Saturday, August 6, 2016
Ms. Jean remains as mysterious and elusive as her obsession, Ms. Amelia Earhart. The parallels between the two are striking. In fact, so much so that there is speculation that Ms. Jean is in fact a direct descendant of Ms. Earhart, who has been alive and hidden all this time, most recently in the hidden moon creator named for her in 2015.
Is Ms. Jean in contact with her famous relative, or are her actions a way of trying to connect, physically or psychically? Of significance to researches are two objects: goggles and freckle cream. Mr Travis McGee, historian: "Ms. Jean attended an auction of Ms. Earhart's goggles, and has been frequently buying freckle cream, although she has no freckles. As everyone knows, Ms. Earhart's jar of Dr. Berry's Freckle Ointment that she was carrying on her doomed flight was recovered near Kiribati. We have been trying to link the objects to the two women, and have come up with nothing." Dr.
Not everyone agrees with the biological connection theory. Cinderella Smith of UCLA's geographic imaging program points to Ms. Jean's birthplace as the possible connection. "If you look at the Wikipedia entry for Khor Angar, Ms. Jean's birthplace, you'll see that it has an airstrip. AN AIRSTRIP! What does that mean?"
Monday, August 27, 2012
"The War on Books"
An old friend from highschool recently signed me up for a Facebook group called "The War on Books." His undoubtably well-meaning gesture demonstrated, yet again, the breakdown between Librarian and non-librarian. Sometimes this breakdown is with the public, sometimes within our own ranks. The utter lack of understanding about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it leads to this kind of group. Again, it leads to well meaning people claiming that Librarians "are culling rare and irreplaceable books from their collections. The choices are based up the book's "activity." Has it been checked out recently. It's the same logic that would have us chop down every nonfruit-bearing tree." Harsh.
It amazes and dismays me to see how many people peceive normal and necessary collection management as an incidious plot to seperate people from books. We have become the enemy of the book (My mother says that if I keep rolling my eyes like that, they will stick that way).
So very very often I get the question: Library School? You have to go to library school? What for? Well, we learn all sorts of stuff (YES the Dewey decimal system, but also information architecture, information literacy, website development, library management). But, speaking specifically in relation to "The Book", what do we learn in library school?
Intellectual freedom
Drummed into us from day one. Many of us dedicate significant portions of their spare time ensuring the issue gets out to the public, that the government knows we take no shit and no prisoners in this issue. Libray associations, libraries and individual librarians support Freedom to Read week. Some of us risk our jobs defending books (not so much here in Canada - our neighbours south of the border have a much greater challenge and not a few have been fired for refusing to compromise).
Collection Management
The moderator of the above group quoted a Library Director as saying it is "Not the library's job to preserve books." To clarify: it isn't the job of ALL libraries to preserve books. It IS the job of some libraries - notably academic libraries and national libraries.
Access still matters. And we still provide it, for free or as close to free as we can. I've never seen a library not offer an interlibrary loan service. We maintain and provide free access to Worldcat, a central database of library records, where I've always found at least a dozen library copies of any book anyone has ever asked for. Actually, I've rarely had to go out of my province for a book search. We still maintain our own central library database, which includes every college and public library in the province. The local colleges and universities are more than happy to give us access to their collections.
We know books, authors, publishers, genres. We can find reviews and provide expert jugdement and advice about books. We none of us dismiss the written word just because it ain't on the bestseller list. (In fact, every year our local library conference includes a panel called "It ain't on the Globe and Mail Bestseller List" - It's a hoot....one year I promoted a publisher of "punk rock fiction" called Gofukyerselfpress).
We promote these books, actively, through library displays, booklists, reviews, postings, book talks, blah blah blah. We try to make them findable by the public. We get off on connecting the reader with the book....still. No matter what you think.
We select those books. We want to be as responsive to the needs/suggestions of the public as we possibly can - in fact, my library buys just about every title requested by the public as long as it is reasonably new. However, depending on the size of one's library and one's budget, a Librarian has to make choices, based on MANY perameters. They teach that in library school, for sure.
We preserve SOME things. We preserve local history, local authors. We preserve authors and titles that have a place in the canon. And I don't mean dead British white guy canon either, but books of quality, and literary significance. And even "popular" authors, whom may not strictly speaking have as much literary merit, if they have gained a lasting place in our culture.
Yeah, the other side of the coin is deselection, that tricky spot that got us to this rather long rant. It certainly ain't a new practice, and you better believe they teach us that in library school. It is interesting that the rather nasty quote above references the chopping down of trees. We actually refer to our science of de-selection as weeding (it is a science. I'll fight you on that). As in, removing that which is not contributing the HEALTHY growth of your garden (library). Just like selection, we use many criteria to determine what to weed; I would posit, contrary to the Mr. Dunn, that a Library IS closer to a garden than a forest. And any Librarian worth her salt uses sound, studied practices to determine what to weed.
It actually costs money to have a book sit on a library shelf (there's actually a formula, don't ask me what it is). And a book takes up real estate. Real books take up real space, which is simply finite. We HAVE to make judgements about what to remove, and guess what, I have six years at school, and a shitload of evidence based theory to shape my judgements. I have internal procedures, which include checks and balances.
Sometimes things get by us - we're human (and many of us are rather overworked). That's why we're so happy to have the backup sources above. It's also a LOT easier to replace older titles as well. The interwebz has lots of places to find older, rare books. And I don't see "Print on Demand" services as being to far in the future. We may not have the book at hand, but we'll move heaven and earth to GET it for you.
I don't know ONE Librarian who went to Library School because they hated books. I LOVE books. I own far too many of them. However, I, and many of my colleagues, acknowledge and embrace the shifting role of the public library - as a space of free learning and expression, as a place where society makes a real effort to bridge the digital divide. Many of us are referred to, with denigration, as you "know-nothing kids" or the like - I promise you, I'll not see 40 again myself.
The public lending library originated because MOST people could not access books, at all. They were hard to find, and hard to buy. We still fulfill that need, but honestly people, is that need still SO strong that it needs to remain the ONLY thing public libraries do, to the exception of ALL other roles? Should we expend our (often insufficient) funds strictly on buying every book we can cram on the shelves? Keep every one of them, so the building is JUST shelves of books? No place to sit, no place for storytime and other children's programs, no internet stations, no public (usually free) meeting rooms? And then, when those buildings are simply full of shelves and shelves of books, and they just can't fit any more - guess what....there are more books coming out. Every day. Need more room. Gosh, gotta build another building for all those new books. What do we cut from the budget to get the money to build the building to hold all those new books so we can keep all the old? Why, the book budget.
Can we see the problem here folks? Can you acknowledge that yes, the public library needs to make choices about what it keeps on the shelf? And that ONE parameter of retention is public demand? And can we TRY and keep in mind that having sufficient well trained professional staff around to apply their skills and knowledge will certainly help make this process more successful.
The solution proposed by Mr. Dunn is not a bad one: go to the library and check out books - they will be less likely to be weeded. No argument here (but PLEASE try and be a LITTLE discriminating...not all books are good. Seriously). Please just stop accusing Librarians of going to war on the book. Stop treating us like the enemy, like an executioner. Give us a bit of credit for knowing our jobs - we DID go to library school, at great person expense (ok, and to be honest, sometimes at great personal boredom). We continue to improve and expand our skills and knowledge through professional development activities (often on our own time and at our own expense). Stop spitting on the hand that feeds you - because even with Mr. Google, Ms. Amazon, and Mr. Wikipedia, without Librarians, you'd be at sea in an ocean of words so broad and deep you'd be drowned.
An old friend from highschool recently signed me up for a Facebook group called "The War on Books." His undoubtably well-meaning gesture demonstrated, yet again, the breakdown between Librarian and non-librarian. Sometimes this breakdown is with the public, sometimes within our own ranks. The utter lack of understanding about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it leads to this kind of group. Again, it leads to well meaning people claiming that Librarians "are culling rare and irreplaceable books from their collections. The choices are based up the book's "activity." Has it been checked out recently. It's the same logic that would have us chop down every nonfruit-bearing tree." Harsh.
It amazes and dismays me to see how many people peceive normal and necessary collection management as an incidious plot to seperate people from books. We have become the enemy of the book (My mother says that if I keep rolling my eyes like that, they will stick that way).
So very very often I get the question: Library School? You have to go to library school? What for? Well, we learn all sorts of stuff (YES the Dewey decimal system, but also information architecture, information literacy, website development, library management). But, speaking specifically in relation to "The Book", what do we learn in library school?
Intellectual freedom
Drummed into us from day one. Many of us dedicate significant portions of their spare time ensuring the issue gets out to the public, that the government knows we take no shit and no prisoners in this issue. Libray associations, libraries and individual librarians support Freedom to Read week. Some of us risk our jobs defending books (not so much here in Canada - our neighbours south of the border have a much greater challenge and not a few have been fired for refusing to compromise).
Collection Management
The moderator of the above group quoted a Library Director as saying it is "Not the library's job to preserve books." To clarify: it isn't the job of ALL libraries to preserve books. It IS the job of some libraries - notably academic libraries and national libraries.
Access still matters. And we still provide it, for free or as close to free as we can. I've never seen a library not offer an interlibrary loan service. We maintain and provide free access to Worldcat, a central database of library records, where I've always found at least a dozen library copies of any book anyone has ever asked for. Actually, I've rarely had to go out of my province for a book search. We still maintain our own central library database, which includes every college and public library in the province. The local colleges and universities are more than happy to give us access to their collections.
We know books, authors, publishers, genres. We can find reviews and provide expert jugdement and advice about books. We none of us dismiss the written word just because it ain't on the bestseller list. (In fact, every year our local library conference includes a panel called "It ain't on the Globe and Mail Bestseller List" - It's a hoot....one year I promoted a publisher of "punk rock fiction" called Gofukyerselfpress).
We promote these books, actively, through library displays, booklists, reviews, postings, book talks, blah blah blah. We try to make them findable by the public. We get off on connecting the reader with the book....still. No matter what you think.
We select those books. We want to be as responsive to the needs/suggestions of the public as we possibly can - in fact, my library buys just about every title requested by the public as long as it is reasonably new. However, depending on the size of one's library and one's budget, a Librarian has to make choices, based on MANY perameters. They teach that in library school, for sure.
We preserve SOME things. We preserve local history, local authors. We preserve authors and titles that have a place in the canon. And I don't mean dead British white guy canon either, but books of quality, and literary significance. And even "popular" authors, whom may not strictly speaking have as much literary merit, if they have gained a lasting place in our culture.
Yeah, the other side of the coin is deselection, that tricky spot that got us to this rather long rant. It certainly ain't a new practice, and you better believe they teach us that in library school. It is interesting that the rather nasty quote above references the chopping down of trees. We actually refer to our science of de-selection as weeding (it is a science. I'll fight you on that). As in, removing that which is not contributing the HEALTHY growth of your garden (library). Just like selection, we use many criteria to determine what to weed; I would posit, contrary to the Mr. Dunn, that a Library IS closer to a garden than a forest. And any Librarian worth her salt uses sound, studied practices to determine what to weed.
It actually costs money to have a book sit on a library shelf (there's actually a formula, don't ask me what it is). And a book takes up real estate. Real books take up real space, which is simply finite. We HAVE to make judgements about what to remove, and guess what, I have six years at school, and a shitload of evidence based theory to shape my judgements. I have internal procedures, which include checks and balances.
Sometimes things get by us - we're human (and many of us are rather overworked). That's why we're so happy to have the backup sources above. It's also a LOT easier to replace older titles as well. The interwebz has lots of places to find older, rare books. And I don't see "Print on Demand" services as being to far in the future. We may not have the book at hand, but we'll move heaven and earth to GET it for you.
I don't know ONE Librarian who went to Library School because they hated books. I LOVE books. I own far too many of them. However, I, and many of my colleagues, acknowledge and embrace the shifting role of the public library - as a space of free learning and expression, as a place where society makes a real effort to bridge the digital divide. Many of us are referred to, with denigration, as you "know-nothing kids" or the like - I promise you, I'll not see 40 again myself.
The public lending library originated because MOST people could not access books, at all. They were hard to find, and hard to buy. We still fulfill that need, but honestly people, is that need still SO strong that it needs to remain the ONLY thing public libraries do, to the exception of ALL other roles? Should we expend our (often insufficient) funds strictly on buying every book we can cram on the shelves? Keep every one of them, so the building is JUST shelves of books? No place to sit, no place for storytime and other children's programs, no internet stations, no public (usually free) meeting rooms? And then, when those buildings are simply full of shelves and shelves of books, and they just can't fit any more - guess what....there are more books coming out. Every day. Need more room. Gosh, gotta build another building for all those new books. What do we cut from the budget to get the money to build the building to hold all those new books so we can keep all the old? Why, the book budget.
Can we see the problem here folks? Can you acknowledge that yes, the public library needs to make choices about what it keeps on the shelf? And that ONE parameter of retention is public demand? And can we TRY and keep in mind that having sufficient well trained professional staff around to apply their skills and knowledge will certainly help make this process more successful.
The solution proposed by Mr. Dunn is not a bad one: go to the library and check out books - they will be less likely to be weeded. No argument here (but PLEASE try and be a LITTLE discriminating...not all books are good. Seriously). Please just stop accusing Librarians of going to war on the book. Stop treating us like the enemy, like an executioner. Give us a bit of credit for knowing our jobs - we DID go to library school, at great person expense (ok, and to be honest, sometimes at great personal boredom). We continue to improve and expand our skills and knowledge through professional development activities (often on our own time and at our own expense). Stop spitting on the hand that feeds you - because even with Mr. Google, Ms. Amazon, and Mr. Wikipedia, without Librarians, you'd be at sea in an ocean of words so broad and deep you'd be drowned.
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