  (Her actual words were "We want to make sure you're not going to keel over on us.")  I'm hard pressed to respond to that.  I never feel like I'm doing enough, although between school, work and regular life I'm stretched pretty thin.  I get frustrated that I can't do all the things that I would like to do, particularly because I feel like I should be capable of doing them.

I'm attempting to find a way to make all of this work.  I think the keys will be organization and efficiency.  I will freely admit to allowing myself to get bogged down by two things: obligation and emotion.  I allow my tasks to stress me out, so they become scary, and I spend too long procrastinating and too long doing prep work that probably isn't necessary. 

I'm trying out a new organizational scheme that allots me a certain amount of time each day for all the things I need to do.  This includes mundane things that usually get forgotten, like doing dishes and packing a lunch.  It also includes a finite amount of time for homework.  My hope is that if I stick to a rigid schedule, I'll actually end up doing more than if I pack in several hours in one night because overall I will avoid classwork less.  I also hope that my stress level will go down due to having everything I need to remember written out.

Librarians and other professionals: how do you recommend taking full advantage of the opportunities in your life and career, and doing your best work, while maintaining your life's balance?

611 group B

On rules for bloggers:
Warlick's article had a lot of great suggestions for how teachers and librarians can use blogs as a part of instruction.  I really liked that he talks about creating a policy that promotes positive uses of blogging rather than focusing on what is prohibited.  My feeling is that in general, school districts are so concerned with controlling what is said that anyone with an opinion will go to an anonymous forum to express themselves.  I much prefer the idea of encouraging an honest discussion: allowing teachers this forum to reflect on and share their experiences, encouraging them to be open and creative, and making it clear that as long as they are respectful and appropriate, the school will stand behind them.

On misinformation:
I think we have a responsibility as librarian bloggers to model good information practices.   Link to more information when necessary, encourage comments and discussion around your ideas, and be clear about the line between fact and opinion.  The value of blogs is rarely in the provision of factual information - it's the exchange of ideas and opinions, and getting students ready to understand and participate in it is an awesome step forward from what we all learned in school.  I really feel like we as librarians need to make a significant point of discussing credibility with students, and making sure that they can distinguish between facts and opinions.  Facts can be checked, and we can give students the tools to do that.  Opinions can be a great way to explore a topic, but it requires a very different mentality to navigate, and I think that in the past teachers and librarians skirted around it by just forbidding blogs and wikis as sources.  But they can be used responsibly, and we're getting to the point where they're not going away, and we really need to teach our students how to use them.

On self-censorship in personal blogs:
I think that what a school would consider "normal" is about the narrowest, most conservative range possible, and I just don't think it's right to treat teachers as if they've signed away their outside lives.  I know that many people disagree with me and say that it's just the cost of being a professional, but I dislike this, like all forms of censorship, because I feel like it favors a sort of bland, average-of-all-extremes which in no way represents the richness and diversity of the real world.  I'm not saying that teachers should expect to rant with impunity, that disrespect is ever cool, or that we should encourage students to access our personal blogs, but we're not robots - not everything that comes out of our mouths should have to be educational. 

Hate to say it, mini-blogosphere that is 611, but I doubt I'll be sleeping tonight, let alone reading the articles Dan posted, let alone writing a response.  I should be free around 1am Friday morning, how's that?

Doing dishes and pondering librarianship

As always, a huge issue in a career like librarianship is figuring out how to describe what you do without limiting or labeling yourself.  If you define yourself by the books, ebooks will put you out of business.  If you say you read stories to children, why can't a lower-paid clerk do that?  If you argue that you promote valuable literacy skills, what's the difference between you and a reading teacher?

I think I finally have my answer.  School librarians are the generalists in a community of subject specialists.  We know that knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, and that all disciplines influence and connect to one another.  This is what the Collaboration! hubbub is all about.  We are the interdisciplinary wizards at the center of it all, drawing connections, remixing and re-imagining knowledge, in a way that is meaningful to our school community.  No one else has the perspective and resources to make the collective knowledge of a school a living thing.

I've read that the library should be the "learning hub of the school", but I get it now that that only happens if the library and the librarian are not static.  Students and teachers don't just go there to get knowledge; they go there to swap, create and develop it.  And the librarian is the one with a hand in every piece of it.  We have the potential to forge new connections between seemingly unconnected areas, and enrich both, and that's really, really cool.

Nudity in the library

Catchy title, eh?

*The following post (and my blog in general) is my personal opinion, should not in any way be construed as an expression of or commentary on the policies and positions of my employer.*

At our library, we have monthly displays from local artists.  They have ranged from abstracts to watercolor still lifes to Chinese landscapes to portraits.  This month we have a beautiful collection of portraits by a prominent local painter and teacher.  They are absolutely gorgeous - the man is supremely talented.  Most of the paintings are straightforward head and shoulders portraits of young women.  One portrait is of a bare breasted woman.  It is not in any way sexual, nor is it the first nude that has been included in an exhibition at our library.

Today a patron took issue with that image.  He took the time out of his day to approach the desk and complain that it was inappropriate, since the library is a family place and there are children around.

The complaint was noted, with courtesy and respect toward the man's point of view, and he was given the appropriate information to allow him to express his opinion to management.

I dislike complaints of this sort for a number of reasons.  First of all, I always get the feeling that people fall back on the "think of the children" argument because something or other makes them vaguely uncomfortable and they need to bolster their bluster.  I also strongly disagree with the notion that seeing a bare breast is going to disturb or somehow sully a child.  Children breastfeed; do we flip a switch when they stop that makes them unable to comprehend that it's a body part like an elbow or a nose?  It's one thing to teach children about privacy, but we often go too far and make them feel like certain parts of them are shameful mysteries.  Further, I dislike the implication that the world should be dumbed down to a child's level.  Like it or not, this is not a child's world, and the least we can do is offer them realistic information about it.

In the end though, the fact is that everything offends someone.  My being offended by this man's indignation accomplishes nothing.  I just become fearful every time someone like this succeeds in limiting the experience of others.  No one's mind is big enough to be right about all the stuff in this world, so we've got to trust each other to build up the whole of human experience.  That means coexisting with things we're not sure about, so live and let live.

More thoughts (it was a banner day for thinking)

More news from the front of Why Censorship Is Crap:

I received an e-mail this morning from my advisor/counselor/guru at school, describing an incident she faced as the manager of a large listserv for school librarians.  She learned that a list member had been removed from the list by her school's ISP, which automatically scans incoming emails for offending terms and bounces back spam and "adult" content.  In this case, after some investigation, it was discovered that the term that was being rejected was "LGBT". 

The premise is itself somewhat ridiculous - first of all, who ever heard of an offensive/spammy email using such an innocuous term as LGBT?  Second, it's always seemed odd to me that teachers and administrators aren't trusted to monitor their own e-mail.  I've struggled to contact people within my alma mater, as even my highly professional emails from my .edu address are always flagged as spam and are sometimes even rejected. 

The consequences?  As my advisor pointed out, the people at this school have been blocked from receiving any and all resources that might have been sent out dealing with bullying, support for diverse student bodies, and resources relevant to those students (the email in question was about lists of award winning books). 

The incident serves to illustrate my longstanding belief that it is impossible to censor without blocking content of quality, whether intentionally or not.  Censorship is driven by fear - fear of the world as it is, fear of offending somebody somewhere, fear of letting people think for themselves.  It's a shame if we let a minority judgment of "appropriateness" determine access to resources.

Balancing personalization and professionalism on the web

I read two articles today which, taken together, point out some interesting inconsistencies in how we think of social media.  The first is Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, put out by the MacArthur Foundation (Yes 611 people, I was supposed to have read this last week.)  The second was Ten Simple Steps to Create and Manage Your Professional Online Identity, by Susan Markgren, published in College and Research Libraries News. 

The MacArthur findings attempted to describe the variety of ways that youth are using social networking and the internet in general, including gaming, extension of offline friendships, and pursuit of personal interests.  Much of the article focused on the ways in which an internet presence is very literally a projection of personality.  People (especially teens) interact in real ways on the web, and to be absent from that scene is to be a virtual homebody.  The findings even went so far as to state that limitations on internet use such as filtering and time limits restrict teens' ability to socialize with their peers. 

The article talks about this in a neutral, if not positive way.  The authors are pointing out that this is the way teens interact now, as well as how they develop needed skills for the future.  I found this notable, as most articles on the topic freak out over kids wasting time, losing touch with other people, doing worse in school blah blah blah. 

The second article basically suggests that to get a job, ever, you should pretty much wipe anything that isn't squeaky clean off your web presence, and remove friends who might post anything unprofessional.  The author states that it is no longer possible to keep your personal life and professional life separate, so your representation of your personal life has to be censored.  This irritates me. 

Understand that I'm coming at this from the perspective of a straight A student who doesn't party, doesn't drink, and doesn't break laws.  It's not as if there are photos of myself doing anything I'm embarrassed of.  But (as the MacArthur findings would confirm) I do see my online presence as an extension of my personality.  There are pictures of me dressed as a shark.  I tweet about dinosaurs.  I use *gasp* curse words.  And I don't feel like the fact that I am a professional means that I can't have or express a side that is sassy, or silly.

What this tells me is that eventually something is going to have to give, not just for me, but for the internet as a whole.  Up until now, it has been possible to fragment your online presence, and that's probably mostly a good thing.  But that is becoming less and less real, and the question will come down to, is the internet for life or for work? 

Teens use the web to expand and augment their social lives, and it's a great space for exploring new interests and practicing social skills with minimal parental meddling.  It's unrealistic to expect people to suddenly "become an adult" and for all intents and purposes discontinue using social networks for...social....networking...(?)

I don't know what the answer is.  I think there are competing interests, and I'll be watching to see how it shakes out.  I can't promise that I won't change my mind when it comes time for job hunting, but in general I believe that being true to yourself is the best policy.  And if my Self happens to be dressed as a shark, well, it's because sharks are awesome.  I'll fight anyone who tries to argue with that.

A conversation and a revelation

Attending SU, and working at the Fayetteville Free Library, I sometimes forget that the world I'm immersed in is many ways idealistic.  I take it for granted that having a vibrant, living library built around community and conversations rather than books is a good thing, and I assume that if such an endeavor is successful, everyone will be happy about it.  The feedback from my patrons overwhelmingly shows that the library is giving them what they want.  So I was startled when I had the following encounter this afternoon:

Patron: Can I ask you a question?
Me: Sure!
Patron: Do you ever have authors in here for book signings?
Me: Sometimes!  We even-
Patron: You should really clear all this (gestures to DVD shelving) out and do stuff like that more often instead of this video game nonsense you're promoting.
Me: Well, we try to have something for everyone.
Patron: But that defeats the whole purpose of the library!
Me: But think, if we can get teenagers in through the doors, we have a better chance of getting them interested in other things!
Patron: Well, that's true....

I'm grateful for the reality check.  Not that 21st century libraries don't blow their predecessors out of the water, but it's not right to assume that everyone defines libraries the way I do.  Moreover, it's super important for us to remember that there are those who are not only not interested in innovative library services, but who are actually threatened by their presence.  So yes, let's keep solving problems, starting new conversations and expanding the scope of libraries' missions, but always be ready to defend our choices.

At Fayetteville, we've been loud about the fact that we're "Not your grandmother's library!", but what we haven't been so explicit about (and what I hadn't realized until today needed to be said) is that, no, we aren't JUST your grandmother's library, but we are still her library, and yours, and your child's as well.

As harsh as this man's criticism seemed to me (us 21st century librarians aren't fond of being told to get back in our box where we belong), it was an honest expression of a completely valid point of view.  I'm all for being radical and innovative and expanding our reach, but in our rush to the new frontiers of libraryland, let's make sure we don't leave anyone behind.

A quick update

Spring semester is here!  Today marks the official start of classes, although I've been engaged in my fieldwork since last week.  I expect this to be my busiest semester, as I'm juggling three regular classes, 100 hours of not for credit fieldwork, regular work and a variety of other activities.

In spite of that, I'm hoping for this to be a more balanced semester.  I have a better idea this time of what I'm capable of, and how hard I'll have to work.  I can also look back on last semester and see what I did right and what mistakes I made.

On the plus side: Coming to Syracuse was a great decision.  Putting in the time to cultivate friendships with my classmates was well worth it.  I've discovered a new passion for trivia.  I love my job and don't regret taking on as many hours as I have.

On the other hand, I can see now that I was so excited by the buffet of library-related projects and information that I spread myself too thin.  I'll accomplish more if I allow myself to focus on the things that are most important to me personally.  I also let some things slip in my personal life, losing sight of interests that I consider central to who I am.  I recognize that graduate school is not life, but it will shape my life, and I don't want to give up things that matter to me.  With that in mind, I'm making a point of staying active, and I've signed up for the Iron Girl in order to have a goal.

All in all, I think I'm closer to my ideal self than I was at the beginning of summer.  I'm discovering more things that I need to work on - my fieldwork experience has shown me that my shyness is a huge problem that I need to make a point of overcoming - but it's fair to say that I am more confident and self-directed than I've been in the past.  So onward....