LISNews: Librarian News

What was here has been settled. I have entered into an agreement that makes me whole, and provides a charitable donation.

However in the settlement agreement I was asked not to discuss the particulars of the case. I agreed to remove my previous post from LISNews as the company could possibly be identified. (even though I left that detail out)

I can say that I am more than pleased with the outcome.

845 PM - still waiting for the fax they promised by the end of business. Fax is on and paper is in the machine (this fax I let them send it is the satisfaction of judgement.) I'm not signing anything until the checks arrive :)

9:30AM Saturday The fax really was there, the paper was just not in exactly right to print.

Two things I learned for next time. If you file multiple suits serve them individually. If you put 9 of them in one envelope and send it certified mail to the defendant they may argue improper service. Even if you have a judgement the defendant can appeal. If the judgements combined are more than the limits of small claims court then they can ask to have it transferred to county or circuit court (I don't know if it will be transferred but just something to consider.)

So if I have to sue someone in small claims court again for several things that happen over several days I'll file each one on a different day and serve them independent of one another.

I'll try and post the story again after I tidy it up.... or at least post how I went about doing it. I just don't want to torque anyone off, even though I have the fax I don't have the checks.

My library is asking for a referendum for a .0025/$1k home value (one quarter mil) tax increase in the upcoming year.

The local newspaper had a nice article on our library today available here. Nice pictures too.

Not any of me though.

3 patrons called me a dick Saturday. That is ironic because it was my dad's name - well Richard, but people always called him Dick. I wonder why it became pejorative.

2 kids who I threw out for wrestling (who I throw out about once a month) called me a dick. Then on highschool aged patron called me a dick because I would not copy an entire Chemistry book for him.

There were three reasons for this. First, I'm not going to violate the author's copyright by making a copy of a whole book. Secondly, I don't make copies for patrons this is not fecking Kinkos (although the spoiled kid seemed to think it was), and third it was 300 pages.

I explained about copyright and the kid told me he couldn't buy the book. I found it used on amazon for twenty bucks. The kid said he would just copy it himself because it would be cheaper. I explained that $0.20 x 300 is not cheaper than twenty bucks, and that I would not let him use the copier to copy a whole book.

He called me a dick and left.

I'm just venturing a guess but with his math skills he won't pass chemistry (Chem was my first graduate degree).

On a bright note I went to the zoo Sunday afternoon. I got to pet the goats and the sting rays. You can feed goats, stingrays, and lorakeets. Stingrays are really quite soft.

I really like the zoo, I think I'll go every week.

I think Al Gore is a nutjob (I'm sure if he knew who I was he would think the same thing about me).

However he did more than was required of him in the wake of the Katrina disaster. Gore funded two evacuation flights and used his political connections with the Governor of Tennessee and Norman Minetta to cut through some red tape.

More about it at Fox .

Way to go Al.

Perusing the job listings tonight I saw a librarian's position posted at lisjobs that wanted a librarian with an extensive familiarity (whatever that is) with XML, XSL, familiarity with web-based technologies such as XHTML, CSS and JavaScript; experience with database development, design and maintenance. Oh and they want a 2nd masters and teaching experience all for 38-42K

On computerjobs.com I found a position that wants a developer experienced with XML for 50K starting. They were in the same geographic area.

Why the disparity? Does calling yourself a librarian really make you worth 8-12 thousand dollars less? Does that Masters degree we have really make us less employable. Why does the developer not need teaching experience and a 2nd (or for that matter 1st) Masters?

I may start leaving the L out of my résumé. I may put my degree as a Masters of Information Studies (rather than MS LIS) I may call myself an information accessability specialist, or electronic and print information generalist or some other nonsensical title.

Is the term librarian really a liability?

N.B. I didn't apply for either, I don't like to code. I've done it and I don't care for it.

Here is a job that sounds interesting. The requirements are pertinent and the work sounds like it would be fun. As we go farther down we find out it requires a "Bachelor's degree in Library Science or Library Administration preferred."

A bachelor's in Library Science or Library Administration? What the hell is that? Why don't they want a librarian with an MLS? Probably because the people at Kelly Services have no idea it takes a Masters to be a librarian.

On the bright side they probably don't know they could hire a librarian with those qualifications for 35K so perhaps I won't mention either thing.

This evening (morning) my mom called and asked (told) me to come over to her house because something was buzzing and it was not the fire alarm. So when mom calls I go even if it is 3 AM.

Well it turned out to be something wrong with the dryer and it buzzed every minute for a few seconds. I unplugged it to show it who was boss and I left for home (after turning down the proffered sandwich and agreeing to drive carefully.)

On the way home over a bridge I spied an elderly woman in a house coat. (I think it was a house coat, I am not really up on geriatric womens wear) standing quite close to the roadway looking into the road. That seemed a bit odd so I turned around (over the median so don't tell the cops) and stopped near her to see if she was alright.

She was fine but lost. So I called the police while she sat in my car (after walking down the bridge a bit. I am not lifting octogenarians over retaining walls). We then drove across the bridge and waited in a parking lot where the police met us seconds later. We all had coffee (I had decaf it was 3 AM ish).

After some chatting with the confused lady and some radio conversations the police determined that she wandered away from an assisted living facility earlier in the night. So the ALF sent someone over in a van to pick her up. The police were concerned that she might just wander off again, but they had plans to move her to an alarmed unit since she was getting more forgetful. Now they will move her sooner.

Mrs. M (now I knew her name) kissed me on the head and thanked me (although she kept calling me Stephen) for the 'lovely automobile ride' this evening.

Lessons learned:
If your mom offers a sandwich take it; you never know when you might get delayed and hungry (unless it is liverwurst).
Be nice to old people if you lead a good life you too will be one some day.
Be happy people like you even if they insist on calling you Stephen.
Be nice to animals - that wasn't a lesson from tonight but it is still a good thing to do.

Of course this is not at all library related but now I am so coffeeed (should that have 3 e's?) up even with decaf I can't get to sleep. I need something from the 921's as a sedative. Good night!

Today I recieved this email from the Florida Disaster Personnel Coordinating Office

Dear Volunteer,

We would like to share with you a message from Louisiana Governor Blanco regarding a persistent problem with the self-deployment of first responders to the
New Orleans area in the hopes that you can reach out to your memberships and help them understand what a serious problem this is causing for La. officials.

Governor Blanco has stated on 3 separate occasions this week that they have all the emergency response personnel they need at this time. No further deployments
are requested and no offers of assistance in this area will be accepted right now. There will be a point in time, perhaps as early as next week, that current
personnel are demobilized and replacement personnel are needed. When those needs have been identified by the state, the Emergency Management Assistance
Compact (EMAC) will send out a request to the states.

It is critical that assistance be provided only when it has been requested. Louisiana and Mississippi have a finite capacity to support incoming assistance. Requests
for assistance are carefully planned so this capacity is not exceeded. Self-deployments and unsolicited offers of assistance have compromised these efforts.

We strongly encourage healthcare providers to work with their state emergency management agency to communicate offers of assistance. If an impacted state
needs a specific type of assistance, they will issue a request through the EMAC system. EMAC states respond to these requests by matching available resources
to requests.

EMAC protocols have been used to deploy more than 35,000 emergency responders to Katrina impacted states. These protocols were established to serve the
interests of both requesting and assisting states. It is important that all mutual aid participants respect this process and wait for assistance to be requested before
taking action beyond preparedness.

The EMAC team thanks everyone for the incredible outpouring of support during this disaster.

Thank-you again for your willingness to serve.

Well I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't find something for me to do, however I am delighted that they have enough -at least 35,000- medical and nursing volunteers.

I guess I'll just sit around until they do need me for something else. I hope I'm never needed.

Apparently it was made up.

See here.

He made it up. But he stands behind everything he wrote based on that statement.

I wonder if my "You're full of crap- you made that up" comment on the site made him think twice. Yeah and I'll take that bridge too.

I wonder why I have not been asked to help. I have responded to disasters in other countries quicker than this.

According to this CNN article local officials are not letting them deploy. I have to agree with that. I have contacted the people in Louisiana to whom I have been directed by Florida and Federal officials and they don't bother to respond. I realize that they had a natural disaster, but Baton Rouge is not under water, just apparently unprepared. The local people have to direct resources as they know the area and where help is needed most.

In Florida I have direction before the storm hits, and I join a group and start work as soon as travel is safe - often moving in hours after the storm has passed. New Orleans should have restarted evacuations during the day Tuesday after the storm hit, but before the lake breached the first levy. instead they dicked around and the place flooded. You can't expect national guard troops from Texas and Pennsylvania to start rescue and recovery right after the storm passes through, local officials have to start and it seems they dropped the ball in Louisiana and have yet to pick it up and get it back in play.

A columnist on the Huffington Post thinks that poor black people are eating the dead in New Orleans. Really I cannot come up with something that outrageous if I tried.

Let me assure you this is not a remake of Alive by Piers Paul Read, this nutjob really thinks people are eating the dead.

This gives us pause to think about what each of us is doing in response to this disaster. I know what I can do and I have signed on to do that. I also know there are many who have obligations that prevent them from dropping everything and flying to distant places to provide relief... those people help by providing funds that enable others to get their boots on the ground.

But is liberal outrage at percieved problems and writing columns about people eating the dead in New Orleans helping? What are the more outspoken LISNews participants doing to help... I really want to know. If you gave even a few dollars that is fantastic, if you provided information on resources for librarians in the area and nationwide to help- fantastic.

Or did you just complain. Thanks for that productive and helpful complaining, that is what we really need at a time like this. What is the saying those that can do... those that can't .... well you can draw your own conclusion.

Me I'm waiting by the phone for the Red Cross, the Florida Department of Health (who is coordination medical personnel from Florida), or the Louisiana Association of Coroners to call and take me up on my offer to help. Sunday I'm throwing a few bucks into the special collection for Catholic Charities at church (who have already sent $100K from my diocese alone). Oh, and I'm praying for them as well. It might not be much but I am doing what I know how to do, I am doing something... besides complaining.

It seems the large multinationals are putting up as is detailed on CNN.

Somehow I am sure that the tree huggers and other lefties will find something to complain about. After all Katrina was caused by Global Warming caused by George W Bush.

See what these whackjobs, and the loons in Boston, the ever helpful Germans, and the more sober of the clan Kennedy RFK have to say on the issue.

If you want the true science rather than political conjecture ask Dr. Gray former head of the National Hurricane Center who < a href="http://www.globalwarming.org/article.php?uid=116">notes that hurricanes are cyclical with each cycle lasting decades. Even the nuts at the UN are on the global warming and hurricanes ship of fools, but Dr. Chris Landsea a noted scientist and NOAA researcher has resigned from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because they were just making things up.

If you are still skeptical read this story about the NYTs nonsense about global warming. All the news that fiction.

Newsmax has the best and most reasoned article about the global warming and hurricane correlation nonsense.

I'm blaming Bush for not winning the lottery last night, then again I didn't buy a ticket.

I helped a patron the other day as she was looking for information about Jewish businesswomen, especially women in the cosmetics industry. I found information about Helena Rubenstein, Estee Lauder, and several other general books including I am Jewish, which I read as soon as it came in. It was really interesting and I found it interesting there were observant Jews that I never thought were Jews- Keri Strug, the gymnast, was one that I found interesting.

The patron was referred to the library where I work, and to me specifically by a local rabbi. I consulted him before I put up a display for the Holy Days last year. I wanted to put up a display that would be informational and interesting for everyone while not offending anyone. After all it was my first few months as a librarian and I was on my own as we are filled with WASPS and Catholics :)

So the patron as she was leaving with her materials for the presentation she was going to give at the senior center called me a good Jew for making this material available (In fact much of what we had I had purchased in the last year). I was pleased that she had found what she wanted. However I had to tell her that I was not Jewish (although I have Jewish relatives so I know the holidays) I told her I was as Irish Catholic as you can get. She smiled and gave me a poke and said she wouldn’t tell if I don’t.

I hope I’m a good Muslim, atheist, Southern Baptist, and everything else. That’s what librarians do.

As patrons have to use a library card to 'check out' a computer at the reference desk many people rummage through their wallets and purses in front of me. It amazes me how many people carry their social security cards (and for the Canadians their plastic social insurance cards) with them.

I think that is a remarkably bad idea. If one were to lose their (his or her) wallet or purse some nefarious character could conjure up a new identity based on just that social security number.

Circulation staff report the same thing.

Every now and then I go with a group of doctors and nurses to Haiti to give a little free medical care. Well one of those people dropped a dime on me to some NPRish type at one of the local NPR affiliates and they want to interview me about it. (Beats me why.)

So they rang me today to ask if it would be convenient and to set up an appointment. During the course of the conversation the producer with whom I was speaking said I'm a progressive and I just won't admit it.

I am not a progressive, not that there is anything wrong with that, but I swear I have never had a progressive or liberal thought! :)
So sure, I'll be interviewed about medical missions to Haiti, but as a compassionate conservative not a progressive. Of course as a conservative I'll probably be limited to about eight seconds. Maybe I'll make them use the Yale fight song and the the Texas Rangers theme as the bumper music.

Next week I'll probably be a lesbian but afraid to admit it.

*

I was going to post a comment on the Good Doctor McCooks < a href="http://www.lisnews.com/print.pl?sid=05/08/06/2040206"> post, but it really is more about me than about her post so I'll put it here. (I'm trying to be more directly on topic when replying to the discussions.)

*********************

You have to be a Librarian of Color to belong to REFORMA? I wonder if anyone will notice that my color is 24 pound bond bright white?

I did create from scratch a Spanish language collection at my library (in a county where the Hispanic population has increased 700% since the last census). I did get funding from local businesses with Spanish speaking workers to include materials in the collection (which has outgrown its initial home and now has to be moved to a different set of shelves).

I do provide ask a librarian service in more than one language, I provide library service in more than one language, I did attend the Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (and covered most of the cost myself as I had not been at my library long enough to have earned paid time off). I wonder if any of that is enough to get REFORMA to OK my membership. Well actually I don't wonder because I have tried 3 times to join the listserv each time being rejected because I am not a member of REFORMA. I thought the jpg of my cancelled check for my REFORMA dues I sent the last two times would be good enough but the admin of the listserv apparently does not think so.

I guess I'm too bright white for the Librarians of Color, I guess I'm not OK with REFORMA, but that is OK because the patrons who know me think I'm OK.

The patrons who know the Spanish Language Collection, and who needed help getting a shot record from Venezuela translated for their child's school, or who didn't know you could get tax forms in Spanish, and those who didn't know there was a telephone book in Spanish when they needed to find basic services, and the patrons that are coming to my Hispanic Heritage Festival (really an excuse to eat good food from many countries and socialize) on a Saturday in September they think I am just fine.

To paraphrase one of my idols, < a href="http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/green.htm"> Kermit the Frog Its not easy being white...It seems you blend in with so many ord'nary things...

Being white, its what I am, not what I do.

So REFORMA, and Librarians of Color, besa me mucho, and you know where. I am a librarian for everyone, not just the people who look like me.
If you want to meet somewhere, and discuss that over cocktails thats fine with me, but everyone is welcome not just the pretty colored people.

Today was an odd day at the library. One computer has a HDD that is no longer recognized and now 1/2 the library can't print. Of course the IT librarian is on vacation and she keeps the network configuration a secret and didn't backup or ghost the computer so I can't fix it.

On the way home I had to go to the 24 hour post office at the Airport. I came home through a not so nice part of town. I was stopped at a traffic light when a shopping trolley (cart) filled with what appeared to be flaming garbage rolled into the intersection. I was looking at my cool new stamps so I did not see who pushed it or where it came from. I called the fire department on my cell phone and they said they would send someone out to put it out. Very odd.

I have found out how to keep patrons from telling me their life story. I pretend to be an idiot savant. Know the answer but stare off into space when they tell you why they think the Pope should be excommunicated because Latin is no longer the Church's official language. Staring through them to a spot five feet or so behind them seems to work very well. They keep turning around to see what is there.

I think I had too much OTC cough medicine. Off to bed.

This should be an interesting addition to the collection at my library, Checkmate by M. Blackman. It is all the rage in Ireland and flying off the shelf.

< a href ="http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1443322&issue_id=12810"> Here is a bit from the Irish Independent should you be interested in this book about a mixed race teen girl who trains to be a suicide bomber with a white supremacist group.

(Of course I'll read it before I put it on the shelf. I ordered it from Eason's in Ireland as it is not on sale in the States yet.)

N.B. the newspaper site may require registration... here is a paragraph from the article I found interesting:

It is part of a trilogy that analyses issues of race and inequality and has echoes of racial and political conflicts in South Africa, Northern Ireland and the Middle East.

Someone who lives in the City that I went to school with works for a financial company -an offshoot of a bank- that has an opening for a librarian. I sent a CV and had a brief chat on the phone and now they want more info including salary requirements.

I have looked at the ALA salary survey, salary comparison calculators on Monster and salary.com, and some other resources but I would like to hear other opinions on salary.

What is a librarian with both masters and undergrad degrees in library science, as well as 5ish years as a competative intelligence tools subject matter expert (head support person and supervisor of support team for things like LexisNexis, Factiva, Dialog, D&B dbs----SME is an IBM term) worth in NYC dollars.

Unfortunately I know what I am worth in Florida dollars, but the big financial firms are not based in Florida and I wouldn't mind moving north. I'm thinking 55-60K for a job in a special library in the City but I may be way off base.

Your thoughts?

I have searched the entire building and there is nothing but decaf!

I may end up going (past starbucks) to the grocery store to get some real coffee before I fall asleep.