There has recently been of rash of sexed-up marketing in the library world. A few weeks ago, Wyoming Libraries caused quite a stir in the profession (both pro and con) with their “Mud Flap Girl” marketing campaign. This week, two additional sexed-up marketing campaigns have been revealed by American Libraries magazine. First, a personal crusade by a youth services librarian in Bend, Oregon who skates for the the Lava City Roller Dolls team “12-Gauge Rage,” under the name “Dame Deviant.” She sports a sign on the backside of her uniform that reads, “Support Libraries.” Nicely Done! Next was a story about marketing the Penn State Altoona’s Eiche Library. The library staff decided to sponsor a booth at the school’s annual health fair. They wore wore bright blue, “Sex On Campus” T-Shirts, and gave away hundreds of condoms over the course of the event. It was such a successful community outreach project, that they intend to double the number of laptops they brought for next year because so many people wanted to take the interactive sex quiz that the librarians crafted. Rock On!

Good news! As of today, I am once again gainfully employed; I was offered and have accepted a position at a public library here in the Portland area. The folks who work there all seem nice, it’s only a ten minute drive from home, the pay’s decent (for Maine, anyway) aaaand – best of all – there’s already a Tech Services Librarian on staff!

Oh, thank you Jeebus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Zoroaster, Confucius, the whole buncha ya. No more messing with domain servers and mail servers and file servers and firewalls; no more showing library staff how to cut and paste for the zillionth time; no more listening to people bitch when the internet connection goes down. IT’LL BE SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEM!!! AAAAAAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!!

As of next Monday, I will be working again, and the money will once again be rolling in. I’m rich, beeatch! No more government cheese for me!

Bill Maher recently blogged about drug testing for library volunteers in Florida (the comments are the funniest part).

Re: the testing… um… why???

Went to see Kaki King on Monday and was mesmerized by her innovative guitar playing. I yearn to make music and vow to start practicing my guitar playing again. I want to put that goal out into the cyber-universe and ask you to hold me to it. If you help me stick to that goal, in six months, I promise to premiere the sound clip of me playing “Dirty Wife Beater” (an original bckhough composition) right here on this blog.
I am flying to Seattle on Friday and would love to meet up with any of the Seattle-ites in the bunch of us. A beer at the Elysian? A band at the Tractor? I’m also looking forward to meeting up with Libraryman and other friends at the Internet Librarian conference in California next week. Anyone else planning to be there? I am so used to looking at your a.bunchof.us avatars that I worry about whether or not I will recognize the “real yous” anymore!!

I can’t decide if this reveals a disappointing lack of perspective on the part of Albuquerque librarians, or a keen understanding of media relations and the value of timing and rapid response in getting your message across.  I’m leaning towards the latter.  Is there anything defamatory to librarians that we could picket in the Pacific Northwest?  Nancy Pearl?  Archie McPhee’s?  Aaron Smith?

Librarians picketed a film crew shooting in Santa Fe, N.M., saying they were using an actress stereotyping librarians as old and frail.

In just 90 minutes, she designed the T-shirts that said: Santa Fe Public Library … Not Your Stereotypical Librarians, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Source: Librarians picket film’s stereotyping

I cannot believe that I am the first to create a “shoe” category on this blog (esp. w/KB and MP as contributors). Maybe I should tag it “fashion” but somehow it seems right to make it its own category. Just wanted to share a recent blog post from the Manolo Shoe Blog. It’s about librarians and shoes, but really it’s about money and how we make choices about spending it (read the comments; there’s some arguing about librarian fashion). I like Zappos and I also like eBay NIB (new in box).

(Lazily cross-posted over at my blog.)

As previously stated, I don’t pay nearly as much attention to library-related issues and news as I used to. Part of this is due to the fact that I now work in a private, school library instead of a public one, and am thus insulated from either dealing with the public or paying attention to issues that affect how the public is served. The other main reason is my firm belief that I simply can’t summon the energy to fake any interest in pointless, meaningless marketing terms that serve no purpose other than to voice a desperate wish (never to be fulfilled) on the part of librarians to appear hip.

But I digress. Every once in awhile, an issue comes along that manages to pierce even my mighty protective wall of self-interest, and as usual with these things, it was the always helpful Notorious BCK who brought it to my attention. The oh-so-appropriately named DOPA, the more cruel and idiotic inbred cousin to 2003’s CIPA, passed the US House on July 27th by a vote of 410-15. While CIPA forced libraries to install filters as a condition of retaining their E-Rate funding, DOPA goes even further, forcing libraries to block access to chat rooms and social networking sites such as blogs, MySpace, and Flickr. Further, it explicitly places the FCC in charge of screening and evaluating wholly lawful internet content.

Since the furor over the passage of this mindbendingly idiotic bill has been swift, widespread, and severe, I won’t bother rehashing it. (Click the links if you are actually unsure just what kind of Orwellian clusterfuck the House has just voted to foist upon us.) Besides, for my money, the ZenFormation Professional most succinctly summed up the entire debate, and in one sentence, no less:

Now this is some truly scary “let’s get those seniors and soccer moms all paranoid before the midterm elections” shit.

This atrocious bill has not yet become the law of the land; it still needs to pass the Senate before that happens. However, lest any of you out there are clinging to the desperate hope that the Senate might conceivably exercise a modicum of sanity that the House so clearly lacks, please keep in mind that the committee in charge of regulating the internet is run by this guy.

Back when a bunch of us had this cool gig flying all over the country and driving to the middle of nowhere to mingle with the locals and show them the wonders of technology, I had the pleasure of visiting a library in Idlewilde, MI. Imagine how surprised I was (since I am often the last to learn about anything) to discover that this little blink of an eye town, with it’s beautiful trees, and hidden buildings, was once a getaway for African Americans in the early century. Because of this Idlewild was also a stop on the musical circuit. While everyone saw Harlem as the center of a huge Afr-Am music movement, big names were flocking to Idlewild to play and enjoy the “resort” life.

I was mesmerized by the stories the librarians shared with me and I even have a cheesy picture of me standing under the DuBois ave. street sign. Needless to say I was thrilled to discover today that one of my favorite musical duos has put out a movie called “Idlewild” with original music and quite the cast list. Outkast, you’ve done it again.

I love the song “James” by the band Huffamoose – the title of this post is from that song (I changed the gender to make it about me … (download it if you can). That song came to mind as I read an email from a friend/colleague this morning. It’s always kind of fun and kind of freaky when someone tells you they had a dream about you.

“I had a dream that you were a really accomplished artist, and you were exhibiting your work–it was sculpture and paintings—and you were showing everyone around the gallery… are you an artist? Have we ever had a conversation about art? I have no idea why this was in my head last night, but it was really vivid, so I thought I should let you know…”

I did win a prize while in elementary school for a swan I sculpted out of tinfoil (like the ones they create for your leftovers at some restaurants — mine didn’t have food inside). I don’t paint, but if I did, I would paint like Diego Rivera. Any visual art that I have ever created has been like that – scenes with lots of people and activity – paintings that are really stories.

So, as I was trying to think about what E’s dream means (because I know it means something), I realized that maybe it’s my dissertation. If Diego Rivera wrote a Library and Information Science dissertation, it would maybe be like mine… (Information Needs of Mexican Immigrants Employed in the Meatpacking Industry). I am going to be using narrative methodology – telling the stories of three individuals. Maybe I need to think about it like creating art, which is so much more appealing to me and inspiring to me than just thinking about it as just an academic paper.

Or maybe it means I need to sign-up for a painting class.

Security in our homeland? Um… I would have thought this was an article in the Onion, but no, it’s from The Washington Post: Policing Porn Is Not Part of Job Description
Montgomery Homeland Security Officers Reassigned After Library Incident