The Taobrarian

Must read climate science article

taobrarian — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:22:32 +0000

Nature published an important article this week reviewing the real state of climate science and attempting to put the email controversy into proper perspective. Unfortunately, I hold little hope (I’m cynical at times) that rational argument and systematic presentation of evidence will do anything to change the opinions of those who are naysayers. I think a large part of the problem lies in the disastrous choice of “global warming” as the moniker for climate change. For one thing, that name doesn’t sound all that bad. Warm goes well with fuzzy and slippers. You know, nice stuff. For another thing, anytime someone experiences any cold weather or snow, they tend to think “so much for global warming,” thereby reducing a complex science to a soundbite.

Another problem is that we are all too quick to take up battle positions. Soon, whenever someone expresses a love for bananas, orange lovers will attempt to smear that person’s reputation or worse. This is not a plea for a simplistic “why can’t we just all get along” way of life. Conflict doesn’t need to be negative, but we need to know when to step back and listen and consider the world as it is, not the way we’d like it to be. And that goes for me, too.

Thoreau was once 35

taobrarian — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:22:35 +0000

I turned 35 this last August. It’s strange to think of myself as 35, an age that seemed indescribably old when I was a teenager. And yet here it is, and I still feel a callow youth at times, adrift, unsure of what to do next. It somehow makes me feel better to read in Thoreau’s journals and realize that he, too, was once my age. I mean, I’ve always known that he was my age, but reading something he wrote at that age makes it seem more real to me.

In January of 1853, on the 9th to be precise, when he was still 35, Thoreau had this to say: “I thought of those summer hours when time is tinged with eternity, – runs into it and becomes of the stuff with it.” Do you think he was missing summer? I know I am.

The Re-invention of Taobrarian

taobrarian — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:26:23 +0000

My head is full of cold. The weather is singularly uncooperative – raining, sleeting and snowing by turns. Nevertheless, I will follow through with my new year’s resolution to restart and rethink my blog. My initial idea for this blog was to discuss the way that technology and tradition intersect in modern libraries, whether in good or bad ways. I don’t plan to jettison the theme completely, but it occurred to me that my thoughts have not been primarily on that topic. Rather, they have been focused on my own attitude toward both my professional and my personal life.

I have lately felt as though I’ve failed to push myself to discover who I really am and want to be. Lest this sound to “airy-fairy,” I mean to explore how I wish to live my life and pursue my career more fully. What can I bring to the life around me of myself, and how can I grow and learn as an individual and as part of a community? I want to explore these questions more fully.

Also, this blog will also become a forum for my ongoing attempts to “come to terms” with living as a stranger in a strange land. I’ve always felt out of place, even in my native Tennessee, but the feeling is sometimes more acute here in the Inland Northwest. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I don’t always feel like I do.

I also want to record my attempts to grow more familiar with the rhythms of the year, how the seasons come and go, how forgotten histories sometimes become exposed through the wearing of dust storms and rivers. I want to journal my successes and failures as I plant and grow my garden, as I become more skilled as a householder, as I learn (or attempt to learn) more about what it really means to be human in what seems to me to be an increasingly “in-human” world.

I fear that none of this is clear, but it is how I see it at the moment. Hopefully, it will become clearer to me and to anyone reading this as time marches on this year.

Notes of interest for January 4th

According to Chamber’s Book of Days, January 4th, 1785 was the birthday of Jacob Grimm of Brothers Grimm fame, noting that Jacob saw his collection of folklore and myth as part of a larger project to more fully love Germany and its heritage. His works were often in collaboration with his brother William, largely because of a “brotherly community of goods,” including money and books.

Also on January 4th, 1641-2 was a pivotal event leading to the English Civil War – Charles I’s attempted arrest of the five members of the House of Commons who most defied him. The five escaped, and Charles found himself humiliated and unable to bring Parliament to heel. Chambers declares: “Charles raised the issue, the Commons accepted it, and so began our Great Civil War.”

Blast it all!

taobrarian — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:19:27 +0000

It looks like my “Neighborhood Naturalist” title has already been used! Oh well, more power to them. It just gives me the impetus to come up with something clever and unique. Perhaps the “South Hill Naturalist?”

Neighborhood Naturalist

taobrarian — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:35:27 +0000

I’m currently reading The Thoreau You Don’t Know by Robert Sullivan, a book I thoroughly recommend, if you have any interest in Thoreau, transcendentalism, 19th Century literature or modern ecological movements. I’m relishing it as my current “slow reading” project. Among things I’ve learned about one of the heroes of my youth: 1) his name was pronounced to rhyme with “thorough,” not “thu-ROE,” 2) Emerson was a bit of an annoying git, and 3) Thoreau was not a hermit, yearning to get away from people. Thoreau shines forth as a much more human, accessible and relevant figure through Sullivan’s exploration.

The book is inspiring me to re-kindle one of my earlier ideas for this blog (don’t bother looking for it, as I did not get around to posting anything about it, as is my wont). The idea is to “take walks” in my immediate neighborhood and record the experience in photography, poetry and prose. I can’t promise Thoreauvian heights, but it might be mildly entertaining, especially if I can discipline myself to get on with it. I’ll call this series, if I can get it off the ground, The Neighborhood Naturalist.

Website ideas

taobrarian — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:18:51 +0000

There are several ideas that I want to try to implement for our website in the near future. The first of these is to transfer our existing guides into LibGuide format. Once I’ve done so, I can replace our current subject guide page with the LibGuides homepage we have. Any new guides will be automatically added to this LibGuides homepage. The other benefit of this switch, besides having the automatic update, will be that our new banner will appear here, getting us closer to a more cohesive look on our website.

Another idea, which I got from the University of Washington libraries, is to use Vodpod to collect all of our videos and podcasts in one place. According to the librarians at UW, you can get an ad-free account for $30 a year, which includes the ability to add branding. We could pay the $30, put our banner at the top, change the color scheme and have a ready-made multi-media page for our site. Of course, we may be able to use the SFCC streaming server without paying any extra money. That would mean maintaining the page ourselves, but that would also be a good thing, if more difficult.

Back from Seattle

taobrarian — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:07:50 +0000

I’ve made it back from Seattle and am settling back in at work. I’ve got a lot of material to sift through over the next week. I want to write a synthesis of my ACRL experience and the ideas that sprang from it. I’ll post it here and at the ACRL conference blog.

At ACRL

taobrarian — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:12:22 +0000

Hi there,

I’m in Seattle this weekend for ACRL 2009. I’m one of the conference bloggers. My latest post can be found here: http://www.learningtimes.net/acrlconference/2009/finallyacrl/ .

Spokane Weather Blues

taobrarian — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:12:07 +0000

Spokane’s weather is designed to hijack one’s equilibrium. For the last few days, we’ve had climbing temperatures (okay, they’re only in the upper 40s, but that’s better than it has been). Today, however, we have been struck with snow flurries, actual snow, a snow and rain mix and general dreariness. As I write this, the first wan rays of sun are struggling from behind the clouds.

I never realized the impact of weather on mood and daily life when I lived in the southeast. We had relatively mild winters and humid, hot, mostly sunny summers with nice warm springs and autumns. The number of sunny days were ridiculous. Up here in the Inland Northwest, the winters seem like a long penance for past sins or the consequences of some grim karma. The summers are wonderful, dry and sunny, but you pay for it; believe me.

The other amazing thing is how difficult physical life seems when you’re fighting this type of weather. A simple walk down the street can seem like a chore. Carrying the groceries from your car to the house seems like a bridge too far. Of course, if you think about it, it’s probably the fighting that causes a lot of the distress. The Taoist way would be to work with the weather and not against it. I just don’t know how, being a hot-blooded southerner. Perhaps someone should write a “Snowy Weather for Dummies” book. Maybe I should; the research might teach me how to do it.

My library work is, fortunately, keeping me sane. When the rare rays of winter sun do shine, they come right through my office window, illuminating my painting of a koi pond (a birthday gift from my wife). Those times are especially wonderful.

Foggy

taobrarian — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:44:09 +0000

Today is one of those foggy-minded days that I get at least once every week or so. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything, even things that are of great interest to me. I flit from one thing to another. One minute, I’m excited about evaluating the possibility of our library subscribing to JSTOR. The next, I’m wondering what I’m actually going to say when I blog at ACRL next week.

The thing that annoys me is that the last few days were ones of relative clarity. I’m into my second week of practicing yoga, and I think I’m starting to make progress. One of things that I liked about this last week was how energetic and focused my practice made me. I should have known that the moment I tried to grasp it that it would fly away. This foggy, unfocused state is probably a fact of life for me and most other people. Perhaps the frequency will dissipate as I practice yoga and meditate more, but I can’t guarantee that. Anyway, I am who I am for now, and that’s what I have to accept.

I often wonder if this affliction hasn’t gotten worse in relation to the amount of time I spend online and working with social media. Does the ability to follow all the little paths that my mind finds intriguing actually make it more likely that I will never stick to one to find out where it leads? How can we expect young students, who have been weaned on the internet and constant cable television to focus their minds, to tame the monkey inside their brains?

How do we construct libraries and other academic institutions that balance the ubiquity of information and options with a clarity of purpose? How do we get students to find what their lifepath is? Is that even our responsibility? Should higher education facilities be involved at this level of an individual’s development? I don’t know.

On another note, I will be blogging for the ACRL conference in Seattle next week! Yay!