Things I have recently learned

My word! It has been awhile since my last blog post. I guess I have been dragging my feet a bit with this blog. For that I apologize, to no one in particular. The weather has begun to turn wintery here. There is snow on the ground and nip to the air. I might even need to put on my boots to walk to work soon.

The fact that it is cold and snowy can mean only one thing: The fall semester is nearly over. In fact next week is finals week. This semester has gone incredibly fast and I believe it was only a bit less stressful than it was when I was a student. I am guessing this is due to my newness to the profession. In the last 15 weeks I taught 20 information literacy classes, placed my first book orders for the English and Communication, History, and Business departments, and spent a fair amount of time at the reference desk.

Some of the realities of librarianship I learned while at the reference desk: There simply aren't as many true reference queries as I wished there to be. I also learned that due to proximity of the reference desk to the computers we are the frontline computer help desk and also the refillers of staplers. All of these things I seem to be able to do adequately, though I must say I excel in refilling the stapler.

One phenomenon that I have noticed since the weather has cooled is the dragging of feet. The reference desk, in a way, is sandwiched (maybe hot-dogged is a better term) between the computers and the printers. As a result there tends to be a good deal of foot traffic passing before the reference desk. Overall, most foot-draggers happen to be female and usually the culprits are wearing some form of boot. This leads me to believe that either these girls are so out of shape they cannot properly lift their booted foot or that the boots are purposely weighted down in order to build tone up and build muscle. At this point I cannot be certain as to which it is; this investigation remains open.

Once this mystery is solved perhaps I will devise a way to harness the static electricity from the foot-dragging to power a printer or two.

Happily borrowed from: everyday marvels

Information, Information, Information

After a recent blog post and possibly the Tweet or Retweet from The Pumped Librarian I have been thinking a lot about how we interact with information. Is it better or worse to have this much media flowing into our phones, computers and for some televisions? I have thus far refused to use del.icio.us because I already cannot handle the amount of information coming to me through various forms of social media and standard web surfing. I would have a complete mental breakdown if I had a running list of articles bookmarked that I had meant to read but hadn't found the time to.

One of the articles I did receive and read was MSNBC's Search questions often both wacky and weird which discusses how search engines have changed our lives and how Google (and other companies) auto-fill search predictors offer an amusing insight into the world's searches.

I first noted the hilarity when typing in the phrase, "which is worse" when trying to compare high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. What I saw was this:



I found it funny that marijuana use is listed twice but not using it's hard to spell term, but rather weed. You would think that a browser's auto-spell check would help out with this, but perhaps it is a bunch 12 year olds sitting around trying to figure out what to try first. It's not surprising, to me, that health concerns dominate the list, considering how unhealthy we Americans tend to be.

Of course, seeing this and then reading the above mentioned article I decided to test out a few other phrases to see how entertaining this could be. I tried "who is" next:



Here we find someone looking for a question posed in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, among other things. I am most struck by the last one asking who the antichrist is. Seriously? Is this just a group of scared christian children using the web to get all the answers they couldn't find in the good book? But seriously if there was an antichrist who came to town and there was an epic battle between heaven and hell I am pretty sure this would be common knowledge to all of humankind.

Next up "Should I...":



"Should I get a divorce"

"Should I call him?"

There can't really be people sitting at their computers thinking that the internet has the answers of these extremely personal questions, right? Please tell me I am right.

I am pretty sure "should I shave my pubic hair" wins this round. I think google should respond to this one with questions of its own.

"Do you have crabs?"

"Is it uncomfortable?"

"Does your boyfriend or girlfriend call your nether regions The Black Forest?"

"Is your Boyfriend or Girlfriend having a hard time locating the desired parts?"

Two other great phrases are "last night I" and "could I"





Hopefully we have all learned something about how Google has practically become everything to everyone, a confidant and a friend. What does this say about us? About the age of information? And about where we are headed as a culture?

A Confession (30 days on)

In the name of the books, the director, and the holy library.

Bless me Father for I have worked. It has been 1 month since my last day of unemployment. These are my tasks…

Collection Development: I am the library liaison for English, Communication, History and Business Administration. This means I am in communication with each of the mentioned departments discussing collection needs and accepting requests for monograph purchases. It is up to me to judge whether a suggested book is appropriate for our collection and ultimately whether it is to be purchased or not. I also get to do some purchasing when the departments don’t submit enough requests. It looks like I have a lot to learn in this area.

Reference: I am scheduled 5 hours a week at the reference desk once the semester starts. This is one of the things I am looking forward to the most. The reference desk is one of the most fun places for me. You get to interact with people and help them find the information they needed. I like helping people but and more selfishly I enjoy learning about the random things that people need help researching.

Instruction: Over the course of this semester I will be eased into Library Instruction. Luckily I am not being thrown into the fire (though I am sure I would survive). I will be teaching classes about research and how to use resources at a professor’s request for various courses offered here at the college. First I get to observe, then co-instruct, then instruct (with support) and finally set free to soar on my own. Hopefully I won’t fly too close to the sun. There haven’t been many advances in wax over the last 3000 years.

Miscellaneous : Reformatting and updating the Subject Guides on the library website. This is often tedious and sometimes entertaining. We are using Springshare’s LibGuides for our guides. I edited and updated the Information Literacy Modules on Blackboard that all incoming freshmen are required to complete. I am also on the planning committee for the Library Expo 2009, which is a fun, informational event for students to become familiar with the library and its services. As of right now I am tasked with creating a crossword puzzle using clues from the various stations or stops setup throughout the library.

I am happy for these tasks and all the tasks I cannot remember

My God, In choosing to do work
 and failing to continue to be unemployed, 
I have sinned against you and the failing economy 
whom I should love above all things.
 I firmly intend, with your help,
 to do penance, 
but work no less,
 and to avoid whatever leads me to unemployment.
 Amen.

‘Your un-unemployment is truly forgiven. Go in peace.’

Thanks be to Employment.

The Sunset (or how I managed to lock myself out of my apartment)

Today was a lazy day; a very lazy day. it consisted of waking, playing a video game and watching a movie. The trouble began after noticing that there seemed to be fruit flies in my kitchen. So I did what you are supposed to do. I got rid of the fruit that was likely drawing them. How they knew there was fruit was present and how they got into the house is beyond my intellectual scope and will forever remain a mystery.

I threw out the old fruit, took the bag out of the can tied it opened my front door and placed it on the door step. I turned to retrieve a pair of flip flops so I could walk down the stairs and throw the bag into the trash can. Something distracted me, I am not sure what it was anymore but I am certain it wasn't anything important and I forgot about the bag.

A few hours pass and I heard what almost could be described as a barking. It was as though two yippy (yappy?) dogs were fighting in the distance. "Odd," I thought. Then I heard scuttling and a struggle outside my door. I drew back the curtain to see two bushy tailed squirrels fighting over my bag of trash.

At this point I leapt into action grabbing my flip flops and headed for the door. Unsure of how protective these little warriors would be over the bag of trash I tried to make as much noise opening the door as possible. While doing this I also tried to open the door slowly so neither of the little bastards had a chance to get inside. The last thing I wanted was this squirrel on squirrel fight to turn into a cat vs squirrel cage match inside my apartment.

Luckily for me both squirrels took off down the steps and up the nearest tree. I snatched up the bag of trash and proudly shut my apartment door making a victory march to the trash can. After throwing the bag in I went back up the stairs only to find that the knob will not turn.

No big deal I will just walk around to the front of the house and knock on my landlords door and ask them to let me back in. It turns out no one was home. I turned away from the door and sat on the steps of the porch to think things over. Unfortunately in my laziness I didn't bother to get dressed and was only wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts. This of course meant I didn't have my cell phone or my wallet on me.

So here I am on a sunday night in a new place, without a phone to call one of the few people I actually do know watching the sunset. The whole event was funny and even peaceful until I noticed that mosquitos were really starting to take a liking to my plump skin. So I sat there wishing I had a book to read while being assaulted by small bugs.

Around 9pm after about an hour of sitting and providing nourishment for the local bug population I saw my landlords parents drive up into their nearby driveway. I was saved! My landlords arrived on the scene within ten minutes and I was let back in.

So here I sit, itchy, typing this story of my stupidity.

Notes and Errata*

My life has changed. A lot. The blog describing that change is still waiting in the shadows. It will emerge one day and a nicely documented account of a 3,000 miles drive, setting up life in a climate exactly the opposite of the one I had lived in for 18 years, or so. Or it will be a total piece of crap in which I only tell the story in a sort of half-assed manner that will disappoint myself and others. As of right now I think the first one will happen.

One of the things I think I always knew on some level but realized on a conscious level recently is a nervous tick I have. I am not sure if nervous is the right word for it. While standing around or walking by myself I noticed that I often feel uncomfortable with my arms swinging, hanging or swaying. This could be on account of my unusually long arms. That's right, I have long arms, longer than most people apparently. If you've noticed you have seen that I wear dress shirts a lot. When I do, the sleeves are always rolled up. The reason for this is that I do not know how to shop for shirt sizes when they have numbers on their collars. I can handle letters though M, L, XL. That I understand.

My long arms were once commented on by a British gentleman measuring me for a suit in a Men's Wearhouse (son of a bitch, I just realized the play on words at work here! How have I not noticed this before?). While measuring my arm length he said, "Oh, my you must have been eating a lot of bananas!" and "How have your arms grown so long!"

Oddly enough I don't think his equating my long monkey arms to banana consumption is the reason for my discomfort, and I have yet to determine the reason for it. Regardless of the reason my subconscious will kick in and my right arm will come across my body and scratch at an imaginary/nonexistent itch on my left wrist. It always happens in this manner and I have yet to catch myself doing it while alone in my house or amongst people. It's only alone yet in public. If I make any further discoveries or have any other revelations about being awkward alone I will report back immediately.


Moving on, I have noticed a phenomena that, to me, has seemed peculiar to Northern New York. They have left turn arrows on their roads that appear for lanes in which you can either go straight or turn. This is really weird to me because there have been a number of occasions where I will be the first one waiting at a red light and a green arrow will appear allowing me to turn if I so should wish. Neither time that this has happened had I wished to turn. Though both times there were a number of cars behind me that wished for me to turn so they too could turn. The first time this happened I thought I had really fouled things up being in a turn only lane when I wanted to go straight. But after a quick sign check I found that I was in an appropriate lane. So instead of feeling like an idiot I felt like an asshole for not letting others turn.

So why would this manner of light exist? As best as I can tell it exists in case of a cosmic miracle that there is a line of cars coming together in both space and time to turn left. On second thought maybe it's for funeral processions. They follow a lead car like mindless (and mourning) sheep. But me, I am left to ponder whether I want to be an asshole and block that lane (legally) or whether I want to wait in the often longer line of cars in the right lane.




* Blog title stolen graciously and blatantly from DWF's Infinite Jest.

Sorry for the Delay

I will have a new blog up sometime next week detailing my adventure of driving across the country, visiting DC and Philadelphia and settling in at my new job. It has taken a while for the internet to be activated at my new place. Everything should be set up by monday night; after that the blog posts will be much more frequent. Thanks for your patience.