Tuesday, November 28, 2006
General Annoyance
Ok, today I'm just so generally annoyed that I don't have the will to be annoyed about anything in particular. Sometimes it's hard to get worked up into annoyance at anything in the profession, because it's all just so darned unimportant. What's the point of satirizing the ALA when no one listens to what they say anyway? The SRRT is easy to laugh at, but who really cares about them either? Maybe I could get annoyed by a nice juicy library trend that smacks of corporate silliness, or some desperate attempt by public libraries to try to be everything to everybody, but I doubt it. Today I'm just not sure libraries and librarianship are even worth the effort.
18 comments:
of course it's worth the effort! there's so much there - perhaps you're just feeling overwhelmed at the huge amounts of silliness? my boss was just in here talking to me about "knowledge-based resources" and when i asked her to explain that term she couldn't. that was amusing, right? huh? huh?
hang in there. all of the rest of the annoyed librarians need you.
That about your boss is pretty funny, actually.
It's clearly 10 minutes past martini time. I also recommend the blog, Creating Passionate Users, and Kathy Sierra's post on the Power of One for a chaser.
Dear AL,
You obviously need a pep talk. You have a cultivated mind and a sharp wit. You are a master of the english language and a leader in the field (albeit an anonymous one). You have good values and passion. You are one of a kind. If you need to change your focus or go on vacation or have a martini, then do so. But please, I beg you, don't abandon your minions.
Just think of all the lives we're saving... oh. The rewarding work? Well, I do get thanked a lot for refilling staplers. Okay, the money (except for our raises are lower than cost of living... so I actually lose money each year I stay). It can be funny sometimes, though. You know, in a painful, soul-sucking way.
Stacy: The story about your boss is very funny. It seems to me that managers always have the "buzz words" on the tip of their tongues. But when it comes to actually explaning them (or, God forbid, implementing them in the real-world), they become silent and glassy-eyed...and then make you responsible for figuring it all out.
There's always something to be specifically annoyed about...my high school social studies teacher used to preach "specificity!" So, what about all those surveys out there? Survey Monkey has created Library Survey Monsters. One more example of my mantra (which pisses off my staff and boss, both, which makes me think it's the right mantra), "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." I mean really, TAKE SURVEY DESIGN classes, folks, or at least research methods before inflicting these on us!
There, AL--go for it.
Oh, great boss story. I hit my staff with "customer-facing" the other day (gulp) but at least I could define and give examples of it...but you guys can go ahead and be annoyed anyway. I can take it.
Dear AL,
You are not screaming into a void. I am a young librarian and I am listening. I've recommended your blog to other new librarians and they're listening too. We're already mad from being misled by our schools about the quality of education and the lies about entry level work being abundant. You are planting seeds of irritation in fertile soil and one day, maybe we'll all do something about it.
Misled. Perfect choice of words. Misled by library school. Conned. Duped. Fooled.
Pay no attention to library school marketing / promotional material. I fell for it once - and that's why I sing praises about AL to my annoyed colleagues.
Library school was not about learning; it was about ensuring library school profs had more funding to conduct their research, at least that was my experience.
My boss has dropped a few "library 2.0" bombs on the Ref staff--first a blog, then IM, and now an RSS reader--with little or no instruction on how to use them, or much of a rationale as to why they should even want to. Then she went on vacation. I've been batting "cleanup."
Stepping outside of it for a moment and looking at it from that angle, I guess that's pretty funny.
Ahh... Library 2.0.
Personally, I'm working in Library 3.7 and I don't know what's wrong with all you slow people.
(actually I think I'm working somewhere in the 0.8 spectrum)
the attempt at establishing a blog in my organization was a miserable flop. no amount of begging could get the staff to participate. yet having a blog was one of the "strategic goals" for the year. so i guess we failed. ha! now one of our "strategic goals" is a freaking wiki. i plan to author the first entry under "futility"
Yeah, sure, you can give up. Go ahead. But somewhere out there, while you're resting on your un-librarianish bottom, there's a kid waiting to wiki up the Schrödinger wave equations while her cohorts make myspace pages. And she is annoyed. Out there there's some old granny hoping to figure out her life while some effluent cretin mouth breathes over his porn. And she is annoyed. Somewhere out there a dude searches for meaning and gets claptrap. And that dude is annoyed.
Do it for them. Fight the power for them.
"Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop
When you can't, you won't, and you don't stop
You know you can't, you won't, and you don't stop
A to the L come and rock the Sure Shot"
--Taupey
Obviously I'm working at Library Five-O, which I like because it has its own theme song. The irony is that I often drop "library 2.0" terms into conversations at work, just to show everyone I'm a hepcat and not at all the cynical reactionary some suspect me to be.
And Taupey, Johnny Cash may have worn the black for the poor and beaten down, but I wear the black for the "kid waiting to wiki up the Schrödinger wave equations while her cohorts make myspace pages."
Oh, and I don't want to comment on my own library and whether or not it has a blog, but institutional library blogs in general are so pathetic that I can't believe anyone is bothering with this.
AL: That kid exists and you know it. Admit you mist up the way I mist up over that one at the end of the movie "Rudy." C'mon. Let out those halting sobs. You...ju...just...want the k-k-kid to...to...suc-ceed. *snif*
--Taupey, Automatic for the People
Is Chicago Public supporting the mayor's removal of baby Jesus? Might be a story.
How about a little religious discrimination?
http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=1502668&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.10.1
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