The firing of the first Librarian, Carla Hayden

I just found out that Trump fired Carla Hayden the Librarian of Congress in May. In her bio she's always called the first woman and first black to ever hold that position. I was thinking she was also the first librarian to ever hold that position. It was never considered important enough to have an actual librarian in that position. Well, since it's always been a political position, she was also appointed by Obama, was a Democrat and is 72 years old. That she's a Democrat is not odd, since probably 95% of librarians are very liberal and routinely support the far left issues. ALA is an advocacy group, but not for children, or reading or education. Trump didn't fire her during his first term, so I'm guessing she's said some unflattering things about him and his policies. You have freedom of speech to speak ill of the boss, and he has the freedom to choose someone else for the job. It's a titular position and someone else is doing the actual work. In the past it's been a position for a scholar, not a real librarian.

"On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Hayden of putting "inappropriate books for children" in the library, which receives a copy of every book that is copyrighted in the United States each year. She also claimed the librarian had done "quite concerning things ... in the pursuit of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), and "did not fit the needs of the American people." "
(Newsweek)

However, if Ms. Leavitt said this, it isn't accurate. Works are protected automatically, without copyright notice or registration. If LC received a copy of every book that is copyrighted in the U.S. there wouldn't be a building large enough to hold them.

"Copyright protectable works receive instant and automatic copyright protection at the time that they are created. U.S. law today does not require placing a notice of copyright on the work or registering the work with the U.S. Copyright Office. The law provides some important benefits if you do use the notice or register the work, but you are the copyright owner even without these formalities." (Copyright quick guide, Columbia University Libraries) If I write a letter to my friend or draw a horse on a postcard, you don't have a right to use it.

 
Perhaps she meant Ms. Hayden was putting in the Library of Congress children's material that couldn't be read aloud in front of Congress because it was disgusting and salacious?

I'm still the fashion police

A lot has changed since Trump won in 2016. He knew the deep state was a problem, but only now sees how deep and murky politics really is. He knows now it's much more cutthroat than business or entertainment, but loyalty and deals are still his strength. Ordinary words have flipped, and Democrats seized words like "democracy" and "woman" and stomped on and shredded them. In my opinion, Melania and Barron are hardly recognizable. She's dressing like a librarian, or the wardrobe we used to wear 30 years ago--gray suits, sensible shoes, subdued and blending in. Barron looks like he's grown about a foot and now towers above both parents and all his siblings Donald Jr., Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany. Last I read he was 6'9" and still growing and advised his dad about the younger voters.

Seventeen years ago, and things haven't changed much

17 years ago a fellow library blogger. Walt, referred to me as a "right wing librarian." I responded at my blog (somewhat in shock):

"Because I remember those days when I was a liberal humanist, I know why and how this designation happened. When you are a liberal or a Democrat, you see yourself as just “us.” When you are a liberal, the antonym of “liberal” isn’t “conservative,” but right-wing. Everyone to the right of you is wrong headed, a threat to your personal space and freedoms, and “them.”

When you are a liberal you can’t see the bias of the major news media outlets because they reflect your own views and opinions; you don’t notice there are no Republican voices on the faculty of your institution or among the speakers invited to the campus; you don’t even notice when 70% of the campus never says anything out of fear for their jobs; you don’t see that there are almost no conservative books on the new book shelves of your public library and just assume they must all be awful because surely librarians wouldn’t tolerate bias in book selection; you believe that money will solve all social problems; and arriving at a goal or target is never enough--you must gird the loins of your cause with more tax money.

I’m far more liberal, in the true sense of the word, than many of the Democrats I know. I believe the “least of these” have value, therefore I’m against killing babies in the womb because they have physical anomalies or it's not a good time in mommy's career. I believe poor and minority children need a good education to succeed in a complex society and shouldn’t be left behind just because their parents can’t provide it. I believe there should be art and music in the schools--libraries are less critical.

I believe that Jesus Christ suffered and died so that every single person can be welcomed into the kingdom of God, but also believe those for whom he died have the right to say "no thanks" if they so desire. I believe that men and women are equal but not the same--in some areas women are superior. I believe in ordaining women and letting their skills and abilities and your needs determine if they should be in your pulpit.

I believe in meritocracy in the work place and don’t support quotas and affirmative action--they are demeaning to all we fought for. I do not support the death penalty. I was a strong pacifist through the end of the Vietnam war when our “anti-war movement” condemned millions of Vietnamese to death by pressuring our government to run out on them. The most shameful page in our history. I think the United Nations is a waste of time and money since it wasn’t able to save Rwandans or the Sudanese and it stole and scammed food from the Iraqis. It would still be investigating the cause of the tsunami and forming study groups if the US hadn't taken the lead. These lives mattered too.

I believe Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East, the government/country with which we have the most in common. Anti-Israel fervor is veiled anti-Semitism, in my opinion, and just a new version of "let's blame the Jews for all our problems." I believe we should stop propping up third world monarchies and feudal kingdoms. I think the war in Iraq will look like child’s play compared to the one coming--with China.

I support strong environmental laws that benefit everyone, not just a few disappearing rat and bird species. In fact, I believe our earth is God-created, organized and run. Therefore we should take care of it. I am a 6 day creationist and think it’s a waste of time to try to squeeze “intelligent design” into our theology or public school classrooms. ID doesn’t say much of anything. But evolution often looks Unintelligent too, and children need to be exposed to more than one view as the liberals used to believe.

Many of the librarian blogs I link to are “liberal”--but only if they are well-written, logical and informative. Walt has actually supplied the names of some I’ve never seen. But I’ve never seen mine linked on liberal blogs (some of that is ageism, not politics). A liberal today has severe torticollis and can turn only one direction--left."

I'd forgotten Walt in the last 17 years so I looked him up and found his twitter account. Yup, an apologist for Biden.

Where do you get your information?

Gary asked, "Where do you get your information?"  He watches only MSNBC and CNN--two channels that pretend to be objective and fair, but repeat the Democrat party talking points, in my opinion.  That is a great question, however, something all librarians and teachers emphasize when teaching research skills. And it’s essential for him particularly to ask because so much of the news is infused with opinion, not research, and he spends a lot of time watching news from one viewpoint. His method is why librarians and teachers usually don’t accept “magazines” as a valid source when teaching research. Some won’t even accept an encyclopedia, which is a shame, in my opinion. I love encyclopedias, and most articles are signed. Not many people own the 11th, 12th, and 13th editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but I do.

When I give an opinion, it’s that. Norma’s opinion. When I quote, I try to always cite the source, and my opinion may be learned from others over time, but by checking their sources. Dennis Prager’s recent tirade against Biden reflects mine, but I’ve followed Prager for years. He’s been on radio for 40 years, is Jewish, loves music, literature, politics, has great wisdom, and supports young conservative influencers like Candace Owens, Will Witt and Charlie Kirk who have gone on to their own careers. Pager was anti-Trump in 2016—converted to a fan when Trump accomplished conservative goals of lower taxes, less government control, border security, cutting red tape, best friend Israel had, priorities for prison reform, etc. https://www.creators.com/read/dennis-prager/05/22/joe-bidens-buffalo-speech-was-the-speech-of-an-indecent-man

My opinions are primarily built on my values, even if I don’t think about it. Christian, anabaptist, conservative fiscally, formed by the region I’ve lived in (Midwest U.S.), the language I speak, race/culture, college education, and career. However, my entire life I’ve been pro-life, even before I understood the science and politics of taking the life of a baby in the womb. Even in second grade, I remember thinking evolution was ridiculous and anti-science, because yes, evolution was being taught as truth at Forreston elementary in the 1940s. I learned to pretend I learne it, to answer the questions on the tests correctly, and not rock the boat. I love science—and I see my values about creator/created confirmed every day, especially astronomy and all the “new” critters found at the bottom of oceans. Love that stuff!

When it is rate, number, percentage, average, median, year, I am usually relying on a government or academic source (since academics have government grants it’s hard to know where one stops and the other begins). I always keep in mind those sources also have biases because they are collected and published by humans. For instance, after 2008, certain crime sources just disappeared. After certain years, census sources changed—for instance, additional groups or races were added or divided. What was called white was changed to create Asian or Hispanic (a made-up word that includes hundreds of cultures). Biracial white/black/Asian/Mexican/Cuban/Indian is almost always considered black—probably a carry over from segregation days. It's my impression that liberal/progressive sources are more likely to refer to numbers rather than rate. Most confusing (on purpose) is the writer moving from rate to number to percentage in the same article. For instance, violent crime may have black aggressors 8x the rate of whites, but because white criminals outnumber blacks due to the population, liberal sources will site numbers more often in crimes. You may have to go to the last paragraph or a graph/chart to see percentage or rate.

Over time, I’ve learned when there is a horrific tragedy like last Wednesday in Uvalde, Texas, the tsunami in 2005, or the Louisiana hurricane in 2006, or the strange conflicting figures for the 2020 vote, it may take years to sort out or find the truth. I’ve heard three versions by Saturday of how police acted/reacted to the Uvalde tragedy. Without even listening to the news we know there will be the anti-gun bills and the safety bills. We know Democrats will be anti-2nd amendment and the Republicans will focus on SRO, more cameras, better training.

For some reason, Gary often sites David Duke, a has-been, colorful Democrat, from many years ago, sometimes because he was a southerner, and that was the party of hate he grew up with, the party that held blacks back with various Jim Crow laws, and now do it with money from government programs. He’s really a creation of the media, unlike Antifa, which actually did roam city streets, who were well-educated, rich white supremacists, who covered their faces with hoods, who did burn down buildings, and had clout. When I was a Democrat I certainly didn’t associate my party with Duke, just as I don’t associate any Democrats I know with Antifa.

But Democrats do get in a rut.  They are very suceptible to "progressive" ideas and fall for the socialist clap-trap. They actually believe if we hand more money over to the government, it will be used for whatever purpose they claim.  Republicans have spaghetti spines and no balls, to stick with the body language. 

September 30 is the feast day of St. Jerome, patron saint of librarians and libraries as well as archivists, translators and encyclopedists. It is celebrated in the Catholic Church for this canonized saint and Doctor of the Church and as a day of commemoration in Lutheran churches. I was aware of this since I was a librarian, but it was not until 2009 and we were on a tour of the Holy Land that I visited his cave where it is said he translated holy scripture into the language of the people, which was then Latin. It took him 30 years. According to St. Augustine, St. Jerome had a remarkable knowledge not only of Latin and Greek, but also of Hebrew and Chaldaic, and had read almost every author. He translated the Old Testament from the Hebrew, and, at the command of Pope Damasus, the New Testament from the Greek. Besides this, he translated into Latin the writings of many learned men, and enriched Christian learning from his own pen.

 
He wrote many letters over 50 years which document the history of religious controversies and squabbles among Christians about scripture (imagine that!) and also his own sarcastic and sharp temperament.

 
And today we think we've accomplished something if we send a text or hit send on a blog or Facebook post. Even librarians, who should know better.

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/saints/jerome-625

Who locked the church doors?

The entities in our society who've disappointed me the most during the pandemic are the public libraries and the Christian churches—particularly  the large ones with healthy budgets and large staffs. Both are evangelists, although for different causes. One for information and learning and the other for Jesus Christ and a life style that includes worship, charity, and good works.

I was a librarian for many years (Slavic studies, Latin American studies, cataloger, bibliographer, Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine) and have worked in libraries since I was a teen-ager, I know what they mean to people seeking health information, assistance with school work, leisure activities, access to computers, and mind-numbing recreational reading--all of which should have been considered essential during a pandemic. It's just not difficult to "social distance" in a library, or for the staff to keep a library clean. One summer my assistant Sarah and I moved our entire 50,000 volume library across the hall to an empty lab so painters could give it a fresh look. And no, heavy, back breaking labor wasn't in our job description. I don't know a librarian or para-professional who hasn't done something outside the standard guidelines in order to keep her job. And usually, willingly because they love what they do and see their work as a service to society.

I've been part of a Christian faith group for as long as I can remember--from the days when I wrapped my little arms around my mother's leg as she chatted with friends after the service to the funeral of Ann Hull in February 2020 when we all hugged and cried with her family and friends. Do you know that half of the churches in the U.S. have a congregation below 75 (the median)? The average congregation has about 185 people--and that was 10 years ago--it's probably less now. They do a lot, those little churches--food pantries, hospital visits, volunteering at the local nursing home, after school classes in the faith, preparing the youth for confirmation, serving at all the funerals of the "old folks" who didn't move on to something with more glitz and glam, gathering the faithful 10 or 12 for a choir, and some don't have a full time pastor--they have sort of a circuit rider like the 19th century rural churches.

Those churches of less than 200 (many elderly or ill) probably didn't have enough people who could put together a task force or committee to drive to the state house and convince the governor that churches are just as essential as Lowe's and Walmart to the community. And do you think those little old ladies who have served at a thousand funerals and weddings don't know how to keep a church clean?

But where were the big brother churches who could have shouldered that burden? Playing with their computers, Zooming and Skyping and listening to confessions in the parking lot of their cathedrals. I don't like Teledoc and have never been one to watch TV preachers, although I am fond of old reruns of Bishop Sheen and Billy Graham.

Years ago--probably the 1970s or 1980s, an era when churches really began losing ground to the culture--my mother wrote an essay about how discouraged she was after a lifetime of service in the church to see so few young families in her small town church. I wish I could find it—never one to promote herself, she may have written it as fiction. She'd taught Sunday school, Bible school, sewed the curtains for the fellowship hall; she'd been the Christian education director, she'd birthed and raised the church organist, she'd decorated and served in the church nursery; she'd made thousands of casseroles and Jello salads for church dinners, she volunteered for 30 years in the local nursing home; she donated her garden produce, she taught sewing to migrant workers, she led a Friday morning Bible study in her home for years, and used her own funds to create and manage a religious retreat center. She may have even had a stint running the church library because she loved libraries. And I might add, she did it all (except for gardening) in a dress, hose and heels.

I think her essay was directed at my generation, or maybe just me. I wasn't doing a fraction of what she and her generation did. My generation  gathered to sit on the floor in focus groups and have consciousness raising discussions on what it meant to be a woman in the 20th century. We were petitioning for more power on the male dominated church boards and going to the state house with signs to demonstrate for the ERA. We went back to work in droves until a second income was essential for all families, as was a 2nd car and a bigger home.

As we women discovered who we were, went off to seminary and joined the boards back in the 1970s, our children just walked out of the church after confirmation or after baptism depending on the denomination and became the "nones." Somehow, I just can't see the women who struggled through the Great Depression and WWII, whose husbands and brothers had gone off to defend our religious freedoms and assembly and speech freedoms putting up with the government making rules that would cause the pastors and church boards to put a lock on the church door.

How I became a retired librarian...from 2008

“Since I was 5 years old I've been in the information business, and before that I had a sharp eye and was taking it all in without realizing it, analyzing, puzzling and disgorging it to anyone who would listen or look at my drawings (before I could read or write). With nearly 20 years of formal education, and probably fifty required, no-credit workshops, I went on to help other people find and redistribute information--helped them find obscure details for their novels, graduate from college, locate jobs, get tenure and promotion, nail down grants to do research, find a formula for a baby gorilla rejected by its mother, and bake blackbirds in a pie. I even published my own research on agricultural publications and home libraries by examining bits and pieces of other people's research who had done likewise.

In my pursuit to dig out, disgorge and distribute information, I held hands, wiped tears, observed love affairs, translated documents, got blisters on my ear from phone calls, created web pages, compiled bibliographies, nodded off in hundreds of meetings, lectured at conferences, ruined my rotator cuff and placed shaky fingers of the elderly on keyboards. I mopped water from leaking ceilings, tore fingernails changing print cartridges, handed out tissues, woke up sleeping students, and brought blueprints home, all in the name of organizing and distributing information. In thanks for my efforts for information I received a paycheck, benefits, thank you cards, flowers, and the occasional lunch out or box of pastries. In the late summer of 2000 I had five retirement parties. Two years later when the new library I helped design opened, I never even got an invite to the open house.”

(From a blog I wrote in 2008)

The Patron saint of librarians

St. Jerome is the patron saint of librarians and archivists.

"Although St. Jerome has been referred to as the second most voluminous writer (after St. Augustine) in ancient Latin Christianity, reasons for recognition of him as the patron saint of librarians and libraries as well as archivists, translators and encyclopedists emanated from traditional lore. A review of his life and work suggests several reasons for this title. St. Jerome’s personal library was considered to be the most important private collection of the period. He was a great bibliophile, interested in collecting both pagan and Christian books. His learning was considered unequaled during the time he lived since he was an insatiable reader and had a phenomenal memory for what he learned. Finally, his scholarship broke new ground with his translations of the Bible and Biblical commentaries."

I found this at a blog for Luther College. It was written for the 40th anniversary of their library, but that was 2009, so that library will be 50 years old this year. I was there to attend a Homecoming event in 1956, so I must have been in the old library, because I'm sure I brought my homework along. My boyfriend had to drive from Decorah to Prairie du Chen (about 43 miles) in a borrowed car to pick me up at the train which I’d ridden from Oregon, IL. https://memorypatterns.blogspot.com/2005/11/visiting-luther-college-in-iowa.html

St. Jerome: Patron Saint of Librarians | Library | Luther College

When we were in the Holy Land we saw the cave where Jerome worked translating from Hebrew and Greek into Latin--for 30 years!

Clinton visits ALA

When I saw that Hillary Clinton was leading the charge at the American Library Association conference in Chicago, I wondered what had happened to Mark Rosenzweig the Marxist librarian who had a melt down when Laura Bush was speaking at ALA about 11 years ago, and she was not only FLOTUS, she had actually been a librarian. He was head of a group something something Progressives that had a never ending "round table" on leftist social issues having nothing to do with libraries. Not to worry. I looked him up.  He's apparently teaching in China, where I'm sure he's discovering all the joys of Communism with a side order of state run capitalism.

Salaries for librarians

I received an e-mail newsletter/update from the University of Illinois School of Information Sciences.  Lots of news about minority recruitment.  I wonder about that.  Librarianship (the old name) requires a master's degree.  With school teachers earning anywhere from $56-$60 an hour, much more than librarians, why recruit minorities?  It's possible that median salaries are listed under some other titles.  Another website listed slightly higher salaries--about $35,000, but nothing that would pay off college debt.

So I sent the school a note:

"I was reviewing “iSchool at Illinois” and what has obviously been a very successful recruitment of minority and male students. I found the microaggression workshop a bit off-putting, but then that's my age--graduate MLS in 1966. From what I've seen of them they are anti-white, anti-male and divisive. So I checked a website for salaries and see a library researcher is $27,848 annually, same as a linen room attendant and $2,000 less than a parking lot attendant/valet. There was no listing for "librarian." Do you have any current salary figures that would make recruitment of men and minorities a worthwhile effort?"

 

 

LIS Microaggression on Twitter

There's a Twitter site for librarians who get insulted easily, "LIS Microaggression." Apparently, if you are a white male, no one ever says ridiculous things to you.  Anyway, I've been looking through the sticky notes (which I think someone then catalogs, but I'm not sure), and truly, although librarians are 223:1 liberal to conservative, now they've completely fallen off the left edge of the cliff.  I used to read through the ALA committee assigned e-mails and wondered how they ever got their work done since they were so busy fighting the battles of the world. 

Truly, people have always said dumb things to librarians, my favorite being, "You mean you have to have an education to do this?" or "What a great job--you just sit around all day and read." Once I got a phone call from a NYC chef who wanted to know if baking blackbirds in a pie would be safe from diseases.  Another time a student from another state wanted to know how to cook the flesh off the bones of some road kill so he could reconstruct it for his science class.  

BTW, a WOC is a "woman of color."  And apparently no one ever told her in library school that your boss just might get credit for your work.  Think of it as being the speech writer for the president.

What becomes of old blogs and bloggers?

Today I found my blog listed in “Evolving Internet Reference Resources,” by William Miller and Rita Pellen, a book which also appeared as two issues of Journal of Library Administration, not uncommon for library publications. At that time (information probably collected 2004-2005) about 150 librarians had web logs in the U.S. I was retired when I started my blog in 2003, but still wrote about library topics, something I rarely do today, and participated in a few library related discussion groups.  This blog, Collecting My Thoughts, was listed as personal musings, entertainment, and doubtful for a reference tool:      

The Kept Up Academic Librarian is an example of a librarian blog the authors liked and recommended, so I looked it up to see if it was still viable.  It closed out in August, 2012.

"After nearly 8 years, 5,000 posts and 500,000 page views, this is the last post at Kept-Up Academic Librarian. It has been a good run but the need for this blog is diminished and even though the time it takes to compose it each day is not great, it is time I could use for other activities. Now with so many others sharing higher education news on social networks, along with other sources such as University Business' daily update, Academic Impressions and daily news items in the Chronicle and IHE, it's clear there is less need - and that is supported by the stagnant usage data."

The blog owner wrote a good summary of what happened to blogdom that concerned any profession or hobby or special interest.  People flocked to other social networking sites from Facebook, to Twitter, to Pinterest, and many on-line publications improved their review coverage. Indeed, many of my FB friends are people I met while blogging.  But it is interesting to browse this one and see many concerns of four years ago are still in the forefront of the news, and still nothing has been done.

"Exponentially growing student loans are driving up tuition and creating a demographic time bomb as well as a higher-education bubble that could explode in taxpayers' faces."  Link

I suspect this is our housing bubble of 2007, so hang on to your pocket books ladies, it's coming just in time for the next administration, since this one did nothing but exacerbate it. But that link is dead, and so this is only a summary, something not unusual in blogdom.  I find a lot of dead links on my blog as online publications disappear or are rewritten.

The STLQ blog essentially ended in 2009, with a referral in 2011 to his personal blog, which hasn't had much going on for years.

"As it has been over two years since my last post, it is evident that STLQ's time has come to an end. I want to thank everyone who has followed my posts here since the blog began in April 2003. I continue to maintain my personal blog, The Pod Bay Door, should you wish to follow me there."

And what did Google have in mind 10 years ago (reported on this now defunct blog).