Wanted: Your addresses.
Why: To exchange holiday greeting cards.
When: Holiday season, 2010.
Every year I make a vain attempt to send out holiday cards and in some years, it happens but in others (like last year), it does not. 😉 Now that the major big stuff is over (I’ve graduated from Wayne and have gotten married), I’ve got a bit more time to work to spend on sending cards out this year.
The one caveat for this year is that I do not know where we’re going to be living in the month of December. We could be back in Grand Rapids or in another city entirely. I will not know until the end of the month (November) how this is going to play out, so, if you’d like to send us a card (Lisa + Justin and Wednesday the Pug), I am more than happy to update you when we get settled.
Please feel free to email, Facebook, tweet, LiveJournal or comment here with your address. Or if you prefer another method, let me know that too. If you’re interested in sending us a card, indicate that so I can notify you when our address is updated. If I already have your email address, I’ll be sending out an email within the next week or so with something similar to this.
IN ADDITION, I am (hopefully) will be mixing another holiday mix this season. I am soliciting for suggestions for a non-traditional non-denominational holiday muzak. Think kitsch and eyeroll, like 50 Shekel’s “Chanukah Jam” and “Jingle Belz” by Bootsy Collins with some Tom Waits and Pogues (always obvs choices) thrown in. Contact me at the above locations for your suggestions.
Category: diary
To: Travel – Honeymoon, Part I: Paris (May 12-16, 2010)
“Foreign’s where they gabble at you in heathen lingo and eat foreign muck and worship, you know, objects.” – Granny Weatherwax, from Witches Abroad
One of the projects this summer was to finally get our honeymoon pictures online, which began to prove itself to be a daunting task as we had nearly 1000 images taken over our 2.5 week honeymoon. Justin and I shifted between being the paparazzi which explains why you’ll find shots of beautiful architecture (him) mixed with trash found on the street (me).
We arrived in Paris on the morning of the 12th and left the afternoon of the 16th, which gave a scant few days to get the gist of the city. We were totally okay with this as I had been to Paris before so our goal was to eat, drink and museum hop rather then float around the tourist traps.1 I wrote a summary of our time in Paris while on the Thayls train to Brussels, but what has kept with us is not so much as seeing the great pieces of art and architecture, but the beginnings of a dear friendship with Jon and Alice, who came from UK for their own mini-break to visit us in Paris. So much so, Alice2 and I have already started plotting a take-over of Dublin next fall, which hopefully Justin and I will get to do.
I’ve spent the last few days sorting, cleaning up and organizing the photos up into Flickr and are organized below by general collection, city and by tag of interest. Justin, Alice and Jon all pop in and out of photos, with my promises to Justin that I would only upload photos including him if absolutely necessary. This is why you’ll tend to see the back of my husband or as an accessory to the photo rather than the focal point.
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips (all trips)
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam (Honeymoon) (all)
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips: Paris […]: Paris – May 12-16 (all)
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips: Paris […]: Paris – May 12-16: Eiffel Tower
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips: Paris […]: Paris – May 12-16: Louvre3
Flickr Collection: Over the Pond Trips: Paris […]: Paris – May 12-16: Arc de Triomphe
1. We “did” the Eiffel, Arc de Triomphe and such, but we cruised by and took pictures rather than shell out tens of Euros and hours of our time queuing to get INTO the sites. And oh yeah, French National Guard with machine guns patrolling the sites also turned us off from hanging about longer than necessary.
2. I have a HUGE girl crush on Alice, who is not only a geek but she’s also beyond creative. I love her jewelry, Snapdragon Beads, and totally pimp her out when I can because she does just simply amazing work.
3. Anyone who has museum hopped with me knows that as an art history student, I’ll cut a bish if I see someone taking photos in a museum with their flash on. Thus, all interior shots of the Louvre were taken with the flash off and the color and tone corrected in post processing via Photoshop.
Booksellers v. Librarians: GO!
[Ed. note: I started writing this at the end of January of 2009 but never published it for whatever mystery reason I may have had at the time. Nearly 11 months later (eep!), a lot of what is written here is still highly relevant, so I’m cleaning it up and pubbing it.]
I wish I had some witty story about a patron to give this entry more punch but the best I can come up with is the “faculty” dude who came and started yelling at me about “throwing out those kids” who were apparently disturbing his royal highness while he was working. I was, at the time of the yelling, walking over to work with another patron who needed access on the all access computer (no Internet access but allows students to install and run software for classes. Thus, “all access” is kind of moot, I suppose.). Even though I motioned that I would be with him in a second, he kept yelling across the open area about how they were bothering and disturbing him and I HAD BETTER DO SOMETHING! Right sparky, I’ll get right on that.
After helping the student get logged into the all access computer, I looked for the librarian on duty for consultation and it turned out “those kids” were two girls who were talking quietly while working on a project together in an area designed for such a thing. The open plan area is not a quiet study area and that information is posted as such all over the place. The librarian on duty spoke quietly with the girls, his royal highness kept glaring at the librarian on duty and at me and didn’t say a peep after that. It was one of those “what the fuck, becky” kind of moments.
And I’m only two weeks into my new job.
The one thing that has been stressed since my starting this program is that you need experience, experience, experience in order to make it in the real world and winning this job has been a $deity_send in that it is giving me not only real world reference experience but experience in an academic library to boot. But here’s the thing: my classes that were to prep me for this job have really had no impact on how I handle myself at the reference desk. This sentiment was also echoed by several librarians I have interviewed over the last six months who have all told me that while lib school was great for the theory and some of the application, they really didn’t feel that they learned their jobs until they were on the jobs.
This, then, becomes the catch-22: You need some experience to get an entry level position but you must obtain an entry level position in order to get the experience. Lots of libraries like to hire in-status students, which is a boon to many of us who have had no prior experience in libraries before lib school. But this goes back to the teaching moment in that how you are trained while working in the library whether as a volunteer, intern or paid employee. These experiences can and will shape how you handle your professional career thus one must also take this factor into account when one is looking for a starting library position.
One thing I have noticed is this slightly playful but not really competition between those who work in a library and those who work in bookstores. For some reason that I cannot fathom, there seems to be some sort of unspoken rivalry between booksellers and librarians, and I’ve heard more than one librarian on various message boards bitch and complain how booksellers “try” to be like librarians by providing reader’s advisory and reference services without proper training and booksellers complain that librarians try to treat bookstores like libraries or that librarians feel like they are slumming if they come and apply for a job or work in a bookstore.
This is the part I don’t get: Bookstores are out to make money and to the corporate bookstores, the bottom line is ALL about the money. Whether or not someone gets interested in reading or enriching their life based on the books they purchased means nothing to the higher ups in corporate America – it’s just about how much the customer has spent and is there a way to get them to spend more. It’s about discounts, volume and bestsellers. It’s not about education, enrichment, support or education. This is not to say the average bookseller is not a reader, I’d roughly guesstimate that about 90% of the people I worked with were huge readers who read in a variety of genres and many of us had subject specializations. We were a very well rounded crew with a broad spectrum of education and backgrounds.
And this is not also to say that every bookstore feels this way – but having worked in $corporate_bookstore and being told time and time again that I spent too much time educating the reader rather than hand-selling them crap, I speak from experience. The other big argument that often comes up in discussion is how the bookstores are attempting to be like the library system (“help desks” that imitate reference desks, library-esque setting, comfy chairs, etc) while the library system is attempting to try to be like bookstores (cafes, overhead music systems, wider range of programming). But my question is: Why spend all this time arguing about who is trying to be like the other? All this mudslinging is ridiculous as libraries and bookstores can co-exist AND live together.
It’s like watching a never ending game of Tekken and in the end, the ones left holding the “WTF?” bag are the customers/patrons who just wanted help finding a damned book.
The consequences of world domination.
Last week, to put it succinctly, was the week from hell.
I left for St. Louis to present at a conference on Wednesday, came home mid-afternoon Friday only to immediately head to the Fox Theatre with Justin to see Bob Dylan play Friday night. Saturday morning, after dropping Wednesday off at the dog boarders, we drove to Kalamazoo to see our friends Lauren and Eric get married. Sunday, after a pit stop at IKEA, we headed home where I was able to finally couch for the first time, it seemed, in weeks.
I only checked email twice on Monday. Twice! Clearly, I was tired and overworked.
Justin and I have been having a lot of conversations on what’s going to happen with me when on-campus classes are done for me in May (I’ll still be doing a few online classes for the summer session): I’ll be out of a job (the graduate program kicks students off of student assistantships after 36 credit hours and I hit 42 or 44 May 2010), Justin and I are getting married (to get health benefits – srsly), we’re moving somewhere but we’re not sure where. And then there is the honeymoon to contend with (UK? Italy? For how long?). In a short amount of time, a lot of stuff is going to be happening and I can’t plan for it because it is all dependent on whether or not I get a job offer and if so, where I’m going. And on top of that, if I don’t get a job offer, where do we move to? Justin has the luxury of telecommuting, and I know that if I can’t find a job in X time, he will support me, but I don’t want to have to do that.
It’s called having to pay $900/month in student loans, muthafucker. (“Down with your bourgeois education,” Justin says.) So then it goes back to, “What do you want to do! What do you want to do with your life!” and of course, “world domination” doesn’t necessarily pay the bills.
In all seriousness though, I stacked my interests and my work experience in the last two years to make myself as marketable as possible. I’ll have 18 months of academic librarianship under my belt, along with having presented at a conference, certification in archival work coupled with practicum experience, digital librarianship, special projects I’ve worked on with professors plus my own incredibly varied background.
I’m awesome and I know that.
One thing I keep musing on is just how far and to what extent I want to make librarianship and archival work my life — because I know me well enough to know that I will rabble rouse and want to change the world (I’ve already started that on campus here with the creation of a new student group that I did with three other students this summer), and while there are many incredibly awesome librarians and archivists out there who do similar rabble rousing things, the profession as a whole can be and is to some extent, incredibly backward and staid. As a student, looking at the work being done typically sums up one thing — that everything has to be committed to death and with that comes the death of innovation and moving forward. But as par usual, I’m digressing. As it stands, in addition to my course work and 20 hours of ref desk pimpin’, I currently am doing the following:
- President, ASIS&T,Wayne State student chapter.
- Vice President and co-founder, Progressive Librarians’ Guild, Wayne State student chapter.
- Communications chair, Graduate Employees’ Organizing Committee, Wayne State.
- Member, virtual reference committee for new technologies, Wayne State Library system.
- Digital technologies librarian liaison, various roles/responsibilities 1.
I can see my life going in a variety of directions, and I know that I’m flexible enough with my skillset that if I don’t like how one way goes, I can totally switch it to another. The problem, however, is that I’m not quite sure if I want to be a rabble rouser anymore — my own work and interests seem to get pushed to the side because when I take on something, I like to think I give it 110% of my focus – and I know it is because of this that makes me so good at what I do.
Writing, for example, has gone to the way side. Not just missing a few days or a few weeks but it’s been since MAY since I’ve posted anything to this or my LiveJournal account, which I even barely check anymore. My other domain, biblyotheke.net is to represent my “professional portfolio” and that’s not even been tweaked with since I installed Indexhibit on it a few weeks ago.
The quandary I’m having is not only how I want to live my life, but how to live my life and make it meaningful. How do I balance a husband, a future family, a career and personal interests while giving myself Lisa-time? What type of jobs should I start looking for? Should I sell out? Consult? Write the “Great American Novel”? Do I want to work 60hrs a week and push family and personal life aside (like my mom)? And if my school involvement right now is any indicator, it can end up like that.
Because I find it incredibly difficult to say “No.”
1. I have not discussed with my freelance employers what I can and cannot post about my work for them, so for now, they remain anonymous.
Be suspicious of Women…
Be suspicious of Women. They are given to the Reading of frivolous Romances, and at all events, their presence in a Library adds little to (if it does not, indeed, detract from) that aspect of gravity, Seriousness and Learning which is its greatest Glory. You will make no error in excluding them altogether, even though by that Act it befall that you should prohibit from entering some one of those Excellent Females who are distinguished by their Wit and Learning. There is little Chance that You or I, Sir, will ever see such an One.
Taken from The Old Librarian’s Almanack. A real update coming soon, I promise.
Google/Wikipedia: Re-inventing the damned wheel.
I’ll admit that I’m a Wikipedia/Google whore — I keep joking to a friend of mine who works for Google that when I’m done with my MLIS, I’m ready to sell out.
But joking aside, I was on Wikipedia today when I saw this advertised at the top of their donation page:
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. – — Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
Yes motherfucker, it’s called a L.I.B.R.A.R.Y. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? You may have, gasp, been to one as a child? The arrogance kills me with that statement — Wikipedia, you did not infact, create the context of indexing human information for easy perusal — print encyclopaedias predate this by over a hundred years – AT LEAST. And the idea of indexing all the information of human kind AND having it available to all of human kind presumes that EVERY living human being has access to the Internet. According to this site, currently only 21% of the world’s population has access to the Internet. I’m betting and it’s just a hunch here, that there are more libraries available than Internet kiosks. Just a hunch.
I’m dropping this topic out there to be picked up later by myself — I’m also currently listening to The Google Story on my commutes, so I’m sure I”ll have more to say on this in a bit. For now, I slumber (wearing one of my Google t-shirt, of course).
reviews: books: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
I work in a bookstore and this arrived as an ARC several days before the promotional material, and thusly the hype surrounding it, arrived. I had no idea upon grabbing it that it was to become of falls “hot new reads.” That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
The back story is this: Stieg Larsson, political journalist and activist in Sweden, completed a trilogy (with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo being the first), which were eventually sold to a publisher. Shortly before the publication of the book, Larsson died of a massive heart attack in 2004. Rumours of his death as not being natural have been swirling, which perhaps have lent greater mystique to the series. The books were published to great acclaim and became international bestsellers. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was released in the U.S. in September, 2008.
Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged journalist/activist, has been found guilty of libel for a piece he wrote against Hans-Erik Wennerström, a corrupt Swedish industrialist. Blomkvist, known for his insightfully and well researched pieces, leaves his old life defeated and broken. He is contacted by Henrik Vanger, an aging patriarch of a well-connected family to help him with one thing: Solve a 40 year old mystery of the possible murder and kidnapping of the patriarch’s beloved niece while working under the guise of researching the Vanger family history. In return, Vanger will hand over evidence to Blomkvist that will nail Wennerström to the wall for good.
What follows is a twisting, complex and at times horrifying, thriller that scourges to the bottom of human nature. As Blomkvist continues to dig into the history of the Vangers, and discovering what actually happened on that fateful day in 1964, the more of the family horrors began to surface.
There is a reason why the book was originally published in Sweden under the title, “Men Who Hate Women.” Larsson is graphic in his descriptions and at times, the brutality of what he describes is off-putting. One one level, are we really all that innocent or are we just oblivious to what happens around us? Are some family histories better left buried or will redemption come if they are unearthed? One would like to think that not all humans can be as bad as apparently some of the Vanger (and other minor characters laced neatly through the book) can be, but on the other, we hear and see about these horrors in our daily news consumption.
Larsson addresses many themes in his novel, good versus evil, love and redemption, self-sacrifice and luck versus chance and fate. Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, has been discussed as an unforgeable character and enlightened character who works with Blomkvist on researching the mystery. What has happened to her, in her life, is as equally shocking and despairing as what occurred within the Vanger family – but Salander is not a victim and she despises those who, in her mind, are regardless of situation and circumstance. She is a woman whom on some level we all want to be and yet on another, repulse from.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will pull you in and and keep you hooked until the very last page. Some of the same reviews mentioned early stated that they found the ending incomplete and wholly unsatisfying. On one hand, I can see why that would think that, Larsson’s intention for a trilogy (hopefully the next two books will be available in the U.S.) leaves a lot of things unsettled and unfinished. But do not let that dissuade you from reading this novel, it will make you think, act, hope and hug your loved ones close to you.
Library smut
I’ve wanted this book for ages and now that I’m officially in MLIS school, the time seems right. Amazon.com has it on sale, currently, for 37% off and if I can hold out until “employee appreciation days” at $corporate_bookstore, I can get it for 40% off. Yes, I know, 3 whole percent but hey, when you are a starving graduate student, 3% is a a gallon of gas (roughly).
Henry Rollins, as part of his schitck, talks about leaving libraries and bookstores angrier then when he walks in. The reason? All that human knowledge accessible to him and he will never, ever be able to contain or grasp it all. He, as he is wont to do, flips off the store/library on his way out in a double barreled salute because of said frustration of not being able to obtain that knowledge. This is the reason why Hank is one of my future husbands and I kinda miss having his glare burn into me when I wake up in the morning.1
I’ve seen Hank perform his spoken word a number of times, the last time having grabbed an autographed poster of Hank, barefoot and in a tux (and of course, flipping off the world). The poster was framed and hung directly across from my bed so that literally the first thing I’d see in the morning would be Hank’s snarling face. While I’m in temporary digs, the artwork and such are in storage, hence why I miss Hank’s snarling face every time I wake up.
reviews: books: Librarians engaging in “personal intercourse.” #librarydayinthelife
- 8:30: Up, walk the dogs, shower, and get ready for the day
- 9:45: Leave and take Mumsy to the doctors
- 10:15: Leave doctors and grab breakfast
- 11:20: Drop Mumsy off, grab stuff for the afternoon
- 12:00-15:00: Interview two ref librarians and then study for the remainder of the time at the downtown branch of the library
- 15:00-15:45: Come home, walk the dogs, drop off some stuff and grab additional stuff for the evening
- 15:45-19:20: Drive to Holland, get hair did and head back to GR to the library
- 19:20-20:55: Study at the downtown library
- 21:00- now: Eat dinner, walk the dogs, do Mumsy’s laundry, wax eyebrows and catch up on email/Internets stuff.
- 00:00: Roughly – bed!
Let it be known that librarians apparently have a very dirty sense of humour. How so, one may ask? In one of the textbooks that I’m currently reading for a class, the author suggests that “librarians engage in
personal intercourse with clientèle in order to improve services.” The quotes around “personal intercourse” is included in the book and the quote is a direct quote from the text. I have gone back and re-read that sentence numerous times in the last few days because I have the maturity of a 12 year old boy and that he (the author) MUST have some idea of what he’s saying? Right? No, he doesn’t. The text continues for several more chapters in this totally dry and academic tone. Dude, C’MON!
I’ve started collecting, in a manner of speaking, books on or about librarians, regardless of their usage — whether academic, fictional or what have you. I found The Dewey Decimal System of Love the other day and after reading the description AND reading the first chapter online, I knew I had to have it. This despite the fact that almost every reviewer talked about how horribly wretched it is. But I read the first chapter and thought, “It can’t be THAT bad” and ordered it anyway.
I’m vaguely regretting the decision.
WIthin the first few pages of the chapter, our heroine Allison (“Ally” to her friends — which tends to get confusing when her goddaughter is also named Ally (after her of course) and the author refers to both as “Ally” on the same page…), is visiting her best friend and her family when the said best friends announces that Ally MUST try breastfeeding the best friend’s son. Say whowhatsit? Now, Ally (the elder) is 40 years old, hasn’t had sex in 15 years (something she repeatedly tells you, you know, in case you have forgotten from the last mention several sentences ago) and has never had children. Her best friend keeps insisting Ally MUST try it as it will form an impregnable bond. And the best friend insists that her husband has also has tried breastfeeding the kid, ergo, Ally must try too. So, the 40 year old almost but not quite a virgin does what is set up to do: Lifts her shirt and pops her breast into the kid’s mouth. Not only does this image disturb me but it also renders me to ask, WHAT THE FLYING FUCK WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? It has NOTHING to do with the book or the “plot,” so who in their right mind thought this was effing necessary to include?
Clearly, I’m disturbed enough by this image to pass it along to you.
You’re welcome.
The book, overall, is as bad as described, but it is misleading in that the first few pages offered online are not as terrible as the book suggests it is. The author, Josephine Carr, gives the heorine the stereotype of the “uptight and yet sexy librarian” complete with glasses perched on pointed nose, long tumbling auburn hair that is consistently held up in a French twist and body that is taunt but aging. (She is 40 after all.) Ally, of course, falls in love with the conductor of the local symphony and plots her way to getting into his life (without his wife’s obvious notice, of course) while engaging in “harmless” flirting with her boss, who happens to be overly gorgeous and into Ally — even though after working together for 15 years, he has yet to ask her out or etc. We all know how the book is going to end, one doesn’t have to skip to the final chapter to get to that part, but with a book called Dewey Decimal System of Love, what the hell was I expecting?
Here is to hoping that Casanova Was a Librarian, albeit an academic book, will not prove to be as disappointing. I hope.
Now Listening: Girl Talk – Give Me A Beat
Now Reading: The Dewey Decimal System of Love by Josephine Carr
Those librarians, they sure do know how to party
[Maintenance note: I’ve just updated WordPress and my blog theme to the latest and greatest and am still debugging the hell out of it. Things should be back to normal in a day or two.]
Things for the last month or so have been fairly dramarific and full of chaos. I emotionally and verbally discharged all of that pent up rage and aggression over on my livejournal for a bit, realized I had to but a squelch on that behaviour right quick and locked up seven years of LiveJournal entries to friends-only. This decision was long in coming, something I’ve been debating about for years really, because I’ve been writing online for so long and so prolifically that I would constantly argue with myself (and others) that this is who I am — I’m the one who has no problems airing her business in public. So to me, shutting the world out from my thoughts, no matter how repugnant, vile or vindictive they may have been at the time, seemed just totally dishonest. It felt like I was hiding bits and pieces of myself when dammit, you should take all or nothing. I am Lisa, hear me roar.
But it wasn’t the current drama with the ex-bastard, my online temper tantrums in regards to that or the fact that every, single thing about the last seven years on livejournal nor the five years before that on modgirl.net that I’ve spent meticously documenting every facet of my life that was bothering me. My past is my past and I can never change that — but it was my future that suddenly seemed so bright and full of promise that I had to damage control everything possible to make the best me there is out to be.
I’ve spent the last several days in Detroit attending lib school orientation at Wayne State and knew, before I went, that I had to present myself as the best self possible. For years I’ve always underplayed my awsomeness in that I never really set out to achieve all the things I could achieve, rather, I just skulked along and did what I thought was best for the situation and just kept plodding along. I never really set out to want something really badly because if I didn’t get it, failure would disarm me even more. I kept myself locked up in this totally ridiculous situation that I set out to do the bare minimum as humanly possible and skate along until something found me. And while it did, it was never really enough.
It never really is.
Armed with this information, I was determined to stop repeating bad habits and was determined to own Wayne State by the time I graduate. In order to do that, the first thing I had to do was knock off the silly shell of “shyness” that I constantly covet and steeled myself to grab every possibility and opportunity as humanly possible. I was going to fuck with the eagles, dammit and learn how to fly.
My excitement was palpable when I drove into the parking lot at Wayne. I announced, giddy, that I was here for the lib school orientation and I was SOO excited to be here. The steely security guard cracked a smile and announced, “We are excited to have you here. Welcome to the University.” (You could hear the captial “U” in university.)
For the next two days, I put myself out there. I became the gregarious person that everyone who knows me knows me to be and I started making friends, contacts, networked and introduced myself all over the place. The profs enthusiasm for the program was contagious and the more they talked up the hard work and the program, the more rearing I was ready to go. It was the first institution, ever, that made me feel like I really belonged there. That I was a part of something really awesome and terrific and new. I’ve got a stack of business cards, emails and phone numbers and the like of new people who are as excited about me as I am excited about them. I can’t WAIT for school to begin in the next two weeks.
Things are changing and I’m so totally excited about the change. I’ve got a gazillion plans, natch, and I can’t wait for all of this to begin.
I’m so going to totally own Wayne when I’m done, they have no idea. 😉
