Redhaired Future Librarian

MoLib 2006: Libraries, Democracy, and the Public Interest

Libraries, Democracy, and the Public Interest
Presented by Denice Adkins, John Budd, and Doug Raber, University of Missouri
3:15-4 pm, October 4, 2006

This session was far too short. The presenters began with the Assumptions of Democracy (U.S. version): Public participation, informed citizenry, fundamental freedoms, individual rights, and majority rule. We spent a little time discussing what those meant, and then went on to try to figure out what was a library’s responsibility. The presenters asked whether libraries were obligated just to provide information or whether libraries were obligated to inform citizens. They asked for a show of hands. It appeared most of the people in the room believed libraries were simply obligated to provide information, but a few of the younger librarians in the room believed there was an obligation to inform. (I interpreted that to mean that libraries should offer not just materials, but sessions and displays.) It comes down to whether a library should be proactive or responsive. I believe there are good arguments for both.

The topic of library boards came up, as it does. Without a good library board, there’s little a library can do, it seems.

The session ended just as the discussion was really heating up.

MoLib 2006: Using Your Body

“Using Your Body to Reach Their Mind”
Presented by Jennifer Martin, PhD, UMKC
2:15-3:45, Wednesday, October 4, 2006

We did not stay for the whole presentation because it conflicted with another presentation we wanted to go to. Dr. Martin talked about using three in-take modes (hearing/verbal, facial/emotional, and kinesthetic/action) to communicate with library users. She is a drama professor, though, and did not have a great deal of library-specific examples. This session was a great idea, but was not exactly what I was expecting.

Welcome sign

Welcome sign

Originally uploaded by Jenne1989.

The Missouri Library Association conference began Wednesday, October 4, 2006 at the Holiday Inn in Columbia, Missouri. I did not attend any pre-conferences or post-conferences. Met up with some friends who had graduated and scattered away. That was probably the best part of this conference this year.

LISRadio: Kids Love Comics

This week’s LISRadio showcase is an interview with Jimmy Gownley and John Gallagher of Kids Love Comics, an organization that promotes G-rated comics for kids. The interview was conducted at the 2006 ALA Annual conference in New Orleans.

LISRadio: Rukhsana Khan

This week’s LISRadio showcase is an interview with Muslim Canadian author Rukhsana Khan. After recording this interview, I bought two of the books she mentioned for my personal library of children’s books. Roses in My Carpets is a wonderful story about a refugee child in Afghanistan in about the mid-1990s. The Beduin’s Gazelle by Frances Temple is cited by Khan as an example of a novel written by a non-Muslim that gets the culture right. It would be a wonderful book for a fifth- or sixth-grade student who loves reading fiction about other cultures and times.

LISRadio: Wayne Wiegand

This week’s LISRadio showcase show is library historian Professor Wayne Wiegand of Florida State University’s College of Information. Professors Seavey and Wiegand talk about reading, an element of libraries and librarianship that is sometimes ignored. (After this week, it will be available in the archive.)

Trouble-Shooting

I’m putting these solutions here in case someone else is searching for the same problem.

1. I couldn’t send IMAP email using Outlook 2003. Uninstalled McAfee Spamkiller, and now it works just fine.

2. I couldn’t see .pdf files in Firefox after I bought the Adobe suite. Turns out, I had an old Acrobat Reader lurking around. Once I uninstalled that, I was able to view .pdfs again.

A Teen Comments on the Library

One of the things I want to study more is the interaction between kids and the libraries at their schools. I have some suspicions that this relationship can be flawed, but I need to observe more places. I don’t have enough data yet. But I have suspicions that in some places, teens are inadvertently made to feel unwelcome at their libraries.

Here is the comment of a library user: “Hmmm… I have a stupid geography assignment on Bali dued soon… T_T really - why Bali? I really hate going online - most, if not all, of the information online is bogus! And libraries - i don’t do libraries! I hate how its all quiet.. the atmosphere in most libraries feel weird =/ (maybe i’m just weird haha) I HATE THE LIBRARIANS! rude and obnoxious bitches! Gosh i swear they sit there on their fat asses talking on the DAMN phone!! When you need their bloody service they give you the biggest dirty! Man i’d love punch them in the face x_X they all deserve black eyes!” (Found via The Annoyed Librarian) (I agree with Linnypooh– why Bali, except that it’s a big vacation spot for Australians.) It’s not clear if Linnypooh is including her school library in the dismissal, but it is clear that her information need is not being met. (I’m very glad she’s skeptical of online content, though.)

I’m going to start looking for more comments about libraries and librarians from kids and teens. It seems like Linnypooh’s observations fit in with some of the things I have already observed. One of the things that bothers me is that here is a person with an information need, and she feels excluded in the library.

At the beginning of my library school adventure, I read a great article in VOYA about what kind of library service makes teens comfortable with a library. It’s different than what adults want. (For the life of me, I can’t find it, but I will post the citation as soon as I find it.) The most important thing was that teens want to be ACKNOWLEDGED as humans and treated as if their information needs are important. A slight that an adult might brush off can really hurt a teen. I remember being a teen. I was probably more thin-skinned than most, but even the toughest kids were vulnerable sometimes.

Commenting

John at Library Clips posted a link to CoComment, a way to track your comments on other sites. So, I signed up. There is a box on my sidebar that might eventually get filled with comments. I’ve been using Furl to track my comments, but that’s not the intent of Furl. I hope this works better. It might be a good start as far as bringing conversation back to blogging.

Blogs and Discourse

Are blogs really good for two-way communication? I’m starting to suspect no.

I belong to a forum of people who have only one thing in common. We represent a wide range of political beliefs, religious beliefs, ethnicities, and gender identities. Somehow, on this forum, we are able to have real discussions, including disagreements. People still generally respect each other while engaging in dialogue.

I used to blog a long time ago, when Blogger was still brand new. It seems that people were willing to disagree with each other, while respecting each other’s rights to have an opinion. Two things changed the whole environment. The 2000 election and September 11 and its aftermath. (Some might argue the Iraq invasion, but the shift started long before that, I believe.) I quit blogging a few months after September 11 because of the hostile atmosphere.

I don’t see discourse any more in blogs. With a few exceptions, the blogs I have come across tend to have commenters who always agree with the main post. Commenters who do not agree are ignored, dismissed, or treated as if they’re attacking the original poster. (Ignored is more common.) That’s if a person who disagrees even bothers to post a comment. There seems to be an intolerance for people with different opinions and priorities.

Is it the medium that leads to this kind of environment? Much like how Power Point is often blamed for poor presentations? Or is it people who like to pontificate and be agreed with are drawn to blogging? Or am I altogether wrong?

How does this seeming lack of tolerance for differing opinions and priorities translate to real-life librarian work? Again, how does it represent our profession? If a non-librarian were to come across some of our posts, what would he or she think of librarians? Librarians are, of course, people, entitled to their own opinions. But we also represent a profession, one that people are increasingly finding to be irrelevant (whether true or not, the perception matters.) If we are presenting an image that makes some people uncomfortable with “asking a librarian,” what does that do to us?

Can blogs be used for true two-way communication?