so far ahead of myself i'm behind

i could swear i entered my posts into the tracking log, but then i thought about it and realized maybe i hadn't. so checked, and sure enough, i couldn't find me anywhere on the roster. besides thinking, dangit!I, i thought for sure i'd done it before. i sure hope it doesn't show up twice in there. i guess it's better than not showing up at all. so anyway, i guess i'm all caught up and waiting for more.

there's nothing new under the sun

what's with people and 'communities'? there are sites and groups for everything! i was under the impression that everybody wanted to be unique, but that's impossible. "you're unique, just like everyone else." the fact that so many of these groups and communities exist seems to back that up.

i guess the uniqueness shines through in the way people present these ideas. sometimes somebody innovates and we get something completely new. well, a new spin on an old idea.

does that depress anybody else? the fact that you are restricted to the same ideas that everyone else has, everyone before you had, and everyone after you will have?

sit back and think about that. makes you feel small, huh? and insignificant. "what is man that you should be mindful of him?" no kidding, huh?

so maybe, what it really comes down to is people wanting to feel small and insignificant with other people. or maybe it's the opposite; maybe being part of a group gives them identity and makes them feel big because they're part of something else.

thanks for listening. tune in next time for more opinions and questions of the ages.

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

why does no one say that when it's rainy and grey outside? for the most part i like grey days just as much as sunny days (although i must admit they're definitely more acceptable in november rather than july). so i don't understand why people are always griping about the weather. as a matter of fact, i don't understand why people talk bout the weather at all! what is it about the weather? i mean, i literally can't go a day at work without hearing at least one comment about the day's weather. people get depressed (around here) during the winter cuz the sun goes away forever. when most of us work indoors and don't have time to venture out much, why do we get so caught up on the weather?

what will they think of next?

so i made a librarything account just now, added some books. i think it's going to take me a little while to figure out a) where i really like this or not and b) what exactly is the point of this? it doesn't seem very useful to me right now. but i'm sure as i learn more about, become comfortable using it, and actually use it, i'll come to love it. sort of like i did with del.icio.us. ;D

paradoxical irony

i've been thinking, and i find that the very technology we are to embrace (hence this training) is also somewhat of an enemy. perhaps that's too strong a word. a... nuisance, let's say.

what led me to this conclusion? well, obviously i work at the library (or i woudn't be doing this training) and it has become my habit to listen and observe while i work. i like to label the days: is it a quiet day, or a loud day?

yesterday was a quiet day, and i thought, this is what libraries should sound like. all you could hear was the sound of typing, the occasional murmurs as people talked with each other, or the cheerful voices of the LAs as they greeted customers. today was downright rowdy; storytime, lots of voices, lots of typing, cell phones ringing...

i'm not voting we get rid of storytime or discourage customers (that's what we're here for, after all!), just deploring that the technology sort of gets in the way. i guess this is where i tell you i absolutely hate, loathe, abominate, and DESPISE cell phones. i think they're the plague and it drives me absolutely insane that people can't seem to go anywhere - anywhere!!!!! - without them. can't they at least have the decency to turn the stinkin' things off when they're in the sacred atmosphere of the library?!

libraries, at least to me, should be sacred places that are different than anywhere else you can go in public. in my oc days, walking into the library was like going to a different dimension. as soon as you pass those doors, it's cell phones off, whispers on, tread carefully, and don't make noise. it was amazing. even though there might be fifty or more students in that building, you wouldn't know it because everyone observed the cardinal rule of the library: quiet. is it wrong to ask the public to abide by the same rules? what's changed? are we afraid of infringing on people's freedom? will they keel over dead if they have to turn their cell phones off for half an hour? am i being unreasonable?

i guess i see the library as the last frontier, so to speak, and it's rapidly disappearing. well, maybe i should amend that to the library's atmosphere being the last frontier. where else can you go for that blissful silence filled with knowledge waiting to be discovered? barnes and noble has more of that now than the library does! how sad is that?

maybe what i really should be deploring is people's sense of that atmosphere. why do they observe it more carefully in a book store like barnes and noble but not in a library where it all started?

ideally, it would be great to separate the computers from everything else (an element of the oc library that i really appreciate), and turn the cell phones off at the door.