Tribute to Dmytro Shtohryn

 https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/endowment-in-honor-of-dmytro-shtohryn-established-at-u-of-illinois/

https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/dmytro-shtohryn-librarian-initiator-of-ukrainian-studies-at-the-university-of-illinois-at-urbana-champaign-95/

When we lived in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, I was a Slavic Librarian at the University of Illinois where I worked with a number of Ukrainians and other emigres from the Baltics and Russia.  One I remember well was Dmytro Shtohryn.  I learned a lot about cataloging, librarianship, Ukraine, and WWII from him. He was also kind and generous--a good boss.  With all the recent news about Ukraine and Russia I decided to look him up.  He died in 2019 at age 95.  A life well lived. His obituary mentions Ralph T. Fisher who died in 2015, and he was my boss when I  worked in the Russian Language Area Center which is how I ended up being a Slavic Librarian.

Who controls the information that is supporting your beliefs and values?

There are many ways to interpret statistics for this lockdown, and this is just one of them--Case Fatality Rate--CFR. It is the political slant of the writer which determines which is selected. I'm a conservative Christian, so CFR supports many of my points. The Case Fatality Rate for the seasonal flu is about .1% to .2%.  That's higher than the CFR for Covid19.  By age, Covid19 looks very bad, unless you realize many or even most, of the people who were/are most at risk (in China it is 20%) are not in the labor force, and not in school. So why were the schools and the economy shut down?⁠

Most of the fatalities had co-morbidities. So why was the health system which managed those diseases for us put in peril? See the other methods at Ourworldindata.org to find the figures that match your level of fear and anxiety, your politics and your list to the left or right so you can be better informed than the Facebook and Google fact checkers and the Washington Post.
⁠
I'm a retired academic librarian (Slavic studies, Latin American studies, agriculture, veterinary medicine over the course of 25 years) and although I've forgotten a lot, I do remember well that to the victor belong the archives. Whoever controls the information controls what you are allowed to know, even in your public library. And keep in mind that public librarians are 223:1, liberal to conservative, higher than the ACLU.   And right now, that is Big Tech. If they can shut down the most powerful man on the globe, the President of the United States, imagine how they can crush us!

Note: Case fatality rate, also called case fatality risk or case fatality ratio, in epidemiology, the proportion of people who die from a specified disease among all individuals diagnosed with the disease over a certain period of time. Case fatality rate typically is used as a measure of disease severity and is often used for prognosis (predicting disease course or outcome), where comparatively high rates are indicative of relatively poor outcomes. It also can be used to evaluate the effect of new treatments, with measures decreasing as treatments improve. Case fatality rates are not constant; they can vary between populations and over time, depending on the interplay between the causative agent of disease, the host, and the environment as well as available treatments and quality of patient care.

Case fatality rate is calculated by dividing the number of deaths from a specified disease over a defined period of time by the number of individuals diagnosed with the disease during that time; the resulting ratio is then multiplied by 100 to yield a percentage. This calculation differs from that used for mortality rate, another measure of death for a given population. Although number of deaths serves as the numerator for both measures, mortality rate is calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the population at risk during a certain time frame. As a true rate, it estimates the risk of dying of a certain disease. Hence, the two measures provide different information. (Britannica)

And I still don't have a smart phone

Four years ago I wrote this. Nothing much has changed.

Not only do I not know how to use a smart phone as many my age do, but I don’t know how to do the simplest, ordinary everyday tasks familiar to my grandmothers (b. 1876 and 1896): harness a carriage horse, kill, gut and pluck a chicken, milk a cow, trim a kerosene wick or bank the stove with corn cobs to heat water for a weekly bath. Nothing I did in my professional life (academic librarian in Slavic Studies, agriculture, veterinary medicine at 2 different universities) lasted even a year or two, and unless they were digitized, my publications have disappeared. Did the student reconstructing road kill for a class project go on to make a difference, or the horse on the treadmill help someone get tenure? It was exceptionally interesting--but did it matter?

I do think education is over rated. At least higher education Did my job make a difference like the men who build, plumb and wire houses that last for over a hundred years? Or was it even as important as the commercial truck drivers who deliver food that someone else has grown, harvested and packaged for my use?

 
I probably spent half my professional life attending meetings, or writing reports, or staring at budgets of cuts that never seem to come together. At annual review time with my boss (he visited each library) I'd scoop everything off my ancient desk and put it in a box. About 6 weeks later I'd look in the box--usually nothing needed attention. Occasionally today I run into a former dean or department chair at Panera's who remembers me, and that's nice, but I do wonder if they have the same thoughts I do.

Subscriptions (digital) to keep me up to date

I subscribe to several medical information services because for years I was a veterinary medicine librarian and sort of got hooked on the genre. (I was also a librarian for Russian and Soviet studies, Latin American studies, and Agriculture in earlier jobs.) However, I've seen quite a change in the last 20 years. I also get the printed version of JAMA. It's really disappointing to see science going the way of intersectionality.

I subscribe to research from START (The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism) which "prides itself on the diversity of research conducted across the Consortium to bring a holistic understanding to the study of terrorism, counterterrorism and community resilience. START researchers based throughout the United States and around the world bring varying perspectives, experiences, and academic disciplines to their analysis." It doesn't live up to its advertising of mission statement.

I subscribe to beSpacific "Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002" And so liberal I sometimes scream at the screen when I see what she's covering. Librarianship, gotta love it. It's mostly political bias, but at least you know what you're up against.

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)

James Comey wouldn’t make it through library school

"James Comey has finally admitted some “sloppiness” over the surveillance warrant for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The former FBI director should re-read Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report because it lays out a record of willful incuriosity about Christopher Steele and his dossier that is hard to credit as mere incompetence." WSJ editorial board, "The incredibly incurious Mr. Comey."

In my profession (librarian), curiosity is what drove us there, paid the bills and took us home; can't imagine an FBI director with zip, nada, zilch curiosity, but there we have it. A librarian without curiosity and some problem solving skills wouldn't have made it through the first year of graduate school.

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?"

 

 

“Norma, I was wondering how in the world you survived in the librarians' world.”

The only librarians he knows are his two cousins and they are very liberal, so he asked me and I responded.

Norma demonstrating CD-ROM system in 1988

"Until 2000 I was a Democrat. That was the year I retired. However, I was actually apolitical, and all my core values were the same as now—pro-life, pro-business, creationist, Christian. Because I had always been concerned about the poor, racial issues, various injustices, the environment, the Democrats seemed the logical party since that was what they preached. I never voted for Reagan, or Ford or Bush I. But the worm had been turning actually since my husband went into business for himself in 1994 and I was the researcher and staff.  Slowly, slowly, along with some personal problems in our family, I learned about “enabling behavior” and how much of the good we think we do for others,  we do for ourselves to control them or the circumstances. I began to take Matthew 25 very seriously, and realized in those passages about meeting Jesus in person, we are never told that the other people will change or that we will change the circumstances of their lives—poverty, prison, hunger, etc.

Aside from all that, I know now I would not have been promoted or published (I was Associate Professor at Ohio State University when I retired) if I had been an open, out of the closet, conservative. My publications are/were apolitical, a lot of stuff about journals and 19th century women writers for farm journals, articles about veterinary titles, how to use databases, etc., but if I had been as outspoken then as I am now (social media wasn’t an issue although I was on Usenet) my career would have been toast. A conservative faculty member will not get grants, office space, research time, or appointments to important committees in most of academe. It’s not dissimilar to the problem blacks had in the 1920s when there was a quota in almost all universities (I also did research on black veterinarians turn of 20th century). Conservative faculty are tokens. 

Academic libraries are a little different than public libraries, (the profession has 4 types—school, special, academic and public).  Politics may not be as important for a health librarian or a physics librarian—some of the publications they purchase might have a political edge, but most would be straight research. Fields like Education, Women Studies, Black studies and social work would be much more political. But public librarians? 223:1 liberal to conservative (2004 figures). That’s higher than Hollywood or the ACLU. You can imagine how the budgets are spent for those libraries! 

For years and years I battled our local public library. They flooded the shelves with anti-Bush titles during his term—I think they purchased every one ever published. For instance, there are 3 large Lutheran churches in our area, and there was one book on Lutheranism copyright 1945 on the shelves. It was easier to find a new title on the occult than anything Christian. Even main-line. Lots about the Amish titles, who are sort of considered “cute” and interesting around here, but don’t actually live in our town. Any book on Martin Luther King, Jr. was classified as Christian, so that’s how “balance” was achieved. Everything Michael Moore ever did was available in multiple copies and formats.

It has improved somewhat, and I now see popular titles by well known TV Christian preachers or best sellers on the shelves, but I think most Christians learned years ago to just go to the book store or Amazon and avoid the library. My public library had about 50 journal titles on various technology/computer topics, everything from popular computer stuff to high tech production, and only three Christian titles. It was good enough for a small college library. And when I pointed this out and made suggestions, their reasoning was those publications I recommended were not on their lists of reviewed titles—you see, the same people control the review publications that control the library systems and it’s a closed loop. 

Your cousins don’t even realize the “liberal privilege” their profession provides. Their own publications and professional organizations protect them. It’s really the same complaint that blacks have about “white privilege,” in that when you live in it and it is your life, career, and friendships, it is just normal, not privilege. But to add to the mix, I’ve never met a librarian who wasn’t also a missionary for the importance of information and knowledge (can no longer say reading, too old fashioned). Their personal beliefs and values strongly affect their professional lives. 

If this doesn’t sound like the librarians you know that’s because most of the staff you meet in your public library are not librarians. They may be highly skilled para-professionals or shelving clerks or interns, but the librarians with a double master's or PhD are in the back room with the door closed working on the budget or a local committee report or a snag in the computerized circulation system or a speech for the next professional meeting.

So, that’s why you don’t know any conservative librarians (other than me)."

(Spacing is off because I copied this from an e-mail to my friend.)

There is a civil war brewing among librarians

Librarians are missionaries, although non-pacifist.  They are also members of the most liberal of all professions: 223:1 liberal to conservative. There is a disagreement about the mission.

http://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.230/

There is a growing rift between those who believe the library’s most fundamental purpose is to support and advance the goals of its host institution and those who believe the library’s most important role is as an agent of progress and reform in the larger world of scholarly communication. Although these two areas of endeavor are not mutually exclusive, they are in competition for scarce resources and the choices made between them have serious implications at both the micro level (for the patrons and institutions served by each library) and the macro level (for members of the larger academic community). The tension between these two worldviews is creating friction within librarianship itself

I met an outreach librarian on my lakefront walk

On my morning walk along the lake I met Leah Schmidt the outreach librarian of Geauga County Public Library Outreach services. Sounds like a great program. She oversees the delivery and circulation of library materials to the public via the Bookmobile, Amish delivery services, homebound and outreach programming. http://www.geaugalibrary.net/newsite/component/content/article/28-gcpl-news/413-gcpl-promotes-leah-schmidt-to-head-of-outreach

“Ms. Schmidt was originally hired at GCPL as a shelver in 2013 before being promoted to a reference position in spring of 2014. Her extensive education and professional background made her a strong candidate for the Head of Outreach position when it became available this month. She holds a Master’s of Library Science and a Doctorate degree in cultural foundations of education, both from Kent State University. She also has an MBA in finance from Youngstown State University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from The Ohio State University. Additionally, her work as an educator for Kent State, and in community service at the Trumbull Community Action Program (T-CAP) in Warren, Ohio, provides a solid foundation as Head of Outreach.”

Do you need to be present at your wedding?

Although this “Ask a Librarian” question primarily concerns Islamic law in The Gambia where proxy marriages and divorces are allowed, there was a time (WWII) when proxy marriages were more common in the U.S. and is still legal in four states,

“In the United States, proxy marriages were apparently common during World War II; today, four states (California, Colorado, Montana and Texas) still recognize this form of marriage with certain restrictions.”

Maybe it’s just me because I was a librarian, but the Library of Congress  Law librarians blog is fascinating, and I could spend a day or two just wandering through.

Today is Ground Hog Day

Sally Sims Stokes doesn’t mention Phil in her professional presentations, but I think her first library job had to do with taking care of a ground hog in Pennsylvania.

http://www.arlisna.org/images/conferences/2014/ses10_stokes.pdf

Young, hip librarians taking over the field

So, maybe you hadn't heard that rumor--that librarianship was young and hip. Well, I had, since I follow these things, although not as closely as I used to. You can tell by the cover of Library Journal.

Even so, Pearl has a large following and writes terrific book reviews and appears on NPR.

100 Best Blogs for School Librarians

Never pass up a list--and this one is really a good one, although why I'm on the list, I have no idea. I do occasionally blog memories about libraries, odd reference questions (how to bake blackbirds in a pie, how to get the flesh off road kill for a science project, etc.), or criticism of crazy things going on these days (16 copies of an anti-Bush book in the UAPL), but I'm totally out of the loop on the technology end of things, being somewhat a print on paper person myself. But it's still an interesting list, useful and well thought out. Librarians love lists. Actually, bloggers do too.

It's just not the same

When Annoyed Librarian went over to Library Journal, the home camp of the people she ridiculed (for pay), I thought she'd lose her readers. I haven't read her in weeks, but stopped by today. Just doesn't have the same feel at all. All the zip and zing is gone. But her loyal followers are still there. Not enough that I'd de-link AL, heaven knows it's very hard to find good consistent bloggers of my gender talking about something besides baby spit up and fashion trends, so I hate to eliminate someone who is good at pointing out the various shibboleths of the profession. Sometimes it was the only way for me to keep up on the various technological enhancements of librarianship by reading her making fun of them.

What to do with information?

Repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute, etc., etc. It's a commodity with a price tag and value added taxes, with distribution systems, with CEOs and worker bees, and it's much, much bigger than Wal-Mart, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the federal government combined. Information, of course is important in education, but it is by far the biggest component in social services. It is sliced and diced, molded and shaped, digitized and dramatized, sifted, shifted, and sh*tted.

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.

I'm eight years into retirement and think maybe it was all for nothing. 1) Repackaging of information is a huge industry in itself--but that information when it trickles down to the ordinary person doesn't seem to change lives or matter much. 2) Our ever expanding education system has created a class of people that expects and usually gets more, often by producing something other than information. It has also created yet another class, similarly well educated, who say it isn't fair for people with PhDs or MDs to earn more than social workers or government clerks, as they repackage and distribute information to earn their livings, but never produce anything.

More will follow.

4245

Librarian's call

His North Carolina National Guard unit will be called up in January, and he's relieved to finally have something concrete rather than rumors. "Please note that I don't mean that in a "gung-ho" or false bravado sense. I'm fully aware of the risks and have no wish to be killed or maimed. I will be the last one to complain if this turns out to be a thoroughly boring and uneventful tour. However, the cause of defeating both al Qaeda and Iran and its surrogates, while helping the Iraqi people build a country that can become a decent, pluralist model for the rest of the region, is important enough that I'm willing to take the risk. We have to win this fight, and I'm ready to do my part to help us do so."

He also says librarianship is a job; the Guard is a calling. David Durant