We Are Holding Our Own*

I know folks are curious about Executive Order 36 which shuts down the Department of History, Arts and Libraries and except for an out-clause given to the Superintendent of Education calls for the halt of collection circulation for the Library of Michigan. The Detroit News reports that some LM collections would be moved to MSU. There is a proposal to re-purpose our building outlined here: Granholm Announces Conceptual Plan for Michigan Center for Innovation and Reinvention. The Library for the Blind will be moved to the Commission for the Blind which should protect it and, according to the EO, the core mission of the library will be protected as well, although the core mission is not defined in the EO. Approximately 55 people work for the Library of Michigan.

In case I haven’t said it, I work for LM. I am loyal to the Library of Michigan and won’t say anything here that could jeopardize our position. I have nothing but good things to say about the employees of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries and of course my peeps at the Library. I have many thoughts about the decision to close us but again, I’m thinking of our position and won’t share those thoughts in this forum.

Thanks for your good wishes and good thoughts. Go Libraries!

Pack Your Bags: You’re Going on a Guilt Trip

Day 1 (Friday):  After going to a local public library for “intro to” family history research guides (and being unimpressed) I go to my own library. We’re one of the top 10 gene libraries in the country and so I knew I’d find what I need here even though I’d never been in the gene stacks before. I ask for the circulating collection (books you can take home) and the librarian directs me to some shelves and helps me pick out a few titles. Great. I go to check them out and watch uneasily as the librarian behind the counter has to do circ system voodoo to check them out to me:  THEY’RE ACTUALLY  NON-CIRCULATING, meaning, you can’t check them out after all. Out loud she tells the system not to be silly, I need these for my job, and she creates a due date.  Is she subtely asking if I need them for my job? Or does she really think I need them for my job? even though I don’t work in the genealogy collection. I make jokes to distract her from this dangerous line of consideration.

Next I take the books to Panera where I sit for two hours and read. I splurtz a little Diet Pepsi on one of the books and dry it with my sleeve. I feel guilty. I consider that it is a 2008 mass-produced trade paperback and not actually valuable. That doesn’t really help.

The books are so useful I finish one by Sunday afternoon and another by Monday night. These books are great. I decide I shall return both of them promptly. I take them to work with me on Tuesday. I actually work one building over from the library itself right now so I see if anyone is going over to the library who could drop them off for me. No one is. The thought of walking them over myself in the snow isn’t actually all that appealing. My good intentions are for naught, the books sit on my desk for two days. On Wednesday night I know that the next day I’ll be dropping Hubby off at the library and he can return them for me. Perfect! I take the books back home.

On Thursday morning I tell hubby I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he run them upstairs today? He says yes. An hour later I repeat that I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he return them? He says yes, a little irritably. Hubby, I married you and I love you, but I don’t trust you to return books on time any more than I trust me to return books on time. Returning books on time is not the forte of many librarians. What does that mean for you? It means return your books on time or we’re going to fine you and eventually revoke your borrowing privileges.

God, I hope the head of public services doesn’t see him with those. No one granted me a dispensation to check out these books, it was all a big misunderstanding on the part of the librarian behind the circ desk, and I actually don’t know her very well. Now I have lead her  into a life of rule breaking – and in libraries we are VERY SERIOUS about our rules. I might lose microfilm privileges. This must be handled very delicately.

I consider calling Hubby and asking him for a third time to return the books, this time with instructions to do it sneakily. I don’t. He does not find jimmying a circulation system so you can take a book to Panera to be a high crime and would not find the interruption amusing.  I hope nobody needs that Family Tree Maker manual today.

FRIDAY AFTERNOONS OFF!!!!!!

Thanks to Jen from the Neighborhood (Governor Granholm), telecommuting (working from home) and compressed work schedules like 4 10-hour days are now fast tracked in state government to promote energy savings. It’s also promoting flexibility that wasn’t easily available before now and I just started a compressed/telecommuting schedule. After 9 1/2 years I’m working something different than 8 1/2 hours a day with a half hour for lunch.

I can’t log in to one of my main site responsibilities except within the state network so I’m only telecommuting Friday mornings right now. The other four days I work 9 1/2, then 4 hours Friday mornings from home, which means I have Friday Afternoons Off. I just had my first afternoon off. It kicked ass.

First, I blogged about the roof and started laundry. Next, I went to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of day that did not require me to take sick leave. Next I took myself to lunch at Panera and read a library book. Then I went to the post office. Then I went to the drug store. Then I went to return library books but the street was blocked off. Bummer. Then I went to a park and took a half hour walk. All while other poor slobs worked away their Friday afternoons. It was intoxicating to be doing normal stuff NOT on weekend time. When we got home Hubby and I finished most of the laundry.

This weekend we’re going to Ann Arbor for Saturday – Hubby will put up gutter guards on Mom’s house and my bro and I will go visit Grandma in the hospital.  Sunday I have two dates with friends. And I don’t have to stress about a bunch of errands or getting in some alone fun time like lunch at Panera and an autumn walk in the park.

It is SO WORTH getting up before 5:Something now to be at work early enough to make this possible. Go Jen!

Browsing Find

Last week I went browsing at the East Lansing Public Library and found a superb book. I finished it in a couple of days but I think it will remain with me for a long time. If you’re looking for a good read try “The Remains of the Day” by Kazuo Ishiguro – it won the 1989 Booker Prize.

More From Flooded Public Library in Cedar Rapids

Here’s a photostream of the flooded Iowa library from The Gazette Online now that the water has dissipated. This is an example:

What We’re Reading, Matey

Me waited for A . to get on IM the other day for the cause that I wanted something new to illuminate meself. Me said, “I want something as good as Pirates by Reese – something young adult.” The good woman replied with the question whether I wanted pirate stories or strong female character stories. Me said the latter, matey, and after a few minutes she comes back with a list – of both. So this is what me will be reading over the next few weeks:

Bloody Jack: Being an Account of hte Curious Adventurs of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy by L.A. Meyer

Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl’s Adventure Upon the High Seas by Tanith Lee

Daughter of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Me started with Bloody Jack – about a girl who passes for a boy to get work as a ship’s boy during 1797 London. This here book has the most useful diagram me have laid me eyes upon in many a year.

Hubby, on the other of me two good hands, is reading a 192-page Popular Mechanics books on Garage Make-overs.

Together, we’re reading Phantom Prey by John Sandford and The Appeal by John Grisham. Today we be off to the park for a hike, a picnic lunch of seabiscuits and grog, and a few hours of reading in the Mizzentop

Conference Wrap

Many totally awesome and cool people attended the conference. It was actually two conferences in one, two conference back to back, with 6 hours of overlap. Between class time and other activities they were in attendance between 9 and 14 hours a day. Most of the attendees work in libraries but do not have a Master’s in librarianship. They need all the basics and that’s what this conference is about.

I presented for an hour on E-rate, two hours on Library 2.0 (RSS, blogs, podcasting [I played GrammarGirl for them], YouTube [I played Mentos and Diet Coke for them], Flickr, a lot of MySpace, a little Facebook [i played TextTwirl for them]) – i.e. an intro to the Cool Cat stuff and specifically how libraries can, have and are using those technologies to meet patrons where they are and deliver services, and how librarians can use these technologies to keep themselves informed on professional matters. Seriously, it was useful, I didn’t just play up there – except maybe for the TextTwirl part. Also, I spoke on the library for the blind.

One thing, it was cold in the reception area where we conference planners spent most of our days. At the last second walking out the door at home I took a black wrap that some friends living in Kuwait had brought to my mother as a gift, just in case. I needed it every day. By the end of the week I’d figured out this sexy little sophisticated way to wing it over my shoulder.

One attendee whom I shall call Astute and Brilliant (AB) talked to me throughout the conference about various topics, like she grabbed me after the Cool Cat presentation to ask “Just what IS del.icio.us?” She had this totally awesome pin she’d make herself out of dyed alpaca wool. At the end of the conference she came up to me, told me I was the best thing that happened to her all week, and pinned the pin on my sexy sophisticated black wrap where it totally made the outfit. AB rocks. If she joins Facebook I will totally be sending her muppets and waiting to see what dictator she is.

This makes up for the guy who, when I was in the middle of a 2-hour presentation to 120 people, pointed at the screen and said, with no humor whatsoever, loud enough so that everyone could hear, “You misspelled copyright.”

Chocolate Conference

I’m at a conference for work this week – one I’m helping to carry out rather than one I’m attending. We’ve had 34 hours of classroom time  in 3 1/2 days.

In preparation for the conference, we bought chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Expensive chocolate. Small chocolate treats. Large chocolate treats. Multiple boxes of truffles wherein I individually selected each truffle for a pleasing assortment by color, flavor and type of decoration. Multiple boxes of rum chocolate covered cherries with the stems still on.  Dark chocolate covered animal crackers in cellophane bags with turquoise ribbon. Chocolate sticks. Chocolatier-quality peppermint patties.

And for my sessions, chocolate peanut butter stegasaurases on bicycles.

Those were for my sessions. No one else got to give those out.

In addition, two of our presenters brought chocolate of their own. One brought the conference planners several dozen cookies PLUS FIVE POUNDS of chocolate for the attendees. Once, when that presenter  was running a library conference, she got back an evaluation of the conference as a whole with no questions answered. Just one comment: “You had a room full of middle-aged women. Where was the chocolate?” She doesn’t present without her own stash now.

All of the chocolate was given out at regular intervals in a variety of entertaining and fetching ways. At one point I asked, “Who can tell me what was on my last slide?” The person who knew? they got chocolate. The person who drove the farthest. The person who asked a unique question. The person who noted that I said that both RSS and Blogs were “the coolest thing since sliced bread.” The person who paid the most attention. With almost a dozen presenters I tried to jolly them up and get their energy level up so they would meet that “entertaining and fetching” threshold for passing out candy.

Plus we had sugar from the conference facilities at every meal and every break – that’s a total of 5 times a day aside from what we gave out. Brownies, pudding, cheesecake, cookies, doughnuts. Not to mention cases of pop.

AND

AND

AND SOMEBODY WENT DOWN TO THE VENDING MACHINE AND BOUGHT M&Ms.  I was personally insulted. I ranted, I admit it.

A. says I have “control issues.”

Come To the Library to Borrow…A Person

…instead of a book. Yes, this activity takes place every so often at London’s Living Library, a project supported in part by the Museums, Libraries And Archives Council UK.

Times OnLine informs us of a new library fad which started in Scandinavia…”instead of books, readers can come to the library and borrow a person for a 30-minute chat (and you don’t have to buy them a drink).

The human “books” on offer vary from event to event but always include a healthy cross-section of stereotypes. Last weekend, the small but richly diverse list included Police Officer, Vegan, Male Nanny and Lifelong Activist as well as Person with Mental Health Difficulties and Young Person Excluded from School. I [the article's author, David Baker] was there as Gay Man.”

Interesting way of acquiring knowledge about our fellow humans.

I got this from LISNews.org

Yay Me!

Belatedly, many thanks to my friends A and E who threw me a congratulatory dinner at Pizza House (not Pizza Hut), complete with flowers, balloons with my name on them, a banana (what award dinner is complete without bananas?), origami cranes, and, of course, spinach artichoke dip and onion rings. I was granted the Professional Service Award from my alma mater Wayne State University this spring. One of my professors accepted the award on my behalf while I was in Marquette.

Yay me!