A Wandering Eyre

Christmas here in H town was warm, about 70 degrees, but that did not stop us from drinking hot mulled wine while we opened presents. I must have been good because I got all the things on my list I really wanted. Now if only Santa could bring a winning lottery ticket and world peace, I’d be set.

Mr. Rochester and I expanded our family by one Nebolish Mastiff puppy who likes to eat, sleep, poo, and eat my toes. He is cute and received more presents than either Mr. R or myself. I know that by the time I have kids, my parents and in-laws will have completely negated my existence.

I am goofing around with Word Press and the new site, not with much success, but I am working on a learning curve. My only plan for this week, besides laying around in my pajamas and watching my puppy, is going out with some old friends from high school.

–Jane, watching Firefly… again

In true library fashion, we are open, but I think the employees outnumber the patrons by an easy 10 to 1. This reflects how I am feeling at the moment. I have aimlessly wandered the web today, read my feeds, and now I think I must actually do a bit of work before I die of boredom.

Tonight begins the Christmas revelry. Mr. Rochester and I will go to his sister’s house for the first of many evenings filled with food and drink over the next week. Mr. R will try to drown his mother’s voice by drinking too much wine and I will end up driving home. Ah, family. They make you curse genetics and life.

Tomorrow, the cutest dog in the entire world will be in my possession.

–Jane, really, if I was any more bored I might resort to just typing stuff like “Thbbbppppp!” into posts

I would totally be a ghost!

This makes me think of the maze scene from Club Dread, with less gore and inappropriate touching, of course.

–Jane, laughs

The conversation seems to be steaming ahead rather than slowing down regarding speaker’s compensation at professional library conferences. And thanks to Technorati, I found that even non-library sites are picking this up and *gasp of not surprised* making fun of our profession. Again.

Something Steven Cohen wrote (same link as above) echoed what I have been thinking recently:

“…I wind up putting in 16 hour days, sometimes more, and I deserve to get paid for it. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but it is a job. Once we can get beyond that, the whole Jenny Levine situation seems a bit clearer.”

I also love being a librarian and it is a large part of who I am and how I approach life, but this is my job. J-O-B. At the end of the day, the list of things that are really important to me does not include my library, ALA, or what I have accomplished professionally and I will not be a Job for my profession, remaining faithful when obviously ignored. I think we should be compensated for our knowledge even if it is in some small way.

–Jane, do we want to be actual professionals or are we just pretending?

I am sitting at my desk and playing with my new blog platform, Word Press. Some time soon, I will be rolling out a new URL and migrating to my own server space. Exciting!

But at the moment, I have a reference desk shift which will include the reading of Bloglines, Bitten, and very few questions as the students are all gone. Lucky bastards.

–Jane, wishes she was a student still

I am busy adding content and making changes. Your patience is appreciated.

–Jane

Michael talks about what classes library schools should be teaching their students. Things like “Social Software for Librarians and Libraries,” “The New Library Web Site,” and others left in the comments look wonderful to me. I would sign up for those classes in a heartbeat, but I will go a step farther. I think they should be required. Required.

In my graduate school, The Internet for Library Science Majors was the only technology related class offered and it was not required. We learned how to search Google and build a basic web page using CSS and HTML. I had classmates who did not know how to use email, attach files, operate in CMS (course management software), use chat, and heck I doubt some of them had ever used a computer prior to grad school. I exaggerate, but not as much as one would think.

I think that not only do we need to start offering more technology based classes but we should require students to take them. One of my largest pet peeves (I am hopping onto soapbox) is that our profession seems to be in the business of catering to the least common denominator. We tend to cater to people at the non-technical side of the scale. I am talking about library professionals, not our patrons. Our illustrious and frequently embarrassing president is a perfect example of many of our nontechu collegues and how our profession is seen by others. How many of us spend days banging our heads into the wall, praying that our supervisors will one days see the light, and realize that blogs, wikis, and other technologies could be useful. To the librarians. To the users. To everyone.

(off box)
(thinks better of it and hops back up)
If we are truly determined to have better libraries, that serve our patrons where and when they need the information they seek, we have to be tech savvy. We still have to understand the PnP version of libraries, but we must to be able to easily flow from paper to digital without blinking. (That is Pen and Paper,PnP, for those who are non D&D fans) If we want to have these skills then we need to require it of our graduates.

I think we should require it of current staff too.

–Jane, require is a big word that begets another big word, accountability

Right now, at 7:52 am Central Standard, Serenity is #1 on Amazon’s list ans Firefly is #6. WooHoo.

–Jane, needs to Get. A. Life.

The most important thing happening today? Serenity comes to DVD. There better be one of these under the tree for me or I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end somebody.

–Jane, you’ve been warned

Meredith has a very long post in which she discusses some monetary policies at ALA, including why they make speakers pay for the privilege of speaking and the huge amount of money they waste each year. She makes the point that many speakers only go to ALA to speak, not attend the conference, and we get paid little enough to be charged for speaking. We do not have to be martyrs, according to Meredith, to be good librarians. Amen! The most amazing thing she points out is this:

Go read the entire post. It is long, but just keeps getting better.

I agree and, though I think her post well reasoned, I have a few things to add. Not only do I not always feel like ALA and other professional organizations represent me, but I am required by my institution to be both part of professional organizations and to present papers and speak at conferences. I am financially supported up to about 50% per conference by my library, but if I was not part of a two income household, I would not be able to attend the two ALA conferences all committee members are required to attend. Committee membership is required by the promotional guidelines of my institution.

Along with the above, ALA is in New Orleans in June and, regardless of the assurances that there will be plenty of places for us to stay, in addition to all those relief workers, I highly doubt there will be room for everyone. I can not afford to stay in the conference hotels and I do not think I will be able to find a reasonable hotel with open rooms. This is something I am very concerned about and I have seen nothing but platitudes regarding the conference industry in New Orleans from ALA.

Mr. Rochester told me I should just tell my committee I can not afford to go unless they paid for me to attend. I laughed heartily, patted him on the head, and said, “It just does not work that way.” He is an engineer, after all, and if they are required to go to a conference, their company picks up the entire bill.

–Jane, “it’s gonna take plenty of money”