Odds and ends and brick-a-brac

I've disappeared for a month or so, not that that's unusual. For all the time I spend on the internet, I do not think as much as I once did. Perhaps it's my day job-- I can explain the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, why french presses are better, why loose leaf tea is the way to go, why an iced cappuccino is somewhere between heresy and a desire for food poisoning, and so on forever. I can also tell you that the harder the economic times get, the meaner customers get, as though the baristas are personally responsible for their consistent wasting of money in all manner of "must haves" that aren't so crucial anymore. I can even start to talk about what went wrong in the economy, though not very well (it's an expansion on the theme of "who watches the watchmen" if you care). But thinking? Honest to goodness thinking? It doesn't come up very often for me anymore.

I've officially finished my first semester of library school. Not what one might call though provoking, maybe, but it isn't supposed to be. I mean, you are more than welcome to try and come up with a replacement for MARC21 or the Library of Congress Subject Headings (fat chance it'll catch on). But to do that you need a certain amount of time working in the field. What seems good on paper may not be in practice, and you won't know until you've worked as a librarian. So I went about my studies, and learned all about cataloging and collection development and research methods (perhaps the least helpful of my classes because it was all repetition of my Stats class a few years ago-- but with bonus ideology).

You know, the library world is a funny thing. It is at once focused on innovations and integrating the latest computer technology into the library and not moving a muscle from the established status quo. Which, I'll be honest, is befuddling. I understand the drive to get more twenty-somethings into libraries. They use it, they'll teach their kids to use it, etc etc etc. However, TELLING the twentysomethings that are entering the field that they couldn't possibly understand the demands of the twentysomething is ludicrous. So I'm young. So what? I've been computer literate since I was 4, internet savy since I was 6, and marketing myself since I hit school. My experience is most certainly valid-- I'm the kid with the iPod, the RSS feeds, the blog, and more-- all simultaneous activities no less. It appears that, somewhere along the line, the libraries forgot that they were a part of the service sector. I'm not busting out a "Just say Yes" policy (that, by the way, is the way that spectacular failure and disgruntled empolyees lies... from my observations). I simply wonder if libraries could listen, just a little bit, to their constiuents. The fact that they're run by the government doesn't mean they have to try to live up to the stereotype of a government agency. I mean really...

There's all kinds of business going on at my fair alma, though I'm sure everyone who reads this already knows. I'll try not to say I told you so, but I will ply you with arguments similar to those I make to the libraries-- the fact that recent graduate are, in fact, only 22 or 23 does not invalidate their observations, opinions, struggles, etc. My class seems to have been locked out by everyone: admin, alumni, everyone. And quite frankly, we wrote home, we tried to tell people that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. And we were called liars, and anarchists, and moles, and uncharitable, and every rotten name in the book. All of a sudden we were every villain of every piece ever read at that school. And all I have to say is-- we were right. You think we're a bunch of scum bags who lie for shits and giggles? We were trying to save the place that was onnly just turning us loose on a wide world, a place that was shifting right out from under us as we stumbled out into a ruthless world with nobody to watch us. And we were nothing, less than dirt. Well, if things go further south? It's not because we didn't try-- it's because no one else did. And with that, I leave it behind me. It's like ripping out part of my heart-- my graduation, which should have been so happy, was a boot up my ass to get me out of there. I was already forgotten. I'm just returning the favor.