Headlines and Elevator Speeches

I finally came up with a headline I liked.  It sums up my goals in life absolutely perfectly, without leaving any room for misinterpretation and does not trap me with strict methods of carrying out my goals.

"Encouraging youth to imagine and create."

Yes I do tend to think about books when I think of my goals but there are a lot of other ways to encourage imagination and creativity.  I've been exploring several options that can be used in the library in fact, and I will continue to come up with more.

I was having some fun when coming up with elevator speeches.  I'm not entirely sure I have one down to use once and for all, but I thought I should share what I have created.  If anything because some of them are a bit amusing and dramatic:

"Libraries are cultural hubs of our society!  We are community leaders, providing places of sanctuary for the knowledge seekers of the world!  We are your backbone when you feel oppressed, your education when you are long since out of school, the feet you stand on when there is no ground left!  Books?  Screw books what do you need to know?  I have a bazillion places you can look at and all of them credible, TAKE THAT Wikipedia!"

"I’m a librarian, an information specialist Mr. Bond.  Sure Q can make you all sorts of nice toys but how will you know which wire to cut on the nuclear bomb so it won’t detonate?  We’re sort of like M, your boss, except we won’t keep secrets from you.  Oh no Mr. Bond, our job is to make SURE you know absolutely everything you WANT to know, and then some…"

"We are upon the precipice of the future!  Technological advancements in information flow throughout the world is constantly growing more and more advanced!  Who will be the ones to keep it all on track?  Who will be the ones to stop the flow from overwhelming the world?!  Librarians!  Yes, the proud, the true, the knowledge protectors and gatekeepers of tomorrow!  Serving the community to the ends of the earth!  We are in good hands!  In librarians we trust!"

"I help the community.  I ensure the education of those who desire it is within grasp.  I provide services to entertain kids and teens of all ages.  I help researchers and teachers alike in their chosen craft.  I make sure resources are known and available to everyone without discrimination.  I provide a safe haven for groups, for individuals, for all.  Can you guess what I am?

I’m a librarian.

I am always on duty and willing to help.  If you have any questions, I will answer to the best of my ability.  If you need to find something I will try my best to be there to aid you in your search.  If you’re lost in this day and age of the unlimited magnitude of sources, let me guide you.  I promise, I won’t lead you astray.  I won’t try to sell your information or pellet you with ads or give your computer a virus.  I pledge to listen, to advise and to provide, but in the end you get to choose.  That, is my profession."

I like the last one best, but it does need a bit of tweaking.  I wanted to start off as if what I am is a sort of riddle, the kind you can solve easily.  I'm a bit tired of people not understanding what being a librarian is supposed to be, so why start with saying "I'm a librarian?"  No, I will start by listing some of my duties and then mention my "title."  But, just so they wont fall back to the stereotype, I will continue with some of my goals just so they won't forget.  It's a work in progress but it's a start.

Originally Sparked from Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

Inspiration?

Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

I am frequently inspired by many things.  My bad movie collection for instance, (and I mean, BAD, not so bad it's good but...just terrible) I keep because of certain lines, or underlying plot elements that stick in my mind long enough for me to obsess over it until I figure out why I like it so much.  They are my reminders, and for the most part, where I get material for my writing.  Same goes for certain books, and video games.  

But what inspires me to move forward?  Thinking back to my terrible bagel job what inspired me to go for something better?  I was unhappy at the time, and I do believe that that was a really good push but I doubt it was the whole reason.  I knew I could do better.  I felt I could do better, and I knew that if I wasn't going to be intellectually challenged for the rest of my life I would go insane.

I took Latin for 6 years.  I barely remember the more complicated stuff but I always liked to mention it at the bagel shop to professors who clearly were involved in ancient history.  Most of the time they would begin to spout Latin at me and I would sit there and try to figure it out.  One day a professor, who mentioned I looked quite unhappy,  came back with his favorite Latin quote on a piece of paper:

"forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit."

"Perhaps one day it will help us to remember these things."
(Perhaps one day we will look back at this and laugh)

-Aeneas in a pep talk to his men

Written just like that.  I have that piece of paper taped to my desktop tower on my desk.  My husband constantly tells me, it wont be like this forever.  Things will get better.  But when I look at this quote, I really believe it.

It's not all that inspires me.  But it really really helps.

The Power of Presense

Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

Technology is wonderful.  Last week I woke up with terrible heartburn, and posted in a Facebook group consisting of my classmates if anyone in the building had some tums.  Immediately someone responded.  We met out in the hall, and life was fantastic.  All of it was due to technology.

 Yet, as I sit on Skype and I talk to my friends who cannot seem to find jobs in their profession or are in debate what to do with their lives, I find myself unable to connect.  Today an old college friend came to visit me.  She was trying to get into grad school for writing, only to find that the academic world does not share her views on genre fiction and none of the programs seemed to fit her needs.  We talked and I told her about my experience this past week in grad school.  I told her what my expectations were while going into the program, how they have changed (for the better), and I told her it's not about what I wanted to do with my degree, there are infinite possibilities to that question.  It was what I wanted to do with my life, and whether this program was going to teach me the skills to get there (thank you, Dave!).

Academic bias be damned.  I told her, if she wanted genre fiction to be taught at a higher level, she'd have to be one of the ones to start that.  And she would need a degree to do it.  She said she wanted to be a professor, so I told her to look up the history of Jazz Music being taught in colleges, which went through a similar stigma.  If that was what she wanted to do, then she needed to be willing to fight for it.  When she left, she seemed thoughtful and happy.  Funny thing is, I said the relatively same thing to her six months ago on Facebook, but it took me saying it to her face for it to sink in.

(ok going in to 4 paragraphs here, please forgive me!)

Connecting this to librarianship: all the technology in the world might help us gather more of an audience, it might make us feel more connected to our communities, and it most definitely will add to our tool kit of ways to reach out to more people.  However, none of our messages will sink in unless we have face to face conversations.  It's not just words words words, it's body language, tone of voice, smell, touch.  The other senses of our body help us to understand the world around us, and the internet limits that.  We always need to remember that there is a power to presence. 

Conversations

Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

I used to be shy.  I still am in a sense.  I don't like talking in big groups, and I am hesitant in confrontation.  But I work on that.  Sometime in high school I got tired of my friends taking advantage of me.  It wasn't their fault.  The way I communicated with them, the way I acted, they figured that was the norm and accepted it.  But the unfairness of it all built up until I exploded.  There was a fight, and it took the rest of high school to put those relationships back together.  They still weren't the same.

It's all a learning process.  But I am not here to have you all pity me for my high school woes, just bear with me.  After the explosion, I began my own personal Renaissance, and worked out exactly what had happened and where the communication failed.  It was puzzle solving, and through that I managed to salvage a little of what was left of those bridges I had almost burned.  Since then I have continued to work on my communication, my body language, and all my ticks and nuances.  Now I have perfect strangers sit next to me on a train and tell me their life story or the horrible day they had.  People see me as someone they can trust.

I feel all librarians, no matter what their demeanor, become someone the public trusts.  Whether they want it or not, whether they have earned it, doesn't matter.  That is one old stereotype, one ancient relic of the past that I believe is positive of librarianship: reliable trust.  But the trust wont last unless we communicate.  If a stranger talks to me on a train and I don't respond, in words or body language, or are abrupt and rude, they peter off and that awkward silence falls.  If I engage them back, I find out new things, new ideas that I never would have known had I not known how to communicate.  Not only is it interesting, it builds, and solidifies a trust. If I ever see those people again, they engage in discussion with me, even let me hold their kids, give me business cards.  It all ties in together, and in the end the more personally connected a community feels towards its librarians, the more they will come to the library.

Just the Librarian

Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

David Lankes is my favorite librarian at the moment, and I'm not just saying that because he's going to be reading and grading this.  Seriously.  Every time he talks, every time I read something he's written, I feel like I am about to sprout wings from the knowledge and rhetoric he shares.  If anyone could stand in an empty room and have people call it a library, he would pull it off with flying colors.

I admit the concept eludes me a bit though.  In the "Atlas of New Librarianship" by Lankes (2011), it is discussed that the illusion of "things" is really not what makes a library.  It is the librarian that makes a library.  I can see it in my mind, we are providers of information and innovation, so really we could just stand there in an empty room answering questions and helping people.  If we knew everything (imagine what having an actual computer for a brain would be like) then we'd be the best libraries in existence.  Not only would we be mobile but people would be able to use the first form of communication they learn to gather what they need.  Speech.

So would we even need the building?  Nah, I don't think so.  It helps, I am sure, but so do the thousands of books and computers and web sources.  Really the one thing I'm not quite understanding is this: what is the difference between us and teachers at that point?  The Atlas says they enable learning.  It looks to me that the line between is very thin.  By providing information are we not enabling learning?  But teachers do encourage others to absorb the information.  I guess the difference between Teachers and Librarians is the difference between a sponge and a bucket.  Teachers get the knowledge absorbed while the librarian fills.  Subtle, in a way.  Maybe not the perfect analogy but I like it.

I'm going to cite this book a lot since I am going to be writing about it for the next week.  just a warning for those not in the know.

Lankes, David.  2011.  "The Atlas of New Librarianship."  MIT Press.

Social Decadance (Online)

Class 511 - Introduction to Library and Information Professions

I am truly quite amazed at the amount of progress we've made as the human race in regards to social media.  We've invented social means by which the days of yore have never seen, or even thought of.  Could you imagine King Arthur's reaction to Facebook?  Caesar's response to Twitter?  "Gaul sacked, be home soon <3 Julius."

Now, I've known about Facebook, RSS feeds, Podcasts, Wikis, and Blogs for quite some time.  Facebook was the only one I used on a daily basis.  I tried making blogs in the past but I never knew what to write.  Thing is, I am too reliant on computers.  As in, my phone is not cool enough to help me check these things enough for me to care about them.  But on a grander scale, with more people feeding in input and information in a community, like a library, THAT I can get in to.

Social Networking is like an addiction.  The only reason I still play the MMO game World of Warcraft isn't because it is a good game, it's because I have so many friends who play it it's become something of a "hang out" spot.  Recently I started my Twitter account again and I find myself checking it constantly because more of my friends use it now.  Libraries need to get into this if they haven't already.  People love being social, one way or another.  Pick your poison: we have it now.  There is so much that can be done to connect people with the libraries through the new social means, I could write a twenty page paper on the topic and still go over the page limit.

Actually, I might do that.  Hmmm...