Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
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.
*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.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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....
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....
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