Category Archive

This was about to be one of those sorry introductions about how I haven’t blogged in weeks because this is such a busy time for people in the education field, and how even though I’m not in the classroom anymore I am just not in the mindset to sit down and actually put words on a page. To support this drivel I was going to give you some statistics from previous Mays to prove that I am indeed too emotionally and mentally overwhelmed to blog. But apparently last May I posted 20 times. TWENTY. That’s an average of five posts a week. Sure, in May of 2006 there were only 7 posts, and in May of 2005 only 2 (which doesn’t actually count, since I only started blogging in April of 2005), so I could feasibly argue my original point. But I won’t. Because I don’t really have an excuse, unless you want to go along with my personal belief that upon walking across the University stage on May 17, thus marking the completion of my Master’s degree, the remaining functional brain cells rolling around in my skull went on an indefinite strike and have not been heard from since. But that is not really true, not to mention physically impossible.

So let’s just skip the boring introduction (and for those of you who inevitably read it because who the hell starts with the second paragraph, sorry about that) and move on to what will undeniably be only slightly LESS boring: A Bulleted Rundown of the Last Two Weeks.

• As mentioned, I graduated. Woo-freakin’-hoo. I am so over it that I don’t even have anything else to say about it. I do have some commentary about the photos taken that day, and after reading this, you probably will as well. First, it should be obvious to you after looking at these pictures that I have not been exaggerating all those times I’ve said Little got all the boobs in our family; and in case there was any doubt that I got next to none of the allotment in that department, my University graciously marked the size and location of my own non-boobs on the outside of my robe. Secondly, I tried [unsuccessfully] to avoid uploading any of the photos that showed my feet, because apparently, that is where the Universe chose to give me a surplus. Seriously, my feet look like CLOWN FEET in every single picture. My mom keeps trying to comfort me by assuring me it was just the shoes I was wearing, but I keep insisting, and rightfully so, that the shoes are only as big as my actual feet! It’s not the shoes’ fault my feet are enormous! And finally, do I have a cute kid or WHAT?
• Having completed a Master of Library and Information Science, and having worked for an entire school year as a school media specialist, I regret to announce that I won’t actually be working as a school media specialist next year. Thanks to the ubiquitous Public School Budget Cuts, my position no longer exists. Before you school librarians start hurling curses and shaking your fists at the education gods, I was media specialist number two at my school–the entire program wasn’t cut, just the second position. I was offered two options: a) returning to the classroom as a 9th grade English teacher, or b) a position called “Curriculum Facilitator,” or CF for short. I chose B. Given what longtime readers know about my last few years’ worth of frustration in the classroom, I would have taken a position called “Chief Sidewalk Crack Filler” over potential incarceration, because going back to the classroom would have incited violent behavior on my part, and I don’t think they let girls take their babies to prison. And anyway, don’t you think it’s hilarious that I’m going to be a CF? Am I the only person who thinks that’s a total scream? Someone should invent an education job whose acronym is SNAFU. We could have adjoining offices and take the blame for everything wrong in our school.
• So two weeks ago I had this excruciating pain in my calf. I would have assumed it was a muscular injury of some sort, except I didn’t remember injuring my calf, so I consulted the school athletic trainer, and after some poking he said, “Well, I guess it could be a blood clot.” You know what came next, right? Oh, Dr. Google, I hate you. Because by the end of that day I was a nervous wreck, so nervous that I actually went to the doctor. The short version of this story (because in the long version I would have to type the phrase, “and after a multi-hour wait…” several times, and I think just seeing it that once is enough to give you a picture of the next 48 hours) is that I did not have a blood clot. There was no actual diagnosis, only instructions to take Al.eve twice a day, and so I can only assume I had–wait for it–a muscular injury. Apparently I have reached a whole new level of clumsiness, one that involves painful injury with no memory. Go figure.
• I was flipping through a magazine a few weeks ago and saw this, and I immediately decided my daughter had to have one. My deepest hope is that these lovely little doors will satisfy her door-opening and closing needs. A girl can dream, right? So I used some graduation money from my dad to purchase one from some website I’ve never heard of, because it was the cheapest one I could find. Nearly two weeks later, I still have not received my order, and after several unanswered emails and dead end phone calls, I actually did some fishing around and discovered a review of the site indicating that it is out of business. So far my credit card hasn’t been charged, so I feel pretty fortunate in that department, but mostly I feel annoyed because I really just want the kitchen, and because if you have a retail site but are no longer selling retail, WHY NOT JUST TAKE YOUR SITE DOWN? Gah.
• Mia and I spent Memorial Day Weekend at my aunt’s lake house. Pictures coming soon, but the entire weekend can pretty much be summed up in two words, spoken as questions, over and over and over again: “Butt? Wawa?” (For those of you who need a translation: Boat? Water?) My baby, she loves the water, and if I thought it would improve her napping as much as riding around in my uncle’s pontoon did, I would dig a pond in our yard and put her bed in a canoe.
• I am almost as behind on reading other blogs as I am on writing this one. There are high fives and kudos and good luck wishes and virtual hugs in order, and although I’m not managing to put them into comments they are out there in the Universe, hopefully finding their way to you.
• And finally, just for old times’ sake, there are EIGHT DAYS left of school.

04 27 08 005, originally uploaded by tbgdee.

I write to you from my LAST GRADUATE CLASS EVER. At the least it is my last library and information services class. We’ll talk about that MA in creative writing I’d like to pursue some other time. Like in 10 years.

Graduation is May 17. Congratulations to us Graduwitches everywhere!

While some of you were digging your way out of a winter’s worth of snow yesterday, we in the southeastern states were battling the first badass thunderstorms of the spring season*. I was at work when the first one started. I haven’t mentioned this in a while, but I work in a POD, which is really just a large metal trailer. I was here alone because all the sensible people left right after the final bell to beat the storm, so I was a little nervous. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think the building actually shook a little, and when I walked over to a window to have a look outside, a gust of wind picked that moment to slam into that particular side of the pod, and I could actually feel it through the glass. So there I am, standing in the middle of the room freaking out inside, when the double outside doors flew open and wind, rain, and lima bean-sized hail began pouring into the room. Into the library. All over the books.

For one brief moment I panicked, and then I sprang into action. I threw myself into the doorway, grabbed first one door, then the other, and pulled against the wind with every fiber of my being until the doors were latched. I was drenched, as was our floor, but thankfully the shelves protected the books in the path of the gush. One small title that was on display on top of a shelf, a biography of John McCain, got soaked and is now recovering under a vent. I dried out just in time to get wet again on the way to my car, but I left feeling very heroic. I saved the books from the scary storm! I am a superhero! I am a protector of libraries! Now if only I had a cape….

And there may be a cape in my future, thanks to Prizey and

Actually, in Mia’s future, and it’s not really a cape so much as a very cool, very stylish kids’ poncho. But if my kid’s imagination is nearly as grand as my own she will totally call it a cape, and that makes me want to win one even more.

*I know some southern states have been hit hard with tornadoes this winter, but it’s been pretty calm here on the seaboard. I hope places like Tennessee and Alabama have a calm tornado season, as they’ve had quite enough to deal with during the off-season.

This is how over graduate school I am: on Monday night I spent a considerable amount of time trying to create a stick figure with a big butt. I did it, too, so the night was not a total loss. The key, for those of you now pulling out a pencil and some scrap paper, is to draw your figure facing either the 5- or 7-o’clock direction, and to emphasize the curvature of the upper back leg.

There is more to this (the graduate school bit, not the stick figure bit)–an entire post, in fact, that I pencilled in my notebook after the stick figure victory, plus another hand-written one after that, not to mention the three remaining drafts I have saved in wordpress. The trouble is that I don’t have time for completion. I spent a guilt-filled day at work not working on work-related work, opting instead to pour myself into an assignment that is due in one of my classes on Friday. Seven straight hours I analyzed the demographic statistics of my school. Seven, and I didn’t even finish. So after I put my kid to bed at 10:30, I will continue to analyze demographics, and I will be careful not to mention in the part about school climate that the reason we have behavior problems at my school is a direct result of Satan being a blood relative of 75.4% of our student body.

Meanwhile, I know you are all jealous. “What? Statistical analysis? Lucky bitch!” So here are some statistics for you to pour over:

• 13: the number of months my daughter mysteriously turned last week when I wasn’t looking
• none: the amount of elastic remaining in the underwear I am currently wearing
• 64: the number of times I have reached down the back of my jeans to pull up my underwear
• 6: the number of days it has been since I vacuumed
• -1: the number of hours I will have to vacuum when I get home tomorrow in preparation for my friend Linda’s visit, because she is scheduled to arrive before I even leave work
• 11: the number of weeks that have passed since I last had a haircut
• 2 billion: the number of times in the past 5 days I have considered shaving my head
• 7: the number of times my kid has tried to get my attention in the past 10 minutes that I’ve been sitting at the computer
• 0: the amount of time I’m going to continue thwarting her attempts to play with me

Having complained so vehemently about the hell that was cataloguing class this fall, I feel it is my duty to tell you I received my final grade for the course last night: A. Before you congratulate me, be advised that I didn’t learn anything in this class that can’t be “borrowed” from the Library of Congress website. Let me rephrase that: I didn’t learn anything in this class; I “borrowed” everything from the Library of Congress website. Those of you who are librarians know that the true beating heart of cataloguing collections has little to do with MARC records and call numbers and nearly everything to do with making your collection accessible to your users. That last part there–I have figured that out on my own or through working with an experienced school librarian. The dude teaching the class never mentioned users or accessibility, but his excitement about LOC classification was damn near euphoric. It’s nice to find such joy in one’s job, but I work in a school library where, at least once a day, I have to remind students that our fiction collection is arranged by author’s last name and is in alphabetical order. Heaven forbid they need something from the nonfiction collection. All those numbers. Bless their hearts, they just can’t take it. It hurts me to think about what LOC classification would do to their brains.

My point is that all that talk of MARC records and LOC classification was a waste of precious time–time I could have spent on more noble tasks, like playing peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake and watching old episodes of “Friends.” That “A” will be a nice addition to my transcript, but I didn’t really earn it so much as I paid dearly for it. Next time you wonder what you could do with a thousand bucks, consider adding “buy self a pay raise” to your list.

The books arrived. It’s safe to say we’ve all been in bookstores and libraries where there are lots of books. Thousands of them. Way more than 3593. But until you have 1) seen that many books come out of boxes, and 2) put that many books onto shelves, you have no idea just how many books 3593 really is. If you are interested in the official technical library definition of how many books we are talking, here it is: a damn freaking lot. By the time we had most of the fiction and the biographies in place and I had moved on to the 000-399 area of the room, I was over the “Oooohhhh, cooooool, new books” attitude and had moved on to something along the lines of, “Great, another 304.2. How many damn 304.2s do we really need? I mean, what the fuck were we thinking?” It was around that time that MJ discovered a whole box of 000-071s that hadn’t been placed, so I had to rearrange a number of shelves to accommodate them. Frankly, I am sick of books. How ironic is it that when I arrived home at half past the dark of night, an Amazon order I placed a few days* ago was waiting in the mailbox. Joy! Four new books! I am thinking of using them to build a fire.

But not really. See, this order was sort of a turning point for me. One of my biggest reasons for going into school media has to do with librarian-teacher collaboration. I discovered it as a teacher and loved the process; I have dabbled in some collaborative efforts with a few teachers, but our diminished collection has made it hard to do anything extensive. But as of today our collection is no longer diminished, and for the past several days I’ve been entertaining thoughts of pitching mini-project ideas and lesson plans to teachers using these literally thousands of books as ammunition.

In fact, I was having an informal meeting with Principal New and Improved, telling him enthusiastically about our plans to host little “meet the new books” receptions for each department, when he dropped this bomb on my little shiny village of hope: I might have to teach a 9th grade English class next semester. I have struggled with the change in routine, and with the challenge of getting teachers to make time in their busy schedules for the library, and with the frustration of dealing with kvetchy co-workers, and with the feeling of incompetence that accompanies being new at a job, but I can honestly say I was on the cusp of finding my groove. And now I am filled with dread. 

Those of you who have been along for the ride from the beginning recall how ready I was to walk last year at this time, and the year before that. And I could have. I had other options. But I chose to return to this place, a school to which I have devoted over a decade–literally my whole career–because I believe in its potential. Because I’d get to work with a longtime friend and learn from her experience. Because it felt like the right thing to do. Thing is, I chose to return as a librarian, not as an English teacher, and now I’m feeling cheated. Yes, he said “might,” and yes, nothing is set in stone yet, but I can’t shake the dread. The mere potential of this nightmare becoming a reality makes me want to walk again. Away from a school community that is like a family, away from the new books and the new building, away from my friends. And of course, just like all those times I wanted to walk before, now I have nowhere to go. I’m really ready to get this work thing right for once. Mainly I’m ready to stop using up all my energy trying to get this work thing right. Sigh.

*I initially typed “an Amazon order I placed a few years ago.” Paging Dr. Freud. Is this really only Wednesday?

That’s how many books are due to arrive here any minute now. They are packed in 140 “large boxes” (Large is such a relative term. I have visions of 140 refrigerator-sized boxes lining the walls and covering all the empty floor space). The representative from the book company will arrive with the books (I don’t think he will be in a box) to help expedite the shelving process. Thanks to the wonder of modern technology, they are already in our computer catalogue, so that as soon as they enter the room they can be checked out; no one will have to hand-key them into the computer, or create MARC records for them, or even stick bar-codes on them. If this is all I manage to post today, it will be because I am busy caressing, smelling, and fantasizing about reading all these glorious new books.

I’m in class. Cataloguing class. A class I am paying almost a thousand dollars to take, and yet, here I sit, blogging. My classmates are doing other various and sundry non-cataloguing activities: playing games, instant messaging, talking about drinking games. Our professor is flipping through a magazine. If I am joking, may I be doomed to catalog Republican Party propaganda in some dank library basement for the rest of time.

I know my last two posts (counting this one) have been lame, but this NaBloPoMo thing is a good thing for me. For one thing, I have a monster draft in the works, something I have been needing to process and write down for months. Working my way through it is allowing me to write about other things, regular fun everyday things. I actually look forward to writing, even though I don’t always get to do much of it.

Like now, because, glory of glories, it’s almost time to go and I don’t want to waste unnecessary time shutting down and packing up.

On Monday my fellow media specialist* (henceforth known as MJ) and I were given the green light to order a third of the library collection planned for our new library. You know, the one at the new school, which is still a flat expanse of red mud? The one that probably won’t be ready for student occupation until, oh, I don’t know, 2020? Our accreditation organization recommends that we have a minimum of 10 books per student and we currently have about 2.5. Pre-fire we had around 11 per student, so we have a lot of catching up to do, and we convinced the People With Money that we needed to start catching up now. And that is why both MJ and I spent every minute of the last 4 days of work–approximately 32 hours–in front of the computer ordering 4000 books. Four. Thousand. You librarians out there–you will understand this: we started with great enthusiasm, but by the end of the day today we were both all “We’ve covered the gays, the anorexics, the African Americans, the scientists, the dead famous people, the athletes. Who have we left out? The golfers? The race car drivers? Sure, order golf books. NASCAR books are good.” In the end we only managed to come up with 3700 because, seriously, 4000 books is a lot of damn books.

It was quite a learning experience, my first book order. For instance, did you know there are 8 billion different Chicken Soup for the Soul books? There is chicken soup for every kind of soul you can imagine. Jack Canfield, if you are reading this, you need to publish Chicken Soup for the Poor Public School Servant’s Soul, and the pages need to be made out of 100 dollar bills. That would warm my soul right up.

Unfortunately, what I didn’t learn during the book order was how to catalogue. Incidentally, that’s what I’m supposed to be learning right now, in my cataloguing class. That’s right, folks, I am blogging in a master’s level class I paid almost a grand to take. In my defense, if I sat here and tried to focus on what’s happening (or not happening**, in this case) at the front of the room, I would stab myself or one of my classmates, or probably my professor, and the subsequent results (bail, lawyer fees, etc.) would cost way more than a thousand dollars, so this is really the safer and cheaper option for me. So if you are a librarian and cataloguing wizard, please share your secrets with me, and if you are a librarian and not a cataloguing wizard but made it through cataloguing with flying colors, or any colors at all, please tell me what I need to know to survive.

For now, I will amuse myself by imagining your brilliant responses to this request: who else needs chicken soup? In the comments, or on your own blog, suggest more titles for Mr. Canfield’s consideration (and if you’re feeling really creative, write a nice entry that might appear in your version, because that would make me really happy).

*fancy public school name for librarian

**teaching, in case you hadn’t already figured it out

To clarify: I am taking cataloguing because my program requires it, not because it will EVER be a useful skill in school media. We use one of the jobbers Jen mentions in the comments, and they do all the hard work for us. As they should. Book-buying is expensive. Also,when the new school opens, the school system will order the “stock collection” for us (also mentioned by Jen); what we ordered this week was mainly everything we needed to support the specific curricular studies (and recreational reading needs) of our current students.

But more importantly, WHERE ARE YOUR CHICKEN SOUP TITLES? C’mon, AdProb, I know you’re holding out on me!

You get sore shoulders, arms, thighs, knees, calves, and ankles, that’s what.

I went back to work today. I was overheard during our initial staff meeting, which of course focuses mainly on the teaching staff, making the following announcements to anyone in my general vicinity who would listen:

“I’m so glad I don’t have a classroom.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have textbooks.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have to turn in lesson plans.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have a grade disk.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have student desks.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have my own students.”
And repeatedly, “God, I miss my baby.”

Other than the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep until after 1:30 last night, and that after waking to pee at 2:30 I never really went back to sleep, it was not a bad day. We are back on our campus in an Educational Village (read: large trailers), right next to the flat expanse of red earth that will someday be our new school. The “pods” are brand new and much more spacious than our destroyed building, but we have inherited mainly hand-me-down furniture (read: shit people should have thrown away), so there is lots of rearranging, repairing, and rejecting going on in the media center. MJ and I were Amazon Warriors, though, and after several hours of hard work, we have something that resembles a library. I wish I had a BEFORE picture; tomorrow I will take an amended BEFORE, and then I’ll update as we continue to make progress so you can be as impressed with us as we are with ourselves.

Now I am going to play with my cranky baby and eat ibuprofen for dinner and try really, really hard not to fall asleep with my shoes on.

Or people interested in the library profession. Or people who use libraries.

I’d like your opinion on self-censorship. My focus is self-censorship in the school library media center, but any opinions about the issue in any library setting will interest me, so bring’em on.

To get you started, here are some questions for your consideration:

1. How do you define self-censorship?
2. When, if ever, is self-censorship appropriate?
3. What subject areas, in your experience or opinion, most often fall prey to self-censorship?
4. What can we as librarians do to minimize self-censorship?

Feel free to ask or address any other questions–your help is most appreciated.

As Trista suggested, here is the entire question. I’d love to say that there actually is a context, but as you can see…not so much. I have all of the other answers, and I’m 99.9% sure they are correct, which would make the person referred to in the question in red something-or-other Jones. My gut reaction was Tom Jones, but I can’t find any connection. We are not allowed to use internet search engines, but out of desperation, just to find some direction, I Googled “Tom’s L*ove Connection,” and the only definite match I got was about Tom Arnold. I think that particular hit is just an allusion to the one I’m supposed to find, but I can’t seem to zero in on it. If you refer to Tom’s Love C*nnection in a comment, please replace a letter with an asterisk–I don’t want any of my desperate classmates to think they’ve found something and end up here with yet another desperate classmate.

3. The American equivalent of the word “waistcoat” (VEST) is the last name of a prominent Virginia obstetrician (GAYLE VEST). If you substitute an “r” for the third letter of her last name and a “y” for the fourth letter, you have the name of a deceased poet (VERY), whose first name (JONES) is the same as the last name of the person in whose honor Tom’s L*ve Connection was founded. As a boy, the poet traveled to a city in Russia (KRONSTADT) with his father, who was the veteran of at least one war (WAR OF 1812). The poet was born in a city (SALEM, MA) which lies 9 mi. SSW of a town in which the first dies for making coins in this country were produced (LYNN, MA), and his last name (VERY) combined with the first name of the first wife of the 26th President of the United States (ALICE), is the same as the author of How To Use Peat Moss (ALICE VERY). Where was she born? (ALLEGHANY, PA)

Anybody have any idea what this is? It’s the last hole in my reference question pit of despair. I can’t find a single lead. If I at least knew what subject area to search…anybody?

I have a lot to say today, but currently I am beating back the urge to blog in an effort to smack down procrastination, as I must spend my early afternoon on this:

“Exam 1
September 13, 2006Question: After viewing and participating in the Collection Policies class session, think about all the information presented PRECEDING this presentation, and discuss how it all impacts the development of collection policies.

1. A major political figure in Texas from 1938 to 1948 known as “Pass the Biscuits Pappy” (of “Light Crust Doughboys” fame) was born in another state that was also birthplace to a famous woman who was president of the first women’s club. Her last name is the same as the former president of a group dedicated to saving a particular species of mammals, and her first name is the same as the daughter of the 26th President of the United States for whom a color was named. She is the subject of a biography written by a woman who edited a column for the American Library Association. Her home state’s leading livestock product is also the last name of a quite famous woman, daughter of a prominent politician, known for philanthropy in Texas at the turn of the century, whose name caused gales of hilarity. What was her name?

I’ll be with you when I’m either finished or have quit graduate school altogether and made the inevitable decision to become a Starb*cks barista with a ridiculously large but incomplete store of knowledge about the library/media sciences.