A Wandering Eyre

A few thoughts that have been rolling around lately regarding change or rather, the lack if it.

The students are back on campus and I am reminded equally of why I became a librarian and why I occasionally get fed up with human nature. Ah, the joys of being in public service.

The fresh, new, and sometimes lost, faces of the freshman and transfer students remind me that we have to try new things. Going to college is a great unknown. A new place, a new culture, new information, and new people. Going to college is a risk. You could fail, make bad choices, make friends you will keep long past you have left campus, and be changed by knowledge in ways you never dreamed possible. Risks are something we must take to grow.

So why do libraries sometimes have difficulty taking risks? Are we afraid of failure? Change? The man who taught my Management for Libraries class in graduate school told us that in order to succeed, we must be willing to fail. I believe this is true.

I am not suggesting that libraries jump on every technology or cultural bandwagon. However, if we encounter a tool that will make our jobs easier or help our patrons, we should not hesitate in moving forward. We should not, as an institution (both micro and macro) take so long to consider implementation, that the technology has passed us by and we are the dinosaur.

So you decide to take out all the books in one of your branches and people outside of your organization harshly criticize you, at least you tried something new. Only time will tell how UT’s decision will impact their campus. It was bold. It may fail, but it may be a step in the right direction for them.

Next time you start thinking of implementing somethingnew@your library, do not let it languish in a committee for a year as you discuss the logic of it. Be decisive. Take risks. Create an RSS feed of your catalog. Bring rock bands in for the Summer Reading Program. Start a game night. Start a library blog. Hand your business card out to people you meet on the street or in bars. Above all, do not forget why you started doing this in the first place.

–Jane, delta force

Nothin’ says funny like Cap’n Tightpants. Click on the Nathan Fillion link. (thanks LK)

–Jane, jabber, jabber, jabber, I ain’t listenin’

Walking across campus today, I saw a guy with Wolverine hair, only pointier.

–Jane, he must have used a lot of hair gel

I emailed my local cinema to see when they would be selling tickets for a midnight showing of Serenity, which comes out on September 30th. I wanted to go see it before I left for San Jose on the morning of the 30th for LITA Forum. Alas, I received this reply:

No I am sorry we will not be showing a midnight show.  The movie company did not
approve for a midnight show.

Just my gorram luck.

–Jane, curses in Mandarin

Here is a cool linguistics tool that is making the rounds. It is an experiment in which they give words rankings based on how often they are used. The lower the number, the more use a word gets.

love = 384
poop = 46,548
crazy = 4,685

–Jane, draw your own conclusions

Happy birthday to the 19th Amendment!

–Jane, hooray for freedom

In lii’s feed this week there was a plethora of good African American and African resources. Shiny! Those should keep you busy for awhile.

–Jane, now only if there was a subject blog for her to put these on

Britannica adds RSS feeds. (thanks LiB)

–Jane, feeds rock

I think Meredith and I had similar childhood experiences. Because I read so much as a child, adults often did not know what do with me; they were not used to children my age asking such detailed questions. At least according to my mother, who may have been telling me that only to alleviate my apologies for being such an annoying child. As an adult, I can now easily use the word superfluous in a sentence.

For example: Yesterday after fixing a printer (for the hundredth time) and making a quip remark to the student worker, G, he said, “Man, you are smart!”” to which I replied, ““Nope, I just got a superfluous degree that made me a genius.””

–Jane, not superfluous

Instead of working myself into an early grave and skipping lunch breaks and other relaxing moments, I actually closed my door and read my feeds while I ate my sandwich and chips today. This resulted in my actually being able to find some worthy things to post today. I have noticed that other liberry bloggers are posting a bit less this week so I am assuming that many are feeling the beginning of the year crunch as I am.

I work at what is considered a large institution, though I went to A&M and almost anything seems small to me. According to our head of Access Services, on a normal busy day we can get about 5,000 people through the door. On Tuesday, we had over 9,000. That is almost a third of our student body. Awesome.

–Jane, you need an account to print out that 200 page PDF