More than "Just Annoying"?

Today brought a new horror turn to the already bumpy ride ... being informed yet again that the the school executive have once more made an "executive decision" and come up with the 'policy' that all senior students will be able to access the library at all times during the day. Which is fine with me, but what about if I'm not there? At lunch? At a meeting elsewhere in the school? Down in the English faculty doing my "teachers' aide" scheduled periods?

The answer? "The expectation is that the students will be in the library whether there's a teacher there or not. We don't want them hanging around the playground".

No, there will not be any other teacher cover provided for supervision. No, there is no library assistant present except for a few periods a week ... and the clerical staff are not allowed to supervise students anyway. No, there is no security system at all - no tattle tape gate, no CCTV, Nada. Zip. Zilch.

The suggestion has been made many times over the last few years that an empty classroom (just desks and chairs) be made available for seniors without teachers or scheduled for a study period. This has always been rejected on the basis that the students - even senior ones - need to be supervised.

But apparently its now OK for them to be bundled into an unsupervised library ... coz the executive also decided that they would no longer call it a library; it's now a "learning centre". My query that isn't the whole school a "learning centre" was ignored. As were requests for a 'review' of the decision. At least to date.

Anyone want to throw open their library during any absences for unspecified numbers of teenagers to 'hang around' in?

Sigh.

Same old, same old ...

My FB friend Lilly Meyers wrote: "We have children going to bed without eating..... Elderly going without needed medicines..... Mentally ill without treatment..... Troops without proper equipment..... Yet we donate millions to other countries before helping our own first...... 99% of people won't have the guts to copy and repost this.!!!!!! WILL YOU?????"

Yep, I did.

Welcome to my nightmare?

So, here it is almost exactly half-way through the term break holidays. And what have I actually achieved? Well, in terms of time spent moving stuff, quite a bit. You can see that the Green Room - which we originally called the Homework Room in the hope that the name might drop a bit of a hint to the Household Teenagers - has had an enormous amount of 'rubbish' removed, the desking consolidated, and about 5 years worth of candy wrappers swept up.

The childhood experts will tell you that it's "beneficial" to give teenagers responsibility, but I don't' think they'd considered the hygiene perspective. Anyways, The Supervisor seems happy with the progress, although does point out that this part of the garden needs a little work.


Someone really wise (or possibly very good at hiding their source) once said "in order for something to become clean, something else has to become dirty". Which goes part way to explaining why the dining room now resembles something along the lines of a yard sale - but with less order and aesthetics.

There's absolutely no point in telling me that if I didn't try to keep every bit of junk under the pretense of 'archiving realia', I wouldn't be having this problem now. But the good news is that the Home Weeding Project has now build up a staggering tower of boxed culls. Conservative replacement value? Several million dollars. Yard sale value? Maybe ten bucks. Contribution to learning to read in third world school libraries? Priceless.

OK, so what about the Home Office Makeover of the Century? Otherwise known as Yeah, Right ... it's getting less chaotic. Really. A few boxes-full (box-fulls?) of paper have been filed. Unfortunately though, a whole lot more new paper-based documentation has been arriving together with substantial relocation of stuff from the Green Room.

So I guess it would make sense to stop blogging here at this point, and go put some more stuff away - or throw it out. But I've just got to log into Facebook first; I've got stuff cooking in Cafe World, some OCD has probably beaten the cr@p out of me again in Mafia Wars, I'm pretty sure my crop of tomatoes is ready for harvesting over at my Karma Farm ...

Home Library Weeding

There's few things more spontaneous at Warrior Librarian Central than the sound of the scarpering footsteps of rapidly disappearing family members whenever I say "Hey! Let's move the ....". This of course is my own fault, having devoted years of Pavlovian-type training to conditioning these folk to associate the word "move" with many days of carting books between rooms.

This holiday period, the decision has been made that at least some of them have to go. Books, that is, not family members. And of course, the placement of storage/display furniture has to be rationalised. Luckily, with the Day Job Library (DJL) budget being just AUD$1,000 for the year (that's books, stationery, freight, hardware, software, everything), many of the near-pristine tomes will be donated to the DJL. Others will head off to third world country's school libraries, with the DJL weeds. Others will get some exposure via the Library Office.

Luckily for me, there's one family member who didn't abandon me. OK, their contribution was mainly supervisory, apart from the duality of their role - as a furry bookend.

April Fools?

I should be ashamed of myself for the lack of attention I pay to my 'personal' email. The only defense I can offer is that writing and responding to professional email leaves me completely emailed-out. And I'm pretty busy playing games and stuff. But I did get around to checking my optusnet email this afternoon, and found this one written on April 1:

Congratulations. Your blog has been nominated for our Library Blog Awards. In fact, your blog was suggested more than once. We're in the process of assembling information about all those nominated and will be sending a short questionnaire, including the categories of awards and the judges involved. Would you please send me your email address so that I can send you the questionnaire? If your email
is on your blog, I couldn't locate it.

Thanks in advance,
Peter W Tobey
ptobey@salempress.com

Response?
Nice one .... April 1st, is it? LOL. But just in case this isn't "April Fool's", I'm wondering why you would send me an email - which asks me for my email address?

Your in (Library) humor,
Amanda Credaro

I guess I'm going to look pretty silly if it's a genuine award thingy. Luckily, I'm pretty used to it (looking silly) ....

Oops?

The Internet never ceases to surprise me. Who could really predict what particularly data, information and websites will be discovered by various search tools.

For instance, it was a complete surprise that searching specifically for virtual chemical laboratories and simulations at molecular level of particular reactions would turn up a blog featuring glorious home libraries ...

Cote de Texas: Living with Books

The Barcode Jigsaw Puzzle

Here's an old-fashioned game in a digital medium, a barcode jigsaw puzzle from JigZone. When you click on the image below, a new page will open in this window. Don't forget to come back here when you're done. Just use the 'back' button on your browser. Enjoy!

Parasites and other realia ....

It's basically an advertisement, but Japan's Weirdest Hotels sure has a lot of very useful information. Who knew that there was a museum of parasites "...many of them spilling out of organs and dead animals ...", let alone a catalogued collections on display of socks, another of laundry.

You can even buy a t-shirt with "raised tape worms that you can feel!", but not over the 'net. All purchases strictly in real time, real place.

Which of course opens up the floodgates for other off-beat museums. There's sure to be a stampede of the naive (I believe P.T. Barnum referred to them as "suckers") wanting to visit - and purchase from the gift shop - of a potential museum of Cell Ring Tones that Caused Madness, a Repository of Retrograde Reading Resources, the Parade of Paradoxical Policies, an Exhibition of Exotic Ephemera, perhaps a Panoply of Polynesian Paperbacks, or a Roving Rendition of Retributive Rants? More?

So how's this new gig going?

Pretty good, and thanks so much for asking! There's a lot less books, a lot more computers; less reading and much more writing. There's more break time, with less interruptions; but little opportunity to purchase low protein, high carbohydrate sustenance.

Thank goodness for the one solitary vending machine, even if my application to have it moved to next to my desk has not yet been answered. Nor, apparently is it likely to ... since I apparently left it on the printer for so long, someone thought it was a joke and threw it away.

So far, I've finished a suite of classroom resources on "stellar evolution" for Stage 5 to use with their Federally funded notebooks. Got an"energy transmission" collection up to penultimate draft, and have now made inroads in Chemistry. Also finished two sets of "Teacher Tips", but with only three weeks to go at this gig before returning to LibrarybLand, its not the ideal time to be starting any new topics.

Luckily I've had a very experienced and capable substitute stand in for me in the bLibrary. Which is just as well, as there could be some Interesting Times (in that Chinese curse context) about to develop. Ah well ...

Words of Wisdom, from Fiction

After having done (possibly) the wrong thing, but for the right reason ...

"Like a hunter, you feel an adrenaline surge of pleasure at having usurped the province of God. The person who says otherwise is lying. But the emotional attitude you form later varies greatly among individuals. Some will keep their remorse alive and feed it as they would a living gargoyle, to assure themselves of their own humanity; others will justify it in the name of a hundred causes; and they'll reach back in moments of their own inadequacy and failure and touch again those flaming shapes that somehow made their impoverished lives historically significant."

Heaven's Prisoners (Burke, James Lee). Random House. ISBN 0-09-941562-3

A Podiatric Epiphany

Now that I am temporarily a public transport commuter again, and have time to indulge in Shoe Envy, it's come to my attention that female library folk are once again going "against the flow"; no wonder the Fashion Police are holding a very long rap sheet on us.

Seen on every carriage, at every station, at every stop are stylishly dressed women wearing joggers, sneakers and various sports shoes - on their way to work. No doubt they are concealing about their person alternative footwear of a less comfortable kind to change into At The Office.

Now I know that this is not an issue that overly concerns the vast majority of my male library colleagues, but it did occur to me that many of my gender dress "stylishly" (within the limits of our measly pay packets) during the travel into our libraries ... wherein we slip on something devastatingly dowdy but hugely welcome. Are we the only profession that does this? And does anyone actually care, anyway ...

Internet Footprints?

You've seen/read/heard that well-distributed piece about footsteps in the sand, right? And you know that saying about lines drawn in the sand? Well, this has pretty much nothing to do with either of those. It's morning tea time, and I'm just about coffee'd out.

So I thought I'd sign up for a few things, as one does at times like this. First cab of the rank was a new "fan" page over at ning.com. This will allow you to sign up to become a member of a very small, select - may I say even possibly elite - group, the Fans of Amanda Credaro. I don't know how long membership will be open for, but it IS free, which is really the most important thing, isn't it?

I signed up for something else too, but now that my loyal reader has rushed off to check out the possibilities at ning, I guess I'll save the other one for another day.

Letting go?

Just read today's horoscope over at Facebook: "You're maybe just a wee bit too attached to some idea or gadget -- or person. Now is the perfect time to pull back to a healthy level of attachment, even if it feels like abandonment at first."

And you know, that's sort of good news for me. I had been Formulating Strategies for doing some pretty hefty cleaning up, house-wise. I thought I was going to have to throw out a goodly number of my Martin Luther King clothes ("I have a dream..."), but now I find out it's only ideas, people and gadgets that have to go. Not any of my insanely high stilettos, nor my ridiculously short minis (both from another era, several eons ago).

People-wise, I'm pretty confident that those I have I either want to keep, or are filed under 'evil but necessary".

Ideas-wise, I think I'm "good" - if I ignore the fact that I'm obstinate, self-opinionated, and often wrong. Which only leaves gadgets that have to go. I think I've got a broken stapler somewhere ...

Slithy toves in portmanteaux

Huge thanks to Business Balls for their clear and concise explanation of this particular fascinating aspect of our bizarre language!

Anyone with 5 minutes to spare, and good eyesight (or a magnifying facility in their browser) could do worse than checking this out.

Like, it's sort of related to work 'n' all, isn't it? At least, you could very likely make a good case to support your contention that you aren't really goofing off or wasting company time and resources. Good luck with that, and let me know how you get on ...

Where's Wally, and why?

Latitude: 33.799210 S
Longitude: 151.110828 E

... physically about half way between the Information Unit and the Library Unit, but abutting (which is apparently better than head-butting) the Premier's Reading Challenge unit.

Philosophically? Many people would like to say that I'm on my own planet as usual. I prefer to think of it as a parallel universe, only with better coffee.

Physiologically, pretty much OK.

Pedagogically? Working on DER (Digital Education Revolution) science resources, of course!

Fresh approach to increasing library access?

Here's something new ... instruct your school librarian take on the role of a teacher's aide and provide 'support' outside the library, so the library has to close numerous times. Yep, that's sure going to bump up library use, promote reading for pleasure, assist in developing Information Literacy, develop meaningful and measurable improvements in outcomes. Not.

Mind you, today's contribution to this particular aspect of the education revolution was pretty much restricted to being asked by "a real teacher" to get her a chair so she could rest her sore foot on it. Gee, but its great to have gotten two master's degrees to provide such a critical input into the program.

Sigh.

Moody Blues and other human follies?

While indulging in much-needed Retail Therapy, couldn't help but notice the number of retailers of "Mood Rings". Which lead me to reflect on the simultaneous inventiveness and stupidity of my species. Why the heck would anyone need an accessory to tell others how they are feeling?

Wouldn't howls of outrage, sighs of resignation, sobs of indignation, The Silence and similar 'cues' give more than just a vague hint of current Affective Domain status? Or maybe that's just me. It would seem that Professional Poker Player would not be a viable career alternative to Librarianship ...

Holiday Reading

Like to guess what I did with my five weeks annual leave? Didn't quite make it through the whole stack (no pun intented), but made a sizable dent ...

The Sarcasm Punctuation Mark (SarcMark)

At long last! A "sarcasm punctuation mark" to put an end to email misinterpretation, and possibly end flame wars (or more likely, start them). It costs $1.99 to download, which puts it outside many library budgets ....

See this article from Telegraph.uk.co

On a wing and a prayer?

I have been very, very slack with keeping the blog up to date; but trust me when I tell you that is hasn't been for lack of adventures in LibraryLand, particularly in the realms of Administrivia, Beaurocracy, and EgoManiacal Whatsits.

However, tonight's big news is that I just found out that a very kind (virtual) friend of the non-library variety had posted a prayer for me over at The People's Steeple (which will require you to log into Facebook to access). Was it a prayer for keeping what's left of my mind - I hope all those who have been given a piece of it are better human beings for that - in tact? Was it a prayer for a larger functional budget? An epiphany for those that control matters bibliotechnical?

The prayer for a speedy recovery from the March gum surgery was answered. Let no one doubt the power of the Internet.